Candidate talk: Toward a Developmental Account of Talent and Creative Productivity

David Dai, candidate for the endowed chair position at the Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development, will speak at 12:30 p.m. on Jan. 18 in Aderhold Hall Room G5. His talk is titled, “Toward a Developmental Account of Talent and Creative Productivity.”

About the presentation: Since Francis Galton (1896) proposed a genetic explanation of “genius,” the debate has continued to date between those who argue that manifest talent and creativity can be traced to genetic makeup and are at least partly genetically determined, and those who dismiss this “nature” account, and argue that talent and creativity is made (i.e., achieved), not born. Both sides have supporting evidence. How we evaluate and reconcile these competing views of talent and creativity has a direct bearing on educational policy and practice.

In this presentation, I propose a developmental solution to the nature-nurture conundrum by specifying when ‘nurture’ reveals ‘nature’ and when ‘nurture’ surpasses ‘nature’ at different junctures of talent development. I use my research program on early college entrants to illustrate how I approached this topic and how this line of research sheds light on developmental processes leading to different kinds of talent and creative productivity.