This chapter treats the life-span development of creative genius. The treatment is divided into three main sections. First, developmental experiences in childhood and adolescence are examined, with special focus on family background and education or training. Second, adulthood career trajectories are discussed, including such issues as output quantity and quality in creative products. Third, discussion turns to career termination, with special emphasis on the differential life expectancies of creators attaining eminence in different domains. The chapter concludes by addressing the question of whether creative development in the highly eminent is comparable to that seen in more everyday forms of creativity. Although some similarities are apparent, congruence cannot be assumed without considerably more research on both extremes of the phenomenon.

Creativity is most frequently viewed as an individual phenomenon. We speak of creativity as a distinguishing characteristic of persons much like some cognitive ability or personality characteristic. Not surprisingly, most creativity researchers focus on the individual as the basic unit of analysis. It is for this reason that these researchers are most likely to be found in academic departments such as psychology and education. To be sure, some investigators exhibit a stronger interest in group creativity, such as that found in research teams in industry (Paulus and Nijstad, 2019). This focus is especially commonplace among researchers in business schools. Even so, the group members in these studies seldom lose their individual identities. Indeed, it cannot be otherwise because often the interest is in group composition, such as membership diversity, which requires that the investigator still keep track of personal characteristics.

Early philosophers of science, such as Francis Bacon and René Descartes, often viewed scientific inquiry as a largely individualistic enterprise. The individual needed only apply the appropriate method – whether empirical induction or logical deduction – to obtain valid knowledge or “truths” about the natural world. Although such investigators still expected to share their discoveries through publication, even publication started out as a largely individualistic activity, the discoverer arranging for communication through regular book publishers. Bacon and Descartes communicated their main ideas through monographs, as did Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, and other pioneers of the scientific revolution. The dissemination of scientific findings lacked any systematic social organization. In this way, science, or rather what was then called “natural philosophy,” did not differ that much from other forms of writing, such as literature or theology.

Many creative geniuses attain reputations of almost mythical proportions. Apparently gifted with a special insight or intuitive power, creative ideas are supposed to pop into their heads in flashes of inspiration. In earlier times, this almost mystical process would be attributed to divine intervention, as is evident in the Greek doctrine of the Muses. Even during the Renaissance the greatest artist of the period would be called the “divine Michelangelo,” an artistic genius who, according to his biographer Vasari, was sent to earth by God to bless the world with his talent. Centuries later, when such religious attributions were no longer fashionable, creative genius would become linked with madness. This linkage became especially prominent during the Romantic Era of nineteenth-century Europe. A well-known illustration is to be found in the Preface to “Kubla Khan” in which the poet Coleridge claimed to have conceived his poem in an opium-induced stupor. Eventually psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, and even psychologists were joining the chorus, associating creative genius with insanity and even criminality. The consensus seemed to be that creative geniuses were not like normal human beings. They had thought processes and personalities that set them apart from other members of the species.

Yet at the beginning of the twentieth century a shift was taking place. Creative genius was not so special after all. This change first was apparent in attitudes toward scientific creativity. According to the emerging discipline known as the philosophy of science, scientific discovery was the product of the scientific method, a system of thinking identified with hypothetico-deductive reasoning or some other analytical technique. All scientists who acquire this approach can engage in scientific creativity, regardless of their personal qualities or gifts. For instance, the philosopher Ortega y Gasset (1932/1957) maintained that “it is necessary to insist upon this extraordinary but undeniable fact: experimental science has progressed thanks in great part to the work of men astoundingly mediocre, and even less than mediocre. That is to say, modern science, the root and symbol of our actual civilization, finds a place for the intellectually commonplace man and allows him to work therein with success” (pp. 110–111).

This statement implies that creative genius has become largely irrelevant in modern science. This seemingly extreme claim has received endorsement in a whole school of research devoted to the psychology of science (Simonton, 2003a).

On November 19, 1909, Frederick A. Woods, a geneticist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), coined a “new name for a new science.” This he called historiometry, which covers when “the facts of history of a personal nature have been subjected to statistical analysis by some more or less objective method” (p. 703). Woods (1911) later identified historiometry not just as a science but an “exact science” and claimed that the technique was particularly well suited for the scientific “psychology of genius.” In the original article, Woods (1909) also listed a dozen examples of historiometric inquiries that appeared before the method had acquired a formal name. The list included Francis Galton’s (1869) Hereditary genius, Alphonse de Candolle’s (1873) Histoire des sciences et des savants depuis deux siècles, James McKeen Cattell’s (1903) “A statistical study of eminent men,” and Havelock Ellis’ (1904) A study of British genius. Although Wood intended his list to be comprehensive, he actually overlooked the first bona fide historiometric study published by Adolphe Quételet (1835/1968) more than a third of a century before Galton’s (1869) book (cf. Galton, 1865). Of course, Woods’ (1909) bibliography could not possibly encompass examples of historiometric research published in the century or so since the method acquired a name. Even so, among the most notable examples are Lewis M. Terman (1917), Catharine Cox (1926), Edward L. Thorndike (1950), and R. B. Cattell (1963). It is noteworthy that many historiometricians are themselves noteworthy, and some could themselves count as genuine geniuses – but I will not name names.

If historiometry is truly useful in the scientific study of genius, then it must be able to address some of the central questions in the psychology of genius (Simonton, 2009a). Is genius born or made? Is genius generic or domain specific? Is genius isolated or necessarily situated in a sociocultural context? Is genius mad? Because this chapter is part of a volume devoted to creativity and mental illness, it is the last question that I address here. What do historiometric investigations tell us about the relation between genius and madness – and especially the relation between creative genius and madness? But before I can review the main empirical results dealing with this question, I first must give a brief overview of the methods involved.

Please allow me to begin this chapter with an autobiographical observation: I have been conducting scientific research on creativity and genius – and especially creative genius – since the early 1970s. During the first quarter century of my career, I was often hard pressed to justify my research program (Simonton, 2002). Although the subject had once attracted the attention of such great psychologists as Francis Galton, James McKeen Cattell, Lewis M. Terman, and Edward L. Thorndike, the topic had become marginalized relative to mainstream research in psychology. Toward the end of the twentieth century, though, an unexpected event altered the status of my endeavors: the positive psychology movement. Martin Seligman, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and others argued that it was time for psychologists to study human strengths and virtues rather than human weaknesses and vices (for instance, Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Besides suggesting new topics for psychological inquiry, the proponents of positive psychology also decided to co-opt already ongoing investigations as representative of the movement. Somewhat to my surprise, creativity, genius, and creative genius were added to the growing inventory of representative subjects for positive psychological studies. As a result, I began to receive invitations to give talks at positive psychology conferences and to write chapters for handbooks and anthologies devoted to the emerging field (for instance, Cassandro & Simonton, 2002).

Now I probably should not complain about seeing my life's work get enhanced attention. And I certainly relished the free trips to conferences and the additional publications in my curriculum vitae.