Determinants and Consequences of Creativity in a Cohort of Gifted Women

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Abstract
Forty women who had been selected by Lewis Terman in 1921 for his study of intellectually gifted California school children were reinterviewed in 1987 (Mean = 77 years, SE ± 1). These women had been prospectively followed by questionnaire over the intervening 65 years. Their capacity for creativity—putting something in the world that was not there before—was assessed by review of their prospectively gathered questionnaires and by retrospective interview. The 20 women viewed as most creative (usually for literary publication, art, music, or starting an organization) were more likely in the past to have manifested generativity, and at the present to have adjusted well to old age. Although the ego defenses of sublimation, humor, and altruism were more frequent among the creative women, no differences were noted in the happiness of their childhoods or their mental health prior to the present.

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