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# The Influence of Experience and Deliberate Practice on the Development of Superior Expert Performance

## Details

**Authors** Ericsson KA

**Year** 2006

**Publisher** Cambridge Handbook of Expertise & Expert Performance

[Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511816796.038) 
10.1017/cbo9780511816796.038

## In authors' words

### Abstract

There are several factors that influence the level of professional achievement. First and foremost, extensive experience in a domain is necessary to reach very high levels of performance. Extensive experience does not, however, invariably lead to expert levels of achievement. When individuals are first introduced to a domain after completing their basic training and formal education, they often work as apprentices supervised by more-experienced professionals to accomplish their work-related responsibilities. After months of experience, they typically attain an acceptable level of proficiency, and with longer years, they are able to work as independent professionals. At that time most professionals reach a stable, average level of performance, and then they maintain this pedestrian level for the rest of their careers. In contrast, some individuals continue to improve and eventually reach the highest levels of mastery. Traditionally, individual differences in performance have been explained by an account given by Galton (1869/1979, see Ericsson, 2003a, for description). According to this view, every healthy person will improve initially through experience but these improvements are limited by innate factors that cannot be changed through training; hence attainable performance is constrained by one's basic endowments, such as abilities, mental capacities, innate talents. This general view also explains age-related declines in professional achievement, owing to inevitable degradation of general capacities and processes with age (see also Krampe & Charness, Chapter 40).

## Commentary

**Patterns it shows** R

**How to cite this** Ericsson KA (2006). The Influence of Experience and Deliberate Practice on the Development of Superior Expert Performance. Cambridge Handbook of Expertise & Expert Performance.