International chess masters, Olympic gold medallists and Nobel prize-winning scientists were rarely child prodigies, a review reveals. Likewise, early childhood successes and intense training programmes have rarely led to top achievement at a global level in the adult world.
The analysis – based on 19 studies involving nearly 35,000 high-performing people – shows that the vast majority of adults who lead worldwide rankings in their field of expertise grew up participating in a broad range of activities, only gradually developing their most proficient skill.
The findings contradict popular beliefs that achieving top international performance levels requires intensive, highly focused training during childhood, says Arne Güllich at RPTU Kaiserslautern in Germany. “If we understand that most world-class performers were not that remarkable or exceptional in their early years, this implies that early exceptional performance is not a prerequisite for long-term, world-class performance.”
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