A scientific project locked in time: The Terman Genetic Studies of Genius, 1920s–1950s.

Lewis M. Terman is well-known in the history of American psychology for the Stanford Revision of the Binet-Simon intelligence tests and the Genetic Studies of Genius project. The same assumptions informed the genius project and Terman's work in intelligence testing: the notion of the fixity of the IQ at birth and the maturation theory. According to the maturation theory, individuals developed only within the range of differences made possible by the genetic endowment of the "group" (natural, cultural, or both) to which they belonged. In this article the historicity and nonuniversality of Terman's work is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Lewis M. Terman: Pioneer in psychological testing.

Reviews the book, Lewis M. Terman: Pioneer in psychological testing by Henry L. Minton (see record 1988-98726-000). Lewis Terman was one of the leading pioneers in the development of clinical tools and studies of individual differences. In the Preface to his book, Minton acknowledges that Terman was as controversial as he was influential and states that his biography seeks to provide a balanced view of Terman's life and works. As readers of this comprehensive volume will quickly find, Minton has been eminently successful in achieving this goal: His book not only highlights Terman's accomplishments, which were many, but also describes his shortcomings which, though fewer, were not nonexistent. Overall, Minton provides an extremely interesting, well-written, and probing account of the positive and the less-positive facets of his subject, both as a scientist and as a man. The book contains 11 chapters, describing Terman's life from his early years through his illustrious career at Stanford, up to his death in 1956, a month short of his 80th birthday. Throughout, Minton shows how Terman's upbringing, education, and the times and society in which he was raised contributed to shaping the person he was to become. Minton's biography of Terman, based primarily on an exhaustive reading of Terman's professional and personal papers and supplemented with interviews with former students and colleagues such as Nancy Bayley, Lee Cronback, Ernest Hilgard, and Robert Sears, and with members of Terman's family, provides a detailed and fascinating portrait of one of the major figures in psychology. The book's strengths are its consistently objective appraisal of its sometimes controversial subject, the scope of its coverage, the extensive documentation of its sources, and Minton's ability to set or to describe each of Terman's activities and the events in his life in their appropriate professional or social context. Readers from many walks will find this book interesting, informative, and well worth reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychosocial and behavioral predictors of longevity: The aging and death of the "Termites."

Impulsive, undercontrolled personalities and major family stresses are known predictors of impaired adjustment, but long-term health effects are unclear. In an archival prospective cohort design, we followed up on L. M. Terman's (Terman & M. H. Oden, 1947) sample of gifted children by collecting and coding death certificates for the half of the sample that is now dead. Statistical survival analyses were used to predict longevity and cause of death as a function of parental divorce during childhood, unstable marriage patterns in adulthood, childhood personality, adult adjustment, and possible mediating health behaviors. Psychosocial factors emerged as important risks for premature mortality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comparison of D-48, Terman CMT, and Art Scale scores of gifted adolescents.

Nonverbal (D-48) and verbal (Terman Concept Mastery Test) intelligence shows no correlation with creativity (Welsh Figure Preference Test Art Scale) for 368 gifted high school students. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

McClelland on the Terman data.

Comments on D. C. McClelland's (see record 1973-22126-001) article, which argues that psychometricians have overemphasized IQ tests, noting that McClelland based his premise largely on L. M. Terman's (1925) and Terman and M. H. Oden's (1959) studies of genius. It is argued that McClelland misinterpreted Terman's data, and doubt is cast on McClelland's premise. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pauline S. Sears (1908–1993): Obituary.

Presents an obituary of P. Sears, a national expert on child development, known particularly for her research on self-esteem and motivation in school children. She also conducted the study of career and life satisfaction among intellectually gifted women, as part of the longitudinal study of gifted children begun by L. Terman at Stanford in 1922. Fine served as president of the Division of Developmental Psychology of the American Psychological Association in 1959 and authored or coauthored more than 30 monographs, scientific journal articles, and other research publications. (0 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sources of life satisfactions of the Terman gifted men.

A 1972 follow-up of the L. M. Terman study of gifted men, when the Ss' average age was 62, permitted measurement of 4 target variables for which antecedents could be sought: life-cycle satisfaction with occupation, satisfaction with family life, degree of work persistence into their 60's, and unbroken marriage vs a history of divorce. The recorded events and expressions of feelings obtained at decade intervals since 1922 were searched for predictors. Both occupational satisfaction and work persistence were best predicted by feelings of satisfaction, ambition, and good health expressed as early as age 30. Family-life satisfaction and success in marriage were predicted by good childhood social adjustment, good mental health in later years, retrospective (age 40) positive attitudes toward parents, and best of all, by the Terman Marital Happiness Test (taken at age 30). Implications for personality-development theory are suggested. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Suicide among gifted women: A prospective study.

The longitudinal data from the Terman Genetic Studies of Genius (L. M. Terman, 1925; Terman and M. Oden, 1947, 1959) were used to predict suicide in 40 women: 8 suicides, 15 Ss who were matched with the suicides on age of death, and 17 Ss who were still living in 1964. The Terman studies covered 60 yrs and followed 1,528 gifted individuals (IQs over 135) from childhood into the retirement years. Seven variables from the Ss' files were assessed as possible predictors of suicide: S's physical health, early loss of the father, stress in the family of origin, problems with alcohol, and 3 indices of mental health ("signatures" [e.g., suicide attempts, alcohol abuse, depression]; self-reports of temperament; and a cumulative mental health rating developed by Terman). A discriminant function analysis was able to differentiate the women who committed suicide from the 2 control groups. A 7-variable function predicted 100% of the suicides. A 4-variable function predicted 75% of the suicides. It is concluded that suicide risk factors can be identified in women and that certain signatures of suicide are as useful in predicting female suicide as male suicide. (49 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Completed suicide in the gifted: A late comment on "Suicide among gifted women."

A recent study by C. Tomlinson-Keasey et al (see record 1986-24809-001) found differences between completed suicides in L. M. Terman's sample of gifted children and comparison Ss. The present article suggests that the differences identified in Tomlinson-Keasey et al may have been confounded by the fact that completed suicides are typically found to have higher levels of psychiatric disturbance than nonsuicides. Data are presented to illustrate that when the completed suicides in Terman's sample are matched for psychiatric disturbance with the comparison Ss, few differences are found. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predicting educational attainment, occupational achievement, intellectual skill, and personal adjustment among gifted men and women.

The cognitive potential of many gifted children goes unfulfilled. This study was designed to isolate factors, other than cognitive skill, that might predict adult achievements and personal adjustment among the gifted. Subjects were 1,069 gifted men (n?=?595) and women (n?=?474) who have been followed for 60 years as part of the Terman Genetic Studies of Genius. Childhood personality traits, parental education, and early home environment variables were examined as predictors of educational and occupational achievement among adults. The final model depicted five longitudinal relationships that predicted educational attainment, intellectual skill, and personal adjustment among both men and women. Two additional paths explained occupational achievement. The implications of this final model are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Korean concepts of giftedness and the self-perceived characteristics of students selected for gifted programs.

Fostering creativity among gifted students has become forefront as an important element in Korea’s future economic prosperity. Since the passage of a gifted education act in 2002, all K-12 schools have been developing gifted programs. The first of two studies examines Koreans’ concept of giftedness based on the implicit theory. Three hundred twenty-eight Koreans including scientists, parents, teachers, and college students described their concept of giftedness, which includes intelligence, task commitment, creativity, interpersonal relationship, moral sense, and artistic talent. The second study explores self-reported characteristics of Korean students identified as gifted and whether identification criteria for giftedness miss creative students by emphasizing IQ and achievement scores. One thousand one hundred fifty-four students (469 gifted in sciences, 285 gifted in humanities, and 400 regular students) answered a questionnaire developed from the first study. The results indicate that students identified as gifted tend to have higher intelligence and task commitment than regular students, but tend not to differ from regular students in creativity when compared to Renzulli’s three rings concept of giftedness—above average ability, task commitment, and creativity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Obituary: Jacob Warren Getzels (1912--2001).

Memorializes Jacob W. Gretzels, faculty member at the University of Chicago, whose research and writing helped redefine the meaning of creativity. Gretzels helped establish educational administration as a field of scholarship and conducted groundbreaking studies in the 1960s that challenged both traditional notions of what makes a student gifted and the reliability of IQ tests as measures of intelligence. His most generative idea was the concept the "problem finding," which argued that the formulation of a hitherto unperceived problem, rather than its solution, is the hallmark of creativity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age-related changes in the associations of social network ties with mortality risk.

Age-related changes in the associations of social network ties with mortality risk were investigated using data from the Terman Life-Cycle Study (L. M. Terman, 1925; L. M. Terman & M. H. Oden, 1947, 1959). Marital status, number of living children, number of living siblings, and number of group memberships in 1940, 1950, 1960, and 1977 were reported across middle adulthood by 697 men and 544 women, with mortality follow-up as of 1991. Initial analyses confirmed previous work indicating that marital history (men only), number of children (both genders), and organizational memberships (both genders) are predictive of mortality risk. Further analyses compared the associations between these social ties and mortality prior to age 70 and at age 70 and older. Results indicated that for men, experiencing marital dissolution and subsequently remarrying is a stronger predictor of mortality risk prior to age 70 (p?=?.05), whereas for women, number of children (p?     

Sexual fantasy.

This article reviews the research literature on sexual fantasy, a central aspect of human sexual behavior. Topics include (a) gender similarities and differences in the incidence, frequency, and content of sexual fantasies and how they relate to sociocultural and sociobiological theories of sexual behavior; (b) the association between frequency or content of sexual fantasies and variables such as age, sexual adjustment and satisfaction, guilt, sexual orientation, personality, and sexual experience; and (c) "deviant" sexual fantasies (i.e., what they are, whether they play a role in the commission of sexual crimes, and whether they can be modified). The article ends with a summary of major findings and suggestions for future research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An archival prospective study of mental health and longevity.

The relationship between mental health status and longevity was examined in an archival prospective cohort study (N?=?1,103) derived from work begun by Lewis Terman in the 1920s. Degree of psychological maladjustment, cumulatively rated by Terman and his colleagues as of 1950, was found to be related to higher risk of all-cause mortality over a 4-decade follow-up period. The differences among causes of death were nonsignificant, but there was some indication that mental health problems were more strongly related to deaths from injury and cardiovascular disease. The overall relationship was significant for men but weaker for women. The effect was not substantially mediated by alcohol consumption, obesity, or cigarette smoking. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Update on the Terman project (and Dahlstrom).

Corrects W. G. Dahlstrom's (see record 1993-31800-001) misidentification of L. J. Cronbach as the current director of the Terman study of persons of superior ability. The history of the project since the death of L. Terman in 1956 is reviewed. Cronbach could have been described as a coinvestigator, as studies were never "directed." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Identification of the academically gifted.

Various criteria for identifying the academically gifted, such as scores on general intelligence and creativity tests, teacher recommendations, and scores on standardized achievement tests, have been used. The author points out their limitations and recommends an identification process developed by J. C. Stanley (1976) that equates precocity wth academic talent by focusing on children with exceptionally high performance on advanced tests of specific subject matter. Programs that begin with this process and then supplement it with further diagnostic testing, clinical methods, and evaluation of students' products are discussed. It is noted that use of these procedures with disadvantaged populations has identified more academically gifted students than other procedures had found. (63 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Gifted at risk: Poetic portraits.

Reviews the book, Gifted at risk: Poetic portraits by Jean Sunde Peterson (2009). In this book, Peterson utilizes subjective personal introspection, or autoethnography, to render poems and essays about her years in gifted education and in counseling gifted students. As complementary constructions, each one of Peterson’s reflections about a particular case includes a poem and an essay. As arts-based research in education, each entry is from Peterson’s own impressions and memories about a specific gifted student, whom she taught or counseled. For anyone who works with adolescents and emerging adults who are gifted, Peterson’s book will be an informative resource. It does not stand alone as a textbook to introduce topics about giftedness, as it lacks explicit definitions, citations, and references. However, together with one or two more thorough treatments of giftedness research, it will do well. Counselors will come back to its pages numerous times as they work with gifted students. It will be a resource for them to reflect about the struggles and triumphs of gifted life—with highs and lows being realistically recounted. Its coverage—from moving toward good decisions, to suicide attempts and suffering abuse, to an eye toward “developmental task accomplishment”, is broad. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The standard of social justice as a research process.

An empirical perspective is presented illustrating the application of the principles and methods of community psychology for conceptualizing the ideal of "social justice." The substantiative content of the paper is based on an analysis of the selective nature of sexual assaults which reach the criminal justice system, and in the disparity of sentences given to those found guilty, in comparison to other types of cases. These outcomes are proposed as operational definitions for conceptualizing the ideal of social justice. The application of this standard for cases of sexual assault suggests the justice system "discounts" the seriousness of these offenses, resulting in a legal doctrine which excuses male violence against women. Implications for law reform are proposed based on the need for an accommodation of the social/psychological concept of "difference" in the legal definition of sexual assault, and in the greater use of evaluation research as a process of legal scholarship for monitoring how well the ideal of social justice is achieved by the criminal justice system. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)