A proposed integration of the expert performance and individual differences approaches to the study of elite performance

I recently had the pleasure of editing a volume of essays on the determinants of greatness (Kaufman, 2013a). A variety of perspectives were represented in the volume, including behavioral genetics, individual differences, and expert performance. The clearest conclusion from the volume was that the development of high achievement involves a complex interaction of many personal and environmental variables that feed off each other in nonlinear, mutually reinforcing, and nuanced ways, and that the most complete understanding of the development of elite performance can only be arrived through an integration of perspectives. To help spur more integration, I suggest that cognitive psychologists who are studying deliberate practice and chunking, and individual differences researchers who are investigating cognitive ability and personality, focus more on common ground. I’ve noticed that the debate often ends up being “innate talent vs. deliberate practice” (see Ericsson et al., 2007; Ericsson, 2014), when that false dichotomy is detrimental to scientific progress (Gobet, 2013; Kaufman, 2013a). Deliberate practice— defined by Ericsson (2013) as “engagement with full concentration in a training activity designed to improve a particular aspect of performance with immediate feedback, [and] opportunities for gradual refinement by repetition and problem solving”—depends on many traits which vary in the general population, and which have a genetic basis. But that doesn’t mean that heritable traits are necessarily “immutable constraints on the acquisition of various types of expert performance” (Ericsson, 2014). Given our current state of scientific knowledge, I hope we can all agree that: