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D K Simonton

Publications and source records attributed to D K Simonton.

9 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1990

Creativity in the later years: optimistic prospects for achievement.

Despite the apparent decline in productivity in the final years of life, seven considerations suggest a far more favorable outlook: the actual magnitude of the age decrement; the role of extrinsic influences; the contingency on career age; the impact of individual differences in creative potential; the interdisciplinary variation in the age curves; the virtual absence of an age decrement on a contribution-for-contribution basis; and the resurgence of creativity in the form of the swan-song phenomenon.

Aged↗
PubMed1989

The swan-song phenomenon: last-works effects for 172 classical composers.

Creative individuals approaching their final years of life may undergo a transformation in outlook that is reflected in their last works. This hypothesized effect was quantitatively assessed for an extensive sample of 1,919 works by 172 classical composers. The works were independently gauged on seven aesthetic attributes (melodic originality, melodic variation, repertoire popularity, aesthetic significance, listener accessibility, performance duration, and thematic size), and potential last-works effects were operationally defined two separate ways (linearly and exponentially). Statistical controls were introduced for both longitudinal changes (linear, quadratic, and cubic age functions) and individual differences (eminence and lifetime productivity). Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that composers' swan songs tend to score lower in melodic originality and performance duration but higher in repertoire popularity and aesthetic significance. These last-works effects survive control for total compositional output, eminence, and most significantly, the composer's age when the last works were created.

Achievement↗
PubMed1989

Age and creative productivity: nonlinear estimation of an information-processing model.

A two-step cognitive model is outlined that explicates the key empirical findings on the relation between age and creative productivity. Two primary information-processing parameters, the ideation and elaboration rates, define a mathematical function that both describes the age curves and specifies how those curves vary across disciplines. To validate the model further, a nonlinear estimation program was applied to previously published tabulations on the longitudinal fluctuations in creative output. The resulting parameter estimates also yield the expected peak age and the creative half-life for each domain of achievement. Despite the prediction of a post-peak decline, the model's implications for creativity over the life span are optimistic.

Adult↗
PubMed1977

Creative productivity, age, and stress: a biographical time-series analysis of 10 classical composers.

The determinants of creative productivity were specified in the form of six hypotheses. Using a multivariate cross-sectional time-series design with several controls, the lives and works of 10 classical composers were analyzed into consecutive 5-year age periods. Two independent measures of productivity were operationalized (works and themes), with each measure subdivided into major and minor compositions according to a citation criterion. It was consistently found across both productivity measures that (a) quality of productivity is a probabilistic consequence of productive quantity and (b) total productivity, while affected by age and physical illness, is otherwise free of external influences (viz., social reinforcement, biographical stress, war intensity, and internal disturbances). Due to the more selective nature of the thematic productivity measure, the criterion of total themes alone was affected by competition and a time-wise bias. The article closes with a brief discussion of the broad substantive utility of the methodological design.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1976

Biographical determinants of achieved eminence: a multivariate approach to the Cox data.

Ranked eminence of creators and leaders was hypothesized to be a function of both substantive (developmental and productive) variables and methodological artifacts. Cox's sample of 301 geniuses was reexamined using multiple-regression techniques. The results indicated that ranked eminence is (a) a curvilinear inverted-U function of education for creators but a negative linear function for leaders, (b) a positive linear function of versatility for leaders only, and (c) a curvilinear U-shaped function of life span for creators but a "backwards-J" function for leaders. Although creators are more intelligent than leaders, the correlation that Cox found between intelligence and ranked eminence was shown to be an artifact of data reliability and, especially, a timewise sampling bias. It was also shown that father's status has no direct impact on ranked eminence.

Achievement↗
PubMed1975

Sociocultural context of individual creativity: a transhistorical time-series analysis.

Hypotheses were stated which specify individual creativity as a function of developmental and productive period variables. It was then argued that these hypotheses could be better tested by examining generational fluctuations in creativity. Information from cultural and political archival sources was thus aggregated to form time series spanning 127 generations of European history. Data quality checks, control variables, data transformations, time-lagged comparisons, and trend analyses were used to improve the validity of the causal inferences. While the results varied according to the type of creativity (discursive or presentational) and the degree of achieved eminence, creative development was found to be affected by the following: (a) role model availability, (b) political fragmentation, (c) imperial instability, and (d) political instability.

Achievement↗