The Greatest-Ever Study of Human Development?

[david_myers]

Originally posted on December 2, 2014.

As I explain in a recent APS Observer essay (here), my short list of psychology’s greatest research programs includes the 250+ scientific publications that have followed Scottish lives from childhood to later life.  The studies began with all Scottish 11-year-olds taking intelligence tests in 1932 and in 1947 (the results of which Ian Deary and his team discovered many years later).  After meeting Deary at an Edinburgh conference in 2006 and hearing him describe his tracking these lives through time, I have followed his team’s reports of their cognitive and physical well-being with great fascination.

Last April, some 400 alums of the testing—now 93 or 78 years old (including those shown with Deary below)—gathered at the Church of Scotland’s Assembly Hall in Edinburgh, where Deary regaled them with the fruits of their participation. One of his conclusions, as reported by the October 31st Science​, is that “participants’ scores at age 11 can predict about 50% of the variance in their IQs at age 77.”

I invited Professor Deary to contribute some PowerPoint slides of his studies for use by teachers of psychology.  He generously agreed, and they may be found here.

Photo courtesy of Ian Deary.