I'm looking for some information regarding whether there is any evidence to support the widely held view that intellectual productivity peaks of an individual rises from their late teens, peaks in their 20s and starts to decline in their 30s. However, I'm not sure that search terms to use when Googling for info. Is there a general term for this belief? And is it supported in any way?
psyklon
May13-08, 06:07 PM
I performed a search for "productivity versus age," no quotes, on Google Scholar and came up with the attached report by Cesare Marchetti. In addition, I've attached an excerpt on creativity from the Encyclopedia of Aging (2002) that discusses the indicators of productivity and includes a helpful bibliography.
Hope these help! To find more sources, I recommend checking out your library's subscriptions to reference databases.
Evo
May13-08, 08:22 PM
From the first paper linked to If one looks at the quality ratio of successful
works relative to total works produced in consecutive age periods, one discovers that this ratio does not change systematically over the course of a creative career. Most notably, this success rate does not diminish as a creator ages. As a result, although creative elders
may produce fewer masterpieces in their final years, they also generate fewer inferior works. On a work-for-work basis, there is absolutely no reason to speak of any age related decrement.