A review of literature on environmental complexity, biographic works on inventors, and even the etymology of ecology (Greek oikos or house) generated the hypothesis that inventors, more than noninventors, would have spent a significant part of their lives in a 2-story home. Further, inventors would be overrepresented by firstborns. 544, i.e., 30% of the University of Texas faculty, responded to a brief questionnaire. Although analyses failed to uphold the hypotheses, certain findings supported previous work and are discussed in relation to future work on invention.
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