The End of Average

The End of Average Plot Summary

Introduction

For over a century, we have lived in an Age of Average, where individuals are routinely measured against standardized metrics that presume a normal distribution of human qualities. From schools to workplaces, our entire society operates on the assumption that comparing people to an average is both meaningful and valuable. However, this assumption contains a fundamental and destructive flaw: there is no such thing as an average person. The concept of average, while useful for comparing groups, becomes misleading and harmful when applied to individuals. The scientific evidence against averagarianism is overwhelming. In fields ranging from education to neuroscience, researchers have demonstrated that individual traits are not normally distributed, development does not follow standardized pathways, and performance cannot be reduced to a single dimension. By clinging to averagarian thinking, we constrain human potential and create systems that fit no one. Understanding the principles of individuality—jaggedness, context, and pathways—allows us to reimagine our institutions to value individual potential rather than conformity to artificial norms. This shift represents not merely a philosophical preference but a practical necessity for unlocking human potential in education, business, and society at large.

Chapter 1: The Myth of the Average Person

The concept of the "average person" dates back to the 1830s when Belgian astronomer Adolphe Quetelet first applied mathematical averaging techniques to human measurements. Quetelet calculated the average chest circumference of Scottish soldiers and declared this average represented the "true" soldier, while individual variations were merely errors or imperfections. He extended this approach to create the concept of the "Average Man," claiming this statistical abstraction represented nature's ideal, perfect human being. This powerful idea spread rapidly through science and society. Francis Galton, while rejecting Quetelet's notion that average was ideal, reinforced the importance of measuring deviation from average by developing the concept of rank—the idea that individuals could be sorted based on how far above or below average they fell on various dimensions. The belief that there existed meaningful average human qualities became embedded in scientific practice, educational institutions, and workplace design. In the mid-20th century, this thinking was dramatically challenged when US Air Force researchers discovered something remarkable. Lieutenant Gilbert Daniels measured thousands of pilots on ten dimensions of body size and found that not a single pilot fit the "average" on all dimensions. Even when expanding the range to include the middle 30% on each dimension, less than 3.5% of pilots matched on any three dimensions simultaneously. Human bodies simply did not conform to average proportions. The implications were profound. Cockpits designed for the "average pilot" were literally designed for no one. When the Air Force abandoned average-based design and created adjustable cockpits that could fit individual pilots, performance soared. Similar discoveries have been made in neuroscience, where research shows that no individual brain matches the "average brain" commonly used in studies. The myth of the average person represents more than a statistical curiosity—it reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature. Whenever we reduce individuals to their deviation from an average, we miss the true patterns of their capabilities, traits, and potential. Systems designed around averages inevitably fail because they cannot accommodate the genuine diversity of human beings.

Chapter 2: How Standardization Limits Human Potential

The conversion of averagarian thinking into institutional practice occurred most comprehensively through Frederick Winslow Taylor's system of scientific management in the early 20th century. Taylor believed that efficiency required standardization—finding the "one best way" to perform any task and requiring all workers to follow it precisely. His philosophy transformed factories, businesses, and eventually schools into rigid systems where individual variation was treated as inefficiency to be eliminated. Taylor's fundamental assumption was that "the system must be first," not the individual. This required a new class of professionals—managers—whose job was to plan and standardize work processes. Workers were expected simply to execute these standardized processes without deviation or creative input. As Taylor explicitly stated, "We do not want any initiative. All we want of them is to obey the orders we give them, do what we say, and do it quick." This philosophy spread rapidly through American and global industry, with advocates ranging from Henry Ford to Vladimir Lenin. Edward Thorndike brought Taylorist standardization into education with devastating effectiveness. Schools were reorganized around standardized curricula, age-based progression, and fixed-pace instruction. Thorndike believed that students should be sorted based on their ability to succeed within this standardized system, declaring that "quality is more important than equality." His influence led to standardized tests, tracking systems, and the pervasive use of grades as one-dimensional rankings of student ability. The human cost of standardization has been enormous. Workers in standardized systems report high levels of disengagement and alienation. Students who don't fit the standardized model of learning are labeled as problematic or deficient. Even when standardization produces economic efficiency, it does so by sacrificing human potential and engagement. The Taylorist approach prevents individuals from discovering and developing their unique talents, forcing them instead to conform to the system or be rejected by it. The standardization of human experience extends far beyond school and work. Our concepts of normal development, healthy personality, and successful life pathways have all been standardized according to arbitrary averages. We have created a world where individuals are constantly pressured to be the same as everyone else, only better—a paradoxical and destructive demand that undermines genuine human flourishing.

Chapter 3: The Three Principles of Individuality

To move beyond averagarian thinking, we must embrace three fundamental principles of individuality: the jaggedness principle, the context principle, and the pathways principle. These principles, drawn from cutting-edge research in the science of individuality, provide a new framework for understanding human capacity and potential. The jaggedness principle recognizes that human qualities are multidimensional and these dimensions are largely independent of each other. Intelligence, for example, consists of numerous distinct capacities with weak correlations between them. Two people might have identical IQ scores but completely different cognitive profiles, with different strengths and weaknesses. The same applies to personality, physical abilities, and virtually every meaningful human attribute. This explains why one-dimensional ranking systems—from IQ scores to employee evaluations—fail to capture the reality of human capability. The context principle reveals that human behavior is highly dependent on specific situations. Research by psychologist Yuichi Shoda demonstrated that children's behavior varied dramatically across different contexts—a child might be aggressive on the playground but cooperative in the classroom. These "if-then signatures" of behavior are more stable and predictive than trait-based descriptions like "aggressive" or "cooperative." Understanding context dependence allows us to create environments that bring out the best in individuals rather than labeling them based on behavior in a single setting. The pathways principle challenges the notion that development follows a standardized sequence or timeline. Studies of everything from infant motor development to professional achievement reveal multiple equally valid pathways to success. The idea that faster progress equals greater ability has been thoroughly debunked—individual learning rates vary widely and inconsistently across domains and contexts. When educational systems enforce standardized pacing, they artificially limit what students can achieve. Together, these principles provide a scientific foundation for embracing individuality. They explain why systems designed around averages inevitably fail and point toward alternatives that can better support human flourishing. By recognizing jaggedness, context-dependence, and pathway diversity, we can create institutions that value individuals for who they actually are rather than how they compare to an artificial average.

Chapter 4: Beyond One-Dimensional Thinking

One-dimensional thinking—the habit of reducing complex human qualities to single metrics—represents the most pervasive and limiting aspect of averagarian thinking. This approach manifests in countless ways: reducing intelligence to IQ scores, academic achievement to GPA, employee value to performance ratings, and athletic talent to scoring averages. In each case, a multidimensional reality is artificially compressed into a single number that purports to represent a person's true ability or worth. The jaggedness principle reveals why this approach inevitably distorts reality. Consider the case of physical size—a seemingly straightforward quality. When we describe someone as "big," we imagine they are large in all dimensions. Yet research shows that the correlation between different bodily measurements is remarkably weak. Someone with long legs might have short arms; someone with broad shoulders might have narrow hips. There is simply no such thing as an "average" body type, which is why standardized clothing rarely fits anyone perfectly. Cognitive abilities display even more pronounced jaggedness. Studies dating back to the early 20th century have found weak correlations between different mental abilities. A student might excel at mathematical reasoning but struggle with verbal comprehension, or vice versa. Even within narrower domains like verbal ability, a person might have excellent vocabulary but poor reading comprehension. When we reduce this complexity to a single score, we create a fiction that obscures a person's true capabilities. The consequences of one-dimensional thinking are profound. In education, students are tracked into programs based on aggregate measures that may miss their specific strengths. In business, hiring decisions rely on GPA or standardized test scores that fail to capture the dimensions of talent most relevant to job performance. Even sports teams fall prey to this error, as when the New York Knicks assembled a team of high-scoring players only to perform disastrously because they ignored other dimensions of basketball talent. Moving beyond one-dimensional thinking requires embracing the full dimensionality of human ability. Companies like Google have discovered the value of this approach, abandoning their reliance on GPA and SAT scores after finding they had virtually no predictive value for job performance. Instead, they developed sophisticated multi-dimensional assessments that better capture the complexity of individual talent. Similarly, educational innovators are creating assessment systems that provide detailed profiles of student strengths rather than simplified letter grades.

Chapter 5: Context Matters: Why Traits Are Not Fixed

Traditional trait psychology asserts that people possess stable, enduring characteristics—some people are extroverted, others introverted; some aggressive, others passive; some honest, others dishonest. This view has dominated psychology and human resources for decades, leading to widespread use of personality tests like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to categorize individuals into fixed types. However, extensive research now reveals that these trait-based categories fundamentally misrepresent human behavior. Psychologist Yuichi Shoda conducted a groundbreaking study at a children's summer camp, observing children's behavior across multiple contexts for six weeks. He discovered that each child exhibited dramatically different personalities in different situations. A child might be cooperative with adults but aggressive with peers, or talkative during organized activities but withdrawn during free play. Moreover, these contextual behavior patterns were stable over time—what Shoda called "if-then signatures." IF a child was in the cafeteria, THEN she was talkative; IF she was on the playground, THEN she was quiet. This context principle extends to moral character as well. In the 1920s, Hugh Hartshorne conducted an extensive study of honesty among schoolchildren. He placed children in twenty-nine different contexts where they had opportunities to lie, cheat, or steal. The results were startling: a child's honesty in one situation barely predicted their honesty in another. A child who cheated on a test might not cheat at a party game; a child who stole money at home might not steal at school. Context, not trait, determined behavior. Even self-control—often considered a stable character trait—shows strong contextual variation. Celeste Kidd demonstrated this by modifying the famous "marshmallow test" of delayed gratification. When children experienced a researcher as unreliable (promising but not delivering art supplies), they were far less likely to wait for a second marshmallow than children who experienced the researcher as reliable. What appeared to be a trait difference in self-control was actually a rational response to different contexts. The context principle requires us to replace trait-based thinking with an understanding of if-then signatures. This shift has profound implications for education, parenting, and management. Rather than labeling a child as "aggressive" or an employee as "uncooperative," we need to identify the specific contexts that trigger problematic behaviors and create environments that support positive ones. This approach acknowledges that human behavior emerges from the interaction between individuals and their environment, not from fixed internal traits.

Chapter 6: Unique Pathways to Success

The pathways principle challenges our deeply held assumption that there is one normal, optimal pathway for human development and achievement. This assumption manifests in rigid developmental milestones for children, standardized educational sequences, and prescribed career trajectories. However, research across multiple domains reveals that there are many equally valid pathways to success, and the best pathway for any individual depends on their unique pattern of abilities, interests, and circumstances. Even the most basic developmental processes show remarkable variation in pathways. Karen Adolph's research on infant crawling identified twenty-five distinct patterns that babies used to move across the floor, all eventually leading to walking. Some infants never crawled at all, moving directly from sitting to walking. The traditional view that crawling represents a fixed, necessary stage in motor development simply does not match reality. Even more striking, anthropologist David Tracer discovered that infants in the Au tribe of Papua New Guinea never crawled at all, instead developing a "scooting" motion while seated—revealing that cultural practices shape developmental pathways. Similar diversity appears in more complex domains. Fischer's research on reading development identified three distinct sequences through which children learn to read. The majority followed what was considered the "standard" sequence, but a significant minority followed alternative sequences that also led to reading proficiency. Only the third sequence, followed by about 10% of children, led to reading difficulties—suggesting that intervention should target specific problematic pathways rather than enforcing conformity to a single standard. The pace of development also varies widely. The traditional educational assumption that faster learners are smarter learners has been thoroughly debunked. Benjamin Bloom's research showed that when students were allowed to learn at their own pace with appropriate support, more than 90% achieved mastery, compared to just 20% in traditional fixed-pace instruction. Moreover, students' learning rates varied across different topics and skills—someone who quickly mastered fractions might struggle with decimals, or vice versa. The pathways principle has profound implications for education, career development, and personal growth. It suggests that we should abandon the one-size-fits-all trajectories that currently dominate these domains and instead create flexible systems that support multiple pathways. The European Research Council demonstrated this by identifying seven distinct sequences that led to successful scientific careers, ranging from rapid academic advancement to complex trajectories involving industry experience and career interruptions.

Chapter 7: Reimagining Education and Work

Applying the principles of individuality requires fundamentally reimagining our core social institutions, particularly education and work. Both domains currently operate on averagarian assumptions that prioritize standardization, one-dimensional assessment, and rigid pathways. Transforming these institutions requires more than superficial reforms—it demands a complete rethinking of their basic architecture. In education, this transformation involves three key changes. First, replacing standardized diplomas with credentials that certify specific competencies. Rather than spending four years accumulating credit hours for a generic degree, students would pursue credentials directly relevant to their goals and interests. Second, replacing grades with competency-based assessment that focuses on mastery rather than comparative ranking. Third, allowing students to determine their own educational pathways, selecting the learning experiences, environments, and pacing that work best for them. These changes are already emerging in innovative institutions like Western Governors University, which uses competency-based assessment rather than credit hours, and Khan Academy, which allows students to learn at their own pace. The benefits include lower costs, better alignment between education and employment, and higher success rates for diverse learners. Most importantly, students develop according to their individual potential rather than conforming to an artificial average. In the workplace, organizations that embrace individuality achieve remarkable results. Costco, with its focus on individual employee development and well-being, maintains higher productivity and lower turnover than competitors like Walmart despite paying substantially higher wages. Zoho Corporation, an Indian software company, discovers overlooked talent by ignoring traditional credentials and creating its own university that accepts economically disadvantaged students with little formal education. Morning Star, the world's largest tomato processor, operates without managers, allowing employees to define their own roles and responsibilities. These organizations demonstrate that valuing individuality is not just morally appealing but economically advantageous. By recognizing the jaggedness of talent, the context-dependence of performance, and the diversity of professional pathways, they achieve higher engagement, innovation, and productivity than their averagarian competitors. Their success points toward a new model of "win-win capitalism" that benefits both individuals and organizations. The transformation of education and work represents just the beginning of a broader shift from the Age of Average to an Age of Individuals. This shift requires redefining opportunity from "equal access" to "equal fit"—creating environments responsive to individual differences rather than requiring conformity to standardized systems. The principles of individuality provide both the scientific foundation and practical guidance for this transformation.

Summary

The Age of Average has reached its logical conclusion. By continuing to design our institutions around standardized assessments, fixed developmental timelines, and one-dimensional rankings, we sacrifice both human potential and institutional effectiveness. The science of individuality reveals that this approach is not merely philosophically problematic but empirically wrong—human beings simply do not conform to averagarian assumptions about normality, stability, and linear development. The principles of individuality—jaggedness, context, and pathways—offer a scientifically grounded alternative. By recognizing that talent is multidimensional, behavior is contextual, and development follows diverse trajectories, we can create institutions that truly value human individuality. This is not an idealistic vision but a practical necessity for education, business, and society. The organizations and schools that have already embraced these principles demonstrate that valuing individuality produces better outcomes for everyone involved. As we move beyond the Age of Average, we can restore the original American dream—not of material success measured against others, but of each person achieving their fullest potential on their own terms.

About Author

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Todd Rose

Todd Rose is the cofounder and president of The Center for Individual Opportunity, and a faculty member at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. His work is focused on the science of the individual and its implications for advancing self-knowledge, developing talent, and improving our institutions of opportunity. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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