Achievement Age—Death Age Correlations Alone Cannot Provide Unequivocal Support for the Precocity—Longevity Hypothesis

Abstract

This study is a further exploration (see S. J. H. McCann, 2001) of the capacity of the selection bias and life expectancy artifacts to produce correlations between peak achievement ages and death ages that could be mistakenly construed as support for the precocity-longevity hypothesis that those who reach career pinnacles earlier tend to have shorter lives. For 1,672 governors, 10 fake achievement age variables and 10 fake death age variables were randomly generated. Fake achievement age variables were correlated with real death age; fake death age variables were correlated with real achievement age. However, the real age correlations were much larger than the fake age correlations, and when the 2 artifacts were controlled through a subsample strategy, only real age correlations were significant. Overall, the results support the precocity-longevity hypothesis.

Keywords:

• life expectancy
• life span
• longevity
• personality
• Type A
• stress