The Precocity-Longevity Hypothesis: Earlier Peaks in Career Achievement Predict Shorter Lives

@article{McCann2001ThePH,
  title={The Precocity-Longevity Hypothesis: Earlier Peaks in Career Achievement Predict Shorter Lives},
  author={Stewart J. H. McCann},
  journal={Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin},
  year={2001},
  volume={27},
  pages={1429 - 1439}
}
  • S. J. McCann
  • Published 1 November 2001
  • Political Science
  • Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
A new precocity-longevity hypothesis that those who reach career peaks earlier tend to have shorter lives was tested with 23 samples of eminent persons (N = 1,026), including U.S. presidents, French presidents, Canadian prime ministers, British prime ministers, New Zealand prime ministers, Australian prime ministers, male British monarchs, popes, U.S. Supreme Court justices, U.S. vice presidents, Nova Scotia premiers, Nobel prize winners, Oscar winners for acting, signers of the U.S… 
View on SAGE
26 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
2
Background Citations
13
Methods Citations
3
Results Citations
3

Tables from this paper

26 Citations

Younger Achievement Age Predicts Shorter Life for Governors: Testing the Precocity-Longevity Hypothesis With Artifact Controls
  • S. J. McCann
  • Psychology
    Personality & social psychology bulletin
  • 2003
TLDR
It was predicted that state governors elected at younger ages live shorter lives and it was demonstrated with correlation, regression, and subsample construction strategies that the life expectancy and selection bias artifacts were not sufficient to account or the significant positive correlation between election age and death age.
Life Expectancy Can Explain the Precocity-Longevity Hypothesis Association of Early Career Success and Early Death
TLDR
The results cast serious doubt on the contention of the precocity-longevity hypothesis that the developmental aspects of the prerequisites, concomitants, and consequences of early career achievement peaks actively enhance the conditions for an earlier death.
The precocity-longevity hypothesis re-examined: does career start age in canadian national hockey league players influence length of lifespan?
TLDR
This study explored the precocity-longevity hypothesis among Canadian-born National Hockey League (NHL) players and hypothesized that precocious NHL players would have shorter lifespans than those debuting at later ages.
Achievement Age—Death Age Correlations Alone Cannot Provide Unequivocal Support for the Precocity—Longevity Hypothesis
TLDR
The results support the precocity-longevity hypothesis that those who reach career pinnacles earlier tend to have shorter lives.
Recognition and longevity: an examination of award timing and lifespan in Nobel laureates
Using data for 387 Nobel Prize winners in physics, chemistry, or physiology/medicine from 1901 to 2000, this study focuses on the relation between the timing of prestigious awards and human…
Does Early Career Achievement Lead to Earlier Death? Assessment of the Precocity-Longevity Effect in Professional Basketball Players
TLDR
Results did not support the P-L hypothesis, suggesting that sample characteristics, physical fitness of high performance athletes, and measurement methodologies, may influence support for the proposed hypothesis in sport.
Longevity, Big Five Personality Factors, and Health Behaviors: Presidents From Washington to Nixon
TLDR
In this study, the positive correlation between conscientiousness and death age discovered by H. S. Friedman et al. (1993, 1995) was replicated for 32 American presidents and was maintained with controls in a multiple regression framework.
Precocity Predicts Shorter Life for Major League Baseball Players: Confirmation of McCann's Precocity-Longevity Hypothesis
TLDR
The hypothesis that earlier achievement is associated with earlier death is supported, and Statistically significant Pearson correlations occurred between precocity and longevity, and remained significant when adjusted for artifacts.
Sun exposure and longevity: a blunder involving immortal time.
TLDR
This Editor’s Choice acknowledges that this paper has fallen prey to a common, perennial problem; immortal time bias; the design of the study had built in a potential bias in favour of longevity among those presumed to be more highly exposed to sunlight.
Do Elite Athletes Live Longer? A Systematic Review of Mortality and Longevity in Elite Athletes
TLDR
A majority of studies included in this review reported superior lifespan longevity outcomes for elite athletes compared to age- and sex-matched controls from the general population and other athletes.
...
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 62 REFERENCES
Age and outstanding achievement: what do we know after a century of research?
TLDR
This article examines, in four sections, the substantial literature on the longitudinal connection between personal age and outstanding achievement in domains of creativity and leadership, with special focus on the typical age curve and its variations across disciplines.
Creative productivity: A predictive and explanatory model of career trajectories and landmarks.
The author developed a model that explains and predicts both longitudinal and cross-sectional variation in the output of major and minor creative products. The model first yields a mathematical…
Presidential Candidate Age and Schlesinger's Cycles of American History (1789-1992): When Younger is Better
Based on Simonton's (1994) conclusion that in politics the young are the heralds of change, the old the protectors of stability, two hypotheses were tested : (I) winning presidential candidates are…
Alternative formulas to predict the greatness of U.S. presidents: Personological, situational, and zeitgeist factors.
Formulas to predict presidential greatness on the Maranell index were constructed for 29 presidents from Washington to L. Johnson. When a Zeitgeist variable, derived from the historian A. M.…
Worklives and longevity: insights from a life course perspective.
TLDR
Patterns of career mobility among middle-class men and the implications of these patterns for their longevity are explored, with relatively few men experiencing a period in which they moved through a series of unrelated jobs.
Social-Psychological Correlates of Longevity
  • U. Lehr
  • Medicine
    Annual Review of Gerontology and Geriatrics
  • 1982
TLDR
Otsuka (1979) points out historical aspects in the efforts of oriental medicine to expand the length of life, and in his historical overview Gruman jl%6) describes the multitude of hypotheses and ideas regarding prolongevity (life prolongation) that date back primarily to the beginning of the nineteenth century.
Threatening times, "strong" presidential popular vote winners, and the victory margin, 1824–1964.
Based on theory linking heightened authoritarianism to threat, 2 studies tested the hypothesis that the strength of presidential popular vote winners and the degree of societal threat are…
Psychosocial and behavioral predictors of longevity. The aging and death of the "termites".
TLDR
Psychosocial factors emerged as important risks for premature mortality and statistical survival analyses were used to predict longevity and cause of death as a function of parental divorce during childhood, unstable marriage patterns in adulthood, childhood personality, adult adjustment, and possible mediating health behaviors.
Explaining premature mortality across fields of creative endeavor.
TLDR
A new explanatory model was proposed that draws on psychopathology, vocation choice, and personality characteristics as factors underlying the apparent differences in life span across achievement domains and versatility.
Age and achievement.
  • W. Bean
  • History
    The Journal of laboratory and clinical medicine
  • 1972
In a society increasingly dominated by an aging and conservative, if not aged, population it is important to learn what we can of historic and present knowledge of the age peak of performance in all…
...
...