Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T14:51:42.443Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Statistical Correlations, Nomothetic Principles, and Exceptions to the Rule

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2016

Dean Keith Simonton
Dean Keith Simonton*
Affiliation:
University of California, Davis, USA
Get access

Extract

At the outset I should admit that I am more positively disposed toward Sulloway's (1996) magnum opus than is the author of the target article (see Simonton, 1997). My positive disposition stems from three sources—substantive, theoretical, and methodological. Concerning the first source, I am more receptive to the notion that birth order may bear some relation to various forms of exceptional achievement. Galton (1874) was the first behavioral scientist to report such an empirical linkage, and his findings have been replicated and extended many times (Simonton, 1994). Indeed, I am among those who have discovered some of the relationships.

Type
Roundtable Commentaries
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , September 2000 , pp. 173 - 174
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Galton, F. (1874). English Men of Science: Their Nature and Nurture. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1976). “Biographical Determinants of Achieved Eminence: A Multivariate Approach to the Cox Data.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 33: 218–26.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1980a). “Land Battles, Generals, and Armies: Individual and Situational Determinants of Victory and Casualties.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 38:110–19.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1980b). “Thematic Fame, Melodic Originality, and Musical Zeitgeist: A Biographical and Transhistorical Content Analysis.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 38: 972–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1981). “Presidential Greatness and Performance: Can We Predict Leadership in the White House?” Journal of Personality 49: 306–23.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1984a). “Artistic Creativity and Interpersonal Relationships Across and Within Generations.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 46: 1273–86.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1984b). “Leaders as Eponyms: Individual and Situational Determinants of Monarchal Eminence.” Journal of Personality 52: 1–21.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1986). “Presidential Personality: Biographical Use of the Gough Adjective Check List.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 51:149–60.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1987a). “Presidential Inflexibility and Veto Behavior: Two Individual-Situational Interactions.” Journal of Personality 55: 1–18.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1987b). Why Presidents Succeed: A Political Psychology of Leadership. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1988). “Presidential Style: Personality, Biography, and Performance.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 928–936.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1990). Psychology, Science, and History: An Introduction to Historiometry. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1991). “Predicting Presidential Greatness: An Alternative to the Kenney and Rice Contextual Index.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 21: 301–5.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1994). Greatness: Who Makes History and Why. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1996). “Presidents' Wives and First Ladies: On Achieving Eminence Within a Traditional Gender Role.” Sex Roles 35: 309–36.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1997). “Evolution, Personality, and History” [Review of F. Sulloway, Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics, and Creative Lives]. American Journal of Psychology 110: 457–61.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1998). “Achieved Eminence in Minority and Majority Cultures: Convergence versus Divergence in the Assessments of 294 African Americans.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74: 804–17.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1999). Origins of Genius: Darwinian Perspectives on Creativity. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sulloway, F. J. (1996). Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics, and Creative Lives. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar