The document discusses research on the relationship between aging and creative productivity. It finds:
1) At the aggregate level, creative productivity typically follows a curve of rapid rise, a single peak, and then gradual decline with age.
2) However, there is significant individual variability, and quality of work may decline less with age than quantity.
3) Factors beyond just aging, such as one's creative potential, field of work, and life experiences, greatly influence the age-creativity relationship. Therefore, late-life creative increments are possible for some individuals.
28. In fact, 1) cross-sectional variation always appreciably greater than longitudinal variation 2) the lower an individual’s productivity the more random the longitudinal distribution becomes
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30. Hence, arises a two-dimensional typology of career trajectories
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41. Journalist Alexander Woolcott reporting on G. B. Shaw: “At 83 Shaw’s mind was perhaps not quite as good as it used to be. It was still better than anyone else’s.”
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53. Hence, the creative productivity within any given career will show major departures from expectation, some positive and some negative
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55. Hence, the possibility of late-life creative productivity increments; e.g., Michel-Eugène Chevreul (1786-1889)