JOU , GUTED CIR UULD GROWS UP TWENTY-FIVE YEARS’ FOLLOW-UP OF A SUPERIOR GROUP VOLUMEIV GENETIC STUDIES OF GENIUS BY LEWIS M. TERMAN AND MELITA H. ODEN IN ASSOCIATION WITH NANCY BAYLEY HELEN MARSHALL QUINN MC NEMAR ELLEN B. SULLIVAN STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS STANFORD, CALIFORNIA StanfordUniversityPress Stanford, California Copyright 1947bytheBoardofTrusteesofthe LelandStanfordJuniorUniversity.Copyrightrenewed 1975byFrederickE.TermanandMelitaH. Oden. PrintedintheUnited StatesofAmerica ISBN0-8047-0012-5 Originaledition1947 Fifthprinting1976 TO THE GIFTED “CHILDREN” AND THEIR PARENTS, IN GRATEFUL APPRECIATION OF THEIR LOYAL AND PATIENT CO-OPERATION OVER MANY YEARS ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE The investigations summarized in this volume have been financed by grants-in-aid and anonymousgifts totaling in all close to $150,000. Three separate grants from the Commonwealth Fund of New York City defrayed the greater part of the expenses incurred between 1921 and 1929. The Carnegie Corporation of New Yorkprovidedtwo grants which made possible the extensive follow-up of 1939-41 and the statistical work on the resulting data between 1941 and 1943. The National Research Council, through its Committee for Research on Problems of Sex, financed the studies on marital adjustments reported in chapter xix, and the Columbia Foundation of San Francisco pro- vided three annual grants which met approximately three-fourths of the expenses incurred between 1943 and 1946 in continued follow-up of the subjects and in the preparation of this volume for publication. Stanford University, through the Thomas Welton Stanford Fund, financed the follow-up study of 1936-37 and contributed minor sup- plementary funds as needed between 1928 and 1936. Material assist- ance was provided from time to time, from the beginning of the study in 1921 to the end of 1946, by gifts from various individual donors including several parents of the subjects, a few of the subjects them- selves, a member of the Stanford faculty, and the proprietor of a well- known magazine; the total of such gifts amounts to about one-sixth of the entire cost of the study to date. Follow-up of the subjects beyond 1946 is being financed in part by the Marsden Foundation of Palm Springs, California. By special arrangement all nét profits from publications in the series, Genetic Studies of Genius, have been added to the research funds without payment of royalty to any of the authors. Vil PREFACE This is the fourth volume resulting from the Stanford studies of gifted children. Those which preceded it have dealt successively with The Mental and Physical Traits of a Thousand Gifted Children (Terman e¢ al., 1925), The Early Mental Traits of Three Hundred Geniuses (Cox, 1926), and ThePromise of Youth: Follow-up Studies of a Thousand Gifted Children (Burks, Jensen, and Terman, 1930). The present volume is an over-all report of the work done with the California group of gifted subjects from 1921 to 1946, the greater part of it being devoted to a summary of the follow-up data obtained in 1940 and 1945. At the latter date the average age of the group was approximately thirty-five years, a period of life when the adult careers of the subjects are rapidly taking form. The chief aim of the report is to give as complete a picture as possible, within a single volume, of what the group is like at the end of the first twenty-five years of testing and observation.* It is unnecessary to discuss here the general plan of the investi- gation or the significance of what has been accomplished. The nature and purpose of the project have been set forth in the introductory chapter, and in thefinal chapter will be found a retrospective appraisal of methods used, a list of generalizations believed to be warranted by the results to date, and a preview of plans for the continuation of the study. Although the investigation was a logical outgrowth of myearlier studies in the field of mentaltesting, it will be obvious that the launch- ing and prosecution of a research program as ambitious as the present one would have been impossible without the co-operation of many persons. First of all, I wish to acknowledge my profound in- debtedness tothe late Professor Ellwood P. Cubberley, revered friend and counselor, for the research opportunities he opened to me when I was a memberof his department faculty, and for his hearty support ofmyplansforacomprehensivestudyofgiftedchildren. To President Ray Lyman Wilbur of Stanford University I owe a similar debt of *Anything like a complete summary of the data at hand would have necessij- tated an additional volume,and several segments of the material least germane to the stated aim have therefore been reserved for separate publication. ix x THE GIFTED CHILD GROWSUP gratitude for his unfailing encouragement in all our relationships, andfor his active support in obtaining needed financial assistance. Formal acknowledgment has been made elsewhere of the grants- in-aid from various foundations and of the anonymouscontributions thathavecomefromprivateindividuals. To all the donors I amgrate- ful not merely for the material aid they have provided but also for their repeated expressions of confidence in the value of this long-term project. I am particularly indebted to Dr. Max Farrand, formerly Director ofEducational Researchforthe Commonwealth Fund, andto the other officers of that foundation, for the grants which made pos- sible the initiation of the study and supported it through its early and most critical stages. It was their faith in my long-cherished dream thattransformed the dream intoreality. But neither the merits of the project nor the financial support that has been so generously provided could alone have insured its success. No less crucial throughout the years have been the com- petence and devotion of those who have collaborated as assistants, consultants, or coauthors. The quality ofthe field work was especially importantinthetesting ofsubjects, inthe compilation ofcasehistories, and in enlisting the co-operation of parents, teachers, and school officials. In respectto these matters the study was given an auspicious start by Florence Goodenough and Helen Marshall, who, with the assistance of Florence Fuller and Dorothy Hazeltine Yates, conducted the field testing program in 1921-22 and madethe initial contacts with parents and teachers. Dr. Goodenough and Dr. Marshall as- sisted me during two additional years in the treatment of results and in preparing the first published report. Another valuable member of the office staff at this period was Raymond R. Willoughby. A numberof significant contributions to the research in this early period were in the form ofdoctoral dissertations by Stanford graduate students in psychology. Among thesewere the character tests devised by A. S. Raubenheimer, the interest test devised by Jennie Benson Wyman, and the study by J. C. DeVoss on specialization of the abilities of gifted subjects. Another of my graduate students, Giles M. Ruch, and my faculty colleague, Truman L. Kelley, collaborated with me in preparing the first edition of the Stanford Achievement Tests in time for use with the gifted group. Margaret Limaassisted in a comparative study of the reading interests of gifted and un- selected children. PREFACE X1 Shortly after the research got under way, a second grant was made available by the Commonwealth Fund to finance a parallel study of the childhood traits of historical geniuses. This wasbrilliantly executed as a doctoral dissertation by Catharine M. Cox, who was assisted in various aspects of her study by Lela Gillan, Ruth Haines Livesay, Florence Goodenough, and Maud A. Merrill. The twolines of investigation, one dealing with living gifted children, the other with the early lives of men and women who achieved great eminence, have crosslighted each other in important ways and have demon- strated the value of the two-directional approach to the problem of genius.* In the first follow-up of the California gifted group in 1927-28, my chief assistant was Barbara Stoddard Burks, who was also co- author of the resulting volume issued in 1930. Assistants in the field work were Alice Leahy, Helen Marshall, and Melita Oden. An evalution of the literary juvenilia produced by members of the group was embodied in a doctoral dissertation by Dortha Williams Jensen and published in the 1930 report. Mrs. Oden has served continuously as my research associate in the follow-up of the group since 1936. She helped to plan the large- scale field study of 1940 and assisted me in the office while the field work was in progress. She later supervised the preparation of both the old and the new data for IBMtreatment, and as coauthor of the present volume has contributed importantly to both the content and form of all but three or four of the chapters. The field work of 1940, on which so much depended, wascarried out by Dr. Helen Marshall, Dr. Nancy Bayley, and Dr. Ellen B. Sullivan, all of whom devoted full time to the task for a year. The study was indeed fortunate to enlist the services of three clinical psychologists so experienced and competent. Dr. Marshall, my only associate who hasparticipated in all the major field studies from the beginning, has done much to promote uniformity of procedures in the held work and to enlist the continued co-operation of the subjects and their parents. *TI wish to record here my conviction that the psychobiographical methods uiseoshnfvstivaaepelndl,suditaibvoitniyrgignangCtsgooforgcxatiehmantaeelihruaeepsnfaherosislroilsyopbsamtroecheopccenmhaoityumssa.spuilelbnTjigdeshtechhtvethemeayelmtoonfepttatmrhaheeeinoyntpdiooonssuscftghib-heoemntultcolitetrvde,oitrnebbglmeepipotraeeseresnirafpatstieliouncyonreisnsedai,lswtla!oyanhrdotfc,roeuh-ximaottuvpfeseeunirldcaae,ticdenhsifttewohavireteteduhsssmteoautundhti-y-en X11 THE GIFTED CHILD GROWS UP In connection with the chapters which deal with marital adjust- ments I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to the following persons: to Dr. Robert M. Yerkes for his help in obtaining grants-in- aid from the National Research Council; to Dr. Winifred B. Johnson for assistance in formulating the test of marital happiness and the test of aptitude for marriage; to Marian Ballin who coded the blanks ofboththesetestsfor IBMtreatment,andtoRobert Morris who sorted the IBM cards for item analysis of the marriage data and performed much of the computational labor. I am deeply grateful to my colleague and former student, Dr. Quinn McNemar,not only for the chapter he contributed on the adult intellectual status of the group but also for the constructive help he hasgiven over many yearsonstatistical problems growing out of the investigation. His wife, Olga W. McNemar, as part-time research associate, checked many of the statistical computations and has as- sisted in other phases of the work. Both Mrs. Oden and Mrs. Mc- Nemar have checked the typed chapters against manuscript copy and have read both sets of printer’s proof. Their meticulous attention to detail resulted in the elimination of many errors, but in view of the amount and variety of factual data reported it would be too much tohopethatno errorshavebeen overlooked. Mrs. Ella Bale, as secretarial assistant, has handled for several years a heavy load of correspondence with the subjects and typed both the preliminary andfinal drafts of the manuscript. I am proud to record the fact that of twenty persons who have been most closely associated with my studies of gifted children— most of them as youthful assistants—the large majority have made important contributions of their own to American psychology. Lewis M. TERMAN STANFORDUNIVERSITY January12,1947 NOTE TO THE THIRD PRINTING Plansareunderwaytoensurethatthemembersofthisintellectually gifted group will be followed closely for at least another twenty-five years and be reported upon in two or more additional volumes. L.M.T. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I, INCEPTION AND NATURE OF THE RESEARCH IT. COMPOSITION AND SOCIAL ORIGIN OF THE GIFTED GROUP . Lo. Lo. 11 IIT. CHARACTERISTIC TRAITS OF THE GIFTED CHILD: PHYSIQUE, HEALTH, AND EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVE- MENT Lo , Lo. 20 IV, CHARACTERISTIC TRAITS OF THE GIFTED CHILD: INTERESTS AND PREOCCUPATIONS 30 . CHARACTERISTIC TRAITS OF THE GIFTED CHILD: CHARACTER TESTS AND TRAIT RaTINGS . VI. Six YEARS LATER: THE PROMISE OF YOUTH . 58 VII. LaTER FOLLow-up: 1936, 1940, 1945 . 66 VIII. MORTALITY . , 78 IX. GENERAL HEALTH AND PHYSIQUE 91 . MentaL Heattu, NERvous DIsoRDERS, AND GEN- ERAL ADJUSTMENT XI, INTELLIGENCE TESTS OF 1940 . 125 XII. INTELLECTUAL STATUS OF THE GIFTED SUBJECTS AS ADULTS (by Quinn McNemar). . 140 XITI, EDUCATIONAL HISTORIES . . 147 XIV. OccUPATIONAL STATUS AND EARNED INCOME . . 170 XV. VOCATIONAL INTEREST TESTS . 196 XVI, AVOCATIONAL AND OTHER INTERESTS . 204 XVII. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ATTITUDES. . 214 XVIII. MarRIAGE, Divorce, MARITAL SELECTION, AND OFF- SPRING . 224 XIX, MariITAL ADJUSTMENT . . 239 XX, THE PROBLEM OF SCHOOL ACCELERATION. . 264 XXI, SUBJECTS OF IQ 170 or ABOVE. . 282 XXII. SUBJECTS OF JEWISH DESCENT . 296 xiii X1V THEGIFTED CHILD GROWS UP CHAPTER PAGE XXIII. Factors IN THE ACHIEVEMENT OF GIFTED MEN . . 311 XXIV. War RECORDS . . 353 XXV. APPRAISAL OF ACHIEVEMENT 358 XXVI. Looxinc BACKWARD AND FORWARD . 373 REFERENCES CITED . 383 ADDITIONAL SELECTED READINGS . 389 APPENDIX . . 395 INDEX . 441