Comparing Adult Productivity of American Mathematics, Chemistry, and Physics Olympians With Terman's Longitudinal Study

In the 1950s, Terman summarized the results of his longitudinal study of the gifted and compared the "life success" of the 150 most successful men (Group A) with the 150 least successful men (Group C) at the midpoint of their careers (age 30). The objective of this article is to replicate the original Terman work with a modern sample of the most successful (Group A) and least successful (Group C) American Academic Olympians (N = 190). The most successful adult Olympians were not hampered by a lack of motivation because they had parents who supplied a conducive home atmosphere when they were growing up. We present implications of this study for today's schools and for parents of the gifted.