Creativity in the later years: optimistic prospects for achievement.

Despite the apparent decline in productivity in the final years of life, seven considerations suggest a far more favorable outlook: the actual magnitude of the age decrement; the role of extrinsic influences; the contingency on career age; the impact of individual differences in creative potential; the interdisciplinary variation in the age curves; the virtual absence of an age decrement on a contribution-for-contribution basis; and the resurgence of creativity in the form of the swan-song phenomenon.