Güllich et al. (2025): Recent discoveries on the acquisition of the highest levels of human performance
Güllich, A., Barth, M., Hambrick, D. Z., & Macnamara, B. N. (2025). Recent discoveries on the acquisition of the highest levels of human performance. Science, 390(6779), eadt7790.
In sport, science, chess and music, most of the very best adults were not the early stars, and they got there through broader, slower early development.
Question
Are early top performers and later world-class performers the same people? And does what predicts early success also predict world-class adult success?
Approach
A review pooling 19 datasets on 34,839 adult world-class performers: Olympic athletes, Nobel laureates, top chess players and famous composers. These are compared with 66 studies of young and sub-elite performers. Most data are meta-analyses of prospective studies (follow juniors forward) and retrospective ones (trace seniors back).
Findings
- Mostly different people. International junior and senior athletes are about 90% different individuals. Chess: the under-14 world top 10 and the senior top 10 are also about 90% different.
- The best started slower. World-class athletes performed below national-class peers in their early years. Chess world top-3 players were 62 Elo points lower at age 14 than players ranked 4–10, but 48 points higher at peak.
- Predictors flip. Junior success goes with an earlier start, more main-sport practice and less practice in other sports. Senior world-class success goes with a later start and later milestones, less main-sport practice and more other sports (about 2 other sports over about 9 years). Effect sizes are d = 0.39–0.58 and similar across domains.
- Not a statistical artifact. Regression to the mean would make scores less extreme over time; it cannot turn an association negative or reverse the predictors.
Conclusion
Programmes that select the best early performers and speed them up produce junior winners, often at the cost of world-class adults. Better early signs: above-average (not top) performance, considerable but not excessive specific practice, and real practice in other disciplines.
Limitations
- Correlational and largely retrospective, so it cannot show that playing other sports causes later success. Late-maturing or broadly gifted children might simply sample more.
- Some world-class samples are tiny (24 chess players).
Use it in class
- Someone wants to select on junior rankings: about 90% of junior internationals are not the later senior internationals.
- The case asks when to specialise: world-class athletes specialised later and played about 2 other sports.
Remember
- About 90% different people; 82% of junior internationals don't make it as seniors; 72% of senior internationals weren't junior internationals.
- Early stars are still 49× more likely than everyone else to reach international senior level. But they are under 1% of athletes, so more than 70% of senior internationals come from the other 99%.
- Three explanations: search-and-match (sampling helps you find the discipline that suits you), enhanced learning capital (varied practice makes you a better learner), limited risks (less burnout, overuse injury and lost opportunities).
Recall check
Close the paper, answer in your head, then check.
Name the three hypotheses that explain why multidisciplinary practice predicts world-class performance.
Show answer
Search-and-match: trying several disciplines raises the odds of finding the one that suits you. Enhanced learning capital: varied practice makes you a more adaptable learner. Limited risks: less burnout, overuse injury and missed opportunities.
Did you get it?
Early stars are 49× more likely to reach international senior level than other athletes. Why are most senior internationals still not former early stars?
Show answer
Base rates. Fewer than 1% of athletes are early stars. The other 99% is so much bigger that, even with far lower odds, it supplies more than 70% of senior internationals.
Did you get it?
Why can't regression to the mean explain these findings?
Show answer
It only pulls extreme scores toward the average. It cannot make early performance negatively related to peak performance, or make the junior and senior predictors point in opposite directions.
Did you get it?
What does the review suggest selectors look for instead of top early performance?
Show answer
Above-average early performance, considerable but not excessive discipline-specific practice, and multidisciplinary practice (about 2 other disciplines). Judge programmes on long-term outcomes, not junior results.
Did you get it?
Quotes, numbers, disagreements, how you'll use it.