International Handbook on Giftedness
Larisa V. Shavinina (Ed.)
International Handbook on Giftedness Part One
Editor Larisa V. Shavinina Universit´e du Qu´ebec en Outaouais D´epartement des sciences administratives Pavillon Lucien-Brault 101, rue Saint-Jean-Bosco Case postale 1250, succursale Hull Gatineau, Qu´ebec, J8X 3X7, Canada
[email protected] ISBN: 978-1-4020-6161-5
e-ISBN: 978-1-4020-6162-2
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-6162-2 Library of Congress Control Number: 2008934140 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.
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Printed on acid-free paper 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 springer.com
This handbook is dedicated to Professor Marina A. Kholodnaya, whose own research on giftedness provided the foundation for my research and shaped my vision of the field, and to my wonderful sons Alexander and Denis.
Preface
If you publish . . . you are trying to create something that is original, that stands out from the crowd. . . Above all, you want to create something you are proud of. . . Richard Branson (2002, p. 57). After the publication of my bestselling International Handbook on Innovation, publishers from around the world began to invite me to work on new books with them. When Springer invited me to prepare the International Handbook on Giftedness, I was on a maternity leave with my 3-months-old and my 5-year-old was just starting school. I, however, had wanted to prepare such a Handbook for a long time and was waiting for just the right moment to dive right into such an endeavor. The time had come and I agreed to prepare a Handbook that would expose readers to new views, great discoveries, and significant advancements of scientific knowledge, exactly as Richard Feynman advised (see his opening quote at the beginning of the introductory chapter). I have always been convinced of the paramount significance of the topic of giftedness and gifted education to the world as a whole. There is no doubt that gifted individuals were, are, and will be extremely important to society. One way to understand the history of human civilization is via inventions and discoveries of the gifted. All human cultural development builds on the amazing technological, scientific, educational, and moral achievements of the human mind. Today, people increasingly realize that gifted and talented individuals are even more important than in the past. Thus, industrial competition is increasingly harsh and organizations of all types must continuously bring new products and services to the global market. To survive, companies need creative and talented employees whose novel ideas are to a certain extent a necessity for the companies’ continued existence and future success. Consequently, modern society desperately requires highly able citizens who can produce innovative solutions to current challenges and contribute new ideas that promote the development and growth of markets for novel products or services. The gifted thus remain an extremely important source of innovation and renewal worldwide. Also, everyone knows that contemporary society has many unsolved problems, including demographic, medical, environmental, political, economic, moral, and social problems. Accordingly, modern society is characterized by a strong need for highly able minds that can productively solve these numerous problems and make appropriate social decisions. In short, intellectually creative citizens are guarantees of political stability, economic growth, scientific and cultural enrichment, psychological health, and the general prosperity of any society in the 21st century. vii
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The future will therefore be synonymous with talent, since it will need an extremely high saturation of gifted people in all areas of human endeavor. Despite the evident importance of gifted individuals in any society and many written books, the phenomenon of giftedness is far from being well understood. Because of this, the proposed handbook on giftedness will be a valuable contribution aimed at the advanced understanding of giftedness and its development. This is therefore an exceptionally timely endeavor. As the introductory chapter indicates, my vision for this Handbook was indeed different from any previous publication. From the very beginning of the project I considered that the major goal of the Handbook should be to significantly advance the field of giftedness research and gifted education by analyzing the latest developments in the existing areas and by presenting innovative, emerging trends. As the editor of this important Handbook, I tried to be as objective as possible in my selection of contributing authors and topics to be covered. My purpose was to present the field of giftedness research and gifted education as it is today: with all its different points of views, agreements, and disagreements, which, I am convinced, are essential for further progress of our field. It does not mean at all that I like or dislike certain chapters. My position as a research is reflected in my chapters in this volume. My editorial efforts were governed by a maximal objectivity aimed at unprecedented advancement of research on giftedness and gifted education. The reason why I have been wishing to create this Handbook for a long time is that previous publications in the area did not cover all facets of giftedness and gifted education and did not present some emerging trends in research and practice. In short, it was impossible to find any handbook that would cover all possible aspects of high ability and that would provide clear answers to issues raised by scholars and practitioners alike. I hence came to believe that the time was ripe for an International Handbook on Giftedness—a volume that would comprehensively cover all facets of giftedness and thus would help guide research and practice during next decades and, therefore, would advance the field. All in all, I tried to create the Handbook “that is original, that stands out from the crowd,” a volume that every contributing author and myself “are proud of,” exactly as Richard Branson recommended. It is important to note that the conventional understanding of handbook—as a compendium of review chapters suggesting a guide to practice—seems to be very restricted in the context of the area of giftedness and gifted education. The “handbook” title suggests a guide to practice only in cases where the body of knowledge is understood to be complete and more or less unchanging. For example, “Handbook of Mathematical Formulae,” or “Handbook of Motorcycle Repair.” However, the study of giftedness is a body of knowledge under dynamic theoretical development. For instance, for the very first time this Handbook introduces many new types of giftedness that have not been discussed in previous publications (see my introductory chapter for a detailed description of its novelty and originality). Due to this very reason, I prefer to use “the International Handbook on Giftedness” instead of “the International Handbook of Giftedness.” I hope readers will find the present chapters lively and provocative, stimulating greater interest in giftedness and gifted education. The Handbook covers a wide range of topics in giftedness. Specifically, it offers a broad analysis of what giftedness is, how it is developed, assessed, and affects individuals, groups, organizations, societies, and the world as a whole, as well as what new trends in gifted education are and what successful pedagogical practices exist today. The Handbook will therefore serve as an authoritative resource on all
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aspects of theory, research, and practice of giftedness and gifted education. I hope that readers of this Handbook will view it as serving that function. The target international audience for the Handbook is broad and includes a wide range of specialists—both researchers and practitioners, as well as policy makers— in the areas of giftedness, gifted education, psychology, education, arts, economics, management and business science. Non-specialists will also be interested readers of this Handbook (e.g., parents of gifted and talented children) and it will be useful in a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses. Because the coverage of the Handbook is broad enough, it can be read as a reference on an as-needed basis for those who would like information about a particular topic, or from cover to cover either as a sourcebook or as a textbook in a course dealing with giftedness and/or gifted education. In short, anyone interested in knowing the wide range of issues regarding giftedness and gifted education will want to read this Handbook. The Handbook hopes to accomplish at least four things for readers. First, the reader will obtain comprehensive expert insight into the latest research and practice in the field of giftedness. Indeed, the world’s leading specialists agreed to contribute to this Handbook. Second, the Handbook will present many facets of giftedness, which were not discussed in previously published handbooks. This breadth of coverage will allow the reader to acquire a comprehensive and panoramic picture of the nature of giftedness and gifted education within a single Handbook. Third, the reader will develop an accurate sense of what spurs gifted and talented individuals toward their extraordinary achievements and exceptional performances. Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, the reader will be able to apply the ideas and findings presented in the Handbook to critically consider how best to foster personal abilities and talents. I wanted to do almost impossible with this Handbook: to cover every facet of the field of giftedness as it is today. As readers will proceed from one chapter to another, they will see that ultimately this became possible. I am very proud of the final product: the Handbook is indeed exceptional in many ways (this issue will be addressed in the introduction). There are many people to thank for helping this Handbook come to fruition. Most important are the authors: I thank them very much for their willingness to undertake the difficult and challenging task of contributing chapters. I am particularly grateful to Professor Marina A. Kholodnaya, my former Ph.D. supervisor, who to a great extent ‘made’ me a researcher, developing my perception of great scientific problems. She continually inspires me to undertake innovative endeavors. I am especially grateful to my research assistants—Marianna Medvid, Jeanette Gallina, and David Lefebvre— for their successful handling of numerous duties on this outstanding project in addition to their regular jobs and university assignments. They were simply excellent during many months of the preparation of the Handbook: I could not do it better myself. I am also grateful to my editors at Springer—Bernadette Ohmer, Maria Jonckheere, Astrid Noordermeer, and Bernadette Deelen—who provided just the right blend of freedom, encouragement, patience, and guidance needed for successful completion of this great project. Special thanks to Tamara Welschot at Springer who initiated this project. I also wish to acknowledge my debt of gratitude to my parents, Anna Shavinina and Vladimir Shavinin, who aroused a passionate intellectual curiosity and love for challenges in me. Finally, I owe my biggest debt of gratitude to my husband, Evgueni Ponomarev, and our 8-year-old and 3-year-old sons, Alexander and Denis, respectively. In countless ways, Evgueni has been a true colleague, critic, manager, and
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friend throughout a few years of the project. He provided the moral, financial, and technical support, and—more importantly—with the time I needed to complete this project. He did so by performing a number of great tasks, from cooking and administering PC problems when I worked at nights, to assuming the lion’s share (and the lioness’s, too) of child care for our Alexander and particularly for Denis, who was born just before the beginning of this project. Very simply, this is his Handbook, too. I especially wish to thank Alexander and Denis, whose entry into the world taught me more about giftedness, gifted education, and the need to develop their versatile abilities especially when they are at those unique sensitive periods, than have any other events in my life. They were patient with me and curiously asked “when do you eventually finish this Handbook?” I sincerely hope that educational systems of all societies around the world, as well as parents and other caregivers, will be able to develop unique gifts and talents of each child on the Earth. Larisa V. Shavinina
Contents
Part I Introduction 1 Understanding Giftedness: Introduction or on the Importance of Seeing Differently . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Larisa V. Shavinina Part II The Nature of Giftedness 2 The History of Giftedness Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Heidrun Stoeger 3 Essential Tensions Surrounding the Concept of Giftedness . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 David Yun Dai 4 Contemporary Models of Giftedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Janet E. Davidson 5 A Feminine Perspective of Giftedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Linda Kreger Silverman and Nancy B. Miller 6 An Expert Performance Approach to the Study of Giftedness . . . . . . . . 129 K. Anders Ericsson, Kiruthiga Nandagopal and Roy W. Roring 7 Debating Giftedness: Pronat vs. Antinat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Franc¸oys Gagn´e 8 The Arbitrary Nature of Giftedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Nancy B. Hertzog 9 Gifted and Thriving: A Deeper Understanding of Meaning of GT . . . . . 215 Michael F. Sayler 10 A Unique Type of Representation is the Essence of Giftedness: Towards a Cognitive-Developmental Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Larisa V. Shavinina
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Part III The Neuropsychology of Giftedness 11 Neuropsychological Characteristics of Academic and Creative Giftedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261 John G. Geake 12 The Neural Plasticity of Giftedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275 M. Layne Kalbfleisch 13 Working Memory, the Cognitive Functions of the Cerebellum and the Child Prodigy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 Larry R. Vandervert Part IV Developmental and Cognitive Foundations of Giftedness 14 Developmental Trajectories of Giftedness in Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319 Christoph Perleth and Annett Wilde 15 Highly Gifted Young People: Development from Childhood to Adulthood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337 Miraca U.M. Gross 16 Talent Development Across the Lifespan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353 Roger Moltzen 17 Creative Cognition in Gifted Youth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381 Katherine N. Saunders Wickes and Thomas B. Ward 18 A Metacognitive Portrait of Gifted Learners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397 Marion A. Barfurth, Krista C. Ritchie, Julie A. Irving and Bruce M. Shore Part V Personality of the Gifted, Individual Differences, and Gender-Related Issues 19 Personality Qualities That Help or Hinder Gifted and Talented Individuals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421 Reva Friedman-Nimz and Olha Skyba 20 Emotional Life and Psychotherapy of the Gifted in Light of Dabrowski’s Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437 P. Susan Jackson, Vicky F. Moyle and Michael M. Piechowski 21 On Individual Differences in Giftedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467 Andrzej Sekowski, Malgorzata Siekanska and Waldemar Klinkosz 22 A Theory of Talent Development in Women of Accomplishment . . . . . . 487 Sally M. Reis and Erin E. Sullivan
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Part VI Twice-Exceptional Gifted Individuals and Suicide-Related Issues 23 Twice Exceptional: Multiple Pathways to Success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507 Judy L. Lupart and Royal E. Toy 24 Gifted Learners Who Drop Out: Prevalence and Prevention . . . . . . . . . 527 Michael S. Matthews 25 Understanding Suicidal Behavior of Gifted Students: Theory, Factors, and Cultural Expectations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537 Laurie A. Hyatt and Tracy L. Cross Part VII Types of Giftedness 26 In Search of Emotional–Social Giftedness: A Potentially Viable and Valuable Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 559 Reuven Bar-On and Jacobus G. (Kobus) Maree 27 The Two Pioneers of Research on Creative Giftedness: Calvin W. Taylor and E. Paul Torrance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 571 Kyung Hee Kim 28 Creative Giftedness: Beginnings, Developments, and Future Promises . 585 James C. Kaufman, Scott B. Kaufman, Ronald A. Beghetto, Sarah A. Burgess and Roland S. Persson 29 Imaginary Worldplay as an Indicator of Creative Giftedness . . . . . . . . . 599 Michele Root-Bernstein 30 Development of Gifted Motivation: Longitudinal Research and Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 617 Adele Eskeles Gottfried and Allen W. Gottfried 31 Leadership Giftedness: Is It Innate or Can It Be Developed? . . . . . . . . . 633 Karen B. Rogers Part VIII Domain-Specific and Multiple Giftedness 32 Scientific Talent: The Case of Nobel Laureates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 649 Larisa V. Shavinina 33 Understanding Mathematical Giftedness: Integrating Self, Action Repertoires and the Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 671 Shane N. Phillipson and Rosemary Callingham 34 Cinema Talent: Individual and Collective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 699 Dean Keith Simonton
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35 Reading, Writing, and Raising the Bar: Exploring Gifts and Talents in Literacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 713 Rachel Schnur and Sarah G. Marmor 36 The Elusive Muse: Understanding Musical Giftedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 727 Roland S. Persson 37 Giftedness and Talent in Sport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 751 Jacques H.A. van Rossum 38 On Entrepreneurial Giftedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 793 Larisa V. Shavinina 39 Ilk Hunting: Newbies, Cyberpunks, Coders and the Search for Elusive, Ego-Twisted, Talented Computer Hackers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 809 Thomas E. Heinzen and Louis M. Picciano 40 What Makes a Gifted Educator? A Design for Development . . . . . . . . . . 825 Marion Porath 41 Understanding Managerial Talent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 839 Larisa V. Shavinina and Marianna Medvid 42 Multiple Giftedness in Adults: The Case of Polymaths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 853 Robert Root-Bernstein Part IX Giftedness, Society, and Economy 43 Families of Gifted Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 873 Abraham Reichenberg and Erika Landau 44 Large-Scale Socioeconomic, Political, and Cultural Influences on Giftedness and Talent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 885 Don Ambrose 45 Gifts, Talents, and Their Societal Repercussions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 905 Dean Keith Simonton 46 The Unwanted Gifted and Talented: A Sociobiological Perspective of the Societal Functions of Giftedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 913 Roland S. Persson 47 On Giftedness and Economy: The Impact of Talented Individuals on the Global Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 925 Larisa V. Shavinina
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Part X Assessment and Identification of Giftedness 48 The Measurement of Giftedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 947 Linda Kreger Silverman 49 Identifying Academically Talented Students: Some General Principles, Two Specific Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 971 David F. Lohman 50 The Johns Hopkins Talent Search Model for Identifying and Developing Exceptional Mathematical and Verbal Abilities . . . . . . . . . 999 Linda E. Brody 51 A New Approach to the Identification of Intellectually Gifted Individuals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1017 Larisa V. Shavinina Part XI Recent Advances in Gifted Education 52 New Developments in Gifted Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1035 Gary A. Davis 53 The English Model of Gifted Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1045 Deborah Eyre 54 Enhancing Creativity in Curriculum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1061 Joyce VanTassel-Baska and Bronwyn MacFarlane 55 Acceleration: Meeting the Academic and Social Needs of Students . . . 1085 Nicholas Colangelo and Susan Assouline 56 Teaching for Wisdom in Public Schools to Promote Personal Giftedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1099 Michel Ferrari 57 DISCOVER/TASC : An Approach to Teaching and Learning That Is Inclusive Yet Maximises Opportunities for Differentiation According to Pupils’ Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1113 B. Wallace and C. J. Maker 58 Future Problem Solving in Gifted Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1143 Bonnie L. Cramond 59 Practical Intelligence and Wisdom in Gifted Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1157 Mary Anne Heng and Kai Yung (Brian) Tam 60 Recent Developments in Technology: Implications for Gifted Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1173 Michael C. Pyryt†
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61 High Intellectual and Creative Educational Multimedia Technologies for the Gifted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1181 Larisa V. Shavinina 62 A Technology-Based Application of the Schoolwide Enrichment Model and High-End Learning Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1203 Joseph S. Renzulli and Sally M. Reis 63 The Iowa Online Advanced Placement Academy: Creating Access to Excellence for Gifted and Talented Rural Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1225 Clar M. Baldus, Susan G. Assouline, Laurie J. Croft and Nicholas Colangelo 64 On Bringing Interdisciplinary Ideas to Gifted Education . . . . . . . . . . . 1235 Bharath Sriraman and Bettina Dahl 65 Innovation Education for the Gifted: A New Direction in Gifted Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1257 Larisa V. Shavinina 66 Dual-Language Gifted Education and Its Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1269 Ernesto M. Bernal and Jaime H. Garc´ıa 67 Observed Trends and Needed Trends in Gifted Education . . . . . . . . . . 1285 Michael F. Shaughnessy and Roland S. Persson Part XII Policy Implications and Legal Issues in Gifted Education 68 United States Policy Development in Gifted Education: A Patchwork Quilt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1295 Joyce VanTassel-Baska 69 Identifying and Developing Talent in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM): An Agenda for Research, Policy, and Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1313 Rena Subotnik, Martin Orland, Kristin Rayhack, Julie Schuck, Ashley Edmiston, Janice Earle, Edward Crowe, Pat Johnson, Tom Carroll, Daniel Berch and Bruce Fuchs 70 Gifted Education and Legal Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1327 Frances A. Karnes and Kristen R. Stephens Part XIII Giftedness Research and Gifted Education Around the World: Institutional and Regional Examples 71 Swimming in Deep Waters: 20 Years of Research About Early University Entrance at the University of Washington . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1345 Kathleen D. Noble and Sarah A. Childers
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72 How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall? Gifted Education in New York City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1365 Dona J. Matthews 73 London Gifted and Talented: A Case Study in High Challenge Urban Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1385 Ian Warwick 74 Giftedness and Diversity: Research and Education in Africa . . . . . . . . 1409 Jacobus Gideon (Kobus) Maree and Carol Noˆela van der Westhuizen 75 Recent Developments in Gifted Education in East Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1427 Shane N. Phillipson, Jiannong Shi, Guofeng Zhang, Den-Mo Tsai, Chwee Geok Quek, Nobutaka Matsumura and Seokhee Cho 76 Gifted Education in the Arabian Gulf and the Middle Eastern Regions: History, Current Practices, New Directions, and Future Trends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1463 Taisir Subhi-Yamin 77 Gifted Education and Research on Giftedness in South America . . . . . 1491 Eunice M.L. Soriano de Alencar, Denise de Souza Fleith and Violeta Arancibia Part XIV Conclusions 78 Research on Giftedness in the 21st Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1509 Albert Ziegler Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1525 Subject Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1529
About the Authors
Don Ambrose is Professor of Graduate Education and Coordinator of the Center for Innovative Instruction at Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, editor of the journal Roeper Review, and past chair of the Conceptual Foundations Division of the National Association for Gifted Children. His scholarship includes theoretical syntheses and philosophical analyses based on a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary search for theories, philosophical perspectives, and research findings that challenge, refine, and expand thinking about the development of creative intelligence. Violeta Arancibia, Ph.D., is Professor of Talent Education and Educational Psychology at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Catholic University of Chile. She is the Director of the Center of Studies and Development of Talent PENTAUC, Consultant for the World Bank and UNESCO. She was a visiting scholar at Harvard University, Nigmegen University, and at the PACE Center at Yale University. Susan G. Assouline is the Associate Director of the Belin-Blank Center and has an appointment as a Clinical Associate Professor in school psychology. She received her Ph.D. from The University of Iowa and was awarded a 2-year post-doctoral fellowship at the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY) at Johns Hopkins University. She joined the Belin-Blank Center in 1990. Dr. Assouline is co-author (with Ann Lupkowski-Shoplik) of Developing Math Talent: A Guide for Educating Gifted and Advanced Learners in Math. As well, she is co-developer of the Iowa Acceleration Scale, a tool designed to guide educators and parents through decisions about grade-skipping students. In 2004, she co-authored, with Nicholas Colangelo and Miraca U. M. Gross, A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America’s Brightest Students. Currently, she is lead investigator on the Center’s study on twice-exceptional children and in 2005 she received the University of Iowa Board of Regents Staff Excellence Award. Clar M. Baldus is the administrator for Rural Schools (the Iowa Online Advanced Placement Academy), Inventiveness (Invent Iowa), and Visual Arts Programs at the Belin-Blank Center. In addition, she has an appointment as Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychological and Quantitative Foundations in the University of Iowa College of Education. She earned her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology (with emphasis in visual/spatial abilities) at the University of Iowa. Her extensive teaching experience includes many years of working with students at the elementary, secondary, post-secondary, and professional development levels. Her teaching and xix
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research has been guided by her commitment to talent development, interest in creative processes, and passion for art. Since joining the Belin-Blank Center in 2000, her responsibilities also include gifted education presentations at various state and national conferences. In 2004 she received the Professional Achievement Alumni Award, Mount Mercy College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Marion A. Barfurth is an Assistant Professor in Technology and Learning at the University of Ottawa. She received her B.A. in Mathematics and Economics in 1980 from Concordia University. After working for 4 years as an economist, in 1987 she obtained her Masters in the Teaching of Mathematics also from Concordia University. Her research at that time was already rooted in emerging technologies and cognition. In 1996, Marion completed her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology at McGill University. Over the past 20 years Marion’s research has addressed the areas of computer-supported collaborative learning and the evaluation and research of innovative technologies for the professional development of teachers in a broad range of subject areas. Reuven Bar-On began working as a clinical psychologist in 1972. He earned his doctorate at Rhodes University in South Africa and currently holds a professorship at the University of Pretoria and an adjunct faculty appointment at the University of Texas Medical Branch where he directs research on emotional intelligence and lectures on the topic. Professor Bar-On is a world-renowned expert and pioneer in emotional intelligence and has been involved in defining, measuring, and applying this construct since 1980. The “Bar-On model of emotional intelligence” is described as one of three leading conceptualizations of this construct today. Dr. Bar-On coined the term “EQ” in 1985 and created four different measures of emotional intelligence including the EQ-i, EQ-i:YV, EQ-360, and EQ-interview. He has authored or co-authored over 30 publications, including three books, on various aspects of emotional intelligence. He also co-developed the first Internet-delivered training program designed to enhance emotional intelligence. Ronald A. Beghetto is an Associate Professor of Educational Studies at the University of Oregon. He received his Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from Indiana University. His program of research examines the schooling experience in relation to creativity, motivation, and teacher development. He received the 2008 Daniel E. Berlyne Award from Division 10 of the American Psychological Association and has also received numerous awards for teaching excellence, including the 2006 Ersted “Crystal Apple” Award from the University of Oregon. Daniel B. Berch is Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education. Previously, he served as Associate Chief of the Child Development and Behavior Branch at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH, where in addition, he directed the Program in Mathematics and Science Cognition and Learning. Dr. Berch also spent a year as a Senior Research Associate at the U.S. Department of Education, advising the Assistant Secretary for Educational Research and Improvement on technical and policy matters. He has published articles on children’s numerical cognition and mathematical learning disabilities. Dr. Berch is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association’s Division of Experimental Psychology, a member of the
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National Center for Learning Disabilities Professional Advisory Board, and served as an ex officio member of the U.S. Department of Education’s National Mathematics Advisory Panel. Ernesto M. Bernal received a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Texas. He has been a classroom teacher of the gifted, a school administrator in two private schools for the gifted, a researcher, and a professor and administrator in public institutions of higher education in the Southwest. Currently Dr. Bernal works as an educational consultant to school districts and has been an external evaluator to complex educational projects, including the dual-language gifted education program (a Javits project) in El Paso I.S.D., the AP Initiative project in Austin I.S.D., and most recently the AP Initiative project in the Arizona Department of Education. Linda E. Brody, Ph.D., is the Director of the Study of Exceptional Talent (SET) at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth (CTY). An outgrowth of Julian Stanley’s Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY), SET serves students with exceptional mathematical and/or verbal abilities through its counseling and research efforts. In addition, SET publishes Imagine, a magazine for gifted students, and produces Cogito.org, a website for students with high abilities and interests in mathematics and the sciences. Linda also co-directs CTY’s Diagnostic and Counseling Center, which provides individual assessment and counseling and specializes in the needs of twice-exceptional students. Her research interests focus on special populations of gifted students including the highly gifted, gifted females, and twice-exceptional students. She has published several books and numerous book chapters and articles, presents regularly at professional conferences, and has taught graduate courses in gifted education at John Hopkins. Sarah Burgess is a graduate student at California State University at San Bernardino. She recently earned her B.S. in psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Her current research interests include the relationship between classic decision-making models and current theories of creativity. Rosemary Callingham, Ph.D., is a senior lecturer in mathematics education at the University of New England, Australia. She has an extensive background in mathematics education, including teaching in middle-years classrooms, school mathematics curriculum design and implementation, and large-scale testing programs. She holds a Ph.D. in mathematics assessment and educational measurement. Her research interests include statistical literacy, mental computation, and assessment of mathematics using Rasch measurement techniques. In 2006 she was awarded a Cheung Kong Endeavour Fellowship, which she undertook at the Hong Kong Institute of Education. She is currently involved in several mathematics education research projects in different parts of Australia and Korea. Thomas G. Carroll is President of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. In that capacity he leads NCTAF’s efforts to improve teaching quality by empowering educators to transform their schools into 21st century learning organizations. He founded the Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology, “PT3,” program, and created the Technology Innovation Challenge Grants Program at the U.S. Ed. He was the first Director of Technology Planning and Evaluation for
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the E-Rate program. He served as Deputy Director of the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, prior to which he was Director of the National Research Centers and Regional Laboratories program at the National Institute of Education (NIE). He holds a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from SUNY, Buffalo, and taught as an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Education at Clark University. He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in community development in Lesotho from 1967 to 1969. Seokhee Cho is an Associate Professor at St. John’s University, New York. Dr. Cho got her B.A. and M.A. from Ewha Womans University, Korea, and Ph.D. from the University of Alberta, Canada. She established the Korean gifted education system during her service as the Director General of the National Research Center for Gifted Education at the Korean Educational Development Institute in 1987–2007. She served as the President of Asia Pacific Federation of the World Council for the Gifted and Talented (WCGTC) in 2004–2006. She is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the AP Journal of Gifted and Talented Education by the Asia Pacific Federation of WCGTC and the Journal of Gifted/Talented Education by the Korean Society for the Gifted. Dr. Cho’s contribution was recognized by the Korean National Merit of Civil Service in 2004, and by the Award for Recognition of the Excellence by the University of Alberta Alumni Association in 2006. Sarah A. Childers has a Master’s degree in Women Studies and is a doctoral student in Educational Psychology at the University of Washington (UW). She is the Assistant Director for the UW Academy for Young Scholars and had been the Graduate Research and Teaching Assistant for the Robinson Center for the preceding 2 years. Nicholas Colangelo is the Myron & Jacqueline Blank Professor of Gifted Education at The University of Iowa and Director of the Belin-Blank Center. He has edited two texts: New Voices in Counseling the Gifted (with Ronald Zaffrann) and Handbook of Gifted Education, Editions I, II, and III (with Gary Davis). He has authored A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America’s Brightest Students (with Susan Assouline and Miraca Gross). He has served on the editorial boards of major gifted and counseling journals. In 1991, he was presented with the Distinguished Scholar Award by the National Association for Gifted Children; in 1995, he received the Alumni Achievement Award presented by the School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 2002, he received the President’s Award from the National Association for Gifted Children, and, in 2007, he was selected as the Association Editor for the National Association for Gifted Children. Bonnie L. Cramond, Ph.D., is a Professor and the Director of the Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development in the Department of Educational Psychology and Instructional Technology at the University of Georgia. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Association for Gifted Children, former editor of the Journal of Secondary Gifted Education, on the review board for several other journals, a former schoolteacher, and a survivor of parenting two gifted and creative people. An international and national speaker, she has published numerous articles, a book on creativity research, and teaches classes on giftedness and creativity. She is particularly interested in the identification and nurturance of creativity, especially
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among students considered at risk because of their different way of thinking, such as those misdiagnosed with ADHD, emotional problems, or those who drop out. Laurie J. Croft is the administrator for professional development at the Belin-Blank Center. She earned her Ph.D. in Educational Leadership at the University of Tulsa, emphasizing gifted programming. Research interests include the conceptual foundations of gifted education and professional development for teachers of the gifted. Dr. Croft has made presentations at various state, national, and international conferences, and to parent groups, teachers, and school boards. As well, she has experience facilitating professional development in gifted education for educators from around the world. At the Belin-Blank Center, Dr. Croft is responsible for coordinating the comprehensive program of coursework in gifted education that enable educators to earn an endorsement in gifted education. She supervises practicum experiences for teachers of the gifted, develops new professional educational opportunities for teachers, including the annual Advanced Placement Teacher Training Institute in Iowa, and teaches courses in curriculum concepts and in program models in gifted education. Tracy L. Cross, Ph.D., is the George and Frances Ball Distinguished Professor of Gifted Studies, the Associate Dean for Graduate Studies, Research, and Assessment for Teachers College at Ball State University (BSU). For 9 years he served BSU as the Executive Director of the Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics and Humanities. Dr. Cross has published over 100 articles, book chapters, and columns, as well as co-authored textbooks Being Gifted in School: An Introduction to Development, Guidance and Teaching and On the Social and Emotional Lives of Gifted Kids. He is the editor of the Journal for the Education of the Gifted and editor emeritus of the Roeper Review, Gifted Child Quarterly, Journal of Secondary Gifted Education, Research Briefs, and others. He served as president of The Association for the Gifted of the Council for Exceptional Children, was on the Executive Committee and the Board of National Association for Gifted Children. Edward Crowe is senior adviser for higher education programs at the Carnegie Corporation of New York. One of his responsibilities there is to direct the program of technical assistance support for the Teachers for a New Era Program. Dr. Crowe also provides consulting services on teacher quality and K-16 policy issues for several other organizations and projects. He was the first director of the Title II Teacher Quality Enhancement Program for the U.S. Department of Education. In earlier work, Dr. Crowe acquired extensive experience in state higher education policy, with the Office of the President of the University of North Carolina system, as senior staff to the state higher education coordinating board in Arkansas. He was principal investigator of a statewide math and science education systemic initiative reform project funded by the National Science Foundation. Dr. Crowe is co-editor (with Rena Subotnik) of the forthcoming book series Levers of Change in Education. He is a graduate of Boston College and holds masters and doctoral degrees in political science from UNC-Chapel Hill. David Yun Dai is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology, State University of New York at Albany. He received his Ph.D. in psychology from Purdue University and worked as a postdoctoral
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fellow at the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented at University of Connecticut. Dr. Dai was the recipient of the Early Scholar Award in 2006 from the National Association for Gifted Children. He has published two books and over 50 journal articles, book chapters, and reviews. Dr. Dai’s current research interests include the psychology of talent development and foundational issues regarding gifted education. He is also interested in developing a more functional perspective on intelligence and intellectual functioning that integrates cognition, motivation, and emotion. Janet E. Davidson, Ph.D., is Associate Professor and Chair of Psychology at Lewis & Clark College, where she won the Professor of the Year award in 1997. Her Ph.D. is from Yale University (1989). She does research on several aspects of giftedness, including the roles that insight and metacognitive skills play in problem solving performance. In 1988, she won a Mensa Education and Research Foundation Award for Excellence. She and Robert J. Sternberg have edited three books, Conceptions of giftedness (1986; 2005), The nature of insight (1995), and The psychology of problem solving (2003). Gary A. Davis, Ph.D., is Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he teaches courses in creativity and gifted education. He is author of numerous articles in the areas of creativity, moral education, and effective schooling, and of many books, including Education of the Gifted and Talented (with Sylvia Rimm), Handbook of Gifted Education (with Nick Colangelo), Creativity Is Forever, Psychology of Problem Solving, Training Creative Thinking, Creative Teaching of Values and Moral Thinking, and Effective Schools and Effective Teachers. He is a reviewer, consulting editor, and editorial board member for several creativity and gifted education journals. Janice Earle has been at the National Science Foundation since 1991. She currently serves as the Cluster Lead for the Knowledge Building Cluster in the Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR) new Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (DRL). The Knowledge Building Cluster includes the Research and Evaluation on Education in Science and Engineering (REESE) program, the Foundation’s primary education research program. Dr. Earle holds a Ph.D. in education policy from the University of Maryland. Ashley Edmiston is the Administrative Coordinator for the Center of Psychology in Schools and Education. She provides project-based support for the Center’s Coalition for Psychology in Schools and Education along with its various task forces. Ashley also serves as Project Director for the Catalyst Project, a year long mentoring program in Chemistry and the Arts, housed in the Center for Gifted Education Policy. Ashley holds a B.S. in Psychological Science from the University of Westminster in London, UK. K. Anders Ericsson, Ph.D., is the Conradi Eminent Scholar and Professor of Psychology at Florida State University. After his Ph.D. in Sweden, he collaborated with Herbert A. Simon on verbal reports of thinking and wrote Protocol Analysis: Verbal Reports as Data (1984). Currently he studies the cognitive structure of expert
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performance in domains such as music, chess, and sports, and how expert performers attain their superior performance by acquiring complex cognitive mechanisms and physiological adaptations through extended deliberate practice. He edited Toward a General Theory of Expertise (1991), The Road to Excellence: The acquisition of expert performance in the arts and sciences, sports, and games (1996), Expert Performance in Sports (2001), and Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance (2006). He is a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences of the American Psychological Association (Division 3) and the Association for Psychological Science. Deborah Eyre, Ph.D., is Vice President of the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children, the former Director of the UK government’s flagship National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth, and Professor of Education at the University of Warwick. She has worked in gifted education for 28 years in various leadership roles. She now plays pivotal role in shaping national education policy in this field in England and internationally. She is particularly known for her book for teachers, Able Children in Ordinary Schools. Deborah holds academic positions at the University of Oxford, Oxford Brookes University, and Hong Kong Institute of Education. She serves on various national and international boards including the UK Teacher Development Agency, The National College for School Leadership, Inspiring Futures Foundation Centre for Talented Youth, Johns Hopkins University. Deborah is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Kyung Hee Kim, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the School of Education, the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia. She obtained a Ph.D. in Gifted and Creative Education in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. Her research interests includes the nature of creativity (by comparing with intelligence, achievement, etc.), characteristics of creatively gifted students (and identifying creative students for gifted programs), assessment of creativity (including validity studies for creativity tests), and nurturance of creativity. Dr. Kim received awards for her outstanding research from Eastern Michigan University in 2007 and 2008; the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) in 2005; the American Creativity Association (ACA) in 2005; and the International Council of Psychologists (ICP) in 2004. Michel Ferrari, Ph.D., is Associate Professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. He is interested in conscious personal development, especially in ways to encourage optimal or exceptional, transformative development. He has edited books with Roger Taylor (Evolution, Epistemology and Science Education; in press, Taylor & Francis), Ljiljana Vuletic (Developmental Relations Between Mind, Brain, & Education: Essays in Honour of Robbie Case; in press, Springer), Georges Potworowski (Teaching for Wisdom; 2008, Springer), Larisa V. Shavinina (Beyond Knowledge; 2004, Erlbaum), and Robert Sternberg (Self-Awareness; 1998, Guilford). He is preparing a special issue of the History of the Human Sciences on the history of the science of consciousness. In terms of research, he is currently leading an international team studying personal wisdom in several countries around the world, including China, Ukraine, Pakistan, the United States, and Canada.
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Reva Friedman-Nimz, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Curriculum and Teaching at the University of Kansas, where she has been responsible for degree and graduate certificate programs in gifted child education for nearly 30 years. A former high school social studies teacher and elementary gifted program facilitator, she continues to work with bright youngsters and their families, and to collaborate with teachers K-12. Her most recent books are Talent in Context (edited with Karen B. Rogers) and Talents Unfolding (edited with Bruce M. Shore), both published by the American Psychological Association. She is Co-Chair of the National Association for Gifted Children’s Work Group on needs of Gifted/Talented Sexually Diverse Students. Her research interests center on the psychological factors that impact talent development, particularly self-perceptions and motivation, and on inclusive education models that emphasize students’ talents and strengths. She publishes and presents papers and workshops on these topics. Bruce A. Fuchs is currently the Director of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Office of Science Education (OSE). He is responsible for monitoring a range of science education policy issues and providing advice to NIH leadership. Dr. Fuchs serves on the Education Subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) and on working groups of the Department of Education’s Academic Competitiveness Council (ACC). He was a member of the K-12 education focus group for the National Academy of Science’s report Rising Above the Gathering Storm. (The Gathering Storm report led the President to propose the American Competitiveness Initiative during his 2006 State of the Union speech.) For a number of years Dr. Fuchs was the NIH representative to the Department of Education’s National Education Research Policy and Priorities Board (NERPPB). That experience led to his continuing interest in the debate over how to make educational research more effective. Franc¸oys Gagn´e, a French Canadian from Montr´eal, obtained his Ph.D. in Educational Psychology (1966) at l’Universit´e de Montr´eal. After devoting a decade to the study of student evaluations of teaching, Professor Gagn´e spent the rest of his career in the Department of Psychology at l’Universit´e du Qu´ebec a` Montr´eal (UQAM). He soon adopted giftedness as his field of study, a field in which he has published extensively on theoretical matters, peer identification, and motivational issues. He is better known for his Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent (DMGT), which has been endorsed by educational authorities in many countries. Dr. Gagn´e has won major awards in the field of gifted education, among them NAGC’s Distinguished Scholar Award (1996). Since retiring in 2001, Dr. Gagn´e has maintained international publishing and keynoting activities. Jaime H. Garc´ıa, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas at Brownsville. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Georgia where he also worked with the National Research Center for the Gifted and Talented. Dr. Garc´ıa has served on the Editorial Advisory Board of Roeper Review and has served on the Board of the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies as Regional Representative and Treasurer. His research interests include bilingual gifted education, the role of language and acculturation in creativity, and socio-cultural issues in schools. Currently, Dr. Garc´ıa is developing a photo-voice
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project to have children and youth in one of the most economically depressed communities of the United States document the strengths and needs of their neighborhood. John G. Geake, Ph.D., is Professor of Education, Westminster Institute of Education, and Academic Research Collaborator at the Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain, University of Oxford, UK. He leads the Institute’s research developments in gifted education and educational neuroscience. Dr. Geake’s research has examined the neuropsychology of musical and mathematical giftedness and talent. His current functional imaging research focuses on the neural foundations of high creative intelligence. Dr. Geake is founding convenor of the Oxford Cognitive Neuroscience Education Forum. He has presented keynote addresses to conferences in the UK, USA, Europe, Australia, and Asia, and has written hundreds of academic and professional publications. Before moving to Oxford, Dr. Geake was Head of the Gifted Development Unit, University of Melbourne, and Co-editor of the Australasian Journal of Gifted Education. In 2002 Dr. Geake was named Eminent Australian by the AAEGT. Adele Eskeles Gottfried, Ph.D., is Professor at the Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling, California State University, Northridge (CSUN), and a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Center for Teaching and Learning at CSUN, recipient of the MENSA Award for Excellence in Research, and was Invited Speaker for the Esther Katz Rosen Annual Lecture at the 2001 Annual Meeting. She is the author of the Children’s Academic Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (Psychological Assessment Resources), which is widely used in research and educational practice nationally and internationally, co-author of the book Academic Motivation and the Culture of School in Childhood and Adolescence (Oxford, 2008), and has published numerous books, chapters, and articles. She serves on the editorial boards of several scientific journals. Allen W. Gottfried, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology, California State University, Fullerton, and Director of the Fullerton Longitudinal Study. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, and the Western Psychological Association. His research interests encompass home/family environment-development relations, the developmental course of giftedness, and longitudinal research. He is the author of numerous books and articles including Gifted IQ: Early Developmental Aspects (Plenum) and Temperament: Infancy Through Adolescence—The Fullerton Longitudinal Study (Kluwer). He has served on the editorial boards of many developmental journals. Miraca U. M. Gross, Ph.D., is Professor of Gifted Education and Director of the Gifted Education Research, Resource and Information Centre (GERRIC) at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Miraca has won six international research awards in the education and psychology of the gifted, the most recent being the 2005 Distinguished Scholar Award from the American National Association for Gifted Children. Her research interests in gifted education include ability grouping, acceleration, socio-affective development, and the highly gifted. She is a regular keynote and invited presenter at international educational conferences. She served
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on the Executive of the World Council for Gifted Education from 1995 to 1999. Recently, for the John Templeton Foundation of Pennsylvania, she co-authored a major international report on acceleration: A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America’s Brightest Students. In 2003 she was awarded the Sir Harold Wyndham Medal for service to Australia. Mary Anne Heng, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning at the Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice in the National Institute of Education (NIE), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Prior to her current position, she was Head of Early Childhood and Special Needs Education at the NIE. Her research interests are in the education of highly able learners, curriculum development and implementation, teacher education, and higher education. Thomas E. Heinzen, Ph.D., is a Professor of Psychology at the William Paterson State University of New Jersey, author of several books ranging from the collected poetry of the frail elderly (Many Things to Tell You, Seaburn) to a statistics textbook (Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences, Worth). In addition to clinical and statistical consulting, he has published numerous journal articles and sponsored many student papers and presentations. Nancy B. Hertzog, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Special Education and the Director of University Primary School at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has studied teachers’ implementation of the Project Approach in classrooms with both high-achieving and low-achieving children. She has been the Chair of the Early Childhood Division of the National Association for Gifted Children and served as Co-Chair of the Education Commission of the National Association for Gifted Children. Dr. Hertzog has written web-based curricular guides that detail project investigations of preschool, kindergarten, and first grade students that have won national recognition from the National Association for Gifted Children. She has published in the Journal of Curriculum Studies, Gifted Child Quarterly, Journal for the Education of the Gifted, Roeper Review, Teaching Exceptional Children, Early Childhood Research and Practice, and Young Exceptional Children. Laurie A. Hyatt, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Barton College in North Carolina. For 10 years, she maintained a private practice working with adolescents and adults as a Licensed Professional Counselor in Georgia. She is the author of the self-help book Tools for Living: Taking Control of Your Life (2001). Her doctoral dissertation, titled Suicide and the Gifted Adolescent: A Psychological Autopsy was a case study of a gifted adolescent female who took her life. She has presented her work at various conferences including the National Association for Gifted Children and Social and Emotional Needs of Gifted. Julie A. Irving is a doctoral candidate in the Counseling Psychology program at McGill University. She received her B.A. in psychology and M.A. in Counseling Psychology, both from McGill. She is currently working on her doctoral dissertation, funded by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council doctoral award. Her research explores the process mechanisms of engagement in a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program for physicians. The project aims to elucidate if and how
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About the Authors
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proposed processes including attention and meta-cognition enhance clinicians’ well-being, capacity to cope with stress, and clinical work with patients. Julie currently enjoys working as a research assistant in the department of Educational and Counseling Psychology with Dr. Shore’s High Ability Research Lab and as a student collaborator at McGill Programs in Whole Person Care in the Faculty of Medicine. P. Susan Jackson, Ph.D., is the Founder and Therapeutic Director of The Daimon Institute for the Highly Gifted in White Rock, British Columbia (BC), Canada. She is also the District Coordinator of Programs to Support Gifted and Talented Students in Langley, BC, Canada. She has extensive educational and mental health response background in all areas of gifted education. Her research interests and clinical experience focus on the mental health and development of highly and profoundly gifted learners. She is an internationally recognized speaker and consultant who specializes in advanced development and differential diagnosis for disintegrative states such as depression and anxiety. Sue has great interest in dual exceptionalities and advanced personality development. She has studied both Jung and Dabrowski extensively. Sue is a poet, a nature lover, and mother of two highly gifted children. M. Layne Kalbfleisch, Ph.D., has been the Pomata Term Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study and College of Education and Human Development at George Mason University since 2003. She is also adjunct faculty in the Department of Pediatrics at The George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Dually trained as an educational psychologist and cognitive neuroscientist, she examines the relationship between attention and reasoning across the lifespan and in special populations. Her laboratory, KIDLAB, has two transdisciplinary aims to (1) elucidate neural patterns of twice exceptionality (high-ability individuals with ADHD, dyslexia, high-functioning autism) using fMRI and (2) invent paradigms to make fMRI a more ecologically valid measure of behavior. She is also the Director of MRI Safety and Operations at GMU where she led the design, engineering, and building of George Mason’s MRI program and facility at the Krasnow Institute. Frances A. Karnes, Ph.D., is Professor of curriculum, instruction, and special education at The University of Southern Mississippi and Director of the Frances A. Karnes Center for Gifted Studies. She is widely known for her research, writing, innovative program developments, and service activities in gifted education and leadership training. She is the author or co-author of more than 200 articles and co-author of 42 books on gifted education and related areas. She is the former president of The Association for the Gifted, and is the founder and first president of the Mississippi Association for Gifted Children. Honors include an honorary doctor of education degree from her alma mater Quincy University and an award presented by the Mississippi Legislature for outstanding contributions to academic excellence in higher education. She has received the Power of One Award bestowed by the governor of Mississippi and was named one of 50 female business leaders by the Mississippi Business Journal. James C. Kaufman, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at the California State University at San Bernardino, where he directs the Learning Research Institute. Dr. Kaufman’s research focuses on the nurturance, structure, and assessment of
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creativity. Kaufman is the author or editor of 15 books either published or in press. These include Essentials of Creativity Assessment (with Jonathan Plucker and John Baer), International Handbook of Creativity (with Robert Sternberg), and Applied Intelligence (with Robert Sternberg and Elena Grigorenko). His research has been featured on CNN, NPR, The New York Times, and the BBC. Kaufman is a founding co-editor of the official journal for APA’s Division 10, Psychology, Aesthetics, and the Arts. He is also the Associate Editor of Journal of Creativity Behavior, the incoming editor of International Journal of Creativity and Problem Solving, and is the Series Editor of the “Psych 101” series from Springer Publishing. He received the 2003 Daniel E. Berlyne Award from APA’s Division 10. Scott B. Kaufman is a final year doctoral candidate in cognitive psychology at Yale University with an interest in the nature, measurement, evolution, and development of human abilities such as intelligence and creativity. In addition to publishing numerous articles in professional journals relating to intelligence, creativity, and giftedness, he is the co-editor of two books: Psychology of Creative Writing (with James Kaufman) and The Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence (with Robert J. Sternberg). He holds undergraduate degrees in Psychology, Human Computer Interaction, and Music from Carnegie Mellon University, where he worked with the late Nobel laureate Herbert Simon. He also holds a Masters degree in Experimental Psychology from Cambridge University, where he studied under the tutelage of Nicholas Mackintosh after receiving the Gates Cambridge Scholarship. Waldemar Klinkosz, Ph.D., is a lecturer at the Institute of Psychology at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland, and a member of the European Association of Personality Psychology. He conducts research in the area of the psychology of individual differences (i.e., achievement, abilities, personality, and motivation). He is interested in methodology of psychology and testing the psychometric properties of psychological tests translated at the Department of Psychology of Individual Differences. In 1998–2007, he co-operated with Prof. Dr. A. Angleitner, Chair of Psychology of Personality and Individual Differences at the University of Bielefeld, Germany. He has participated in comparative and inter-cultural studies coordinated by Prof. Dr. R. R. McCrae and by Dr. F. De Fruyt. He has published in Polish and foreign journals including Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Science, and Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness. Linda Kreger Silverman, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical and counseling psychologist, who has contributed over 300 publications to the field, including the textbooks, Counseling the Gifted & Talented, and Upside-Down Brilliance: The Visual-Spatial Learner. She founded and directs the Institute for the Study of Advanced Development, and its subsidiaries, the Gifted Development Center (www.gifteddevelopment.com), which has assessed over 5,400 children in the last 29 years, and Visual-Spatial Resource (www.visualspatial.org). For 9 years, she served on the faculty of the University of Denver in counseling psychology and gifted education. Co-Chair of America’s NAGC Task Force on Assessment, she also co-chaired the first symposium on assessment of the gifted in conjunction with the World Council for Gifted Children Conference. Advising major testing companies, she was a member of the expert Advisory Panel for the Stanford-Binet Intelligence
About the Authors
About the Authors
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Scale, Fifth Edition, and she has been instrumental in the development of extended norms for the WISC-IV. Erika Landau holds Ph.D. in Psychology and Art History. Her dissertation Psychology of Creativity, one of the first books on this topic in Europe and in Israel, was published in four editions in German and translated into five languages. In 1969 Dr. Landau founded and directs since then the Young Persons’ Institute for the Promotion of Creativity and Excellence (Y.P.I.P.C.E.), Technical College, Tel Aviv University. This Institute provides an enrichment program for gifted and talented children and youth (aged 5–15). Dr. Landau’s book The Courage to Be Gifted has been published in 10 languages throughout the world. She has been also working at the Institute for Psychotherapy and the Medical School of the Tel Aviv University. She works as a psychotherapist with adults as well. Dr. Landau is a prolific writer in her fields of interest: psychotherapy, creativity, giftedness, and excellence. David F. Lohman is Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Iowa. He was a Fulbright Fellow, a recipient of the University of Iowa Regents Award for Faculty Excellence, and of the Distinguished Scholar award from NAGC. He currently directs the Institute for Research and Policy on Acceleration at the Belin-Blank Center. David is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and of the American Psychological Society, a member of the Committee on Tests and Assessments of the American Psychological Association, and Chair of the Design and Analysis Committee for the National Assessment of Educational Progress. His research has focused on the development psychological models ability constructs, particularly spatial and reasoning abilities. Since 1998, he has worked with Elizabeth Hagen on the Cognitive Abilities Test. Much of his recent research has concerned procedures for identifying academically gifted children, especially those who have historically been under-represented in programs for the gifted. Judy L. Lupart, Ph.D., is a Professor and Canada Research Chair in Special Education, beginning January 2003, in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Alberta. She has served as the Founding Director of the University of Calgary Centre for Gifted Education, and the Founding Editor of the journal Exceptionality Education Canada. Her research, publication, and teaching interests include inclusive education and school transformation; cognition, transfer, and educational applications; learning disabilities, giftedness, and at-risk learners; and girls, women, and achievement. She is currently involved in five major research projects on (1) gender differences in achievement, anticipated adult life-roles, and career choice and science, (2) first steps toward inclusive education in Ukraine, (3) inclusive education in a regional Alberta school district, (4) Alberta student assessment study, and (5) characteristics of effective teaching practices in inclusive classrooms. Bronwyn MacFarlane is a doctoral candidate at the College of William and Mary in the Educational Policy, Planning, and Leadership program with specializations in Gifted Education Administration and K-12 Administration. Her dissertation focuses on Advanced Placement World Language teacher perceptions of high-ability students and high-level instruction. She is the research assistant to the Executive Director of the Center for Gifted Education. An experienced teacher and instructional
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leader, she holds two masters degrees and multiple teaching certificates. Bronwyn received the 2007 William and Mary Excellence in Gifted Education Doctoral Award and the 2007–2008 P.E.O. Scholar Award, a $10,000 national prize for young scholars based on scholarly excellence, academic achievement, and worthwhile career goals to make a significant contribution in the scholar’s chosen field. She received the 2008 William and Mary School of Education Dean’s Award for Excellence at the doctoral level. In August 2008, Bronwyn will join the faculty of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock as an Assistant Professor of Gifted Education. C. June Maker, Ph.D., is Professor of Special Education at the University of Arizona where she coordinates graduate degrees at specialist and doctoral levels. She is principal investigator of the DISCOVER projects, and her current research centers on finding and developing the talents of underserved groups such as Native American, Hispanic American, African American, and Asian American students. She is well known internationally as a Consultant and has also specialized in topics such as gifted handicapped, gifted minority students, creativity, problem-solving, and assessment. Jacobus G. (Kobus) Maree is a Professor in the Faculty of Education and editor of Perspectives in Education and the SA Journal of Psychology. A triple doctorate, he is internationally recognized for his work in, e.g., career counselling. His research focuses on optimizing the achievement of learners and providing cost-effective career facilitation to all persons. As the author or co-author of more than 50 books and chapters in books and 100 articles (over the past 14 years) in accredited scholarly journals, and recipient of numerous awards for his research, he is frequently interviewed on radio and television. He was a finalist in the National Science and Technology Forum Awards in 2006. In 2007, he received the Exceptional Academic Achiever Award (UP) for a second term (2007–2009). Dr. Maree was elected as a member of the South African Academy for Science and Arts in 2003 and elected as a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) in 2006. He is a C1-rated researcher (NRF). Sarah G. Marmor, Ph.D., received her undergraduate degree in English from Barnard College and her Masters degree in Teaching English from Teachers College, Columbia University. She holds New York State certifications in teaching secondary English and in gifted education. Dr. Marmor designed the middle school English curriculum at the Anderson Middle School, a gifted school in New York City where she taught for several years. She is currently teaching English and literature at the Adolph Schreiber Hebrew Academy in Rockland County, and is co-authoring a book on children’s literature with Dr. Rachel Schnur. Dona J. Matthews, Ph.D., has been teaching, writing, counseling, consulting, and conducting research on gifted development since 1985. From 2003 to 2007 she was Director of the Center for Gifted Studies and Education at Hunter College, University of New York, where she worked with New York City teachers on policies and practices relating to giftedness. Now in Toronto, she teaches at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and is working with families and schools on issues relating to gifted education. She is co-author of Being Smart About Gifted
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About the Authors
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Children: A Guidebook for Parents and Educators (2005). Current projects include The Development of Giftedness and Talent Across the Lifespan, co-edited with Frances Degen Horowitz and Rena Subotnik; The International Companion to Gifted Education, co-edited with Tom Balchin and Barry Hymer; upcoming books for parents and children with Joanne Foster; and a book with Felice Kaufmann on the first 5 years of Presidential Scholars. Michael S. Matthews, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He has taught courses in gifted education, creativity, and educational assessment. Dr. Matthews is the author of two books, Working with Gifted English Language Learners and Encouraging Your Child’s Science Talent: The Involved Parents’ Guide. Dr. Matthews received his Ph.D. from the University of Georgia in 2002. From 2003 to 2005, he held a postdoctoral appointment with the Talent Identification Program at Duke University. Dr. Matthews’ research interests relate to under-represented populations in gifted education, with particular attention to the influences of assessment, identification practice, and educational policy on differential representation. Associated areas of interest include science and math education, gifted education policy, and underachievement and dropping out among gifted learners. Dr. Matthews presents frequently at state and national conferences and writes regularly on gifted education topics. Nobutaka Matsumura, Ph.D., is a Professor of developmental psychology at Kansai University, Japan. His research interests include the education of the twice-exceptional students with both giftedness and learning difficulties. He is the author of the most comprehensive book on gifted education written in Japanese. Professor Matsumura was a visiting researcher in 1992–1993 and the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship in 2003–2004 to work with Joseph Renzulli, director of the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented at the University of Connecticut. Marianna Medvid, MPM, received her Master’s in Project Management from the Universit´e du Qu´ebec en Outaouais, Qu´ebec, and a B.Sc. from York University, Ontario, Canada. She is presently working as Project Manager at BioTalent Canada. Prior to her current position, Ms. Medvid worked with Dr. Larisa Shavinina, Universit´e du Qu´ebec en Outaouais, in the areas of entrepreneurial giftedness and managerial talent. She also worked in consulting sector, where she provided research and project management services to Canadian industry and government. Nancy B. Miller, Ph.D., is editor of Advanced Development, a journal on adult giftedness, and Adjunct Professor of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Denver. She has worked with Dr. Linda Silverman for the past 20 years and is currently involved in research and testing at the Gifted Development Center in Denver, Colorado, USA. For 5 years, she served as Executive Officer for Sociologists for Women in Society, an international organization aimed to improve the position of women in society. She has taught courses at both the graduate and undergraduate level at the University of Akron, where she was Visiting Professor of Sociology, Associate Director of the Center for Family Studies, and Fellow in the Institute for Life-Span Development and Gerontology. Her numerous publications focus on Dabrowski’s theory and emotional development, gender and giftedness, and women’s social support and adjustment to stressful life events.
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Roger Moltzen is Deputy Dean of the School of Education at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. He is a former teacher and school principal whose research and teaching interests are in both gifted and inclusive education. His recent research has focused on talent development across the lifespan and in particular on what educators can learn from the life stories of eminent adults. In 2000 Roger chaired a New Zealand Government Ministerial Working Party in Gifted Education, and this committee’s recommendations led to the radical reform of gifted education in that country. In 2005 he was awarded the New Zealand Prime Minister’s Supreme Award for Tertiary Teaching Excellence. Vicky F. Moyle, MAT Indiana University, MA University of Colorado. Vicky is a Licensed Professional Counselor, Licensed Mental Health Counselor, and Instructor of Mathematics with nearly 20 years of teaching experience in Mathematics and Gifted Education. As a speaker, she has presented for numerous state, national, and international organizations including National Association for Gifted Children, Colorado Association for the Gifted and Talented, Hollingworth Association for the Highly Gifted, International Congress of the Institute for Positive Disintegration in Human Development, International Symposium on Dabrowski’s Theory; and has served on the Boards of Directors for SENG-Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted, Western Colorado Association for Gifted and Talented, and the Gifted Association of Missouri. She edited The Dabrowski Newsletter from 1999 to 2005. Kiruthiga Nandagopal, M.S., received her B.Sc. in psychology at MacMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. She is currently a doctoral student at Florida State University. Her main research interests are the development of expertise in academic and professional areas. Kathleen D. Noble, is Professor of Women Studies at the University of WashingtonSeattle and Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington-Bothell. From 2000–2008 she was the Halbert and Nancy Robinson Professor and the Director of the Robinson Center for Young Scholars at UW-Seattle. She is also a licensed psychologist. Professor Noble is the author of several books and research articles about the psychological development of highly capable women, spiritual intelligence, the ways in which talents and gifts shape female lives in ways that are distinct from males and the efficacy of early entrance to college and university. Her current research focuses on spirituality, resilience, and psychological health, and on the conditions under which university students’ beliefs about consciousness and reality change and expand. Pat Johnson is the Team Leader for the Mathematics and Science Partnership (MSP) program at the U.S. Department of Education. In 19 years with the Department, she has managed the Javits Gifted and Talented Students program, the Eisenhower Math and Science National programs, and the Fund for the Improvement of Education. Prior to joining the Education Department, she served as Associate Director of Project 2061, a part of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS); Director of Academic Programs with the Center for Talented Youth (CTY) at Johns Hopkins University; and as an education specialist with the Maine Department of Education. She received her undergraduate degree in anthropology
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About the Authors
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from Beloit College, a Masters of Arts in Teaching in museum education from George Washington University, and a Masters in Education degree in education policy from Harvard University. Martin Orland is Director of Evaluation and Policy Research at WestEd where he leads the work of a nationwide staff of methodologists, research scientists, content experts, and evaluators to help address critical needs in the fields of education and human development. Previously, he spent 4 years as Director of the Center for Education, at the National Research Council, part of the National Academies, and 19 years as a Senior Official at the U.S. Department of Education including stints as Special Assistant to the Director of the Institute of Education Sciences, Associate Commissioner with the National Center for Education Statistics, and Deputy Director of the National Education Goals Panel. Dr. Orland received his Ph.D. from Syracuse University’s Maxwell School, and has taught Political Science at the Pennsylvania State University. He has authored several dozen articles, research papers, and government reports in the areas of education and children’s policy, finance, governance, and assessment. Christoph Perleth, Ph.D., studied Psychology and Mathematics at the LudwigMaximilians-University (LMU) in Munich, Germany. In 1986 he joined the Munich Giftedness Study (directed by Professor Kurt Heller) as a research assistant and later as a senior researcher. In 1992 he got his doctoral degree and worked as a research associate and lecturer in educational psychology at the Institute of Educational Psychology of the LMU. In 1998, he finished his habilitation procedure and was given the “venia legendi” in Psychology by the Faculty of Psychology and Education of the LMU. In 1999 he got a Chair for Educational and Special Psychology at the Rosa and David Katz Institute of Educational Psychology, University of Rostock, Germany. His research interests and main teaching topics are giftedness and intelligence, intellectual functioning, psychological diagnostics including test development and evaluation of fostering measures for gifted. Roland S. Persson, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of psychology. His research focuses widely on giftedness and talent but with an emphasis on social context and the gifted individual in society. Current aspects within this frame are equity issues (egalitarianism), gender, music behavior, gifted education and social perception. Former Editor-in-Chief of High Ability Studies, a member of World Council of Gifted and Talented Children and life-time honorary member of the European Council for High Ability. Shane N. Phillipson, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology, Counseling and Learning Needs at the Hong Kong Institute of Education. His research interests include models of underachievement and conceptions of giftedness. Dr. Phillipson’s research has been published in High Ability Studies and Educational Psychology, and his edited books include Phillipson, S. N. (Ed.) (2007). Learning diversity in the Chinese classroom: Contexts and practice for students with special needs. Hong Kong: The Hong Kong University Press, and Phillipson, S. N., & McCann, M. (Eds.) (2007). Conceptions of giftedness: Socio-cultural perspectives. Marwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
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Louis M. Picciano, M.D., founded Essex Systems at the advent of the personal computer revolution and has enjoyed a unique perspective on the evolution/revolution in the application of information technologies to the pharmaceutical and other industries. He has extensive software development and consulting experience in pharmaceutical research, medical systems, and financial services. He has also served in a variety of managerial functions involving team building, recruitment, staff development, technical project management, and systems design and specification. He received his B.A. in Chemistry from Rutgers University and his M.D. from St. George’s University School of Medicine. His current work involves research and development in datamining techniques in genetics research targeting human health and diagnostics. Michael M. Piechowski, Ph.D., author of “Mellow Out,” They Say. If I Only Could: Intensities and Sensitivities of the Young and Bright, has collaborated with Kazimierz Dabrowski and has written extensively on developmental potential and emotional development of gifted youth as well as emotional and spiritual giftedness. He taught at the University of Alberta, Illinois, Northwestern, and Northland College. He is a contributor to the Handbook of Gifted Education, Encyclopedia of Creativity, and Dabrowski’s Theory of Positive Disintegration. Since 2002 he has been involved with the Yunasa summer camp for highly gifted youth organized by the Institute for Educational Advancement, of which he is a Senior Fellow. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin. Marion Porath, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology, and Special Education in the Faculty of Education at The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of Toronto in 1988 where her studies combined special education and cognitive developmental psychology. She won a Killam Teaching Award in 1998. Her research interests include different forms of giftedness, young children’s social development, instructional applications of developmental theory, and problem-based learning. She has co-authored two books on problem-based learning in teacher education, one focused on special education and the other on educational psychology. Her current research focuses on gifted and gifted/learning disabled children’s and adolescents’ views of themselves as learners and their understanding of teaching and learning, the influence of gender on career choice, and the roles of intrapersonal and interpersonal competencies in pedagogy. Michael C. Pyryt was an Associate Professor in the Division of Applied Psychology, Faculty of Education, at the University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. In 2000 he became the Director of the Centre for Gifted Education at the University of Calgary and was responsible for expanding the profile of gifted education and promoting the education of gifted children locally, provincially, nationally, and internationally. Professor Pyryt published extensively in the field of giftedness, held numerous professional memberships, and was involved in innumerable research projects. His research interests included conceptions of giftedness, gifted education, multivariate analysis, applied psychometrics, creativity, personal development and special education. Dr. Pyryt passed away on January 15th, 2008 upon his return from a trip to Australia.
About the Authors
About the Authors
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Chwee Geok Quek, Ph.D., has been involved in gifted education in Singapore in different capacities. She began as a teacher in the Gifted Education Program and worked as a curriculum specialist before becoming an administrator. She served as assistant editor of Gifted and Talented International for 3 years. She received her Ph.D. from the College of William and Mary and is now a Senior Specialist in the Gifted Education Branch, Ministry of Education, Singapore. Kristin M. Rayhack is an M.A. candidate in International Affairs with a concentration in U.S. Foreign Policy in the School of International Service at American University. She was a policy intern at the Center for Psychology in Schools and Education at the American Psychological Association (APA) and co-authored various publications including a chapter on developing national policies for STEM programs for a NATO UNESCO book on developing science talent. Kristin received her B.A. in Russian and Psychology from the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University. Krista C. Ritchie is a Ph.D. (Educational Psychology) candidate at McGill University majoring in Applied Cognitive Science in the Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology. She received her Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Psychology from Acadia University in 2002, and Master of Arts in Educational Psychology from McGill University in 2005. An SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship funds her dissertation work. She is exploring high school students’ learning experiences during the process of generating novel and authentic research questions in inquiry-driven classrooms. Her research incorporates social and emotional factors into the learning process and aims to broaden current models of complex problem solving. Other research interests include the assessment of learning outcomes and development of statistical reasoning in children and adolescents. Krista currently enjoys teaching a wide range of statistics to graduate and undergraduate students under the roles of laboratory instructor, tutor, and consultant. Abraham Reichenberg, Ph.D., is a neuropsychologist and epidemiologist. He graduated with Honors from the Department of Psychology, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and then joined the faculty at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York where he was a Director of the Neuropsychology Laboratory at the Family Studies Research Center, Department of Psychiatry. Currently he is at the Department of Psychological Medicine, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, UK. His research focuses on the study of normal and abnormal (both superior and inferior) cognitive development, and the impact of raising and growing an abnormally developing child. Sally M. Reis, Ph.D., is a Professor and the past Department Head of Educational Psychology at the University of Connecticut, where she also serves as a Principal Investigator for the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented. She was a teacher for 15 years, 11 of which were spent working with gifted students on the elementary, junior high, and high school levels. She has authored or co-authored 15 books, and more than 200 articles and book chapters. She serves on several editorial boards, including the Gifted Child Quarterly, and is a past President of the National Association for Gifted Children. She recently was honored with the highest award in
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her field, Distinguished Scholar of the National Association for Gifted Children, and named a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor at The University of Connecticut. Joseph S. Renzulli, Ph.D., is a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor at the University of Connecticut where he also serves as Director of the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented. In June 2003 he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. His work has focused on the development of theories and research related to broadened conceptions of human potential, the identification and development of creativity and giftedness in young people, and on organizational models and curricular strategies for differentiated learning environments and total school improvement. A focus of his work has been on applying the pedagogy of gifted education to the improvement of learning for all students and using technology to promote high-end learning. Karen B. Rogers is Professor of Gifted Studies in the College of Applied Professional Studies at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She has just returned from a 3-year appointment as Director of Research for the Gifted Education Research, Resource and Information Centre at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. She is the author of several books, multiple book chapters, and over 100 journal articles and has made presentations throughout the world. She sits on the review boards of Gifted Child Quarterly, Journal for Education of the Gifted, Roeper Review and is an Associate Editor for Journal for Advanced Academics. She is currently on the Board of Directors of the National Association for Gifted Children and Chair of the American Educational Research Association Special Interest Group, Research on Intellectual Giftedness. Her work on leadership giftedness resulted from a multi-year study in which she was involved in Australia. Michele Root-Bernstein, Ph.D., studies the creative imagination and its processes common across the arts, humanities, and sciences. She is co-author with Robert Root-Bernstein of Sparks of Genius, the Thirteen Thinking Tools of the World’s Most Creative People (Houghton Mifflin, 1999). Together she and Robert lecture and consult on trans-disciplinary schooling for educational institutions and museums nationwide. Michele received a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1975 and a Ph.D. in history from Princeton University in 1981. She has written in a variety of disciplinary genres and has taught poetry and prose in elementary, secondary and university classrooms. As a Kennedy Center Teaching Artist, she continues to co-present a haiku/dance workshop for teachers and students of all ages. Currently an adjunct faculty member at Michigan State University, Michele works on a book-length study of worldplay for the general public called Inventing Imaginary Worlds: From Childhood Play to Adult Creativity. Robert Root-Bernstein, Ph.D., is a scientist, humanist, and artist at Michigan State University. He earned his B.A. in Biochemistry and Ph.D. in History of Science from Princeton University, combining the two as a post-doctoral fellow with Jonas Salk at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. A MacArthur Fellowship encouraged his multidisciplinary activities so that he now studies the evolution of metabolic control systems, autoimmune diseases, and the creative process in the sciences and arts. All of his work is informed by the concept of complementarity: to see all sides of a subject requires multiple, interactive viewpoints. He is currently Professor
About the Authors
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of Physiology at Michigan State University and is the author of several books, including Discovering (Harvard University Press, 1989) and, with his wife Michele Root-Bernstein, Sparks of Genius (Houghton Mifflin, 1999). Roy W. Roring, M.S., received his B.S. in computer science at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma. He is currently a doctoral student at Florida State University. His main research interests include prediction and development of expertise in domains of intellectual performance. Michael F. Sayler, Ph.D., developed and coordinates gifted education courses and masters and doctoral tracks in gifted education at the University of North Texas. He is the Associated Dean for Academic Affairs and Teacher Preparation and chairs the selection committee for the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science. He received his Ph.D. in educational psychology from Purdue University in 1990. He developed some of the earliest online courses in gifted education and continues to offer programs to students worldwide. Dr. Sayler’s G/T expertise includes the study of life-long thriving for gifted. Thriving depends on talent development, relationship development, and spiritual development. He also specializes in successful parenting of gifted children and youth, early college entrance and other forms of acceleration and grouping, program planning and evaluation, identifying students, grouping arrangements, and measurement and research. Rachel Schnur, Ph.D., received her doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction from Columbia University’s Teachers College in New York City. Her educational history also includes degrees in counseling, psychology, and English, as well as New York State certifications in gifted education, elementary school education, special education, and administration and supervision. Dr. Schnur has published in the areas of giftedness and resiliency, minority gifted education, and literacy. She has been included in Who’s Who in American Colleges and Universities, and has co-authored a journal article that won the MENSA Award for Best Research Paper of the Year. Dr. Schnur is Director of Curriculum and Instruction at the ASHAR School in Rockland County, New York. She previously taught in private and public schools, and worked as a gifted education administrator for several years in the New York City public school system. Dr. Schnur is currently co-authoring a book about children’s literature. Julie Anne Schuck has been a Research Associate at the National Academies for over 5 years in the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Here she has worked on a number of different projects and workshops including those on improving undergraduate instruction in STEM, identifying and developing talent in STEM, assessing the research program of the National Institute of Justice, and understanding the technical and privacy dimensions of information for terrorism prevention. Prior to coming to the Academies, she was a Research Support Specialist at Cornell University where she conducted a study examining the under-representation of women in physics-based engineering majors. She holds a M.S. in Education from Cornell University and a B.S. in Engineering Physics from the University of California, San Diego. Andrzej Sekowski, Ph.D., is Professor, Head of the Department of Psychology of Individual Differences at the Catholic University of Lublin, Poland, Vice President
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of the Polish Psychological Society, Editor-in-Chief of Przeglad Psychologiczny [Polish Review of Psychology], and consulting editor of High Ability Studies. In 2000–2001 he obtained a scholarship of the Fulbright Foundation and conducted research at the Center for Psychology of Abilities, Competencies and Expertise at Yale University headed by Robert J. Sternberg. In 1993–1995 Dr. Sekowski was a Humboldt Foundation fellow at the University of Munich, Germany, where he co-operated with Professor Kurt A. Heller and his team. He was a member of the General Committee of the European Council for High Ability. Dr. Sekowski is the author of about 200 publications in international journals including Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Science, High Ability Studies, and Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness. Larisa V. Shavinina, Ph.D., is Professor at the Universite du Quebec en Outaouais, Canada. Her research interests focus on the nature of giftedness broadly defined, including the child prodigy phenomenon, scientific talent in the case of Nobel laureates, entrepreneurial giftedness, managerial talent, new assessment procedures for the identification of the gifted, and high intellectual and creative educational multimedia technologies (HICEMTs). Over the years Dr. Shavinina’s research has expanded to encompass innovation. Her bestselling International Handbook on Innovation, the first and only book of this type, that is considered the beginning of innovation science, is aimed at unifying the field of innovation, that is, at merging psychological, management, economic, and business perspectives together. She introduced innovation education as a new direction in gifted education. Innovation is also an important element in Dr. Shavinina’s research on giftedness and economy. Her publications have appeared in Gifted Child Quarterly, Journal for the Education of the Gifted, High Ability Studies, Review of General Psychology, New Ideas in Psychology, and others. She edited Silicon Valley North, and co-edited CyberEducation and Beyond Knowledge. Michael F. Shaughnessy, Ph.D., is Professor of Special Education at Eastern New Mexico University. He received his doctorate from the University of Nebraska and has done post-doctoral work at George Washington University. He has been a social studies teacher, guidance counselor, school psychologist and has published and presented on gifted education extensively over the past 20 years. He serves on the Editorial Board of Gifted Education International and several other journals and has co-edited several issues of that journal with Robert Sternberg and Sal Mendaglio. He has authored or edited or co-edited 10 books and several hundred papers, research reports, and interviews. Jiannong Shi is a Professor of psychology and serves as the Director of Center for Supernormal Children (Gifted and Talented Children in the Western), as well as the Director of the Division of Developmental and Educational Psychology at the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 1992, 2001, 2004, and 2006 he worked at University of Munich, Germany, University of Michigan, Yale University, USA, and University of Adelaide, Australia as a visiting scholar, respectively. Dr. Shi has been a speaker at WCGTC, APF, and other international conferences on giftedness and creativity in Australia, UK, Egypt, Korea, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Chile, Germany, and China including Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. He authored or co-authored Discovering Gifted Children and Developmental
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Psychology of Gifted Children and nine other books in the field of child development and education, as well as more than 100 journal articles and book chapters after 1990. Bruce M. Shore, Ph.D., is Professor of Educational Psychology at McGill University, Canada. He received his B.Sc. in 1965, teaching diploma in 1966, and M.A. in Education in 1967, all from McGill University. After 2 years as secondary school mathematics teacher, he obtained his Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Calgary in 1971. He was appointed to what is now the Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology in 1970 and was Chair for 9 years. Dr. Shore is a licensed psychologist in Quebec, was President of the McGill Association of University Teachers in 2000–2001, and McGill’s Dean of Students from 2001 to 2006. From 1970 to 1991 he was a member of what is now the Teaching and Learning Services. His research addresses the cognitive abilities of exceptionally able students, the special qualities of inquiry-driven teaching and learning as an optimal learning environment, and the evaluation of outcomes of inquiry-based instruction. ´ Małgorzata Siekanska, Ph.D., is a lecturer at the Institute of Psychology at the University School of Physical Education in Krak´ow, Poland, a member of the Polish Psychological Society, the Polish Creativity Association, and the Association of Applied Sport Psychology. She completed her M.A. and doctoral studies at the Catholic University of Lublin, Poland. She was a trainee at the Centre for the Study of Giftedness, Nijmegen, the Netherlands. She co-operates with the Department of Psychology of Individual Differences at the Catholic University of Lublin. She also worked at the Crisis Intervention Centre and the Foundation for Family Help, both based in Krak´ow, Poland. She is the author of publications on job satisfaction of the gifted, psychology of abilities and creativity, and sport psychology. Dean Keith Simonton, Ph.D., is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis. His more than 350 publications examine various aspects of genius, creativity, leadership, talent, and aesthetics. Among his 10 books are Genius, Creativity, and Leadership (Harvard 1984), Why Presidents Succeed (Yale 1987), Greatness (Guilford 1994), Origins of Genius (Oxford 1999), Great Psychologists (American Psychological Association 2002), Creativity in Science (Cambridge 2004), and Genius 101 (Springer, forthcoming). His awards include the William James Book Award, the Sir Francis Galton Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Study of Creativity, the Rudolf Arnheim Award for Outstanding Contributions to Psychology and the Arts, the George A. Miller Outstanding Article Award, the Theoretical Innovation Prize in Personality and Social Psychology, the President’s Award from the National Association for Gifted Children, the Mensa Award for Excellence in Research, and the Robert S. Daniel Award for Four-Year College/University Teaching. Olha Skyba, M.S. in Educational Psychology, Purdue University, is a Ph.D. candidate in Curriculum and Teaching/Gifted Education at the University of Kansas. She is also a former teacher of English and Spanish languages with diploma in Linguistics from the Kiev State Linguistic University in Ukraine. Throughout her career she taught classes for education majors in traditional as well as online settings, designed and coordinated program evaluation projects, and supervised elementary and foreign
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language student teachers. Her research interests focus on non-intellective factors that contribute to the development of talent, as well as innovative methods of teaching gifted and talented students, namely, emerging online technologies and programs that can meet their unique needs. In her free time, Olha enjoys learning foreign languages, playing piano, traveling, and experimenting with photography. Eunice M.L. Soriano de Alencar, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology and Education at the Catholic University of Bras´ılia, Brazil. She has served as President of the Brazilian Association for the Gifted at the Federal District, and Vice President of the Ibero-American Federation of the World Council for the Gifted and Talented. Over the last 30 years, she has carried out research projects and published several books and numerous articles, especially on giftedness and creativity. Among her books are Psychology and Education of the Gifted, Psychology of Creativity, How to Develop the Creative Potential, Managing Creativity, The Child in the Family and in Society, Creativity and the Education of the Gifted. She is on the editorial board of several journals in Brazil and abroad and is an honorary member of the Brazilian Council for Giftedness. Bettina Dahl Søndergaard, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Science at The University of Aarhus, Denmark. She previously was an Assistant Professor at the School of Education at Virginia Tech, USA, and also worked as a Senior Advisor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology at the Norwegian Centre for Mathematics Education and (2000–2002, part-time) and as a Research Officer in the European Union education policy at the Department of Educational Studies, University of Oxford, UK. She has a Ph.D. in Mathematics Education (Roskilde University, Denmark), a M.Sc. in Educational Research Methodology (University of Oxford, UK), and a Cand.scient. (Danish B.Sc. +M.Sc.) in mathematics and social science (Aalborg University, Denmark). She is interested in gifted education. Denise de Souza Fleith, Ph.D., is a psychologist and an Associate Professor at the University of Brasilia in Brazil. She is the author of books and articles on creativity and giftedness, a delegate to the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children and a researcher of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development. She received her Ph.D. in the education of gifted and talented from the University of Connecticut. Bharath Sriraman is an Associate Professor of Mathematics in the Faculty of Mathematical Sciences at The University of Montana, with a wide range of eclectic research interests including learning sciences, talent development, philosophy of mathematics and mathematics education, history and philosophy of science, theory of knowledge, Central/Southwest Asian studies, and mathematics education. Dr. Sriraman received his B.S. in mathematics from the University of Alaska and M.S. and Ph.D. in mathematics from the Northern Illinois University. He received the 2002 NAGC Outstanding Brief of the Year Award, was nominated for the 2006 and 2007 NAGC Early Career Scholar Award, and was recently named the 2007 Outstanding Early Scholar by the School Science and Mathematics Association. Dr. Sriraman is the founding editor of The Montana Mathematics Enthusiast and the Montana Mathematics Enthusiast-Monograph Series in Mathematics Education. He
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has published over 150 journal articles, book chapters, reviews, and commentaries in his areas of interest. Kristen R. Stephens is an Assistant Professor of the practice in the Program in Education at Duke University. Prior to this appointment, Dr. Stephens served as the gifted education research specialist for the Duke University Talent Identification Program where she was Editor-in-Chief of the Duke Gifted Letter, an online newsletter for parents of gifted children (www.dukegiftedletter.com). Over the years, she has co-authored numerous books and co-edited the Practical Strategies Series in Gifted Education, a series comprised of 22 books on issues pertinent to gifted child education. Dr. Stephens serves on the board of directors for the North Carolina Association for Gifted and Talented and the American Association for Gifted Children. Heidrun Stoeger, Ph.D., is Professor at the University of Regensburg and the Chair of the School of Education. She has published a lot of books, chapters, and articles in the field of educational psychology. Currently she is the Editor-in-Chief of High Ability Studies. Her main research interests are educational training programmes, motivation, giftedness, and expertise. Taisir Subhi-Yamin is a Professor of gifted education. He has a B.Sc. in Physics, an M.A. in Special Education, and a Ph.D. in Gifted Education and e-learning from Lancaster University, UK. He is the recipient of academic prizes and fellowships from Jordan, England, and the USA including a Fulbright Award (1996). Dr. Yamin published 10 books, many articles, and book chapters, and developed a number of training packages to develop productive thinking skills. He is an active member of many academic institutions including the British Educational Research Association (BERA), ECHA, Bahrain Association for the Gifted and Talented, Jordanian Association of Physicists (President), the National Committee for Gifted Education, and the Qatari Centre for the Gifted and Talented (Founder). He is also the National Chancellor and a regional representative of the International Association of Educators for World Peace. He was a delegate of the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children (WCGTC) for about 10 years. In 2002 he was elected a member of its executive committee and named an editor of Gifted and Talented International. Professor Yamin was involved in developing UAE project for the gifted in Ulm University, Germany. He established, in cooperation with Todd Lubart, the International Centre for Innovation in Education (ICIE-Paris). He is currently working in the Institut de Psychologie, Universit´e Paris Descartes, France. Rena F. Subotnik is Director of the Center for Gifted Education Policy at the American Psychological Association. The Center’s mission is to generate public awareness, advocacy, clinical applications, and cutting-edge research ideas that will enhance the achievement and performance of children and adolescents with special gifts and talents in all domains (including the academic disciplines, the performing arts, sports, and the professions). She is co-editor of Research Methodologies for Conducting Research on Giftedness (in press), Levers of Change (in press), Optimizing Student Success with the Other Three R’s (2006), The Scientific Basis of Educational Productivity (2005), The International Handbook of Research on Giftedness and Talent (2nd Edition) (2000), Remarkable Women: Perspectives on
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Female Talent Development (1997), Beyond Terman: Contemporary Longitudinal Studies of Giftedness and Talent (1994), and the first author of Genius Revisited: High IQ Children Grown Up (1993). Erin E. Sullivan is a doctoral candidate in the University of Connecticut’s Educational Psychology program, with a concentration in gifted education and school psychology. Prior to returning to school, she worked as a writer and editor in Washington, DC. Research interests include the development of talented writers, social and emotional issues of gifted youth, and special needs of gifted students on the autism spectrum. Kai Yung (Brian) Tam, Ph.D., is Professor in the Institute of Education and Centre for Higher Education Development at Xiamen University, People’s Republic of China. Prior to his current position, Dr. Tam taught in the United States of America and Singapore. He has published in the various areas of special education, teacher education, and correctional education. Dr. Tam’s major research interests are in the education of culturally and linguistically diverse learners, correctional education, teacher education, and comparative higher education. Den-Mo Tsai, Ph.D., used to be a professor and the Chairman of the Department of Special Education, and the Dean of General Affairs at National Kaohsiung Normal University, Taiwan. In Taiwan, he also used to be the president of Special Education Association. Dr. Tsai earned his doctorate at the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented at the University of Connecticut. Since 2005, he has been the current president of the World Council for Gifted & Talented Children. His term of presidency will be until July, 2009. Dr. Tsai is currently the President of National Taitung University, which is located in the eastern part of Taiwan and has 4,000 students. Den-Mo’s special pursuit is in gifted education and parenting. His publications include over 100 articles in Chinese and English journals and eight books in Chinese. Royal E. Toy is a doctoral student in the School of Special Education at the University of Northern Colorado. He received his M.A. in Special Education: Teaching the Gifted and Talented from the University of Northern Colorado. He has published one book about teaching young gifted children and has assisted in the authorship of two book chapters. He has presented nationally and at the state level on young gifted children, advocacy, communication, twice-exceptional students, and socio-emotional needs. His current research is on the characteristics of individuals who are gifted. His other research interests include early childhood, twice-exceptional, and under-represented populations in gifted education. Larry R. Vandervert, Ph.D., has published works in psychology, the neurosciences, innovation, giftedness, and science in general. Published titles include, “Understanding tomorrow’s mind: Advances in chaos theory, quantum theory, and consciousness in psychology” (1997), The Journal of Mind and Behavior [editor, special double issue]; “How working memory and the cerebellum collaborate to produce innovation and creativity” (2007), Creativity Research Journal; “Cognitive functions of the cerebellum explain how Ericsson’s deliberate practice produces giftedness” (2007), High Ability Studies. Dr. Vandervert (with Dr. Fred Abraham and Dr. Allan Combs)
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founded the Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology and the Life Sciences in 1990 and served as its first president. He has been a Fellow of the American Psychological Association since 1992. Joyce Van Tassel-Baska, Ph.D., is the Jody and Layton Smith Professor of Education and Executive Director of the Center for Gifted Education at The College of William and Mary in Virginia where she has developed a graduate program and an R&D Center in gifted education. Formerly, she initiated and directed the Center for Talent Development at Northwestern University. She also served as the state director of gifted programs for Illinois, as regional director of a gifted service center in Chicago area, as coordinator of gifted programs for Toledo, Ohio public school system, and as a teacher of gifted high school students. Dr. Van Tassel-Baska has published widely including 25 books and over 500 refereed journal articles, book chapters, and scholarly reports. She is currently the co-principal investigator on two federally funded research grants: Project Athena, a Language Arts scaling-up study, and Project Clarion, a science concept attainment grant at K-3 grade levels. Belle Wallace, Ph.D., is currently President of the National Association for Able, Gifted and Talented Children, UK (NACE); Editor of Gifted Education International (UK: AB Academic Publishers); and a well-known national and international consultant for the development of Problem-Solving Curricula. She was formerly Co-Director of the Curriculum Development Unit (University of Natal, South Africa) and a member of the Executive Committee for the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children (WCGTC). Belle has published extensively in the field specializing in language and cognition. Her particular interest lies in the development of problem-solving curricula across the full range of human abilities. She has recently been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society for Arts (FRSA) for her services to education. Thomas B. Ward, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology at the University of Alabama. His research focuses on the nature of concepts, including how they are acquired, structured, combined, and used in creative and noncreative endeavors. Dr. Ward’s research examines the ways in which people apply existing knowledge to new situations, including tasks as diverse as imagining life on other planets and designing practical products. He has also conducted basic and applied studies concerned with increasing the creative potential of new ideas. Dr. Ward published numerous articles and chapters, as well as four books on creative cognition. He has also published broadly on categorization. Dr. Ward has served as Associate Editor of Memory & Cognition and currently serves as Executive Officer of the Cognitive Science Society and Editor of the Journal of Creative Behavior. Ian Warwick is Senior Director of London Gifted & Talented, the gifted and talented branch of London Challenge. Ian taught English, Politics, Psychology, and Media at Holland Park School – an inner city comprehensive – for 18 years, and was the G&T Coordinator for 9 years. In 2002, he wrote the vision document and assembled the consortium, which would form London Gifted & Talented. Ian’s chief areas of interest are urban education, disadvantaged and underachieving students, e-learning, professional development, and the issues surrounding BME and EAL education. Ian has published extensively in the field of education, with many articles
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and chapters in national and international educational journals. He has written worldwide collaborative research papers, and spoken at national and international conferences. He is a consultant editor for Gifted Education International, and has written e-learning and face-to-face modules for LGT and the National Strategies Lead Teacher Training and Guidance materials. Carol Noˆela van der Westhuizen, Ph.D., is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Education at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Previously a prose and methodology specialist, she currently teaches research methodology and coordinates the undergraduate school-based teaching practice and internship. She is also involved in setting up student exchange partnerships for school-based experience with institutions in the Netherlands, Belgium, and the United States. Her research interests include teacher education, gifted education, institutional mergers, and visual aspects of works of prose and textbooks. Jacques H. A. van Rossum was originally educated as a developmental psychologist. He holds a Ph.D. in human movement sciences on a motor learning topic. For more than 30 years now he is in the Faculty of Human Movement Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where he is mainly involved in teaching and research on talent development in athletics. For more than 10 years he also has been involved in investigating the development of talent in dance. In 2005 he finished the 8-year longitudinal study on the athletic careers of adolescent athletes. The project was financed by the Dutch National Olympic Committee and by the Dutch Ministry of Sport. He often lectures for coaches and/or athletes on various aspects of talent development, with special interest in topics such as coaching effectiveness, sport parents, and group dynamics. Katherine N. Saunders Wickes is an Instructor of Psychology at Blinn College. Her research has focused on creative development, implicit theories, and the ways in which concept formation impacts creativity. Dr. Wickes has also published several articles on the nature of creativity in the gifted and talented. Currently, she serves as an advisor to several student organizations, including Psi Beta, as well as working with students to develop research projects. Dr. Wickes also serves as a reviewer for several journals including Roeper Review. Annett Wilde, Ph.D., studied Psychology at the Free University of Berlin, Germany. In 2005 she received her doctoral degree at the University of Koblenz, Germany. From 2001 until 2006 she worked as a research assistant in social psychology at the University of Koblenz-Landau, Campus Koblenz, and from 2006 to 2007 as a Research Associate and Lecturer of Social Psychology at the Rosa and David Katz Institute of Educational Psychology at the University of Rostock. She now holds the post of a Research Associate and Lecturer of Psychology at the Institute of Educational Psychology at the University of Frankfurt. Her research interests cover mainly self-concept, gender roles and stereotypes, and sex segregation of the labor market. Guofeng Zhang is a Ph.D. student at the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He will finish his dissertation in June 2008 and get his degree in Developmental Psychology. His major research interest is the development of creativity in children.
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Albert Ziegler, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology and a Director of the Centre of Educational Sciences at the University of Ulm, Germany. He has published approx. 200 books, chapters, and articles in the field of educational and cognitive psychology. He is Director of the “State-wide Counselling and Research Centre for the Gifted”. His main research interests in the field of gifted education are the development of exceptional performances, motivational training programs, and knowledge acquisition.
International Handbook on Giftedness
Larisa V. Shavinina (Ed.)
International Handbook on Giftedness Part Two
Editor Larisa V. Shavinina Universit´e du Qu´ebec en Outaouais D´epartement des sciences administratives Pavillon Lucien-Brault 101, rue Saint-Jean-Bosco Case postale 1250, succursale Hull Gatineau, Qu´ebec, J8X 3X7, Canada
[email protected] ISBN: 978-1-4020-6161-5
e-ISBN: 978-1-4020-6162-2
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-6162-2 Library of Congress Control Number: 2008934140 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.
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Printed on acid-free paper 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 springer.com
This handbook is dedicated to Professor Marina A. Kholodnaya, whose own research on giftedness provided the foundation for my research and shaped my vision of the field, and to my wonderful sons Alexander and Denis.
Preface
If you publish . . . you are trying to create something that is original, that stands out from the crowd. . . Above all, you want to create something you are proud of. . . Richard Branson (2002, p. 57). After the publication of my bestselling International Handbook on Innovation, publishers from around the world began to invite me to work on new books with them. When Springer invited me to prepare the International Handbook on Giftedness, I was on a maternity leave with my 3-months-old and my 5-year-old was just starting school. I, however, had wanted to prepare such a Handbook for a long time and was waiting for just the right moment to dive right into such an endeavor. The time had come and I agreed to prepare a Handbook that would expose readers to new views, great discoveries, and significant advancements of scientific knowledge, exactly as Richard Feynman advised (see his opening quote at the beginning of the introductory chapter). I have always been convinced of the paramount significance of the topic of giftedness and gifted education to the world as a whole. There is no doubt that gifted individuals were, are, and will be extremely important to society. One way to understand the history of human civilization is via inventions and discoveries of the gifted. All human cultural development builds on the amazing technological, scientific, educational, and moral achievements of the human mind. Today, people increasingly realize that gifted and talented individuals are even more important than in the past. Thus, industrial competition is increasingly harsh and organizations of all types must continuously bring new products and services to the global market. To survive, companies need creative and talented employees whose novel ideas are to a certain extent a necessity for the companies’ continued existence and future success. Consequently, modern society desperately requires highly able citizens who can produce innovative solutions to current challenges and contribute new ideas that promote the development and growth of markets for novel products or services. The gifted thus remain an extremely important source of innovation and renewal worldwide. Also, everyone knows that contemporary society has many unsolved problems, including demographic, medical, environmental, political, economic, moral, and social problems. Accordingly, modern society is characterized by a strong need for highly able minds that can productively solve these numerous problems and make appropriate social decisions. In short, intellectually creative citizens are guarantees of political stability, economic growth, scientific and cultural enrichment, psychological health, and the general prosperity of any society in the 21st century. vii
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The future will therefore be synonymous with talent, since it will need an extremely high saturation of gifted people in all areas of human endeavor. Despite the evident importance of gifted individuals in any society and many written books, the phenomenon of giftedness is far from being well understood. Because of this, the proposed handbook on giftedness will be a valuable contribution aimed at the advanced understanding of giftedness and its development. This is therefore an exceptionally timely endeavor. As the introductory chapter indicates, my vision for this Handbook was indeed different from any previous publication. From the very beginning of the project I considered that the major goal of the Handbook should be to significantly advance the field of giftedness research and gifted education by analyzing the latest developments in the existing areas and by presenting innovative, emerging trends. As the editor of this important Handbook, I tried to be as objective as possible in my selection of contributing authors and topics to be covered. My purpose was to present the field of giftedness research and gifted education as it is today: with all its different points of views, agreements, and disagreements, which, I am convinced, are essential for further progress of our field. It does not mean at all that I like or dislike certain chapters. My position as a research is reflected in my chapters in this volume. My editorial efforts were governed by a maximal objectivity aimed at unprecedented advancement of research on giftedness and gifted education. The reason why I have been wishing to create this Handbook for a long time is that previous publications in the area did not cover all facets of giftedness and gifted education and did not present some emerging trends in research and practice. In short, it was impossible to find any handbook that would cover all possible aspects of high ability and that would provide clear answers to issues raised by scholars and practitioners alike. I hence came to believe that the time was ripe for an International Handbook on Giftedness—a volume that would comprehensively cover all facets of giftedness and thus would help guide research and practice during next decades and, therefore, would advance the field. All in all, I tried to create the Handbook “that is original, that stands out from the crowd,” a volume that every contributing author and myself “are proud of,” exactly as Richard Branson recommended. It is important to note that the conventional understanding of handbook—as a compendium of review chapters suggesting a guide to practice—seems to be very restricted in the context of the area of giftedness and gifted education. The “handbook” title suggests a guide to practice only in cases where the body of knowledge is understood to be complete and more or less unchanging. For example, “Handbook of Mathematical Formulae,” or “Handbook of Motorcycle Repair.” However, the study of giftedness is a body of knowledge under dynamic theoretical development. For instance, for the very first time this Handbook introduces many new types of giftedness that have not been discussed in previous publications (see my introductory chapter for a detailed description of its novelty and originality). Due to this very reason, I prefer to use “the International Handbook on Giftedness” instead of “the International Handbook of Giftedness.” I hope readers will find the present chapters lively and provocative, stimulating greater interest in giftedness and gifted education. The Handbook covers a wide range of topics in giftedness. Specifically, it offers a broad analysis of what giftedness is, how it is developed, assessed, and affects individuals, groups, organizations, societies, and the world as a whole, as well as what new trends in gifted education are and what successful pedagogical practices exist today. The Handbook will therefore serve as an authoritative resource on all
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aspects of theory, research, and practice of giftedness and gifted education. I hope that readers of this Handbook will view it as serving that function. The target international audience for the Handbook is broad and includes a wide range of specialists—both researchers and practitioners, as well as policy makers— in the areas of giftedness, gifted education, psychology, education, arts, economics, management and business science. Non-specialists will also be interested readers of this Handbook (e.g., parents of gifted and talented children) and it will be useful in a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses. Because the coverage of the Handbook is broad enough, it can be read as a reference on an as-needed basis for those who would like information about a particular topic, or from cover to cover either as a sourcebook or as a textbook in a course dealing with giftedness and/or gifted education. In short, anyone interested in knowing the wide range of issues regarding giftedness and gifted education will want to read this Handbook. The Handbook hopes to accomplish at least four things for readers. First, the reader will obtain comprehensive expert insight into the latest research and practice in the field of giftedness. Indeed, the world’s leading specialists agreed to contribute to this Handbook. Second, the Handbook will present many facets of giftedness, which were not discussed in previously published handbooks. This breadth of coverage will allow the reader to acquire a comprehensive and panoramic picture of the nature of giftedness and gifted education within a single Handbook. Third, the reader will develop an accurate sense of what spurs gifted and talented individuals toward their extraordinary achievements and exceptional performances. Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, the reader will be able to apply the ideas and findings presented in the Handbook to critically consider how best to foster personal abilities and talents. I wanted to do almost impossible with this Handbook: to cover every facet of the field of giftedness as it is today. As readers will proceed from one chapter to another, they will see that ultimately this became possible. I am very proud of the final product: the Handbook is indeed exceptional in many ways (this issue will be addressed in the introduction). There are many people to thank for helping this Handbook come to fruition. Most important are the authors: I thank them very much for their willingness to undertake the difficult and challenging task of contributing chapters. I am particularly grateful to Professor Marina A. Kholodnaya, my former Ph.D. supervisor, who to a great extent ‘made’ me a researcher, developing my perception of great scientific problems. She continually inspires me to undertake innovative endeavors. I am especially grateful to my research assistants—Marianna Medvid, Jeanette Gallina, and David Lefebvre— for their successful handling of numerous duties on this outstanding project in addition to their regular jobs and university assignments. They were simply excellent during many months of the preparation of the Handbook: I could not do it better myself. I am also grateful to my editors at Springer—Bernadette Ohmer, Maria Jonckheere, Astrid Noordermeer, and Bernadette Deelen—who provided just the right blend of freedom, encouragement, patience, and guidance needed for successful completion of this great project. Special thanks to Tamara Welschot at Springer who initiated this project. I also wish to acknowledge my debt of gratitude to my parents, Anna Shavinina and Vladimir Shavinin, who aroused a passionate intellectual curiosity and love for challenges in me. Finally, I owe my biggest debt of gratitude to my husband, Evgueni Ponomarev, and our 8-year-old and 3-year-old sons, Alexander and Denis, respectively. In countless ways, Evgueni has been a true colleague, critic, manager, and
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friend throughout a few years of the project. He provided the moral, financial, and technical support, and—more importantly—with the time I needed to complete this project. He did so by performing a number of great tasks, from cooking and administering PC problems when I worked at nights, to assuming the lion’s share (and the lioness’s, too) of child care for our Alexander and particularly for Denis, who was born just before the beginning of this project. Very simply, this is his Handbook, too. I especially wish to thank Alexander and Denis, whose entry into the world taught me more about giftedness, gifted education, and the need to develop their versatile abilities especially when they are at those unique sensitive periods, than have any other events in my life. They were patient with me and curiously asked “when do you eventually finish this Handbook?” I sincerely hope that educational systems of all societies around the world, as well as parents and other caregivers, will be able to develop unique gifts and talents of each child on the Earth. Larisa V. Shavinina
Contents
Part I Introduction 1 Understanding Giftedness: Introduction or on the Importance of Seeing Differently . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Larisa V. Shavinina Part II The Nature of Giftedness 2 The History of Giftedness Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Heidrun Stoeger 3 Essential Tensions Surrounding the Concept of Giftedness . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 David Yun Dai 4 Contemporary Models of Giftedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Janet E. Davidson 5 A Feminine Perspective of Giftedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Linda Kreger Silverman and Nancy B. Miller 6 An Expert Performance Approach to the Study of Giftedness . . . . . . . . 129 K. Anders Ericsson, Kiruthiga Nandagopal and Roy W. Roring 7 Debating Giftedness: Pronat vs. Antinat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Franc¸oys Gagn´e 8 The Arbitrary Nature of Giftedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Nancy B. Hertzog 9 Gifted and Thriving: A Deeper Understanding of Meaning of GT . . . . . 215 Michael F. Sayler 10 A Unique Type of Representation is the Essence of Giftedness: Towards a Cognitive-Developmental Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Larisa V. Shavinina
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Part III The Neuropsychology of Giftedness 11 Neuropsychological Characteristics of Academic and Creative Giftedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261 John G. Geake 12 The Neural Plasticity of Giftedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275 M. Layne Kalbfleisch 13 Working Memory, the Cognitive Functions of the Cerebellum and the Child Prodigy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 Larry R. Vandervert Part IV Developmental and Cognitive Foundations of Giftedness 14 Developmental Trajectories of Giftedness in Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319 Christoph Perleth and Annett Wilde 15 Highly Gifted Young People: Development from Childhood to Adulthood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337 Miraca U.M. Gross 16 Talent Development Across the Lifespan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353 Roger Moltzen 17 Creative Cognition in Gifted Youth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381 Katherine N. Saunders Wickes and Thomas B. Ward 18 A Metacognitive Portrait of Gifted Learners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397 Marion A. Barfurth, Krista C. Ritchie, Julie A. Irving and Bruce M. Shore Part V Personality of the Gifted, Individual Differences, and Gender-Related Issues 19 Personality Qualities That Help or Hinder Gifted and Talented Individuals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421 Reva Friedman-Nimz and Olha Skyba 20 Emotional Life and Psychotherapy of the Gifted in Light of Dabrowski’s Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437 P. Susan Jackson, Vicky F. Moyle and Michael M. Piechowski 21 On Individual Differences in Giftedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467 Andrzej Sekowski, Malgorzata Siekanska and Waldemar Klinkosz 22 A Theory of Talent Development in Women of Accomplishment . . . . . . 487 Sally M. Reis and Erin E. Sullivan
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Part VI Twice-Exceptional Gifted Individuals and Suicide-Related Issues 23 Twice Exceptional: Multiple Pathways to Success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507 Judy L. Lupart and Royal E. Toy 24 Gifted Learners Who Drop Out: Prevalence and Prevention . . . . . . . . . 527 Michael S. Matthews 25 Understanding Suicidal Behavior of Gifted Students: Theory, Factors, and Cultural Expectations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537 Laurie A. Hyatt and Tracy L. Cross Part VII Types of Giftedness 26 In Search of Emotional–Social Giftedness: A Potentially Viable and Valuable Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 559 Reuven Bar-On and Jacobus G. (Kobus) Maree 27 The Two Pioneers of Research on Creative Giftedness: Calvin W. Taylor and E. Paul Torrance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 571 Kyung Hee Kim 28 Creative Giftedness: Beginnings, Developments, and Future Promises . 585 James C. Kaufman, Scott B. Kaufman, Ronald A. Beghetto, Sarah A. Burgess and Roland S. Persson 29 Imaginary Worldplay as an Indicator of Creative Giftedness . . . . . . . . . 599 Michele Root-Bernstein 30 Development of Gifted Motivation: Longitudinal Research and Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 617 Adele Eskeles Gottfried and Allen W. Gottfried 31 Leadership Giftedness: Is It Innate or Can It Be Developed? . . . . . . . . . 633 Karen B. Rogers Part VIII Domain-Specific and Multiple Giftedness 32 Scientific Talent: The Case of Nobel Laureates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 649 Larisa V. Shavinina 33 Understanding Mathematical Giftedness: Integrating Self, Action Repertoires and the Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 671 Shane N. Phillipson and Rosemary Callingham 34 Cinema Talent: Individual and Collective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 699 Dean Keith Simonton
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35 Reading, Writing, and Raising the Bar: Exploring Gifts and Talents in Literacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 713 Rachel Schnur and Sarah G. Marmor 36 The Elusive Muse: Understanding Musical Giftedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 727 Roland S. Persson 37 Giftedness and Talent in Sport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 751 Jacques H.A. van Rossum 38 On Entrepreneurial Giftedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 793 Larisa V. Shavinina 39 Ilk Hunting: Newbies, Cyberpunks, Coders and the Search for Elusive, Ego-Twisted, Talented Computer Hackers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 809 Thomas E. Heinzen and Louis M. Picciano 40 What Makes a Gifted Educator? A Design for Development . . . . . . . . . . 825 Marion Porath 41 Understanding Managerial Talent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 839 Larisa V. Shavinina and Marianna Medvid 42 Multiple Giftedness in Adults: The Case of Polymaths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 853 Robert Root-Bernstein Part IX Giftedness, Society, and Economy 43 Families of Gifted Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 873 Abraham Reichenberg and Erika Landau 44 Large-Scale Socioeconomic, Political, and Cultural Influences on Giftedness and Talent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 885 Don Ambrose 45 Gifts, Talents, and Their Societal Repercussions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 905 Dean Keith Simonton 46 The Unwanted Gifted and Talented: A Sociobiological Perspective of the Societal Functions of Giftedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 913 Roland S. Persson 47 On Giftedness and Economy: The Impact of Talented Individuals on the Global Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 925 Larisa V. Shavinina
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Part X Assessment and Identification of Giftedness 48 The Measurement of Giftedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 947 Linda Kreger Silverman 49 Identifying Academically Talented Students: Some General Principles, Two Specific Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 971 David F. Lohman 50 The Johns Hopkins Talent Search Model for Identifying and Developing Exceptional Mathematical and Verbal Abilities . . . . . . . . . 999 Linda E. Brody 51 A New Approach to the Identification of Intellectually Gifted Individuals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1017 Larisa V. Shavinina Part XI Recent Advances in Gifted Education 52 New Developments in Gifted Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1035 Gary A. Davis 53 The English Model of Gifted Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1045 Deborah Eyre 54 Enhancing Creativity in Curriculum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1061 Joyce VanTassel-Baska and Bronwyn MacFarlane 55 Acceleration: Meeting the Academic and Social Needs of Students . . . 1085 Nicholas Colangelo and Susan Assouline 56 Teaching for Wisdom in Public Schools to Promote Personal Giftedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1099 Michel Ferrari 57 DISCOVER/TASC : An Approach to Teaching and Learning That Is Inclusive Yet Maximises Opportunities for Differentiation According to Pupils’ Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1113 B. Wallace and C. J. Maker 58 Future Problem Solving in Gifted Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1143 Bonnie L. Cramond 59 Practical Intelligence and Wisdom in Gifted Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1157 Mary Anne Heng and Kai Yung (Brian) Tam 60 Recent Developments in Technology: Implications for Gifted Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1173 Michael C. Pyryt†
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61 High Intellectual and Creative Educational Multimedia Technologies for the Gifted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1181 Larisa V. Shavinina 62 A Technology-Based Application of the Schoolwide Enrichment Model and High-End Learning Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1203 Joseph S. Renzulli and Sally M. Reis 63 The Iowa Online Advanced Placement Academy: Creating Access to Excellence for Gifted and Talented Rural Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1225 Clar M. Baldus, Susan G. Assouline, Laurie J. Croft and Nicholas Colangelo 64 On Bringing Interdisciplinary Ideas to Gifted Education . . . . . . . . . . . 1235 Bharath Sriraman and Bettina Dahl 65 Innovation Education for the Gifted: A New Direction in Gifted Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1257 Larisa V. Shavinina 66 Dual-Language Gifted Education and Its Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1269 Ernesto M. Bernal and Jaime H. Garc´ıa 67 Observed Trends and Needed Trends in Gifted Education . . . . . . . . . . 1285 Michael F. Shaughnessy and Roland S. Persson Part XII Policy Implications and Legal Issues in Gifted Education 68 United States Policy Development in Gifted Education: A Patchwork Quilt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1295 Joyce VanTassel-Baska 69 Identifying and Developing Talent in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM): An Agenda for Research, Policy, and Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1313 Rena Subotnik, Martin Orland, Kristin Rayhack, Julie Schuck, Ashley Edmiston, Janice Earle, Edward Crowe, Pat Johnson, Tom Carroll, Daniel Berch and Bruce Fuchs 70 Gifted Education and Legal Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1327 Frances A. Karnes and Kristen R. Stephens Part XIII Giftedness Research and Gifted Education Around the World: Institutional and Regional Examples 71 Swimming in Deep Waters: 20 Years of Research About Early University Entrance at the University of Washington . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1345 Kathleen D. Noble and Sarah A. Childers
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72 How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall? Gifted Education in New York City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1365 Dona J. Matthews 73 London Gifted and Talented: A Case Study in High Challenge Urban Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1385 Ian Warwick 74 Giftedness and Diversity: Research and Education in Africa . . . . . . . . 1409 Jacobus Gideon (Kobus) Maree and Carol Noˆela van der Westhuizen 75 Recent Developments in Gifted Education in East Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1427 Shane N. Phillipson, Jiannong Shi, Guofeng Zhang, Den-Mo Tsai, Chwee Geok Quek, Nobutaka Matsumura and Seokhee Cho 76 Gifted Education in the Arabian Gulf and the Middle Eastern Regions: History, Current Practices, New Directions, and Future Trends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1463 Taisir Subhi-Yamin 77 Gifted Education and Research on Giftedness in South America . . . . . 1491 Eunice M.L. Soriano de Alencar, Denise de Souza Fleith and Violeta Arancibia Part XIV Conclusions 78 Research on Giftedness in the 21st Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1509 Albert Ziegler Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1525 Subject Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1529
Part I
Introduction
Chapter 1
Understanding Giftedness: Introduction or on the Importance of Seeing Differently Larisa V. Shavinina
We have to find a new view of the world... If you can find any other view of the world which agrees over the entire range where things have already been observed, but disagrees somewhere else, you have made a great discovery. It is very nearly impossible, but not quite... Richard Feynman, Nobel Laureate
Abstract This chapter provides a very general introduction to the handbook, thus creating a broad picture on what to expect in the chapters that follow. Specifically, the chapter presents a short overview of the multifaceted research on giftedness and advances in gifted education discussed in the chapters of this handbook. Its uniqueness and novelty are also described. The main contents of each chapter are summarized and approaches taken by chapter authors are briefly described. Keywords Giftedness · Gifted · Education · The nature of giftedness · Cognitive · Developmental · Social · Personality approaches to understanding giftedness Great discoveries are at the heart of any scientific advancement. As Feynman highlighted, great discoveries are nearly impossible, but not quite. . . if we are talking about the field of giftedness and see it differently. In order to make discoveries, the content of any handbook should be unique and new in many respects. This handbook is clearly distinctive from other handbooks in the area of high abilities and will prove to be original and novel in a number of ways. First, the handbook introduces fresh research on giftedness, which was not considered in Heller, Monks, Sternberg, and Subotnik (2000) and in Colangelo and David (2003) handbooks (e.g., musical talent, gifted L.V. Shavinina (B) Universit´e du Qu´ebec en Outaouais, Gatineau, Qu´ebec, Canada e-mail:
[email protected] learners who drop out, legal issues in gifted education, feminine perspective on giftedness, just to mention a few) and was not presented in other books and scholarly journals (e.g., happiness of the gifted and talented, entrepreneurial giftedness, multiple giftedness in adults, managerial talent, interdisciplinary ideas in gifted education, innovation education for the gifted), just to note a few. Second, the handbook presents new research directions in the area of giftedness, which was not considered in Heller et al. (2000) and in Colangelo and David (2003) handbooks, but was published in scholarly journals only in recent years (e.g., talent in cinema or new trends in the neuropsychology of giftedness). Third, the handbook presents recent developments in giftedness research and practice that took place after the publication of Heller et al. (2000) and Colangelo and David (2003) handbooks (e.g., recent advances in gifted education in megacities like New York and London, UK). Finally, the handbook analyzes latest advances in those directions of research and gifted education which were discussed in Heller et al. (2000) and Colangelo and David (2003) handbooks, but were significantly developed in recent years, that is, after the publication of those handbooks (e.g., online academies for the gifted). It is also interesting to note that some chapters belong to a few of the above-mentioned categories of the given handbook’s novelty and uniqueness (e.g., imaginary worldplay as an indicator of creative giftedness). Plus, Colangelo et al.’s report on acceleration is also a
L.V. Shavinina (ed.), International Handbook on Giftedness, c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-6162-2 1,
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new development in gifted education in general and in gifted education policy in particular. Taken together, all these facets of the uniqueness and novelty convincingly indicate that this new handbook is indeed a much needed endeavor. Therefore, my goal in bringing leading experts on high ability together in this handbook is to present a fully comprehensive picture of contemporary research on giftedness by integrating the recent diverse findings and to outline directions for further research, thus advancing the field. In choosing chapter authors, I was particularly interested in those new models, theories, and approaches, which they proposed. My deepest belief is that any handbook on any scientific topic should not only report the current findings in the field but also advance that field by presenting challenging new ideas. In one way or another, each chapter in the handbook adds something new to our existing edifice of knowledge about giftedness via unique analytical points of view of leading experts in the field who are responsible for much of the current research on high ability. This is one of the main merits of this handbook, which is international in scope, reflecting African, American, Asian, European, and global perspectives. The chapter authors take a number of different approaches, both empirical and theoretical, reflecting a variety of possible perspectives and research methods aimed at understanding giftedness. I will briefly mention these approaches below. The descriptions of each chapter are intentionally very short in order to entice readers to seek further detail contained within each chapter. The handbook is divided into 14 (XIV) parts. Part I comprises Chapter 1, Understanding Giftedness: Introduction or on the Importance of Seeing Differently, which sets the stage for understanding giftedness by providing a general introduction to the work. Parts II– XIII, consisting of 76 chapters, represent distinctive, although sometimes overlapping, approaches to understanding giftedness, gifted education, and a variety of related issues. Specifically, Part II of the handbook describes work aimed at the understanding the multifaceted nature of giftedness, its basic mechanisms, and its various facets. This part comprises nine chapters. Chapter 2, The History of Giftedness Research, by Heidrun Stoeger, presents a brief history of scientific study of giftedness. Heidrun’s task was especially difficult because she was explicitly asked not to discuss the concept of giftedness and not to analyze theories
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of giftedness, because these are subjects of David Yun Dai’s and Janet Davidson’s chapters, respectively. In Chapter 3, Essential Tensions Surrounding the Concept of Giftedness, David Yun Dai perfectly analyzes points of agreement and disagreement between various research trends currently existing in the field of giftedness. David concludes his deep analysis by calling for a more integrated understanding of giftedness due to its complexity and multidimensionality. Chapter 4, Contemporary Models of Giftedness, by Janet E. Davidson, reminds us that one of the powerful methods for understanding, identifying, and studying gifted individuals is through theory-based models. Janet thus reviews three types of contemporary models including hierarchical, neural efficiency, and complex systems. In Chapter 5, A Feminine Perspective on Giftedness, Linda Kreger Silverman and Nancy B. Miller propose a conceptual framework for understanding giftedness from a feminine perspective. Specifically, they address the issue of extreme importance for the field of giftedness, namely, how does giftedness develop differently in females so that it is less recognized? Chapter 6, An Expert-Performance Approach to the Study of Giftedness, by K. Anders Ericsson, Kiruthiga Nandagopal, and Roy W. Roring is the chapter where the authors present the expertise approach which explains how individuals can attain elite levels of performance. The bottom line is that extended training, that is, years and decades of daily deliberate practice, is behind giftedness. In Chapter 7, Debating Giftedness: Pronat vs. Antinat, Franc¸oys Gagn´e summarizes extensive scientific findings and concludes that natural abilities really exist (the Pronat position) and that recent attacks by researchers who deny their existence (the Antinat position) can be easily repelled empirically. This chapter perfectly addresses one of the most important issues in the area of giftedness, namely the genetic basis of high abilities. Chapter 8, The Arbitrary Nature of Giftedness by Nancy B. Hertzog, discusses five ways in which labeling and identifying children for gifted programs is an arbitrary decision. The proposed vision for the field of gifted education is to recognize and celebrate the diversity of children, as well as to develop and nurture the strengths of all students. In Chapter 9, Gifted and Thriving: A Deeper Understanding of Meaning of GT, Michael F. Sayler focuses
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Understanding Giftedness
on happiness of the gifted and talented. According to the author, thriving begins with talent development but looks beyond high-level performance to deep satisfaction and what allows the gifted and talented to flourish across their life span. Chapter 10, A Unique Type of Representation Is the Essence of Giftedness: Towards a CognitiveDevelopmental Theory by Larisa V. Shavinina, presents a new theory that explains the fundamental nature of giftedness. In short, the essence of giftedness is related to the gifted’s unique, objective type of representations of everything that is going on around them. It means that gifted individuals see, understand, and interpret everything differently. Their unique intellectual picture of the world or their unique vision makes them the gifted. Part III of the handbook, The Neuropsychology of Giftedness, concentrates on neuroscientific aspects of research on high ability. This part contains three chapters. In Chapter 11, Neuropsychological Characteristics of Academic and Creative Giftedness, John G. Geake demonstrates that the brain of the gifted functions differently by reviewing evidence for such difference in neural function and structure that can account for high levels of cognitive abilities. Chapter 12, The Neural Plasticity of Giftedness by M. Layne Kalbfleisch, presents a general theory of giftedness according to which giftedness is a type of neural plasticity that manifests itself in specific states of mind of the gifted. In Chapter 13, Working Memory, the Cognitive Functions of the Cerebellum and the Child Prodigy, Larry R. Vandervert claims that amazing achievements of the gifted in general and child prodigies in particular are the result of domain-specific high attentional control learned beginning in infancy and modulated between the prefrontal cortex and the cerebellum. Part IV of the handbook, Developmental and Cognitive Foundations of Giftedness, introduces the developmental and cognitive bases of giftedness. It includes five chapters. Chapter 14, Developmental Trajectories of Giftedness in Children, by Christoph Perleth and Annett Wilde, is about a wide range of issues related to the development and identification of giftedness in children prior to elementary school age. To this end, the authors analyze various approaches explaining
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how giftedness manifests itself in young age and how it can be identified in children. In Chapter 15, Highly Gifted Young People: Development from Childhood to Adulthood, Miraca U. M. Gross examines the development of highly gifted children and adolescents by analyzing their cognitive strategies, motivational orientation, conceptions and expectations of friendship, moral reasoning, and benefits of radical acceleration. Chapter 16, Talent Development Across the Lifespan by Roger Moltzen, uses a completely opposite approach than the two previous chapters in this part of the handbook. Specifically, the author employs retrospective strategy to investigate the process of talent development in the case of extraordinary individuals. For instance, the retrospective studies reveal that many eminent adults were perceived as anything but gifted in childhood. In Chapter 17, Creative Cognition in Gifted Youth, Katherine N. Saunders Wickes and Thomas B. Ward analyze cognitive processes that the gifted bring to bear on creative tasks. The authors particularly focus on retrieval of conceptual knowledge, abstraction, and transformation. Chapter 18, A Metagognitive Portrait of Gifted Learners, by Marion A. Barfurth, Krista C. Redden, Julie A. Irving, and Bruce M. Shore summarizes research on metacognition and giftedness. Specifically, it discusses how the gifted think and solve problems, introduces the concepts of flexibility and preference for complexity, offers suggestions for future research, as well as describes educational applications. Part V of the handbook, Personality of the Gifted, Individual Differences, and Gender-Related Issues, examines a wide range of issues related to personality variables of giftedness, individual differences, gender, and associated non-intellective qualities that play an important role in realizing extraordinary potential. It contains four chapters. Chapter 19, Personality Qualities That Help or Hinder Gifted and Talented Individuals, by Reva Friedman-Nimz and Olha Skyba, explores issues and identifies trends in research on personality variables as they are manifested in the context of the development of high ability. The authors analyze research on key personality qualities such as selfperception, self-evaluation, motivation, attribution, and intrapersonal intelligence and then recast it into four frames of reference for understanding personality
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of the gifted: traits, processes, prediction, and development. In Chapter 20, Emotional Life and Psychotherapy of the Gifted in Light of Dabrowski’s Theory, P. Susan Jackson, Vicky F. Moyle, and Michael M. Piechowski examine the emotional sphere of the gifted from the viewpoint of Dabrowski’s theory, including emotional and spiritual giftedness, discuss psychotherapy for the gifted, and present two cases illustrating development through positive disintegration in the gifted. Chapter 21, On Individual Differences in Giftedness, by Andrzej Sekowski, Malgorzata Sieka´nska, and Waldemar Klinkosz, reviews a multifaceted set of issues related to individual differences and giftedness. Drawing on findings from psychology of individual differences, the authors describe levels of individual differences, their manifestations in particular fields of human activity, their social consequences, and future research trends. In Chapter 22, A Theory of Talent Development in Women of Accomplishment, Sally M. Reis and Erin E. Sullivan offer a new theory of female talent development that is based on research of highly accomplished women. They analyze spheres in which women express their talents, factors that may promote or inhibit the development of gifts, and gender differences in experiences that contribute to female success. Part VI of the handbook, Twice-Exceptional Gifted Individuals and Suicide-Related Issues, is about the phenomenon of twice-exceptionality and suicide among the gifted. This part includes three chapters. Chapter 23, Twice-Exceptional: Multiple Pathways to Success, by Judy Lupart and Royal Toy, explores the topic of twice-exceptionality and giftedness. It specifically considers various twice-exceptional subgroups such as gifted students with learning disability, intellectual disability and/or autism, Asperger’s syndrome, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and sensory impairment, as well as discusses main areas relating to meeting the full range of needs for twice-exceptional students including identification, curriculum, instruction, and teacher preparation. In Chapter 24, Gifted Learners Who Drop out: Prevalence and Prevention, Michael S. Matthews states that although relatively few gifted learners actually drop out of school, it is a serious problem for those students who leave high school without a diploma. The analysis of recent advances in this research direction suggests interventions for min-
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imizing this problem among academically gifted learners. Chapter 25, Understanding Suicidal Behavior of Gifted Students: Theory, Factors, and Cultural Expectations, by Laurie A. Hyatt and Tracy L. Cross, reviews in detail a multifaceted range of issues related to suicide among the gifted such as its incidence and causes, as well as possible vulnerability to suicide as a consequence of some social and emotional problems faced by gifted individuals. Part VII of the handbook, Types of Giftedness, examines the different types of giftedness. It consists of six chapters. Chapter 26, In Search of Emotional–Social Giftedness: A Potentially Viable and Valuable Concept, by Reuven Bar-On and Jacobus G. Maree, is devoted to two types of giftedness, namely emotional and social ones. The relationship between emotional– social intelligence and giftedness is examined based on the authors’ research in the field of emotional intelligence. In Chapter 27, The Two Pioneers of Research on Creative Giftedness: Calvin W. Taylor and E. Paul Torrance, Kyung Hee Kim reviews the contributions of these two famous researchers on high ability to the study of creative giftedness. Their theoretical and practical achievements are carefully analyzed. Chapter 28, Creative Giftedness: Beginnings, Developments, and Future Promises, by James C. Kaufman, Scott B. Kaufman, Ronald A. Beghetto, Sarah A. Burgess, and Roland S. Persson, considers research on the subject that took place in more recent years. Theoretical and practical aspects of the study of creative giftedness are discussed, especially its implications for the assessment of creative abilities. In Chapter 29, Imaginary Worldplay as an Indicator of Creative Giftedness, Michele Root-Bernstein explores in detail complex imaginary worldplay of gifted children that is a good predictor of great achievements in adulthood. The imaginary worldplay can be viewed both as a “learning laboratory” and an early apprenticeship in creativity for the gifted. Chapter 30, Development of Gifted Motivation: Longitudinal Research and Applications, by Adele Eskeles Gottfried and Allen W. Gottfried, proposes that gifted motivation is a special type of giftedness distinct from intellectual giftedness. It refers to people who are superior in their strivings and determination pertaining to a task at hand. The authors present theory
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and empirical findings, as well as describe implications for education of the gifted and identification of gifted motivation. In Chapter 31, Leadership Giftedness: Is It Innate or Can It be Developed? Karen B. Rogers explains what makes leadership a special type of giftedness in terms of both outcomes and nurturance. She first of all reviews the literature on giftedness in leadership and then discusses research conducted to determine whether the innate characteristics and behaviors of leadership can be developed more fully through a leadership development program. Part VIII of the handbook, Domain-Specific and Multiple Giftedness, concentrates on domain-specific and multiple giftedness and it consists of 11 chapters. Chapter 32, Scientific Talent: The Case of Nobel Laureates, by Larisa V. Shavinina, is about the nature of giftedness in science. It specifically addresses the essence of scientific talent in the case of the most accomplished scientists, namely Nobel laureates. A great deal of the chapter focuses on Nobel laureates’ unique, objective types of representations and extracognitive abilities. In Chapter 33, Understanding Mathematical Giftedness: Integrating Self, Action Repertoires and the Environment, Shane N. Phillipson and Rosemary Callingham propose that being gifted in the domain of mathematics is best described by the Actiotope model of giftedness because of the clear interactive relationship between self (psychology, action repertoire, subjective action space, and goals), the external environment, and attainment of excellence. Chapter 34, Cinema Talent: Individual and Collective, by Dean Keith Simonton, shows that cinema is an unusual form of achievement in that it involves both (a) extensive collaborative effort and (b) considerable financial resources. The chapter examines a series of investigations aimed at understanding the operation of both these characteristics in large samples of awardwinning films. The empirical studies demonstrate that talents of screenwriters and directors are especially critical for film success. In Chapter 35, Reading, Writing, and Raising the Bar: Exploring Gifts and Talents in Literacy, Rachel Schnur and Sarah Marmor discuss a whole set of issues related to gifted and talented readers and writers. They explore the relationship between readings and writing in such children, suggest quality literature to encourage critical thinking, and provide a living model for gifted
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students to write well, as well as stress the need for excellence in writing skills. Chapter 36, The Elusive Muse: Understanding Musical Giftedness, by Roland S. Persson, examines musical giftedness from different epistemological points of view, thus highlighting agreements and disagreements existing in its research. A conceptual model of musical giftedness is outlined; the issues of heredity and accumulated practice are discussed; and differences between the development of Western classical musicians and popular musicians are analyzed. In Chapter 37, Giftedness and Talent in Sport, Jacques H. A. van Rossum presents a thorough account of talent development in sports broadly defined. The author explores the characteristics of successful athletes, addresses the issue of the amount of practice necessary to reach a high level of performance, discusses the role of parents, coaches, peers, and team mates as significant others, as well as examines talent facilitators and talent inhibitors. Chapter 38, On Entrepreneurial Giftedness, by Larisa V. Shavinina, indicates that the phenomenon of entrepreneurial giftedness is terra incognita from a research viewpoint. The chapter introduces this concept and thus fills an apparent niche in research on high abilities. It explains the nature of entrepreneurial giftedness via analyzing its early manifestations, discussing its developmental trajectories, and considering microsocial factors that facilitate the emergence of gifted entrepreneurs. In Chapter 39, Ilk Hunting: Newbies, Cyber-Punks, Coders and the Search for Elusive, Ego-Twisted, Talented Computer Hackers, Thomas E. Heinzen and Louis M. Picciano analyze a relatively new type of giftedness, namely computer hacker talent. The authors show that apart from the dark side of their talent, hackers also (a) advance pure knowledge and demonstrate the applicability of a good theory; (b) clarify the ethical boundaries of creative giftedness; and (c) profoundly threaten the democratic process while providing protection against those threats. It is interesting to note that Bill Gates and other now famous leaders in computer industry were talented hackers in some points in the development of their successful careers. Chapter 40, What Makes a Gifted Educator? A Design for Development, by Marion Porath, is about gifted teachers. This is a teacher who is gifted in his or her ability to inspire and support truly meaningful
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learning. The chapter reviews the existing literature on gifted teachers, presents students’ perspectives on meaningful teaching, and suggests directions for learning more about what makes a gifted teacher. Research on social giftedness forms the framework for the author’s analysis. In Chapter 41, Understanding Managerial Talent, Larisa V. Shavinina and Marianna Medvid discuss the existing findings explaining the nature of managerial talent. It describes the Gallup organization’s study of more than 80,000 great managers worldwide and presents a new theory of managerial talent aimed at understanding the fundamental essence of this phenomenon. The theory states that the managerial talent emerges at the intersection of unique vision, unusual creative and innovative abilities, highly developed intuition and wisdom-related skills, excellence-based performance, and entrepreneurial giftedness. Chapter 42, Multiple Giftedness in Adults: The Case of Polymaths, by Robert Root-Bernstein, challenges all facets of the specialization thesis, namely (a) specialization is a requirement for adult success, (b) skills and knowledge do not transfer across domains, and (c) the domain dependence of creativity makes general creativity impossible. The chapter describes individuals who have made contributions to multiple domains, discusses literature demonstrating polymathy among creative adults, and presents data from an ongoing study that supports this creativity–polymathy connection. Part IX of the handbook, Giftedness, Society, and Economy, brings to attention a set of diverse issues that emerge at the intersection of the topics of giftedness, society, and economy. For the very first time the major book in the field of giftedness highlights these issues. The part consists of five chapters. Chapter 43, Families of Gifted Children, by Abraham Reichenberg and Erika Landau, reviews current research findings on the important role of the family in the development of gifted children. Specifically, the authors demonstrate that children’s developmental trajectory of talent is considerably influenced by their family lifestyle, values, goals, and other environmental characteristics. Outlines for future research regarding the family impact on gifted children are also described. In Chapter 44, Large-Scale Socioeconomic, Political, and Cultural Influences on Giftedness and Talent, Don Ambrose’s analysis goes far beyond the influence of immediate micro-social contexts on the realization of potential high abilities. The author examines the ten-
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uous growth of democracy in some regions and its pernicious erosion in others, increases in socioeconomic inequity within and between nations, and the effects of competing ideologies. He also discusses such cultural phenomena as changing value systems worldwide, cultural responses to globalization, and various religious and secular conceptions of the ideal civil society. Chapter 45, Gifts, Talents, and their Societal Repercussions, by Dean Keith Simonton, demonstrates societal benefits of adulthood achievements of today’s gifted children. The author found that a large proportion of the contributions to any domain come from a small number of contributors. Therefore, any societal failure to promote the development of potential of these productive elite can have consequences out of proportion to the whole world. In Chapter 46, The Unwanted Gifted and Talented: A Sociobiological Perspective of the Societal Functions of Giftedness, Roland S. Persson addresses such critical issues as (a) impossibility for some gifted individuals to develop their talents despite the fact that they live in an environment that has both the means and the possibility to facilitate such development; (b) overemphasis on a certain group of abilities in giftedness research, whereas the study of others is ignored; and (c) the unwanted gifted. The phenomena of stigmatizing and marginalizing gifted individuals are thus discussed. Chapter 47, On Giftedness and Economy: The Impact of Talented Individuals on the Global Economy, by Larisa V. Shavinina, states that the gifted are primarily responsible for innovations worldwide and innovations are at the heart of today’s economy. It means that the degree of societal interest in talented children, and societal investment in gifted education, will be ultimately reflected in the level of innovations in each particular society, that is, in its economic prosperity. This is why innovation is closely related to giftedness, and why giftedness is related to economy. Part X of the handbook, Assessment and Identification of Giftedness, focuses on the measurement of high abilities. It consists of four chapters. Chapter 48, The Measurement of Giftedness, by Linda Kreger Silverman, provides the most comprehensive account available today on how to identify the gifted. The author thoroughly analyzes Raven’s Progressive Matrices, Stanford-Binet scales, and Wechsler scales, which are viewed as the most widely used IQ tests in selecting gifted children worldwide.
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She also examines an all-encompassing range of issues related to the appropriate assessment of giftedness, as well as recent advances in the assessment practice. In Chapter 49, Identifying Academically Talented Students: Some General Principles, Two Specific Procedures, David F. Lohman discusses the identification of academically talented children from the perspective of aptitude theory. Aptitude means the degree of readiness to learn and to perform well in a particular situation or domain. The aptitudes for academic success include (a) prior knowledge and skill in a domain, (b) the ability to reason in the symbol systems used to communicate new knowledge in that domain, (c) interest in the domain, and (d) persistence in the type of learning environments offered for the attainment of expertise in the domain. The chapter provides examples of procedures for combining ability test scores, achievement test scores, and teacher ratings in a principled way to assist in the identification of a talent pool. Chapter 50, The Johns Hopkins Talent Search Model for Identifying and Developing Exceptional Mathematical and Verbal Abilities, by Linda E. Brody, presents the Johns Hopkins Talent Search model, which was pioneered in the early 1970s by Julian Stanley and has now spread to many countries around the world. The chapter reviews the principles and practices of the talent search, as well as the programmatic strategies that have been created or identified to develop the talents of advanced learners. The results of over 30 years of research that have been conducted at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere that support these principles and practices are also discussed. In Chapter 51, A New Approach to the Identification of Intellectually Gifted Individuals, Larisa V. Shavinina offers a new perspective on the psychological assessment of intellectual abilities of the gifted based on the new cognitive-developmental theory of giftedness presented in this volume. The chapter focuses on the nine methodological and procedural principles, which form this approach. Examples of new intelligence tests are also presented. Part XI of the handbook, Recent Advances in Gifted Education, examines the latest progress in gifted education and consists of 16 chapters. Chapter 52, New Developments in Gifted Education, by Gary A. Davis, has its goal to provide a brief, general introduction to advances in gifted education that took place in recent years. The author compares today’s most important topics in gifted education with those of
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about 25 years ago. He concluded that, with one exception, the central topics of gifted education are about the same these days as a quarter century ago. The one exception concerns the identification and teaching of gifted minority students. In Chapter 53, The English Model of Gifted Education, Deborah Eyre introduces a relatively new model for educating the gifted that has been in use in England for 10 years and now forms the basis of the comprehensive national program offered to pupils of all ages and in all government-funded schools. The chapter describes its educational characteristics and discusses the various elements of the model. A key strength of the English Model is that it uses elements from existing models of gifted education to create an approach that positions gifted education deeply within overall education policy and within wider social policy objectives. Chapter 54, Enhancing Creativity in Curriculum, by Joyce Van Tassel-Baska and Bronwyn MacFarlane, explores major ways that creativity can be infused effectively within a curriculum designed for the gifted. The authors highlight specific design approaches that may be employed to ensure that creative thinking and innovation have been embedded into educational opportunities for gifted learners. Examples of this curriculum are provided to illustrate various design motifs. Issues of implementation with respect to the use of technology, professional development, and school-based leadership are also addressed. Based on the highly acclaimed report Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America’s Brightest Students (Colangelo, Assouline, & Gross, 2004), Chapter 55, Acceleration: Meeting the Academic and Social Needs of Students, by Nicholas Colangelo and Susan Assouline, discusses the 20 most important points about acceleration, the 18 forms of acceleration, a treatment of the myths that surround the general issue of acceleration, as well as the research supporting the benefits of academic acceleration. A case study of the decision-making process, which remains difficult for parents and educators of the gifted, is also presented as an application of the information provided by the authors. Chapter 56, Teaching for Wisdom in Public Schools to Promote Personal Giftedness, by Michel Ferrari, views wisdom as giftedness in knowing yourself and how to live a successful and fulfilling life. This is a very old definition, broadly traceable to the Socratic philosophers, which recommended certain exercises
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that students were encouraged to master, such as examining one’s life at the end of each day to determine in what one had been successful and in what unsuccessful. The author analyzes these exercises and examples of individuals who were gifted in them, as well as consider the implications of these practices for gifted education. In Chapter 57, DISCOVER/TASC: An Approach to Teaching and Learning That Is Inclusive yet Maximizes Opportunities for Differentiation According to Pupils’ Needs, Belle Wallace and C. June Maker present a powerful framework for curriculum development that accommodates the varying rates of pupil development. Although “intelligence” and “giftedness” may have a genetic base, they stress that these potentials are essentially developed and driven by the processes that are used in problem solving and that all learners are capable of improving their problem-solving processes across the 10 human abilities: emotional, social, spiritual, somatic, visual/spatial, auditory, mathematical/symbolic, linguistic, mechanical/technical, and scientific. Their joint work advocates an inclusive approach to the concept of giftedness. Chapter 58, Future Problem Solving in Gifted Education, by Bonnie L. Cramond, is about the growth of the Future Problem-Solving Program from its beginning by E. Paul Torrance at one high school in Athens, Georgia, USA, in 1974 to its 30th anniversary as an International Program with over 250,000 students around the world participating from grades 1 to 12, and to the present. The various components and rationale of the program are described with examples of problems and students’ innovative solutions. The chapter will end with a discussion of the benefits of this program for the students who participate as well as for the larger society, and an argument for widening its scope beyond gifted education will be made. I personally believe that the full potential of this program has not yet been realized, as well as its hidden tremendous impact on the whole world. This is why I invited Bonnie L. Cramond to contribute this chapter. In Chapter 59, Practical Intelligence and Wisdom in Gifted Education, Mary Anne Heng and Kai Yung (Brian) Tam present a broad conceptualization of practical intelligence that involves the notion of wisdom, highlight the role of experiential knowledge, reflection, and habits of virtue, and speak to a symbiotic relationship between self and the larger community. The issue of wisdom and democracy is discussed. The Evolv-
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ing Self Model, with conceptual roots in the ideas of Confucius and Dewey, is proposed that helps the gifted seek self and serve communities, as well as suggests service learning as a powerful tool for the academic, social, and moral engagement for them. Chapter 60, Recent Developments in Technology: Implications for Gifted Education, by Michael C. Pyryt, analyzes how technological advances can impact the education of the gifted. The appropriate use of technology for educational assessment, programming, and evaluation is considered. Examples of programs that utilize technology to enhance the educational experiences of gifted and talented children are provided. The Pyryt Enrichment Matrix is introduced as a vehicle for examining the degree of curriculum differentiation that is occurring. In Chapter 61, High Intellectual and Creative Educational Multimedia Technologies for the Gifted, Larisa V. Shavinina presents high intellectual and creative educational multimedia technologies (HICEMTs) as one of the possible methods for gifted education in the near future. HICEMTs will constitute one of the innovative breakthroughs in science and technology of the twenty-first century and will lead to a new wave of innovations in psychology and education in general and gifted education in particular. HICEMTs appear at the intersection of many subdisciplines of psychology, including general, cognitive, developmental, educational, personality, media, cyber, and applied psychology, education, and multimedia. The general and specific natures of HICEMTs are described. The importance of HICEMTs is discussed from the point of view of educational, psychological, societal, economic, and technological perspectives. Chapter 62, A Technology Based Application of the Schoolwide Enrichment Model and High-End Learning Theory, by Joseph S. Renzulli and Sally M. Reis, focuses on an Internet-based enrichment program based on a high-end learning theory that focuses on the development of creative productivity through the application of knowledge rather than the mere acquisition and storage of knowledge. The program, called Renzulli Learning System (RLS) extends the pedagogy of the SEM to various forms of enrichment as well as first-hand investigative and creative endeavors. In Chapter 63, The Iowa Online Advanced Placement Academy: Creating Access to Excellence for Gifted and Talented Rural Students, Clar M. Baldus,
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Susan G. Assouline, Laurie J. Croft, and Nicholas Colangelo concentrate on the Belin-Blank Center’s Iowa Online Advanced Placement Academy (IOAPA) that was initiated in 2001. The goal of this online academy is to provide access to a standard of excellence—AP courses and exams. The heart of the IOAPA program is the commitment to preparing students to succeed in AP. This is achieved by a combination of three educational programs. The chapter examines the success of these programs. Chapter 64, On Bringing Interdisciplinary Ideas to Gifted Education, by Bharath Sriraman and Bettina Dahl, reminds us that ideally education should nurture talent in the classroom and create well-rounded individuals akin to the great thinkers of the Renaissance. That is, individuals who are able to pursue multiple fields of research and appreciate both the aesthetic and the structural or scientific connections between mathematics, arts, and the sciences. The authors analyze an underaddressed aspect of giftedness, namely the role of interdisciplinary activities and problems to foster talent in and across the disciplines of mathematics, science, and humanities, increasingly important for emerging professions in the twenty-first century. In Chapter 65, Innovation Education for the Gifted: A New Direction in Gifted Education, Larisa V. Shavinina presents innovation education as a new direction in gifted education. In order to actualize and develop the unique talents of the gifted, we have to concentrate on innovation education. Innovation education refers to a wide range of educational interventions aimed at identifying, developing, and transforming child talent into adult innovation. That is, those societal actions aimed at preparing gifted children to become adult innovators. The chapter describes the main components of innovation education and discusses its importance for the economic prosperity of the whole world. Chapter 66, Dual-Language Gifted Education and Its Evaluation, by Ernesto M. Bernal and Jaime H. Garc´ıa, analyzes the two exceptionally important topics in gifted education: dual-language education and its program evaluation. It discusses such critical issues as accountability, especially for program improvement, and the research aspects of program implementation. Successful addressing of these issues leads to continuous curricular improvement for the gifted. In Chapter 67, Observed Trends and Needed Trends in Gifted Education, Michael F. Shaughnessy and Roland S. Persson review observed current trends in
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gifted education as well as discuss tendencies that need to be developed. Based on interviews with a number of leading researchers and thinkers in the area of gifted education, the authors identify and consider the number of important issues for the future of gifted education. Part XII of the handbook, Policy Implications and Legal Issues in Gifted Education, is about latest progress in gifted education policy and legal aspects of gifted education. This part consists of three chapters. Chapter 68, United States Policy Development in Gifted Education: A Patchwork Quilt, by Joyce Van Tassel-Baska, examines gifted education policy in the United States. The chapter states that policy in gifted education remains a patchwork quilt of legislative and administrative rules and regulations, mostly at the state level. Although a federal definition exists with an accompanying modest funding package, the No Child Left Behind Act, focused on raising achievement for low-performing students, has driven out gifted education as a priority for federal attention. There is a variance of policies among all 50 states that causes national reform in gifted education to be less cohesive, comprehensive, and inclusive than it needs to be. In Chapter 69, Identifying and Developing Talent in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM): An Agenda for Research, Policy, and Practice, Rena Subotnik, Martin Orland, Kristin Rayhack, Julie Schuck, Ashley Edmiston, Janice Earle, Edward Crowe, Pat Johnson, Tom Carroll, Daniel Berch, and Bruce Fuchs highlight the need to produce greater numbers of highly educated and innovative scientists, engineers, and mathematicians for securing a bright economic future for the United States. The authors discuss the current US approach to serving adolescents who are talented and interested in STEM, analyze the obstacles to meeting national goals, and offer solutions for consideration by the research, policy, and practice communities. Chapter 70, Gifted Education and Legal Issues, by Frances A. Karnes and Kristen R. Stephens, explores the legal processes (negotiation, mediation, due process, litigation) that parents of the gifted can utilize in seeking appropriate identification and services for their children. The efforts of the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in resolving disputes pertaining to gifted learners are also discussed along with the role that legislation and court cases have had in policy development in gifted education.
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Part XIII of the handbook, Giftedness Research and Gifted Education Around the World: Institutional and Regional Examples, provides an overview of the recent efforts made at both institutional and micro- and macro-regional levels aimed at studying, developing, and educating gifted children. My idea was to offer examples of best practices in the cases of one of the oldest research center, of two megacities—New York and London, UK,—as well as of whole countries and parts of the world. It should be emphasized that the goal of this part was not to cover absolutely all countries and regions. It provides only certain examples and consists of seven chapters. Chapter 71, Swimming in Deep Waters: Twenty Years of Research About Early University Entrance at the University of Washington, by Kathleen D. Noble and Sarah A. Childers, is about the Halbert and Nancy Robinson Center for Young Scholars (Robinson Center) at the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle, USA, and its role in giftedness research and practice. The chapter describes the Early Entrance Program initiated in 1977 that is about radical acceleration from secondary school to the university, as well as its sister program, the UW Academy for Young Scholars. In Chapter 72, How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall? Gifted Education in New York City, Dona J. Matthews opens a discussion of problems and possibilities in urban gifted education in the case of New York City (NYC). The author reviews diverse forces that are at play locally, including bottom-up and top-down political pressures, concerns about equity and social justice, media responses, and changing legislation and standards. Resulting changes in NYC educational practice are interpreted as a movement toward a mastery model of giftedness. Chapter 73, London Gifted & Talented: A Case Study in High Challenge Urban Education, by Ian Warwick, examines both London’s strengths and the challenges it faces in gifted education. It analyzes the role of London Gifted and Talented and London Challenge in realizing the potential of gifted and talented children by investigating some of the models for teaching and learning that these organizations developed and trialed across the UK capital by working with students, schools, and local authorities facing the most challenging circumstances. In Chapter 74, Giftedness and Diversity: Research and Education in Africa, Jacobus Gideon Maree and Carol Noˆela Van der Westhuizen, present a compre-
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hensive review of gifted education in Africa. Focusing on significant advances in the field of giftedness that have informed the theory and practice of gifted education in the past decade, they argue that the challenge in sub-Saharan Africa is to extend the existing body of knowledge in gifted education to better understand giftedness in the context of third-world and developing countries. Chapter 75, Recent Developments in Gifted Education in East Asia, by Shane N. Phillipson, Jiannong Shi, Guofeng Zhang, Den-Mo Tsai, Chwee Geok Quek, Nobutaka Matsumura, and Seokhee Cho, demonstrates that in spite of sharing a common cultural heritage, latest advances in giftedness research and gifted education in several countries and regions within East Asia show that each country and region is currently distinguished by different approaches to gifted education. However, the challenges facing many of these countries and regions are remarkably similar, such as misconceptions as to the role of gifted education within communities that are dominated by extensive and pervasive examination systems, and the limited roles of indigenous research in conceptions of giftedness and curriculum development. In Chapter 76, Gifted Education in the Arabian Gulf and the Middle Eastern Region: History, Current Practices, New Directions, and Future Trends, Taisir SubhiYamin discusses provisions available to gifted and talented children in the Arabian Gulf region and the Arabic countries in the Middle East. The author reviews varying cultures in the region, each with their own practices, terminology, and conceptions of exceptionality. Major issues in the area of the identification and development of giftedness and creativity are examined and new directions in gifted education are highlighted. These issues include gifts or talents as entities, the philosophy of gifted education, identification, programs, educational technology and the “digital world,” future research, and challenges that lie ahead. Chapter 77, Gifted Education and Research on Giftedness in South America, by Eunice M. L. Soriano de Alencar, Denise de Souza Fleith, and Violeta Arancibia, examines the state of giftedness research and gifted education in the South American countries. As these nations do not share the same cultural, linguistic, ideological, social, and economical backgrounds, there are differences in the terminology, practices, and policies implemented for the gifted in this continent. However, these countries are characterized by the same
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scarcity of programs for training teachers and psychologists, shortage of financial support for implementing programs and services for the gifted, preference for enrichment educational strategies, and predominance of misconceptions among parents, educators, and administrators. Part XIV of the handbook, Conclusions, contains a single chapter, Research on Giftedness in the 21st Century, by Albert Ziegler, which serves to integrate the other chapters in the handbook. This chapter points out common as well as unique features of the various facets of giftedness research discussed in the chapters of the handbook and suggests directions in which future research, practice, and policy might lead us. Specifically, the author addresses the issues of (a) what giftedness research is all about; (b) whether present rationalizations for the existence of this field of research can remain justified; and (c) possible synergies with expertise research and innovation research in the future. The chapters of this handbook therefore demonstrate that giftedness is inherently multidimensional, multifaceted, interdisciplinary, personally demanding, socially consequential, cross-cultural, and frequently surprising. As a result, understanding the scientific principles that explain the nature of giftedness requires
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a variety of research approaches. Authors presented a wide range of approaches to understanding the fundamental essence of giftedness and of educational options aimed at the development of the gifted. This handbook thus provides what is perhaps the most comprehensive account available of what giftedness is, how it is developed, how it is measured, how it is educated, and how it affects individuals, societies, and the world as a whole. And—what is probably the most important—the handbook launched many new research directions in the field of giftedness and gifted education that have not been discussed earlier. This handbook thus greatly advances giftedness research and gifted education worldwide by making a lot of great discoveries—exactly as Richard Feynman recommended.
References Colangelo, N., & David, G. (2003). The Handbook of Gifted Education. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Heller, K. A., Monks, F., Sternberg, R. J., & Subotnik, R. F. (2000). The International Handbook of Giftedness and Talent. Oxford, UK: Elsevier Science.
Part II
The Nature of Giftedness
Chapter 2
The History of Giftedness Research Heidrun Stoeger
Abstract Perceptions of giftedness have, over the course of history, developed from a theological through a metaphysical to an empirical approach. This chapter will offer an overview of the latter approach, which has guided giftedness research since the end of the 19th century. First, the historical development of the concept of intelligence and its significance for giftedness research will be delineated. This will be followed by a historical review of studies based on multi-dimensional models of giftedness and the expertise approach. Following a rendering of investigations on gene/environment interactions, a historical outline will focus on educational studies and studies on individual differences and subgroups of gifted students. As a conclusion, factors that had an influence on giftedness research over the course of history will be submitted for discussion, also addressing the significance of cultural differences and relevant research in this area. Keywords Multi-dimensional models of giftedness · Promotion of high ability · Cross-cultural research · Innovation
in the field of giftedness. As clearly shown in chapters by Davidson and by Dai (this volume), there has not been, and still is no uniform conception of giftedness. This makes it rather difficult to assemble an outline on the history of giftedness research. However, it is not only variations in the conception of giftedness which create problems; cultural differences must also be taken into consideration. The inception of giftedness research, as well as its nature, varies from culture to culture. In order to accord due justice to these aspects, various perceptions of giftedness held over the course of history will be contemplated, from a theological through a metaphysical to an empirical approach to the topic. This will be followed by a presentation of the essential areas of giftedness research, and an overview of research studies conducted in recent decades. Since this overview will make clear how strongly the selection of topics in these research studies were influenced by social and cultural issues, the subsequent section will review those factors which have shaped giftedness research over the course of time as well as the cultural differences and similarities in giftedness research.
The Progression from a Theological, Through a Metaphysical, to an Empirical Approach to Giftedness In a chapter on giftedness research one should first exIntroduction
plain what exactly is meant by the term giftedness, how perceptions of this term have changed over time, and Ziegler and Raul (2000), in accordance with the what effects these differentiations have had on research philosopher Auguste Comte (1798–1857), differentiate among three phases, or approaches, to giftedness over the course of modern history: (1) a theological H. Stoeger (B) phase, (2) a metaphysical phase, and (3) a scientific, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Bavaria, Germany or empirical, phase. In the first phase, giftedness is e-mail:
[email protected] L.V. Shavinina (ed.), International Handbook on Giftedness, c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-6162-2 2,
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considered to be a bestowal from a higher power. Gifted individuals were seen as supernatural beings. This approach is evident in several cultures (for an overview, see Phillipson & McCann, 2007). For example, both Plato in Greece and Confucius in China spoke of “heavenly children.” References taken from the Bible also reflect this line of thought: “Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us” (Romans 12:6, King James Version). In this approach, not only are gifted persons considered to be supernatural beings but also discoveries and inventions were understood to be rediscoveries of previous creations of God (Grupp, Dominguez-Lacasa, & Friedrich-Nishio, 2002). In the second phase, the metaphysical phase, giftedness was more intensely associated with the individual. Giftedness and talent were regarded as individual aptitudes. For example, the philosopher Paracelcus used the term “talent” as early as the year 1537 in the sense of a mental aptitude (Passow, M¨onks, & Heller, 1993). Although gifted persons were no longer categorized as supernatural beings, several myths about gifted persons were commonly accepted. For instance, one believed that gifted persons died earlier (Stanley & Benbow, 1986; Wuttke, 1990). This was seen as a sort of poetic justice to compensate for the disproportionate distribution of aptitudes (Fels, 1999). Also, the characterization of a “crazed genius” was widely accepted at this time (Grinder, 1985; Bongartz, Kaisser, & Kluge, 1985; Feger, 1988; Urban & Sekowski, 1993). To some extent, similar myths about gifted persons are still common today. For example, despite a wide selection of findings to support the contrary, gifted students are to this day often characterized as being particularly problematic. The third phase embodies a controlled empirical approach. Since the dawn of the 20th century, the approach to giftedness has become increasingly influenced by scientific reasoning. The transition to this phase can primarily be accorded to scientific progresses in the field of psychology and the application of progressively sounder research methods. In the empirical phase, scientists began to measure talents and gifts, and understood them as the foundation for exceptional achievement. Prevalent during this phase was the simple equation of talents with a high level of intelligence. However, over the course of time, giftedness was increasingly identified with an interaction among various personality traits (for an
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overview see Heller, M¨onks, Sternberg, & Subotnik, 2000; Sternberg & Davidson 2005). In alternative approaches, the significance of learning processes in the generation of exceptional achievements is subjected to investigation. A synopsis of these differing research areas is given in the following section.
Intelligence Research and its Significance for Giftedness Research From a historical perspective, one can say that Galton (1883), and somewhat later Binet and Simon (1916), set the empirical approach to giftedness in motion. Galton’s field of specialization was genetics, in particular the inheritance of intelligence and talents. A major accomplishment of his work is associated with the first attempts to refute the divergence theory (Galton, 1869, 1874; see also Cattel, 1903; Lombroso 1895; Nisbet, 1891; Yoder, 1894). This theory claimed that giftedness is correlated with negative physical and psychological traits and that exceptional achievement is associated with emotional imbalance. Similar to the metaphysical approach, this theory was based on the myth of a “crazed genius”. A further significant accomplishment attributed to Galton is his proposal that individual differences in intellectual abilities could and should be measured (Urban, 1981, 1982; Sternberg, 1993). The goal of measuring intelligence and logical thinking capacities was also being pursued by Binet, a French educational scientist and psychologist. The catalyst was a mandate, issued by the Parisian Ministry of Education, that children should only be admitted to schools for special education on the basis of medical and scholastic certification. Working together with the psychologist Theodore Simon, he developed the first intelligence test for children and adolescents between the ages of 3 and 15. The test was made up of exercises staggered according to age. A composite score was determined based on the number of exercises solved correctly; this score yielded the child’s “intelligence age”, or mental age. In order to interpret the results of the test, a reference was made to the differences between chronological age and mental age. Although the original intentions of Binet and Simon (1905) were to develop a selection process for intellectually challenged children to enable them access to special
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education, their test also had an enormous influence on giftedness research (see Silverman, this volume). For example, Terman later developed the Stanford Binet Test, which he applied in the identification of students for his longitudinal study (see below). Not only Binet’s work but also that of William Stern had great influence on the research conducted by Terman and others. Stern (1911) found fault in Binet’s concept of intelligence age. He criticized that the differences between intelligence age and chronological age had different levels of significance assigned to them at different stages of life. While an intellectual deficit of 2 years for a 10 year old would just about fall into the range of normalcy, it would signify an extremely low intelligence for a 4 year old. Stern therefore suggested forming a quotient out of intelligence age and chronological age (and then multiplying this by 100). This quotient features the benefit that advantages or deficits in achievement are directly comparable at individual age levels. For example, with this method, both a 4 year old with a mental age of 3 and a 12 year old with a mental age of 9 have intelligence quotients of 75. Wechsler (1939), the founding father of modern day intelligence quotients, voiced concern that the quotients being formed with Stern’s method were only legitimate as long as achievement improved linearly with age. As of a certain age, however, yearly growth begins to subside increasingly and reaches a plateau in early adulthood. For this reason, Wechsler broke the concept of mental age and normed his test for each age level. The point of origin for this line of thinking was the empirical finding that for every age bracket achievement is distributed around a mean value. This is fixed through a linear transformation at 100. Individual achievement can be expressed as the difference from the mean, which is relatively compared in accordance with an age-appropriate distribution. As of Wechsler’s work then, IQ is no longer technically a quotient, but rather a measure of deviation. Over the course of history, interest not only focused on intelligence and the measurement of the inter-individual differences of this trait, which at that point in time was equated with giftedness, but these tests were also employed to explore a number of other issues. A well-known study, in which giftedness was equated with high intelligence, is the longitudinal study conducted by Terman (Terman & Oden 1947, 1959). The study started in 1921 at Stanford University
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in California and continues to this day. Inspired by Galton’s studies (M¨onks, 1981; Urban, 2004), Terman examined whether high intelligence – in accordance with the divergence hypothesis – actually did correlate with negative physical and psychological traits and whether exceptional achievement is related to emotional imbalance. Out of his sample of approximately 250,000 schoolchildren, approximately 1,500 were selected on the basis of an intelligence criteria (higher than 140 for children younger than 11 and higher than 132 for 14-year-old adolescents). A wide range of data was collected on the children in the survey, such as social background, whether they had relatives with outstanding intellect, vital statistics, medical examinations, scholastic achievement, educational paths, career choices and progress, scholastic and occupational interests, literary interests, and personality traits. The results of the Terman Study showed that gifted children by no means demonstrate the adverse traits assumed by the divergence hypothesis. On the contrary, in comparison to children with average intelligence, the children involved demonstrated better states of health, achieved better scholastically, demonstrated comparable or better play-time behavior, and showed, with a few exceptions (ca. 5% of the sample), more advantageous emotional, moral and character profiles. Also, the scholastic paths and career choices selected by the gifted children were assessed as being highly opportune. In addition to these aspects, a number of other issues were explored, for example, comparisons were made between highly successful and less successful test subjects with respect to a series of aspects. To this day, interesting publications based on the Terman data appear regularly, such as pieces on gender-related individual differences and mortality (Lippa, Martin, & Friedman, 2000). Subsequent to Terman, a series of quantitative investigations were conducted (Durr, 1960; Hildreth, 1938; Lovell & Shields, 1967). At first, they were closely bound to a tight conception of intelligence and produced similar results to those of Terman (Goldberg, 1959). It took time before individuals started to view the all-around positive depiction of gifted children and their development submitted by Terman with a more critical and sophisticated eye. One reason for this was a series of criticisms raised about Terman’s study, such as a pre-selection of participants via teacher nominations, the lack of a true control group, large time intervals between data collections, the
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disproportionately small percentage of schoolchildren from the lower socio-economic strata, the relatively high standards of life and education enjoyed at that time in California in comparison to the rest of the United States, and the influence that labeling the participants as gifted may have had on their behavior and development of the subjects (Freeman & Urban, 1983; M¨onks, 1963; Urban, 2004). In addition to these critiques, the increasingly complex nature of the conception of giftedness contributed to modifications in the configuration of empirical research (see Theories of Intelligence below). Before this issue is raised, the concept of intelligence, which still plays a significant role in newer conceptions of giftedness, will be discussed.
Theories of Intelligence Despite more than 100 years of research in the area of intelligence, to this date there is still a general lack of agreement as to what one should include under the construct of intelligence, and how an optimal measurement of it could be taken. Two expert surveys, conducted in 1921 and 1986 (Sternberg & Berg, 1986), revealed substantial differences in and modifications to perspectives over time (see also S¨uß, 2003). In order to integrate these differing perspectives, Sternberg and Berg (1986) proposed a multi-leveled concept. In this concept, they differentiate among psychometric theories of intelligence, theories of information processing, and theories which focus predominantly on context. (1) On the behavioral level we find theories in the tradition of psychometric intelligence research. Here the focus is – as in the approaches described above – on the measurement of the products of intelligence. Standing in the foreground are answers to the question of whether intelligence is one single trait or if one must distinguish among several traits. It all comes down to structure theories on intelligence, which focus on the description and explication of individually differentiated abilities. The development of structure theories is strongly tied to the development of factor analysis. The theories and models primarily differ with respect to the number of abilities assumed and their relationships to one another. The differences among the models can, to some degree, be explained through differences in
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the factor-analysis method applied (J¨ager, 1982; S¨uß, 2003). Five of these models will be briefly described in the following section. Spearman (1904) assumed in his “Two Factor Theory” that performances on intelligence tests can be explained by two components: a variance component, the so-called “general intelligence” (“g”), which is common across all test exercises, and a second component, which is specific to each exercise (“s”). Thurstone (1938) presented an alternative to this with his model of “primary mental abilities”. He developed a model, on the basis of a comprehensive battery of tests, with seven independent abilities. Since he was not able to empirically demonstrate that the seven mental abilities were indeed independent from one another, the model was modified to a hierarchical structure model. This stipulates, on the highest hierarchical level, a factor of “general intelligence” (“g”) and, on a second level seven correlated “specific individual abilities” (verbal comprehension, word fluency, number, space, memory, perceptual speed, induction and reasoning). The “Theory of Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence” developed by Horn and Cattell (1966) is considered to be among the most influential theories submitted to intelligence research. It is based on higher order factor analyses. Differentiations are made between fluid and crystallized intelligence. Fluid intelligence pertains to the basis processes of thought and other mental activities and is primarily determined through genetics. Crystallized intelligence is the ability to draw on the knowledge one has acquired to solve problems. Crystallized intelligence is culturally dependent. The “Berlin Structure Model” was developed by J¨ager (1982) to explain differences between rival structure models and to integrate these models into a collective model. Elaborate investigations led to an ability hierarchy. On the top hierarchical level is “general intelligence”, one level below this are seven very general ability constructs ordered along two facets (operations and content). A third hierarchical level results in 12 cells which can be interpreted as specific abilities (see also Guilford, 1967). Distinctive in the Berlin Intelligence Structure Model is the integration of creativity. The “Three Stratum Theory” by Carroll (1993) postulates – on the basis of wide-ranging analyses – likewise, a general intelligence on the highest hierarchical level, as well as eight factors on the second level
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(fluid intelligence, crystallized intelligence, general memory and learning, broad visual perception, broad auditory perception, broad retrieval ability, broad cognitive speediness, and processing speed) (for a more detailed description please see Silverman, this volume). In terms of psychometric theories of intelligence and the structure theories described above, over the course of time, enhancements and expansions to the theories became increasingly common. Examples here are the theory of “multiple intelligences” by Gardner (1983; for a more detailed description please refer to Davidson in this volume), the concept of “practical intelligence” by Sternberg and Wagner (1986; see also Heng et al., this volume), “operational intelligence” (D¨orner, 1986), “emotional intelligence” (Bar-On et al., this volume; Goleman, 1995), “typical intelligence” (Goff & Ackerman, 1992), and the “triarchic theory of successful intelligence” (Sternberg, 1999; for a more detailed description please refer to Davidson in this volume). (2) Since the 1970s, numerous attempts have been made to explain the materialization of feats of intelligence through theories of information processing. These approaches can be broken down into two categories. One approach attempts to explain differences in intelligence through elementary processes, such as quickness, accuracy and efficiency in reference to the fundamental processes of information management (e.g., Jensen, 1982; Neubauer, 1995; Pellegrino & Glaser, 1979; Sternberg, 1977, Vernon, 1987). In the other approach, the emphasis was placed on examining higher order cognitive processes such as working memory capacity (e.g., Kyllonen & Christal, 1990; S¨uß, Oberauer, Wittmann, Wilhelm, & Schulze, 2002), metacognitive processes (Ericsson & Delaney, 1999; Shore et al., this volume) and inhibition performance – in other words, processes which erase irrelevant information from the working memory (Hasher & Zacks, 1988; Hasher, Zacks, & May, 1999). (3) With respect to context, there are theories which accentuate the situational relativity of intelligence and place the dynamic nature of the interaction between person and environment in the foreground (Ceci, Ramey, & Ramey, 1990; Sternberg, 1984). In this category, theories describe intelligence as a dynamic process, while in other approaches intelligence is understood in terms of the capacity to adapt.
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Empirical Investigations on the Stability and Malleability of Intelligence In addition to research on the construct of intelligence, the measurement of this construct, and individual differences in intelligence (for an overview please refer to S¨uß, 2003), over the course of the investigative history, one can also witness a great deal of research regarding the heredity of intelligence (for an overview please refer to Thompson & Plomin 1993, 2000; see also Gagne, this volume). The main thrust of research on this facet was directed toward genetic influences regarding general cognitive abilities. Furthermore, investigations sought to determine how stable intelligence is formed over the course of a lifespan. For some time it was assumed that children who were identified as highly intelligent, or gifted, at a young age would also be gifted later on; in other words, that intelligence is a relatively stable trait. More recent studies have shown, however, that intelligence is less stable than previously presumed (see McCall, Appelbaum, & Hogarty, 1973; Sattler, 1988; Schneider, Bullock, & Sodian, 1998; Shapiro et al., 1989; Willerman & Fiedler, 1974). However, intelligence – or at least how it is conceptualized in a psychometric approach – does not change over the course of a lifespan. Flynn (1984, 1998) demonstrated that the average (tested) intelligence increases from generation to generation. He was able to empirically demonstrate this for 20 countries. If one presumes that IQ tests can actually measure human intelligence, then the Flynn effect confronts us with a rather disconcerting phenomenon. In research literature, numerous explanatory approaches have been tested, such as test sophistication, nutrition, state of health, urbanization, and rising socio-economic status. However, all of these possible causes only partially explained this effect. Of more importance appears to be that the cognitive skills measured by the tests demonstrate a high level of concurrence with skills deemed important nowadays, related to abstract thinking, the ever increasing prevalence of computers and the increasing significance of visuals in culture. The Flynn effect remains to this day a subject of empirical studies. Current investigations include assessment of its validity for gifted individuals (Wasserman, 2007, see also Silverman, this volume). The construct of intelligence also plays a significant role in giftedness research today. However, additional
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traits are also taken into consideration. Most certainly, a significant inducement was the relatively low predictive power of IQ scores for later performance excellence. A telling example here is delivered by Terman’s study. Although scholastic and occupational path developments among the participants were assessed as positive, very few members of the sample were truly able to produce outstanding achievements later in life (Howe, 1982; Samson, Grane, Weinstein, & Walberg, 1984; Sears, 1984), while two participants who later won the Nobel Prize were actually excluded from the original sample.
Multidimensional Models – An Expanded Perspective If one were to conduct a literature search, one would be sure to come up with a dizzying number of definitions and models of giftedness (for an overview please see Heller, M¨onks, Sternberg, & Subotnik, 2000; Sternberg & Davidson, 2005, see also Dai, this volume; Davidson, this volume). In most approaches, giftedness is still understood in terms of high intelligence. The cut-off point from where one can begin to speak of giftedness or talent varies widely from one theory to another, and the choice as to where this cut-off point is made is relatively indiscriminate. Often, outstanding performance will be incorporated into the conception (DeHaan & Havighurst, 1957; Heller, 1989; Marland, 1972; Tannenbaum, 1986). In some approaches this is so pronounced that true giftedness can only be identified among adults (Tannenbaum, 1986). Persons who do not exhaust their potential are often labeled underachievers (Butler-Por, 1993; Peters, GragerLoidl, & Supplee, 2000). Regardless of whether intelligence, cognitive abilities or achievement are included in the conception of giftedness, presently, multi-dimensional approaches to giftedness are highly favored (e.g., Gagn´e, 1985, 1993, 2004; Gardner, 1985; Heller & Hany, 1986; Renzulli, 1978, 1986; Sternberg, 1985, 1988, 1990 2003). In most cases, these multi-dimensional models also feature additional personality traits such as motivation, creativity, or wisdom. In some cases environmental conditions, such as socio-economic status, are also introduced (Gagne, this volume; Ziegler, 2005). The individual dimensions of giftedness have, over the course of time, come to form their own branches of
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research. Examples are research devoted to creativity or social responsibility (for an overview, please refer to Runco, 2005; Davidson, this volume; Kaufman et al., this volume; van Tassel-Baska, this volume). Since definitions and models of giftedness are systematically addressed in other chapters of this volume, this chapter is limited to the relatively cursory review of the field. While the wealth of empirical studies on intelligence theories and the measurement of intelligence is virtually insurmountable, this is not the case for multidimensional models of giftedness. True, there are numerous publications dedicated to various conceptions of giftedness (for an overview refer to Heller et al., 2000; Sternberg & Davidson, 2005), however, several of them have not been subjected to adequate empirical examination. Heller (1993) and Heller & Schofield (2000) performed exhaustive literature researches, concerning topics frequently presented or addressed over the course of 12 years in conference proceedings of international conferences on giftedness and in the articles published in the six major journals in the area of giftedness. In these conference proceedings and articles less than 20% addressed basic research or the empirical examination of models. When data-based research was conducted concerning multi-dimensional models, it was predominantly concerned with either the exploration of individual traits that these models considered to be essential (e.g., creativity) or the questions of gifted education (Heller, 1993; Heller & Schofield, 2000). These questions are certainly of great importance from the perspective of practical application, but Heller and Schofield are also correct in their conclusion that “this may also suggest that there is still a lack of good quality basic research being undertaken in the area of giftedness per se. Indeed, without such basic research, the very nature of giftedness is still open to question” (Heller & Schofield, 2000, p. 134). This assumption is also reflected in the still contrary positions on how performance excellence is to be interpreted (see Schneider, 1993, 2000). According to the conceptions of giftedness described above, an influence is exerted by the general intellectual abilities and other traits (e.g., creativity, motivation) assessed in early childhood or adolescence – alone or in the presence of encouragement – on performance later in life. In this approach, a certain degree of (variable according to model) inherited qualities are presumed (see Gagne, this volume). An alternative, more recent approach hypothesizes that innate attributes are virtually insignificant for
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the generation of achievement excellence (Anderson, 1990; Ericsson & Crutcher, 1990; Ericsson, Roring & Nandagopal, 2007). Domain-specific training plays a prominent role in this approach.
A Change in Perspectives – Away from Traits, Toward Domain-Specific Training: The Expertise Approach One difference between the trait-oriented giftedness approaches and the expertise approach is the departure from a prospective approach to a retrospective approach (see Schneider, 1993, 2000). In trait-oriented giftedness approaches, such as in Terman’s study, children or adolescents are first identified as gifted, and then researchers determine whether these individuals actually attain achievement excellence later on in life. A large number of empirical studies have borne out that this is usually not the case (Howe, 1982; Samson et al., 1984; Sears, 1984). In the expertise approach, in contrast, a retrospective approach is engaged. Investigations are made with persons who have already been able to demonstrate outstanding achievement in a specific talent domain. In the beginning, the driving issue in these studies was also to determine whether these outstanding achievements can possibly be explained through particular cognitive abilities, like general intelligence, attention, or memory (Cox, 1926). Additional traits such as motivation or personality were also subjected to examination (Roe, 1952, 1953). Similar to the results of prospective studies, it could also be demonstrated that traits alone are not sufficient to explain the generation of achievement excellence (see Bloom, 1985; Roe, 1952, 1953). Later studies were performed with adult experts and novices. Groundbreaking work was executed with the chess studies conducted by De Groot (1946, 1978) and Simon & Gilmartin (1973). The game of chess is a highly suitable object for these types of investigations in that outstanding performance can be observed and graded under internationally standardized conditions (cf. the index developed by Elo, 1978). Various chess studies were able to substantiate memory differences between experts and novices (Chase & Simon, 1973; De Groot, 1952, 1953). These differences could only be shown in conjunction with recollections of meaningful chess positions, not for those consid-
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ered to be meaningless, which indicated that the differences observed were not disparities in the visual shortterm memory. Soon afterward, it was shown that the phenomenon was not due to quantitative differences in memory performance, but rather qualitative differences (Chase & Simon, 1973; Ericsson & Staszewski, 1989). In the meantime, a wide range of studies were conducted in distinctive talent domains (for an overview see Ericsson, 2007; Ericsson et al., 2006; Ericsson et al., this volume). The most notable differences between novices and experts uncovered were that experts exhibit superior memory performance, but only in their talent domain, they show superior recall of domainrelated information as a function of the amount of knowledge in the domain, and furthermore, the speed of access to relevant knowledge is quicker, and they apply more sophisticated knowledge-based strategies. In order to explain the differences between novices and experts, various models have been developed and subjected to empirical examination (Ackerman, 1987, 1988; Anderson, 1982; Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Roemer, 1993; Ericsson & Charness, 1994; Ericsson, 1996, 1998; Fitts & Posner, 1967). In all models, practice plays a crucial role in the acquisition of expertise. For various talent domains, it could be shown that about 10 years, or 10,000 hours of intense practice was needed before exceptional performances of international significance could be demonstrated (Chase & Simon, 1973; Krogius, 1976; Sonsniak, 1985). The pure number of practice sessions is, however, not alone sufficient in guaranteeing the attainment of performance excellence. Over the course of two studies, it was demonstrated that a specific type of engagement with the activity must take place, and expertise researchers refer to this active occupation with a subject as deliberate practice (e.g., Ericsson et al., 1993; Ericsson, 1996; Ericsson & Lehmann, 1996). Deliberate practice comprises practice activities that aim at maximizing improvement. Deliberate practice is conceived as highly structured activity which requires effort and is not inherently enjoyable. Because deliberate practice is very strenuous, expertise research has also examined the necessity of recovery times, as well as further attributes considered essential for the maintenance of deliberate practice, such as motivation or parental support. Although the expertise approach is considered to be a rival to giftedness research (Gagne, this volume; Schneider, 1993, 2000), a convergence of
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multidimensional models of giftedness and the expertise approach can be, to some degree, ascertained (Ziegler & Heller, 2000; Ziegler & Stoeger, 2007). For instance, in their Munich Process Model of Giftedness, Ziegler & Perleth (1997) engineered a connection between giftedness research and expertise. In addition to favorable personality characteristics, people’s internal performance dispositions, and environmental features, this model also took an active-learning process into consideration (see also Gagn´e, 2004, 2007). In other giftedness models, for example the Actiotope Model of Giftedness (Ziegler, 2005; see also Davidson in this volume), which stands out by reason of its systemic approach, traits are no longer positioned in the foreground and are being replaced by actions and learning paths which lead to achievement excellence. Independent of whether theoretical models perceive traits and/or learning processes as the prerequisites for exceptional achievement, the support of gifted students and their environments has played, and continues to play, a consequential role (for more details see Davidson, this volume). While in traditional giftedness research the primary focus was, at first, on how the gifted in general can be best supported and encouraged, recently researchers have moved to other investigative topics including, for example, gifted females, gifted underachievers, the twice exceptional, and gifted dropouts (see Lupart et al., this volume; M. Matthews, this volume; Reis et al., this volume; Silverman et al., this volume).
Investigations Into Interactions Between Genetics and Environmental Factors, Educational Measures and Individual Differences Promotion of gifted individuals only proves to be meaningful when one acknowledges the role played by the environment in the development of giftedness. Francis Galton was among the first researchers to delve into the field of gene/environment interactions in conjunction with giftedness research. Inspired by the work produced by his cousin Charles Darwin, (1859), he began very early on to examine the possibilities inherent in the field of genetics. His well-known work “Hereditary Genius” (1969) is considered to be a forerunner for behavioral genetics. Although Galton’s
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research methods are under criticism today (Thompson & Plomin, 1993), he was among the first to propose a gene/environment interaction for the development of giftedness. In later research literature – despite various debates (Ericsson, Roring & Nandagopal, 2007; Howe, Davidson, & Sloboda, 1998) – researchers work under the assumption that both genetics and environmental factors can be held responsible for explaining a certain degree of differences in abilities (see Gagn´e, this volume). This has been demonstrated in a large number of studies with adopted siblings and twins (for an overview, please refer to Simonton, 2005; Thompson & Plomin, 1993, 2000). While initial research was concerned with how large and how significant genetic influences are on the development of giftedness, gene/environment interactions were later of interest for the identification and education of gifted children. For instance, in the identification of giftedness in early childhood, hereditary/environmental relationships are sometimes placed under scrutiny (Taylor, Clayton, & Rowley, 2004). The foundation for such research is formed by a categorization of nature–nurture conditions. In accord with Scarr and McCartney (1983), Plomin (1994) describes three types of hereditary/environmental conditions: (1) Passive hereditary/environmental conditions occur when children share genetic material and environmental conditions with their family members. If one were to assume that giftedness is hereditary then it would be extremely likely that gifted children would have gifted parents, who in turn would provide their children with environments in which learning, reading, etc. would play a significant role. (2) One speaks of reactive hereditary/environmental conditions when the environment (e.g., day care providers) reacts to the talents demonstrated by a child, and provides him or her with learning opportunities if the child proves to be exceptionally curious, demonstrate high levels of interest, or find itself in a relatively advanced state of cognitive development. (3) Active hereditary/environmental conditions are present when gifted children actively mould their environment in accordance with their individual gifts. Expressions of this can be found, for example, in children who prefer play activities associated with a high learning content (spelling games, number games) or who seek out interactions with partners who are cognitively stimulating (older children, adults).In the identification of giftedness
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in early childhood, these hereditary/environmental conditions are more closely investigated (see Perleth, Lehwald, & Browder, 1993; Perleth, Schatz, & M¨onks, 2000; Stoeger, 2007). Although these gene/environment interactions play a similarly important role in the education of gifted individuals, empirical studies have, over the course of time, focused their investigations on the effectiveness of various types of educational measures. The history of research in this area is very broad (for an overview please refer to Colangelo & Davis, 1997; Dixon & Moon, 2006; M¨onks & Katzko, 2005; Tannenbaum, 1993, 2000). Leta Stetter Hollingworth is often referred to as the first giftedness researcher to empirically investigate gifted education. “. . . whereas Lewis Terman . . . deservedly gets credit for providing the United States its first major tool for objectively identifying intellectually talented individuals in order to study them further, Leta Hollingworth took the next important step to nurture them academically . . .” (Stanley, 1990, p. 34). Two of the educational studies Hollingworth conducted with gifted and profoundly gifted children were of extreme significance. In the year 1922 Hollingworth initiated, along with her colleagues at the Teacher College of the Columbia University in New York and the administrators and teachers of New York City Public School 165, a 3-year longitudinal study. The studies connected to this project formed the groundwork for the first textbook on gifted education Gifted Children: Their Nature and Nurture (Hollingworth, 1926). The Speyer School experiment (1936–1941) refers to an experimental school, composed of two so-called Terman classes (students with a median IQ of 145) and five socalled Binet classes (students with an IQ between 75 and 90). The children in these classes were partially instructed as a group, but all children learned at their own pace and in their own way. Field trips and curriculum units, which teachers, pupils, and advisors cooperatively developed, were also an integral part of this experimental school (for an overview, please refer to Klein, 2000). Investigations were conducted with both the gifted students and the students with lower IQs. The Guidance Laboratory of Teachers College tested the children and pursued individual case studies. In addition to rather clinically oriented case studies, such as those by Hollingworth or later Hauck & Freehill, (1972), a number of evaluation studies on scholastic promotional measures were conducted. The investigative objects included special schools (e.g.,
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Hildreth, 1952; Wilson, 1953), special classes in regular schools (e.g., Barbe, 1955; Hall, 1956), giftedness programs (e.g., Drews, 1957, 1959; Ekstrom, 1961; Geuβ & Urban, 1982; Goldberg & Passow, 1962; Hoyle & Wilks, 1975; Martinson, 1960), as well as acceleration and enrichment (Justman, 1953; Elwell, 1958; Wall, 1960a, 1960b; Ripple, 1961; Klausmeier & Ripple, 1962). Furthermore, the characteristics of successful gifted-education teachers were the objects of relatively early empirical investigations (e.g., Bishop, 1975; Nelson & Cleland, 1971; Maker, 1975). Although publication numbers point out that within the research community interest in gifted education has fluctuated through the years (Urban, 2004), it has consistently been the main subject for giftedness research (Heller, 1993; Heller & Schofield, 2000). In addition to evaluation studies on specific educational measures, researchers also investigated learning processes, motivation, and work habits. With respect to learning processes, expertise research has been able to lay claim to important findings (Ericsson et al., 2006). Whereas this branch of research is founded on a solid empirical approach (Ericsson, Roring & Nandagopal, 2007), the quality of giftedness research is often the recipient of critical observations. “Research into the effectiveness of gifted programs is often criticized for its lack of scientific rigor, such as research design and adequately described control groups” (Phillipson, 2007, p. 4, see also Craven, Marsh, & Print, 2000). A meta-analysis of all empirically based articles published in 1997 and 1998 in five acclaimed giftedness journals by Ziegler and Raul (2000) showed that a control group existed in less than one quarter of the studies. Pyryt, (1988, 2005), Rogers, (1989) as well as Carter and Swanson, (1990), who also undertook content analyses of relevant journals found that practically oriented applied research dominated and that rather simple statistical analysis methods were used. Moreover, the effectiveness of the educational measures under analysis was also largely critically evaluated (Kulik & Kulik, 1992; Lipsey & Wilson, 1993; Vaughn, Feldhusen & Asher, 1991), particularly when, in addition to significant results, effect sizes were taken into consideration (see also Dixon, Gentry, Mathews, McCoach, & Worrell, 2005). Relatively soon, specific subgroups of gifted students moved into the focus of empirical research. For example, a wide range of studies on gifted minority groups and on differences concerning identification
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and educational measures within these groups have been conducted (Drews, 1959; Ford, Moore, & Whiting, 2006; Gordon & Bridglall, 2005; Jenkins, 1948; Maker, 1996; Sumption & Luecking, 1960; VanTassel-Baska, Feng, Quek & Struck, 2004). Underachievement was also the subject of much early research, and to this day remains a significant investigative topic. In addition to the causes for underachievement, educational measures to counteract underachievement have been widely examined (e.g., Applbaum, 1961; Gowan, 1955, 1957; Kurtz & Svenson, 1951; Morgan, 1952; Owens & Johnson, 1949; Peters, Grager-Loidl, & Supplee, 2000; Shaw & McCuen, 1960; Uhlinger & Stephens, 1960). A further subgroup, which has been long represented in the research literature, is gifted girls and women (Jolly, 2005; Holahan, Sears, & Cronbach, 1995; Reis, 2003; Reis et al., this volume; Silverman, 1989, 1996; Silverman et al., this volume). Hollingworth was one of the first researchers to publish works on gender differences concerning giftedness (Hollingworth, 1914, 1916a, b, c). The Terman databank has been used in a number of studies on gender differences (for an overview refer to Jolly, 2005; Terman & Miles, 1936; Vialle, 1993). Investigations conducted over the past eight decades indicate that some improvements have been made in the circumstances facing gifted girls and women (Freeman, 2004; Jolly, 2005; Reis, 2006; Stoeger, 2004, 2007). For example, girls in many countries receive grades that are just as good as, and in some cases even better than, those received by boys, even in the natural sciences. Participation rates in the areas of mathematics, technology, and the natural sciences, both academically and in the distribution of leadership positions, have also sharply risen. However, the general situation of gifted girls and women in most countries is far from being comparable to that for boys and men. Certain gender role stereotypes, which make it difficult for women to fully realize their achievement potentials, are still dominant. In addition, different role expectations concerning selfconcepts and attributions can be found (OlszewskiKubilius & Turner, 2002), which consequently have detrimental effects on learning and achievement behaviors. Another subgroup of gifted students that received delayed attention in the area of giftedness research are the gifted handicapped (Karnes & Johnson, 1991; Lupart, 1992; Lupart et al., this volume; Yewchuk &
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Lupart, 1993). Although history does take notice of various examples of the gifted disabled (Goertzel & Goertzel, 1962) and gifted persons with learning difficulties (Thompson, 1971), professional awareness of the gifted handicapped only increased in the 1970s (Gallagher, 1988; Whitmore, 1981). Starting at this point in time, the first organized conferences, councils, and increased efforts on the part of researchers dedicated to this group of gifted students emerged (for an overview please refer to Yewchuk & Lupart, 1993). These are only a few of the subgroups which have been of interest to giftedness researchers. However, a review of those factors which have had an influence on giftedness research over the course of history appears to be more meaningful than an exhaustive outline of all research topics. These factors differ from culture to culture. Before beginning to address cultural differences, the United States and Germany will be used as examples of how strongly giftedness research and the related investigative topics have been influenced by historical conditions.
Factors Which Have Influenced Giftedness Research over the Course of History “Does genius make history, or does history make the genius?” (Tannenbaum, 2000, p. 23). With this question Tannenbaum (2000) clearly pointed out that on one hand it is the spirit of the times, or zeitgeist, which has an influence on what one considers to be outstanding achievement, and on the other hand, creative and innovative achievements have often left lasting impressions on zeitgeist and history itself. Pressey (1964) denoted the increased occurrence of specific types of giftedness during specific historical periods (see also Tannenbaum, 1993, 2000). An example here would be the spouts of musical giftedness in Germany in earlier centuries. Pressey hereby illuminated the significance of social, political, and historical interest and requirement structures for the discovery and education of giftedness (see chapters included in the Giftedness, Society, and Economy part of this volume). Giftedness research has also been strongly influenced by changing social conditions over the course of history. In the following passages the historical developments in the
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The History of Giftedness Research
United States and Germany will be used to illustrate this point. Over the course of the last century, research and education in the United States has fluctuated between egalitarianism and excellence. The highpoints of giftedness research were enjoyed at the end of the 1950s and in the early 1970s. In between these points in time, this topic was widely neglected. The center of research interest at this time was occupied by students with learning disabilities and those from adverse environmental conditions. The launching of Sputnik in 1957 by the Soviet Union unleashed the so-called Sputnik Shock, which led to a refocusing on excellence and giftedness research. During this period, research findings made by scientists who had been studying giftedness before the launching of Sputnik were also taken into consideration. Influential were, among others, works published by Terman and Passow. Passow in his “Talented Youth Project” examined a nationwide scale for the measurement of giftedness and programs developed to encourage and support gifted students. Approaches which had already been tested in individual city school systems, or on smaller groups, were now extended to encompass larger regions. Within the framework of this project, studies on ability grouping (Goldberg, Passow, Camm, & Neill, 1966), underachievement (Raph, Goldberg, & Passow, 1966), and the effectiveness of various special programs for the mathematically gifted (Goldberg et al., 1966) were also conducted. Passow and his coworkers compiled the research findings obtained in the field prior to the Sputnik Shock in a monograph (Passow, Goldberg, Tannenbaum, & French, 1955). In the 5 years following the launching of Sputnik, great efforts were undertaken to advance excellence in the United States. As a consequence of the National Defense Education Act of 1958, the identification of gifted students and programs in science, mathematics, and foreign languages were actively revitalized. These changes were reflected in an upsurge in empirical research (for an overview please see Tannenbaum, 1993, 2000). French (1959) even suggested that in the 3 years following the Sputnik Shock more articles were published on the topic of giftedness than in the preceding 30 years. The method of research employed and the domains taken into consideration were largely oriented to the needs of society with military interests standing in the foreground.
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At the start of the 1960s, giftedness was still a relevant topic. It was expected that gifted persons would use their abilities for the good of society and that their potential would be exploited in order to raise the level of welfare. However, as interest in the Sputnik Shock started to abate, so did interest in giftedness programs and research. One must also take into account the societal reactions to transporting the first man to the moon in 1969 and political changes associated with the Vietnam War. General public attention was focused primarily on racial integration, civil rights, school integration, and compensatory education (Tannenbaum, 1993, 2000). Evidence was produced that minorities were not being fairly treated in identification processes or through ability groupings. During the 1960s the tide turned from a focus on excellence to a struggle with egalitarianism. In the 1970s, interest in gifted students began again to increase. However, “again, special education for the gifted was initiated for the sake of solving social problems rather than solely for the sake of those who need, or could benefit from, it” (Tannenbaum, 1993, p. 21). The reason for the establishment of numerous regional, local, and nationwide projects was frequent reports of ever-decreasing scholastic achievement levels, illegal drug usage, and vandalism in the inner cities. These problems resulted in a migration of large segments of the middle class to suburban districts and increased enrolments at private schools. The establishment of special enrichment programs was an attempt to reverse this trend. The Marland Report (Marland, 1971) had a particularly high influence at this time. It claimed that most gifted students were not being sufficiently supported or encouraged if they were being reached at all. Such a state of affairs could lead to serious impairment if appropriate interventions were not undertaken. As a consequence of the Marland Report, significant progress in gifted education took place (Harrington, Harrington, & Karns, 1991; Tannenbaum, 1993, 2000; Zettel, 1979). However, similar progress was not being reflected in giftedness research (Tannenbaum, 1993). Despite the relatively low number of research studies being conducted at that point in time, there are several which are worth pointing out, such as Julian Stanley’s, (1976)’s longitudinal study of mathematical precocity (see Brody, this volume), Halbert Robinson’s (1979), studies of cognitive development in the gifted, and the observations of the candidates in Terman’s study during their senior period of life (Sears, 1979; Sears,
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1977). Starting in the 1980s, giftedness research has become the subject of a wide number of conferences and publications in the United States. However, this period of time is also witness to variations in interest in giftedness in general, as well as in other topics of research associated with giftedness such as creativity, motivation, perfectionism, and educational measures (Tannenbaum, 1993, 2000). Similar to the progression of events in the United States, social and political upheavals in Germany have had a deep impact on the education of and the research regarding gifted students. In Germany, one can differentiate among three phases in giftedness research (for an overview see Ziegler & Stoeger, 2007). The first phase of research enjoyed a climax at the beginning of the 20th century, the second phase was marked by a research standstill following the Second World War, and the third phase – a renewed interest in giftedness research – started in the mid-1970s. The most wellknown researcher of the first phase was William Stern (1871–1938), who is the founding father of differential psychology and the originator of the intelligence quotient (for an overview, please refer to Feger, 1991). One of Stern’s major fields of research was identification. He developed checklists, was concerned with quantitative test evaluation, test fairness, and the participation of teachers in the identification of gifted students. Similar to modern researchers (e.g., Gagn´e, 2004; Heller & Hany, 1986), Stern hypothesized a more or less innate performance disposition in the sense of a “general intelligence” and exceptional abilities in specific domains, which in combination with positive personality characteristics (interest, self-discipline, and social disposition) and favorable environmental conditions would lead to excellence. Stern made a case for special programs for the top 2% of students with highperformance dispositions and the 10% of students with exceptional abilities in specific domains. Stern’s work was far ahead of what was being done at that time in the United States. For instance, he was associating aspects of developmental psychology, creativity, and nonintellectual talents with high ability. It is also widely accepted that Terman was interested in Stern’s work, and incorporated it into his own studies (Seagoe, 1975). Petersen (1916) and Dienstbach (1925) are among the first researchers in Germany to have conducted studies on the education of gifted students. The laboratory school founded by Peterson in 1923 is character-
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ized by modern approaches, such as the disbandment of the system of school classes, the implementation of pullout groups, and social learning (for a detailed description refer to M¨onks & Katzko, 2005). Dienstbach (1925) was the first to conduct directed research on underachievement. Research by these scientists came to a full stop as a result of the Nazi political takeover. With the Nazi regime came a collapse in interest in individual differences and giftedness research as it had been pursued to that point. The German nation was the center of all efforts, and an ideology of the masses was predominant. Giftedness research was limited to the training of the leadership elite for the national-socialist empire. So-called Napola Schools were founded, whose absolvents were to become leaders of the German state. The exclusionary approach to the ideas of giftedness and elite subsectors of the population practiced and disseminated during the Nazi period led to a universal renunciation of this subject matter following the end of the Second World War. Giftedness research was a taboo theme through the 1980s, and to this day researchers in this field have to contend with sporadic bouts of bias and prejudice. One example of such discernment was delivered in a statement made by the Minister of Education of the State of Hamburg during the opening speech given at the Sixth World Council for the Gifted and Talented in 1985 in Hamburg. After he had pointed out that gifted education was unnecessary, he said “We all know how this dance around the golden calf ended” (printed in the German periodical ZEIT, August, 12, 1985). As Germany was split into the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, the Sputnik Shock initially led to a renewed awareness of gifted education. A particularly important topic at that time was the early encouragement of gifted children. However, young political activists in the late 1960s (referred to in Germany as 1968er’s) established a counter movement. The common assumption was that every person can become gifted (Roth, 1957). However, the empirical approach that was in practice at the start of the 20th century was lacking during this period. In the 1970s, the objective was to provide underprivileged students with equivalent opportunities. The word “gifted” was not to be found in any educational reference book or dictionary of psychological terms (Solzbacher, 2002). The German Democratic Republic had established state run special schools for the
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The History of Giftedness Research
promotion of talents in the areas of athletics, music and later also mathematics, and the natural sciences. These were empirically monitored. It was not until the 1980s that one notes a revitalized upswing in giftedness research. Research then was primarily concerned with the identification and education of gifted students (Brix, 1988; Rahn, 1985, 1986). The 1980s also saw the commencement of two German longitudinal studies: at the University of Marburg (Rost, 1993, 2000a, b) and the University of Munich (Heller, 1990, 1992; Heller & Hany, 1986). A significant increase in empirical studies is chronicled as of this time, as well as progress in developing new conceptions of giftedness (for an overview, please refer to Ziegler & Stoeger, 2007). Similar to happenings in the United States and Germany, political and societal changes in other countries over the course of history have greatly influenced whether, or what types of, giftedness research was conducted. A new area of research, which has so far been the recipient of little attention, in conjunction with giftedness, is that of innovation. The International Handbook on Innovation (Shavinina, 2003) contains a number of contributions from giftedness and expertise researchers (e.g., Colangelo, Assouline, Croft, Baldus, & Ihrig, 2003; Renzulli, 2003; Reis & Renzulli, 2003; Scripp & Subotnik, 2003; Simonton, 2003; Sternberg, Pretz, & Kaufman, 2003), however, prior to this, giftedness research had displayed little interest in the area of innovation research – and vice versa. As a result of far reaching economic changes, the ever-increasing demands for innovation, and the meaningful role creativity plays in giftedness research, one would expect this mutual exclusion to come to an end in future years. A scientific subdiscipline, which will certainly inspire cooperative research, is that of entrepreneurship. This research field, which also investigates the personality characteristics of entrepreneurs, could well spawn a new area of expertise (Shavinina, 2006). It remains to be seen to what degree innovation and entrepreneurship will become objects of giftedness research in the next decades, and which countries will become specialists in this topical area. While the factors which have influenced giftedness research in the United States and Germany have been relatively similar, there are significant differences to be found between different cultures with respect to the type of giftedness research they pursue and the extent to which it is supported. In the next section
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these cultural differences and their connotation for giftedness research are addressed.
Cultural Differences Several studies have demonstrated that conceptions of giftedness are strongly influenced by culture and vary widely among cultures (Hern´andez de Hahn, 2000; Moon & Rosselli, 2000; Stone, 2002). In this instance, the concept of intelligence is used as an example. While the abilities measured with intelligence tests are classified as adaptive in several cultures, adaptive skills in some other cultures are completely different. Sternberg and his coworkers (Sternberg, Nokes, Geissler, Prince, Okatcha, Bundy et al., 2001) found in a study in rural Kenya that all knowledge pertaining to natural herbal medicine is considered to be adaptive. This is easy to understand in a land where 95% of the population is affected by infections. However, it could be demonstrated that practical intelligence tests, which measure one’s understanding of natural herbal medicine, correlate negatively with scores on traditional tests of fluid and crystallized intelligence (Sternberg et al., 2001). In a study with Yup’ik Inuit it was shown that children from urban areas perform better on traditional intelligence tests than children from rural areas (Grigorenko, Meier, Mohatt, Ynez, & Sternberg, 2004). Children from rural areas, where hunting, gathering, and fishing are essential skills, performed better in practical tests with questions referring to objects and activities related to these skills. We must then address the question of to what extent identical processes and structures of intelligence are present in various cultures, and whether traditional tests can be meaningfully applied with other cultures. Sternberg, (2003, 2007) has proposed four possible models of how processes and structures that comprise intelligence and tests to measure intelligence can be viewed. Model I assumes identical processes and structures for all cultures, which consequently can be measured with the same tests. Model II assumes differential processes und structures among all cultures, which can, however, be assessed with the same tests. In Model III the processes and structures are classified as being comparable, they must, however, be assessed with different tests. In Model IV the processes and structures that comprise intelligence as well as the measurement
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of these constructs are considered to be culturally variable. Sternberg (2007) is certainly correct in asserting that “whatever the advantages and disadvantages of the various models, I am quite sure Model I is inadequate. Yet it is the model most commonly used. A test is created in one culture, say, the United States. Then it is imported into another culture, often differing no more than in the translation of the words from one language to another. This wholesale importation fails to do justice to the cultural diversity we find around the world or even within a single country” (Sternberg, 2007, p. xvi). Cultural differences are not only being neglected with respect to intelligence constructs and measurements. These deficits also contaminate most conceptions of giftedness. The identification, education, and investigation of gifted students have been resolutely molded for decades by viewpoints and perspectives developed and advanced in Europe and the United States. The upshot here is that minorities have had to endure long periods of discrimination with respect to identification and educational measures (Borland & Wright, 2000), and cultural peculiarities in other countries were widely disregarded (Khaleefa, 1999; Zahng & Sternberg, 1998). In contrast to the preceding decades, cultural aspects have been enjoying more attention in recent years. For example, a book on conceptions of giftedness edited by Phillipson & McCann (2007) has been published, which focuses on sociocultural perspectives. It offers an overview of various cultures, their historical backgrounds, conceptions of giftedness, educational programs, and research findings over the course of history. Methodological aspects of cross-cultural research in the area of giftedness research are also relevant topics of current discussions (Campbell, Tirri, Rouhotie, & Walberg, 2004). Hope still remains that more consideration will be accorded to cultural influences in future investigative studies.
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2003). Although intelligence still played an important role in most subsequent conceptions of giftedness, multi-dimensional conceptions of giftedness did prevail. These consider other personality traits such as motivation, creativity, or wisdom, in addition to intelligence (for an overview, please refer to Heller et al., 2000; Sternberg & Davidson, 2005). While early interest focused on characteristics within the person, consideration of environmental aspects soon followed (for an overview see Davidson, this volume). However, this did originate as a unilateral influence. It was assumed that gifted students who are provided with positive environmental conditions will be better able to exhaust their achievement potential. Newer approaches (Ziegler, 2005) pursue, in comparison, a systemic approach. For example, the Actiotope Model of Giftedness (see Ziegler, 2005; Davidson, this volume) assumes reciprocal exchanges of influence between the individual action components (action repertoire, subjective action space, goals, etc.) and the environment. This system-based perspective will have a great deal of influence on future conceptions of appropriate educational measures for gifted students and should be subjected to closer examination in the future. A system-based perspective would certainly also help to resolve the discord between giftedness and cultural influences. It is widely recognized that conceptions of giftedness are acutely dependent on culture (Hern´andez de Hahn, 2000; Phillipson & McCann, 2007; Moon & Rosselli, 2000; Stone, 2002) and one can also presume that conceptions of giftedness, and associated with them the identification and educational measures, have a joint influence on culture. Although, nowadays most countries have adopted one form of gifted education and research or another (Phillipson & McCann, 2007; Passow, 1993, 2000), in most cases these have been strongly shaped by American and European conceptions of giftedness (Phillipson, 2007). This neglect of cultural aspects has made an effective examination of mutual influences next to Conclusion impossible. In addition to a systemic approach and a deeper understanding of cultural aspects, future research should Giftedness research has a history of more than 100 place more significance on the methodological aspects years. With respect to conceptions of giftedness there have been several important developments through of giftedness research. While the field was groundthe decades. At first giftedness was equated with high breaking at the start of the 20th century, in recent intelligence and research activities focused on theories decades critics have increasingly voiced concern over of intelligence and methods of measuring intelligence the quality of giftedness research (Heller, 1993; Heller (for an overview please refer to Sternberg, 2004; S¨uß, & Schofield, 2000; Ziegler and Raul, 2000). An em-
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The History of Giftedness Research
pirical clarification of the concept of giftedness would also be welcome. Over the course of the past century, hundreds of definitions and conceptions of giftedness have been introduced, however, only a slight fraction of these have been subjected to adequate empirical examination. One of the great challenges facing future generations of giftedness researchers is to determine which conceptions of giftedness have endurance. Here caution must be exercised to avoid a continued orientation on activities in the United States and Europe, but rather concerted efforts must be made to ensure that suitable models are developed for various cultures and are then empirically examined. In addition to those named above, there are certainly a number of other exciting topics available for future research. It would be interesting to know what new insights and research findings will be filling the pages of a chapter on the history of giftedness research in 100 years.
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38 Ziegler, A. (2005). The Actiotope model of giftedness. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness. (pp. 411–436). New York: Cambridge University Press. Ziegler, A., & Heller, K. A. (2000). Conceptions of giftedness from a meta-theoretical perspective. In K. A. Heller, F. J. M¨onks, R. J. Sternberg, & R. F. Subotnik (Eds.), International handbook of giftedness and talent (pp. 3–21). Oxford, UK: Pergamon. Ziegler, A., & Perleth, C. (1997). Schafft es Sisyphos, den Stein den Berg hinaufzurollen? Eine kritische Bestandsaufnahme der Diagnose- und F¨orderm¨oglichkeiten von Begabten in der beruflichen Erstaus- und Weiterbildung vor dem Hintergrund
H. Stoeger des M¨unchner Begabungsmodells [Will Sisyphos be able to roll the stone up the mountain? A critical examination of the status of diagnosis and fostering opportunities of the gifted in occupational training set against the Munich Talent Model]. Psychologie in Erziehung und Unterricht, 44, 152–163. Ziegler, A., & Raul T. D. (2000). A review of empirical studies on giftedness. High Ability Studies, 10, 113–137. Ziegler, A., & Stoeger, H. (2007). The Germanic view of giftedness. In N. S. Phillipson & M. McCann (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness: Socio-cultural perspectives (65–98). Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier Science.
Chapter 3
Essential Tensions Surrounding the Concept of Giftedness David Yun Dai
Abstract The concept of giftedness has a unique history and its meanings need to be deciphered in a proper cultural context. In this chapter, I first discuss “giftedness” as used in natural language as well as scientific discourse. I then provide an overview of the intellectual history of the concept in terms of construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction of “giftedness,” a change from what can be called essentialism to developmentalism. I argue that there are some essential tensions surrounding the concept of giftedness; they involve competing arguments and perspectives on the genesis and development of gifted behaviors and superior achievements. I then elaborate on these tensions and discuss possible ways of resolving and easing these tensions. I end the chapter by suggesting a dialogue between people of differing convictions that would allow us to delve deeper into the intricacies of the issues involved, and reach some degree of consensus as to the conceptual and empirical challenges we are facing. Keywords Giftedness and exceptional performance/ competence · Intelligence · Motivation · Talents and talent development · Expertise · Creativity · Nomothetic versus idiographic approaches · Reductionism versus emergentism Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold. . . (Borland, 2003, p. 105, quoting Yeats) Within the group, some individuals may be more traditionalistic, others more iconoclastic, and their contributions may differ accordingly. (Kuhn, 1977, pp. 227–228)
D.Y. Dai (B) State University of New York at Albany, Albany, NY, USA e-mail:
[email protected] Introduction In a Dell computer catalog published in August 2006, a new model “prodigy” was presented prominently on the cover. Indeed, the advertiser claimed that it is “gifted.” Regardless of whether a computer model can be “truly gifted,” it reveals a cultural significance of the concept: Giftedness, at least in the Western world, is a commodity that sells well. By claiming that a computer model is gifted, it conveys an unwavering faith in its superiority over other brands or models. The same can be said about a gifted person. Sternberg (1995) summarized people’s intuitions or folk beliefs about what makes an individual “gifted” with a pentagonal implicit theory of giftedness. According to this theory, in order to be judged as gifted, a person needs to meet five criteria: (1) The Excellence Criterion, which states that “the individual is superior in some dimension or set of dimensions relative to peers” (2) The Rarity Criterion, which states that “an individual must possess a high level of an attribute that is rare relative to peers” (3) The Productivity Criterion, which states that “the dimension(s) along which the individual is evaluated as superior must lead to or potentially lead to productivity” (4) The Demonstrability Criterion, which states that “superiority of the individual on the dimension(s) which determine ‘giftedness’ must be demonstrable through one or more tests that are valid assessment” (5) The Value Criterion, which states that “the person must show superior performance in a dimension that is valued for that person by his or her society” (Sternberg, 1995, pp. 66–68)
L.V. Shavinina (ed.), International Handbook on Giftedness, c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-6162-2 3,
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If we interpret “test” broadly enough to include any task performance or manifest behavior, and “dimension” to include authentic domains of human activities as well as psychological constructs such as intelligence or creativity, this list of criteria appears to serve us well regarding whether the “gifted” label is warranted for the observed performance and the person who delivers the performance. In actuality, however, these criteria only nominally solve the problem of how “giftedness” is implicitly determined in our natural language. For example, even in scholarly discussion and educational practice, the term is used in somewhat arbitrary ways (see Hertzog, this volume). A notable practice is that different meanings are intended for the term: It can refer to either psychometrically defined abilities or academic achievement (Gallagher & Courtright, 1986); superior potential is implied when used to describe a child, and superior, eminent accomplishments when used to describe an adult (Mayer, 2005). However, do these two qualities necessarily implicate each other? To the extent that they have different underpinnings, the concept “gifted” lacks unity and identity in its referents and meanings, which makes intelligible and intelligent discourse on the nature of giftedness difficult. What further complicates the matter is the valueladen nature of the term: “gifted” is often preserved for superior performance in domains that enjoy cultural distinction and importance, be it IQ test scores or special talents of cultural value. Theoretically, a gifted burglar or computer hacker is perfectly conceivable (and probably constitutes an interesting gifted phenomenon in its own right; see Heinzen, this volume), but people rarely include them in the public discourse on giftedness. Thus, to promote giftedness is to promote a human value with respect to its instrumental or intrinsic importance, and this is behind the gifted education movement. There is a scientific turn in this endeavor: What we try to promote should be constrained by our knowledge through systematic, rigorous inquiry. Thus, the public discourse on giftedness has been historically shaped by multiple stakeholders with vested interests of the scientific, ethical, social-political, and pragmatic nature. This is a mixed blessing for the field. On the positive side, the field enjoys its cultural importance and practical significance, as the knowledge it produces has important policy and strategic implications and practical utilities. On the negative side, the discourse has become very murky to the point
D.Y. Dai
of compromising its own credibility as a source of veridical knowledge. Human language itself has contributed to the problem of communication. The term “gifted” can be used descriptively and explanatorily, and these two modes of expression have different meanings. Descriptive use of the term remains empirical; for example, “he is a gifted musician” can be just an observation, equivalent to saying that “he performed extremely well.” Explanatory use of the term, in contrast, implies a causal relationship; thus, “he is a gifted musician” may imply that he possesses a musical talent that leads to the excellent performance. The latter use involves some level of inference and abstraction beyond the observable. Interestingly, many adjectives suffer from the fate of reification. Thus, “intelligent” gradually gets hardened into “intelligence,” and “gifted” into “giftedness”; the descriptive becomes implicitly explanatory. Indeed, some scholars in the field call for an explicit use of the term as explanatory, with “gifted” referring to “natural abilities” and “talent” to systematically developed skills and competencies (e.g., Gagn´e, 2004, this volume). The ambiguities involved in the descriptive versus explanatory use of the term in our natural language cause much confusion. This is largely due to the fact that the word “gifted” is loaded with varied intended and unintended meanings (Robinson, 2005), and what is intended and what is not intended in a specific context is not always well articulated. It is easy to relapse from a reasoned argument into a leap of faith in our communication. Moreover, the use of giftedness as a causal agent (e.g., the phrase “because of one’s giftedness”) can be criticized as making a circular or tautological argument: To say that one’s giftedness gives rise to her gifted performance is just like saying that someone behaves aggressively because the person is aggressive or possesses aggression; no further insight can be gained about the aggressor (or the gifted). From a scientific point of view, the descriptive versus explanatory use of the term “gifted” translates into empirical and theoretical questions. Empirically, how do we know that a person is gifted? Which form of assessment is more valid and effective: formal testing or authentic tasks? Should we rely on statistics derived from standardized tests or more up-close clinical judgments? What are the most effective ways of investigating gifted phenomena: psychometric mapping of traits in the population or tracing unique individual history? Theoretically, how do we explicate the origins and
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ontogeny of gifted behavior or performance? Should we see relevant phenomena as fundamentally reducible to a set of simple elements or as revealing a form of organized complexity that cannot be explained by simpler elements in isolation? Historically, three core dimensions have been used to define the substantive nature of giftedness, each constituting a broad, abstract concept itself, a latent construct that can be further scrutinized in terms of social and psychological underpinnings: intelligence, motivation, and creativity (see Robinson & Clinkenbeard, 1998). The order of these dimensions is not arbitrary. Intelligence (human abilities), psychometrically or otherwise defined, is arguably the most stable of the three, having more transferability in terms of enabling acquisition of new knowledge and skills (Messick, 1992). Motivation is considered more fluctuating and situational, depending on personal experiences and history as well as social contexts (Dai, Moon, & Feldhusen, 1998), though longitudinal stability of motivational patterns was also found (e.g., Gottfried, Gottfried, Cook, & Morris, 2005). Lastly, creativity takes a longer developmental trajectory to develop and likely integrates intelligence, motivation, and personality factors, and therefore the least stable and predictable of the three (Renzulli, 1986). The three concepts share a common characteristic with the concept of giftedness: they can refer to either potential (propensity or aptitude) or actual behavioral manifestation. However, the three-construct scheme is still a highly simplified roadmap to understanding giftedness, a first approximation. For the purpose of discussion, I follow the widely accepted convention of defining “gifted” as demonstrated excellence by age-appropriate standards, through authentic, exceptional performance or potential for excellence, demonstrated through aptitude tests, interviews, and clinical observations of behavior and performance (e.g., Marland, 1972; Mayer, 2005).
correction (including over-correction), to come back to a better sense of reality through negating, counterarguments, and resolution of conflicts of ideas. A concept tends to evolve in this way due to its internal tension, its failure to capture important aspects of what we sense as “truth” or “reality.” While this internal tension is essential, various historical circumstances influence the trajectory and timing of its changes. Therefore, by discussing construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction of giftedness as a logically sequential event, I by no means imply that they happened in an exact chronological order and linear fashion, as they are actually intertwined and mutually stimulating events. As in the case of a volcano, the tension is always there; however, when it reaches the point of eruption depends on many circumstantial factors that crack the structural and functional stability of the system. By structuring these events in these three phases, I try to elucidate the larger context or zeitgeist, the underlying motivations, biases, and logic that seem coherent in (a) the construction of core values and beliefs concerning the concept of “giftedness,” (b) the deconstruction of this core, and (c) the reconstruction of new core values and belief systems around it.
Giftedness Constructed: Lewis Terman’s Legacy of Essentialism
Lewis Terman (1877–1956) was a man of his time, for better or for worse. Galton (1869) envisioned a society or nation where a more distinct role be conferred upon the intellectually superior to preserve its greatness. Inspired by Galton, among others, Terman launched the first large-scale study of gifted youths by introducing massive intelligence testing as a major tool for identifying the intellectually gifted. What characterizes Terman’s time is the following convictions and motivations, which Terman (1925) held for identifying the Construction, Deconstruction, and gifted: Reconstruction of Giftedness: A (1) Intelligence is a general human quality, and it Dialectical Evolution of a Concept is largely genetically determined. This is a Galtonian doctrine with connotations of Darwinism: Intelligence The intellectual history of a concept has its own logic. is a heritable biological trait through natural selection. It evolves and changes through human reflective con- Note that in Terman’s time, the memory of Gregor sciousness, sometimes conscience, as an adaptation to Mendel’s discovery of genetic inheritance in pea plants new conditions and demands (Toulmin, 1972). I use the was still fresh, further reinforcing this Galtonian conterm “dialectical” to denote a human tendency for self- viction.
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(2) A hierarchy of intellectually superior, mediocre, inferior people can be established in the society. Herbert Spencer’s social Darwinism provided justification for the social strata or hierarchy during that historical period in the United States. A moral imperative, shared by Terman and many of his contemporaries, was to “better” the human race, eugenics being part of the solution. While Charles Goddard was working at the low end- how to reduce the negative effects of “the feebleminded” who could not tell right from wrong, Terman mainly worked on the high end, identifying and understanding the gifted (see Hall, 2003). (3) Intelligence as a general personal quality can be measured objectively with the newly invented intelligence test. Terman believed that, with the birth of the first intelligence test created by French psychologists Binet and Simon, the measurement technology was advanced enough to gauge levels and amounts of this essential quality. The gifted can be defined as top one percent of the population (roughly at or above IQ score of 140), as measured by the Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scale, a modified version of Binet and Simon’s test. It is almost bewildering in historical hindsight as to why Terman and his contemporaries had such confidence in testing and measuring such a complex, abstract human quality. Indeed, they did not even have an elaborated theory of intellectual performance and intelligence, besides its practical importance and potential applications. However, consider the confidence of Charles Spearman (1904) when he entitled his now classic article “ ‘General Intelligence,’ Objectively Determined and Measured” (p. 201). The spell of British empiricism in the American culture should not be underestimated. It entails a minimalist (and often reductionistic) assumption of how the real world operates (e.g., a deterministic world view, including how intellectual performance is determined), availability of effective measurement, and efficient mathematical maneuvering of data to find discernable patterns, all started by Galton. The faith in quantitative measurement at the time (even today) is illustrated best by Thorndike’s famous quote: “Whatever exists at all exists in some amount” (quoted in Mayer, 2003, p. 141). Underlying this conviction was the need for control in a Foucaultian sense, for good or ill, with measurement as its technology. It is not accidental that Binet had less intellectual impact on the thinking of Terman and Goddard, among their American contemporaries, other than contributing a
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crucial empirical tool: an intelligence test. Binet, a more nuanced Continental psychologist, was more intrigued by “idiographic complexity” (Brody, 2000, p. 19) of individual performance than mathematical certainty of the normal distribution of human traits like intelligence, which was the obsession of Spearman. Terman started what might be called an essentialist or realist tradition of defining and explaining gifted potential. Essentialism assumes that there is a unique essence or quality under any manifestation of behaviors seen as “gifted” or within a person so labeled. Intelligence is seen as a trait, a structural, enduring quality of the person; thus high-IQ children are seen as possessing this unique quality that sets them apart from their peers. In its most reductionistic form, giftedness is seen as a natural endowment and neurological advantage (see Geake, this volume). An indication of the movement toward an essentialist construal of giftedness is the change from use of the term as an adjective to as a noun; namely, the term “giftedness” started to hold an explanatory power. This is why Gagn´e (1999, 2004, this volume) insists that the term giftedness be differentiated from the term talent because such a causal structure and ordering of gifts and talents is important for an essentialist theory. Although there are many variations, the basic assumption of the essentialism is a unitary core of natural endowment that renders a handful of individuals “gifted,” and this essence has profound ramifications for their individuality, such as different levels of capacity, different ways of thinking, different social–emotional characteristics, different educational needs, and different developmental trajectories and pathways. The basic essentialist developmental model is how high level of “raw” intelligence or high abilities get “translated” through experience and efforts into specific forms of talent, competence, and expertise in some valued human activities.
Giftedness Deconstructed: Social and Scientific Disenchantment Even in his heyday, Terman’s advocacy for massive intelligence testing and for identifying gifted children was not going uncontested. In an early nature–nurture debate, many people voiced concerns that IQ testing threatened democracy and diminished the role of education (see Feldhusen, 2003 for a historical account).
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Essential Tensions Surrounding the Concept of Giftedness
Lippmann was among the early voices of criticism on intelligence testing; he questioned the scientific validity of IQ tests and consequently ethical implications of making IQ tests “a sort of last judgment of the child’s capacity” (Lippmann, 1976, p. 19; see Block & Dworkin, 1976, for the Terman versus Lippmann debate in 1920s). These voices were a prelude to contemporary criticisms of the gifted movement. More direct criticism of using IQ scores as a benchmark of giftedness was made by Getzels and Jackson (1965), who argued that highly creative children would be excluded when IQ was used as a main criterion for identification. However, they only attempted to modify the identification process and criteria, rather than rock the foundation of gifted education. There have been two movements that truly challenge the essentialist conceptions of giftedness. One was launched by social critics and the other by expertise researchers. Social critique of giftedness largely occurs in the context of gifted education in the United States. The very fact that identification of the gifted was associated with an implicit or explicit social stratification based on IQ reinforced the suspicion that the gifted education movement is a remnant of social elitism. Namely, what were identified as “gifted children” were actually a socially privileged class of children, thus perpetuating the preexisting social inequality (Margolin, 1994, 1996). Persistent efforts to deconstruct the concept of giftedness have been made by Borland (1997; 2003, 2005), largely from a social constructivist perspective. Borland’s main argument is that giftedness is conferred, rather than discovered: we invented it to serve a social purpose rather than discover it as an objective reality (Borland, 2003). From this point of view, Borland (2003) puts essentialist conceptions of giftedness into question:
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late from this line of thinking that the fiction of general intelligence, the psychometric tests, even factor analytic tools, all conspired to maintain a certain kind of social order. By the same token, the gifted–non-gifted comparison research paradigm helps further perpetuate the bifurcation of the gifted and the non-gifted as two qualitatively different subpopulations. As if to prove Foucault’s point, there has been an undercurrent to break the hegemony of the public discourse on intelligence enjoyed by psychometricians. The most prominent examples are Gardner and Sternberg’s theories. Gardner’s (1983) theory of multiple intelligences has, for good or ill, successfully pluralized the concept of intelligence. Sternberg (1996) not only differentiates analytic, creative, and practical intelligences, but also has shown that the concepts of intelligence and giftedness, which are often considered universal human qualities, are fundamentally culture bound, reflecting cultural values and belief systems (Sternberg, 2000, 2007). Thus, successful intelligence in different cultures may entail different kinds of human adaptation. Gardner and Sternberg’s theories have profoundly changed the way giftedness is conceptualized. But more importantly, their theoretical ideas have in effect promoted a more pluralistic value and a more liberal social order (e.g., compared to the conservative position expressed by Herrnstein & Murray, 1994). In addition to the support of new intelligence theories, the social constructivist critique of essentialist conceptions of giftedness also found an unexpected ally from the experimental tradition of cognitive psychology, which sees the world quiet differently than differential psychology (Cronbach, 1957). When dealing with issues of alleged gifts and talents, cognitive psychology is mainly concerned with the scientific validity of the claims regarding the existence and importance of native intelligence and natural talents. When “Are these two groups—the gifted and the rest—the disTerman defined the gifted as top 1% of the IQ districrete, discontinuous, structured wholes this crude taxonbution, there was no scientific justification as to why it omy implies? That is, is giftedness really its own thing, qualitatively different and apart from averageness or norcould not be top 3 or 10%. Thus, such a practice is of mality, making those who possess it markedly different, mere pragmatic consideration, rather than due to scidifferent in kind, from the rest of humanity?” (p. 111). entific necessity. Grinder (1985), among many scholIn short, Borland argued that the way we define gift- ars, argued that “[t]he psychology of individual differedness as an essential quality that sets some children ences in intellect, to the extent that its methodology has apart from the rest is scientifically unwarranted, and been dominated by mental tests, never was elevated to practically harmful (particularly for minority, under- the status of a science” (p. 27). While a few psychoprivileged students). Borland further resorted to Fou- metrically oriented researchers have attempted to decault’s argument that knowledge is not neutral but a velop a process account of individual differences in form of the technology of control. One might extrapo- intellectual performance by integrating psychometric
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and experimental approaches (Hunt, 2006; see also Gustafsson & Undheim, 1996), cognitive researchers have attempted to show that essentialist beliefs about native intelligence and natural talents have no scientific basis (Ericsson et al., 2005, 2007; Howe, 1997; Howe, Davidson, & Sloboda, 1998), and that what used to be attributed to natural talent can now be explained more adequately as a result of years of domain experience and deliberate practice (Ericsson, 2006). These researchers look at contextual experiences for alternative explanations for exceptional competence (e.g., Ceci & Liker, 1986). Although evidence seems to cut both ways, they trust proximal variables (those that link to performance more directly) than distal variables, such as genetic differences. They are eager to outlaw the concept of natural ability or natural talent, very much like trying to dispel a superstition from the scientific parlance. The crisis is also brewing from within. Close scrutiny of the intelligence tests raises serious questions about the essentialist definition of giftedness. Stephen Jay Gould, a renowned biologist, joined the ranks of deconstructivists with his book entitled The Mismeasure of Man (1981). He particularly pointed out the gap between a measured quantity (IQ scores) and the theoretical construct “intelligence” the test is purported to measure. He argued that the whole enterprise of measuring human intelligence as a normative trait committed the error of reification. Intelligence seems to be too broad, abstract, and elusive a concept to be amenable to psychometric testing. At the face value, standard intelligence tests provide a composite score by sampling a variety of task performance (mostly an academic kind). This is an empirical approach to test development deliberately used by Binet to represent a wide variety of task conditions for the sake of enhancing its practical utility in educational settings. However, precisely because of the empirical approach, there is a level of arbitrariness as to what to include in such a test; in other words, the measurement is atheoretical. The paradox is that the broader range of tasks a test covers, the better its predictive power across situations (Gustafsson & Undheim, 1996), but the less psychologically meaningful the test becomes (Lohman & Rocklin, 1995). Other stories also came out of closet. The traditional IQ definition of “giftedness” is predicated on the assumption that IQ tests measure natural aptitude apart from achievement, and its correlation with achieve-
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ment reflects a cause–effect relationship. Now this assumption has been challenged (e.g., Lohman, 2006; Sternberg, 1999a). Theoretically, only by holding two persons’ experiences constant can one infer differing “natural aptitude” in a specific learning or performance context. Mental testing simply does not afford such a stringent controlled condition. New evidence shows that with low socio-economic samples, the heritability estimate of IQ was zero and the variation of IQ was largely due to environmental factors; the opposite was the case for high SES samples (Turkheimer, Haley, Waldron, D’Onofrio, & Gottesman, 2003). While the finding begs the question of whether SES variations contain a genetic component, the study does raise the issue of differential meanings of IQ scores at different levels of SES. Sternberg (1999a) argued that no causal priority can be established for intelligence measures over achievement measures. Abilities measured by intelligence tests are forms of developing expertise, subject to environmental influences, including education (Ceci & Williams, 1997). Such an argument blurs the traditional line between aptitude and achievement, a distinction crucial for an essentialist view of giftedness (Gagn´e, 2004, this volume). There is also emergent evidence that psychometrically defined intelligence is more differentiated at the high end of the spectrum (Hunt, 2006); that is, at the high end of the IQ distribution (i.e., those with gifted IQs), there are more discrepancies between subtest scores. Thus, two persons with the same high IQ scores have, more often than not, different cognitive profiles. One may still see them as equally “gifted” but it means different things to each person, another uncertainty to be reckoned with. Other problems with equating high IQ and giftedness include instrument dependency, stability of high IQ (e.g., the issue of regression to the mean; see Lohman & Korb, 2006), and different developmental schedules, such as early versus late bloomers. What appears to be objectively measured “natural abilities” turns out to depend on many factors, genetic, developmental, environmental, and technical (e.g., instrument dependency). Deconstruction of giftedness is in a sense to demystify the process of how “giftedness” is constructed, even how we created a fiction that came to be accepted over time as a reality in a Foucaultian fashion. On a positive note, deconstruction is a force of anti-reification and anti-essentialism. It has a potentially constructive impact on how we understand gift-
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edness by forcing us to examine our deeply held, often taken-for-granted assumptions. It alerts us to a reality that is more complex and uncertain than we believe. It removes the guise of objective truth regarding intelligence, giftedness, and talent, and reveals possible subjectivity, biases, arbitrariness, even hidden social motivations involved in the construction of these “psychological realities.” In its radical form, however, deconstruction and anti-essentialism, represented by Foucault and Derrida, can also border on nihilism and cynicism: All forms of knowledge are nothing but devices of social control, of gaining economic advantages, or simply a language game. From this extreme point of view, the rationality of scientific endeavor is simply an illusion (see Phillips & Burbules, 2000). The temptation toward this direction should be resisted, in my opinion. On the other front, cognitive science has introduced a new level of rigor and a new set of criteria for judging claims about giftedness that are often based on intuitions and implicit assumptions, rather than solid scientific research and evidence. However, scientific adjudication of a possible role of genetically based individual differences for gifted behavior and performance (or the lack of thereof), when pushed to the extreme, can run the risk of radical positivism and environmentalism. After all, a cognitive science approach to giftedness, expertise, and creativity (e.g., Langley, Simon, Bradshaw, & Zytkow, 1987) has its own conceptual and methodological biases (e.g., a mechanical outlook on human functioning, emphasizing “computability,” the “reproducible,” and the “observable”; Ericsson et al., 2007). The challenge is clearly not to throw away evidence regarding individual differences accumulated by psychometric researchers in the past century, but to understand the discrepancies in the findings of different research traditions and theoretical persuasions (psychometric, cognitive, developmental, etc.), and how these discrepancies might be explained, even resolved, in light of the totality of evidence.
by many contemporary students of intelligence in general and giftedness in particular. For example, (1) Many scholars still believe that intelligence is a general, stable quality that has pervasive impact on one’s success in life (Gottfredson, 1997; cf. Neisser et al., 1996), although they may not accept the proposition that it is genetically determined, or that there is a distinct racial hierarchy regarding intelligence. (2) Many scholars still believe that IQ tests, despite their fallibility, provide the best measures around of this essential human quality, and high IQ is a good indicator of intellectual giftedness, predictive of long-term development and achievement (e.g., Gagn´e, 2004; Gallagher, 2000; Lubinski, 2004; Robinson, 2005), though they may differ in terms of whether a more conservative or liberal cutoffs should be used in identification of the gifted. (3) Many scholars still believe, along with Terman, that high intelligence is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for ultimate adult achievement and eminence; non-intellective and environmental catalysts play an important role (e.g., Gagn´e, 2004; Lubinski, 2004). However, dissatisfaction with the rigidity of IQbased definition of giftedness and the central doctrines of essentialism has also led people to search for alternative ways of thinking about giftedness. Back in the mid-20th century, Witty (1958) argued for a more inclusive definition of giftedness: “There are children whose outstanding potentialities in art, in writing, or in social leadership can be recognized largely by their performance. Hence, we have recommended that the definition of giftedness be expanded and that we consider any child gifted whose performance, in a potentially valuable line of human activity, is consistently remarkable (p. 62)”
In this new definition, not only were domains broadened to include artistic and social endeavors, but criteria for determining giftedness also shifted from test performance to authentic tasks (see also DeHaan, & Havighurst, 1957). Historical linkage is discernable between Witty’s definition and that offered by Marland’s (1972) report, which provided the first “offiGiftedness Reconstructed: From cial” definition of giftedness. Interestingly, the motivaEssentialism to Developmentalism tions driving this new approach to giftedness are pragmatic in nature. First, there was an increasing realizaTerman’s influence is still palpable today in terms of tion that “the gifted and talented come in a tremendous how we understand giftedness. Some of the basic es- variety of shapes, forms, and sizes” (Passow, 1981, p. sentialist tenets of Terman’s legacy are still accepted 8). Such diversity and heterogeneity simply defies the
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Procrustean bed of IQ tests. Second, intelligence tests as selection/placement tools have little to say about how instruction can be differentiated for a selected group of children (Lohman & Rocklin, 1995). It can be argued that two pragmatic movements in educating the gifted prompted the reconstruction of giftedness. The first was the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY) at Johns Hopkins University and subsequently the Talent Search model across the United States (Stanley, 1996; Lubinski & Benbow, 2006). A fortuitous event of trying to meet educational needs of a mathematically precocious child by a professor (Julian Stanley) eventually led to the establishment of the SMPY in 1971, and has proved to have historical importance in understanding and serving gifted children. This model bypassed the IQ criterion altogether and defined giftedness in terms of precocity, based on “out-of-level” testing, in an authentic domain of cultural importance. Epistemological and methodological significance lies in the fact that it starts with a genuine gifted phenomenon rather than a generalized assumption about giftedness based on IQ test performance. Years later, Keating, quoted by Stanley (1996), reflected on what SMPY brought to the field:
D.Y. Dai “Identification of the gifted and talented is related not only to systematic observation of and intelligent interpretation of observational data, but to the creation of the right kinds of opportunities which facilitate self-identification—identification by performance and product which results in the manifestation of gifted or talented behaviors.” (Passow, 1981, pp. 10)
The pragmatic concern over how to effectively identify gifted children for proper educational interventions has led to new understandings of giftedness as a dynamic rather than static phenomenon, as a functional state rather than a trait. In the same vein, Renzulli (1986) argued that “gifted behaviors take place in certain people (not all people), at certain times (not all the time), and under certain circumstances (not all circumstances)” (p. 76). Contrary to the standard image of high intelligence translated into real-life excellence or giftedness translated into talent, these efforts were charting a new way of defining giftedness as a more dynamic, contextual quality. In effect, this new approach to giftedness as an emergent, relational, changing property of person–environment interaction that grows and becomes more differentiated over time signals what can be called a developmentalist view of giftedness. However, as should be expected, the pragmatic approaches often fell short of articulating in depth what develop“[O]ne of the important principles advanced (in theory, mental changes occur and how they occur. After reresearch, and practice) by SMPY is a workable model of educating for individual development, as opposed to catviewing various proposed definitions, Siegler and Koegorically placement approaches that dominate most of tovsky (1986) suggested that an optimal approach to contemporary education. I think this is a potentially gentheory and research on giftedness is not to take a psyeralizable way of dealing with developmental diversity.” chometric, trait approach, but to focus on the develop(p. 232; see also Keating, in press) mental processes in an authentic performance context; The second movement was the development of enrich- that is, studying giftedness in the making. ment models for gifted education by Renzulli (1977) It was not until late 1980s and early 1990s that a sigand Passow (1981), among others. Just as the Talent nificant body of developmental research has accumuSearch model is an implicitly developmental model, lated to provide a solid foundation for explicit develRenzulli’s (1977) “triad model” also treats “giftedness” opmental conceptions of giftedness (e.g., Bloom, 1985; as a dynamic state: several qualities need to come to- Bamberger, 1986; Feldman, 1986; Gruber, 1981, 1986; gether to create a mesh. In his three-ring conception Lubinski & Benbow, 1992). There was a surge of talof giftedness, while high abilities are stable individ- ent development models in the same period (Feldual differences, task commitment and creativity are husen, 1992; Gagn´e, 1985; M¨onks & Mason, 1993; Pilargely developmental tasks and goals that education irto, 1994; Renzulli, 1994; Feldman, 1992). In general, should facilitate in children, rather than well-formed most developmentalists see giftedness not as a static traits prior to educational provision. By the same to- quality in the head but as a result of the confluence ken, Passow also challenged the standard two-step, of several forces, endogenous and exogenous, coming identification-differentiation approach. Instead, he sug- together in the right place at the right time. For exgested that prescribed enrichment be used as a vehicle ample, Simonton (1999, 2005) delineates a complex for identification as much as identification informs en- emergenic–epigenetic model. According to this model, richment. Thus: giftedness is relative to the nature of a given domain.
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Whether gifted behaviors will emerge depend on (a) whether the domain involved is simple or complex, (b) whether the person in question has the right combination of genetic (trait) components vis-`a-vis the domain, (c) whether these functional components for the domain operate at an additive or multiplicative fashion, and (d) whether all the components relative to the domain come into place (i.e., developmentally matured) at the right time. In other words, what kind of giftedness will emerge is not prespecified or pre-ordained in biology but determined by a combination of multiple factors: person (biology), domain (culture), social context (relative advantages vis-`a-vis age peers), and developmental timing (epigenetic). The model also predicts that gifted behaviors can emerge and disappear, depending on individuals’ developmental timing and related population characteristics. Simonton’s model, however, still leans toward a biological explanation of giftedness, in terms of the right genetic-based traits coming together at the right time to give expression to a specific talent. Environmental factors still play a backstage role. In most developmentalist models, however, emergence of giftedness is typically described as an outcome of the confluence of environmental and personal factors, a co-incidence (Feldman, 1986). In that sense, no one knows what Bobby Fischer would have been up to if there were no chess around. Also, the traditional boundary of giftedness as within the head or skin is broken, as the emergence of gifted behaviors or performance can be due to the synergy of many individuals’ efforts, and the creative contributions can be socially distributed within a group of contributors (Sawyer, 2003). This kind of collective giftedness or excellence has received less attention than it deserves even to date. In its most distinct form, developmentalism has some core assumptions about the nature of giftedness that sets it apart from essentialism: (1) Giftedness as developmental diversity (as opposed to the essentialist core of giftedness). This assumption not only treats giftedness as a form of deviation in development, but also implies a variety of niche potentials and developmental pathways that do not share the same essential characteristics, cognitively or affectively. If one further factors environmental conditions and opportunities into the developmental diversity, phenotypic manifestations of giftedness are even more diverse (different domains, different social contexts, and different cultures). Many forms of giftedness
belong to what Feldman (1994) called non-universal development. Non-universal development has two important characteristics: first, it has unique individuality in development, a unique set of sensibilities and propensities; second, it only occurs under particular environmental conditions, and in the case of a culturally defined talent, with instructional and training provisions. Hence, other than denoting some form of excellence or potential for excellence (to use Sternberg’s excellence and rarity criteria), the concept of giftedness is not unitary and does not imply a set of shared core attributes. Such developmental pluralism is in sharp contrast to the essentialist doctrine that stipulates specific formulas for defining and measuring giftedness. (2) Giftedness as a developmental state (as opposed to giftedness as a static trait or a constellation of traits). Developmentalists tend to see giftedness not as a biologically constitutional, but rather, as a specific developmental and functional state vis-`a-vis adaptive challenges in a specific context, subject to further adaptive changes. Thus, giftedness is seen not as an attribute but as a critical state in some important aspects of development (Ziegler, 2005; Ziegler & Heller, 2000), or a point of advanced intellectual or artistic development (Coleman & Cross, 2005; Robinson, 2005; Subotnik & Jarvin, 2005). In contrast to a trait definition, what is seen as “gifted” is dynamic, contextual, and emergent: through interest and passion, through honing of advanced skills, and through maintaining a creative tension (Dai & Renzulli, 2008). The image of being gifted is no longer a set of static traits but a state of sustained mastery and transformation, and the eventual productive use of knowledge and skills in building one’s unique vision of world and life. (3) Giftedness as a process and product of structural and functional changes through differentiation and integration. A developmentalist model of giftedness cannot be content with the status of an implicit theory, making assumptions largely based on intuitions and convictions without explicating what develops and how it develops. Such specification can be as detailed as at a neural level, such as structural and functional adaptations occurring in the brain as a result of musical training (Schlaug, 2001). Various attempts have been made in the talent development research to specify what is an initial state and what is a developed state that evolved from the previous one (e.g., Bamberger, 1986; Bloom, 1985; Csikszentmihalyi, Rathunde, & Whalen, 1993). The expertise research
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has also made headway in making the developmental changes in mental structures and functions explicit (see Ericsson, 2006). (4) Giftedness as an interaction of affordances and effectivities. In contrast to a structural construal of giftedness, developmentalists tend to see giftedness as functional states that cannot be dissociated with functional contexts (Barab & Plucker, 2002). This is in line with the argument advanced by ecological psychology that environmental and social affordances are contingent on the individual’s readiness to perceive and act upon them (i.e., effectivities); conversely, the individual’s effectivities or abilities are induced and shaped by environmental and social affordances or opportunities. Many developmentalists attempt to specify the role of environmental conditions, in interaction or reciprocation with genetic dispositions, in a specific line of the development of exceptional performance and competence (Bloom, 1985; Csikszentmihalyi et al., 1993; Papierno, Ceci, Makel, & Williams, 2005). For some, the task of finding exceptional individuals becomes that of finding exceptional conditions (Soniak, 2006), the right proximal processes (Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1994), and enabling and facilitative conditions (Keating, in press). (5) Giftedness as time-sensitive, task-specific performance (as opposed to an absolute state of being). Developmentalists have introduced the temporal dimension into the discourse and research on giftedness. They attempt to specify developmental timing, sensitive periods, and the age of peak performance in a given domain, to name a few, as significant developmental events that can have make-or-break effects on sustained engagement in a specific line of talent development (e.g., Ericsson, 2006; Shavinina, 1999; Simonton, 1999, 2005). Early manifestations of giftedness do not guarantee later success, as task environments at a higher level impose new demands and constraints. As a result, some stand out while others opt out. Being gifted has different meanings at different stages of talent development (Dai & Renzulli, 2008; Subotnik & Jarvin, 2005). (6) Giftedness as an immediate phenomenology (as opposed to an a priori assumption about the nature of giftedness). A major change from essentialism to developmentalism is an epistemological shift, from an a priori assumption of what constitutes giftedness to a focus on immediate phenomena of gifted behavior and performance in authentic functional contexts and
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how it develops. Therefore, the predictive validity of high IQ or other psychometric test scores and justification of their use for identification is no longer a research priority. Rather, understanding the phenomenology of how individuals achieve high-level expertise and creative productivity every step of the way becomes a focus in its own right. This epistemological shift has led to methodological innovations, such as retrospective interviews (e.g., Sosniak, 2006), biographical studies (Gardner, 1993; Gruber, 1981), experiential sampling (Csikszentmihalyi et al., 1993). The developing person as a whole becomes the focal point, instead of some isolated variables, measured in a decontextualized fashion. The focus is no longer abilitycentric, but integrating cognitive, affective, and motivational processes (e.g., Shavinina & Seeratan, 2004; Winner, 1996).
Essential Tensions I have thus far delineated a capsule history of the concept of giftedness in terms of construction of the core meaning of giftedness (essentialism) and reconstruction of the core (developmentalism), from monolithic to pluralistic, from static to dynamic, with deconstruction efforts mediating the process. I have also alluded to motivations and impetuses driving these changes, including deep epistemological changes (e.g., understandings of developmental principles), the increasing diversity of populations, a democratic imperative that demands equal opportunities for all, and scientific rigor brought in by various research traditions. Although the trend is unmistakably clear, the tensions and disagreements are far from resolved. On the contrary, coexistence of many competing ideas and conceptions is likely to be a normal state of the field for many years to come. It creates tensions and conflicts that call for solution (see Mayer, 2005, for a review). This is to be expected, as the giftedness research as a field has such a diverse group of stakeholders and diverse interests and concerns, and is yet to become a mature interdisciplinary field of studies. On the other hand, confronting those tensions and conflicts, and hopefully resolving some of them, also become important if the field is to develop a clear identity (or even a commonly accepted nomenclature) and a relatively coherent set of agendas for research.
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Fortunately, it is possible that a meta-level discussion of different ideas provides some degree of coherence and commensurability to the seemingly incoherent and incommensurable ideas. In the following section, I attempt to provide such a framework in a fairminded manner, without being swayed by my own biases, which I readily admit. I base my discussion on an important premise: scientific inquiry involves creative interpretation of systematic observations regarding a class of objects or phenomena (often drawing inferences and conclusions from limited, often insufficient, evidence). This view is supported by Holton (1981), a scientific historian, who argued that science is more than impersonal, mechanical exercise of hypotheticaldeductive logic and inductive reasoning based on empirical evidence. There is a third force, a more subjective one: scientists’ ontological convictions about certain phenomena and commitments to pursuing along these lines of inquiry, what he dubbed themata. More formally, themata are thematic dimensions or continuities along which people place their ontological commitment and allegiance in a domain or about a class of phenomena. For example, Holton identified in Einstein’s belief systems a deep commitment to unity, continuity, logical parsimony, and necessity, and mathematical certainty (p. 15), which set him on a conflicting course with those thinking along the line of quantum mechanics, such as the probabilistic nature of quantum dynamics, discontinuity in measurement. Similarly, scholarly conceptions of giftedness represent a form of motivated reasoning of various persuasions on epistemic, ethic, political, or pragmatic grounds, constrained by logic and evidence (Kunda, 1990). Unlike Kuhn (1962), Holton (1981) believed that scientific advances are better characterized as evolutionary rather than revolutionary, continuous rather than discontinuous, as the notion of incommensurability implies. In other words, the Kuhnian notion of a wholesale Gestalt change or “paradigm shift” disguises the complexity of the issues involved (see also Toulmin, 1972, p. 128). Instead, Holton believed that “major scientific advance can be understood in terms of an evolutionary process that involves battles over only a few but by no means all of the recurrent themata” (p. 25). He further suggested that scientific advances may not hinge on consensus building, as Kuhn (1962) argued, but on “an enterprise whose saving pluralism resides in its many internal degrees of freedom” (Holton, 1981, p. 25).
In psychology, various themata roughly fall into two distinct philosophic traditions: scientism and humanism (Kimble, 1984). C. P. Snow (1967) treated them as two distinct cultures. Wherever the issue of conceptions of giftedness is concerned, at the first blush, there are scholars who have an ontological commitment that giftedness is by and large a neurological advantage vis-`a-vis specific or general functional and developmental contexts (e.g., Gagn´e, 2004; Geake, this volume). There are others who either remain agnostic in terms of biological origins of giftedness (e.g., Renzulli, 1999) or take more or less a developmental view (e.g., Feldhusen, 1992; Feldman, 2003; Subotnik & Jarvin, 2005). The reasons for this epistemic pluralism are multifaceted. First, psychology, like meteorology or medicine, is an inexact science. Psychologists and giftedness researchers/educators alike do not have a crystal ball in hand when identifying gifted potential and needs and predicting long-term outcomes. Second, gifted manifestations are diverse, and their etiologies and ontogenies are likely diverse as well. Therefore, diverse, sometimes competing, ontological commitments may serve their respective phenomena, constituencies, and stakeholders well, and thus complement each other (in this sense, a truly “saving pluralism” at a epistemic or pragmatic level). Third, our conceptual and methodological tools are more sophisticated than decades ago, which allow us to capture the complexity of the “gifted” phenomena in greater detail, and recognize the virtues and weaknesses of various perspectives and approaches in a more refined manner, rather than categorically accept or reject a theory or argument. In this sense, the field is truly evolutionary rather than revolutionary; the notion of gestalt-like “paradigm shift” may emphasize the discontinuity at the expense of obscuring the continuity of systematic efforts to understand “giftedness.” Scholars and researchers in the field tend to agree on some aspects of the nature of giftedness but disagree on others. Rather than tangled up with ideological battles, a more productive strategy is to turn ideological differences into more nuanced, tractable scholarly exchanges, which potentially lead to some degree of consensus and agreement. Although leaving “many internal degrees of freedom” (Holton, 1981, p. 25) may still be useful for a field that is still mapping its territory, it seems important to walk a fine line between hasty consensus seeking on the one hand and the anarchy of proliferations and conflations of ideas and models on
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the other. One way of doing this is to identify a set of themata that seem to be the central issues of how we understand “giftedness,” and how we should cultivate this quality for the welfare of individuals involved and the society at large. A refined, scientific understanding entails addressing three canonical questions that unpack “giftedness” in terms of its constituents and underlying processes; various themata simply reflect some aspects of these fundamental questions: (1) The Nature–Nurture Question. Can gifted behavior or performance ultimately be traced to natural endowment, that is, individual differences in genetic and constitutional makeup and biological preparedness, cognitive as well as affective; and to what extent can it be explained by experience, effort, and contextual support, such as instruction and mentoring)? How do nature and nurture interactively contribute to the emergence of intelligent behavior, motivation, domain expertise, and creativity, and possibly ultimate eminent achievements? Moreover, the question also concerns whether those who have attained gifted performance or have potential for gifted performance are fundamentally different from the rest of the population in terms of how they perceive feel, think, learn, and develop, and consequently their educational needs. (See later discussion of the essential tensions of aptitude versus achievement, being versus doing/becoming, qualitative versus quantitative differences.) (2) The Range of Adaptation/Innovation Question. To what extent is gifted potential versatile in terms of its capability of adapting to a wide range of functional niches, and to what extent is gifted potential specific to a particular niche and/or is relatively canalized in its development, in terms of its range and direction of adaptation? In other words, should gifted behaviors be seen as a fundamentally domain-specific or domaingeneral phenomenon? This question can also be broken down to domain-generality-specificity of intelligence (human abilities), motivation, and creativity. Casting this question in the framework of the nature–nurture question, one may ask to what extent does the individual’s inner environment, through its brain mechanisms, selectively attends to, choose, and organizes environmental features in forming a unique developmental trajectory (a domain-specific view), or to what extent does the biology of brain organization show versatility, through its neural plasticity and cognitive flexibility, in response to environmental opportunities and
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challenges (a domain-general view)? (See later discussion of the essential tensions of domain-general versus domain-specific, expertise versus creativity.) (3) The Process/Development Question. What is the process of the development of gifted potential or exceptional competence (maturation, neural hard-wiring, deliberate practice, sustained interest, systematic inquiry, conceptual development and organization, development of expertise, etc.)? What is it that develops (sensitivities, mental representations, reasoning skills, dispositions, etc.)? These questions deepen the nature–nurture question by asking how do the person and the environment interact as proximal processes (Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1994), and how is nature (e.g., genetic expressions) contingent on nurture, and how does nature constrain nurture (see Dai & Coleman, 2005)? These “process” questions deepen the domain-generality-specificity question by elucidating in what exact manner domain-relevant resources are channeled into domain-specific development, and how various components are co-opted to produce what is manifested as gifted behavior or performance. Along this line of thinking, further questions can be asked. For instance, does timing of the onset of a specific line of talent development matter? Are there sensitive periods for a specific line of talent development? Are there distinct developmental stages or phases? At what age does performance peak (i.e., reaching its asymptote) for a specific domain? To what extent does cognitive aging constrain the creative performance and expressions? Although current debates focus more on the nature–nurture issue (see Dai & Coleman, 2005), one may argue that it is at this level of analysis that we can formulate truly explanatory theories, rather than merely descriptive theories and theoretical conjectures about causal structures and relationships underlying various gifted phenomena. Ultimately, the task of scientific understanding of giftedness is to demystify, rather than reify (and sometimes deify), giftedness. In the following section, I identify some of these themata, and provide an admittedly personal perspective on them for the sake of provoking more thoughts on inherent tensions, dilemmas, and conflicts underlying what I identify as the traditions of essentialism and developmentalism in the field. As one shall see, some of them are conceptual issues, others concerning values, and still others epistemic. I suggest that these themata constitute essential tensions revolving around the concept of giftedness, and that finding proper solutions
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or at least easing these tensions would help achieve The problem. This controversy brings to the foresome degree of synthesis and move the field forward front the issue of whether the conceptual distinction (Table 3.1). we make between aptitude and achievement is still valid at an empirical level; namely, whether we can ascertain certain mental capacity as indeed an antecedent of, even a precondition for, actual excellence Aptitude Versus Achievement in a given domain. Most extant models, such as Gagn´e’s (2004) differentiated model and the Munich Scholars in the field differ in whether giftedness can Dynamic Ability–Achievement Model (Heller, Perbe better determined through testing of aptitude or pu- leth, & Lim, 2005), represent various mental abilities tative “potential,” or actual excellent achievement and as a precondition or prerequisite for later achievement, performance in an authentic context by age-appropriate implicitly or explicitly assuming a causal link between standards. The use of the aptitude (or ability) versus abilities and achievement. As these models have achievement criterion creates a tension regarding how been challenged by the expertise researchers (see giftedness manifests itself, and how we can best deter- Ericsson, 2006), conceptualizing mental capacity as a prerequisite for achieving domain excellence hinges on mine its presence, nature, and degree. Evidence of the tension. Since Galton, and particu- evidence of the predictive validity of measurements inlarly since the invention of mental testing, mental abili- volved (i.e., “productivity” criterion; Sternberg, 1995). ties have been thought as normally distributed within a Although the research findings are mixed and do not population; thus giftedness and mental retardation con- provide a clear-cut answer either way, there are several stitute two ends of the intelligence continuum. Deter- concerns over using aptitude measures as the sole mining giftedness by mental testing started with Ter- indicator of giftedness. They include the following: man, and still constitutes a mainstream perspective (a) aptitude tests are not fine-tuned to differential (e.g., Robinson, Zigler, & Gallagher, 2000). However, domain requirements, and therefore they are relatively as early as late 1950s, achievement or performance in poor predictors of domain-specific achievement an authentic domain or social context was proposed as (Lohman, 2005); (b) different domains likely have a major criterion for determined gifted potential (De- different threshold requirements (Simonton, 1999) Haan, & Havighurst, 1957; Witty, 1958). In several for mental abilities; (c) inferring a causal relationship major conceptions of giftedness, ambiguities were al- between measures of mental abilities and achievement most deliberately built into the definition to allow for could be problematic (Sternberg, 1999a), a commitboth psychometrically defined mental abilities, indi- ment of jangle fallacy, that is, labeling one as a test cating latent potential for excellence, and outstanding of intelligence and the other as a test of achievement domain-specific performance and achievement, indi- while the two tests have a large overlap in construct cating demonstrated excellence (e.g., Renzulli, 1978; representation (Kelley, 1927; see Lohman, 2006); Marland, 1972). There are several competing strate- and (d) exclusively using mental abilities as aptitude gies to resolve this tension. One calls for a sharp dis- measures neglects non-cognitive personal factors such tinction between natural abilities and achievement or as intrinsic motivation as high potential or aptitude for systematically developed competence; only the for- achievement (Gottfried & Gottfried, 2004; Dai, 2004). mer, measured by aptitude tests, warrants the label On the other side of the story, there are concerns over “gifted” (e.g., Gagn´e, 1999, 2004). Another approach using domain achievement as the main indicator of is to view only authentic performance or mastery as ev- giftedness. Using achievement and expert performance idence of giftedness and see measures of mental abil- as an indication of giftedness (i.e., demonstrated ities as unreliable, and often invalid indicators of gift- excellence), though authentic and free of some shaky edness (e.g., Ericsson et al., 2005; Matthews & Fos- assumptions about “latent capacity” (Ericsson et ter, 2006). Still another strategy simply treats all men- al., 2005, 2007), naturally biased in favor of those who tal abilities as developed competence or developing have the necessary experiential exposure, opportunity, expertise, therefore, enjoying no psychological prior- and technical and social support to get that far. It ity over achievement (e.g., Lohman, 2006; Sternberg, is conceivable that many individuals are “gifted” but lack such exposure, opportunity, and support to 1999a).
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D.Y. Dai Table 3.1 A summary of eight tensions surrounding the concept of giftedness Thesis
Antithesis Aptitude versus achievement
Potential for excellence (i.e., giftedness) is best evidenced in performance conditions that can differentiate ability (aptitude) from achievement
We will never know whether a person is gifted unless the person demonstrates superior mastery of skills and knowledge in authentic domains or contexts Being versus doing/becoming
Giftedness is a structural property of the person in question, because what within the person ultimately explains gifted performance and behaviors
Giftedness is a functional state of person–environment transaction and interaction, and thus is relative to tasks and contexts involved, and subject to further change Domain-general versus domain specific
Giftedness is domain-specific, because Giftedness is not confined to any single each domain has its own unique set of domain, because abilities can be demands in terms of sensitivities, flexibly channeled and utilized in inclinations, and abilities multiple ways, depending on environmental circumstances and motivations Qualitative versus quantitative differences Giftedness individuals differ from their Gifted individuals are different from their average peers only in degree, because average peers in kind, because the they only show relative strengths and structural and functional organization advantages rather than absolute ones of their mind is different, and their developmental trajectories are unique Expertise versus creativity Creative productivity (innovation) should High-level expertise (proficiency) in a be the hallmark of giftedness and goal given domain should be the hallmark of of gifted education, because giftedness giftedness and goal of gifted education, is not about mastery of the already because only this form of excellence known, but exploring, discovering, and can be scientifically verified, and inventing the unknown educationally promoted Nomothetic versus idiographic Manifestations of gifted behaviors are diverse and unique phenomena, and have their own underlying logic, not subject to predetermined universal principles; therefore, the uniqueness of each manifestation needs to be closely examined Reductionism versus emergentism
Manifestations of gifted behaviors are subject to a set of universally valid laws and principles; therefore, we can determine who are gifted and how the gifted develop by applying these universal principles
The complexity of gifted manifestations reflects higher-order organizational principles in the organism and functional regularities, and shows emergent properties that cannot be reduced to lower-level individual components Excellence versus equity
The complexity of gifted manifestations can be explained by simpler components at a more basic level of analysis; higher-level phenomena can be causally reduced to lower-level structures and processes
Identifying and cultivating high potential for excellence is a society’s responsibility for the welfare of individuals as well as the society at large. Rewarding excellence reflects a cultural value that is important for democracy and civilization
Singling out the “gifted” for special treatment and unequal access to excellence perpetuates existing social inequality, and creates a new social “elite,” thus violating the democratic principle of equal rights and opportunity, and fair allocation of public resources
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demonstrate their “latent capacities.” This empirical issue reflects an epistemological dilemma: teasing apart “natural ability” and developed skills and knowledge is almost impossible. One cannot demonstrate high-level “capacity” in academic or other domains without substantial experience, intentional learning, and practice (the same can be said about performance on IQ tests). However, to argue that the only things that matter are experience, learning, resources, and support also runs counter to a widely accepted notion that the ease of learning is a hallmark of giftedness (Gagn´e, 2004). Furthermore, the concept of “latent capacity” or potential, as long as it is not seen as “fixed”, still seems useful for several reasons. First, it is unrealistic to expect mature, full-blown gifted and talented achievements at a very young age, barring few cases of child prodigies (e.g., Feldman, 1986). Many times, signs of giftedness and early talent still need to be recognized through testing or observation outside a specific domain of interest. Second, one can make a distinction between content mastery (product) and mental structures and operations (process) leading to mastery; it is the latter that often underlies the concept of gifted potential and related individual differences (e.g., the ease of learning), so that we still can conceive of unrealized gifted potential or “gifted underachievement” as quite prevalent, rather than an oxymoron. Finally, at a pragmatic level, it allows for discretion and expert judgment of gifted behaviors and potential in informal settings (e.g., through conversations and anecdotal evidence), without strictly adhering to the domain excellence criterion. Solutions. A conservative solution is offered by Angoff (1988), who suggested that we shift the focus from nature–nurture debate to the issue of stability, malleability, and transferability in conceptualizing aptitude. According to him, while aptitude, like achievement, is a developed, rather than innate, quality, it differs from achievement in several important ways: (1) aptitude grows more slowly than achievement, the latter of which is likely a direct result of formal exposure to a specific content area; (2) aptitude tends to resist short-term interventions to hasten its growth, while achievement is more amenable or receptive to such interventions; (3) aptitude mainly concerns potential (e.g., rate of learning), and achievement provides a measure of how much is learned; (4) aptitude tests sample a wider range of behaviors than achievement tests, therefore indicative of a more generalizable
capability than achievement measures; (5) since aptitude does not particularly rely on formal schooling, evaluation of general intellectual functioning is made possible with aptitude tests regardless of school experience and achievement (thus, a school drop-out can theoretically still get high scores on IQ tests); (6) aptitude as a measure of potential is still useful, when the learner whose aptitude is being evaluated has not yet been exposed to the learning material (see also Cleary, Humphreys, Kendrick, and Wesman, 1975). Although many points of justification Angoff offered here for the distinction between aptitude and achievement are debatable (e.g., Ceci & Williams, 1997), to the extent that we still make a distinction between how individuals differ in their ease of learning and performance (process), and how much they gain as result of their efforts (product), the aptitude–achievement distinction is still warranted. In this regard, traditional aptitude tests can be criticized to some extent as focusing too much on how much one already knows (i.e., achievement), not on how apt one is to know something (aptitude); the latter can be better assessed through dynamic assessment (Kanevsky, 2000). In view of limitations of the traditional view of aptitude as a latent capacity, perceived by some scholars as a mysterious quality (e.g., Ericsson et al., 2005, 2007; Matthews & Foster, 2006), Snow (1992, 1994) offered an alternative view of aptitude as the readiness to deal with situational demands and benefit from situational opportunities. Instead of a wide-open promise or even a blank check, as it were, aptitude so defined is a highly circumscribed, proximal potential, sitting right at the person–situation interface, rather than solely referring to a personal trait, validated by its predictive validity. In other words, aptitude indicates the fitness to learn or perform well given a specific situation versus inapt to do so, in which case the term inaptitude is used. Such a situational definition of giftedness is close to domainspecific mastery models in a sense that it favors evidence of proximal mastery over generic aptitude measures (e.g., Matthews & Foster, 2006). It is different from domain mastery models in that aptitudes and inaptitudes are still seen as “proneness” or “propensity” rather than actual performance levels. From a more pragmatic viewpoint, Coleman and Cross (2005) offered a developmentalist solution: in childhood, giftedness may be defined as psychometrically or otherwise measured “potential,” but, as the child reaches adolescence, there should be
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evidence that the alleged potential is substantiated by age-appropriate accomplishments in specific culturally valued areas of human endeavor. Their definition represents a compromise between aptitude (ability) and achievement. Mayer (2005) extended Coleman and Cross’s definition to include adult creative productivity by providing a life-span formula that defines giftedness as “an age-specific term that refers to potential for the beginning stage, achievement for the intermediate stage, and eminence for the advanced stage” (p. 439). We can roughly identify three major categories of conceptions of giftedness based on the aptitude– achievement tension: (a) person-centered conceptions (hence, the gifted child), which emphasize the centrality of aptitude as a latent potential; (b) domain-centered conceptions, which emphasize domain-specific manifestations as the sine qua non of giftedness for a given domain (thus, giftedness is relative to the domain in question and relative to levels and stages of talent development), and (c) culture-centered conceptions, which treat giftedness as involving an interaction of person, domain, and field, allowing for the role of multiple endogenous and exogenous factors, such as natural endowment, personal initiative, and social-contextual facilitation, but ultimately see gifted development and eminent accomplishments as socio-culturally mediated and conferred (Csikszentmihalyi & Robinson, 1986). Each type of conceptions makes slightly different ontological commitments as to the locus of giftedness, leading to the aptitude–achievement tension. In sum, while achievements in authentic human activities clearly provide the best evidence for human exceptional competencies, it appears that the concept of giftedness as high potential or aptitude is worth preserving for pragmatic as well as epistemological reasons. Working with human functioning means working under uncertainties. Just as equating giftedness with some aptitude measures risks losing their legitimacy as a proxy measure of “potential” for excellence, equating giftedness with high achievement also risks masking differential underpinnings (e.g., comparing one person who may have just overlearned the material and another who is able to achieve deeper insights into the problem through the material). Using eminence as a marker of giftedness has its own drawbacks. Eminence is often based on social prestige and reputation, and therefore may or may not reflect true excellence by objective professional stan-
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dards and scientifically credible evidence, unless social appeal is an inherent part of the criteria for excellence (e.g., arts, oration, social leadership). It is important, therefore, to use more rigorous criteria and procedures for judging the degrees and levels of excellence, rather than relying on procedures and criteria such as nomination or public accolades (Ericsson, 1996). Another reason that eminence may not be the best criterion is the chance factor. Two persons may be equally brilliant or may have equally contributed to a field, but only one has gained fame and social distinction because he or she happened to be in the right place at the right time.
Being Versus Doing/Becoming The use of aptitude versus achievement as a marker of giftedness is an empirical issue of how we know that some behavior or performance is so exceptional as to be worthy of the term “gifted,” indicating excellence or potential for excellence. The tension mainly concerns the “demonstrability” and “productivity” criteria (Sternberg, 1995). The issue of being versus doing/becoming goes deeper into the ontological issues of how the unusual manifestations of gifts and talents at various points of the life span come about. It is the nature–nurture issue underlying the aptitude–achievement tension. It is much easier to describe what can be seen as “gifted,” invoking the “excellence,” “rarity,” and “demonstrability” criteria (Sternberg, 1995) than explaining it. The task of explaining (not merely describing) “gifted” manifestations amounts to specifying mediating mechanisms and processes in the influx of a multitude of enabling and constraining forces, both endogenous and exogenous. It involves the mapping of complex structure–function, person–process–context, and functioning–development relationships. As it currently stands, most scholars make two competing theoretical or ontological commitments: either defining giftedness as a trait or a constellation of traits (i.e., as being), or defining giftedness as a functional, developing state, situated in action-in-context (i.e., as doing/becoming). Evidence of the tension. Historically, the issue of how giftedness comes about is simply explained as a matter of being (constitutional or developmentally calibrated individual differences), and falling into the area of differential psychology. Now this view is challenged
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by developmentalists, as delineated earlier in this chapter. An instructive historical anecdote is a friendly altercation between Darwin and his cousin Galton. When Darwin argued that “excepting fools, men did not differ much in intellect, only on zeal and hard work,” Galton rebutted that “character, including aptitude for hard work, is heritable like every other faculty” (quoted in Gould, 1981, p. 77). The contemporary form of this debate is manifested in several ways. In gifted education, it is the issue of emphasizing the unique traits of gifted children and advanced cognitive development (Delisle, 2003; Robinson et al., 2000) versus stressing a child’s active engagement in specific lines of talent development as a sine qua non of giftedness (Subotnik, 2003; Coleman & Cross, 2005). In the psychological research, there are firm believers that the ultimate answer to the mystery of giftedness lies in the brain structure and biological differences (Geake, this volume; Gershwind & Galaburda, 1987; Vandervert & Liu, this volume), and there are also staunch champions of gifted development as a personal enterprise and purposeful endeavor for a prolonged period of time (Ericsson, 1996; Ericsson et al., 2007; Gruber, 1986). The problem. The tension is part of a perennial debate on whether gifted behavior can be traced to its biological roots or reflects a more complex interplay of genetic and environmental forces, and most of all, the emergent role of personal agency in terms of reflective consciousness, decisions, and actions (Bidell & Fischer, 1997). This is the key difference between essentialism and developmentalism. Categorical or essentialist conceptions of giftedness are possible only when potential for excellence is defined as a fixed or at least enduring property of the person. On the other hand, if potential for higher levels of excellence fluctuates and depends on specific contexts and one’s actions, then one can achieve and maintain or sometimes lose a “gifted edge,” so to speak, but cannot possess it (Barab & Plucker, 2002; Ziegler, 2005). In a larger context of human development, it involves a basic conception of individual differences as static versus dynamic, trait versus state, born versus made. Similar debates occurred in other fields. For instance, in personality psychology, there was a prolonged debate on personality functioning as “having” (e.g., Big-Five) versus as “doing” (e.g., using constructs such as “personal strivings”), namely, whether we should characterize personality as stable structures (traits) or habitual patterns of behaviors, or as a set of cognitive and motivational
processes in social interaction that serve adaptive functions and undergo adaptive changes (Cantor, 1990). In language development, there are people who see language development as a biologically preordained process, only to be unfolded as an infant matures, and there are people who hold a functional perspective, namely, the process of “doing” (communicating with adults) helps assemble and organize many relevant linguistic and cognitive components and enables language development (see Tomasello & Slobin, 2004). However, from the being versus doing/becoming perspective, we can identify two types of developmentalism: one based on the metaphor of development as unfolding and the other on the metaphor of development as emergence, which I will discuss in a section on emergentism. According to the unfolding model or metaphor, giftedness is, to some extent, preordained, as in the case of an innate structure, or what Piaget (1972) called mental embryology, only to be unfolded with the facilitation of environmental conditions, such as opportunities to develop talents, and catalytic role of intrapersonal forces, such as motivation and personality traits (Gagn´e, 2004). The unfolding model can be seen as a modified version of essentialism. In a refined unfolding model, several psychometrically defined abilities are coalesced to create differential-developmental trajectories (e.g., Lubinski & Benbow, 2006). Such a model can be seen as combining both being and doing/becoming, since the essentialist definition of giftedness is retained within a developmental approach, though more complex and refined than more generic models of giftedness (e.g., intellectual giftedness or artistic giftedness). From a more general epistemological point of view, scholars who hold a “being” view of giftedness tend to hold an objectivist view of development. Like Terman’s longitudinal research, research models of unfolded giftedness have a distinct placement/prediction design, portraying gifted development in terms of an objective, long-term, probabilistic estimate of trajectories, pathways, and attainments (e.g., Heller et al., 2005; Lubinski & Benbow, 2006). In contrast, developmentalist models that stress sustained and extended mastery and transformation tend to provide a more intimate, micro-level, real-time account of the processes and mediating mechanisms leading to the next level of expertise or creativity (Fischer & Yan, 2002; Gruber, 1986). In other words, they are more inclined to delve into the subjective experiences
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of the person in question (see Cross, 2003). Thus, the being–doing debate reveals an epistemological paradox or dilemma: should we assume an objective or subjective (i.e., intentional) stance when we approach human development? Should we make a subjective account by resorting to personal intentions (desires, beliefs, and aspirations) and efforts, or invoking “natural laws” and attribute the subjectivity as merely the nature’s trick, as Galton suggested when he argued with Darwin? To what extent can we see subjective experience and reflective consciousness as having a causal influence on our functioning and development? (See Searle, 2002; see also later discussion of selfhood by Edelman, 1995.) The being versus doing tension also connotes two differing beliefs regarding stability and change in gifted potential. Do we believe that gifted potential can fluctuate (even losing the “gifted” edge), depending on domain, social context, and time (Simonton, 2005)? If we agree that motivation is relatively a malleable quality relative to differences in mental abilities, then can focused efforts and deliberate practice compensate for the lack of high abilities (Schneider, 2000)? Or will such efforts be fundamentally constrained by natural capacity or “abilities,” depending on what domain is involved and what levels of excellence one is striving for? Ericsson (2006) argued that, except for few physical characteristics, such as height and body size, which are genetically determined and difficult to change, most human characteristics, physical or mental, can be enhanced and significantly modified through deliberate practice (see also Schlaug, 2001). Likewise, Gottfried et al. (2005) provide evidence supporting an equipotential view of giftedness; they showed that early manifestation of high intrinsic academic motivation predicts high academic achievement several years later, despite the fact that most of these highly motivated students did not have IQ scores in the “gifted” range by the traditional top 3% criterion. Different beliefs held by scholars resemble folk beliefs regarding whether human abilities are incremental or fixed (Dweck, 1999; Freeman, 2005). The paradox is that, while our biology may not be easily succumbed to our willful control, we can effect changes in ourselves, including developing knowledge, skills, and dispositions through self-initiated actions. From a scientific point of view, the current problem regarding the nature–nurture of giftedness is the lack of intermediate models, that is, models that connect
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and integrate being and doing/becoming. For example, Gagn´e’s (2004) model of how giftedness (i.e., natural endowment) gets “transformed” into systematically developed talents in culturally valued domains operates at a metaphorical level, thus not only impervious to scientific verification, but lacking in specification of fine-grained intermediate processes and levels. In other words, it is still an implicit, rather than explicit, theory (Sternberg & Davidson, 1986). In general, the field of giftedness research is deeply rooted in faculty psychology and the psychometric tradition (including mapping human abilities through the factor analytic technique; e.g., Carroll, 1993), and has limited communication with modern cognitive psychology that emphasizes the transformational power of knowledge representation in reasoning and problem solving (Ceci & Liker, 1986; Chi, Feltovich, & Glaser, 1981). Efforts to elucidate cognitive processes underlying individual differences in intellectual functioning have not met with much success (Lohman, 2001). Many potent personal factors, such as intellectual dispositions (Stanovich & West, 1997; Perkins & Ritchhart, 2004) and personal identity (Renzulli, 2002) have not been effectively integrated into the traditional ability-centric framework guiding conceptions of giftedness. The nurture part of giftedness, such as how deep conceptual learning and the development of expertise can be facilitated through instruction (Bonsangue & Drew, 1995, Schoenfeld, 1992; Wineburg, 1991), is often ignored altogether when giftedness is conceptualized as a property of the person involved. If the essence of intellectual giftedness lies, as Shavinina and Kholodnaja (1996) argued, in a unique type of cognitive representation(s) or intellectual or artistic visions of the world, we need to understand how this unique cognitive representation is developed in every step of the way; to what extent it reflects unique set of personal traits (i.e., being) and to what extent it reflects organization of intentions and search for the truth at a highly personal level (i.e., doing/becoming; e.g., Gruber, 1986). Solutions. Renzulli’s (1978) model provided an earlier compromise on the being–doing issue, combining both abilities and processes, but deliberately making status information (i.e., being, including prior performance and personal history) secondary compared to action information (i.e., doing/becoming, including dynamic assessment and clinical observations). His rationale is that while human abilities are quite stable
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and work across situations, motivation (task commitment) and creative expressions are highly sensitive to contexts and developed over time. The three-ring conception is a pragmatic way of providing mediation between being and doing/becoming. However, his recent work (1999, 2005) seemed to give priority to doing/becoming rather than being. A viable answer to the nature–nurture challenge is to provide a differential-developmental theory (e.g., McCall, 1981) that not only accounts for the rarity (and different degrees of rarity; Tannenbaum, 1983) of advanced development and outstanding accomplishments, but explicates intermediate stages and processes, while avoiding the shortcomings of trait theories underlying the essentialist construal of giftedness. Conceptual and empirical work has been done in that direction (e.g., Bloom, 1985; Csikszentmihalyi et al., 1993). More recent examples include, but not limited to, Subotnik and Jarvin (2005) concerning musical development; Ziegler’s (2005) Actiotope Model, which stresses the importance of continual expansion of action repertoires through actions; and Ceci’s (1996) bioecological model of development, which includes a differential provision (see Papierno et al., 2005). Snow’s (1992, 1994) approach, which treats aptitude as a person–situation interface, was also an attempt to provide a differential-developmental account that potentially can explain the rarity of gifted development without committing an error of reification, namely, resorting to faculty psychology with respect to gifted potential (see also Dai & Renzulli, 2008). In short, the tension between “being” accounts and “doing” accounts of giftedness can be reconciled by developing more circumscribed (and modest), mid-range theories (e.g., Subotnik & Jarvin, 2005), rather than grand theory of giftedness as most theorists of giftedness have seemed to aspire for. Such a theory would specify how an initial state of being (likely some type of sensitivities and propensities) triggers what one is doing (i.e., structure–functioning mapping) and how one’s doing contributes to a new state of being (i.e., becoming; Ackerman, 1999), in other words, how the initial structure enables functions and how the functioning helps bootstrap new, more complex structure. A metaphor of Neurath’s boat from the conceptual change literature (Carey, 1999) is relevant here: Building a boat in the midst of traveling in the water. It sounds paradoxical but reveals the dialectical nature of the nature–nurture and structure–function
interaction. Simonton’s (2005) emergenic–epigenetic model of giftedness, though biased in favor of genetics (i.e., being), provides a good theoretical framework guiding theorizing. In essence, he argues that a model of how giftedness comes about needs to consider four main factors: domain, person, context, and time. Note that domain comes first in his framework, as it imposes differential demands on the person, and have profound implications as to where a talent will emerge (context) and when it will emerge and grow or fail to emerge (developmental timing). It is the issue of domain that we now turn to.
Domain-General Versus Domain-Specific As there is no such a thing as domain-free achievement, the focus of this tension is (1) to what extent an individual’s potential is versatile in terms of its capability of learning different things and adapting to a wide range of functional niches with equal facility and (2) to what extent the potential is specific to a particular niche or class of activities, and if so, (3) to what extent cognitive structures and mechanisms attuned to a given domain are preordained or canalized in its development? Evidence of the tension. As discussed earlier, the changes in the field of psychology in general and giftedness in particular over the second half of the 20th century can be characterized as taking a domain-specific turn. Gardner’s (1983) theory of multiple intelligences was but a most salient milestone of this movement. Rediscovery of domain knowledge in cognitive functioning is another (Chi et al., 1981). Although some theorists claimed that the tension has been resolved by factor-analytically derived hierarchical model of cognitive abilities, incorporating both domain-general and domain-specific abilities (e.g., Messick, 1992), the issue of domain-specificitygenerality of gifted potential is far from resolved, and the tension is still palpable. For example, while the talent development movement has been gaining more following, the traditional IQ-based “gifted child” approach still has many adherents (e.g., Gallagher, 2000; Robinson et al., 2000; see Morelock, 1996 for a review). The tension is also reflected in the creativity research. In an edited volume, Sternberg, Grigorenko, and Singer (2004) especially focused on whether processes and developmental patterns leading to
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creative productivity are specific to a given domain or versatile across domains. Root-Bernstein (this volume) also tackles the issue of whether creative individuals tend to show versatility or be confined to a highly circumscribed area of human endeavor. The problem. Domain is a rather vague term, used in different ways depending on the context in which it is used. For the purpose of this discussion, we can roughly identify four kinds of domains: (a) evolutionor biology-based domains (Geary, 2005), which mainly concern competencies and skills that have evolutionary significance (e.g., providing survival and reproductive advantages) and are traceable to their evolutionary origins; (b) cognitive domains (Hirschfeld & Gelman, 1994), which concern inherent principles in information processing and specialized mechanisms for dealing with particular types of information; (c) ecologically and culturally defined domains (e.g., music, religion, mathematics); here a domain refers to an extant body of knowledge and practices, mediated by a particular symbol system, in any culturally sanctioned endeavor, with its characteristic social organization (i.e., field; Csikszentmihalyi, 1996); and (d) academic domains, which are more formally organized as disciplines of study. Gardner’s (1983) theory of multiple intelligences is mainly concerned with the cognitive domains. It also implicates the biological substrates of mind, the basic architecture of the human brain/mind. Therefore, it is clearly more than a refutation of Spearman’s “g,” for it brought to the forefront a deeper issue of whether the human brain is an all-purpose information-processing device or instead consists of several highly specialized modules dedicated to processing specific types of information. Fodor’s notion of modularity clearly had an impact on Gardner’s theorizing. However, Fodor (1983) reserved a place for “central processes,” namely, those controlled, consciously accessible cognitive processes, such as strategy use, metacognitive control, particularly the formation of beliefs, all important for knowledge construction. Although domain-specific perceptions and intuitions (Fodor’s input systems) may play a role in learning a new task, general cognitive abilities may also significantly contribute to the ease of learning (Gagn´e, 2004; Robinson et al., 2000). To use Newell and Simon’s (1972) term, the use of weak methods (i.e., general heuristics) is likely when the learner is inexperienced with the task involved and strong methods (i.e., domain-specific cognitive models
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and devices) are not available. This is why Sternberg (1985) attempted to separate what one knows (i.e., acquired knowledge) and how one deals with novelty (i.e., fluid intelligence). This tension reveals the aptitude–achievement and being–doing–becoming tensions at another level: while what is achieved is always specific to a cognitive or culturally defined domain, how it is achieved may not. For example, in Sternberg’s triarchic theory of intelligence, although experiential learning involves domain-specific experience (experiential subtheory), cognitive processes, particularly metacomponents, which are brought to bear upon this experience, are largely domain-general (componential subtheory). By the same token, expertise researchers generally view high-level domain expertise as valid evidence of exceptional competence. However, they tend to see the process of acquiring expertise and expert performance as involving identifiable domain-general or generalizable mechanisms, such as deliberate practice and metacognitive control (e.g., Ericsson, 1996, 2006). At the cognitive level, the tension reflects the content–process conundrum that has not been resolved in psychology to date; that is, to what extent processing is separate from content representation. It affects how we understand gifted cognition. For example, there have been research efforts to pin down metacognition as a key difference between the gifted and “non-gifted.” However, Ceci (2003) shows that metacognition is constrained by domain knowledge, thus not a domain-free cognitive process. For another, reasoning abilities are often seen as a marker of intellectual giftedness, yet Lohman (2006) pointed out that the process of reasoning is always sensitive to content and thus “pure” reasoning abilities are hard to find in reality (let alone measure). Two types of domain-general cognitive theories or hypotheses have been advanced to explain gifted cognition as indicating an advanced or precocious cognitive development: One is the cognitive efficiency hypothesis (reaction time, processing speed, working memory capacity; see Geake, this volume); the other is the cognitive sophistication hypothesis (strategy use, metacognition, cognitive flexibility, managing cognitive complexity and novelty, etc.; see Davidson, this volume). However, research does not provide definitive support for such claims. Individuals with high IQs showed prolonged thickening of the cortices compared to their average counterparts (Shaw
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et al., 2006), suggesting a non-specific cognitive advantage and advanced cognitive development in general (Robinson et al., 2000). However, Jackson and Butterfield (1986) concluded, based on their review, that “there is a great variability in the extent to which gifted children demonstrate precocity in Piagetian reasoning” (p. 160). The putative metacognitive advantage of gifted students also turned out to be more circumscribed than initially thought (Alexander, Carr, & Schwanenflugel, 1995; Steiner & Carr, 2003; Shore, 2000, this volume). Alternatively, we might take a learning approach. Where giftedness is concerned, the issue of domainspecificity-generality really is about the differential acquisition of domain competence, rather than mature domain performance. Shiffrin’s (1996) criteria for determining “natural talent,” in terms of the rate of learning and asymptotic performance (i.e., when performance starts to reach a plateau despite continued efforts for improvement), are also relevant here. There is some evidence pointing to giftedness as a domain-general advantage in learning. For example, individuals with high IQs learn more quickly with less structured instructional conditions (Snow, 1994). Young children with high IQs learn Piagetian conservation tasks with fewer trials (Case, 1992), and they need fewer hints to solve the Tower of Hanoi problem (Kanevsky, 1990). The ease of learning for these individuals is even evident at the brain level in terms of the reduced glucose metabolic rate in the brain (Haier, 2001; Haier & Jung, 2008). Using a “test of limits” approach, a method for obtaining asymptotic performance, Baltes (1998) and his colleagues were able to identify increased rather than decreased individual differences. Studying extreme cases of exceptionality also sheds light on the importance of domain-general abilities. For example, L. Miller (2005) found that, although some idiot savants show an amazing ease of learning, their work often falls short of conceptual coherence, suggesting that both dedicated mechanisms and general analytic and conceptual abilities are important for high-level competence in arts or other domains. The differences between child prodigies and idiot savants provide yet another important clue to the domainspecific versus domain-general debate, suggesting that both domain-specific and domain-general resources are required to achieve true excellence (Feldman, 2003). However, idiot savants’ levels of intelligence often fall
into the category of mental retardation. We do not know whether for a given domain there is a threshold at which a domain-general advantage will reach the point of diminishing returns. Indeed, some researchers (e.g., Hunt, 1999) believe in the existence of such a threshold. There is also research showing that the general cognitive advantage within a domain gradually disappears as one gains domain-specific competence (Ackerman, 1988, 1999). In the gifted literature, the term “domain” often refers to culturally defined domains rather than cognitive domains. Therefore, what kind of cognitive (or affective) demands such a domain imposes on the person is rather an ecological question; namely what it takes to meet the challenges presented in a given task environment. Thus, domain specificity in this context is concerned with whether a person is uniquely fit to do well in one domain but not in others. In this sense, the distinction Simonton (1999) made between simple and complex domains seems important. Most domains of cultural importance are complex; therefore development of expertise in these domains likely involves both domain-specific and domain-general resources (in a biological or cognitive sense). Domainspecific advantages range from dedicated mechanisms such as modular devices (e.g., absolute pitch), physiological and structural–functional adaptations as a result of special training, to possible innate intuitions and encapsulated knowledge, the ease of learning with a particular symbol system. Domain-general advantages range from cognitive flexibility, metacognitive control, and reasoning of the inductive, deductive, and abductive nature, etc. Solutions. Psychometric approaches (Carroll, 1993; Messick, 1992) offer a hierarchical structural solution, which includes not only different contents and media (quantitative, verbal, spatial), but also crystallized and fluid abilities. The psychometric approaches mainly provide prediction models that seemed to have worked well in predicting differential pathways, depending on different constellations of strengths and weaknesses in prospective longitudinal studies (see Lubinski & Benbow 2000). However, psychometric theories are descriptive theories. It cannot resolve ambiguities such as whether there is indeed a general (“g”) factor or “g” is just a statistical artifact and “positive manifold” (Thomson, 1916; see also Horn, 1986). Different from psychometric approaches, which rely on representative tasks to derive ability structures,
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bioecological approaches take a more theoretical approach. They posit that domain-specific and domain-general competencies have evolutionary origins, mediated through epigenetic development and environmental experiences (Feist, 2004; Feldman, 2003; Geary, 2005; Papierno et al., 2005). In general, bioecological approaches differentiate three main domains: physical, biological, and social (see Geary, 2005, for a taxonomy). The brain contains both dedicated mechanisms while maintaining neural plasticity in making adaptive changes through development. Thus, “innate talent, when it exists for a particular domain, comprises a rare combination of genes that come together to bring about the necessary penchants to self-select the appropriate environmental cue that will actualize that potential via proximal processes” (Papierno et al., 2005, p. 323). To the extent that a domain is cognitively complex, multiple genetic traits have to be simultaneously present to give rise to the manifestation of a talent; moreover, timing of the epigenetic development of all relevant components is also critical (Simonton, 2005). In general, bioecological models stress the importance of various kinds of niche potential and person–environment (domain) fit for talent development, which include both cognitive and affective considerations. For example, in Subotnik and Jarvin’s (2005) rendition of music talent development, while development of “musicality” may involve special sensitivities and inclinations, “charisma” is a quality that is not specific to music. Personality characteristics, such as introversion, are also implicated as important for developing musical talent (Kemp, 1996). Finally, one can also take a cognitive developmental approach. It entails restoring the core meaning of intelligence as the ability to problem solve and make adaptive changes (learning), while taking into account inherent development-related cognitive and neural possibilities and constraints. It assumes that initial gross wiring of the brain is not completely differentiated until through significant interaction with a structured environment (Karmiloff-Smith, 2004). Thus, an alleged innate talent is actually not innately specified but bootstrapped by specific structured environmental experience. A culturally defined talent (say, musicality) may require integration of several such functional units (e.g., for melody, rhythm, and harmony, respectively). Based on Karmiloff-Smith’s (1992) notion that children often go beyond behavioral mastery to
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seek a conceptual handle on the newly acquired skill, we can extrapolate that talent development initially takes the form of perceptual and intuitive mastery (turning domain-relevant processes to domain-specific products, such as modular functional units), and gradually achieve conceptual understanding and analytic mastery through conscious, effortful problem solving and knowledge construction. To use Kagan’s (2002) words, it is a process of turning the schematic to the semantic to achieve a conceptual grip. This conjecture is consistent with empirical findings (e.g., Bamberger, 1986), and potentially explains why musically gifted adolescents experience difficulties in switching from a more intuitive mode of music processing, presumably relying on dedicated modules in the brain, to an analytic one, which requires more conceptual analysis of musical elements. This cognitive development approach is also consistent with the notion that most talent development is non-universal (Feldman, 2003), thus entail environmental provisions and support, as well as personal resources, domain-specific and domain-general (see Dai & Renzulli, 2008, for a detailed exposition). From the cognitive development point of view, domain-specificity-generality issue cannot be resolved unless one takes a developmental approach, wherein domain-relevant resources are flexibly mobilized and co-opted in adaptation and self-organization in response to the demands of a domain at a specific stage of talent development. Based on this view, giftedness cannot be completely domain-specific, nor can it be domain-general.
Quantitative Versus Qualitative Differences The tension between quantitative and qualitative differences focuses on the following question: in what sense and to what extent does gifted development constitute an exceptional condition, a condition that is beyond normality and warrants special attention and interventions. From a person-centered perspective on giftedness (i.e., the gifted child), does excellence or potential for excellence reflect some structural and functional organization of the mind that is different in kind rather than in degree? From a domain-centered perspective on giftedness (i.e., talent development), does the development of exceptional competence inherently in-
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volve qualitatively different (and sometimes unique) pathways and trajectories, or is it just a little sooner, a little faster? The question is also related to domain specificity issue. If gifted potential is highly domain specific, then the gifted person is likely to show unique organization of cognitive and affective functioning, and unique developmental trajectories and pathways, qualitatively different from normal people. Evidence of the tension. An increasing discontent expressed in the field is that categorical assumptions are made about what “gifted” means on the basis of a rather arbitrary cutoffs set on some continuous variables of aptitude or achievement (e.g., Borland, 2003, 2005; Keating, in press; Ziegler, 2005; see also Hertzog, this volume). Although not everyone agrees on the categorical interpretation (e.g., Gagn´e, 2004; Gallagher, 2000; Robinson, 2005), many scholars still feel compelled to label different levels of giftedness (e.g., moderately gifted, profoundly gifted, extremely gifted), similar to the practice of labeling different levels of mental retardation (AAMR, 1992), denoting qualitative differences within the gifted, as well as between the gifted and the “non-gifted” (Gagn´e, 2005a; Winner, 2000). Others prefer more inclusive cutoffs, implicitly assuming an aboveaverage threshold in ability requirements for a variety of human endeavor (e.g., Renzulli, 1986); beyond this threshold, further finer-grained differentiation may not be justified or may have limited practical utility. Furthermore, many theorists assume unique developmental experience as quintessential to being gifted. For example, the Columbus Group sees developmental asynchrony as an inevitable result of being gifted (see Morelock, 1996); Dabrowski viewed gifted development as involving positive disintegration (see Piechowski, 1991); Robinson et al. (2000) see the gifted as going through more cognitive stages than their age peers. However, when various cognitive and affective characteristics of the “gifted” and “non-gifted” are compared, the picture is far from clear-cut. When differences were found (e.g., Dai et al., 1998; Jackson & Butterfield, 1986; Robinson & Clinkenbeard, 1998; Steiner & Carr, 2003), they are better characterized as a matter of degree rather than kind. Nevertheless, child prodigies (Feldman, 1986) evidence early emergence of talents that seem to be qualitatively different from normal developmental trajectories. Children with extremely high IQ seem to have unique academic and social experiences and
social adjustment problems (Gross, 1993; Hollingworth, 1942; von K´arolyi & Winner, 2005). The similar tension exists in the creativity research. Clinical and personality psychologists tend to see creative processes as involving unique intrapersonal dynamics, involving primary and secondary processes (e.g., Martindale, 1999; Rothenberg, 1979), thus differing from normal conditions. In contrast, cognitive psychologists tend to see creativity as a result of developing a solid knowledge base (Weisberg, 1999, 2006) and using general problem solving (Klahr & Simon, 1999), which are not qualitatively different from those that produce general intellectual performance and products. In other words, the processes leading to creative productivity may be quite mundane upon scrutiny. The problem. Description of human characteristics as constituting various continua is a hallmark of population thinking underlying psychometric theory and measurement (Lohman, 2001). According to this view, people differ along certain dimensions in degree rather than in kind. However, it is also true that quantitative differences, when cumulated to reach a critical point, can lead to qualitative changes and new properties. A person with an IQ of 130 may not differ much in substance from a person with an IQ of 120, but has a distinct edge compared to a person with an IQ of 100. Because we never know for sure where these critical points may lie, decisions about cutoffs would be a matter of how to reduce errors and increase the certainty of a “hit,” or deciding on the trade-off between using relatively liberal criteria (i.e., tolerating more Type I errors [false positives] while preventing Type II errors [false negatives]), versus using relatively stringent criteria (minimizing Type I errors [false positives] while permitting more Type II errors [false negatives]). However, the qualitative–quantitative tension reveals more than such pragmatics. The categorical approach to determining the gifted and the non-gifted treats the gifted as a homogeneous group, and there is abundant evidence that it is not. Those who emphasize inherent qualitative differences in gifted development (the Columbus Group or Dabrowski) tend to prescribe normative models of giftedness with strict defining attributes, while the concept of giftedness may be fundamentally prototypical, even exemplary; that is, one cannot infer universally valid attributes based on some particular cases, since trajectories leading to the same level of excellence and eminence (e.g., winning Nobel Prizes) can be quite different for different
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individuals (Shavinina, 2004). Given the diversity of gifted phenomena, treating giftedness loosely as a form of developmental diversity (Keating, in press) may be a better strategy to include a variety of developmental patterns underlying gifted manifestations, some normal and others unique. While it is debatable as to whether psychometrically defined giftedness constitutes a qualitative difference, setting those so identified apart from the rest of the population (Borland, 2005), qualitative individual differences in mental development due to both genetic and environmental influences have not been appreciated in the developmental literature (McCall, 1981). Effects of genetic and environmental interactions are likely multiplicative rather than additive (Ceci, 1996; Papierno et al., 2005), contributing to the likelihood of discontinuity in intra-individual development and inter-individual differences. There is evidence of a widened range of academic achievement, spanning several grade levels, at any grade at the onset of about the third grade (see Gagn´e, 2005b). Research also shows that selection criterion based on 1 in 10,000 versus 1 in 100 grounded on the out-of-level SAT test scores dramatically increased the odds in long-term prediction that one would obtain doctoral degrees and secure prestigious faculty positions (Lubinski, Webbs, Morelock, & Benbow, 2004). This evidence seems to support the “extremely gifted” classification. Practically, we can operationalize qualitative differences by resorting to the Vygostk’s notion of zone of proximal development (ZPD). To the extent that two persons’ ZPDs do not overlap, it constitutes two qualitatively different developmental conditions; thus a seventh or eighth grade student scoring 600 on SAT-M is clearly having a completely different ZPD than most of his or her age peers as far as mathematical (and possibly general intellectual) development is concerned, thus calling for curricular and instructional differentiation. On the other hand, this qualitative difference in ability and knowledge may or may not have spilt-over effects on other aspects of development (e.g., affect and motivation; see Morelock, 2000, for a Vygotskian analysis of cases of exceptionally high-IQ children). Solutions. There are several possible ways of resolving the qualitative–quantitative tension. First, although some scholars postulate unique structural and functional organization of the brain as responsible for gifted manifestations (e.g., O’Boyle, 2008; O’Boyle, Benbow, & Alexander, 1995), a more functional approach
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seems to be a safer starting point; it postulates that quantitative differences in functioning in adaptive selfregulation and self-organization (psychometrically or otherwise measured) can lead to qualitative differences in developmental outcomes, such as organized complexity of one’s action repertoire (Ziegler, 2005). For example, according to the cognitive evolution model of development (Siegler, 1996), children’s strategy use in problem solving shows a developmental pattern of variation, selection, and optimization. As a result, more effective strategies are retained over time. By the same token, we might characterize advanced development as a case of quantitative individual differences in functioning (e.g., variability in strategy selection) leading to qualitatively different outcomes in development, as evidenced by widened developmental differences in achievement (Gagn´e, 2005), or distinct precocity in the case of child prodigies (Feldman, 1986). This approach allows for integration of differential and developmental approaches by specifying when and how individuals start to diverge (i.e., the onset of qualitatively different pathways and trajectories) in development (cf. McCall, 1981). The functional approach can also incorporate different kinds of “doing” as indicative of unique potential. Ericsson has, in effect, specified a qualitative difference when he distinguishes between ordinary mastery efforts and deliberate practice (Ericsson et al., 2005, in press). The condition of satisfaction for the former is “good enough” and the criterion for the latter is attaining whatever is humanly possible. Thus, different trajectories of the development of expertise depend on differing functional modes or styles (i.e., qualitative differences in doing), rather than differing capacities (i.e., qualitative differences in being). A second approach to resolve the tension is to take a more eclectic view of biologically based individual differences as consisting of both differences within the normal range (quantitative, continuous) and abnormality (qualitative, discontinuous). In the former case, gifted individuals differ from others only in degree; they might show advanced development in some areas but otherwise function normally like others. In the latter case, gifted individuals differ from others in kind; that is, their functioning has measurable differences in neuro-cognitive organization, such as preference for specific lateralization (O’Boyle, 2008), or various forms of “a pathology of superiority” (Gershwind & Galaburda, 1987, p. 65) that create “twice exceptional” conditions (Lupart & Toy, this volume). Their
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phenotypical development may indeed have biological substrates and “organic” causes. The distinction between normality and abnormality partly helps resolve the tension between the “being” and “doing” of gifted potential. While unique structural features of the brain constrain functioning and development (e.g., dyslexics or savant talent; see L. Miller, 2005), unique functional experience can also shape structural and functional organization of the brain (Schlaug, 2001). Both can produce qualitative differences in functional organization of the mind/brain. A third approach is to invoke the distinction between universal and unique human development (Feldman, 1994). Any individual’s development can be characterized as constituting a continuum from the most universal (like everyone else, continuous) to the most unique or idiosyncratic (unlike everyone else, discontinuous) (Feldman, 2003; Lohman & Rocklin, 1995). From this perspective, each individual is like all others (e.g., development of reasoning skills), some others (e.g., development of musical competence), and no others (e.g., development of unique personal knowledge and mental models of the world). Thus, the psychometric measures capture some universal dimensions along which individuals differ to some degree, but are blind to the unique side of human functioning and development. In a sense, psychometric continuity breaks down at a point where non-universal development begins. One can further argue that the more extreme individuals show deviation from the norm, the more unique their functioning and development tend to be, for cognitive or social– emotional reasons. It is their idiosyncratic functioning that provides opportunity for unique development patterns, whether it is early emergence of talent, as in the case of child prodigies in arts, sciences, and games (Feldman, 1986), or development of unique visions of the world, as in the case of Einstein, Dostoevsky, or van Gogh. (The distinction between universal and unique development will be further discussed in the section on “Nomothetic Versus Ideographic.”)
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egory are masters who have perfected their respective trades to an extremely high level (Ericsson, 2006), and people in the creativity category are makers, who have significantly transformed an intellectual or practical domain or artistic ways of expression, and moved a field forward, or even created a new field (Sternberg, 1999b). The conceptual tension of expertise versus creativity exists between those whose research focuses on expertise and those whose research focuses on creativity, and sometimes between gifted practitioners who espouse differing educational agendas, one aiming at developing high-level expertise and talent and the other at creative productivity. Evidence of the tension. In a chapter of a volume on expertise (Ericsson, 1996) Simonton (1996) felt compelled to coin the term “creative expertise” (p. 227). What he actually delineates is a vision of development of creative productivity that is drastically different from Ericsson’s carefully charted pathways to expertise based on controlled experiments and systematic observations. From Simonton’s point of view, charting the ontogeny of creative productivity entails a different set of parameters than what expertise researchers have prescribed; yet for many cognitive psychologists, Ericsson included, trajectories leading to creativity is not that different from those leading to domain expertise (see Ericsson, 2006; Weisberg, 1999, 2006). There is also a feeling in the community of gifted education that goals of talent development should go beyond mere expertise to reach creative productivity (Renzulli, 2005; Subotnik & Jarvin, 2005). The problem. Weisberg (2006) pointed out two competing propositions regarding the relations between expertise and creativity: (a) expertise facilitates creativity and (b) expertise impedes creativity. It is argued that expertise is necessary for creative productivity because a well-organized, in-depth knowledge base makes it possible to detect discrepancies and problems in the domain and identify new pathways to solving the problems. This facilitation hypothesis is supported by many real-life cases in arts and sciences and controlled research, discussed by Weisberg (1999, 2006) and Ericsson (2006). As a counter-argument, expertise impedes creativity because too much encapsulated knowledge Expertise Versus Creativity renders an expert entrenched in established points of view and unable to “think outside the box.” ExperiMature “gifted” accomplishments belong to two mental research demonstrating the difficulty of breakbroad categories: expertise and creativity. To use ing a mental set (e.g., Luchins & Luchins, 1970) supGardner’s (1997) words, people in the “expertise” cat- ports this impediment hypothesis. In real life, Max
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Planck’s reluctance to go in the direction that Einstein went, or Einstein’s rejection of premises underlying quantum mechanics, is a case in point (see A. Miller, 1996). Indeed, it is not unusual that scientists “become increasingly ensnared by the ideas that they themselves created” (Simonton, 2002, p. 272). Too much of expertise becomes a handicap when rules of a game change, figuratively as well as literally (Frensch & Sternberg, 1989). It should be pointed out, incidentally, that the expertise research tends to focus on domains involving the mastery of performance that requires one to execute a set of skills and routines within a specific time frame, such as instrument playing, figure skating, or the game of chess or go. One may argue that being capable of playing and interpreting a musical masterpiece near perfection is a completely different matter than being able to create a masterpiece, just as being able to execute a difficult routine beautifully does not means being able to choreograph such a routine. For the latter, deliberate practice may not be enough. Although one may agree that expertise is a necessary condition for creative productivity (this is even the case for Mozart; see Lehmann & Ericsson, 1998), a theory that provides a compelling account of exceptional mastery of skilled performance may not be adequate as an account of creative productivity. Biographic analysis shows that personalities and life trajectories of masters and makers seem distinctly different from each other (Gardner, 1997). While masters tended to exclusively focus on one domain, creators tended to hop around different domains, enhancing cognitive flexibility and forging borrowing and cross-fertilization (Simonton, 1997; Root-Bernstein, this volume). In the community of gifted education, there is a widely held belief that students identified as gifted academic learners are not necessarily the most promising ones in terms of creative productivity. It is this misgiving that seems to have motivated a distinction between a mastery type of giftedness (or schoolhouse giftedness) and a creative type of giftedness (e.g., Callahan & Miller, 2005; Renzulli, 1986; Tannenbaum, 1997). Indeed, retrospective accounts of schooling experience by those eminent creative scientists and writers suggest that schooling in general is not a particularly pleasant and productive experience for many of them (Subotnik & Olszewski-Kubilius, 1998). In general, these creative individuals tended to structure their own lives and actively seek developmental opportunities instead
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of being structured by others, as is evident in Mark Twain’s remark: “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” The most successful individuals in adulthood that Terman identified in his longitudinal study (Terman & Oden, 1959) also shared similar characteristics, the ones that might not be congenial to typical school structures in terms of curriculum and instruction as well as social organization. Solutions. A possible solution to this tension is to take a more domain-specific view on this issue; here domain refers to any well-defined human activity or endeavor, culturally sanctioned or not, that has adaptive significance and functional value. Tannenbaum’s (1997) taxonomy is useful for this purpose. It (1) distinguishes producers from performers, (2) further breaks them down to different categories of productions and performance based on domains, and (3) differentiates two criteria: proficiency and creativity. In addition, there are differences between domains that are more formally organized as a field, with welldefined rules, boundaries, players, and gatekeepers, and domains whose social organization is relatively loose, and standards for excellence less well defined. For more formal disciplines and domains (e.g., classic music, academic disciplines, or medicine), substantial expertise (i.e., mastery of a canonical set of knowledge and skills) may be necessary before one can become creative. For other domains such as creative writing, business, or pop music, where technical mastery may not be as rigorous as formal disciplines, creativity may not require extensive development of expertise. Sometimes a lack of technical proficiency can be a good thing for innovation, as in the case of van Gogh’s painting, partly thanks to his lack of formal training in realist painting techniques. It is also worth noting that efficient mastery in terms of quickly achieving knowledge encapsulation and skill automaticity may be of differential importance at different stages of talent development (Subotnik & Jarvin, 2005). In favor of the facilitation hypothesis, intense efforts of mastery can lead to transformation, in a sense that a striving for high-level expertise pushes one toward “the edge of chaos,” detecting gaps and discrepancies in the existing system, which calls for creative solutions (Dai & Renzulli, 2008; Runco, 1994). To avoid misleading bifurcation of expertise and creativity, a more refined distinction between adaptive expertise and routine expertise serves a good purpose. (Hatano & Inagaki, 1986). Schwartz, Bransford, &
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Sears (in press) proposed two dimensions: efficiency and innovation. When one strikes a balance between efficiency (achieving mastery and automaticity) and innovation (making transformations and generalizations), one is more likely to become an adaptive expert. When one exclusively focuses on efficiency, one tends to become a routine expert. When one attempts to be innovative without achieving efficiency, one is likely to remain a confused novice. Thus, adaptive expertise entails a balancing act. Sometimes one has to give up well-mastered skills to try new ways of doing things, or take a metacognitive distance from one’s entrenched beliefs to facilitate alternative ways of thinking about an object or phenomenon. Metacognitive control seems to be needed for both expertise and creativity (Weisberg, 2006). In light of the above discussion, the goals of developing expertise and creativity have slightly different, but complementary pedagogical ramifications. Development of expertise typically goes through steady professional routes of sustained or extended mastery, while development of creative productivity involves more individuality (such as self-direction, risk-taking, and a sense of destiny). In many domains, they complement each other. Pertaining to gifted education, historical debates on enrichment and acceleration, two main delivery systems for gifted education, also reveal different emphases, mastery of increasingly challenging materials (acceleration) or gaining the breadth and depth of educational experience to sharpen the mind (enrichment). In an ideal learning condition, the two should intermingle to achieve content–process integration in the development of talent and creative potential (Coleman & Cross, 2005).
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of giftedness, people with a nomothetic perspective make universal assumptions about what giftedness is and what attributes define giftedness. In comparison, people with an idiographic perspective see giftedness as involving unique individual functioning and development (e.g., child prodigies; Feldman, 1986; musical talent development; Subotnik & Jarvin, 2005), thus not easily fitting into any general differential or developmental theories. In other words, the concept of giftedness from an idiographic point of view is prototypical and exemplary, with limited generality. Evidence of the tension. A most telling historical anecdote is that, when Spearman (1904) declared that, once and for all, general intelligence had been “objectively determined and measured” (p. 201), Binet was not convinced; he argued that two persons who obtained the same test score on some psychometric tests might nevertheless possess different skill sets, which turns out to be the case at the high end of the spectrum almost by statistical necessity. These two early pioneers of intelligence theory illustrate two very different ways or styles of looking at the world. Spearman was a mathematician who value universality, simplicity, and precision, and preferred numbers to immediate phenomenology, with a default assumption characteristic of his time: intelligence works like a “mental faculty,” a position largely discredited by modern cognitive psychology. In contrast, Binet was a clinician who was intrigued by nuances and “idiographic complexity” of the individual intellectual functioning (Brody, 2000, p. 19). Similar differences can also be found in the creativity research. Simonton (1997), for example, developed a predictive and explanatory model of creative productivity in which only a small number of parameters are postulated, and all the theoretical predictions expressed mathematically. In contrast, Gardner (1993, 1997) took a much more intimate look at Nomothetic Versus Idiographic lives of those who have made landmark creative conApproaches tributions, with painstaking efforts to develop a sympathetic understanding of the workings of their minds. Nomothetic and idiographic approaches represent two Indeed, just like Binet did not like what Spearman different ways of “carving the nature at its joints.” had to say, idiographic researchers typically do not Nomothetic approaches make general assumptions of like lots of generalizations made by nomothetic rehow the world functions and derive deductive conse- searchers (e.g., see Gruber, 1986 on psychometrically quences of “natural laws” or universal principles for defined giftedness). Among the gifted researchers, cona given population, whereas idiographic approaches sider the contrast between Gagn´e (1985, 2004) and use an inductive approach, identifying unique patterns Feldman (1986, 2003). The differing epistemic stances and regularities based on intimate observation of a set yield different visions of the nature and nurture of of particulars (Allport, 1937). Applying to the issue giftedness.
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The problem. Simplification by integration and simplification by isolation are two different ways of understanding the complex world (Iran-Nejad, McKeachie, & Berliner, 1990). Making nomothetic or universal assumptions about psychological processes and individual differences in intelligence and personality is the mainstay of psychology since its inception as a science. In early years, it was conducted in the name of psychophysics. In differential psychology, the task is to identify variables that operate within a population. As Novick (1982) stated, “our success as scientists can be measured by our skill in identifying variables that can be used to define relevant, exchangeable subpopulations” (p. 6). Various ability and personality variables are thus derived through measurement techniques, and considered valid across a population. However, these psychological constructs are fictions we create to describe and organize a set of observations in terms of how these variables may influence individual functioning; a person does not act as a list of variables (Snow, 1995). These fictions start to lose their power when they fail to capture the nuances and complexities of individuality or specific lines of individual development (see also Cross, 2003 for a critique of nomothetic assumptions underlying the empirical-analytic mode of inquiry). For good assessment of gifted or exceptional potential, at least three criteria need to be satisfied: sensitivity, specificity, and normative value (Beutler & Rosner, 1995). Psychometric measurement is excellent at providing normative value through its well-calibrated norms and nomothetic span, adequate in specificity through good construct representation (though constructs like “intelligence” or “creativity” are often criticized as too broad and abstract to be psychologically meaningful and amenable to measurement), but poor at sensitivity, namely, capturing the uniqueness of the individual being assessed. For example, the individuality of the person who carried out all the actions over time leading to gifted performance and productivity can be lost in the snapshot measurement of theoretically deduced variables. A nomothetic approach to giftedness (e.g., defining giftedness psychometrically) is a doubleedged sword. On the one hand, one can argue that extreme conditions of individual functioning should be captured by a psychometric measure if the instrument involved allows for fine-grained differentiation at the high end (i.e., no apparent ceiling effect). On
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the other hand, one can argue that the highly gifted may evade standard psychometric measurement altogether, because of their idiosyncrasies in structural and functional organization of their minds and their idiosyncratic handling of specific test situations. This is where the idiographic approach comes to claim its own legitimacy as an alternative or complementary approach. Different from the variable-centered, nomothetic approach, an idiographic approach assumes the unity of the person as a whole. Aristotle identified three meanings of unity: (a) continuity by nature, (b) wholeness or indivisibility of form, and (c) wholeness or indivisibility of motion (see Silverstein, 1988). Unity so defined is the basic criterion for a thing to have a substance. Intelligence as measured IQs is arguably not a substance, as it does not meet the criterion of unity (cf. Gould, 1981). An enactive, functioning person does. The idiographic approach differs from the nomothetic approach in another significant manner. The nomothetic approach takes on an objectivist, mechanical epistemic stance, treating individual functioning as an object, following universal laws; thus the subjective life of an individual can be treated as insignificant and epiphenomenal. In contrast, the idiographic approach always entails an intimate look into the mental life of the person involved (e.g., using a phenomenological approach; Cross, 2003). Thus many researchers proposed constructs, such as organization of intentions (Gruber, 1986), subjective mental space (Shavinina & Kholodnaja, 1996), or subjective action space (Ziegler, 2005), as one of the key ingredients of a model of how gifted performance comes about. The difference raises the issue of whether intuition, personal judgment, and other subjective aspects of life should be taken into account in scientific understanding of phenomena as complex as intelligence, expertise, and creativity. Psychologists differ in this regard (Kimble, 1984). Solutions. The variable-centered, nomothetic approach is still the psychology’s mainstream. On the other hand, the person-centered, idiographic approach, using constructs such as individualized life tasks (Cantor, 1990, p. 740), personal strivings (Emmons, 1986), has gained momentum. We all try to cut the nature at its joints. The issue is how to make the cuts that retain the complexity and sufficient details yet still show intelligible structure and regularities, the ways that
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“each person is like all other people, some other people, and no other people” (Lohman & Rocklin, 1995, p. 470). As mentioned earlier, the field of giftedness research started with nomothetic assumptions about human traits, such as intelligence (Terman, 1925), but increasingly recognized the importance of starting with particulars, the immediate phenomenology of gifted and talented behaviors (e.g., Witty, 1958). Indeed, Terman himself conducted many case studies in later years of his longitudinal study, producing insights that otherwise could not be obtained (see Terman & Oden, 1959). The nomothetic versus idiographic dimension can be better seen as a continuum rather than a dichotomy. There are middle grounds between universals and particulars. Between using a variable-centered approach to identify “exchangeable subpopulations” (gifted, average, mentally retarded, etc.) and a person-centered approach to identify unique individuality, Muth´en and Muth´en (2000) offers a technical compromise. They recommend using a “latent class” statistical technique to identify relatively homogeneous subgroups in terms of different profiles and developmental patterns. However, Silverstein (1988) argued that, to truly resolve the nomothetic–idiographic tension, functional developmental history (FDH) should be used as a unit of analysis. In the same vein, Haensly, Reynolds, and Nash (1986) called for attention to “the dynamic nature of the human response to a specific and variety of settings” (p. 130). They proposed a unit of analysis that consists of four Cs: “A meaningful definition of giftedness should take into account what and how abilities have productively come together (coalescence); the type of setting that elicits expression of those abilities (context), the opposing forces that generate a divergence of expression (conflict); and the quality, intensity, and duration of that expression (commitment)” (p. 132).
Snow (1995) echoed this sentiment: “it may be that the best way to understand both individual differences and individuality is in the context of development, whereas developmental pathways both general and unique may best be interpreted in the context of differential distributions” (p. xiv). The use of FDH as a unit of analysis instead of using variable-centered approaches seems to be a promising direction (see Dai & Renzulli, 2008, for an attempt to implement this approach).
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Reductionism Versus Emergentism If the nomothetic–idiographic tension concerns whether one starts with universals or particulars, and how uniqueness can be preserved in search of generality, the reductionism–emergentism tension concerns what levels of analysis and explanation is appropriate given a behavioral and psychological phenomenon. Psychology as a science started out with a strong reductionist orientation (e.g., psychophysics), treating mental events as epiphenomenal of neural-physiological processes. In general, reductionism in psychology is a tendency to trace all complex behaviors and high-level psychological phenomena (including early manifestations of gifts and talents or outstanding eminent achievement) backward to simpler, lower-level components that constitute higher-level phenomena. In its most radical form, psychological processes and events can be causally reduced to neural-physiological events and biochemistry, which can, in turn, be reduced to physics (or from cellular to molecular). A less dramatic example of the reductionist approach is to parse variations in intelligence and personality variables into proportions explained by genetics and environment, respectively (or using more refined schemes): complex phenomena can be taken apart to show its simpler components, and explained by these simpler components in an additive or multiplicative fashion (see Scarr, 1997). Emergentism as a philosophic orientation is relatively new in psychology (Sawyer, 2002). It attempts to keep track of the emergence of complex behaviors in a forward manner, at various levels of organized complexity. For example, evolution can be understood as a self-assembly and self-organization of complexity: living beings have, over millions of years of evolution, surpassed critical thresholds of nervous systems, consciousness, language, and shared technology, which enable Homo Sapiens to achieve a maximal fit through learning and development in an unprecedented manner. Each threshold represents a new level of organized complexity that is indebted to, but cannot be reduced, to lower-level components (e.g., the linguistic, symbolic capability as an emergent property of human functioning entails directedness of consciousness but cannot be simply explained by consciousness). Emergentism would explain individual differences in complex human behaviors, including intellectual performance and manifestations of talents and creative productivity, as a matter of real-time developmental
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emergence, a dynamic form of organized complexity (Dai, 2005; Sawyer, 2002). Indeed, the essence of development from an organismic point of view is the emergence of new properties with increasing organized complexity (Overtone, 1984). Evidence of the tension. While Jensen (2001) and other differential psychologists were seeking the biological underpinnings of intelligence by obtaining physiological measures such as neural conduction velocity (see also Geake, this volume; Vandervert & Liu, this volume), Gruber (1986) dismissed such a “being” account and characterized Darwin, Piaget, and other epoch-making creative lives as self-construction (i.e., doing/becoming) of the extraordinary. In a sense they were trying to answer the same question of how human exceptional competence and creative productivity comes about, but they were going in such diametrically different directions. As another example, after the three-ring conception of giftedness, Renzulli (2002) still found something wanting and went ahead to propose a set of personal constructs, such as optimism, courage, sensitivity to human conditions, sense of destiny, as necessary motivational forces that drive actions leading to major creative contributions to the society and humankind. Behind the being–doing/becoming debate also lies an epistemological tension, differences in what Dennett (1987) called epistemic stance, or what Kimble (1984) identified as two cultures in psychology: scientism and humanism. The problem. As one recalls, psychology as a young discipline used to emulate physics (some may argue that it still does!). Newtonian physics, with its first principles, has attested to the magical power of reductionism. As a matter of fact, it was so powerful that brilliant physicists such as Planck and Einstein all aspired to unify physical sciences under an even more basic, foundational theory. Planck, for example, warned that “physical research cannot rest so long as mechanics and electrodynamics have not been welded together with thermodynamics and heat radiation” (in Holton, 1981, p. 18). Despite the unsuccessful attempt in Einstein’s later life with his unified field theory, reductionism has proved highly effective when used in physics, but less so in biology, and increasingly controversial in psychology (see Koch & Leary, 1992). It has to do with our basic assumption and understanding of human nature as mechanistic, organismic, or contextual (Overtone, 1984).
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The mechanistic vision of human development is that of refinement of machinery. Just like a mechanical gadget, it can be taken apart to show how each component works, all following physical laws. For such a system, addition, subtraction, and rearrangement of components are sufficient to make it work, but no qualitative change can occur in and of itself. In short, a mechanistic model of human development is a reductionist model. In contrast, an organismic vision of human development is modeled after living things such as plants and animals. Living beings are progressively undergoing transformation or qualitative, discontinuous changes. Human beings are even more so; they actively participate in their own development through self-selection and self-initiated actions. Organismic models are non-reductionist and emergentist. A contextual vision of human development incorporates organismic principles but sees human functioning and development as fundamentally embedded in the person–environment dynamic interactions and functional relationships. Thus, contextual models of human development are not only emergentist but also interactionistic. In the context of these three different ontological views of human development, it is easy to see why emergentists tend to take an idiographic approach and reductionists tend to take a nomothetic approach. Based on this scheme, at least four levels of analysis or explanation can be identified: the neural-biological level, the behavioral–functional level, the intentional level, and the activity or social-contextual level (Dai, 2005). Consider the lowest level of emergence in terms of neural wiring and circuit building through learning and maturation to form functional units in the brain. Reductionists parse variations in intellectual performance into genetic and environmental factors as proportional contributions to certain phenotypic development. Emergentism argues that neural wiring is not dictated by genes but highly sensitive to experience, better characterized as a probabilistic epigenesis rather than a deterministic one (Gottlieb, 1998). It has to do with neural plasticity in meeting developmental challenges (see Kalbfleisch, this volume), including talent development; for instance, structural and functional adaptations occur in the brain as a result of training in music (Schlaug, 2001) and other domains (Ericsson et al., in press). Experience and learning change brain physiology and anatomy during child and adolescent development (Nelson, 2000), even in adulthood
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(Greenough, 1976). Thus, assumptions about fixed capacities do not hold even at the neural level! Built on the neural-biological structures and functions is the next level of organized complexity, the growth of competence in cognitive and cultural domains, namely, talents and skills. Reductionists tend to assume that talent is innate, or treat it as an accidental by-product of some abnormal development, a “pathology of superiority.” However, none of the talents in culturally defined domains comes as “packaged” or “pre-programmed.” Rather, emergentists view talent as a result of developmental interactions at several levels (neural, cognitive–affective, social). The emergence of a talent can be characterized as a developmental continuity (quantitative changes) reaching a tipping point to produce a discontinuous outcome (a new level of organized complexity in one’s action repertoire, to use the Actiotope Model; Ziegler, 2005). Domain competence is thus dynamic, in that a talent is a continually changing functional state, continuous increments building up to the next level of organized complexity. Still another higher level of organized complexity has to did with the human ability to mentally represent one’s own past, present, and future, and initiate actions and effect changes in himself or herself. Cognitive psychologists with a reductionist bias typically place their levels of analysis at “subpersonal” levels, that is, mental operations at subconscious level. Dennett (1987) saw them as subpersonal designs, assuming that some mental structures and operations opaque to consciousness carry out all the tasks, and the role of consciousness and intentionality, together with their social-cultural referents and meanings, is epiphenomenal and trivial for that matter. However, this reductionistic view of human functioning has been increasingly contended not only by philosophers (e.g., Searle, 1990, 2002), but also by neurologists and physical scientists (see Cornwell, 1995). For example, Edelman (1995), a neuroscientist, the 1972 Nobel Prize winner for Physiology and Medicine, argued that a unique characteristic of human beings is their ability to model the past and the future. He particularly stressed the role of emergence of selfhood, a construct used by Gruber (1986, 1998) to explain the genesis of many eminent creative contributions:
This selfhood, with its remembered past and envisioned future, sets humans apart from “non-intentional objects” (Edelman, 1995, p. 205). In keeping with this understanding of personal agency, a variety of selfrelated concepts are gaining legitimacy in the scientific discourse on human functioning and development, such as self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997) and possible selves (Markus & Nurius, 1986). These constructs are increasingly used in the giftedness research. At the highest organized complexity is the activity or social-contextual level, which sees all the other three levels of analysis as nested in this functional context. If intentionality is a centerpiece of human functioning, then human functioning must also be social, as intentionality has a distinct social component. Mainstream psychology often reveals mechanistic or organismic biases in explaining gifted and talented behavior, because etiologies of human behavior are typically seen as residing within the person in question. This individualistic bias is reflected not only in theories that consider gifted and talented as by and large genetically based, but also in theories that emphasize personal efforts as the main cause. Rarely do people see gifted and talented behaviors as enabled, not merely facilitated, by technology and culture, or as distributed between the person and an interacting environment (including other people), until very recently (e.g., Barab & Plucker, 2002; Moran & John-Steiner, 2003; Sawyer, 2003; Ericsson, 2006). Thus, the emergency of excellence at the social-contextual level is attributed to the synergistic power, as a result of reciprocation of domain and social affordances and individual and collective abilities (effectivities) over time. Solutions. As the persistent reductionistic search for the Holy Grail of giftedness for the last century has seemed to meet with serious difficulties, emergentism, with its organismic and contextualist outlook, offers a viable alternative. It provides a new way of understanding excellence as a result of developmental diversity. Many of its features are worth consideration in understanding gifted and talent behaviors, for example, its non-deterministic, probabilistic view of human development, its emphasis on neural plasticity and cognitive adaptivity, its emphasis on equipotentiality and equifinality (i.e., different strengths and different developmental pathways lead to the same level of excellence, as evidenced in Gottfried et al., 2005; Shavinina, 2004; see also Kalbfleisch, this volume; Papierno et al., 2005). To be sure, emergentism has its own chal-
“By selfhood, I mean not just the individuality that emerges from genetics or immunology, but the personal individuality that emerges from developmental and social interactions” (Edelman, 1995, p.201)
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lenges, such as how to integrate findings that sit at different levels of analysis (with different grain sizes and structures, different laws and principles), and how to provide bridging principles between different levels of analysis that render emergentist accounts coherent and truly integrated, like a piece of seamless fabric rather than a patched quilt (see Searle, 2004, for a philosophic discussion of different levels of analysis).
Excellence Versus Equity Conceptually, promoting and rewarding excellence does not necessarily impede social equity in terms of equal access to opportunities and resources for achieving excellence. However, in a democracy, especially in a society that has a history of racism, sexism, or other forms of social injustice, there are always concerns as to whether only some individuals or groups have privileged access to resources for achieving excellence and cultural distinction, while others are marginalized or even disfranchised. Evidence of the tension. Gifted education bears the brunt of charges of elitism within the educational community and without. The charges include creating a ruling social elite (Margolin, 1994, 1996), destroying the communal unity of school (SaponShevin, 1994, 1996), unfairly creating a social divide between the elect (i.e., the gifted) and the damned (the regular or non-gifted; Berliner & Biddle, 1995), to name a few. The anti-elitist sentiment is understandable if one realizes that in the US educational system, minority students (barring Asians) are overrepresented in special education and underrepresented in gifted education (Donovan & Cross, 2002). There is a suspicion that the system has an inherent bias against minority students in the selection system. Conversely, detracking (dismantling ability grouping) and the purposeful heterogeneous grouping increasingly popular in the United States has also raised concerns that gifted students are likely exploited in the name of cooperative learning (see Colangelo & Davis, 1997). As an early signal of the tension, Renzulli and Reis (1991) pointed out a “quiet crisis” (p. 26) that directly threatens the defensibility and viability of gifted education: the neglect of the issue of equity and underrepresented populations in gifted education. In 1996, an entire issue of the Journal for the Education of the Gifted was
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devoted to forging a constructive dialogue between gifted educators and critics of the gifted education movement. Most striking is Borland’s (2003) recent advocacy for “gifted education without gifted children” (p. 105), a far cry from his early position (e.g., Borland, 1989). Borland’s conclusion is that gifted education as currently practiced, for all its good intention, further perpetuates social injustice: privileging the already privileged. Scholars in gifted education are wrestling with the issue of whether gifted education should serve unique needs of relatively few or develop talents for all (e.g., see Gallagher, 2000; Treffinger & Feldhusen, 1996; Morelock, 1996). The problem. The issue concerns whether the selection system for gifted education necessarily means unjustified exclusion of certain groups and individuals. The defense of gifted programs is often built on the assumptions of special needs of some top students that set them apart from their peers. The alleged “special needs” are often so vaguely defined that use of “special needs” as a rationale for gifted education is increasingly facing criticism (Borland, 2003; Grant, 2002) for ethical and pragmatic reasons. Another major argument used to defend gifted education is that cultivating giftedness as the most precious natural resources benefits both individuals who demonstrate this quality and the society at large (Renzulli & Reis, 1991). As the categorical approach to identifying “gifted children” using strict cutoffs appears untenable in light of new understandings of the diversity of gifted manifestations, should we still retain an identification system but use more inclusive criteria (Renzulli & Reis, 1997) or should we adopt a more radical “gifted education without gifted children” approach that Borland (2003) advocates? Epistemologically, the issue hinges on our understanding of the issues discussed above: the being versus doing/becoming of giftedness, the issue of qualitative versus qualitative differences, and domain specificity versus domain generality, and ultimately, what gifted education is for. In a larger scheme of things, the tension reflects an egalitarian sentiment against elitism, a charge to which gifted education is vulnerable. Modern society is a mixture of meritocracy and democracy. This marriage is not always an amicable one. On the one hand, individual excellence is encouraged, recognized, and rewarded in a market economy where efficiency and productivity rule. Democracy also implies that individual differences and individuality should be respected,
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and demonstrated high potential be given opportunity to develop. On the other hand, “survival of the fittest,” “the winner takes all” (Ambrose, 2000), and above all, an image of an IQ elite ruling the less intelligent masses in an IQ-stratified society, reminiscent of Plato’s philosopher-kings, is scary to many, particularly when this elitist vision was promoted by Terman, Goddard, and other Darwinians a hundred years ago in the United States, and still find sympathizers today (e.g., Herrnstein & Murray, 1994). This is probably why many people today seem comfortable with athletic elites, business elites, artistic elites, or even technology elites, but uneasy about an intellectual elite. However, as Hofstadter (1963) argued, “The intellectual class, whether or not it enjoys many the privileges of an elite, is of necessity an elite in its manner of thinking and functioning” (p. 407). One may even argue that a true democracy entails such a high intellectual quality (Dewey, 1916). McWhorter (2003), for example, pointed out an alarming decline in the quality of political discourse in the United States; the language many politicians (arguably an elite group) prefer to use seems increasingly less formal compared to their counterparts in the 1800s and 1900s, relying more on sound bites that have an emotional appeal to their audiences or constituencies but not much of intellectual substance. This declined quality of thinking not only has direct political consequences (e.g., war and peace), but also affects the quality of a democracy. Advocacy for the gifted runs counter to democracy in another way. Culturally speaking, democracy and commercialism are not particularly congenial to refined minds and senses. Indeed, people like William James (or Henry James for that matter) would likely feel out of place if they were still alive today. Tocqueville (1835) foretold the decline of senses and sensibilities in the modern era, and expressed his mixed feelings about the then emergent democracy in his Democracy in America. By the same token, Tannenbaum (1998) warned that the sound and fury of the popular culture could numb sensitivities and dumb down sensibilities, threatening the very existence of the gifted on this planet! It raises the issue of whether gifted education should play an important role of preserving an “elite” quality in an increasingly materialist, post-modern world. In historical hindsight, Sputnik-mobilized energy and enthusiasm for educational excellence in science and mathematics is a mixed blessing, because what historically motivated
the gifted movement were political and economic exigencies (e.g., the United States is losing its competitive edge! To Soviet Union in 1950s, to Japan in 1980s, and now to China!). Giftedness as a precious natural resource should be cultivated and put to good use for the sake of national interest, and no one would question the value of doing so (see Carroll, Crowe, Earle, Orland, Moon, Ross, & Subotnik, this volume). However, it can be argued that well-cultivated, refined minds and senses, as reflected in their intellectual and artistic products and expressions, have their own intrinsic value, and should be preserved with equal urgency. Solutions. Early Darwinians such as Galton and Terman interpreted Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” as a uni-dimensional hierarchy, which is, in hindsight, a misconception. As in a natural world, there are many ways that the organism–environment fit can be achieved. In other words, Darwinian niche potential can be pluralistic, rather than hierarchical. Moreover, it is the variation or diversity, socially and biologically, that produces excellence, not the mere inheritance of family genes. Indeed, as Simonton (2005) pointed out, genius or extreme forms of giftedness is more likely a genetic accident than an inherited family trait. Thus, the myth of a natural-born elite group passing their “gifted genes” onto their offspring, perpetuated by Galton (1869), should be debunked. One might even venture a hypothesis that the statistical concept of regression to the mean also applies in this context. As to how a society should view and treat those who demonstrate different levels of excellence or promise, Sternberg (1996) proposed a Jeffersonian ideal that people are equal in terms of political and social rights, and thus should have equal opportunity to realize their potential, but the extent to which they utilize and benefit from these opportunities may not be equal. People should be rewarded for what they accomplish, given equal opportunity, not for what they might have or could have accomplished. In other words, everyone should be given equal opportunities, but one should not expect equal outcomes, nor should one reward everyone equally if the outcomes are different. A corollary of this argument is that actual achievement should be used as a basis for reward, not putative potential. In gifted education, one way of solving the excellence versus equity problem is to reintegrate gifted education into general education. It is now feasible be-
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cause general education has increasingly emphasized high-level thinking and teaching for transfer and expertise (e.g., Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 1999). While arguing that goals and guiding principles for gifted education and general education are fundamentally similar, Tomlinson (1996) posits nine dimensions on which educational and instructional differentiation may be made for gifted learners: (a) foundational to transformational, (b) concrete to abstract, (c) simple to complex, (d) few facets to multifacets, (e) smaller leap to greater leap, (f) more structured to more open, (g) clearly defined to fuzzy, (h) less independence to greater independence, and (i) slower to quicker. They can be seen as dimensions along which all students (including the gifted) can be properly positioned based on their zones of proximal development, on how much they will benefit from a given educational experience at a specific point in time. A continuum of educational provisions can be made, some suitable for many, and others only suitable to a relatively few (Renzulli & Reis, 1997; Stanley, 1997; Shore & Delcourt, 1996).
Conclusion More than a century ago, Galton (1896) envisioned that we eventually pinpoint genius as a heritable, measurable mental faculty. Terman (1925) went further to study this putatively heritable trait with the then newly invented measurement technology. These pioneers of gifted psychology provide us with a legacy that needs to be taken seriously, and critically reviewed in light of all the scientific advances made over the past century. In this chapter, I identify several tensions between the old and the new, between different ways of approaching the same issue, and explore how these tensions can be resolved or eased by efforts of synthesis. I attempt to show that meaningful exchanges can be made between those who hold diametrically different viewpoints, and that under the seemingly discrete approaches and perspectives, there is commensurability, continuity, and complementarity. Such exchanges would ensure that, even though we may not agree with each other, we at least understand each other’s point of view. Human understanding follows a learning curve. Ultimately, it self-corrects. Studies of giftedness are no exception. Galton was almost prophetic in his times, but na¨ıve by today’s standards of scientific knowledge.
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T. S. Elliot once commented that, with new insights into the human nature and conditions, the entire world order needs to be rearranged to reflect these new understandings. This said, the essential tensions surrounding the concept of giftedness will linger for several reasons. First, we are dealing with issues that are value laden, with ethic and political consequences. Indeed, many in the field can be better described as champions of certain justifiable causes rather than disinterested bystanders; scientists are social beings as well, and have their own political sympathies and commitments. Second, the epistemic complexity of the issues makes it inevitable that knowledge claims we have made or will make, however supported by evidence, are based on theoretical models rather than objective realities independent of the observer and/or the instrument that permits the observation); these knowledge claims or creative interpretations of data are constrained, but not automatically made self-evident, by empirical evidence. And finally, epistemic beliefs and ontological commitments of scholars and researchers, including principles guiding their research, are usually not subject to falsification (Lakatos, 1978). One can remain hopeful, however, that scholars and researchers in the field constructively capitalize on these tensions with both open-mindedness and critical thinking. To quote Toulmin (1972): “A man [or woman] demonstrates his [her] rationality, not by a commitment to fixed ideas, stereotyped procedures, or immutable concepts, but by the manner in which, and the occasions on which, he [she] changes those ideas, procedures, and concepts.” (p. x).
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Sternberg, R. J. (1995). A thriarchic approach to giftedness (Research Monograph 95126). Storrs, CT: The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented. Sternberg, R. J. (1996). Successful intelligence. New York: Simon & Schuster. Sternberg, R. J. (1999a). Intelligence as developing expertise. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 24, 359–375. Sternberg, R. J. (1999b). A propulsion model of types of creative contributions. Review of General Psychology, 3, 83–100. Sternberg, R. J. (2000). The concept of intelligence. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Handbook of intelligence (pp. 3–15). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University press. Sternberg, R. J. (2007). Cultural concepts of giftedness. Roeper Review, 29, 160–165. Sternberg, R. J., & Davidson, J. E. (1986). Conceptions of giftedness: A map of the terrain. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (pp. 3–18). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University press. Sternberg, R. J., Grigorenko, E. L., & Singer, J. L. (Eds.) (2004). Creativity: From potential to realization. Washington, DC: Amreican Psychological Association. Subotnik, R. F. (2003). A developmental view of giftedness: From being to doing. Roeper Review, 26, 14–15. Subotnik, R. F. (2006). Longitudinal studies: Answering our most important questions of prediction and effectiveness. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 29, 379–383. Subotnik, R. F., & Jarvin, L. (2005). Beyond expertise: Conceptions of giftedness as great performance. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (2 ed., pp. 343–357). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University press. Subotnik, R. F., & Olszewski-Kubilius, P. (1998). Distinctions between children’s and adults’ experiences of giftedness. Peabody Journal of Education. Tannenbaum, A. J. (1983). Gifted children: Psychological and educational perspectives. New York: Macmillan. Tannenbaum, A. J. (1997). The meaning and making of giftedness. In N. Colangelo & G. A. Davis (Eds.), Handbook of gifted education (2 ed., pp. 27–42). Boston, MA. Tannenbaum, A. J. (1998). Programs for the gifted: To be or not to be. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 22, 3–36. Terman, L. M. (1925). Genetic studies of genius: Vol. 1, Mental and physical traits of a thousand gifted children. Standford, CA: Stanford University press. Terman, L. M., & Oden, M. H. (1959). Genetic studies of genius: The gifted group at mid-life. Stanford, CA: Stanford University press. Thomson, G. H. (1916). A hierarchy without a general factor. British Journal of Psychology, 8, 271–281. Tocqueville, A. (1835/2004). Democracy in America. Washintong, DC: Library of Congress. Tomasello, M., & Slobin, D. I. (Eds.) (2004). Beyond naturenurture: Essays in honor of Elizabath Bates. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Tomlinson, C. A. (1996). Good teaching for one and all: Does gifted education have an instructional identity? Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 20, 155–174. Toulmin, S. (1972). Human understanding (Vol. 1). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University press. Treffinger, D. S., & Feldhusen, J. F. (1996). Talent recognition and development: Successor to gifted education. Journal for the Education of the gifted, 19, 181–193.
80 Turkheimer, E., Haley, A., Waldron, M., D’Onofrio, & Gottesman, I. I. (2003). Socioeconomic status modifies heritability of IQ in young children. Psychological Science, 14, 623–628. Vandervert, L. R., & Liu, H. (in press). Neurological bases of individual differences in giftedness. In L. Shavinina (Ed.), Handbook on Giftedness. New York: Springer Science.Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University press. von K´arolyi, C., & Winner, E. (2005). Extreme giftedness. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (2 ed., pp. 377–394). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University press. Weisberg, R. W. (1999). Creativity and knowledge: A challenge to theories. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Handbook of creativity (pp. 226–250). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University press. Weisberg, R. W. (2006). Modes of expertise in creative thinking: Evidence from case studies. In K. A. Ericsson, N. Charness, P. J. Feltovich & R. R. Hoffman (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance (pp. 761–787). New York: Cambridge University press. Wineburg, S. S. (1991). Historical problem solving: A study of the cognitive process used in the evaluation of documentary
D.Y. Dai and pictorial evidence. Journal of Educational Psychology, 83, 73–87. Winner, E. (1996). Gifted children. New York: Basic Books. Winner, E. (1997). Exceptionally high intelligence and schooling. American Pshchologist, 52, 1070–1081. Winner, E. (2000). The origins and ends of giftedness. American Pshchologist, 55, 159–169. Witty, P. A. (1958). Who are the gifted? . In N. B. Henry (Ed.), Education of the gifted. 57th Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part 2. Chicago: University of Chicago. Ziegler, A. (2005). The Actiotope Model of giftedness. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (2 ed., pp. 411–436). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University press. Ziegler, A., & Heller, K. A. (2000). Conceptions of giftedness from a meta-theoretical perspective. In K. A. Heller, F. J. Monk, R. J. Sternberg & R. F. Subotnik (Eds.), International handbook of giftedness and talent (2nd ed., pp. 3–21). Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Ltd. Zuckerman, H. (1983). The scientific elite: Nobel laureates’ mutual influences. In R. S. Albert (Ed.), Genius and eminence: The social psychology of creativity and exceptional achievement (pp. 241–252). Oxford, UK: Pergamon press.
Chapter 4
Contemporary Models of Giftedness Janet E. Davidson
Abstract One powerful method for understanding, identifying, and studying gifted individuals is through theory-based models that meet high standards. Contemporary models of giftedness have evolved, in part, because views of intelligence have become more complex. First, three recent views of intelligence that have shaped these models will be reviewed: three-stratum theory, multiple intelligences, and the triarchic theory of successful intelligence. Second, five additional components of several current models of giftedness will be discussed: sources of giftedness, social responsibility, creativity, gender, and the role of the environment. Examples of models exemplifying each component will be described and then analyzed in terms of whether they (a) are based on relevant assumptions and empirical findings, (b) are well specified, understandable, and falsifiable, (c) are economical, (d) provide practical guidance about identifying and fostering giftedness, (e) describe, explain, and predict gifted behavior over time and across situations, and (f) generate new research and applications that advance the field. Finally, conclusions will be drawn and recommendations will be offered.
intelligence · The three-ring conception of giftedness · WICS
Introduction
Giftedness is an odd construct. Even though exceptional abilities have been acknowledged for centuries (Ziegler & Heller, 2000), there is still no consensus on what it means for someone to be gifted. Nor is it fully understood why some individuals are identified as gifted during childhood but not in adulthood and vice versa. Not surprisingly, the answers to our concerns about giftedness depend upon the level at which they are addressed. Given that educators, researchers, and other members of a society define and identify giftedness, its conceptualization often takes various forms that differ according to when, where, and how the assessment occurs. For example, many school districts in the United States categorize children as intellectually gifted if they score at or above the 97th percentile on a test of cognitive ability. In contrast, adulthood giftedness is generally determined on the basis of creativity and distinction in a specific domain (Siegler & Keywords The actiotope model of giftedness · Kotovsky, 1986). In other words, childhood giftedness Creativity · The differentiated model of giftedness is often defined by exceptional acquisition of general (DMGT) · The emergenic–epigenetic model · General knowledge, whereas adult giftedness is typically based intelligence (g) · The Munich model of giftedness on extraordinary discovery of a new way to conceptu(MMGA) · The Munich dynamic ability achievement alize information in a specific domain. model (MDAAM) · Multiple intelligences (MI) · The Despite the inherent difficulty in figuring out star model · Talent realization in women · Three- giftedness, the goal is a worthy one. In order to fully stratum theory · The triarchic theory of successful understand and foster the talents of gifted individuals, it is necessary to have a reasonably clear idea of what giftedness consists of, where it comes from, and how J.E. Davidson (B) it can be assessed across the lifespan. Indeed, any Lewis & Clark College, Portland, OR, USA e-mail:
[email protected] instructional program for capitalizing on exceptional L.V. Shavinina (ed.), International Handbook on Giftedness, c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-6162-2 4,
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abilities assumes as a prerequisite some understanding of what giftedness is and how it can be recognized. Furthermore, finding the sources of this elusive construct advances our scientific knowledge about the human mind and its intriguing psychological functions. One powerful method for understanding, identifying, and examining giftedness is through theory-based models. Potentially these models will describe, explain, and predict giftedness, allowing us to generalize from the known to the unknown. However, contemporary models of giftedness must meet certain criteria in order to be useful to society and to science. Bad models at best are useless and at their worst can result in poor practices that damage individuals’ lives and the reputation of the field. As Robert Sternberg (2004) notes, vigilance is needed because individuals who are identified as gifted receive opportunities to contribute to society that are not made available to others. Therefore, models of giftedness must be held to extremely high standards. These criteria are similar to those cited in the literature on theories (Davidson, 1990; Hempel, 1966; Kaplan, 1964).
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First, the models must be based on relevant assumptions, build on previous knowledge, and have the best available empirical support. Second, the components of each model and the mechanisms by which they interact must be well specified, internally consistent, and testable. If a model of giftedness is vague, inconsistent, unfalsifiable, or cannot easily be compared to other models then it is useless and potentially harmful. Third, models should be economical rather than overly complicated. More specifically, they need to be understandable to a reasonably competent person and not contain unnecessary or unclear parts that confuse the relevant issues. Fourth, the models need to describe, explain, and predict gifted behavior over time (preferably throughout the lifespan) and across situations. Fifth, and perhaps most importantly, they should provide valid practical guidance about how to develop and select instruments, programs, and policies that identify and foster giftedness. In other words, the models need to be useful to education and other segments of society, as well as to science. Finally, the models must be productive in generating new empirical work that advances the field of giftedness.
Contemporary models of giftedness tend to be more complex and multidimensional than historical ones based on intelligence quotient (IQ). At first glance, one might wonder whether this complexity violates the third criterion mentioned above. However, there are valid and productive reasons for this move away from reductionism. First, a one-dimensional view of giftedness is not fully supported by the available evidence (Ceci, 1996; Winner, 1996) and it has been of limited usefulness to practitioners (Heller, 2003), thus not meeting some of our other criteria. Second, most models of giftedness are closely tied to conceptions of intelligence. Therefore, their complexity has increased as views of intelligence have become more comprehensive. Third, some of the current models have a different goal than those of the past by attempting to bridge the gap between childhood and adult giftedness. Taking a wider range of ages and circumstances into account increases the complexity of the models along with their usefulness. This chapter will briefly describe three views of intelligence that are incorporated into current models of giftedness. Next it will review five other components that characterize many of the contemporary models: sources of giftedness, social responsibility, creativity, gender, and the role of the environment. Due to space limitations, only a sample of specific models will be presented to illustrate each component. At the end of each section we will return to the question: Is this component useful? In other words, we will analyze whether it significantly contributes to models and fits our criteria. Finally, conclusions will be drawn and recommendations will be made for future models.
Foundations: Multidimensional Views of Intelligence At least since Sir Francis Galton (1869) wrote Hereditary Genius, theories of intelligence have influenced attitudes and practices related to gifted individuals. Three fairly recent theories of intelligence have guided the field of giftedness toward more domain-specific, rather than domain-general, models. The first, the three-stratum theory, is a hierarchical psychometric theory that views intelligence as a multifactorial and relatively fixed entity. The other two, the theory of multiple intelligences and the triarchic theory of successful intelligence, conceptualize intelligence as
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a complex system that involves interactions between mental processes, contextual influences, and multiple abilities. According to these latter two models, intelligence is dynamic in nature and can change when environmental conditions change.
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of the three-stratum model and others like it is that g is not well understood either biologically or psychologically. Carroll (1993, 1996) views it as a unitary dimension of general mental ability that underlies intellectual performance and is particularly evident on tests of complexity or of abstract reasoning. An opposing interpretation is that g is merely a statistical artifact (Horn, 1989). Steve Ceci (1996) argues The Three-Stratum Theory that it could be the result of one or more variables, such as biological, environmental, metacognitive, temBased on his amazingly comprehensive re-analysis peramental, motivational, or even an interlocking set of more than 460 datasets of test scores reported in of independent variables. Obviously, knowing exactly the psychometric literature, John Carroll portrays what g represents would provide a better understandthe structure of intelligence as a pyramid (Carroll, ing of the nature of intelligence and its relationship to 1993, 1996). The top of the pyramid, Stratum III, giftedness. is general intelligence or mental ability (g), which has a high degree of heritability and underlies all intelligent actions. The middle of the pyramid, Stratum II, consists of eight somewhat specialized abilities that influence one’s performance in broad domains. The Theory of Multiple Intelligences These are fluid intelligence (e.g., inductive reasoning), crystallized intelligence (e.g., verbal comprehension), Howard Gardner’s (1983, 1993, 1999) theory of mulgeneral memory and learning (e.g., working memory tiple intelligences (MI), unlike Carroll’s three-stratum span), broad visual perception (e.g., spatial relations), theory, is not based on patterns of paper-and-pencil broad auditory perception, broad retrieval ability, test scores or on a unitary view of intelligence. Acbroad cognitive speediness, and processing speed. cording to MI theory, there are at least eight relatively The order in which the abilities are listed here reflects autonomous, yet often interactive, intelligences that the degree that each one is influenced by general have evolved in the human species and are valued in a intelligence. For example, fluid intelligence is the wide variety of cultures (Gardner, 1983, 1999). Gardmost related to g and processing speed is the least ner defines intelligence as a biopsychological potenrelated. The base of the pyramid, Stratum I, consists tial to design culturally valued products and solutions, of numerous specific abilities, such as spelling ability, and each of his intelligences has its own developmenquantitative reasoning, and lexical knowledge. Each tal course, identifiable core operations, brain structures, ability at Stratum I is related to one or more of the and plausible evolutionary history. An individual develops one or more intelligences through genetic inhereight abilities that comprise Stratum II. The three-stratum model meets many of the cri- itance, training, environmental opportunities, and soteria mentioned previously. For example, it provides cialization of cultural values. Three of the eight intelligences – linguistic, logical– a comprehensive depiction of the general and specific abilities, and their inter-relationships, that under- mathematical, and spatial – are similar to abilities lie exceptional performance on a wide variety of men- measured by standard intelligence tests and they are tal tests. This depiction can explain the heterogeneity represented by some of stratum two’s broad abilities among gifted individuals through differences in their in the three-stratum theory described earlier (Carroll, stratum one and two abilities (Gottfredson, 2003). Fur- 2005). Linguistic intelligence involves the capacity to thermore, the theory builds on previous research and use language to explain, persuade, remember informahas generated a great deal more (e.g., Bickley, Keith, & tion, and comprehend meaning. Logical–mathematical Wolfe, 1995; Song & Porath, 2005). When combined intelligence is the ability effectively to manipulate with information processing tasks, this theory can also numbers, operate on relationships that involve abstract help illuminate the nature of the cognitive processes in- symbol systems, and logically to evaluate quantities and concepts. Spatial intelligence refers to expertise volved in intelligent behavior (Carroll, 1993). Even though the evidence for g’s existence is com- in perceiving, imaging, and transforming objects in pelling (Carroll, 1993; Jensen, 1998), one weakness space.
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The remaining five types – bodily kinesthetic, musical, intrapersonal, interpersonal, and naturalist – are not measured by conventional intelligence tests, even though they are valued in most cultures. Bodily kinesthetic intelligence is the skillful control and use of one’s body. Musical intelligence includes the ability to appreciate, produce, and combine tones, rhythms, and pitch. Intrapersonal intelligence refers to understanding one’s own emotions, motives, strengths, and weaknesses, whereas interpersonal intelligence involves understanding of, and sensitivity to, other people’s emotions, motives, and behaviors. Finally, naturalist intelligence involves recognizing and classifying natural objects. Even though the independence of the multiple intelligences has not been fully demonstrated (Carroll, 2005; Gottfredson, 2003), MI theory has broadened the conception of giftedness to include a wide range of culturally valued potentials (Fasko, 2001; von Karolyi, Ramos-Ford, & Gardner, 2003). In other words, science and society have begun to acknowledge that giftedness tends to be domain specific rather than general to all domains. In addition, applications of MI theory have expanded assessment by evaluating intelligent behavior in a meaningful context rather than through standardized testing. Portfolios, activities, and themebased materials are used to identify and educate gifted children (Chen & Gardner, 1997; Gardner, 1992). Furthermore, MI theory highlights the importance of focusing on potentials instead of on fixed abilities.
The Triarchic Theory of Successful Intelligence Like Howard Gardner, Robert Sternberg rejects the conception of intelligence as a unitary ability. However, Sternberg’s triarchic theory, which is more complex than MI theory, focuses on the mental processes underlying intelligence rather than on its specific domains. According to Sternberg’s theory (1985), three interacting aspects contribute to successful intelligence. The first consists of the analytical skills that help individuals evaluate, judge, critique, or analyze information. The second involves practical abilities that create an optimal match between one’s skills and one’s external environment. These abilities are used to apply, use, and implement ideas in the real world. The
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third aspect is creative intelligence, which involves maximizing one’s experiences in order to generate new products and solve relatively novel problems. In all cultures, according to Sternberg, successful intelligence occurs when individuals achieve their life goals by capitalizing on their strengths and improving upon, or compensating for, their weaknesses. As part of this, they must effectively adapt to, shape, and select their environments through a combination of the analytic, practical, and creative aspects of intelligence (Sternberg, 2005). The three aspects of intelligence are relatively distinct; individuals who are strong in one are not necessarily strong in the other two. What the three aspects have in common is that they each rely on a common set of interdependent mental processes that allow an individual to plan, execute, and monitor performance (metacomponents), implement the metacomponents’ instructions (performance components), and learn new skills and information (knowledge-acquisition components). In other words, these mental processes are domain general and are an essential part of all intelligent behavior. Like MI theory, the triarchic theory has broadened the conception of giftedness and influenced the identification and education of gifted children. For example, this theory was used to develop the Sternberg Triarchic Abilities Test (STAT; Sternberg, 1993), which measures the analytical, practical, and creative aspects of intelligence through verbal, quantitative, and figural problems. Unlike MI theory, several studies have been conducted to validate the triarchic theory (Sternberg, 2003a). For example, Sternberg and his colleagues (Sternberg, Ferrari, Clinkenbeard, & Grigorenko, 1996) discovered that gifted high school students who were taught a college-level course in a way that matched their analytic, practical, or creative abilities achieved at higher levels than gifted students who were given instruction that did not match their strengths. In addition, it was found that intellectually gifted grade school children spontaneously applied knowledge-acquisition components in appropriate ways when solving novel problems. In contrast, students of average intellectual ability needed explicitly to be told what information to encode, how to combine the information, and what information to compare (Davidson & Sternberg, 1984). Crosscultural validation of the triarchic theory has also occurred (Sternberg, Castejon, Prieto, Hautamaki,
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& Grigorenko, 2003), which is commendable and uncommon in this field. Where do these three multidimensional theories of intelligence leave us with respect to models of giftedness? Even though the theories emphasize different aspects of intelligence, they are not mutually exclusive of each other. As Sternberg and Grigorenko (2002) note, g is largely related to analytical ability. Similarly, the analytic, practical, and creative patterns of intelligence can be applied to Gardner’s domains of intelligences. For example, someone with both analytic and linguistic intelligence might excel as a literary critic. In their explanations of why human intellectual performance can be high in some contexts and low in others, all three theories emphasize the range, complexity, and domain-specific aspects of intelligent behavior. Through this focus, they advance the field of intelligence beyond a narrow conception. Contemporary models of giftedness take this wider conception into account in order to describe, explain, and predict the heterogeneity of gifted individuals and the nature of their potentials and abilities. However, the models differ in terms of the particular view of intelligence they assume and the inferences they make about it. For example, adopting a three-stratum approach to intelligence tends to result in conceptions of giftedness as a stable personal characteristic that includes g. Moreover, these models often propose that giftedness can be identified through psychometric testing. In contrast, taking one of the more dynamic views of intelligence into account results in models where the environment and the individual interact to produce gifted behavior. Identification often occurs through context-based measurement and parent or teacher ratings. Contemporary models of giftedness also differ in terms of the attributes they do or do not combine with intelligence, although more convergence is starting to occur. The following five sections will elaborate on some of these characteristics: sources of giftedness, social responsibility, creativity, gender, and the role of the environment.
Sources of Giftedness As noted earlier, an important criterion for models of giftedness is that they need to describe, explain, and
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predict gifted behavior over time and across situations. In recent years, different explanations of giftedness have resulted in controversy in the field. Some models propose that giftedness is based, at least in part, on natural or genetically endowed abilities; whereas others propose that it is the result of extended practice and skill acquisition. Each of these views and their representative models will be discussed below.
The Role of Natural Abilities Some contemporary models maintain that exceptional behaviors begin with genetically endowed abilities or potentials that are then transformed into outstanding achievement through the influence of nurture. For example, Abraham Tannenbaum’s (1986, 2003) star model proposes that gifted accomplishments are based on five interactive psychological and social factors: superior general intelligence (g), exceptional specific abilities, non-intellective traits, environmental supports, and chance. According to Tannenbaum (2003) and others (Bouchard, 1997; Carroll, 1996), general intelligence has a high degree of heritability and can be measured by standardized intelligence tests. All talented achievement requires some degree of g, although the minimum level varies depending on the domain. Exceptional specific aptitudes often appear early in life. When combined with g, these abilities can help an individual excel in a given talent area. Non-intellective influences, or personality traits, include interpersonal skills, motivation, perseverance, and secure self-concept. Environmental facilitators, which may have genetic antecedents, are the external contexts that help shape proficiency and creative activity within a domain. Interestingly, chance is the final determinant of whether gifted achievement occurs. An individual can be high in the other four factors but fail to attain outstanding performance due to unlucky circumstances. Chance includes both internal and external factors, such as an individual’s genes and random environmental events. These five factors are often portrayed with each one representing its own arm of a sea star and having its own static and dynamic sub-factors (Tannenbaum, 2003). Static elements involve descriptive information at a given point in time, such as where a child currently fits into group norms for abstract reasoning or number
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of friendships. In contrast, dynamic elements involve ongoing mental processes and situational contexts that cause a child’s behavior to change over time. Giftedness is represented by the center of the sea star, where all five factors come together. However, even though gifted achievement requires high levels of all five elements, the essential minimum for each varies based on the talent area. To be outstanding in their professions, for example, educators might need higher levels of certain non-intellective traits than molecular biologists require. Like Tannenbaum’s star model, Francoys Gagn´e’s (2005; this volume) differentiated model of giftedness and talent (DMGT) explains the relationship between ability and achievement. More specifically, Gagn´e proposes a set of genetically based ability domains that include intellectual (e.g., fluid reasoning and memory), creative (e.g., originality and inventiveness), socioaffective (e.g., interpersonal skills), and sensorimotor (e.g., coordination). All children have these natural abilities to some extent and each one is considered a gift only when it is displayed at a high level (i.e., in the top 10% of their peer group). An individual may be gifted because of exceptional creativity, high levels of one of the other abilities, or both. Talent (or achievement) in a field develops systematically from the natural abilities through maturation, learning, and practice (Gagn´e, 2005). There are three types of catalysts that can help or hinder the transformation of gifts into talents. These are intrapersonal (e.g., temperament), environmental (e.g., schools), and chance (e.g., one’s hereditary characteristics). In other words, according to DMGT, a natural ability (or gift) predicts future achievement in a domain but does not guarantee it. Various aspects of nature and nurture must work together progressively to convert natural ability into talent. Dean Simonton’s (2005) emergenic–epigenetic model gives a detailed explanation of the potential genetic complexities of giftedness and why dissimilar types of giftedness may appear at different rates. The emergenic aspect proposes that many forms of giftedness are polygenic and complex; they require the simultaneous genetic inheritance of all cognitive, dispositional, and physiological traits required to display outstanding achievement in a particular domain. (However, even when giftedness is domain specific, some of its required genetic components may be general ones.) Other forms of giftedness may be
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simple in that they require relatively few traits. In addition, the genetic process underlying giftedness can occur in either a multiplicative or an additive manner. In multiplicative forms of giftedness, such as political leadership, a particular talent will not be manifested if even one genetic trait is not inherited or above a certain threshold. If traits are additive, then exceptional achievement can still occur if a particular trait is not present and the existing ones are strong. Simonton’s model implies that complex, multiplicative forms of giftedness will be more difficult to predict than homogeneous ones where a small number of genetic traits operate in an additive manner. For example, simple and additive forms of giftedness are much more likely to be inherited from one’s parents than are multiplicative forms requiring a large combination of traits. The epigenetic aspect of Simonton’s model (2005) maintains that genetic traits develop according to their own gradual inherited trajectories rather than appearing suddenly at birth. In other words, development of giftedness is a dynamic, unstable process where gifts can change throughout childhood and adolescence. In cases where genes operate multiplicatively, giftedness does not begin to develop until the last genetic component is expressed. This means that some complex forms of giftedness might not be identifiable until late adolescence or early adulthood. In contrast, additive forms might be recognized relatively early because they begin when the first genetic component becomes active. Furthermore, the epigenetic aspect of Simonton’s model explains why an individual might be viewed as gifted during childhood but not in adulthood. In some instances, one’s overall potential may be undermined by the late development of unfavorable genetic traits, such as the onset of schizophrenia. In other cases, a child may appear gifted in comparison to his or her peers only until they develop outstanding skills that have relatively late epigenetic trajectories. In short, Simonton’s emergenic–epigenetic model emphasizes that giftedness is far from simple. It can occur in many different ways for genetically different individuals. It is important to note that the three views described above are not solely based on nature: They do not claim that genes alone result in exceptional behavior or that their influence is immutable. According to these models, genetic traits contribute to one’s potential, yet nurture plays a role in transforming ability into outstanding achievement.
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The Role of Expertise In sharp contrast to the natural ability views, some contemporary models propose that giftedness is neither more nor less than expertise in a particular domain. In other words, exceptional performance is the result of extended training and deliberate practice. According to Ericsson, Nandagopal, and Roring (this volume), there is no compelling empirical evidence to support the belief that genetic endowment or intellectual ability is necessary for extraordinary achievements. There is, in their opinion, ample evidence that individuals who practice intensively for approximately 10 years do reach extraordinary levels of performance in a domain. However, not just any type of practice will suffice. It is essential that the practice deliberately involve (a) setting specific goals for improvement, (b) solving increasingly difficult problems, (c) concentrating on their techniques, and (d) obtaining immediate feedback on their performance. The fundamental assumption underlying Ericsson’s theoretical framework is that the quantity and quality of time spent in this type of practice is monotonically related to one’s performance. This monotonic function is due, in large part, to the physiological changes that result when an individual’s brain and body adapt to the increased demands imposed by extended deliberate practice. In addition, larger adaptive changes may occur in certain domains if deliberate practice occurs before, rather than after, critical periods of development. This means that the acquisition of certain skills is more likely for young children than for adults. Ericsson’s framework proposes that expertise develops in three phases (Ericsson, Krampe, & TeschRomer, 1993). In the first, an individual is introduced to enjoyable activities in a particular domain. In the second phase, he or she receives training and engages in deliberate practice. Finally, in phase three, the individual commits full time to improving his or her performance until he or she reaches a professional level. Some individuals enter a fourth phase where they surpass their instructors’ knowledge and make creative contributions to their domains. There are several constraints that limit the number of individuals who successfully complete all three phases. For example, not everyone has the motivation to continue practicing when the challenges become increasingly difficult. Similarly, some individuals do not have necessary external support, such as parental involvement or ac-
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cess to the excellent training required in phases two and three. A growing concern in the field of giftedness is that our current practice of classifying individuals as gifted is no longer useful. Some of the given reasons include that there is little agreement on what it means to be gifted (Robinson, 2005), the construct is of questionable validity (Borland, 2005), and the classification results in an unequal allocation of educational resources (Borland, 2005). On the basis of their expertise results, Ericsson, Nandagopal, and Roring (this volume) concur that the gifted label should be abandoned. They argue that it inaccurately implies genetic endowment and potential for future achievement. In addition, the label can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If parents think their child is gifted in a domain, they might provide opportunities for him or her to obtain instruction and practice. Other children, however, might not be given the same opportunities if it is believed that they do not have the necessary innate abilities. Robert Sternberg (2003b) retains the concept of giftedness and defines it as developing expertise. More specifically, he argues that ability tests measure expertise in its early stages of development and these tests cannot productively be distinguished from achievement exams. He emphasizes that abilities are flexible, rather than fixed, and can progressively change with deliberate practice. For example, individuals receive test-taking instruction, active rehearsal, and feedback that can be used to improve their performance on future exams. Moreover, the skills required for performing well on exams, such as analytic abilities and sustained concentration, are often also necessary to excel in school or in one’s profession. Sternberg’s model (2000) of developing expertise is based on his triarchic theory of intelligence mentioned earlier. It has five interactive characteristics that are internal to the individual: metacomponents, learning skills (e.g., knowledge-acquisition components, tacit acquisition), performance components, motivation to improve, and an information base that includes declarative and procedural knowledge. Motivation drives these characteristics to directly and indirectly work together until an individual becomes proficient at using a particular set of skills. External context also plays a role. For example, native language, the testing environment, and familiarity with the material can influence one’s test-taking performance. As the context or domain changes, so too does one’s level of
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proficiency. Therefore, an individual may go through several cycles of moving from a novice to higher levels of expertise. Even though Sternberg (2000) believes the concept of giftedness will always exist due to individual differences in expertise, he maintains that identifying a fixed group of individuals as intellectually gifted is impractical. One reason is that abilities constantly change as expertise develops. In addition, the types of developing expertise that are needed to be classified as gifted change throughout the lifespan. The latter reason helps explain why a person can be classified as gifted in childhood but not in adulthood, and vice versa. Just as the natural abilities models have a role for nurture, the expertise views incorporate nature to some extent. For example, Ericsson, Nandagopal, and Roring (this volume) acknowledge that body and height are genetically based traits that can influence certain physical types of expertise. Sternberg (2000) suggests that both nature and nurture may allow some individuals rather than others to engage more effectively in tasks that are relevant to the development of expertise.
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in both practice and knowledge acquisition (Heller, 2003). It also helps resolve faulty assumptions that began with Galton’s (1869) publication of Hereditary Genius. The heritability of certain abilities does not determine one’s destiny nor does it mean that the abilities are fixed entities. Even Galton (1874) eventually came to the realization that nurture, as well as nature, drives development. In their explanations of giftedness, models need a role for both genes and the environment because nature rarely works independently from nurture or vice versa (Sternberg & Grigorenko, 1997). However, in their suggestions for fostering giftedness, it makes sense for models to highlight the role of nurture. Where does this leave us with respect to labeling some individuals as gifted? As noted earlier, Ericsson, Nandagopal, and Roring (this volume) and others are ready to abandon the “gifted” term. This seems a bit premature, given that individual differences do exist and the perceived problems with the label could potentially be solved. First, we need to come to some agreement on what it means to be gifted. This task might not be as impossible as it sounds, given that most models include motivation, effective cognitive skills, and above-average performance in a domain. Consensus conceptions might need to be developmentally based. For example, Subotnik and Jarvin (2005) suggest agebased stages consisting of an early stage where abilCritique of Models Including Sources ity becomes competence, a middle period where precocious attainment of expertise occurs, and an adult Even though they differ in their explanations of gifted- stage involving distinguished performance. Second, the ness, the views presented here have generated new em- gifted label should not be discarded simply because it pirical research and advanced the field. On the surface, might lead to an unfair allocation of educational rethe natural abilities models and the expertise models sources. Instead, superior training should be given to appear to be on opposing sides of an irreconcilable all individuals and the type of resources should vary schism. However, the two approaches can be comple- based on the next logical steps in each person’s acquimentary to, rather than mutually exclusive of, one an- sition of skills. Finally, given that abilities are not fixed other. As John Feldhusen (2005) notes, nature helps an entities, psychometric and context-based identification individual master a field’s procedural and declarative of one’s developing proficiency should be an ongoing knowledge through sustained practice and, therefore, process, attain expertise. One positive outcome of the controversy is that models of giftedness are starting to integrate the The Role of Social Responsibility retrospective expertise approach with the prospective abilities (or psychometric) approach. Two examples in Models of Giftedness are Sternberg’s (2003b) model of developing expertise described earlier and the Munich dynamic ability- Current models of giftedness typically include more achievement model (Heller, Perleth, & Lim, 2005) to than intelligence. What they include depends, in large be described shortly. This combination of approaches part, on what they hope to accomplish. Given that giftprovides valuable insight into processes involved edness is a societal construction, models tend to reflect
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behaviors and potentials that a society values and hopes to foster (Sternberg & Davidson, 1986). One recent societal concern involves a perceived decline in collective, civic actions (Putnam, 2000). Therefore, some contemporary models (or recently revised models) focus on characteristics that allow certain individuals to use their gifts to increase social capital and promote the greater good of others. Two of these models will be reviewed below.
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personal characteristics have been identified through a comprehensive review and classification of the literature. These are optimism, courage, romance with a discipline, sensitivity to human concerns, physical/mental energy, and vision/sense of destiny. Each factor is characterized by at least two parts. For example, optimism consists of hope and positive feelings from hard work; insight and empathy comprise sensitivity to human concerns; and vision/sense of destiny includes sense of direction, pursuit of goals, and sense of power to make changes. These co-factors interact with each other and enhance the constructive development of the three-ring The Three-Ring Conception and its abilities. Co-cognitive Factors Operation Houndstooth is still in the early stages of testing the co-cognitive factors and developing methSome background information is necessary before de- ods to identify and develop them. Renzulli’s long-term scribing the aspects of this model that relate to social goal is to increase social capital by identifying and capital. Joseph Renzulli (2005) makes a distinction be- preparing ethical future leaders in a wide range of dotween schoolhouse and creative–productive giftedness. mains. Therefore, he and his colleagues are conductSchoolhouse giftedness focuses on high IQ or aptitude ing a series of empirical studies that examine how varscores and rapid adaptation to the academic environ- ious school-based interventions for gifted children inment. This type of giftedness fits the three-stratum the- fluence the behaviors related to each co-cognitive facory well because it can be assessed through psychome- tor (Renzulli, 2002). tric measures and school grades (Robinson, 2005). In contrast, creative–productive giftedness is fostered by the environment and involves the development The WICS Model of Intelligence of innovative products or ideas that will be valued by their targeted audiences. Renzulli’s “three-ring” con- Like Renzulli, Robert Sternberg builds on his previous ception of giftedness is designed with this latter type theories in order to account for and identify gifted leadof giftedness in mind, although he acknowledges that ers of the future. In particular, Sternberg is interested both forms of giftedness are important and frequently in why some individuals, and not others, use their cogoccur together. According to this model (Renzulli, nitive and creative skills to promote the well-being of 1986, 2005), giftedness consists of high levels of all concerned parties. According to his WICS model creativity (e.g., originality of thought), strong commit- (2003b, 2005), giftedness is comprised of three interment to a specific area of interest (e.g., action-oriented active and somewhat hierarchical attributes: wisdom, motivation), and above-average cognitive ability (i.e., intelligence, and creativity synthesized. Sternberg’s trithe top 15–20% in a given area). Renzulli portrays his archic view of intelligence described earlier is the basis model as three overlapping rings because creativity, for creativity and wisdom. Both intelligence and cretask commitment, and above-average general or ativity are required for wisdom. Creativity involves finding a balance between the domain-specific abilities must work together for gifted performance to occur. In addition, these rings are analytical, practical, and creative aspects of inteldepicted on a Houndstooth background of interactive ligence (Sternberg, 2005). This balance allows an environmental and personality factors that influence individual to generate original ideas and products that have unrecognized value and can be “sold” high by gifted behavior. Recently Renzulli (2002, 2005) began Operation convincing others of their worth. In addition, creative Houndstooth, which examines the specific co-cognitive people have personal characteristics that are similar to factors that contribute to the three rings and, in particu- some of the co-cognitive factors described by Renzulli lar, to gifted behaviors that benefit society and increase (2005). These include courage, passion, sensible risk its social capital. Currently, six co-cognitive factors or taking, tolerance for ambiguity, and self-efficacy.
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Although intelligence and creativity play important roles in giftedness, Sternberg suggests that wisdom may be the most valuable trait for a society to seek in individuals. It also requires balance, this time between short- and long-term intrapersonal, interpersonal, and extrapersonal interests. This balance mediates intelligence and creativity with the goal of achieving a common good. In order to become wise, an individual must use practical intelligence to acquire tacit or implicit knowledge about herself, others, and situational contexts. More specifically, tacit knowledge is (a) procedural, (b) pertinent to the attainment of valued goals, and (c) typically acquired within a domain through mentoring or experience (Sternberg, 2004). This type of knowledge is then used to achieve a common good and constructively to adapt, shape, and select environments for oneself and for others. Like Renzulli’s cognitive co-factors, the wisdom aspect of WICS is relatively recent and has not been tested as extensively as other parts of the model. Fortunately, Sternberg and his colleagues are in the process of developing and validating measures of wisdom (Sternberg, 2005). In order to be a truly gifted contributor to society, however, wisdom, intelligence, and creativity must be synthesized so that they effectively work together. In the current WICS model, it is not entirely clear exactly how or when the synthesis occurs. However, as mentioned earlier, Sternberg does make the case that giftedness involves developing expertise (Sternberg, 2003b) and perhaps this helps with the synthesis.
that great character has to serve as the mediator of great accomplishments; otherwise the brilliant mind can become the most destructive force in the world” (2000, p. 447). In some respects, social responsibility was added to these models in response to a societal need for more social capital. However, because the wisdom-related aspects of these models are relatively recent, their validity and utility have not yet been fully established. It is highly likely that more refinements will need to occur. Moreover, precise specification of these aspects and how they interact with the models’ other elements will be important. Finally, the explanatory power of the models will need to be tested against ones that do not contain mechanisms for social responsibility. In other words, these two models have a long road ahead but they are going in an interesting direction.
Critique of Models that Include Social Responsibility
Required Productive Creativity
The two frameworks just described meet many of our criteria for models of giftedness. First, both build on previous research, theories, and knowledge. It is especially commendable that they are refinements of earlier models. Second, they embody a large amount of empirical evidence in support of most of their elements and there is considerable and reassuring overlap between the two models. Finally, one of the greatest strengths of these frameworks is that they seek to benefit society by identifying and fostering leadership that will address collective needs in a variety of areas. As Abraham Tannenbaum notes, “. . . it is essential for the gifted to learn
The Role of Creativity in Models of Giftedness The three-ring and WICS models are not alone in their inclusion of creativity. In fact, it plays a role in most of the contemporary models and some theorists argue that it is essential for giftedness. Other chapters in this volume (e.g., Chapters 17, 28, and 52) cover creativity in depth. The goal of this section is merely to review how current models differ in their definitions of creativity and their explanations of its relationship to giftedness.
As noted earlier, Renzulli (2005) defines creativity in terms of original production that is valued by a defined audience. Franz Monks (1992) retained this view when he modified Renzulli’s three-ring model to include significant environmental components that inhibit or foster the development of creativity, motivation, and exceptional abilities. According to Sternberg’s (2005) WICS model, a creative individual produces an undervalued idea and, after others eventually come to appreciate the creation, the creator moves on to another undervalued idea. An individual decides at some level whether to take these risks and overcome obstacles in order to be creative. Gruber (1986) agrees
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that creative work requires continuous courage, a high sense of purpose, and the motivation to work hard for a prolonged period of time. This means that precocity and early achievement are neither necessary nor sufficient for creative production. Instead, according to Gruber, a prepared mind, self-mobilization, and ego strength are typically influenced by experience and result in innovative work that benefits others. These views have four critical aspects in common. One is that creativity is a necessary but not sufficient part of giftedness; other components, such as aboveaverage intelligence and high motivation, are also essential. Two, it involves original production. Something novel and substantial needs to be created. The third commonality is that the creation needs to be valued by others. In other words, there must be an appreciative audience. Finally, creativity is identifiable and the environment can foster it.
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is only one of several genetically based ability domains that may be transformed into talent in a field. The Munich model of giftedness (MMG) and the Munich dynamic ability-achievement model (MDAAM) (Heller, Perleth, & Lim, 2005) are similar to DMGT in that they represent creativity as one of several relatively independent factors. These factors signify talent (or domain-related general competencies) and predict later performance in language, arts, music, and other areas. The talent factors moderate noncognitive personality characteristics (e.g., achievement motivation) and environmental conditions (e.g., family and classroom climate). Personality and environment, in turn, moderate creativity and the other talent factors, as well as actual performance in a domain. In other words, these moderators help determine whether creativity turns into exceptional performance. MMG and MDAAM differ in that the latter model integrates psychometric and expertise approaches to research. In his star model, Tannenbaum (2003) proposes two general types of gifted individuals: producers of ideas Personal Creativity or tangibles and performers of staged artistry or human services. Some producers and performers approach In contrast, Mark Runco’s (2005) concept of personal their tasks creatively, while others are proficient creativity is not tied to original productivity or social rather than innovative. The latter type are skillful and judgment. Instead, personally creative individuals have meticulous in completing their tasks but not original. original interpretations of their own experiences with According to this model, creativity is an option for the world and know when this originality is and is outstanding achievement but not a requirement. not useful. As with other models of giftedness that include creativity, the individual must be intrinsically motivated to create and apply these novel interpretations appropriately. This view of creativity bridges the Critique of Models that Include Creativity gap between childhood and adult giftedness because it involves the same capacity across the lifespan, even Until we understand creativity, we may never comthough one’s creative goals may change with age. Ac- pletely understand the full range of gifted behavior. cording to Runco’s view, personal creativity is both The models presented in this section are based on relenecessary and sufficient for giftedness to occur at all vant assumptions about creativity in relation to giftedages. ness; they build on previous knowledge; and they have empirical support. For example, the Munich models are based on a longitudinal, psychometric study of giftedness (Heller, Perleth, & Lim, 2005). Moreover, some Creativity as a Natural Ability models have been revised to incorporate new findings and approaches. In addition, many of them explain the A third view of creativity proposes that it is a natural creative aspects of giftedness over time and provide ability that may or may not relate to later achievement. practical guidance on how to identify and foster creFor example, DMGT describes creativity as an option ativity. rather than a requirement for gifted behavior (Gagn´e, Unfortunately, the different definitions and con2005). In other words, creativity is a sufficient condi- ceptions of creativity found in these models make it tion for giftedness without being necessary because it difficult to compare them or to test one against another.
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Now that creativity is frequently associated with giftedness, the field is ready for a precise consensus definition based on objective evidence. Moreover, a consensus definition of creativity would facilitate the construction of objective and valid measures that could be used across research studies and gifted programs. Furthermore, consistent measurement might help resolve whether creativity is a necessary condition for gifted behavior to occur across the lifespan or whether it is simply one form, or even a product, of giftedness (VanTassel-Baska, 2005).
Gender and Giftedness Until recently, models of giftedness did not make a distinction between males and females despite evidence that gender affects the development of giftedness (Kerr & Nicpon, 2003). Girls, for example, are less visible than boys in terms of their achievements, especially as they age (Kerr, 2000). Therefore, the question arises as to whether existing models describe, explain, and predict gifted behavior equally well for males and females. Linda Silverman (1995; Silverman & Miller, this volume) proposes that most conceptions of giftedness take a masculine perspective. These views, including the ones previously described here, focus on a child’s potential for adult eminence. Relatively late identification of gifted children allows more time for evidence of achievement to accumulate. Due to current sociocultural circumstances, this approach gives males more advantages than it does females. In addition, it incorrectly assumes that valid measures of eminence exist for all meaningful pursuits, such as interpersonal achievements, and that the most talented individuals are the ones most recognized or appreciated by society (Subotnik, Arnold, & Noble, 1995). In contrast, conceptions of giftedness from the feminine perspective are child centered and focused on the current cognitive abilities and emotional intensity of gifted children (Silverman & Miller, this volume). The primary concern is with the effects of a gifted individual’s asynchronous development on his or her inner experiences and vulnerability. Therefore, early identification is essential for meeting these children’s existing needs. According to Silverman, the feminine approach to giftedness provides equal opportunities to both girls and boys.
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Despite socio-cultural factors, such as inequitable access to resources and societal support, sometimes women do attain great achievements in recognized domains. Based on her in-depth study of 22 eminent American females, Sally Reis (2005, Reis & Sullivan, this volume) developed a model of talent realization in women. According to this model, four factors – abilities, personality, environment, and perception of relations – lead women to believe in themselves, have a heightened sense of purpose, and a strong desire to improve their talents so that they can make a difference in the world. In turn, belief in one’s self and one’s purpose eventually results in eminence. Some of the foundational factors in Reis’ model are similar to those found in a wide range of contemporary models. For example, variables comprising personality, such as motivation and creativity, are central to the three-ring conception of giftedness (Renzulli, 1986) and Monks’ (1992) multifactor model of giftedness. Other factors, such as perception of relations, are not commonly found in other models. More specifically, the perception of relations involves, in part, finding an effective balance between critical work and personal relationships. Interestingly, their approaches to interpersonal relationships seem to be one of the salient differences between gifted women and men. For example, gifted women are likely to include relationships among their greatest achievements (Hollinger & Fleming, 1992). Similarly, Reis (2005) found that personal relationships can hinder the development of women’s talent in a field. In their model of remarkable women, Arnold, Noble, and Subotnik (1996) designate two spheres of talent. One is the personal sphere, where an individual can excel in child rearing or fostering healthy personal ties. The other, more traditional sphere is the public one, where an individual creates ideas or products that are deemed valuable by others. Overall, gifted individuals’ gender-based responses to relationships are reminiscent of proposed gender differences in moral reasoning; males often focus on individuality and principles, while females tend to center on care and responsibility for the welfare of others (Gilligan, 1982). The empirical work on gifted females and the few models that represent them highlight the obstacles women face in transforming their gifts into recognized outstanding achievements. These impediments include low self-esteem, inequity in classrooms, lack of familial support, unrealistic expectations, and multiple
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demands on their time (Kerr & Nicpon, 2003; Reis, 2005). Characteristics that help females overcome these obstacles and attain eminence are mentors, persistence, a strong work ethic, diverse methods for integrating careers and relationships, and a strong support system (Reis, 2005; Reis & Sullivan, this volume).
Critique of the Gender Views Given current socio-cultural circumstances, most contemporary models of giftedness probably do describe, explain, and predict gifted behavior for the majority of males and females in our society. Barriers for gifted girls and talented women seem to reside in the world rather than in the models themselves. However, it could be argued that modifying the models might eventually result in cultural changes. As more gifted girls are identified and nurtured, the more likely it will be that societal perceptions of outstanding achievement will evolve and broaden. Currently, the models that include a role for social responsibility seem particularly useful for identifying gifted girls and fostering their talents. For example, Sternberg’s concept of wisdom as promoting the common good and Renzulli’s co-cognitive factors fit well with some of the attributes of eminent females described above. Not only are the models of eminent women useful for our understanding of this population, they also help clarify aspects of other models. For example, Tannenbaum’s star model and Gagn´e’s DMGT include a role for chance. A natural assumption is that negative events that are out of a gifted individual’s control will hinder the transformation of gifts into talents. However, the work by Reis (2005) illustrates that misfortune can often be a catalyst for talent development.
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The Person Acting on the Environment Some models envision gifted individuals as having a fair amount of control and influence over their environments. According to the theory of successful intelligence (Sternberg & Grigorenko, 2002), for example, individuals high in practical abilities create an optimal match between their skills and the external environment. This is done through one of three options: They can adapt to the environment by changing themselves in some respects; they can shape it for their own needs and purposes; or they can select a completely new environment. The models that include social responsibility propose that a truly gifted individual will change the environment for the common good. For example, a wise person might improve a community or consider how to help others find an optimal match with their environments (Sternberg, 2005). Similarly, Renzulli’s (2005) co-cognitive factors are aimed at improving society by increasing its social capital.
The Environment Acting on the Person
In contrast, other contemporary models propose that the environment helps or hinders the transformation of gifts into talents. For example, Monks’ (1992) multifactor model of giftedness mentioned earlier proposes that three important social environments – school, family, and peers – influence an individual’s competencies. More specifically, motivation, creativity, and exceptional abilities are more likely to develop and coincide if one’s interactions with these three types of environments are rewarding. Similarly, in the DMGT (Gagn´e, 2005), catalysts related to the internal or external environment of the individual help determine whether innate abilities are transformed into outstanding achievements in The Role of the Environment a domain. The intrapersonal catalyst (or internal environment) includes a person’s physical and mental Contemporary models of giftedness tend to be dy- characteristics, such as health, temperament, and selfnamic in nature. Rather than viewing giftedness as a management characteristics. The external environment static entity, they propose that the environment and catalyst has four types of factors: milieu (e.g., culture), an individual interact in ways that produce outstand- persons (e.g., teachers, parents, and peers), provisions ing achievement. However, the models vary in terms of (e.g., activities and programs), and events (e.g., major how the individual and the environment are conceptu- surgery and receiving an award). Chance involves alized. Three different views are described below. both internal and external environments, such as genes
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and socioeconomic status, that can influence both the natural abilities and the other two catalysts. In other words, various forms of environment can determine the extent of one’s gifts and talents. Tannenbaum’s (2003) star model also specifies that environment and chance are essential in turning potential into exceptional achievement. His view of the environment is similar to Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological system’s model in that it includes contexts that indirectly influence the development of a child’s abilities, such as the political and social organizations of his or her culture, as well as those that directly affect the child (e.g., family, school, neighborhood, and peers). His view of chance is similar to Gagn´e’s in that it involves internal and external environmental events beyond one’s control. In addition, Tannenbaum (1986) emphasizes that the environment also needs to recognize one’s achievements. He states, “There has to be a perfect match between a person’s particular talent and the readiness of society to appreciate it” (Tannenbaum, 1986, p. 21). An individual’s talents can fall into one of four categories that are differentially valued by others. Scarcity talents are exactly as the name implies; they are always in demand because they promote physical survival by making people’s lives healthier, easier, and safer. Surplus talents, such as exceptional music and art, increase the beauty of the environment and foster a civilization’s cultural survival. Specialized skills or quota talents, such as engineering and law, provide services and goods for a limited market. In contrast, anomalous talents are unusual skills that may or may not have practical value (e.g., gourmet cooking and subitizing). The value that educators and other members of society place on each of these four types of giftedness determines how much attention and support it receives.
Action, Interaction, and Reaction According to Albert Ziegler (2005), giftedness is not a personal attribute. One does not possess gifts and talents. Instead, giftedness involves the development of an extensive action repertoire and the increasingly excellent performance of actions within a domain. According to the actiotope model of giftedness (Ziegler, 2005), the action repertoire consists of all possible ac-
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tions that an individual is capable of making. Actions within a domain are subjectively assessed as talented (i.e., showing promise), gifted (i.e., on the way to becoming outstanding), or excellent (i.e., outstanding). At any random moment, an individual might have a goal or a wish to do something. What might be considered as talented, gifted, or excellent behavior is demonstrated when the individual has the ability to act on the goal, there is the awareness that an effective action can be executed, and the constantly changing environment deems the resulting behavior to be talented, gifted, or excellent. The development of excellent actions takes a long time. During this time, the individual progressively adapts to the evolving environment by realizing when a performed action was successful, when a future action will be successful, and by generating variations on actions. In turn, the environment provides feedback about the individual’s actions and changes in response to the actions. It should be noted that there are various influential environments. One type is the talent domain in which the actions occur. Another is the social network, such as resources and family, which can help or hinder the development of actions and the attainment of one’s goals.
Critique of the Environmental Views The inclusion of the environment in models of giftedness is based on relevant assumptions, prior knowledge, and empirical evidence. Obviously giftedness does not occur in a vacuum but, instead, is defined and shaped by a society. Supportive and stimulating environments tend to promote gifted behavior (Winner, 1996). In addition, some of these models lend themselves to practical guidelines that are used to identify giftedness (e.g., Ziegler & Stoeger, 2004). However, models differ in terms of the type of person–environment relationship on which they focus. Some models propose that the gifted individual acts on the environment, while others view the environment as acting on an individual’s gifts and talents. The actiotope model (Ziegler, 2005) changes the nature of the entire issue by emphasizing that an individual’s actions and the environment are part of a complex system that is interactive and reactive. At some level and at this particular time, all three of these views are
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probably productive. Given that we have the implicit belief that giftedness benefits society, it makes sense to understand and create environments that foster it. Moreover, different environments might be beneficial at different periods of the lifespan. However, it is also useful to keep in mind that gifts are not personal belongings that some people will never receive. Excellent actions take a long time to perfect and they occur within a complex and ever-changing system.
Conclusions and Consequences How productive are these contemporary models of giftedness? In general, the current models seem more extensive and promising than the ones that came before them. To borrow Sternberg’s definition of successful intelligence (2005), the models reviewed here capitalized on the strengths of earlier ones and avoided many of the weaknesses. In addition, the contemporary models were constructed in response to the changing needs within science and society to view giftedness as something more than what conventional intelligence tests measure. Now new types of models are in the field playing a large role in shaping and advancing our conceptions of giftedness. They include gender, personality traits, chance, and characteristics related to social responsibility, in addition to cognitive skills. The current models have a fair amount in common, which is reassuring. They have a broad, multidimensional conception of giftedness and can account for how potential turns into outstanding domain-specific achievement. They address the heterogeneity of giftedness while maintaining a role for homogeneity in areas such as motivation and information processing. Other commendable qualities are that these models provide practical guidance for how to identify and foster giftedness in ways that will potentially benefit society. Many of them even explain why an individual might be viewed as gifted during childhood but not in adulthood and vice versa. Finally, approaches are starting to work with, and not against, each other. However, at some point in the near future, complex multidimensional models will stop being useful if they cannot easily be tested in their entirety and compared with one another. This means that precise operational definitions for constructs must be agreed upon and then valid and reliable measures need to be adopted. In or-
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der to make accurate comparisons, some models will need more clarity and specification. There is a danger that the essence of giftedness is becoming obscured. In order to prevent this, aspects of models that are not necessary or sufficient to describe, explain, and predict gifted behavior over time need to be eliminated. As a whole, contemporary models meet high standards. They have advanced the field of giftedness and provided insight into the nature of this elusive construct. Of course more work needs to be done, but they have laid an excellent foundation for models of the future.
References Bickley, P. G., Keith, T. Z., & Wolfe, L. M. (1995). The threestratum theory of cognitive abilities: Test of the structure of intelligence across the life span. Intelligence, 20, 309–328. Borland, J. H. (2005). Gifted education without gifted children: The case for no conception of giftedness. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (2nd ed., pp. 1–19). New York: Cambridge University Press. Bouchard, T. J. Jr. (1997). IQ similarity in twins reared apart: Findings and responses to critics. In R. J. Sternberg & E. L. Grigirenko (Eds.), Intelligence, heredity, and environment (pp. 126–160). New York: Cambridge University Press. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Carroll, J. B. (1993). Human cognitive abilities: A survey of factor-analytic studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Carroll, J. B. (1996). A three-stratum theory of intelligence: Spearman’s contribution. In I. Dennis & P. Tapsfield (Eds.), Human abilities: Their nature and measurement. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Carroll, J. B. (2005). The three-stratum theory of cognitive abilities. In D. P. Flanagan & P. L. Harrison (Eds.), Contemporary intellectual assessment: Theories, tests, and issues (2nd ed., pp. 69–76). New York: Guilford Press. Ceci, S. J. (1996). On intelligence: A bioecological treatise on intellectual development. (Expanded Edition). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Chen, J., & Gardner, H. (1997). Alternative assessment from a multiple intelligences theoretical perspective. In D. P. Flanagan, J. L. Genshaft, & P. L. Harrison (Eds.), Contemporary intellectual assessment: Theories, tests, and issues (pp. 105–121). New York: Guilford Press. Davidson, J. E. (1990). Intelligence recreated. Educational Psychologist, 25(3&4), 337–354. Davidson, J. E., & Sternberg, R. J. (1984). The role of insight in intellectual giftedness. Gifted Child Quarterly, 28, 58–64. Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. Th., & Tesch-Romer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 100, 363–406.
96 Fasko, D. Jr. (2001). An analysis of multiple intelligences theory and its use with the gifted and talented. Roeper Review, 23(3), 126–130. Feldhusen, J. F. (2005). Giftedness, talent, expertise, and creative achievement. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (2nd ed., pp. 64–79). New York: Cambridge University Press. Gagn´e, F. (2005). From gifts to talents: The DMGT as a developmental model. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (2nd ed., pp. 98–119). New York: Cambridge University Press. Galton, F. (1869). Hereditary genius: An inquiry into its laws and consequences. New York: Macmillan and Company. Galton, E. (1874). English men of science: Their nature and nurture. New York: Macmillan and Company. Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of Mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books. Gardner, H. (1992). Assessment in context: The alternative to standardized testing. In B. Gifford & M. O’Connor (Eds.), Alternative views of aptitude, achievement, and instruction. Boston: Kluwer. Gardner, H. (1993). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences (10th anniversary edition). New York: Basic Books. Gardner, H. (1999). Intelligence reframed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women’s development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gottfredson, L. S. (2003). The science and politics of intelligence in gifted education. In N. Colangelo & G. A. Davis (Eds.), Handbook of gifted education (3rd ed., pp. 100–112). New York: Allyn & Bacon. Gruber, H. E. (1986). Self-construction of the extraordinary. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (pp. 417–435). New York: Cambridge University Press. Heller, K. A. (2003). WICS – A prototype of synthetic approaches to giftedness in the new century? High Ability Studies, 14(2), 147–148. Heller, K. A., Perleth, C., & Lim, T. K. (2005). The Munich model of giftedness designed to identify and promote gifted students. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (2nd ed., pp. 147–170). New York: Cambridge University Press. Hempel, C. G. (1966). The philosophy of natural science. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Hollinger, C. L., & Fleming, E. S. (1992). A longitudinal examination of life choices of gifted and talented young women. Gifted Child Quarterly, 36, 207–212. Horn, J. L. (1989). Models of intelligence. In R. L. Linn (Ed.), Intelligence, measurement, theory, and public policy (pp. 29–33). Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Jensen, A. R. (1998). The g factor: The science of mental ability. Westport, CT: Greenwood. Kaplan, A. (1964). The conduct of inquiry: Methodology for behavioral science. San Francisco: Chandler. Kerr, B. A. (2000). Guiding gifted girls and young women. In K. A. Heller, F. J. Monks, R. J. Sternberg, & R. F. Subotnik (Eds.), International handbook of giftedness and talent (2nd ed., pp. 649–657). New York: Elsevier.
J.E. Davidson Kerr, B. A., & Nicpon, M. F. (2003). Gender and giftedness. In N. Colangelo & G. A. Davis (Eds.), Handbook of gifted education (3rd ed., pp. 493–505). New York: Allyn & Bacon. Monks, F. J. (1992). Development of gifted children: The issue of identification and programming. In F. J. Monks & W. A. M. Peters (Eds.), Talent for the future (pp. 191–202). Proceedings of the Ninth World Conference on Gifted and Talented Children. Assen, The Netherlands: Van Gorcum. Putnam, R. D. (2000) Bowling alone. The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon and Schuster. Reis, S. M. (2005). Feminist perspectives: A research-based conception of giftedness. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (2nd ed., pp. 217–245). New York: Cambridge University Press. Renzulli, J. S. (1986). The three-ring conception of giftedness: A developmental model for creative productivity. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (pp. 53–92). New York: Cambridge University Press. Renzulli, J. S. (2002). Expanding the conception of giftedness to include co-cognitive traits and to promote social capital. Phi Delta Kappan, 84(33–40), 57–58. Renzulli, J. S. (2005). The three-ring conception of giftedness. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (2nd ed., pp. 246–279). New York: Cambridge University Press. Robinson, N. M. (2005). In defense of a psychometric approach to the definition of academic giftedness: A conservative view from a die-hard liberal. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (2nd ed., pp. 327–342). New York: Cambridge University Press. Runco, M. A. (2005). Creative giftedness. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (2nd ed., pp. 295–311). New York: Cambridge University Press. Siegler, R. S., & Kotovsky, K. (1986). Two levels of giftedness: Shall ever the twain meet? In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (pp. 417–435). New York: Cambridge University Press. Silverman, L. K. (1995). Why are there so few eminent women? Roeper Review, 18(1), 5–13. Simonton, D. K. (2005). Genetics of giftedness: The implications of an emergenic-epigenetic model. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (2nd ed., pp. 312–326). New York: Cambridge University Press. Song, K., & Porath, M. (2005). Common and domain-specific cognitive characteristics of gifted students: An integrated model of human abilities. High Ability Studies, 16(2), 229–246. Sternberg, R. J. (1985). Beyond IQ: A triarchic theory of human intelligence. New York: Cambridge University Press. Sternberg, R. J. (1993). Sternberg Triarchic Abilities Test. Unpublished test. Sternberg, R. J. (2000). Giftedness as developing expertise. In K. A. Heller, F. J. Monks, R. J. Sternberg, & R. F. Subotnik (Eds.), International handbook of giftedness and talent (2nd ed., pp. 55–66). New York: Elsevier. Sternberg, R. J. (2003a). Our research program validating the triarchic theory of successful intelligence: Reply to Gottfredson. Intelligence, 31(4), 399–413. Sternberg, R. J. (2003b). WICS as a model of giftedness. High ability Studies, 14(2), 109–137. Sternberg, R. J. (2004). Introduction to definitions and conceptions of giftedness. In R. J. Sternberg & S. M. Reis (Eds.),
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Definitions and conceptions of giftedness. Thousand Oaks, Ca: Sage Publications. Sternberg, R. J. (2005). The WICS model of giftedness. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (2nd ed., pp. 327–342). New York: Cambridge University Press. Sternberg, R. J., Castejon, J. L., Prieto, M. D., Hautamaki, J., & Grigorenko, E. L. (2001). Confirmatory factor analysis of the Sternberg triarchic abilities test in three international samples: An empirical test of the triarchic theory of intelligence. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 17(1), 1–16. Sternberg, R. J., & Davidson, J. E. (1986). Conceptions of giftedness: A map of the terrain. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (pp. 3–18). New York: Cambridge University Press. Sternberg, R. J., Ferrari, M., Clinkenbeard, P. R., & Grigorenko, E. L. (1996). Identification, instruction, and assessment of gifted children: A construct validation of a triarchic model. Gifted Child Quarterly, 40(3), 129–137. Sternberg, R. J., & Grigorenko, E. L. (1997). Intelligence, heredity, and environment. New York: Cambridge University Press. Sternberg, R. J., & Grigorenko, E. L. (2002). The theory of successful intelligence as a basis for gifted education. Gifted Child Quarterly, 46(4), 265–277. Subotnik, R. F., Arnold, K. D., & Noble, K. D. (1995). Gifted is as gifted does but what does gifted do? Roeper Review, 18(1), 4–5. Subotnik, R. F., & Jarvin, L. (2005). Beyond expertise: Conceptions of giftedness as great performance. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (2nd ed., pp. 343–357). New York: Cambridge University Press. Tannenbaum, A. J. (1986). Giftedness: A psychosocial approach. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of
97 giftedness (pp. 417–435). New York: Cambridge University Press. Tannenbaum, A. J. (2000). Giftedness: The ultimate instrument for good and evil. In K. A. Heller, F. J. Monks, R. J. Sternberg, & R. F. Subotnik (Eds.), International handbook of giftedness and talent (2nd ed., pp. 447–465). New York: Elsevier. Tannenbaum, A. J. (2003). Nature and nurture of giftedness. In N. Colangelo & G. A. Davis (Eds.), Handbook of gifted education (3rd ed., pp. 45–59). New York: Allyn & Bacon. VanTassel-Baska, J. (2005), Domain specific giftedness: Applications in school and life. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (2nd ed., pp. 358–376). New York: Cambridge University Press. von Karolyi, C., Ramos-Ford, V., & Gardner, H. (2003). Multiple intelligences: A perspective on giftedness. In N. Colangelo & G. A. Davis (Eds.), Handbook of gifted education (3rd ed., pp. 100–112). New York: Allyn & Bacon. Winner, E. (1996). Gifted children: Myths and realities. New York: Basic Books. Ziegler, A. (2005). The actiotope model of giftedness. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (2nd ed., pp. 411–436). New York: Cambridge University Press. Ziegler, A., & Heller, K. A. (2000). Conceptions of giftedness from a meta-theoretical perspective. In K. A. Heller, F. J. Monks, R. J. Sternberg, & R. F. Subotnik (Eds.), International handbook of giftedness and talent (2nd ed., pp. 3–21). New York: Elsevier. Ziegler, A., & Stoeger, H. (2004). Identification based on ENTER within the conceptual frame of the actiotope model of giftedness. Psychology Science, 46(3), 324–341.
Chapter 5
A Feminine Perspective of Giftedness Linda Kreger Silverman and Nancy B. Miller
Abstract The feminine perspective, the legacy of Leta Hollingworth, focuses on developmental differences in childhood and equal opportunity. The masculine perspective, the legacy of Francis Galton, equates giftedness with eminence. Women, economically disadvantaged, and culturally diverse groups do not have the same opportunities to attain eminence. The lack of eminent women has been attributed to Darwin’s variability hypothesis: since males are more variable than females, more males are assumed to be at the extremes of intelligence, whereas women tend toward the mean. In 1914, Leta Hollingworth completely discredited this hypothesis. Research for 100 years has demonstrated that there are at least as many gifted girls as boys— even in the highest IQ ranges. Men now disparage IQ tests. Internationally, the field still defines giftedness as the potential for eminence. This chapter discusses masculine and feminine conceptions, the development of gifted girls, and barriers for girls from culturally diverse and low socioeconomic circumstances.
respects, this chapter is an update of the previous one, incorporating information about cultural diversity. We will review the origins of the masculine and feminine perceptions of giftedness and current conceptions and discuss the issues facing girls of diverse cultural backgrounds and those of limited economic circumstances.
How Fathers and Mothers Perceive Giftedness
The idea of masculine and feminine perspectives originated from observing differing attitudes of mothers and fathers of gifted children. Over the last 30 years, 5,600 families have come to the Gifted Development Center in Denver, Colorado, USA, for assessment. The vast majority of those who have initiated contact with the Center are mothers—although this picture is gradually shifting. During the first 10 years, fathers often had to be coaxed into agreeing to have their children Keywords Giftedness · Eminent women · Gifted tested. At first blush, this sounds perfectly reasonable, girls · IQ testing · Diversity · Cultural diversity · as children’s education traditionally has been the realm Economic Diversity · Sexism · Gender equality of mothers and finances the realm of fathers. However, deeper, philosophical differences often surfaced in the reactions of the parents during post-test conferences. Introduction While mothers were relieved to have their suspicions confirmed with the testing, some fathers viewed the test The proposal that men and women perceive giftedness results with skepticism. After we tested his son, one differently was put forth in the chapter, “What Hap- Dad remarked, “He’s only 5. What could he have done pens to the Gifted Girl?” (Silverman, 1986). In some in 5 years to be gifted?” Other fathers had similar reactions. A physician asked if the error of measurement was 28 points, because he would have been more comL.K. Silverman (B) Institute for the Study of Advanced Development, Denver, fortable subtracting 28 points from his son’s IQ. When CO, USA he was informed that the margin of error was around 5 e-mail:
[email protected] points and that this meant his son’s IQ score might be 5 website: www.gifteddevelopment.com L.V. Shavinina (ed.), International Handbook on Giftedness, c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-6162-2 5,
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points higher, as well as 5 points lower, he was visibly disappointed. One might guess that the skepticism was monetarily motivated: “Why am I paying for this?” However, fathers who attended parent seminars—some of which were free—had comparable attitudes to the Dads who were clients. After one presentation, a father mentioned that his daughter was reading several years above grade level, but he was “sure” she was not gifted. Another Dad described all the awards his son had won at Stanford University, but, he, too, was certain his son was not gifted. When asked “What would he have to do to be gifted in your eyes?” the man quickly retorted, “Well, he’s no Einstein!” Cornell (1983) had an analogous finding. Parents often disagreed about whether their child was gifted or not, and the side each parent was on was predictable: . . .in cases in which the parents disagree in their perception of the child, it is almost always (13 of 15 cases) the mother who perceives the child as gifted and the father who does not. . . (p. 329) . . .The fathers in this study often commented skeptically on their wives’ perception of their children as gifted. (p. 332)
Attempting to understand the basis of the differing viewpoints of these mothers and fathers, it seemed plausible that there could be “distinct masculine and feminine perspectives of giftedness” (Silverman, 1986, p. 56). As we shall see later on, the masculine viewpoint can be held by women and the feminine viewpoint can be held by men, but they seem to emerge from traditional differences in the life experiences of men and women. Men who define themselves by their achievements tend to conceptualize giftedness as achievement or the potential for achievement. From this perspective, to be gifted, one must be recognized by one’s culture as having contributed something of lasting value. The true test of one’s abilities is the quantity, quality, and influence of one’s accomplishments in adult life—often determined by the number of biographies written about an individual (T. Goertzel & Hansen, 2004). It follows that there are no gifted children. There can only be promising children with the potential for greatness. For a Dad who holds this picture of giftedness, predicting which children will be the most influential adults is a bizarre game of chance, and assessment of that potential in a young child makes little sense. In fact, it seems like a cruel game, particularly for a boy,
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because if his son is selected for “the potentially eminent group,” he may be set up for failure—a life of unbearable pressures and false hopes. The father’s protective reaction, therefore, is to deny his son’s giftedness. “I don’t want to rob him of his childhood.” By way of contrast, if the mother is the child’s primary caretaker, she is apt to experience on a daily basis the dynamic development of her children. She is more likely than her husband to notice if her child is progressing faster through the developmental milestones. Mothers have been found in various parts of the world who observed developmental differences in their children in infancy (Alomar, 2003; Louis & Lewis, 1992). If, at the age of 11 months, her daughter begins asking the names of objects, and if, at 17 months, she is memorizing books, Mom is initially delighted. But when she takes her daughter to a playgroup, delight may turn to anxiety. The mother cannot help but notice that her child is talking in sentences before the other children in the playgroup are combining two words. Awareness of the developmental differences between her child and other children grows into uneasiness. She may wonder, “How will she fit in with the other children?” “Will she be lonely?” “What will the teacher do with her if she’s already reading in kindergarten?” “Should I hide the books?” “I don’t want them to think I’m another ‘pushy parent.”’ “Are we doing enough to nurture her abilities?” Questions like these may eventually lead her to seek professional guidance and assessment of her child’s abilities. But taking that step is not easy—particularly without her partner’s support. When she can no longer ignore the child’s advanced vocabulary and incessant questions, the mother’s fear of “What will happen to my child?” overrides her fear of looking foolish if she has overestimated her child’s abilities. It takes courage to find out just how advanced one’s child might be. As she picks up the phone, a voice in her head is screaming, “What if you’re wrong? All parents think their children are gifted!” In truth, few parents think their children are gifted and want them labeled (Feldhusen, 1998). Parents are actually more likely to underestimate than overestimate their gifted children’s abilities (Munger, 1990; Rogers, 1986). But the myth persists. For Dad, a child only has the “potential” for giftedness; the child’s giftedness has yet to be proved by means of adult achievements. For Mom, potential for achievement is not the salient issue. She is concerned with her child’s adjustment now, in childhood, and she
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has been troubled about her child’s welfare ever since she became aware that her child is developing at a faster rate than other children of the same age. Reviewing the literature in the field, it appeared that male writers perceive giftedness very much like the fathers, and female writers’ perceptions tended to mirror those of the mothers. Differences between masculine and feminine perspectives of giftedness become apparent in perusing the earliest writings in the field. Sir Francis Galton, who fathered the study of intelligence, equated giftedness with eminence. Leta Stetter Hollingworth, the foremother of gifted education, objected vigorously to this inequitable criterion. Her writings focused on the psychosocial development and adjustment problems gifted children experience by virtue of their developmental differences. Galton studied eminent men and Hollingworth was the champion of gifted girls and women. Hollingworth taught the first course on “Nature and Needs of the Gifted” at Columbia University Teachers College in 1922 and wrote the first textbook in the field in 1926. The feminine perspective of giftedness was the legacy of Leta Hollingworth, whose message is nearly forgotten in the current milieu. And so our foremother plays a significant role throughout the chapter.
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6 years that he operated his Anthropometric Laboratory, Galton (1907) tested 9,337 men and women and concluded that women were inferior in all of their capacities to men (Boring, 1950). Although these early measures of mental ability were completely invalid (Carroll, 1993), they supported the entrenched beliefs at the turn of the century. Most of the eminent families Galton studied were independently wealthy, but he insisted that social advantages could not create eminence; otherwise adopted children would attain distinction as easily as natural children. Neither did the vicissitudes of life inequitably affect achievement: the cream naturally rises to the top, regardless of misfortune: High reputation is a pretty accurate test of high ability. . . (p. 2). It follows that the men who achieve eminence, and those who are naturally capable, are, to a large extent, identical. . . . If a man is gifted with vast intellectual ability, eagerness to work, and power of working, I cannot comprehend how such a man should be repressed. (Galton, 1869, pp. 33–34)
The year of Galton’s death, 1911, Leta Stetter Hollingworth began graduate school at Columbia University in education and sociology, eager to take up the cause of gender discrimination. Before coming to New York to marry Harry Hollingworth in 1908, Leta Stetter had taught school in Nebraska. She assumed that she would Giftedness as Eminence be able to continue working after she was married, only to discover that married women were barred from The little book that inaugurated the scientific study of teaching appointments in New York City. A single intelligence, the nature/nurture controversy, the field teacher could retain her position if she married, but if of mental measurements, and the study of genius— she became pregnant, she was dismissed (Klein, 2002). Hereditary Genius—was written by Galton (1869) Hollingworth applied for scholarships and fellowships when he was approaching 50 years of age. To support to obtain a graduate degree, and these doors were also his contention that intelligence is inherited and that closed to her. Women were ineligible for fellowships at it varies greatly among human beings, Galton traced Columbia University (Klein, 2002). Discouraged and the genealogy of many prominent British men, noting puzzled by the role society had laid out for her, she the high incidence of eminence in their families. He pondered the inequality of women’s opportunities in concluded that eminence is hereditary, that ancient society, particularly its toll on gifted women. She called Athenians were genetically superior to Europeans, and this, “the woman question”: that Anglo-Saxons were superior to those of African Stated briefly, “the woman question” is how to reproduce heritage. Galton was also the founder of eugenics, the species and at the same time to work, and realize and it has taken well over a century for the study of work’s full reward, in accordance with individual abilgiftedness to recover from its racist inception. ity. This is a question primarily of the gifted, for the disGalton made no mention of gender or socioecocontent with and resentment against women’s work have originated chiefly among women exceptionally well ennomic status. Women were omitted from his discussion dowed with intellect. (Hollingworth, 1926, pp. 348–349) because the natural superiority of males was presumed. A given woman of the same intellectual caliber as a Fifteen years later, Galton set up the first mental testgiven man is not of the same economic value as the latter, ing center, which measured sensory capacities, such as because masculinity is itself an asset of superior worth. (p. 357) strength of grip and discrimination of weights. In the
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In 1916, Hollingworth began to study gifted children, It is interesting to note that Galton, the founder of eubut never abandoned “the woman question” (Holling- genics, had no children. worth, 1926, p. 348). In the book that formally initiated the field of gifted education, Gifted Children: Their Nature and Nurture, Dismantling the Variability Hypothesis Hollingworth (1926) presented a feminine perspective of giftedness. She challenged Sir Francis Galton’s . . . Women furnish few persons of great eminence, yet views in the very first chapter: An overwhelming majority of illustrious persons have had fathers who were far above the average in socialeconomic conditions—nobles, professional men, or men successfully engaged in commerce. Very few children of manual workers become eminent in high degree . . . Very few women can be included among those who in the world’s history have achieved first rank for mental work. One possible interpretation is that education and opportunity are the prime determinants of achievement, since nearly all of the great men have been born in comfortable homes, of parents in superior circumstances. If opportunity were indeed the prime determinant of eminence, then we should expect those who belong to socially inferior categories to be virtually excluded from it. This is just what we do find, since the uncultured, the poor, servants, and women are very seldom found to have achieved eminence. (p. 11)
sisters of great men are of exactly the same ancestry as their brothers. (Hollingworth, 1926, p. 13)
If sisters of eminent men did not become eminent, another explanation was needed besides heredity. Galton’s half-cousin, Charles Darwin, provided that explanation—the variability hypothesis—which persists today, in spite of rigorous research to quell it (Lips, 2005). Darwin (1897) concluded that male members of all species were more advanced on the evolutionary scale than the female members because of greater variability of secondary sex characteristics. The reason so few women had attained eminence was clear to Darwin—they were less variable than males, therefore far fewer were extremely bright or extremely dull. They were all pretty much the same:
The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two Unlike the hereditarian views of Galton and Terman, sexes is shown by man’s attaining to a higher eminence, Hollingworth (1926) maintained that what a person can in whatever he takes up, than can woman—whether redo might depend on endowment, but what he or she acquiring deep thought, reason, or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and hands. (Darwin, 1897, p. 564) tually does do probably depends on opportunity. Galton provided the fuel for her argument that women have Edward L. Thorndike (1906), a devotee of Darwin, little opportunity to attain eminence: warned that postgraduate instruction for women was a poor investment. “A slight excess of male variability A very gifted man will almost always rise, as I believe, to would mean that of the hundred most gifted individeminence; but if he is handicapped with the weight of a wife and children in the race of life, he cannot be expected uals in this country not two would be women, and of to keep as much to the front as if he were single. He canthe thousand most gifted, not one in twenty” (p. 213). not pursue his favorite subject of study with the same abIn the second edition of his classic text, Educational sorbing passion as if he had no pressing calls on his attenPsychology, released in 1910, Thorndike presented the tion, no domestic sorrows, anxieties and petty cares, no yearly child, no periodical infantine epidemics, no confollowing sentiments: stant professional toil for the maintenance of a large family. (Galton, 1869, p. 320)
Hollingworth found this passage an apt description of the plight of gifted women. Citing data collected on the new IQ tests for children, she contemplated what would become of the little girls who tested above 170 IQ: It will be of social value to observe the deflections from possible eminence which they meet, and to see how many will survive “domestic sorrows, anxieties and petty cares, a yearly child, and periodical infantine epidemics.” (Hollingworth, 1926, p. 68)
In the great achievements of the world in science, art, invention, and management, women have been far excelled by men. . . .The probably true explanation is to be sought in the greater variability within the male sex. . .In particular, if men differ in intelligence and energy by wider degrees than do women, eminence in and leadership of world’s affairs of whatever sort will inevitably belong oftener to men. They will oftener deserve it. (p. 35)
When Leta Hollingworth enrolled in graduate school in 1911, E. L. Thorndike became her advisor. It would be easy to imagine that there was a constant war between them. On the contrary, Thorndike was Hollingworth’s greatest mentor—“the most influential to her
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intellectual and philosophical evolution as a scientist males. A better explanation was that variability is more and teacher” (Klein, 2002, p. 74). Thorndike was a fa- likely to occur where there is more opportunity for its cilitator of learning; he believed in promoting indepen- expression and development: dent thinking in his students. It was in this favorable We should expect to find adult males more variable than climate that Leta Hollingworth (1914) had the spunk to adult females, because the males are free to follow a great variety of trades, professions, and industries, while challenge Thorndike publicly, 2 years before she gradwomen have been confined to the single occupation of uated. Her 21-page article, “Variability as Related to housekeeping, because of the part they play in the perpetSex Differences in Achievement: A Critique,” was pubuation of the species. Thus variability has had comparalished in The American Journal of Sociology: tively little survival value for women. A woman of natural Thorndike . . . declares . . . that “We should first exhaust the known physical causes” before we proceed to any assumption of mental inferiority in explaining woman’s lack of achievement. But have these “known physical causes” been exhausted if we end with the conclusion that “the probably true explanation is to be found in the greater variability within the male sex”? Surely we should consider first the established, obvious, inescapable, physical fact that women bear and rear the children, and this has always meant and still means that nearly 100 per cent of their energy is expended in the performance and supervision of domestic and allied tasks, a field where eminence is impossible. (Hollingworth, 1914, pp. 527–528)
Herculean strength does not wash dishes, cook meals, or rear children much more successfully than a woman of ordinary muscle. But a man of natural Herculean strength is free to abandon carpentry or agriculture and become a prize fighter or a blacksmith, thus exercising and enhancing his native equipment. (p. 343)
Robert Lowie and Leta Hollingworth’s article, “Science and Feminism,” in Scientific Monthly, ostensibly put to rest the variability hypothesis (Lowie & Hollingworth, 1916). Yet, it continues to rear its ugly head. In the October, 2005 issue of Discover magazine, Ellen Ruppel Shell interviewed physician and geneticist, Horst Hameister of the University of Ulm As she was completing her master’s degree, Holling- in Germany. Professor Hameister is quoted as saying, worth was offered a position administering mental tests “Females tend to do better overall on IQ tests; they at a Clearing-House for intellectually limited individ- average out at about 100, while men average about uals. This provided her with an excellent opportunity 99. . . Also, more men are mentally retarded. But when to collect data on the variability hypothesis. One arm you look at IQs at 135 and above, you see more men” of the hypothesis was that there were substantially (p. 43). The variability hypothesis refuses to die. more males than females among the developmentally delayed. Records of 1,000 individuals brought to the Clearing-House over a 2-year period revealed that although boys brought to an institution far outnumbered Eminent Women girls in the younger age groups, by the age of 16, the situation reversed itself and twice as many women Women do not fare well in the race for eminence. were committed (Hollingworth, 1913, 1914). Holling- Of the 768 Nobel Prizes awarded between 1901 and worth discovered that men could only survive outside 2006, 34 were awarded to women—4% of the total— an institution with a mental age of 12, whereas women with 2 of them going to the same woman in the fields could survive with a mental age of 6, by means of of physics and chemistry: Marie Sklodowska Curie. housekeeping chores, child care, and selling sex, there- Twelve of the awards were the Nobel Peace Prize and fore obscuring an accurate count. 10 were in the area of literature. Only 2% were in the In another article published the same year in The sciences (Silverman, 2007). There is no listing of NoAmerican Journal of Sociology, Helen Montague and bel Laureates by ethnicity: Leta Hollingworth (1914) shared the results of an even Few women relative to men have managed to achieve more ambitious project. They undertook a study of positions of eminence. . . . Men received almost 98% of 2,000 neonates—1,000 of each sex—and, analyzing the Nobel prizes in science areas and 99% of the prestigious awards in mathematics during the 20th century. 20,000 measurements, demonstrated that the variabil. . . Women of color, often the targets of double discrimity of infants was no greater in males than in females. ination, have even less representation in the ranks of the Where variability did exist, it favored the girls. Thereeminent than do their ethnic majority counterparts. For fore, the preponderance of men among the eminent instance, the first Ph.D. in mathematics awarded to an African American woman, Evelyn Boyd Collins, was not could not be traced to greater inherent variability of
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L.K. Silverman and N.B. Miller
Madeline Albright and Condeleezza Rice as Secretaries of State, and Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, successfully breaking what she called the “marble” ceiling. Currently, there are 16 female US senators; however, only 17% of the members of the US Congress are women. The United States ranks low, internationally, in its representation of women in national legislatures: “71 nations have a greater percentage of females” (Wallenchinsky, 2007, p. 5). Myra Sadker and David Sadker (1994) asked stuTed Goertzel, with the assistance of his step-niece dents from elementary to college age to list 20 famous Ariel Hansen (T. Goertzel & Hansen, 2004), provided American women (no athletes or entertainers) within a second edition of his parents’ study of famous 20th 5 minutes. “On average, students can list only four century individuals, Cradles of Eminence (V. Goertzel or five women from the entire history of the nation” & M. Goertzel, 1962). In the original study, only 14% (Sadker & Sadker, 1994, p. 130). When so few were of the 400 eminent individuals were female. Of these, able to do this, they made the task easier by ask44.8% were writers, 14% were singers or musicians, ing them to name 10 famous women anywhere in the and 10% were actresses—nearly two-thirds of the world; students were still unsuccessful. The focus on women (T. Goertzel & Hansen, 2004). The other 22 men’s achievements in history and science books is women represented 6% of the total number of eminent part of the problem. Most history books are about war individuals. and conquest—definitely male territory, and the study In the updated collection of 700 famous men and of science has not been equally accessible to females: women, T. Goertzel and Hansen (2004) reported that In the 1970s, analyses of best-selling history books using the same methodology as the original book, twice showed a biological oddity, a nation with only founding as many eminent women were found; however, there fathers. More space was given to the six-shooter than were twice as many actresses, 8 times as many athletes, to the women’s suffrage movement. In fact, the typical history text gave only two sentences to enfranchising half and quite a few in a new category—“Wives, Family the population. Science texts continued the picture of a Members, and Socialites.” In addition, there were less one-gender world. . . . Today’s history and science texts than half as many women writers: are better—but not much. (Sadker & Sadker, 1994, p. 7) granted until 1946; the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in physics, Shirley Jackson, received it in 1976; and only in 1987 did the NASA astronaut training program select its first African American female astronaut, Dr. Mae Jemison. . . . Only 2% of the directors of the top 100 companies in Britain are women.. . . Females and males are socialized differently with respect to achievement, . . . males are often automatically accorded more status than females, and . . . women and men frequently differ in their access to the resources. . . (Lips, 2005, pp. 461–463)
These biases persist in the later samples, with very few women in the categories of political leader, an important category for men. Indeed, part of the increase in women in the sample is due to growth in the category, “Wives, Family Members, and Socialites” [8.5% of the women]. There is also a significant increase in the biographies of women athletes. This bias is not a defect in the sampling; it reflects current social reality. There simply are many more eminent women who are writers [17.3%], singers [9.8%], athletes [8.4%], and actresses [20.6%] than eminent women in top political positions. (p. 318–319)
There is no question that great gains have made in opportunities for women in athletics, but female athletes and their teams are paid substantially less than males (Lips, 2005). At the international level, women have made giant strides politically in the last few years. There are now 30 women ruling countries, compared to 17 in 2005; women leaders can be found in every region of the world (Ho, 2006). There also has been an increase in female role models in politics in the United States in recent years:
The media are also guilty. Newsweek magazine published an article on “The Puzzle of Genius” in 1993 (Begley, 1993). Although warned in advance that the term “genius” is rarely applied to women, this concern fell on deaf ears: the 8-page article described the achievements of 55 male geniuses. Only 3 women appeared: Marie Curie, Martha Graham, and Sarah Chang. The winner of two Nobel Prizes—Marie Curie—was stunningly ignored; she was simply listed in parentheses as “motherless.” Martha Graham was pictured with no description, but her tutu gave away her profession. And Sarah Chang, the 12-year-old violin prodigy, was not actually in the article; she appeared in a sidebar entitled, “They Burn So Bright,” implying that she was likely to burn out! The belief that only men can be geniuses may be so deeply ingrained that the club might not ever offer membership to women: There is no female genius, and there never has been one. . .and there never can be one. . .. A female genius
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A Feminine Perspective of Giftedness is a contradiction in terms, for genius is simply intensified, perfectly developed, universally conscious maleness (Weininger, 1910, p. 347).
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psychology. While the males were unquestionably productive in adult life, none achieved the level of greatness Terman hoped. Critics of IQ testing have used this fact as just cause to denounce intelligence testing.
Masculine Conceptions of Giftedness Galton established eminence as the quintessential evidence of giftedness. Darwin seconded the motion. Lewis Terman cemented the connection in his Genetic Studies of Genius (Terman, 1925). In 1921, Terman received a sizeable grant from the Commonwealth Fund to investigate the childhoods of 300 eminent individuals and to conduct a longitudinal study of gifted children. Catherine Cox (1926), who contributed the second volume of the series, presented evidence of giftedness in the childhoods of eminent individuals, drawn from their biographies, along with estimates of their IQs. The 300 individuals selected for study came from Cattell’s “objectively determined” (p. vi) list of the 1,000 most eminent men in history. This list of men included 32 women. Cattell wrote, “I have spoken throughout of eminent men as we lack in English words including both men and women, but as a matter of fact women do not have an important place on the list” (as quoted in Hollingworth, 1914, p. 525). In the Preface to Volume 2, Terman wrote:
The Benefits of IQ Testing for Gifted Females
Alfred Binet (Binet, 1905) in France and Lewis Terman (1916b) in the United States, along with the studies of Peter and Stern (1922) in Germany, changed the course of history for women. The development of a scale that could measure intelligence in childhood was a pivotal turning point, challenging the ancient law of the natural superiority of males. Studies emanating from these scales shocked the scientific world, as they demonstrated clearly that girls equaled or surpassed boys in intelligence. Yerkes and Bridges, two of Terman’s contemporaries in the new assessment industry, warned him that it would be a serious injustice to the girls to evaluate their scores in light of norms that did not take sex differences into account. They recommended that Terman construct separate sets of norms for boys and girls (Terman, 1916a). He did not heed their advice. When the first 1,000 Stanford-Binets were administered, Terman (1916a) reported “there was found a The interests of the editor center largely in the question small but fairly constant superiority of the girls up whether, or to what extent and how, genius is evidenced to the age of 13 years. At 14, however, the curve in childhood, since it is obvious that the answer to this question must be forthcoming before we can rationally for the girls dropped below that for boys” (p. 70). set about the formulation of methods for the training of Terman realized that his findings would be met with gifted children. (Cox, 1926, p. vi) disbelief. Even he held the variability hypothesis saTerman (1917) conducted the prototype for this inquiry cred (Borland, 1990). He followed up his results with in an evaluation of Galton’s level of intelligence from an analysis of school records and teacher judgments evidence of his precocity in childhood. He estimated for nearly a thousand students “for evidence as to the that Galton’s IQ was “not far from 200” (p. 210) from genuineness of the apparent superiority of the girls” the fact that he learned to read at 2 1/2, was able to (Terman, 1916a, p. 70): read any English book at the age of 4, learned his mulThe results of all these lines of inquiry support the tests in tiplication facts before he was 5, etc. Terman’s recogsuggesting that the superiority of the girls is probably real even up to and including age 14, the apparent superiority nition that advanced development in childhood correof the boys at this age being fully accounted for by the lated with level of intelligence was an important founmore frequent elimination of 14-year-old girls from the dation for the feminine perspective. grades by promotion to the high school. (p. 70) The second part of the grant enabled Terman to study 1,528 children who had attained 140 IQ or above The feminine perspective of giftedness, as it was on his Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale (1916b). The conceived by Leta Hollingworth, was necessarily “Termites,” as they were called, were and continue to tied to performance of children on IQ tests. With be followed for their entire lives. This unprecedented recognized achievement in adulthood being considevent laid the groundwork for longitudinal studies in ered the definitive demonstration of high intelligence,
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females were excluded. The advent of intelligence testing of children provided empirical proof of high intelligence in females. IQ tests became the valid, reliable, and cherished method of finding gifted girls. Hollingworth (1926) wrote, “mental tests proved the existence of gifted girls” (p. 347). The evidence was irrefutable. Even Thorndike recognized it: The trivial difference between the central tendency of men and that of women . . . is the common finding of psychological tests and school experience . . . One who accepts the equality of typical (i.e., modal) representatives of the two sexes must assume the burden of explaining the great differences in the high ranges of achievement. (Thorndike, 1910, p. 35)
Hollingworth (1926) eagerly publicized the findings of Terman, and Peter and Stern in Gifted Children: Their Nature and Nurture: In the most extensive census at present available [Terman’s study], therefore, among school children testing above 140 IQ, the ratio of boys to girls is 111:100 when allowance is made for the greater number of boys born. The three highest cases—those ranging farthest from mediocrity—were girls, all with IQ above 190. In Germany, Peter and Stern, testing large groups for children of promise in the Volkschulen, report that “the girls do as well as the boys. The ten best girls equal the ten best boys in performance.” . . . Mental tests have given no explanation of the great disproportion of eminence among men. . . . On the basis of mental gifts alone we should expect for every hundred and eleven men of eminence for intellectual work one hundred women of equal eminence. Moreover, the most eminent persons should be women (since the highest IQ’s found were those of girls). As this is by no means what history reveals (though we know that intellect in childhood is predictive of intellect in maturity) we must assume that there are powerful determinants of eminence beside intellect. (pp. 67–68)
L.K. Silverman and N.B. Miller It is abundantly clear than an extraordinarily high IQ is not an indicator of later attainment that may be regarded as highly or significantly creative; nor do the most remarkable test ratings in childhood warrant expectancies of adult performance which may be characterized as the work of genius. . . If by gifted children we mean those youngsters who give promise of creativity of a high order, it is doubtful if the typical intelligence test is suitable for use in identifying them. (p. 504)
In the book that shook the foundations of gifted education, Howard Gardner (1983) attacked IQ testing in the first pages: The hedgehogs not only believe in a singular, inviolable capacity which is the special property of human beings: often, as a corollary, they impose the conditions that each individual is born with a certain amount of intelligence, and that we individuals can in fact be rank-ordered in terms of our God-given intellect or I.Q. So entrenched is this way of thinking—and talking—that most of us lapse readily into rankings of individuals as more or less “smart,” “bright,” “clever,” or “intelligent.” (p. 7) . . .The tests have predictive power for success in schooling, but relatively little predictive power outside the school context . . . (p. 16)
David Feldman (1984) investigated whether individuals who obtained IQ scores above 180 were “significantly more gifted” (p. 521) than those with IQs in the 150 range. He concluded the following: On the whole, one is left with the feeling that the above180 IQ subjects were not as remarkable as might have been expected. . . . While 180 IQ suggests the ability to do academic work with relative ease, it . . . does not suggest the presence of “genius” in its common-sense meaning, i.e., transcendent achievement in some field. For these kinds of phenomena, IQ seems at best a crude predictor. For anything more, we will probably have to look to traditions other than the psychometric and to variables other than IQ. (p. 521)
As we shall see, current studies confirm these results. While gifted women continue to be poorly represented among the eminent (1–6%), gifted girls perform The title of Robert Sternberg’s book, Beyond IQ, is sugas well as gifted boys on measures of intelligence. gestive of its contents:
The War Against IQ Testing It is interesting that the attack against intelligence tests was launched by men—men of noteworthy achievement. From the masculine perspective, IQ tests are of questionable value, as they fail to predict eminence in adult life. Over 65 years ago, Paul Witty (1940) presented the position that is still popular today:
Many people who have been exposed to the content of typical IQ tests . . . cannot help but be struck by the narrowness of the conception of intelligence that they represent. On the one hand, they provide a fairly broad sampling of higher-level cognitive skills; on the other hand, they fail to sample the kinds of noncognitive adaptive skills that people . . . indicate form a part of intelligence in the real world. (Sternberg, 1985, p. 35)
The indictment against IQ tests by American leaders in the field, endorsed by the media (Snyderman & Rothman, 1988), has had a sweeping impact worldwide.
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A Feminine Perspective of Giftedness
Nancy Robinson (2008), who has conducted studies of thousands of gifted children, counters the arguments of those who use lack of stellar achievement in adult life to disparage intelligence testing: Not all students selected for gifted programs will proceed to become gifted adults or world-class performers, to be sure. It would be wrong to criticize selection measures because they do not, by themselves, locate as children those adults who will change the world. For such success, a number of personality factors, high-quality instruction, deep and protracted commitment to one’s talent development through both good times and bad, opportunities for advancement, and an appropriate configuration of genes are all required. (Robinson, 2008, p. 171)
Current Models of Giftedness The masculine perspective—the search for the potentially eminent—has dominated the field for the last century. A search of Psychological Abstracts (Albert, 1969) revealed 184 entries on genius, eminence, and distinction between 1927 and 1957, compared with 213 on gifted children and giftedness. After Sputnik was launched, America suddenly valued its gifted children as a national resource to regain its technological supremacy. During this heyday, from 1958 to 1965, there were 295 studies of giftedness and gifted children, compared to 8 on genius. Fifty years after Sputnik, gifted children are still valued for what they can do—and what they have the potential to do—rather than for who they are. Gifted women, also, have become valued for what they can do. A recent on-line search of the PsycINFO database for “giftedness and women” produced 294 records from 1967 to 2006, references to articles, books, chapters, dissertations, and reports. The word “achievement” appeared in 119 or 41% of the entries in the title, abstract, subject line, or classification code. From 1967 to 1976, 56% of the records focused on achievement, and from 1977 to 1986, that shrunk to 44%. In the first two decades, there were only 41 reports on gifted women, and 20 were concerned with women’s achievement. In the last two decades, there were 253 abstracts on gifted women and 98 of these related closely to their achievement. The question of how to groom gifted women to become high achievers is the focus of a great deal of research. For the last 15 years, there has been a strong movement to do away with “giftedness” and replace it with
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“talent development” (e.g., Treffinger & Feldhusen, 1996). This paradigm shift, as Feldman (1992) calls it, involves abandoning testing, especially IQ tests, and replacing the notion of general intelligence with the recognition of multiple intelligences (e.g., Gardner, 1983). The influence of this movement was seen in National Excellence: A Case for Developing America’s Talent, a report issued by the United States Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) (1993). Representing the official position of the United States, National Excellence redefined giftedness in the following manner: “Children and youth with outstanding talent perform or show the potential for performing at remarkably high levels of accomplishment when compared with others of their age, experience, or environment” (p. 26, italics added). Although the term “gifted” remains in common parlance, no new government report has been issued since 1993. A search for definitions of giftedness revealed that the National Association for Gifted Children in England recognizes five modern definitions and conceptions of giftedness put forth by Howard Gardner, Joseph Renzulli, Francoys Gagne, Robert Sternberg, and Abraham Tannenbaum (http://www. nagcbritain.org.uk/). All of these men subscribe to an achievement view of giftedness, or view giftedness as the potential for achievement. Howard Gardner (1983) postulated seven intelligences based on the culturally recognized achievements of adult males (with the exception of choreographers, such as Martha Graham). Joseph Renzulli’s (1978) three-ring conception of giftedness downplays the role of intelligence in giftedness, suggesting that above-average intelligence is sufficient for creative–productive giftedness, along with task commitment and creativity. For Gagne (1985), giftedness is natural ability that must eventuate in talent. Talent is significantly above-average performance in one or more fields of human activity. “Gagne’s model has been adopted by the majority of the Australian state education systems” (M. Gross, personal communication, January 19, 2007). Robert Sternberg’s (1985) triarchic theory postulates 5 criteria that need to be met for a person to be judged gifted: (1) excellence relative to peers; (2) rarity of a high level skill; (3) the area in which the person excels must lead to productivity or potential for productivity; (4) it is demonstrable through valid assessments; and (5) it is valuable—the excellence the person possesses must be valued by his or her society. Abraham Tannenbaum
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(1983) defines giftedness as potential for becoming critically acclaimed performers or producers of ideas. Developed talent exists only in adults. All good exemplars of the masculine perspective, these definitions were put forth between 1978 and 1985 and are still the most prevalent views. Recognized achievement or potential is what counts, not ability. The feminine perspective is conspicuously absent.
L.K. Silverman and N.B. Miller conflict with the expectations of the surroundings. This difference is then seen as a defect in the child rather than in his or her relationship with an outside world that does not understand. (Roeper, 1996, p. 18)
Deeply concerned with the overemphasis on education for success, Roeper (1990) has stressed that success, as it is defined by the individual, is a natural byproduct of an education that concentrates on the development of the Self. The feminine point of view focuses on gifted children’s experiences in childhood, not in terms of how they shape or foreshadow their adult lives, but beFeminine Conceptions of Giftedness cause childhood is precious in and of itself, and children’s happiness or misery is important. Barry Grant The missing element in the achievement-oriented mod- and Michael Piechowski (1999) propose that child els is the gifted child. With the emphasis on talent de- centeredness is the “moral responsibility of gifted eduvelopment, the field has lost sight of the inner experi- cators” (p. 6): ence of giftedness. The essential characteristics of the There is another sense, a moral sense, in which we must feminine perspective have been articulated most elorecognize the gifted and anyone else we serve. To recognize also means to acknowledge, to accept what we quently by two men: For some theorists and researchers, explaining giftedness means describing the conditions that produce gifted achievements. Trapped by the metaphor of “gifts,” they believe that the most important aspect of being gifted is the ability to turn gifts into recognizable and valued accomplishments. The growing emphasis on talent development . . . fosters an achievement orientation. . . The models and theories set to maximize giftedness regard gifted children much as farmers regard cows and pigs, with an eye to getting them to produce more. They do not describe how giftedness works—how the gifted think, feel, and experience. (Grant & Piechowski, 1999, p. 8)
have identified in its own right and on its own terms. This meaning tends to be overlooked. Yet, from the time of Comenius in the 17th century . . . we have had people who stressed recognizing children in their own right, attending to them according to their development, and making learning natural and enjoyable. (p. 6) We believe, as they did, that first and foremost we have to be child-centered. . . Being child-centered means respecting children’s autonomy, providing experiences that enable children to follow their passions and be self-actualizing, and seeking to understand things from a child’s point of view. The strongest argument for child-centeredness is that it regards children as ends, not means. In provides conditions for children to flourish, become themselves, and it does not impose a way of being on them. An understanding of the child’s perspective and inner life aids us in assisting children in finding their own way in life. (p. 8)
“How the gifted think, feel, and experience” is the heart of the feminine viewpoint. Annemarie Roeper’s definition of giftedness encompasses all of these: “Giftedness is a greater awareness, a greater sensitivity, and a greater ability to understand and transform perceptions Similar views are found in the writings of Annemarie into intellectual and emotional experiences” (Roeper, Roeper (1990): 1982, p. 21). Throughout her career, Roeper has We have separated education from psychology and therebrought attention back to the child and to the critical fore do not know the child . . . Education is usually defined as the answer to the question: “What do we do to and role of emotions in the development of the gifted: It is my belief that the gifted child is emotionally different from others . . . The Self of the gifted child is structured differently. Their depth of awareness is different. The center of their inner life is different. Their view of the world is more complex in a fundamental way. That is why one cannot say the child is “partially gifted” in certain areas only and not in others. There is a gifted personality structure, and the more highly gifted a child is, the more this difference becomes apparent, and the more often the Self comes into
for the child?” It does not emphasize the question, “What does the child bring to this process?” “Who is this child? “How does the child feel about the process?” (Roeper, 1990, p. 9)
Grant and Piechowski listed Leta Hollingworth [1886–1939] and Annemarie Roeper [1918–] among the “Child-Centered Torchbearers in the History of Education” (p. 7). These two leaders exemplify the feminine perspective in gifted education. Both found
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A Feminine Perspective of Giftedness
gifted children utterly fascinating. As counselors, they were capable of entering the inner world of the gifted child. Much like a marine biologist might listen to whale songs in hopes of decoding their hidden meanings, they listened intently to the children until the deepest layers of their experience were revealed to them. They both wrote about the children’s loneliness, imaginary worlds, unusual awareness, intense sensitivity, argumentativeness, and inability to fit in. The children shared with them their passion for justice, their fledgling attempts to build a philosophy of life, their quest to find their place in the universe, and their attempts to adjust to a world that is often hostile to the gifted. They both worked with young gifted children, highly gifted children, underachievers, and children of diverse cultural backgrounds. They both described the barriers faced by gifted girls, children of low socioeconomic circumstances and children of color. They understood the pain gifted children face when they are rejected by their classmates. “The more intelligent a person is, regardless of age, the less often can he find a truly congenial companion” (Hollingworth, 1942, p. 253). Hollingworth (1942) observed that children in the moderately gifted range had a much easier time relating to their classmates than children in the higher IQ ranges: This tendency to become isolated is one of the most important factors to be considered in guiding the development of personality of highly intelligent children. . . The majority of children between 130 and 150 IQ find fairly easy adjustment. . . Great difficulty arises only when a young child is above 160 IQ. At the extremely high levels of 180 and 190 IQ, the problem of friendships is difficult indeed, and the younger the person, the more difficult it is. (Hollingworth, 1942, p. 264)
Children value relationships far more than achievement. Friendships are central to their happiness; loneliness can be unbearable. Failed relationships are among the most painful experiences anyone can have. Unfortunately for gifted children, their relationships are typically more fragile than most, and their sense of exclusion can run deep. Relationships with peers are often tenuous . . . The loneliness and sense of rejection a gifted child may experience can have a major impact on the development of the Self. “I feel invisible. I am invisible. Recess is the worst time,” said David. “I feel I don’t exist. I cannot stand it. . . . The other children just walk around me.” (Roeper, 2007, p. 56)
Both women noted that gifted children show an early interest in origins and the meaning in life. “Who made
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the world?” “Where did I come from?” “What will become of me when I die?” “Why did I come into the world?” (Hollingworth, 1931, p. 11). “Children’s emotional need for understanding their own origins expresses itself in their enthusiasm for dinosaurs, cavemen, etc. They want to know the origin of the species and they want to know their own origin” (Roeper, 1990, p. 52). Hollingworth (1931) discovered that children begin to require logically coherent answers to these questions when they reach the mental age of 12 or 13. The higher the IQ, the earlier the child develops a pressing need for an explanation of the universe. Children who score above 180 IQ desire a systematic philosophy of life and death at the age of 6 or 7 years. As educators, they both emphasized the importance of interdependence and a sense of community responsibility—feminine values. Both leaders created educational environments for the primary purpose of nurturing the emotional development of gifted children. Annemarie and George Roeper founded The Roeper School in 1941 and it still stands as the oldest private school for the gifted in operation in the United States. The philosophy of the school “is based on the belief in self-actualization, respecting the growth and the uniqueness of each member of the community, as well as the reality of mutual interdependence” (Roeper, 1990, p. 1). Leta Hollingworth set up experimental classes for gifted children in New York City in 1922 and in 1936 that incorporated “emotional education” (Hollingworth, 1939, p. 585). Infused throughout this program was a beautiful set of human values: basic respect for humanity, awareness of our global interdependence, and commitment to service. Follow-up studies indicate that Hollingworth’s program had a profound, lifelong impact on the students (Harris, 1992; White 1990). Harris (1992, p. 102) asked some of these individuals, almost 70 years later, “From your point of view, what constitutes success in life?” Their answers revealed the same values that they had learned in their classes: societal connection, awareness, compassion for others, definitions of success inextricably interwoven with self-actualization, and sensitivity to the needs of others. Hollingworth and Roeper both spoke of the uneven development of gifted children. “Gifted children have a tendency to surprise us with their advanced abilities, . . . their ability to generalize, their sensitivity . . . On the other hand, they often appear infantile . . .” (Roeper, 2004, p. 145):
110 To have the intelligence of an adult and the emotions of a child combined in a childish body is to encounter certain difficulties. It follows that (after babyhood) the younger the child, the greater the difficulties, and that adjustment becomes easier with every additional year of age. The years between four and nine are probably the most likely to be beset with the problems mentioned. (Hollingworth, 1931, p. 13)
Their observations kindled the Columbus Group (1991) definition of giftedness, a phenomenological definition that exemplifies the feminine perspective: Giftedness is asynchronous development in which advanced cognitive abilities and heightened intensity combine to create inner experiences and awareness that are qualitatively different from the norm. This asynchrony increases with higher intellectual capacity. The uniqueness of the gifted renders them particularly vulnerable and requires modifications in parenting, teaching and counseling in order for them to develop optimally. (The Columbus Group, 1991; Silverman, 1993a)
Studying young gifted children, Wendy Roedell (1989) also wrote about the unevenness of their development. She observed that rather than demonstrating high abilities in all areas, these children had definite peaks of extraordinary performance as well as valleys. Their intellectual development usually surpassed the development of their physical development and social skills. They were only likely to excel in those physical tasks that involved cognitive organization. Roedell (1989) warned that expectations of gifted children need to be based on their level of experience and maturity, not just the level of their cognition. Their advanced reading skills may expose them to information they cannot handle emotionally. A father found his 4-year-old reading the Bible. “She closed the book with a terrified look on her face and said, ‘I’m reading the Book of Revelations, and boy, is it scary!”’ (p. 22). While young gifted children demonstrate advanced cognition of social relations, their understanding is not necessarily reflected in their behavior. “It is unsettling to hold a high-level conversation with a 5year-old who then turns around and punches a classmate who stole her pencil” (p. 22). In an earlier article on highly gifted children, Roedell (1984) described the relationship between level of giftedness and vulnerability, focusing on the children’s sensitivity, feelings of alienation, and lack of societal support: . . .There is general agreement that highly gifted children are more susceptible to some types of developmental difficulties than are moderately gifted or average children. Areas of vulnerability include uneven development,
L.K. Silverman and N.B. Miller perfectionism, adult expectations, intense sensitivity, self-definition, alienation, inappropriate environments, and role conflicts. (Roedell, 1984, p. 127)
Nancy Robinson (2008) is yet another strong spokesperson for the importance of childhood in the lives of the gifted. She, too, has created exemplary educational interventions for gifted students: Academically gifted children are at high risk of suffering discouragement and giving up in the clutches of an illfitting, slow-moving educational system. We as a society sentence them to at least 6 hours a day, 180 days a year, during 13 years that are critical to their development— more than 14,000 precious hours not including homework. As a society, we are therefore responsible, because we set up the system—to identify those students whose thinking and skills are too advanced for what is being offered them, the level and pace of their learning being significantly more mature than that of their classmates. Having located these children, we are morally obligated to provide them with a better-fitting educational experience, a rigorous academic program that makes it possible for them to continue to grow and to gain satisfaction from their own efforts. (p. 158)
Women leaders in the field see the child, not as “father of the man,” but as a person with unique needs born of cognitive, emotional, and developmental differences. Hear their voices. Joanne Whitmore (1980) defined “intellectual giftedness as exceptional potential for learning and a superior capacity to assimilate, manipulate, and utilize abstract concepts and factual information” (p. 61). For Barbara Clark (1983), giftedness implies total and integrated brain functioning, including cognition, emotion, intuition, and physical sensing. Developmental advancement in one or more areas was the definition proposed in “What Happens to the Gifted Girl?” (Silverman, 1986), as well as in “Early Development of Gifted Children” (Roedell, 1989). Ellen Winner (1996) sees giftedness as precocity, an insistence on marching to one’s own drummer, and a rage to master. In Empowering Gifted Minds, Bobbie Gilman (2003) describes giftedness as high-level cognitive functioning, and, in her chapter in Conceptions of Giftedness, Nancy Robinson (2005) sees it essentially as reasoning ability—echoing Binet (1909) and Terman (1921). As psychological examiners, their definitions resemble Leta Hollingworth’s (1926): gifted children are those identified as very superior on intelligence tests. Based on the philosopher Immanuel Kant, Deirdre Lovecky (2004) defines giftedness as “cognition (precocious development, high cognitive ability, reasoning ability, creative ability); conation (high motivation, a passion
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to master), and emotion (intense emotional experiences, sensitivity, compassion and empathy)” (p. 38). While some of these researchers limit their definitions to advanced cognitive abilities, or more broadly to advanced development in general, many specify the role of emotions. Others, like Hollingworth, Robinson, Roedell and Silverman, defined giftedness as highreasoning ability or advanced development, measurable by IQ tests; they also studied the social and emotional development of gifted children. None of the above definitions emphasizes achievement or the potential for recognized accomplishment in adult life. One exception is Barbara Kerr (1994) who focuses on girls’ potential for high achievement: The definition of giftedness in this book embraces exceptional academic ability as well as creative and specific talents, and its range includes “high-potential” girls (the upper 25 percent on school achievement tests) as well as the near-genius Presidential Scholars. Therefore, it includes almost all who have the potential for excellence in their chosen fields. (p. x)
The most popular perspectives of giftedness, essentially derivations of Galton’s equation of giftedness with eminence, impede the full recognition of giftedness in females. The masculine frame of reference places heavy weight on future achievements and productivity; the feminine view is primarily concerned with the impact of developmental differences on a child’s immediate needs. From the masculine vantage point, intelligence tests are of little value, since they do not correlate with adult achievement; from the feminine, they are a valuable means of assessing advancement and discovering hidden abilities. None of the masculine conceptions concern themselves with emotional development, whereas emotional development plays a central role in the feminine perspective. The emphasis in the former perspective is on demonstration of talent, while in the latter perspective there is more concern for the amelioration of underachievement, and the creation of equal opportunities for children of diverse cultural and economic circumstances (Arnold, Noble & Subotnik, 1996).
Identification of Gifted Girls The value that schools place on achievement is quite evident from the admissions criteria used to select students for gifted programs. High achievement
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scores or high marks or both are often required for acceptance into a gifted program. The eminent child in school is the winner of the competition for grades and awards. The emphasis is on products, performance, portfolios—the external trappings. Industrious students who are motivated to achieve high marks are thought to be the brightest students in the class. While this is often the case, it is also true that equally bright or even more advanced students may not achieve in the classroom, for a variety of reasons. Exceptionally gifted children may refuse to perform work they have already mastered. Children from culturally diverse groups may not want to stand out from their peers, for fear of rejection. The focus on academic success favors girls in elementary school, since girls tend to conform to adult expectations, but the picture gradually changes in junior and senior high school, when girls attempt to establish their femininity, becoming more absorbed with their attractiveness and less with schoolwork. The emphasis on achievement is not equitable at any age level for children of low socioeconomic means. When gifted programs are reserved for high achievers, they find and serve primarily higher socioeconomic groups. The gifted come from all social classes, but poorer children have fewer books in the home, fewer role models for achievement and less support for academic success. Although more attention is given to identification than to any other phase of gifted education, the process bears a disquieting resemblance to the selection of students for acceptance to college. In college admissions procedures, the emphasis is placed on achievement and aptitude scores, indications of high performance. Admissions are highly competitive, with each college selecting the “best” applicants who have the “most promise” for success in and beyond college. The information obtained on each candidate is used solely for the purpose of selection; it has no bearing on the student’s program. When the selection process is completed, the admissions materials of the successful candidates are filed away, while the materials for the unsuccessful ones are discarded. Identifying gifted children according to the college admissions model portrays the image of the gifted program as an award or privilege for the “best” students. It turns the identification process into a contest with “winners” and “losers.” Parents become vested in their children’s gaining acceptance in the program because they view it as a stepping stone toward admission to the
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better colleges and a ticket to success in adult life. Children perceive themselves as failures if they are not accepted in the program. Programs for the gifted should be based on differential needs of students, rather than offered as a merit badge to high achievers, whose needs may be being met adequately in the regular classroom. It is ironic that ability measures, which came into vogue as a way of equalizing the playing field for the poor, culturally diverse and women (Snyderman & Rothman, 1988), have been abandoned for achievement measures, which favor the advantaged. The dictum of multiple criteria for identification has not appreciably increased the percentage of non-White children in gifted programs in the United States (Ford, 2001), whereas IQ testing, with the highly verbal, culturally loaded Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, unearthed many highly gifted African American children (Kearney & LeBlanc, 1993). Standardized individual intelligence tests, administered before girls are socialized to hide their abilities, remain the best means of identifying gifted girls. Schools often rely on group tests rather than individual IQ tests because of the expense. Group intelligence, aptitude, and achievement tests are competitive and timed—two strikes against girls. Unfortunately, parents who decide to obtain private IQ testing for their children are much more likely to bring their sons than their daughters. Hollingworth (1926) noted, In New York City, where children were being selected for special classes for gifted children, parents and teachers as usual suggested more boys than girls as candidates. . . . Among those chosen from these candidates by mental test as of the requisite degree of intellect, only thirty per cent of the fifty allowed to attend the classes were girls; but of the thirty children whose parents refused permission, or who for other reasons could not join the classes, sixty per cent were girls. (p. 66, italics added)
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tre for Gifted Education in New Zealand, observed that “the ratio of boys to girls was consistently between two to three boys for every girl referred for assessment. That stayed the same over a ten-year period” (R. Cathcart, personal communication, January 20, 2007): When I run workshops on identification for teachers, I begin with a selection of short case histories and ask the teachers, without any input from me, to discuss these as “children referred as possibly gifted” and to decide whether or not the referrals should go ahead. One of the case histories describes a very quiet, very compliant little girl achieving at a just-above-average level at school whose mother describes her as being highly inquisitive as a preschooler, full of questions, grasping things very quickly, and learning to read by herself—in fact as reading Anne of Green Gables for herself before starting school (based on an actual child). I have given that workshop I suppose about 200 times now, and I am still finding that at least 80% of all teachers instantly dismiss that child as clearly not gifted. Most say she simply has a pushy mother—“That child’s problem is obviously the mother,” many say. Many will add, “She might be able to read the words, but of course she won’t understand them,” ignoring the fact that NO child sits and reads their way through a book (especially a non-picture book reliant solely on text) which they cannot comprehend at least at some level. My personal rating of my level of success with these workshops rests on how many of these teachers have changed their minds about this child by the end of the session! But I think it illustrates very well the kinds of assumptions that lead to this imbalance in our referrals. (R. Cathcart, personal communication, January 20, 2007)
Similarly, the Gifted Kids Programme in New Zealand, aware of the gender imbalance in their referrals, has conducted target workshops to correct the situation. Deborah Clark, Associate Principal, believes that three interventions have altered the gender ratio: (1) Since 90% of the students are referred by teachers, they let the teachers know that they have been referring mostly Over the last 30 years, 40% of the children brought boys and ask, “Where are your girls?”; (2) They run to the Gifted Development Center have been girls and annual workshops on hidden gifted students, includ60% have been boys. In the first 10 years, the percent- ing gifted girls; and (3) They offer staff meetings at age of girls was slightly higher, 43% versus 57% boys. schools that consistently under-identify girls in which In recent years, it has dipped down as low as 35% girls they discuss characteristics of gifted children. In 2002 and 65% boys. This discrepancy in referral rate is com- and 2003, before they initiated these workshops, refermon in other assessment centers worldwide. Approxi- rals for males ranged between 65 and 80% of the total. mately two-thirds of the clients brought to psycholo- From 2004 through 2007, there has been a steady ingists for private testing to determine giftedness in the crease in the referrals of girls; boys now comprise apUnited States are male. Centers in Australia report that proximately 55% of the referrals (D. Clark, personal three-fourths of their referrals are boys (H. Dudeney, communication, January 21, 2007). personal communication, January 7, 2007). Rosemary Nancy Robinson and her colleagues have amassed Cathcart, founder of the George Parkyn National Cen- data from several large-scale longitudinal studies of
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A Feminine Perspective of Giftedness
young gifted children. Among their findings are that parents’ perceptions of their children’s precocity are accurate, standardized test results correlate with actual behavior, and standardized testing of young children predicts later performance: These findings confirm the accuracy of parental descriptions of their children’s behavior. They tell us to trust parents who think that their children’s behavior is advanced – whether or not we have seen that behavior in school. But the studies also do something else. They confirm that the results of standardized tests are strongly correlated with the children’s actual behavior at home. Furthermore, each of the above studies had a 2- to 5-year longitudinal aspect, and in each case, the scores initially attained by the children were predictive over time for the group as a whole. (Robinson, 2008, p. 168)
The large database of the Gifted Development Center (N = 5, 200) supports the accuracy of parents as identifiers of giftedness, as well as the findings of Terman, and Peter and Stern (Hollingworth, 1926) nearly a century ago. Girls continue to perform as well as boys or better on individual IQ tests. The distribution of IQ scores in the exceptionally (160+ IQ) and profoundly gifted (175+ IQ) ranges is 40% girls and 60% boys— identical to the gender distribution of our sample. Very similar to Terman’s findings with 1,000 children, 4 of the 5 highest IQ scores were achieved by girls, including the highest IQ score (262 + IQ). These scores were obtained on the virtually untimed Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale (Form L-M), which is still permissible to use as a supplementary test (see Chapter 48). This particular scale is not exactly gender friendly: all the items are about boys and men. Scores in these upper ranges are often questioned or dismissed, but then, so are rapid advancement through the developmental milestones and early reading ability, other clear indicators of giftedness in girls. The findings that there are as many profoundly gifted girls as boys have been shared with several newspapers, magazines, and television news programs for two decades, and never appears newsworthy enough to report. To report anything positive about IQ tests would go against the grain of the industry (Snyderman & Rothman,1988). Instead, the reporters continue to jump on the “Kill-the-IQ-test” bandwagon. It is no wonder that females continue to feel inferior in intelligence to males. All the evidence of their intelligence is either suppressed or ignored.
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The Development of Gifted Girls Precocity in gifted girls may escape notice because girls are expected to develop faster than boys. Girls tend to be more robust babies, and learn to talk, count, and read earlier than boys (Silverman, 1986). The significance of girls’ early development is diminished by those who ascribe to the maxim: “early ripe, early rot.” Ready for school at an earlier age, gifted girls are often more successful than boys as early entrants to kindergarten (Callahan, 1979; Robinson, 2004). When programs are designed for young gifted children (ages 4–7), there is never any difficulty finding an equal number of boys and girls. But gifted girls mysteriously vanish as they get older. Myra and David Sadker remarked, “Girls are the only group who begin school scoring ahead and leave behind, a theft occurring so quietly that most people are unaware of its impact” (as quoted in Silverman, 1995). Gifted girls are chameleons. From the time they enter school, or even preschool, they learn how to behave exactly like the other girls in the group so that they will be accepted. If their classmates are developmentally less mature, gifted girls will frequently don the mental attire of their friends and soon will be imperceptible from them in thought, manner, and achievement (Silverman, 1993b). A preschool director who was very interested in identifying gifted children in her school remarked that she had no difficulty spotting the boys, but she could not pick out the girls. At the age of 4, they had already gone into hiding. Gifted boys are more visible, as they attempt to gain teacher attention or annoy the other students or demonstrate leadership or withdraw. They usually reject classmates who are not as capable as themselves. By way of contrast, gifted girls treat school as a social experience, and they use their considerable talents to gain acceptance, blending into the group, and becoming invisible. When mothers describe girls’ advanced abilities at home that are not demonstrated in school, they are often patronized: “All parents think their children are gifted.” As Rosemary Cathcart described above, teachers easily discount the early signs of giftedness reported by parents, unless they see confirmation of these skills at school. Gifted girls will not show their true capabilities at school unless several of their classmates are equally capable. Parents usually provide a safe environment in the home for gifted girls to reveal their abilities. Only one indication of gender bias has been found at our
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Center with any regularity. The parent questionnaires ask if the child shows any signs of leadership. Mothers respond that their young son “likes to be the boss,” “is the captain of the ship,” “assigns roles to other children,” “takes the lead in games,” “decides what games to play, who should be what character,” etc. Responses for girls (and exceptionally gifted boys) often include the word, “bossy.” “She’s so bossy I’m afraid she isn’t going to have any friends.” Preschool and primary teachers respond similarly, even asking for advice as to how to correct the “bossiness” they observe in gifted girls. In children’s literature, such as Little Miss Bossy (Hargreaves, 1981), as well as literature on highly capable adolescents, the term “bossy” appears only in relation to girls (Gilligan, 1989; Lutfig & Nichols, 1990; Olszewski-Kubilius & Kulieke, 1989). It seems improbable that the leadership skills of gifted 4-year-old girls vary to such a degree from the boys that the term “bossy” is warranted to describe them. It is more likely that these differences are in the eye of the beholder, with boys being socialized to be leaders and girls being socialized to be followers (Silverman, 1993b). The peer group is a major factor in the socialization of girls. “Most girls know deep down that standing out can get you in big trouble” (Simmons, 2002, p. 106). Nine-year-olds can be particularly cruel to girls who are different from the pack in any way, shape or form. “The other girls watch and talk about everything: what she eats and wears, whom she plays with” (Simmons, 2002, p. 170). If the group turns on her, the gifted girl becomes “poison.” No one will play with her, invite her to parties, look at her, or acknowledge her existence. They will make fun of her, tell rumors about her, and find other ways to humiliate her. Anyone who dares to be nice to her will find that they are “poison” too. This is a very effective method of squelching giftedness (Silverman, 1993b). Lee Anne Bell (1989) found that by fourth or fifth grade, girls who exhibit outstanding academic ability begin to lose self-confidence, become extremely self-critical and often lower their effort and aspirations to conform to gender stereotyped expectations. If acceleration is being considered, boys are more likely to leave their peer group at any stage of development in the hope of learning more at higher grade levels, but girls usually need to be accelerated before the age of 8. From that point forward, they are at the mercy of their peer group and will not leave them, no
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matter how unhappy they might be at their grade level. The risks involved for girls are higher than for boys: In fourth grade, Tracy stunned her teachers by completing her math workbook during the first week of school. She was promptly skipped a grade into a class notorious for meanness. On the first day of fifth grade, the girls refused her at the lunch table, sniping that she wasn’t really a fifth grader. They forced her to eat alone. . . . The lunchtime isolation quickly became a school-day pastime for the popular girls. They continued to ostracize Tracy throughout middle school, telling her she was stupid, that her jokes were bad, her clothes all wrong. . . . Tracy looked up and said, “You don’t know how much courage it takes me to go to school every day.” (Simmons, 2002, p. 217)
In Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls, Simmons (2002) offers strategies for parents, teachers, and counselors to combat the covert aggressions in girls. It is essential for educators and parents to be aware of the subtleties of its expression, as well as its devastating impact on girls’ self-concept. Early entrance is an ideal alternative for girls, as the peer group of children slightly older than themselves is established from the beginning of school. “When schools are locked into an age-in-grade format, early admission to kindergarten may be the only window of opportunity available to gifted girls” (Kerr, 1991, p. 408). Research support for acceleration, especially early entrance, is strong (Colangelo, Assouline & Gross, 2004; Feldhusen, Proctor & Black, 2002). A recent review concluded, “We can lay firmly to rest the myth that acceleration is inherently dangerous for gifted students” (Robinson, 2004, p. 64). This key option for gifted girls is impossible without access to early identification. Yet, National Excellence (OERI, 1993) warns against the identification of preschool and primary gifted students: These suggestions are not intended to imply that schools should label preschool and primary students as gifted and talented. They should not. Instead, preschools and primary schools should develop a curriculum for all that nurtures the strengths of children and encourages its staffs do the same. (OERI, 1991, p. 28)
This is a national agenda that favors males. If giftedness is perceived as the potential to attain eminence in a specific domain of talent, late identification makes sense. Children who are identified as high achievers later in their school careers are more likely to be successful adults.
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A Feminine Perspective of Giftedness
Another reason to identify girls early is that by the age of 8 or 9 years, many girls have learned that it is “smart not to be too smart”—that it is more important to fit in with the other girls than it is to develop one’s own abilities. It is difficult to get an accurate IQ score on an 8-year-old gifted girl who will not guess, who will only respond if she is absolutely certain she is correct, or who bats her eyelashes and says sweetly, “I don’t know,” even when she does know the answer. Early identification of gifted girls is crucial. A great deal has been written about the plight of preteen and teenage gifted girls (see Silverman, 1995, for a summary); there is insufficient space in this chapter to deal with more than a few of the issues. This is a turning point for many bright girls. As girls develop gender identity at this age, they must choose between femininity and achievement, which is considered a masculine quality. Those who choose achievement face torment from both the boys and the girls. In their early teens, gifted girls see few advantages of being gifted and often sacrifice their gifted friends to gain acceptance by less capable classmates (Buescher, Olszewski & Higham, 1987). Rachel Simmons (2002) asked a group of teenage girls in the United States to name the qualities of a perfect girl and the qualities of a girl no one would want to be. Highest in the list of qualities for the ideal girl were “very thin,” “pretty,” and “blond.” Among the traits in the opposite list were “brainy,” “opinionated,” “professional,” “serious,” “strong,” “independent,” and “bookish” (pp. 124–125). It is little wonder that girls’ self-esteem is negatively related to their achievement (AAUW Educational Foundation, 1992). For boys, the opposite pattern occurs: high achievement leads to high self-concept. Just at the stage of development when gifted girls are most vulnerable and begin to doubt their intelligence, a term creeps into educators’ vocabulary that does untold damage: “overachiever.” When educators of the gifted are asked to visualize an underachiever and write down the first name that comes to mind, and then they are asked to write down the first name of an overachiever, two-thirds of the underachievers invariably are male and two-thirds of the overachievers are female. When asked to define “overachievement,” participants describe typical traits of high achievers, such as “working hard,” that have been scorned. Fennama (1990) found that junior high school mathematics teachers attributed the success of their best male math
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students to ability and the success of their best female math students to hard work. Gifted girls share the belief system of their math teachers: boys have ability and girls just work really hard. Underachievement is a psychological reality. It is always possible to have a significant discrepancy between one’s ability and one’s performance. In fact, a case can be made that most gifted children are forced into patterns of underachievement because the level of work they are required to do in school is usually much less than their capabilities. But “overachievement” is an oxymoron: no one can achieve more than she is capable of achieving. The term implies that the person makes up for lack of ability by hard work. It is a sexist expression that serves no useful purpose; it simply demoralizes, weakens the confidence of gifted females, and leaves scars that last a lifetime (Silverman, 1993b). Although some theorize that boys’ abilities are more real than girls because they correlate with adult achievement, there is strong reason to believe that the progressive loss of talent in girls can be traced to the effects of socialization, which steadily erode gifted girls’ self-confidence and undermine their aspirations. Gifted girls appear to “plateau” in their abilities as soon as they turn their attention to dieting, clothes, and preoccupation with boys. Suddenly, boys take the lead in academic achievements—a lead sustained throughout the rest of their lives. In the United States, boys outperform girls on college board examinations, thereby securing admission to the most selective colleges and obtaining a substantial proportion of scholarships (Sadker & Sadker, 1994): On average, girls get better grades than boys at all levels of schooling but score lower than boys on key standardized tests administered to 11th and 12th graders. For example, boys outscore girls (with discrepancies greatest for African American and Hispanic girls) on both the verbal and mathematics sections of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and on all subsections of the American College Testing Program except English (ACT). As a result girls lose millions of dollars in scholarship funds. In 1988–89, 63 percent of the National Merit Scholarship semi-finalists were boys while only 32 percent were girls (sex of 5 percent of the students not identified). Since girls continue to earn better grades, there is continued evidence that the test is biased in favor of boys. (The Mid-Atlantic Equity Center & The Network, Inc. 1993)
Is it possible that males are more successful from high school on because gifted females simply stopped
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caring and gave them the lead? It is not a real or by subjective judgment, is far, far worse” (Bereiter, competition if half of the players give up the race 1976/1977, p. 43). In the 1970s, Virginia Ehrlich (Silverman, 1995). (1978) created the Astor Program for Gifted Children in New York City for inner city 4- to 8-year-olds. After trying several “culture fair” tests, she found many more gifted African American children on the Issues of Cultural Diversity Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, Form L-M. Kathi Kearney and Jene LeBlanc (1993) pulled together Former Texas Governor Ann Richards once remarked, a significant body of research on gifted African “Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did. She American children, conducted over a span of 60 years, just did it backwards, and in high heels” (Farrell, 2007). some of which had never been published. Without an Richards’ witty comment highlights the unrecognized exhaustive search, nearly 200 African American chiland extraordinary abilities of women. Gifted females dren were found in various studies that scored above of color and those from poor and working-class back- 130 on the Stanford-Binet, a strong test of abstract grounds often have similarly unrecognized abilities. verbal reasoning ability, including several who scored They must overcome incredible odds to reach the level in the exceptionally gifted range (160+) and one girl of success of their male counterparts. who scored 200 IQ. These studies were marginalized Meeting the needs of gifted females from ethnically as they called into question the stereotypic beliefs that diverse backgrounds, racial minorities, and lower so- African Americans had inferior intelligence, as well cioeconomic families represents a challenge for edu- as the opposing beliefs that IQ tests, especially highly cators today. Most of the research found on cultural verbal, culturally loaded tests like the Stanford-Binet, diversity and economic disadvantage has been con- could not identify gifted African Americans. ducted in America. Demographic changes in the US Whenever a negative stereotype exists about a parpopulation are evident by the fact that Hispanic stu- ticular group’s ability, its members experience what dents now represent the majority ethnic group in many is called stereotype threat. “An individual’s awareness school districts in states such as California, Florida, that he or she may be judged by or may fulfill negaTexas, Illinois, and New York (Castellano, 2004). It has tive stereotypes about her or his gender or ethnic group been estimated that the non-White population in the can have a dramatic negative effect on performance” United States will exceed the White-European popula- (Lips, 2005, p. 44). If the stereotype is that one’s gention within the next century (Evans, 1996). Culturally der or ethnic group is less intelligent, this is likely to and linguistically diverse students require special con- corrode the self-confidence of members of the group sideration in order for their abilities to blossom. when performing intellectual tasks. One study found Yet, surprisingly, under-representation in gifted ed- that African American and White undergraduates perucation programs has increased for Hispanic Ameri- formed equally well when told an experiment involved cans and African Americans since the late 1970s (Ford, understanding the psychology of verbal problem solv2001). Under-representation of minorities in gifted ed- ing. When a second group was given identical tasks ucation programs has been attributed to all of the fol- and told their individual verbal ability was being aslowing: test bias, lack of teacher referrals, deficit-based sessed, African American students solved only half as educational models, underachievement, negative peer many problems as White students (Ford, Grantham, & pressure, deficit thinking, and stereotype threat (Ford, Milner, 2004). The stereotype of intellectual inferiority 2001; Ford, Grantham, & Milner, 2004; Ford, Harris, appears to have decreased the performance of African Tyson & Frazier Trotman, 2002). Deficit-based educa- American college students. tional models are based on the assumption that minorIt is becoming more widely recognized that soity students are deficient and, therefore, unable to reach cial conditions, including poverty, racism, and inferior high standards. schools, contribute to the plight of minority students While there has always been a great deal of con- (Parrish, 2004) and inhibit the development of talents cern about the cultural loadings of IQ tests, it must in gifted girls (Evans, 1996; Kerr, 1994). Attention be remembered that “virtually every other form of to cultural diversity in the literature on gifted women psychological evaluation, whether by objective tests has increased during the past 40 years. As evidence,
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a PsycINFO database search of “gifted” and “women” showed an increase of over 20% for references from the earliest (1967–1976) to the latest (1996–2006) decade. Of the 294 records identified in the search, 60 included culture or diversity in the title, abstract, subject line, or identifier codes. Diversity was found far less often (only 7) than culture(s) or cultural (including socio-cultural and cross-cultural), which appeared in 54 references; only one reference included both terms. Classification of references in 10-year intervals is shown in Table 5.1. A substantial increase in the percentage of records covering cultural issues had occurred by the mid-1970s. However, just 25% of more recent references include the topic. Therefore, only a relatively small percentage of the current literature on gifted women is addressing this important issue. Table 5.1 Proportion of PsycINFO references to culturally diverse gifted women Years
Records
Percent
1967–1976 1977–1986 1987–1996 1997–2006
1 of 23 4 of 18 20 of 111 35 of 142
4 22 18 25
Sexism and Racism In her classic book, Feminism is for Everybody, Bell Hooks (2000) describes a movement to end sexist oppression in today’s society. This includes not only the commonly accepted rights of women to equal employment and pay but signifies an end to sexism, racism, and social class oppression. Looking within the American educational system, barriers to success often exist for female students of color, those from poor and working-class backgrounds, those for whom English is a second language, and immigrants. Understanding how these cultural differences impact student learning is paramount. For example, second-language learners may not grasp the meaning of complex concepts because of language differences, rather than perceived differences in ability (Klug, 2004). Prejudice against different “others” also interferes with the recognition of the talents and abilities of ethnic minorities. When comparisons are made to White, middle-class, Europeans standards, students from different cultures are often seen as inferior and
lacking certain skills. Behaviors that do not fit with mainstream expectations are often misunderstood (Klug, 2004). For example, African American girls’ play in a Head Start program was seen as aggressive when it involved oppositional talk and teasing. Sociologists, however, showed their style of interaction to be a form of communal activity among minority females, one in which friendship is established and identities constructed (Corsaro, 2005). In much the same way, Italian school children engage in discussione, which involves animated public discussions and extended group debates, these often occurring when one child opposes the views of another. This common activity, simulating adult exchanges, is often highly stylized and valued by children for its shared routines (Corsaro, 2005). Awareness and attention to the unique cultural, social, and psychological factors of gifted students from minority groups are needed. Issues of racial and ethnic identity often hamper the progress of these students. Group allegiance and negative peer pressure can threaten academic success for minorities who may be seen as abandoning their own culture to accept that of the dominant societal group. This is true for minority members in any culture. African American women have reported personal strengths based on strong kinship networks and socialization to egalitarian gender-roles and independence; yet, they continue to face barriers based on sexism and racism (Kitano, 1998b). Likewise, Latina women, who “described their culture and homes as valuing education, achievement, hard work, and interpersonal relationships,” struggle to overcome gender and racial oppression in their everyday lives (Kitano, 1998a, p. 143). Sexism and racism take many forms; researchers in the field have categorized them as external and internal barriers to gifted females’ advancement. External barriers include gender-role stereotyping at home and at school (Reis, 2001); acculturation to gender inequality (Reis, 2001); a lack of role models, mentors, and counseling (Kitano, 1994/1995); and sex-role traditionalism (Thorne, 1995). Contextual factors often lead to internal or interpersonal obstacles, including feelings of insecurity (Cohen, 1998), self-doubt, selfcriticism, lowered expectations, fear of success (Reis, 2002; Thorne, 1995) and lack of belief in one’s ability (Reis, 2002). All of these factors can undermine women’s self-efficacy in their personal, academic, and professional lives.
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To understand the influences on gifted female learners from diverse backgrounds, we must consider the parents, extended family, and community effect (Sethna, 2004). The community effect is the combined influence from living in a particular community, including the neighborhood school attended; the language or dialect spoken; the social class of the residents and their attitudes and values; the percentage of families who own their own homes have computers and Internet access; the percentage of peers who attend college or are involved in gang activity, etc. Examples from two different cultures, Asian and Native American, show contrasting expectations of gifted girls. Because parents of Chinese, Japanese, and Indian origins faced a competitive educational system in their homeland, they encourage their children to be especially diligent in their schoolwork so they can go to the very best college to which they can gain admission. They believe that “teacher’s skills and student’s diligence—not innate intelligence” predict children’s school success (Sethna, 2004, p. 107). For this reason, parents of Asian descent expect their children to work hard to hone their intellectual skills. When it comes to college they expect they will choose high-status professions, particularly those in the field of medicine, law and engineering (Sethna, 2004). Their daughters bear the parental expectation that they will distinguish themselves. In contrast, the expectation of parents of Native American females is just the opposite. Kerr (1994, p. 176) called gifted Native American girls “the most neglected minority” group in the educational system, pointing out their cultural beliefs often lead them to hide their intellectual abilities. The most prominent of these is a strongly-held belief in the communal nature of society in which focus on the individual, i.e., being smarter than one’s classmates violates powerful social mores (Kerr, 1994; Klug, 2004). Distinguishing oneself must be placed within the accepted cultural milieu of the community. “In order to encourage Pima girls to put themselves forward for a pageant featuring traditional and modern talents, it was necessary to stress the pride which the community would feel in the accomplishments of the young women” (Kerr, 1994, p. 177). The same values have been found among the Maori in New Zealand. In cultures such as these, identifying a gifted group may be more effective than identifying a gifted child.
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Social Class Bias For sometime now educators and counselors have recognized the discrimination gifted women of color experience based on both sexism and racism (Evans, 1996; Kerr, 1994; Kitano, 1998a,b). Being female and non-White are characteristics that are almost always evident on sight. Another prejudicial characteristic not as visible, and often not as recognized, is social class. Females who grow up in economically disadvantaged circumstances are frequently less prepared for the academic setting and teacher’s expectations. Children’s social class is based on their parents’ socioeconomic status (SES), which reflects their education, occupation, and level of income. Social class is a way of life that determines the neighborhood children grow up in, the schools they attend, and the workplace roles that are familiar to them. Socialization practices differ markedly by social class in part because parents’ values are influenced by their working conditions. Upper-middle-class parents, who exercise more autonomy on the job, encourage independence and selfdirection in their children. By contrast, working-class parents emphasize conformity and discipline because those are most often the keys to success in their jobs (Elkin & Handel, 1989). The observations of Annette Lareau and her research associates of middle-class, working-class, and poor families revealed that middle-class parents’ approach to childrearing resulted in a “transmission of differential advantages to their children” (2003, p. 5). This was most evident in institutional settings, such as the school, where children’s skills in reasoning and negotiating were highly valued. Middle-class children’s larger vocabulary, ability to express their opinions, and general “sense of entitlement” served them well in the classroom, while children of poor and working-class parents were constrained in their interactions within the school. This “sense of constraint” on the part of poor and working-class children was due in large part to the fact that their parents were not as comfortable in dealing with school officials, seldom criticized teachers, and were willing to go along with any decision these professionals made. For example, one young girl’s poor reading ability was allowed to go on for several years because her parents did not take a more aggressive role in identifying the problem. Despite the fact that all the parents in Lareau’s (2003) study were concerned about their children’s
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education, the strategies of middle-class parents, both African American and White, more closely matched the expectations of teachers and principals, who themselves were middle class. In an educational system heavily influenced by middle-class culture, children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are at a disadvantage, often lacking the confidence in interactions with professionals necessary to be effectual. An article highlighting recent trends in England reported . . .social class is the most reliable educational indicator, with children from higher socioeconomic groups consistently outperforming their less affluent peers. This issue is at its most acute in respect to the gifted and talented, with many gifted and talented pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds failing to achieve highly in the general education system. (Eyre & Geake, 2002, p. 20)
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ment, from self-deprecation to self-efficacy” (Cohen, 1998, p. 360). The key to success for many minority women has been use of one or more coping strategies ranging from acknowledging the negative elements and moving on to ignoring and reframing them (Kitano, 1998b). The following interview illustrates both the barriers and the coping strategies of one gifted female from a low-income background.
Case Study: A Personal Interview
Following a small group discussion of the effects of racism and sexism in society today, an African American doctoral candidate agreed to an interview (Miller Working-class families’ typical male-centered attitudes & Silverman, 2007). The questions used were adapted and gender-role stereotyping have an effect on the ca- from Kitano’s (1998a; 1998b) studies of gifted minorreer aspirations of gifted girls, encouraging them to ity females. stay within the bounds of feminine roles and female occupations. A gifted Latina woman in Kitano’s study 1. What personal characteristics did you display dur(1998a) describes her parents’ encouragement in the ing the school years that might have indicated your following way: high ability? I was always very mature for my age, I developed an extensive vocabulary quite rapidly, and I learned new tasks very quickly. My second-grade teacher is the person who decided that I should be tested for my school’s gifted program. I think that I remember Her teachers held similar expectations for her: “My the day she decided to do so. We had just received a teachers would say, ‘She’s really sweet and cooperamath worksheet that we were supposed to spend the tive.’ To me that [meant] I have achieved my maximum last hour of class working on and then take home potential. Nobody ever commented on my intelligence for homework. I finished within a few minutes and or potential for advancing” (p. 146). was sitting at my desk staring off into space. I don’t Effective female role models and successful menknow if she hadn’t noticed before that this is how tors are rarely available to gifted girls from low-income I usually completed my work, but I remember her families. The fortunate girl is the one who is able to walking by my desk and asking if I was done. I said, find a teacher who encourages her talent (Kastberg & “Yes,” and she just looked confused. She checked Miller, 1996). When girls pursue goals of their own, my answers and they were all right. A few days later they pay a price: I was told that I would be tested for gifted. It was constantly the tug of war between feeling like I 2. In what ways did major socialization agents— wasn’t being a good daughter because I had left home to family, community, school, peers—contribute to or go to college. My father didn’t want me to leave home. That became a very, very serious point of contention. My hinder you in reaching your goals? family did not support me financially or economically I think that being labeled as gifted early on confrom that point on. It still hurts me because they didn’t. tributed to my achievement because it was one force (Kitano, 1998a, p. 146) in my life that told me I was smart and I could In one study, the attitudes and beliefs of gifted minority accomplish great things if I wanted to when so and economically disadvantaged women, when given many other people either didn’t notice my abilithe opportunity to attend a prestigious college, were ties or doubted that they existed. I think the one described as going “from powerlessness to empowerthing that I truly learned from the gifted program . . .to them doing well was just passing everything because I was a girl. . .As long as I was passing, I was fine because I was a girl. When I was younger there wasn’t a whole lot expected of me except to be a good girl. (p. 146)
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(as the program itself wasn’t that great) is to look of criticism when we did poorly (my parents just for a challenge. Since things came to me pretty easdidn’t know what had gotten into me in middle ily, I wasn’t used to exerting effort to accomplish school). One time, in elementary school, I brought anything and I couldn’t see the value in doing so. home my report card and showed it to my father. He Throughout all of elementary and middle school looked at my grades and told me I wasn’t smart, I my teachers talked about challenges like they were was just a brown-noser. I didn’t know what a browngood things and they assumed I was looking for noser was, so I had to look it up in the dictionary. I them. At some point I internalized those values, was deeply hurt by my father’s lack of faith in me. and have frequently found myself pushing my limI never even spoke to my teachers at school—how its as an adult just to keep myself entertained and could I be a brown-noser? see what I can really do. 3. What roles were played by societal-institutional Just as much as being in the gifted program factors (e.g. social movements, racial or gender helped me achieve, I think it also hindered me. bias)? I was pulled out of class a couple times a week I think that one of the biggest reasons it took so which made me feel very different. Everyone knew long for my second grade teacher to notice me (and where I was going and I felt like a freak. Also, the fact that neither my kindergarten nor 1st grade most of the time we spent in gifted, we didn’t teachers before her ever noticed me at all) was that, really do anything important; we spent most of our no matter what I did, no one could fathom that a time drawing pictures and talking. I developed the little black girl could be that smart. When I got to opinion that the point was just to distract us for a college, I became very involved in working against few hours so we wouldn’t be quite so bored and act racism. While I was still frequently underestimated, up in class. We got back to class, caught up, and especially because of my gender, it didn’t take long were still bored. By the time I got to middle school, for me to emerge as a leader both on campus and I was so sick of feeling different that I intentionally off. I learned that I had a voice, and that if I spoke tried to do poorly in my classes (the funny thing up loud enough, people would listen. is, I still got A’s and B’s) because I thought that 4. What were the most difficult barriers you faced in everyone would think I was normal if I got grades reaching your goals? like they did. None of my gifted teachers ever tried Mostly economic hardship and cultural differto talk to us about how we felt being pulled aside ences. It is a very different world below the poverty for the program; they assumed that we thought as line, and I’ve had to learn to negotiate middle- to highly of ourselves as they did. upper-class culture through my contact with higher Some of my regular teachers were also not helpeducation. Someone I know compared it to immiful. My 6th grade history teacher was adamantly grating, and that’s exactly how I feel sometimes. opposed to the whole idea of having a gifted edu- 5. What strategies did you use to succeed? cation program—and he told us so. He didn’t think I can’t honestly say that I really had that many it was necessary and that we shouldn’t be treated strategies. After a year of trying to be dumb in midas though we were special. He would oftentimes dle school I decided to make more achievement orirefuse to let us leave his classroom if we happened ented friends so that I would feel more like I fit in. to have history at the same time we had gifted. I was heavily recruited by colleges throughout high Needless to say, his behavior didn’t make me feel school, so I just went to the one I thought I’d like the any better. best. When I got there I didn’t have the discipline to I’m sad to say, but I think another thing that got do the amount of work they expected us to do (esin my way had to do with my parents. Since my pecially in comparison to the rich kids who’d spent older brother is also highly intelligent (he was also their entire lives in prep school that I was graded tested for gifted but didn’t hit the 98th percentile— against). I didn’t actually do anything to change my given what he used to do as a child, I think his test situation though; I just kept trying to coast through was an underestimate) my parents didn’t think there school because it had always worked before. After was anything unusual about the things we could do. my first two years I decided to get serious, and then There were no rewards for doing well, but plenty my only strategy was to actually do my homework.
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I never really studied much for tests and would still say that I’m not the most disciplined person in the world when it comes to academic work. 6. How would you describe your social class background and its effect? As I mentioned previously, I grew up below the poverty line (add my race and my giftedness to that and you can see why difference was so painful for me). Although I still feel the effects of poverty, in that I do not have as much financial help as my classmates, I realize that my situation has changed and I am better described as middle class. This is weird for me because for the majority of my life and all of my formative years I have been a poor kid. No matter how much money or education I have, I will always be a poor kid in some ways. But I will also be middle class. People who have written about women of color in my situation say we live in the “borderlands.” It seems to fit my experience well. Issues of cultural identity (Kitano, 1998b) or identity confusion (Kastberg & Miller, 1996), evident in this case study, are common in the lives of gifted minority females and those from disadvantage. Most of the successful African American women studied by Kitano described themselves as “definitely ‘not assimilated’ but bicultural” (1998b, p. 278) with one foot in the culture of their heritage and the other in the world they inhabit as middle-class professionals. They considered their ability to go between the two cultures or to “live in a double world,” moving easily between diverse settings, as crucial to their success. Some gifted minority women also refer to themselves as “bilingual,” using their educated language to communicate with colleagues and their familiar dialect to maintain connections with family and friends (Kastberg & Miller, 1996). This duality of culture and language creates a complex inner struggle for some, including feelings of loss and identity confusion, but for others it represents a source of pride and accomplishment.
What Represents Success to Gifted Women? Subotnik, Kassan, Summers and Wasser (1993) studied graduates of Hunter College Elementary
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School, a co-educational school designed according to Hollingworth’s educational principles. These researchers seemed somewhat disappointed about the fact that none of these former students demonstrated stellar productivity in their adult lives. Instead, they chose happiness, which coincided with the family and school values that “celebrated social adjustment” and “discouraged obsessive attention to special talent or recognition” (p. 118). They raise the question of whether gifted education programs should support individual values of happiness, satisfaction, and fitting into society, which gears them toward moderate productivity, or should they urge students to transform the world. “True genius . . .is likely to be driven, compulsive, and never fully contented. We may be enriched at his or her expense” (p. 119). They saw each course as having merit and justification. Barbara Kerr (1994) expressed similar concern that her gifted classmates failed to fulfill their girlhood dreams, since they had adapted so well to women’s traditional roles. The eminent women she studied had very different values and life experiences; they were passionate about their life’s work and less socially adapted. These questions need to be grappled with if we are to understand the life goals of gifted females. Do most gifted girls want to change the world when they grow up? Or are they content to influence the lives of their children and their community, to educate themselves and work in their chosen fields in a way that serves the whole rather than calling attention to themselves? Constance Hollinger and Elyse Fleming (1992) studied 126 gifted and talented young women for 14 years before they began to wonder if they were asking the right questions. Did women define achievement or success in ways substantially different from men? They were inspired by Eccles (1987) and other scholars who asserted that the traditional definition of achievement is stereotypically masculine. “From a relational vantage point, the growth and maturing of a significant relationship may well rival in importance and value a promotion to a corporate vice-presidency” (Hollinger & Fleming, 1992 p. 208). They asked their participants, “What do you consider to be your three greatest achievements since you graduated from high school?” (p. 209). The responses of these gifted women led them to the following conclusions: Despite their accomplishments in traditional areas of achievement, these gifted young women, when defining their own achievements, also report personal
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and relational areas of achievement. . .. Their responses indeed validated the need for an expanded definition of achievement that includes not only educational, career and financial accomplishments but also accomplishments that fall within other personal and interpersonal life spheres. (p. 209)
Implications and Recommendations
and personal satisfaction, along with feelings of peace, happiness, and creativity with relation both to the arts and to family life. (p. 102)
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Willard White (1990) conducted a follow-up study of three of Hollingworth’s subjects—two women and one man—who scored above 180 IQ. He asked them what they considered to be their greatest achievements. The man referred to his mathematical theories and the two women replied, their children. All three had devoted some part of their lives to improving education. From these studies, it would seem that our definition of achievement for the gifted, particularly gifted women, is too narrow. All point to the necessity of broadening what we value as domains of achievement so as to include those emotional/relational spheres in which many gifted women choose to devote their energies. Women’s models of success include individual self-actualization, volunteerism, and community service (Arnold, Noble & Subotnik, 1996; Cohen, 1998). Did all the “great men” is history discover, invent, or create entirely on their own or were the paradigmatic shifts and discoveries actually the result of a team effort within a hierarchical social structure, so that only one man received the credit? Women seem to be comfortable and effective working collaboratively in a team effort rather than as isolated individuals. Some examples are the Stone Center’s self-in-relation theorists at Wellesley College (Jordan, Kaplan, Miller, Stiver & Surrey, 1991) and the group that produced Women’s Ways of Knowing (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger & Tarule, 1986). Group endeavors seem to acknowledge more fairly the process by which new ideas come into being, as well as meeting both relational and achievement needs. From this perspective, women would not be shut out of the highest regions of merit, nor would they have to choose between their need for relationships and their need to fulfill their creative potential.
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The conceptions of giftedness that inform gifted programs either help or hinder the identification and development of gifted girls. If gender equity and equitable access of culturally diverse and economically disCarole Harris (1992) reported similar findings in her advantaged students are goals of the program, then the longitudinal study of students who had been enrolled emphasis on achievement needs to be reconsidered in in Hollingworth’s experimental classes: favor of a child-centered approach, with attunement to diversity. The following key principles will assure a Most of the subjects in the Hollingworth group, about more inclusive program: 85%, also speak of achievement in terms of their children
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Collect information about developmental advancement in early childhood. Take parents’ perceptions of their children’s advanced abilities seriously. Identify gifted girls in preschool and primary grades. Use untimed tests, preferably standardized individually administered IQ tests. (See Chapter 48.) Provide opportunities for early entrance to school. Group gifted children for instruction, so that gifted girls do not feel constrained to hide their abilities. Keep track of distributions of gifted students by gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. When inequitable distributions are found, take active steps to correct the situation, such as staff development and conducting searches for hidden gifted students. Review textbooks for gender representation. Augment texts with other resources that provide feminine role models, particularly women of color. Provide counseling and support groups for gifted girls, where they feel safe discussing gender issues. Ban the words “bossy,” “overachiever,” and other sexist terms. Have strong sanctions against covert female bullying. “Existing rules should be amended to prohibit specific behaviors such as rumor spreading, alliance building, secret telling, and severe episodes of nonverbal aggression” (Simmons, 2002, p. 249). Create policies against sexism in school. Be alert to subtle forms of sexism.
The development of gifted girls begins in the family. Parent seminars can educate families regarding the early indicators of giftedness and effective ways to advocate for their daughters. Parents, as well as teachers, should hold high expectations for girls (Kitano, 1998a). It is wise to tell girls early in life that they are intelli-
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gent (Kerr, 1991) as it is easy for them to lose confidence in their abilities. Girls do not have to choose between social acceptance and achievement when they have the support of other girls like themselves. Whenever possible, group gifted girls together for instruction and provide opportunities for them to interact with other advanced students. When gifted girls learn early in life that they can master work they initially deem as “too hard,” they are more likely to take on more difficult tasks as they get older. Although they often underestimate their abilities, gifted girls are usually happiest when they are intellectually challenged (Kerr, 1991). It is essential that our brightest girls be guided into taking 4 years of mathematics in high school, as well as other rigorous courses: Few gifted girls are aware of the absolute importance of mathematics to their future goals. Frequently, gifted girls drop out of math and science courses for superficial reasons, not realizing that most college majors leading to high-level careers and professions require 4 years of high school preparation in math and science. (Kerr, 1991, p. 411)
Those girls who suffer from math phobia should be given tutoring to overcome their fear. Callahan (1991) asserts that there should be as many remedial mathematics teachers available to adolescent girls as there are remedial reading teachers available to young gifted boys. This requires recognizing that mathematics is as vital for girls as reading is for boys. Discrepancies in scores between males and females in college board exams are partially due to the fact that these tests are timed. Experiments in which girls take the tests untimed have greatly diminished the gender gap (Dreyden & Gallagher, 1989; Kelly-Benjamin, 1990). Sadker & Sadker (1994) recommend that scholarship opportunities be based as much on grades as on timed aptitude and achievement tests, since girls with high-grade point averages in mathematics but lower SAT-Math scores than boys demonstrated higher performance in college courses. College preparation, life planning, and career counseling are extremely helpful for gifted girls (Kitano, 1998a). Female role models and mentors need to be available to provide guidance and support to gifted girls in the pursuit of their goals (Reis, 2001). Introduce girls to role models of women who have chosen different life paths (Phelps, 1991) through classroom speakers, career days, biographical study, films, shadowing a professional for a day or so, internships,
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mentorships, and apprenticeships. Research with samesex schools internationally has demonstrated that they promote leadership and higher achievement in girls in high school and undergraduate school (Callahan, 1991; Granleese & Joseph, 1993; Kerr, 1991; Riordan, 1990; Sax, 2005; Schwartz, 1991).
Supporting Cultural and Economic Diversity Understanding and supporting gifted female students from diverse backgrounds, including students of color, those from economic disadvantage, and those with language difficulties, require attention to the broader social context and recognition of bias. Knowledge of the cultural values, beliefs, and practices of those who influence gifted females, such as parents, relatives, and community members is vital (Ford et al., 2004; Klug, 2004; Sethna, 2004). It is extremely difficult to recognize gifted girls when they are hesitant to raise their hand, speak in class, or admit they know the answer. The goal of educators should be to provide a climate in which girls can learn and grow and still feel comfortable in their family and neighborhood. Just as difficult as recognizing exceptional minority females is acknowledging the effect of prejudice on their performance, especially when it is subtle and practically invisible. Preventing the detrimental effects of discrimination on those at the intersection of gender, race, and social class is a challenge for all those in education today. The responsibility for alleviating underachievement is ours as educators; it starts with creating an environment free from prejudice where every girl’s talents are nourished. Dismantling gender and racial stereotypes benefits both females and males by allowing them to pursue their talents without the risk of violating powerful social norms. Stereotype threat, a response to negative stereotypes based on sex or race, has been shown to adversely affect a person’s everyday behavior and performance on verbal and mathematical tests (Lips, 2005). Eliminating this threat may encourage females to pursue math and science in grades 1–12 and to select college majors built on those skills, e.g., engineering, chemistry, and even physics. It may encourage minority women to pursue careers in fields where few, if any, role models exist.
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Sociologist William Corsaro (2005) recommends improved not-for-profit child care and more government supported early education programs in an attempt to improve the condition of poor children in the United States. “High-quality early education programs for three-to six-year-old children are widely available at low cost in Europe. France and Italy, for example, have developed excellent early childhood education programs for three- to six-year-olds with near universal attendance” (p. 290). An early start increases the likelihood minority girls and boys and those from lowincome and working-class families are on equal footing with those from middle-class families when they enter kindergarten. This is particularly important for bilingual children and those for whom little preparation for school has been available. Corsaro also recommends expanding America’s Head Start program from a half day to a full day and extending the program to cover many more of those who are eligible. Currently less than half (42%) are enrolled, due to lack of US government funding. This would provide the early exposure to learning skills economically disadvantaged minority children so desperately need. Social-class discrimination holds back many gifted females, and the necessity of addressing this issue is more evident today than ever. From early education programs, such as the compensatory Head Start program for underprivileged children (Corsaro, 2005) to those serving exceptional women from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, such as the Ada Comstock program at Smith College (Cohen, 1998), evidence exists that enriched educational opportunities for females are paying off. To end sexism, racism, and social class oppression in gifted education, we must break down the barriers to success too often experienced by underrated girls, female students of color, and those who are economically disadvantaged. Neutralizing gender stereotypes, by making them “less rigid and inclusive of fewer aspects of behavior,” has the potential to benefit women even more than men because power and status have been associated with qualities assigned to males (Lips, 2005, p. 51). Without the belief in stereotype behaviors that lead to submission, deferral, and rejection of some occupations altogether, women’s self-confidence and aspirations could rise to new heights and their goals surpass any previously imagined.
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Conclusion Our field draws its nourishment from Leta Hollingworth and all of the feminine energy that has been devoted to gifted children. It is not accidental that Hollingworth was passionate about the plight of gifted women and gifted children. “The Woman Question” is as much with us today as it was in 1926. Do we pour our considerable energies into developing our gifted children at the expense of ourselves or do we go for glory? If we are satisfied with doing our part for the good of the whole, then glory is not the goal. We can still make a difference in the world, even if no one remembers our names. Eminence is a man’s game. Driven by the competitive spirit, it is a gentleman’s war, with the victor gaining a permanent place in history. Predominantly white males set up the rules of the game, decide who can play, and decide who will win. Like all wars, it has winners and losers. Even Margaret Mead failed to get into Cradles of Eminence (V. Goertzel & M. Goertzel, 1962) because she did not have two biographies written about her at the time. Some women will find their way into the ranks of the eminent, but at what price? All of the longitudinal studies of the gifted have the same message. Terman and Oden (1959) found that their “Termites” defined success in adult life in terms of vocational satisfaction, a happy marriage and family life, helping others, and a well-adjusted personality. Sears and Barbee (1977) found that the women in Terman’s study at midlife (mean age 62 years) were generally happier if they had worked outside the home, but not necessarily in a noteworthy manner. Hollingworth’s students and children she studied above 180 IQ, as well as those found by other researchers, had relational goals and were deeply fulfilled being of service to others. The goals for the gifted are not fame and wealth: those are the goals of high achievers. Developmental differences, observable in early childhood, are reliable indicators of giftedness. They are culture-blind and gender-blind. Gifted children of every color, in every nation, in every culture, and in every social class, develop at a faster rate than their age peers. Their mental growth outstrips their physical abilities, and so they have uneven, asynchronous development. They tend to be highly sensitive. “It feels like I have no skin.” They feel the pain of others and want to be of service. Their awareness and moral sensitivity, derived from the marriage of cognitive
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complexity and emotional sensitivity, are not valued by society. These are not advantages in the race to fame. It is their vulnerability that requires accommodations, rather than their potential to contribute to society. Our role as educators is to enable all children to fulfill their potential, but we must remember that they must be allowed to define success in their own terms. Greater awareness is needed of the sexism in society and in school that robs gifted females of equal opportunities in education and employment. In gifted education, it is important to recognize the benefits to girls and children of diverse cultures to identify them early on individual IQ tests. The highest IQ scores in African American and White samples have been attained by gifted girls. This information needs to be taken seriously. Active commitment is needed in order for gender equity to become a priority. Policies eventually change the opportunities for gifted girls and women. “In Norway, the government was so embarrassed by the low representation of women on corporate boards (7.5%) that it ordered all public companies to appoint women to at least 40% of the all board positions by 2005 (Goldsmith, 2002)” (Lips, 2005, p. 463). Policies that recognize women’s dual roles as care givers and as workers are essential. On December 6, 2005, a joint statement on gender equity in higher education was issued by the presidents of nine major American research universities: CalTech, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, UC Berkeley, U. Michigan, U. Pennsylvania and Yale. They recognized that barriers still exist for women in science, engineering, and in academic fields throughout higher education. They pledged to change institutional policies, provide resources and to take significant steps toward enabling academic careers to be compatible with family care giving responsibilities (Jaschik, 2005). Newly elected Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, has pledged to bring issues of “care” to the forefront: health-care legislation, minimum-wage laws, and ethical standards for legislators. These policies make a difference. Each of us makes a difference with our lives, each of us contributes to the whole.
References AAUW Educational Foundation. (1992). The AAUW Report: How schools shortchange girls. Executive summary. Washington, DC: American Association of University Women Educational Foundation.
125 Albert, R. S. (1969). Genius: Present-day status of the concept and its implications for the study of creativity and giftedness. American Psychologist, 24, 743–752. Alomar, B. O. (2003). Parental involvement in the schooling of children. Gifted and Talented International, 18, 95–100. Arnold, K., Noble, K. D., & Subotnik, R. F. (1996). Perspectives on female talent development. In K. Arnold, K. D. Noble, & R. F. Subotnik (Eds.), Remarkable women: Perspectives on female talent development (pp. 1–19). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Begley, S. (1993, June 28). The puzzle of genius. Newsweek, 46–53. Belenky, M. F., Clinchy, B. M., Goldberger, N. R., & Tarule, J. M. (1986). Women’s ways of knowing: The development of self, voice and mind. New York: Basic Books. Bell, L. A. (1989). Something’s wrong here and it’s not me: Challenging the dilemmas that block girls’ success. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 12, 118–130. Bereiter, C. (1976–1977). IQ and elitism. Interchange, 7(3), 36– 44. Binet, A. (1909). Les idees modernes sur les enfants. Paris: Flammarion. Binet, A., et Simon, Th. (1905). Application des methods nouvelle au diagnostic du niveau intellectual chez des enfants normaux et anormaux d’hospice et d’ecole primaire. L’Annee Psychologique, 11, 191–244. Boring, E. G. (1950). A history of experimental psychology (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Borland, J. H. (1990). Leta Hollingworth’s contributions to the psychology and education of the gifted. Roeper Review, 12, 162–166. Buescher, T. M., Olszewski, P., & Higham, S. J. (1987, April). Influences on strategies gifted adolescents use to cope with their own recognized talents. Paper presented at the 1987 biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Baltimore, MD. Callahan, C. M. (1979). The gifted and talented woman. In A. H. Passow (Ed.), The gifted and the talented: Their education and development. The seventy-eighth yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part I (pp. 401– 423). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Callahan, C. M. (1991). An update on gifted females. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 14, 284–311. Carroll, J. B. (1993). Human cognitive abilities: A survey of factor-analytic studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Castellano, J. (2004). Empowering and serving Hispanic students in gifted education. In D. Boothe & J. C. Stanley (Eds.), Critical issues for diversity in gifted education (pp. 1–13). Waco, TX: Prufrock Press. Clark, B. (1983). Growing up gifted: Developing the potential of children at home and at school (2nd ed.). Columbus, OH: Charles E. Merrill. Cohen, R. M. (1998). Class consciousness and its consequences: The impact of an elite education on mature, working-class women. American Educational Research Journal, 35(3), 353–375. Colangelo, N., Assouline, S. G., Gross, M. U. M. (2004). A nation deceived: How schools hold back America’s brightest students. Vol. 1. Iowa City, IA: The Connie Belin & Jacqueline N. Blank International Center for Gifted
126 Education and Talent Development. [Available free online at http://nationdeceived.org] Columbus Group (1991, July). Unpublished transcript of the meeting of the Columbus Group. Columbus, OH. Cornell, D. G. (1983). Gifted children: The impact of positive labeling on the family system. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 53, 322–336. Corsaro, W. A. (2005). The sociology of childhood (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press. Cox, C. M. (1926). The early mental traits of three hundred geniuses. L. M. Terman (Series Ed.), Genetic studies of genius, Vol. 2. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Darwin, C. R. (1897). The descent of man and selection in relation to sex (Rev. ed.). New York: D. Appleton. Dreyden, J. I., & Gallagher, S. A. (1989). The effects of time and direction: Changes on the SAT performance of academically talented adolescents. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 12, 187–204. Eccles, J. S. (1987). Gender roles and women’s achievementrelated decisions. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 11, 135–171. Ehrlich, V. Z. (1978). The Astor program for gifted children: PreKindergarten through grade three. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University in cooperation with the Board of Education of the City of New York. Elkin, F., & Handel, G. (1989). The child and society: The process of socialization. New York: Random House. Evans, K. M. (1996). Counseling gifted women of color. In K. Arnold, K. D. Noble, & R. F. Subotnik (Eds.), Remarkable women: Perspectives on female talent development (pp. 1–19). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Eyre, D., & Geake, J. (2002). Trends in research into gifted and talented education in England. Gifted and Talented International, 17, 15–21. Farrell, J. A. (2007, January 7). Pelosi gets a life. The Denver Post, pp. E1, E3. Feldhusen, J. F. (1998). Identification and assessment of talented learners. In J. VanTassel-Baska (Ed.), Excellence in educating gifted and talented learners (3rd ed., pp. 193–210). Denver: Love. Feldhusen, J. F., Proctor, T. B., & Black, K. N. (2002). Guidelines for grade advancement of precocious children. Roeper Review, 24, 169–171. Feldman, D. H. (1984). A follow-up of subjects scoring above 180 IQ in Terman’s “Genetic Studies of Genius.” Exceptional Children, 50, 518–523. Feldman, D. H. (1992). Has there been a paradigm shift in gifted education? In N. Colangelo, S. G. Assouline, & D. L. Ambroson (Eds.), Talent development: Proceedings from the 1991 Henry B. and Jocelyn Wallace National Research Symposium on Talent Development (pp. 89–94). Unionville, NY: Trillium. Fennama, E. (1990). Teachers’ beliefs and gender differences in mathematics. In E. Fennama & G. Leder (Eds.), Mathematics and gender (pp. 169–187). New York: Teachers College Press. Ford, D. Y. (2001). Achieving equity and excellence: Recruiting and retaining minority students in gifted education. In N. Colangelo & S. G. Assouline (Eds.), Proceedings from the 1998 Henry B. and Jocelyn Wallace national research sym-
L.K. Silverman and N.B. Miller posium on talent development (pp. 27–39). Scottsdale, AZ: Great Potential Press. Ford, D. Y., Grantham, T. C., & Milner, H. R. (2004). Underachievement among gifted African American students: Cultural, social, and psychological considerations. In D. Boothe & J. C. Stanley (Eds.), Critical issues for diversity in gifted education (pp. 15–31). Waco, TX: Prufrock Press. Ford, D. Y., Harris, J. J., III, Tyson, C. A., & Frazier Trotman, M. (2002) Beyond deficit thinking: Providing access for gifted African American students. Roeper Review, 24, 52–58. Gagne, F. (1985). Giftedness and talent: Reexamining a reexamination of the definitions. Gifted Child Quarterly, 29, 103–112. Galton, F. (1869). Hereditary genius: An inquiry into its causes and consequences. London: Macmillan. Galton, F. (1907). Inquiries into human faculty and its development (2nd ed.). London: J. M. Dent & Sons. Gardner, H. G. (1983). Frames of mind: A theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books. Gilligan, C. (1989). Preface: Teaching Shakespeare’s sisters. In C. Gilligan, N. P. Lyons, & T. J. Hanmer (Eds.), Making connections: The relational worlds of adolescent girls at Emma Willard School (pp. 6–29). Troy, NY: Emma Willard School. Gilman, B. J. (2003). Empowering gifted minds: Educational advocacy that works. Denver: DeLeon. Goertzel, V., & Goertzel, M. G. (1962). Cradles of eminence. Boston: Little, Brown. Goertzel, T. G., & Hansen, A. (2004). Cradles of eminence: Childhoods of more than 700 famous men and women (2nd ed.). Scottsdale, AZ: Great Potential Press. Granleese, J. & Joseph, S. (1993). Self-perception profile of adolescent girls at a single-sex and a mixed-sex school. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 154, 525–530. Grant, B., & Piechowski, M. M. (1999). Theories and the good: Toward a child-centered gifted education. Gifted Child Quarterly, 43, 4–12. Hargreaves, R. (1981). Little Miss Bossy. Los Angeles, CA: Price Stern. Harris, C. R. (1992). The fruits of early intervention: The Hollingworth group today. Advanced Development, 4, 91–104. Ho, S. (2006, November 10). Women in world politics. Voice of America News. Retrieved January 20, 2007, from http://www.voanews.com/burmese/archive/200611/2006-11-10-voa3.cfm Hollinger, C. L., & Fleming, E. S. (1992). A longitudinal examination of life choices of gifted and talented young women. Gifted Child Quarterly, 36, 207–212. Hollingworth, L. S. (1913). The frequency of amentia as related to sex. Medical Record, 84, 753–756. Hollingworth, L. S. (1914). Variability as related to sex differences in achievement: A critique. The American Journal of Sociology, 22, 19–29. Hollingworth, L. S. (1926). Gifted children: Their nature and nurture. New York: Macmillan. Hollingworth, L. S. (1931). The child of very superior intelligence as a special problem in social adjustment. Mental Hygiene, 15(1), 1–16. Hollingworth, L. S. (1939). What we know about the early selection and training of leaders. Teachers College Record, 40, 575–592.
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Hollingworth, L. S. (1942). Children above 180 IQ StanfordBinet: Origin and development. Yonkers-on-Hudson, NY: World Book. Hooks, B. (2000). Feminism is for everybody. Cambridge, MA: South End Press. Jaschik, S. (2005, December 7). 9 University presidents issue statement on gender equity. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved January 25, 2007, from http://insidehighered.com/ news/2005/12/07/gender Jordan, J. V., Kaplan, A. G., Miller, J. B., Stiver, I. P., & Surrey, J. L. (1991). Women’s growth in connection. New York: Guilford Press. Kastberg, S. M., & Miller, D. G. (1996). Of blue collars and ivory towers: Women from blue-collar backgrounds in higher education. In K. Arnold, K. D. Noble, & R. F. Subotnik (Eds.), Remarkable women: Perspectives on female talent development (pp. 49–67). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Kearney, K., & LeBlanc, J. (1993). Forgotten pioneers in the study of gifted African-Americans. Roeper Review, 15, 192–199. Kelly–Benjamin, K. (1990, April). Performance differences on SAT math questions. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Boston. Kerr, B. A. (1991). Educating gifted girls. In N. Colangelo & G. A. Davis (Eds.), Handbook of gifted education (pp. 402– 415). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Kerr, B. A. (1994). Smart girls: A new psychology of girls, women and giftedness (Revised ed.). Scottsdale, AZ: Great Potential Press. Kitano, M. K. (1994/1995). Lessons from gifted women of color. The Journal of Secondary Education, 4(2), 176–187. Kitano, M. K. (1998a). Gifted Latina women. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 21, 131–159. Kitano, M. K. (1998b). Gifted African American women. Journal for the Education of The Gifted, 21, 254–287. Klein, A. G. (2002). A forgotten voice: A biography of Leta Stetter Hollingworth. Scottsdale, AZ: Great Potential Press. Klug, B. J. (2004). Children of the starry cope: Gifted and talented Native American students. In D. Boothe & J. C. Stanley (Eds.), Critical issues for diversity in gifted education (pp. 49–71). Waco, TX: Prufrock Press. Lareau, A. (2003). Unequal childhoods: Class, race, and family life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Lips, H. M. (2005). Sex and gender: An introduction (5th ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill. Louis, B., & Lewis, M. (1992). Parental beliefs about giftedness in young children and their relation to actual ability level. Gifted Child Quarterly, 36, 27–31. Lovecky, D. V. (2004). Different minds: Gifted children with AD/HD, Asperger Syndrome, and other learning deficits. London: Jessica Kinglsey. Lowie, R. H., & Hollingworth, L. S. (1916). Science and feminism. Scientific Monthly, 3, 277–284. Lutfig, R. L., & Nichols, M. L. (1990). Assessing the social status of gifted students by their age peers. Gifted Child Quarterly, 34, 111–115. The Mid-Atlantic Equity Center & The Network, Inc. (1993). Beyond Title IX: Gender equity issues in schools. Chevy Chase, MD: Authors. Retrieved January 22, 2007, from http://www.maec.org/beyond.html
127 Miller, N. B., & Silverman, L. K. (2007). [The minority experience: A case study.] Unpublished raw data. Denver, CO; Gifted Development Center. Montague, H., & Hollingworth, L. S. (1914). The comparative variability of the sexes at birth. The American Journal of Sociology, 20, 335–370. Munger, A. (1990). The parent’s role in counseling the gifted: The balance between home and school. In J. Van TasselBaska (Ed.), A practical guide to counseling the gifted in a school setting (2nd ed., pp. 57–65). Reston, VA: The Council for Exceptional Children. The National Association for Gifted Children Britain. Giftedness and high ability: Definitions of giftedness. Retrieved January 17, 2007, from http://www.nagcbritain.org.uk/giftedness/ definitions.html Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) (1993). National excellence: A case for developing America’s talent. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Olszewski-Kubilius, P. M., & Kulieke, M. J. (1989). Personality dimensions of gifted adolescents. In J. Van Tassel-Baska & P. Olszewski-Kubilius (Eds.), Patterns of influence on gifted learners: The home, the self, and the school (pp. 125–145). New York: Teachers College Press. Parrish, M. (2004). Urban poverty and homelessness as hidden demographic variables relevant to academic achievement. In D. Boothe & J. C. Stanley (Eds.), Critical issues for diversity in gifted education (pp. 203–211). Waco, TX: Prufrock Press. Peter, R., & Stern, W. (1922). Die auslese befahigter Volksschuler in Hamburg. Leipzig: Barth. Phelps, C. R. (1991). Identity formation in career development for gifted women. Roeper Review, 13, 140–141. Reis, S. M. (2001). External barriers experienced by gifted and talented girls and women. Gifted Child Today, 24(4), 26–35. Reis, S. M. (2002). Internal barriers, personal issues, and decisions faced by gifted and talented females. Gifted Child Today, 25(1), 14–28. Renzulli, J. S. (1978). What makes giftedness? Reexamining a definition. Phi Delta Kappan, 60, 180–184. Riordan, C. (1990). Girls and boys in school: Together or separate? New York: Teachers College Press. Robinson, N. M. (2004). Effects of academic acceleration on the social-emotional status of gifted students. In N. Colangelo, S. G. Assouline, & M. U. M. Gross (Eds.), A nation deceived: How schools hold back America’s brightest students. (Vol. 2, pp. 59–67). Iowa City, IA: The Connie Belin & Jacqueline N. Blank International Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development [Available free online at http://nationdeceived.org] Robinson, N. M. (2005). In defense of a psychometric approach to the definition of academic giftedness: A conservative view from a die-hard liberal. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (2nd ed., pp. 280–294). New York: Cambridge University Press. Robinson, N. M. (2008). The value of traditional assessments as approaches to identifying academically gifted students. In J. Van Tassel-Baska (Ed.), Alternative assessments with gifted and talented students (pp. 157–174). Waco, TX: Prufrock Press. Roedell, W. C. (1984). Vulnerabilities of highly gifted children. Roeper Review, 6, 127–130.
128 Roedell, W. C. (1989). Early development of gifted children. In J. Van Tassel-Baska & P. Olszewski-Kubilius (Eds.), Patterns of influence on gifted learners: The home, the self, and the school (pp. 13–28). New York: Teachers College Press. Roeper, A. (1982). How the gifted cope with their emotions. Roeper Review, 5(2), 21–24. Roeper, A. (1990). Educating children for life: The modern learning community. Monroe, NY: Trillium Press. Roeper, A. (1996). A personal statement of philosophy of George and Annemarie Roeper. Roeper Review, 19, 18–19. Roeper, A. (2004). My life experiences with children: Selected writing and speeches. Denver: DeLeon. Roeper, A. (2007). The “I” of the beholder: A guided journey to the essence of the child. Scottsdale, AZ: Great Potential Press. Rogers, M. T. (1986). A comparative study of developmental traits of gifted and average children. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Denver, Denver, CO. Sadker, M., & Sadker, D. (1994). Failing at fairness: How America’s schools cheat girls. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Sax, L. (2005). Why gender matters: What parents and teachers need to know about the emerging science of sex differences. New York: Doubleday. Schwartz, L. L. (1991). Guiding gifted girls. In R. M. Milgram (Ed.), Counseling gifted and talented children: A guide for teachers, counselors and parents (pp. 143–160). Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Sears, P. S., & Barbee, A. H. (1977). Career and life satisfactions among Terman’s gifted women. In J.C. Stanley, W.C. George, & C.H. Solano (Eds.), The gifted and the creative: A fifty-year perspective (pp. 28–65). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Sethna, B. N. (2004). An unconventional view of gifted children of Indian descent in the United States. In D. Boothe & J. C. Stanley (Eds.), Critical issues for diversity in gifted education (pp. 101–117). Waco, TX: Prufrock Press. Shell, E. R. (2005, October). Frontiers of science: Sex. Discover. pp. 42–43. Silverman, L. K. (1986). What happens to the gifted girl? In C. J. Maker (Ed.), Critical issues in gifted education, Vol. 1: Defensible programs for the gifted (pp. 43–89). Austin, TX: ProEd. Silverman, L. K. (1993a). The gifted individual. In L. K. Silverman (Ed.), Counseling the gifted & talented (pp. 3–28). Denver: Love. Silverman, L. K. (1993b). Social development, leadership, and gender issues. In L. K. Silverman (Ed.), Counseling the gifted & talented (pp. 291–327). Denver: Love. Silverman, L. K. (1995). To be gifted or feminine: The forced choice of adolescence. The Journal of Secondary Gifted Education, 6, 141–156. Silverman, L. K. (2007). [The percentage of female Nobel Laureates.] Unpublished raw data compiled from The No-
L.K. Silverman and N.B. Miller bel Foundation website, http://nobelprize.org/ and Female Nobel Prize Laureates listed on The Nobel Prize Internet Archive, http://almaz.com/nobel.html. Retrieved January 20, 2007. Simmons, R. (2002). Odd girl out: The hidden culture of aggression in girls. Orlando, FL: Harcourt. Snyderman, M., & Rothman, S. (1988). The IQ controversy, the media and public policy. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. Sternberg, R. J. (1985). Beyond IQ: A triarchic theory of human intelligence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Subotnik, R., Kassan, L., Summers, E., & Wasser, A. (1993). Genius revisited: High IQ children grown up. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Tannenbaum, A. J. (1983). Gifted children: Psychological and educational perspectives. New York: Macmillan. Terman, L. M. (1916a). The measurement of intelligence. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Terman, L. M., (1916b). The Stanford revision of the Binet-Simon tests. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Terman, L. M. (1917). The intelligent quotient of Francis Galton in childhood. American Journal of Psychology, 28, 209–215. Terman, L. M. (1921). In E. L. Thorndike, et al. Intelligence and its measurement: A symposium. Journal of Educational Psychology, 12, 127–133. Terman, L. M. (1925). Genetic studies of genius, Vol. 1: Mental and physical traits of a thousand gifted children. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Terman, L. M., & Oden, M. H. (1959). Genetic studies of genius: Vol. 5. The gifted group at mid-life. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Thorne, Y. M. (1995). Achievement motivation in high achieving Latina women. Roeper Review, 18(1), 44–48. Thorndike, E. L. (1906). Sex in education. The Bookman, 23, 211–214. Thorndike, E. L. (1910). Educational psychology (2nd ed.). New York: Teachers College, Columbia University. Treffinger, D. J., & Feldhusen, J. F. (1996). Talent recognition and development: Successor to gifted education. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 19, 181–193. Wallenchinsky, D. (2007, January 14). Is American still no. 1? Parade, 4–5. Weininger, O. (1910). Sex and character. London: Wm. Heinemann & Sons. (English translation from the sixth German edition.) White, W. L. (1990). Interviews with Child I, Child J, and Child L. Roeper Review, 12, 222–227. Whitmore, J. R. (1980). Giftedness, conflict, and underachievement. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Winner, E. (1996). Gifted children: Myths and realities. New York: Basic Books. Witty, P. (1940). Contributions to the IQ controversy from the study of superior deviates. School & Society, 51, 503–508.
Chapter 6
An Expert Performance Approach to the Study of Giftedness K. Anders Ericsson, Kiruthiga Nandagopal and Roy W. Roring
Abstract Ever since the publication of Galton’s seminal book, Hereditary Genius (1869/1979), researchers and the general public have assumed that individuals need to be endowed with inherited gifts to attain elite levels of performance. This chapter describes the surprising lack of firm objective evidence for this assumption. We review a variety of findings that support the important role of extended training, such as structural changes and adaptations of the mechanisms that mediate increasing levels of performance and how these changes result from years and decades of daily deliberate practice. We also detail a new alternative approach toward the study of giftedness, namely the expert performance approach, and how it is able to explain the findings from studies of reproducibly superior performance. The proposed framework can also account for how perceived “giftedness” is often a selffulfilling prophecy, as it often provides “gifted” children with better motivational support and access to superior training resources, resulting in the superior development of performance.
achievements at public competitions, their performance often looks extremely natural and surprisingly effortless. To the casual observer, these exhibitions appear so extraordinary that it is difficult to imagine how other “normal” individuals would ever be capable of achieving similar performance levels. It is tempting to view exceptional achievements as reflecting some unique innate talent of these performers. Indeed, stable individual differences in some cognitive abilities and physical characteristics as measured in basic laboratory settings suggest that some individuals might have inborn capacities or innate gifts required for high levels of domain performance. Suppose modern researchers are faced with one of these individuals displaying amazing achievements. There are multiple possible approaches for determining the possible causes and mediating factors, but many scientists would agree that one logical first step would be to see whether the performers could reproduce their exceptional performance in a controlled laboratory setting. If after repeated attempts the superior performance cannot be reproduced, Keywords Deliberate practice · Expertise · Skill ac- then nothing can be subsequently investigated and quisition · Physiological adaptation exceptional mem- explained. On the other hand if it is reproducible, then further investigations can attempt to identify the source ory · Self-fulfilling prophesy of the reproducibly superior performance. Plausible hypotheses on how this task might be accomplished would be tested by observing and measuring behavior Introduction during the performance under different manipulations. Once models of the individuals’ performance When exceptional individuals such as ice skaters, are understood and supported, the researcher will chess players, and musicians demonstrate outstanding attempt to determine their developmental trajectory. For instance, how was the exceptional individual able to develop their performance? Is it possible K.A. Ericsson (B) for new unskilled individuals to acquire this type of Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA e-mail:
[email protected] performance through instruction, training, and practice L.V. Shavinina (ed.), International Handbook on Giftedness, c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-6162-2 6,
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so that they can ultimately reproduce the superior performance? This approach is, in a nutshell, the essence of the expert performance framework as set forth by Ericsson & Smith (1991). There are essentially three steps. First, the superior performance must be reproduced in a laboratory setting. Second, the performance can then be experimentally investigated and the mediating mechanisms described. Finally, the third step seeks an understanding of how these mechanisms are developed over time. Thus, our approach is dedicated to the study of superior reproducible performance. We accept that many of the individuals that giftedness researchers would identify as being “gifted” do demonstrate superior reproducible performance (e.g., GPA), but we do not use the term “giftedness” for two main reasons. First, the term “giftedness” is often used to indicate innate, genetic endowments or advantages. As we will discuss in a subsequent section, while we accept the possibility of genetic endowments, to date we have yet to uncover any firm evidence of their existence. Second, the term “giftedness” is often used to imply a potential for superior performance, even (according to several giftedness researchers) prior to or in the absence of actual accomplishment. Indeed, in a later section of this chapter we will discuss how efforts to identify talented individuals who succeed as adults have been surprisingly unsuccessful and how mere perceptions of talent, whether based on an objective advantage or not, may actually facilitate the development of future superior performance. In this chapter, we outline how our approach might be applied by giftedness researchers and how our focus on reproducible evidence contrasts with anecdotal or subjectively assessed accounts of performance. We begin by discussing the origins of the science of high level of performance often described as requiring gifts and innate capacities. Next, we present the expert performance approach, describe how it restricts the acceptable evidence and focuses on investigations of reproducibly superior performance. We then take issue with the evidence for immutable limits on performance and present several relevant findings. We present evidence that deliberate practice is necessary for achieving the physiological and cognitive transformations required for the observed high levels of performance. We then explain how the expert performance approach can be used to provide causal accounts for the development of superior performance, describing relevant examples
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from empirical investigations of various domains of expertise, such as chess, music, and sports, to illustrate our framework. Finally, we discuss how perceptions of giftedness and talent can be explained by our findings and present our conclusions. In describing our approach and discussing relevant empirical findings, we hope to encourage scientists dedicated to the investigation of the development of superior performance to adopt a common framework whereby evidence can be integrated into our current understanding of human potential.
Galton’s Traditional Account of Giftedness and Natural Ability Much of the earliest work on understanding elite achievement can be traced back to Galton’s (1869/1979) seminal book Hereditary Genius (Ericsson & Charness, 1994; Ericsson, Krampe, & Heizmann, 1993; Simonton, 1999). Galton argued that, akin to attributes such as height, intellectual capacities are hereditary and immutable: “Now, if this be the case with stature, then it will be true as regards every other physical feature—as circumference of head, size of brain, weight of grey matter, number of brain fibres, &c.[sic]; and thence, a step on which no physiologist will hesitate, as regards mental capacity” (Galton, pp. 31–32, italics added). According to Galton, whether an individual can become an eminent scientist, artist, or world-class performer is determined by this mental capacity, which cannot be improved through training or practice. Galton (1869/1979) argued that improvements in domain performance are rapid only in the beginning of training with subsequent diminishing returns in performance gains due to practice, until “maximal performance becomes a rigidly determinate quantity” (p. 15), representing an immutable limit on performance, “where he cannot by any education or exertion overpass” (p. 15). Galton’s argument for inherited immutable limits of performance has influenced generations of psychologists. Reviewing Galton’s work, Jensen (2002) states that “Overall, Galton’s paradigm, with its roots in evolutionary theory, genetics, and physiology, has proved essentially sound” (p. 167). Detterman & Ruthsatz (2001) argue, “In situations where practice, instruction, or intervention is applied, the most
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important determinant of a person’s final position in a distribution will be their position in that distribution before practice, instruction or intervention” (p. 135, italics added). Innate talents have even been proposed as arising from multiplicative rather than additive genetic effects (Simonton, 1999): “[A]lthough superior performance in games, sports, science, and the arts is often ascribed to talent, the hypothesized phenomenon may not be fully understood unless it is conceived as a multidimensional and multiplicative developmental process” (Simonton, 1999, p. 435) and that “[o]nly in the case of monozygotic twins, who inherit identical epigenetic programs, would one ever predict equivalent developmental trajectories in the emergence of a given talent” (Simonton, 1999, p. 445). As we discuss later in this chapter, we do not argue against the fact that genes play a critical role in determining the development of adaptations which support elite performance. Also, we do not question that some individuals are born with genetic mutations which lead to diseases and medical problems. Our concerns are directed against the strong belief among many modern researchers that individual differences in genetic endowments among healthy children lead to superior innate characteristics which are necessary to reach final levels of performance. As we describe in the section below, much of the “evidence” cited in support of innate abilities derives from anecdotes that cannot be independently verified and thus are not suitable as a scientific empirical basis.
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is difficult, however, to draw conclusions from these anecdotes for several reasons. First, many of these anecdotes cannot be independently verified. Several amazing childhood stories are told about the profoundly accomplished mathematician and scientist, Carl Friedrich Gauss, such as his amazing precocity with numbers and his ability to correct his father’s tax calculations as a toddler. These stories, however, were later revealed to be largely told by Gauss himself in his old age, and more recent biographies do not even include these anecdotes. (e.g., B¨uhler, 1981). Furthermore, the “early signs” described in some stories may not reliably predict future performance. For example, Yehudi Menuhin’s “response to violins in concert” (Scheinfeld, 1939, p. 239) may have been essentially forgotten if he had not become an expert violinist. This is suggested by researchers who point out that these and other related types of musical “talent” are often reported among all children at this age, and the age of first appearance or frequency is unrelated to subsequent music performance (Howe, Davidson, Moore, & Sloboda, 1995). We agree that it is difficult, especially after actually witnessing extremely precocious children, to explain how a young child can accomplish feats which even some adults find difficult. Yet, several reviews reveal that these abilities do not appear suddenly, but rather, gradually over time (Treffert, 1989; Howe et al., 1998). Indeed, these children usually start rigorous training at very early ages, sometimes as early as 3 or 4 (Ericsson et al., 1993), and spend a lot of time engaged in practice (Winner, 1996; Hyllegard, 2000). If Garett was able to read at 18 months, it is likely that his parental support Anecdotal Accounts for Early Talent and his early environment was different than that of most children; moreover, we cannot assume that Garett We have all heard stories about the remarkable is innately talented without examining his developmenachievements of precocious children or perhaps even tal history—the fact that he is young and he is reading seen these amazing performances with our own eyes. is not enough. Additionally, many early accomplishments that Giftedness researchers often cite stories as evidence can be independently verified do not guarantee futhat such performance indicates the existence of innate ture success. Many prodigies do not live up to their talent. For instance, Feldman (1986) describes many expectations by the time they reach adulthood (Goldprodigies in his work, such as Mac Randall, a young smith, 2000). Indeed, it is quite common for prodigies playwright by age 4. Von K´arolyi & Winner (2005) cite examples such as “Garett, who read at 18 months” to face “mid-life” crises in adolescence and stop prac(p. 378) and “Amy, who did algebra for fun at age ticing, as the performance levels appearing impressive 4” (p. 378). Historical accounts also exist of many as children are no longer impressive at older ages prominent individuals who were considered extremely (Bamberger, 1982). Without the continued attempts precocious as children, such as Mozart and Picasso. It to improve, many of these early prodigies fall by the
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wayside. Furthermore, several accomplished individuals do not show signs of talent or gifts at very young ages (Howe, Davidson, Moore, & Sloboda, 1995; Howe et al., 1998). Perhaps even more importantly, an objective metric of performance is necessary to ensure that the performances of supposedly gifted individuals are in fact reliably superior. In the next section, we discuss reliable, scientific methods identifying and examining superior performance according to the expert performance approach.
The Expert Performance Approach to Capturing Superior, Reproducible Performance Given the difficulties with anecdotal evidence, how are scientists to build a sound empirical basis for a cumulative science? As discussed above, the first step toward understanding expert performance in any domain is reproducing the reliably superior performance under controlled conditions (Ericsson & Smith, 1991). In order to achieve this, individuals nominated as experts must be able to demonstrate superior performance. Several investigations and reviews have demonstrated that this can be potentially problematic as experts are often nominated according to prestige or length of experience (for a review, see Ericsson & Lehmann, 1996). When given representative tasks in the laboratory, these individuals are often unable to outperform intermediates or even novices. For example, Dawes (1994) found that highly experienced psychotherapists were not more successful than untrained novices at treating patients. Similarly, reviews of decision making have revealed that advice given by expert stock analysts and financial forecasters are often not superior to that given by novices (Camerer & Johnson, 1991; Shanteau & Stewart, 1992). For some domains, such as music and the arts, it appears difficult to identify true experts as performance is often judged on the basis of technical and artistic proficiency and can be greatly influenced by subjective factors, such as the reputation or even the appearance of the performer (Gabrielsson, 1999, Findley & Ste-Marie, 2004). However, recent reviews and investigations have demonstrated that, with careful planning, it is possible to eliminate potential bias factors and objectively judge performance in these domains (Goldin & Rouse, 2000). These and sim-
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ilar findings illustrate how individuals who have more experience or superior reputations do not necessarily demonstrate higher levels of skill at representative tasks. Several researchers have also discussed difficulties associated with the identification of gifted students (Gagn´e, 1991; Feldhusen & Jarwan, 1993; Pfeiffer, 2003; for a review, see Shavinina & Kholodnaja, 1996). Similar to other domains in which experts are nominated by peers or selected according to length of experience, gifted students are often identified through teacher nomination or GPA (Kammer, 1984; for a review, see Konstantopoulous, Modi, & Hedges, 2001), SAT scores (Stanley, Keating, Fox, 1974; Jarosewich & Stocking, 2003) or IQ scores (Hollingworth, 1942; Gottfried, Gottfried, Bathurst, & Guerin, 1994) rather than their actual, most recent academic performances. Indeed, one national concern is that many gifted students (identified by the methods discussed) are “underachievers,” failing to perform according to academic standards expected of them (i.e., top 3–5% as compared to other students, according to the U.S. Commissioner of Education (1972)). For example, Johnson (1981) reported that 45% of gifted students in Iowa had GPAs lower than a C. The question arises: Are these students gifted in the first place? If so, which metric is superior when different criteria often select different individuals? In some domains, superior performance is more easily assessed than in others. In sports, for example, standardized situations have long been designed to compare athletic individual performances, such as timing the 100-yard dash. Similarly, in competitive sports and games such as chess, one competitor usually outperforms another and players can thereby be ranked according to a rating system (e.g., the Elo system). In other domains, especially professional domains such as medicine, financial forecasting, and academic domains, it is difficult to separate experts from individuals with the reputation of being an expert. Recent reviews, however, have demonstrated that even in these domains it is possible to design representative laboratory tasks in order to reliably separate experts from intermediates and novices. These reviews have been published in domains such as medicine (Ericsson, 2004), nursing (Ericsson, Whyte, & Ward, 2007), and gifted education (Cross & Coleman, 2005). In sum, according to the expert performance approach the first step toward understanding superior per-
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formance is to reproduce this behavior reliably under controlled laboratory conditions. This is more difficult to accomplish in some domains than others, especially domains in which the judgment of performance can be influenced by subjective factors or domains where it is unclear which tasks capture the true essence of expertise. However, recent investigations from the expert performance approach have carefully designed manipulations that enable the objective measurement and evaluation of performance and, ultimately, the separation of experts from novices and intermediates. Once reliably superior performance has been captured, it must be examined and its development must be explained. As discussed above, many accounts cite innate, heritable limits as the source of superior performance. In the next section, we review findings from the expert performance approach that challenge the notions of innate, heritable limits to performance.
timate levels of achievement exist and that these capacities are hereditary. However, recent research has revealed several empirical findings demonstrating that these assumptions are questionable.
Fig. 6.1 Expert performance increases as a function of age. An illustration of the gradual increases in expert performance as a function of age, in such domains as chess. The international
level, which is attained after more than around 10 years of involvement in the domain, is indicated by the horizontal dashed line (Ericsson & Lehmann, 1999)
Improvements in Performance Long After Physical Maturity
Mental and physical capacities increase throughout development: adults outperform children on most tasks, and the most elite individuals in domains perform at higher levels as adults than as children. This fits well with Galton’s arguments, as such capacity increases during maturation tend to coincide with increases in domain performance during these years. Given that innate capacities should correspond to performance level, it would be natural, based on this reasoning, to assume that once maturity is reached and these capacities stop increasing further increases in performance would be minimal. However, the empirical evidence Recent Evidence Questioning Galton’s on peak ages of elite performers tells a very different Assumptions of Immutable Limits story—in virtually all domains of expertise, the age of peak performance falls well above the late teens (the Galton’s (1869/1979) argument makes at least two ba- age of maturation in industrialized countries). As illussic claims, namely that capacities constraining the ul- trated in Fig. 6.1, experts’ best performance is often
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reached decades later; for performers in many vigorous sports, peak age is the mid- to late 20s, and for the arts and science, it is a decade later, in the 30s and 40s (see Lehmann, 1953, and Simonton, 1997, for reviews). For instance, in the intellectual sport of chess recent analyses indicate that experts may continue to improve until their mid-40s, and there are examples of individuals who improve even after that age (Roring & Charness, submitted). These findings demonstrate that improvement in a domain is not restricted to increases in mental or physical capacities due to developmental maturation because levels of performance develop for a few decades after adulthood is attained. Alternatively, the notion of a mental capacity constraining the final levels of achievement might be characterized as a difference in the capacity to acquire domain skills at a particular rate. An innate rate of learning is one potential type of capacity that might still allow for these high ages of peak performance. Many researchers point to the finding that some individuals learn much faster than others as evidence of such capacities. For example, Simonton (2005) claims that perspectives similar to ours “run into numerous empirical and theoretical problems” (p. 318), arguing that “the extreme environmentalist position fails to account for the exceptional rates at which highly gifted individuals can acquire mastery of a chosen domain” (p. 318). However, different rates of improvement can be explained by differences in the quality of practice. In fact, in domains of science, the arts, and athletics, interviews with top performers reveal that these individual engaged in qualitatively different forms of training and have unique environmental conditions different than for most other individuals. From the retrospective interviews of mathematicians, neurologists, tennis players, swimmers, pianists, and sculptors, Bloom (1985) highlights the importance of having early access to the best training resources and to the best teachers for reaching the highest levels. Parents of the future elite performers pay for expensive teachers and equipment and devote large amounts of time escorting their child to training and to competitions, even relocating the family to the training facilities in some cases! Perhaps one of the most compelling observations supporting the importance of extended practice in expertise acquisition is that even those who might be the most “talented” need around a decade of intense involvement before they reach an international level, and
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for most individuals it takes considerably longer. Simon & Chase (1973) originally proposed the 10-year rule for chess, and later reviews extended the 10-year rule to music composition, sports, science, and arts (Ericsson et al., 1993). Rather than engage in sustained deliberate practice for decades, most individuals never maintain the serious commitment to performance improvement for more than a few months and, thus, will not attain the upper limit of their performance.
Heritable Achievement and Historical Improvements in Performance The second of Galton’s assumptions cites heredity as the source of individual differences in elite achievement. In modern terms, this equates to stating that fixed capacities are transmitted genetically; however, with the exception of identical twins, no two people are genetically equivalent. Thus, it is quite difficult, if not impossible, to investigate what happens when genetically identical individuals engage in similar training and to then examine whether they each repeatedly reach a fixed upper limit on their performance. The problem is compounded by the conspicuous absence of twins (identical or fraternal) who have attained high levels of skill (Bouchard & Lykken, 1999). This striking under-representation of twins and of adopted individuals among the elite precludes the estimation of heritability of eminent achievement (Ericsson, 2007a,b). However, Klissouras et al. (2001) discovered at least one case of identical twins where both engaged in extended practice in the same domain but reached quite different levels of performance. Such findings weaken the idea of a genetically based fixed upper limit (Ericsson, 2007b). While scientists have not found large numbers of identical expert twins, another approach is to examine the most elite achievers in populations where the pool of genes is comparable. Since it takes thousands of years for evolutionary improvements in the genetic structure of human populations to occur (in part due to the fact that producing even a handful of filial generations requires over a century), historic comparisons between recent cohorts provide a method of comparing genetically comparable groups. The surprising finding is that even within the last century, dramatic improvements have occurred at the highest levels of
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performance. In some sports, such as the marathon and swimming events, many serious amateurs of today could easily beat the gold medal winners of the early Olympics (Schulz & Curnow, 1988). For example, after the IV Olympic Games in 1908, officials almost prohibited the double somersault in dives, arguing that these dives were too dangerous and that no human could ever master them. Modern elite divers regularly complete triple somersault dives. In music, many pieces that are quite commonly performed by experts were considered impossible to play in the 19th century (Lehmann & Ericsson, 1998). Even in the cognitive domain of chess expertise, modern professional players make far fewer errors in chess games than the earlier world champions from the 19th century, and the difference in skill between the world champion of the 1990s and the champion from the 1890s is estimated as around 3–4 standard deviations (Roring & Ericsson, submitted)! Hence, two populations with similar gene pools have the potential to produce very different levels of elite achievement, which is not easily explained by Galton’s genetic account.
Evidence of Innate Limits: Distinguishing the Automatization of Everyday Skills from the Acquisition of Expert Performance According to Galton (1869/1979), innate limits exist such that after an individual starts out in a domain, performance can only improve up to a certain point. Eventually, the rate of improvement diminishes and each individual will reach an impasse, beyond which “. . .he cannot by any education or exertion overpass” (p. 15). In other words, only those with the appropriate genetic endowment will reach the upper echelons of performance—others will achieve various lower cut-off points according to their own genetic endowments. In our extensive reviews, however, we have been able to find very little empirical evidence of such performance limits. In fact, the only unmodifiable heritable factors we were able to uncover were height and body size (the only attributes that Galton specifically referred to in his arguments). The expert performance approach restricts itself to the examination of domains in which the acquisition of reproducibly superior performance is evident—in other words, domains
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where there are measurable distinctions between experts, novices, and intermediates. We would argue that for everyday skills it is true many individuals reach plateaus, once acceptable levels of performance are quickly attained. In contrast, expert performance involves the continuous improvement of performance through the enhancements of mental representations and physical structures, without settling for a merely acceptable performance level. Traditional theories of skill acquisition (e.g., Fitts & Posner, 1967) support the notion that individuals eventually reach stable asymptotes of performance for everyday activities, such as casual golf, driving a car, using new computer software, and other common skills. As illustrated in the lower arm of Fig. 6.2, when introduced to a new domain individuals initially need to exert effort and concentration in order to reach acceptable levels of performance. Once these levels have been attained and gross mistakes become increasingly rare, the need for effortful concentration is minimized. At this point, performance is automated—individuals no longer need to make intentional adjustments. Our reviews have revealed that mere engagement in domain-related activities is insufficient to ensure performance improvements (Ericsson & Lehmann, 1996; Ericsson, 2004). As discussed above, individuals with the most experience in a given domain are often unable to outperform intermediates or even novices. Furthermore, there are examples of some abilities, such as the diagnosis of heart sounds and x-rays by general physicians (Ericsson, 2004) and auditor evaluations (B´edard & Chi, 1993) that decrease systematically in accuracy with the length of professional experience after the end of formal training. If, however, further improvements are to be made, the individual must exert additional effort and concentration. In the next section we will discuss how individuals are able to seek out particular training activities that allow them to continue to improve and avoid performance asymptotes. In sum, although for some individuals performance appears to reach an asymptote, there is no current evidence that these individuals are unable to improve. Thus, the impetus for current research investigating the possible origins of individual differences should be to understand the motivational factors that lead a small number of individuals to maintain effortful pursuit of their best performance throughout their productive career.
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Fig. 6.2 The course of improvement of expert performance versus everyday activities. An illustration of the qualitative difference between the course of improvement of expert performance and of everyday activities. The goal for everyday activities is to reach as rapidly as possible a satisfactory level that is stable and “autonomous.” After individuals pass through the “cognitive” and “associative” phases they can generate their performance virtually automatically with a minimal amount of effort (see the gray/white plateau at the bottom of the graph). In contrast, expert performers counteract automaticity by developing increasingly
complex mental representations to attain higher levels of control of their performance and will therefore remain within the “cognitive” and “associative” phases. Some experts will, at some point in their careers, give up their commitment to seeking excellence and, thus, terminate regular engagement in deliberate practice to further improve performance which results in premature automation of their performance (Adapted from “The scientific study of expert levels of performance: General implications for optimal learning and creativity,” Ericsson, 1998b, p. 90.)
The Expert Performance Approach: The Acquired Mechanisms and Their Development
engaged in these activities during the development of their performance.
In the beginning of this chapter we described how the expert performance approach involves a search for reproducibly superior performance, which it then attempts to capture with standardized tests in the laboratory in order to assess the mechanisms that mediate expert performance and their development (Ericsson & Smith, 1991). In the preceding section we also reviewed evidence against the existence of innately determined constraints that limit the acquisition of exceptional and expert performance by healthy individuals. In this section we will review some of the mechanisms that have been found to mediate exceptional and expert performance in more traditional domains of high ability, such as chess, sports, arts and sciences, and professional domains. We will show that their domain-specific characteristics strongly imply their acquired nature. More importantly, we will also review the evidence that certain types of practice activities can explain the acquisition of these mechanisms by identifying the degree to which performers were
Identifying the Mechanisms That Mediate Expert Levels of Performance The expert performance approach uses a method of studying experts’ performance that differs from the traditional approaches which search for correlations with psychometric measures of intelligence and other types of general abilities. This approach focuses directly on the analysis of the captured superior performance. It attempts to reproduce experts’ superior performance on representative tasks in order to identify the specific anatomical, physiological, and cognitive mechanisms that are responsible for the experts’ performance advantage over less-skilled individuals on these particular types of tasks. It traces concurrent cognitive processes in order to identify intermediate processes that make the expert performance superior to that of less-accomplished performers. Once the processes are isolated, investigators design experimental tests that evaluate the causal role of the mechanisms which are
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proposed to account for the observed differences in performance. Cognitive psychology has developed a wide range of methods for tracing the processes involved in expert performance using analysis of latency components, eye fixations, and concurrent and retrospective verbal reports (see Ericsson & Oliver, 1988). The overall time to complete a task can be broken down into component processes with different functions. For example, research on expert performers has shown how these individuals are engaged in more complex encoding processes to encode relevant information in long-term memory (Ericsson & Charness, 1995). Studies of experts on memorizing lists of digits show that they segment the lists into groups of digits which are encoded meaningfully and then associated with retrieval cues and other encoded digit groups in the list. Experiments show that with practice these processes can be increased in speed and more refined retrieval cues can be developed which allow performers to flexibly access all the different groups stored in long-term memory (Chase & Ericsson, 1981, 1982; Ericsson, 1988). In a similar manner, experts develop qualitatively different strategies to maximize their performance. For example, elite long-distance runners are able to run on treadmills with superior running economy—the metabolic efficiency of maintaining their race pace—in comparison to sub-elite runners (Conley & Krahenbuhl, 1980). Interviews and field experiments show that elite longdistance runners verbally report monitoring their internal states more closely and focus more on planning their race performance during competition than lessaccomplished runners (Baker, Cˆot´e, & Deakin, 2005; Masters & Ogles, 1998). The most compelling scientific evidence for cognitive accounts of exceptional and expert performance comes from laboratory studies where expert performance is captured by tasks involving the generation of the most appropriate action in representative game situations (Ericsson & Smith, 1991). In his pioneering work introducing this methodology, de Groot (1946/1978) presented unfamiliar chess positions from games of chess masters to expert and world-class chess players and instructed them to select the best next move while thinking aloud. Based on analyses of the verbal protocols he found that chess players first perceived and interpreted the chess position and potentially advantageous moves were investigated. These promising moves determined
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within the first 5–15 seconds were then evaluated mentally by planning consequences of potential chess moves. During the subsequent phase of planning and evaluation, the studied chess players would either select their best move among the generated set or discover new and even better moves. During the following decades, de Groot’s (1946/1978) account has been validated by experiments that selectively interfere with the proposed encoding and retrieval mechanisms, akin to the research on memory expertise (Ericsson, 2006a; Ericsson & Charness, 1995; Ericsson, Patel, & Kintsch, 2000). As players acquire increased chess skill, they acquire better and more refined mental representations that allow them to mentally evaluate and manipulate chess positions better than less-skilled players. In most sporting events and real-time professional activities, such as surgery, the demand for rapid execution of highly practiced activities would seem to preclude concurrent thinking. However, even the superior speed of expert performers appears to depend primarily on acquired cognitive representations that allow performers to be prepared for execution of appropriate actions rather than any superior basic acuity of their sensory perceptual systems and/or faster basic speed of their motor systems (for reviews, see Abernethy, 1991; Starkes & Deakin, 1984, and Williams & Ward, 2003). The benefit of skilled preparation has been most extensively demonstrated in experimental studies of typing. Analyses of eye fixations show that expert typists look further ahead in the text to prepare future keystrokes in advance, and thus move relevant fingers toward their desired locations on the keyboard while other keys are being hit. Salthouse (1984) demonstrated experimentally that this mechanism causes superior performance by revealing that when typists are restricted from looking ahead in the text by displaying only one word at the time on a computer screen, experts’ typing speed is reduced almost to the level of novice typists who cannot rely on looking ahead to any useful degree. The early studies of the rapid reactions of athletes, such as hockey goalies, tennis players, and baseball batters, involved tasks where athletes were asked to predict future outcomes from pictures and films without any time pressure (Abernethy, 1991). More recent studies have occluded vision in real time while elite athletes execute representative tasks and thus preserved the real-time constraints of naturally occurring game
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situations. Under these conditions researchers have experimentally demonstrated that more-skilled athletes are better able to use anticipatory cues to guide their motor responses than less-skilled athletes (Abernethy, Gill, Parks, & Packer, 2001; Starkes, Edwards, Dissanayake, & Dunn, 1995). Expert performers do not simply acquire superior anticipation skills, but also acquire superior control over their motor actions. For example, at increased levels of expertise, athletes, such as figure skaters, are able to perform more complex behavior, such as a triple axel jump. Furthermore, expert performers, such as athletes and musicians, acquire the ability to reproduce the same motor actions consistently when they want to do so. For example, expert golfers are more consistent in executing the same putt than less-skilled players (Ericsson, 2001). Similarly, studies of expert musicians have shown how they are able to control their performance in a flexible manner (Krampe & Ericsson, 1996; Lehmann & Ericsson, 1997). Interestingly, recent reviews propose that there are specific neurological adaptations associated with experts’ acquired cognitive and physiological advantages (see Vandervert & Liu, this volume). Most importantly, these acquired mechanisms are tightly integrated with the demands of the representative tasks of the domain of expertise and thus do not generalize to other domains, with different demands for perceptual discriminations, working memory, and motor behavior. In fact, differences in strength, flexibility, and endurance that characterize the best performers in sports and artistic performance show the same specificity to the physiological demands of the task. Investigations have demonstrated that the proportion of slow-twitch muscle fibers favoring endurance is only abnormal for the muscle groups involved in the target activity—capillary supply, and metabolic changes are increased only for the relevant motor systems (Ericsson, 2006b; Ericsson et al., 1993). For example, Tesch & Karlsson (1985) found that optimal muscle fiber distributions of elite athletes’ muscles are only observed for muscles specifically trained for a sport (legs of runners and back muscles of kayakers), with no observable differences for untrained muscles. In sum, the expert performance approach uses a variety of techniques to objectively measure performance and capture expert–novice differences. The results from numerous investigations demonstrate that expert performance is primarily mediated by acquired
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mental representations which allow the experts to anticipate courses of action, to control those aspects that are relevant to generating their superior performance, and to evaluate alternative courses of action during performance or after the completion of the competition.
The Development of Expert Performance The expert performance approach has shown that it is possible to measure individuals’ performances independent of age and gender and thus graph the development of performance as a function of years of training (Ericsson & Lehmann, 1996), as we illustrated earlier in Fig. 6.1. Bloom and his colleagues (Bloom, 1985) have shown that elite athletes and other expert performers have different developmental histories compared to their less-accomplished peers. Elite performers start early with supervised training and gain access to the best training environments. Ralf Krampe, Clemens Tesch-R¨omer, and the first author (Ericsson et al., 1993) tried to go beyond Bloom and his colleagues’ work in describing the necessary resources and conditions for elite performance, focusing on those training activities that could explain individual differences among high level performers (violinists) with over 10 years of training. Based on a review of laboratory studies of learning and skill acquisition during the last century, we (Ericsson et al., 1993) found that improvement in performance was virtually uniformly observed when individuals were given tasks with a well-defined goal, were provided with feedback, and had ample opportunities for repetition. The associated deliberate efforts to increase one’s performance beyond its current level were found to require problem solving and the search for better methods to perform the tasks. When individuals engage in a practice activity on a task (typically designed by their teachers) with full concentration on improving some aspect of their performance, Ericsson et al. (1993) called that activity deliberate practice. The requirement for concentration on improving performance differentiates deliberate practice from both routine performance and playful engagement as these two types of activities would, if anything, merely strengthen the current cognitive mechanisms
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rather than modify them to allow increases in the level of performance. The original research on expert violinists’ practice (Ericsson et al., 1993) led to the empirical assessment of deliberate practice in music. Rather than the amount of music-related activities, such as listening to music, performing music, and engaging in playful music making with one’s peers, the critical activity is solitary practice where individuals strive to meet specific goals determined by their music teacher during weekly lessons. Greater amounts of solitary music practice accumulated during the musicians’ development is associated with higher levels of attained music performance, even for musicians who have spent over 10 years studying music (Ericsson, 2002; Ericsson et al., 1993). Similarly in chess, Charness and colleagues (Charness, Tuffiash, Krampe, Reingold, & Vasyukova, 2005) found, somewhat surprisingly, that the number of chess games played was not related to levels of chess skill. In fact, the amount of solitary chess study was clearly the best predictor of chess skill. When solitary study was statistically controlled, there was only a very small benefit from other types of chess-playing experience, such as the number of games played in chess tournaments. Solitary study in chess involves the examination of chess games by masters. Chess students review each move of the game and try to anticipate the move made by the masters. When players compare their selected move against the one selected by the master, they get feedback on the quality of their move. When the chess masters selected a different move, the player can analyze the position to uncover the rationale for the masters’ superior move by planning out consequences of that move and this activity meets the criteria for deliberate practice (Ericsson et al., 1993). Similar findings of the importance of solitary practice over competing or playing with others have been obtained by Duffy, Baluch, & Ericsson (2004) for expert performers in dart throwing, where feedback is immediate, and by Starkes, Deakin, Allard, Hodges, & Hayes (1996) for expert figure skaters, where feedback is received in the form of successful completion of jumps and is augmented by verbalized comments by coaches. Athletes in these domains can use this feedback to identify and then work on weaknesses in their performance by repeating the targeted activity, first in isolation and then in increasingly complex contexts. When targeting specific weaknesses the athletes can often observe their own im-
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provements in performance within days or weeks of practice.
Scientific Accounts of the Acquisition of Expert Performance and Its Mediating Mechanisms A complete scientific account of exceptional and expert performance needs to be able to explain how performers develop the complex cognitive mechanisms, improved physiological adaptations, and other factors that mediate their superior performance. The central thesis of the expert performance approach is that experts continually engage in deliberate practice activities (Ericsson, 1998a, 2006b; Ericsson et al., 1993; Krampe & Ericsson, 1996)and that the engagement in these activities causes refinement and maintenance of the mediating mechanisms. In contrast, less-accomplished individuals do not engage in deliberate practice activities once they have reached an acceptable level. They simply perform the domain-relevant activities and, as a result, their performance becomes less effortful and increasingly automated and thus is stabilized in an arrested form (as illustrated in the lowest arm of Fig. 6.2). For example, in many recreational and everyday activities, such as skiing, tennis, typing, board games, and driving a car, an acceptable level of performance is attained after some limited period of training and experience— often less than 50 hours for many leisure type activities. As individuals’ recreational performances improve to a point where obvious correctable errors are no longer made, the execution of the behavior tends to become increasingly automated, thus reducing conscious control and limiting those individuals’ abilities to make intentional specific adjustments (Fitts & Posner, 1967). When individuals have automated their performance, further experience will no longer be associated with any marked improvements and the length of accumulated experience will not be related to attained level of performance (see Ericsson, 2004, and Choudhrey, Fletcher, & Soumerai, 2005, for reviews in professional domains that show no change or even reductions in performance with additional experience). In the next section, we describe how engagement in deliberate practice leads to the cognitive and physiological adaptations necessary for expert performance.
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A wealth of empirical findings in support of the expert performance approach comes from sports domains, and we will discuss some of these key studies and their results to illustrate our framework—it should be noted, however, that our framework does not solely apply to sports. There are, indeed, numerous relevant findings from other domains, which will also be discussed.
Toward Detailed Causal Accounts of the Development of Expert Performance in Sports The fundamental assumption of the expert performance approach is that the development of expert performance occurs gradually, through a sequence of incremental changes and refinements of the corresponding mediating mechanisms. This means that it should be possible, at least in principle, to describe the development of performance for a given individual as a sequence of specific cognitive and physiological changes to mechanisms that allow the generation of the superior expert performance, as shown in Fig. 6.3. According to this theoretical framework, reliable improvements in performance have definite, identifiable causes, such as growth due to developmental fac-
Fig. 6.3 A schematic illustration of the acquisition of expert performance as a series of states with mechanisms for monitoring and guiding future improvements of specific aspects of performance (Adapted from “The development of elite performance and deliberate practice: An update from the perspective of the
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tors and adaptive responses to changes in the structure and intensity of practice activities. Each observable transition to a different structure of the mechanisms as illustrated in Fig. 6.3 must be explained. Ultimately, a complete theory must be able to account for the development and refinement of all associated biological and cognitive mechanisms that contribute to the execution of expert performance. The same theory must also be able to explain many of the differences in the physiological systems and anatomical features of the bodies of superior athletes who excel in various types of events. To understand the causal mechanisms underlying the statistical correlation between reported amount of practice and levels of performance, we need to search for causal (preferably biological and chemical) effects that can explain the detailed processes of the specific changes caused by the engagement in particular practice activities. A key challenge for an aspiring expert performer is to avoid the normal tendency toward reduced effort and the arrested development associated with automaticity (see Fig. 6.1). The developing expert performer actively counteracts this trend by deliberately constructing and seeking out training situations in which the set goal exceeds their current level of attainable performance. In domains, such as sport, where strength, endurance, or flexibility is important,
expert-performance approach” by K. A. Ericsson in J. L. Starkes and K. A. Ericsson (Eds.), Expert performance in sport: Recent advances in research on sport expertise (p. 70). Copyright 2003 by Human Kinetics)
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the expert performers keep pushing themselves during training to go beyond their current physiological adaptations to reach new and more far-reaching changes. The greatest advances in the development of detailed causal biological and chemical models have been made in applied physiology, where researchers have proposed detailed accounts of changes in mediating physiological and anatomical characteristics in response to intense training. In the next subsection, we discuss some of the relevant findings demonstrating the physiological changes caused by sustained engagement in deliberate practice.
Improving the Physiological and Anatomical Mechanisms That Mediate Performance When most healthy individuals reach adulthood their bodies and physiological systems will remain relatively unchanged for several decades if they continue their habitual level of activity. This, however, does not imply that the body is incapable to change in response to dramatic changes in peoples’ pattern of mental or physical activities. Mammalian bodies have evolved to cope with short-term fluctuations in physiological demands. A fundamental role of the human body is to protect the homeostasis of its many trillions of cells, so they can function within their preferred temperature range and be provided a sufficient supply of oxygen, water, and energy. When individuals engage in physical sport activities, however, the metabolism of the active muscle fibers increases, the supply of oxygen and energy within these muscle cells depletes and supplies are extracted from the nearest blood vessels. To preserve homeostasis of the cells, the body activates various counter measures (negative feedback loops). For example, enhanced breathing rates increase oxygen uptake and decrease carbon dioxide concentrations in the blood. By converting energy from energy stores in the liver and elsewhere the available energy circulating in the blood is replenished, and the increased rate of blood circulation distributes these commodities to the systems of the body with the greatest needs. However, if individuals deliberately push themselves beyond their comfort zones (Ericsson, 2001, 2002) and engage in sustained strenuous physical activity, they
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will overpower the available mechanisms protecting homeostasis and induce an abnormal state for cells in some physiological systems. These states will involve insufficient levels of certain vital elements and compounds, such as oxygen, and energy-related compounds (e.g., glucose), which force metabolic processes to change and produce alternative biochemical products. These biochemical products will trigger the activation of genes in a massive storage of dormant genes within the cells’ DNA. The activated genes in turn will “turn on” biochemical systems designed to stimulate bodily reorganization and adaptive change. Recent research has been able to analyze the chemical contents of cells such as activated genes and proteins and study changes in response to vigorous activity, such as physical exercise. For example, over 100 different genes are activated and expressed in mammalian muscle in response to intense physical exercise (Carson, Nettleton, & Reecy, 2001). The process of causing physiological change by overloading the physiological system is well illustrated in efforts to increase aerobic fitness. For example, it is well known that jogging and exercise of modest intensity and duration does not improve young active adults’ aerobic fitness. Scientific studies show that it is necessary for young adults to reach a certain threshold in the intensity in their physical exercise in order to reliably improve their aerobic fitness (Robergs & Roberts, 1997). Specifically, young adults need to exercise at least two or three times each week for at least 30 minutes per session with a sustained heart rate that exceeds 70% of their maximal level (around 140 beats per minute for someone with a maximal heart rate of 200). Extended physical activity at these high levels of intensity causes abnormal metabolic conditions that produce chemical compounds that activate genes which, in turn, induce changes in cells and organs. It is, however, not simple to induce the metabolic conditions that will trigger change. For example, when adults start to jog on a weekly basis, early weeks of training involve the coordination of firing of the fibers in the involved muscles. Once the individual is able to induce coordinated sustained activity of the muscles, the muscle fibers can be activated as long as there is sufficient transport of blood to sustain a steady supply of oxygen and glucose. When these concentrations become too low, it will trigger biochemical activity which, in turn, stimulates the growth of new capillaries (angiogensis; Prior, Yang, & Terjung, 2004). Similarly,
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it is possible to attain improvements of strength and endurance when individuals keep engaging in a cycle of overloading some system or sub-system (i.e., increasing intensity, frequency, or duration on a weekly basis) that will eventually induce a physiological adaptation. Once the new adaptation is attained, the individuals must induce a new overload by pushing the adapted physiological systems outside the current comfort zone to trigger additional physiological growth and further adaptation (Ericsson, 2003a, 2006b).
Induced Changes in Elite Performers’ Physiological and Anatomical Characteristics There are many types of physiological and anatomical characteristics that distinguish elite performers from less-accomplished performers. Acquisition of these characteristics is consistent with acquired adaptations to increased demands induced by their intense and extended engagement in practice activities (see Ericsson & Lehmann, 1996, Ericsson et al., 1993, and Ericsson, 2003b, 2006b, for reviews). For example, the larger hearts of endurance runners have been shown to emerge only after years of extended intense practice, and their hearts appear to grow in response to continued physiological challenge (increased intensity and duration of physical training). More recent evidence on Olympic-level athletes’ enlarged hearts provides even more compelling support for the acquired nature of these adaptations. When these athletes stop or even significantly reduce their training amounts at the end of their careers their enlarged hearts eventually revert back toward average size (Pelliccia et al., 2002). The expert performance approach describes the acquisition of the experts’ physiological characteristics as a sequence of adaptations where practice activities induce critical states in cells in physiological systems that trigger, as well as maintain, these adaptations. This means that acquiring or changing physiological characteristics cannot easily be attained in any order and that the possibility of inducing adaptations will depend on the stage of general development of children and adolescents. For example, some specific practice activities appear to alter anatomical characteristics in an irreversible manner when they are attained during certain critical developmental periods. Ballet dancers’
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ability to turn out their feet, and the baseball pitchers’ and handball players’ ability to stretch back with their throwing arm are linked to stretching while practicing the associated movements when the children’s bones and the cartilage in their joints are being calcified in late childhood (Ericsson & Lehmann, 1996). Attempts by handball players to attain similar adaptations at much older ages through practice have been found to be unsuccessful and often result in chronic shoulder pain (Pieper, 1998). Physiological changes are not limited to muscles, cartilage, bones, hearts, and capillaries. There is now compelling evidence that even the development of the brain (especially the myelinization) can be dramatically changed by practice. Although some researchers may argue that gifted individuals maintain their performance advantage because of structural and functional neurological advantages (e.g., Geake, this volume), extensive studies have documented practice-induced changes with brain scans of musicians during childhood and adolescence (Bengtsson et al., 2005; Pantev et al., 2003). Such findings suggest that engagement in early, relevant practice activities cause the adaptations (neurological, physiological, and cognitive) necessary to sustain elite levels of performance. Indeed, reviews have also indicated that key physiological changes associated with some sports may be more easily brought about during early development rather than during adolescence or adulthood (Ericsson, 2003b, 2006b; Ericsson & Lehmann, 1996). Furthermore, recent research suggests that there is a relationship between reading ability and the development of white matter in children, and that this effect strengthens over time with increased reading experience (Deutsch et al., 2005) (for further discussion of the importance of engagement in relevant activities during critical or sensitive periods, see Shavinina, 1999, and Vandervert & Liu, this volume).
General Reasons for Individual Differences According to the reviewed findings, most individual differences in elite achievement appear to be explainable by physiological characteristics acquired through a long series of adaptations. Each adaptation is induced by biochemical responses to the strain induced by particular practice activities at appropriate ages or stages
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of physiological development (Ericsson, 2006a,b). The expert performance framework identifies a few different possible reasons for the inability of individuals to reach expert levels of performance. First, individuals may lack certain types of genes in their genetic endowment (innate talent) that are necessary for the acquisition of expert performance. However, the currently available evidence supporting the existence of genes that provide a firm immutable advantage among healthy individuals is limited to height and body size. Second, the expert performance approach has found that the primary factors controlling the acquisition of expert performance involve the extended engagement in deliberate practice necessary to induce the extended series of adaptations. The expert performance approach does accept, however, that there are relevant influences to performance which can occur prior to engagement in extensive training. It is possible, for instance, that differences related to motivational support, access to early training/instruction, and availability of the best training resources lead to differences in the attained level of performance at a given age. In the next section we will discuss some environmental factors that have been linked to successful acquisition of expert performance.
The Effects of Perceived Talent As discussed in the introduction to this chapter, one of the reasons we do not use the term “giftedness” is that the term is often used to imply potential for future superior performance even in the absence of actual accomplishments. Indeed, talent scouts and educational authorities have often used the “giftedness” label without considering factors that may have led to perceptions of giftedness and without fully appreciating that those labeled “gifted” are often given access to special resources which may, ultimately, lead to their outstanding performance. Reviews have indicated that talent identification in children has been largely unsuccessful, demonstrating consistent failures with the identification of future exceptional performers in sports or the arts (Ericsson & Lehmann, 1996). Specifically, such identification methods often assume that “talented” individuals have the potential to achieve superior performance without as much training as other “nontalented” or “less-talented” individuals and that these advantages are evident in performance at an early age.
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Recent research has uncovered some interesting factors that have been related to the acquisition of expert levels of performance. These factors are particularly interesting as they seem to support the important role of early success and the perception of advantages attributed to innate talent. In the next subsections, we discuss these factors and describe how perceptions of talent are often spurious and can have potentially negative effects.
The Relative Age Effect In hockey, professional athletes are up to six times more likely to be born during some months of the year than in others (Boucher & Mutimer, 1994). This has been dubbed the “birth-date effect” or “relative age effect” and occurs primarily due to the effects of perceived talent early in these professional’s careers (Musch & Hay, 1999). Specifically, when children participate in sports they are often grouped together in age cohorts—children born between January 1 and December 31 in a given year are grouped together to form teams. As a result, the oldest children in each team will be almost a year older than the youngest. For very young children, 1 year entails significant physical and cognitive maturation, and thus the older children are physically larger and appear more talented to coaches who may not know the children’s birthdates. The older children are then selected into talent groups, wherein they receive access to training resources that the younger children would not have access to. This, in turn, magnifies their relative performance advantages by accelerating their development. Musch & Hay (1999) have reviewed the evidence for the relative age effect and have almost conclusively linked the effect to these talent identification errors. Furthermore, in a compelling study Helsen, Starkes and van Winckel (2000) analyzed a natural experiment involving date changes and age cohorts. In Belgium, young soccer players are usually grouped together in cohorts from August 1 to July 31. As a result, the oldest (and thus, most successful) players were born in August, September, and October. When the cohort range changed in 1997 to the time frame between January 1 and December 31, within a year the months during which the most successful players were born also changed (i.e., to children born from January to March).
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This relative age effect demonstrates that early success relative to one’s peers can have long-term effects in domains where talent scouts and coaches seek talented individuals in order to provide them with the best training environments. In these domains, early success serves as a trigger for better training conditions that likely are the real cause for the long-term success of these individuals.
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other examples of physiological modifications that occur primarily during early development, such as foot turnout in ballet dancers and pitch arm movements in baseball players, where the modifications are created during the point in growth when bones are still being calcified. In sum, our reviews suggest that early talent identification attempts have been largely unsuccessful as talent scouts and coaches may not appreciate that factors such as birth date may lead to the perception of talent. Furthermore, the contribution of other environmental How Early Training Can Cause Adaptations factors, such as parental support and early practice acThat Are Perceived as Innate Talents and tivities during critical periods, are often overlooked. Gifts Those identified as gifted are often granted access to special, exclusive training resources, which further perParents are often pleased when their infants show signs petuates their performance advantages. We argue that of interest toward music, the arts, sports, or academia. the label of “gifted” insofar as it refers to genetic enOften, these signs of interest are mistaken for indi- dowments or potential for subsequent performance is cators of early talent and, as a result, parents pro- tenuous and can even be detrimental as it may lead to vide their children with regular instruction and super- the unfair allocation of superior training resources. We vised practice. Training can begin very early, some- would agree with recent researchers, who have questimes as early as 3 or 4 years of age (Ericsson, Krampe tioned the “gifted” label (e.g., Borland, 2005) and sup& Tesch-R¨omer, 1993; Lehmann & Ericsson, 1998), port an abandonment of the term. which means that some children have the advantage of several years’ worth of practice over their peers in one or more domains. Several giftedness researchers have agreed that gifted students engage in large quantities of Conclusions deliberate practice. For example, according to Hyllegard (2000), parents of children in a gifted program for In the introduction to this chapter we discussed the the visual arts report that their children devote immense finding that much of the empirical data cited in support amounts of time to practice activities such as drawing of giftedness fail to meet the scientific standards for and copying—in fact, they spent more time engaged in reproducibly superior performance. We then discussed these activities than many of the best musicians in our Galton’s ideas of individual differences in innate limstudy (Ericsson et al., 1993) even spent in solitary mu- its for exceptional performance and reviewed evidence sic practice at comparable ages. Winner (1996; 2003) questioning the existence of firm asymptotes for the athas also reviewed how gifted students are characterized tainable performance of individuals. We then described by a “rage to master,” where they “exhibit intense (al- the mechanisms that have been found to mediate the most obsessive) interest [in a domain] and an ability to acquisition of performance through training and deliberate practice. We have not found any rigorous reprofocus their attention sharply” (Winner, 2003, p. 372). This early engagement in deliberate practice may ducible evidence that innate abilities, excepting height have especially large adaptive responses in some do- and body size, prevent healthy individuals from attainmains. For example, the acquisition of perfect pitch ing expert levels of performance. Traditional accounts of talented achievement have (the ability to name individual tones presented in isolation) can be obtained if appropriate training and feed- been based on the inability of other accounts based back is given between the ages of 3 and 5 years. How- on learning to explain various forms of exceptional ever, the ability is much more difficult to acquire as performance. However, in the last few decades it has an adult. Abilities acquired during a critical period, become possible to develop genetic accounts of giftsuch as perfect pitch, could be misidentified as innate edness that depend on the successful identification of sources of talent. We discussed in an earlier section genes or combinations of genes in DNA which gifted
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individuals uniquely possess. In writing this chapter we have found it interesting that the project of identifying unique genes which are able to explain the exceptionally superior performance of “gifted” individuals has been remarkably unsuccessful. Even more importantly, upon finding any such genes, a complete genetic account of the development of the exceptional achievement must ultimately explain how these unique genes are activated and expressed during development. This account must explain how these genes in conjunction with extended deliberate practice are able to modify the physiological and anatomical attributes that account for the measured exceptional ability. All theoretical accounts of exceptional achievements must be based on genetics, learning, and development and propose increasingly detailed and complete accounts of the associated development of observable behavior. Any comprehensive theory must describe how the development of performance is mediated by activities, environments, and those genes common to all healthy humans and how unique activities, environments, and genes are selectively available only to those individuals who attain exceptional and expert levels of performance. We want to encourage investigators of giftedness, high ability, and expert performance to adopt a common empirical framework, where adult skills are conceptualized as a sequence of acquired states of measurable levels of mastery. With such a general framework it would be possible to integrate knowledge within and between domains of expertise as well as identify extraordinary empirical findings that should be replicated and explored with experimental investigations. A deeper understanding of the human potential for development and how individuals’ different goals for achievement can be attained by particular training methods will provide motivated individuals with the freedom and encouragement to continue on the road to excellence.
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mutually agreed-upon scientific evidence and its theoretical interpretations within competing frameworks. We think that Gagn´e’s chapter is inciting researchers to move away from a science of high ability and establish a separate interest group—the pronats—to fight the imaginary enemy—the antinats.
Gagn´e’s Opinions Are Not Representative of Those of Researchers of High Ability
Those who are interested in attempts to resolve, or at least advance, the discussion of the role of non-genetic factors in the development of high ability need to know that Gagn´e’s reactions appear to be unique among the premier researchers studying high ability and innate talent. Among the world-famous researchers of high ability commenting on our target article in High Ability Studies (Ericsson et al., 2007a) the majority of commentators (Baker, 2007; Beghetto & Kaufman, 2007; Coleman, 2007; Freeman, 2007; Kaufman, 2007; Runco, 2007; Subotnik, Jarvin, & Rayhack, 2007; Ziegler, 2007) were kind enough to compliment us on our target article’s scope and depth of its review, even though many expressed disagreements with some of our views and interpretations—the kind of response that we had been hoping for. Simonton (2007) wrote that “[E]environmental variables, including deliberate practice, explain most but not all of the variance in extraordinary accomplishments” and then described new evidence that he cited in support of genetic influences on the attainment of exceptional performance. Shavinina (2007) described several unique characteristics of elite performers and concluded that “We do not know for sure whether deliberate practice alone shaped these abilities or if it only crystallized them.” Furthermore, Vandervert (2007) proposed an intriguing explication of the brain mechanisms that mediate the effects induced by deliberate practice. In Postscript dramatic contrast to these (and the other) constructive commentaries, Gagn´e (2007) began his commentary We are grateful to Larisa Shavinina to let us read and by arguing that the majority (75%) of researchers comcomment on Gagn´e’s chapter in this handbook. How- menting on Howe et al.’s (1989) target article in 1989 ever, after reading his chapter we felt disappointed. The argued for evidence of innate (genetic) talents. He purpose of our chapter and the target article in High further claimed that our target article did not present Ability Studies (Ericsson et al., 2007a,b) was to search any progress and that the presented arguments against for common ground in order to start a discussion and Howe et al. (1989) remained valid. Our analysis of the dialogue with researchers studying high ability about 14 commentators on Ericsson et al.’s (2007a) target
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article showed that 13 of them—all except Gagn´e— explicitly noted that progress has been made toward identifying the scientific evidence which will form the empirical foundation of a science of high ability. As a result we are optimistic that our chapter and our target article and its associated commentaries along with our reply have led to an improved understanding of the reproducible evidence on the structure and development of high ability and prepared researchers for a science of high ability.
Gagn´e’s Allegations of Failure to Discuss Embarrassing Findings—The Advantage of African Athletes It is unfortunate that Gagn´e (this volume) was unable to read the other commentaries to our target article (Ericsson et al., 2007a) and our associated reply (Ericsson et al., 2007b). Had Gagn´e read the other commentaries more carefully he would have avoided claiming that our target article had intentionally failed to discuss “embarrassing findings for the deliberate practice approach,” such as the racial advantage of African American, African, and Caribbean athletes. In our response in High Ability Studies (Ericsson et al., 2007b) to Gagn´e’s (2007) commentary and his allegation that we failed to discuss the genetic advantage of athletes of African decent, we pointed out that we have discussed the issues of genetic differences in athletes extensively in other papers (Ericsson, 2003a,b, 2007a,b). Furthermore we showed that even Entin (2000) in his book Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We’re Afraid To Talk About It concedes that he knew of no solid evidence for individual genes that could reliably explain the superiority of runners with African ancestry, such as Kenyans. Rather, Entin stated that he merely believes scientific evidence for such genes will eventually emerge in the future. In direct opposition to this belief, more recent research on the compelling performance advantage of Kenyan runners in long-distance events (see Ericsson, 2007a,b, for more details) points to alternative accounts based on physiological differences induced by physical activity at high altitude during childhood (Larsen, Nolan, Borch, & Sondrgaard, 2005; Onywera, Scott, Boit, & Pitsiladis, 2006).
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More generally we responded to the long list of charges made in Gagn´e’s commentary in our reply (Ericsson et al., 2007b) and so we will not repeat our answers in this postscript. Instead we will focus on Gagn´e’s (2007, this volume) chapter, where he is unable to accurately describe our idea and arguments. First, we will discuss a series of instances where he seems to fail to understand our claims and spends pages refuting claims that we never made. Second, we will discuss Gagn´e’s charge of scientific misconduct concerning the omission of the Baltes & Kliegl (1992) finding of testing the limits. Finally, we will review concerns about Gagn´e’s practice of citing people’s opinions about what they expect to find in the future rather than acknowledging the absence of currently reproducible evidence.
Gagn´e’s Major Misunderstandings: What Constitutes a Domain of Expertise As evidence of the first point Gagn´e (this volume) quoted on several occasions one of our sentences and then, presumably unintentionally, restates our position incorrectly and then proceeds to argue against the misstated claim. Gagn´e cites our claim that “we have found no studies that have demonstrated that IQ is predictive of achievement in domains where reliable, superior performance has been collected meeting our earlier criteria” (p. 38). He disregards important points that precede this quote in our target article and spends several pages reviewing significant correlations between performance on IQ tests and school performance. He overlooked our extensive discussion earlier in the target article about how the research approach of studying general intelligence and its attempt to predict academic performance differs from the expert performance approach. In this section, we made two important points: “In contrast, the expert performance approach focuses on the measurement of the essence of expertise in a domain and thus on the associated criterion performance and its related large reliable individual differences. The focus in the expert-performance approach is on specifying the mediating mechanisms that can be assessed by processtracing and experimental studies” (Ericsson et al. 2007a, p. 13).
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Gagn´e (this volume) ignores our assumption that the relevant performance (in Gagn´e’s quote from our target article) refers to skilled and expert performance in a domain of expertise. School performance is a preparatory step toward a professional skill—nobody can get tenure as a lifetime student! In fact, school performance has been found to be essentially unrelated to actual performance in many real-world domains; for instance, in a meta-analysis Roth & Clarke (1998) found an observed correlation of 0.15 with starting salary (perhaps the most objective measures of job success analyzed to date) and grades in professional schools as well as an observed correlation of only 0.05 with salary growth. Similarly, when we examined the data on the relation between expert performance and general mental ability (intelligence tests designed to measure school performance) we found no reliable correlation between IQ tests and attained chess rating (Roring, Nandaopal, & Ericsson, 2007) or GO ratings (Horn & Masunaga, 2006; Masunaga & Horn, 2001). In our target article (Ericsson et al., 2007a) we also proposed that it is possible to use the expert performance approach to study school performance and its relation to IQ: “It is possible to assimilate the research on scholastic abilities within the expertise approach by changing the focus from the measurement of the latent abilities to the study of reproducible achievement by adopting its measurement (e.g., performance on scholastic achievement tests) as the gold standard. By targeting the performance on the specific forms of skill developed in school, it is possible to study how performance on these tests is influenced by different developmental histories and past engagement in various practice activities” (Ericsson et al., 2007a, p. 13).
In order to understand the factors that allow high school and college students to gain high grades we can apply the expert performance approach and examine the differences in developmental history and current mediating mechanisms that distinguish the best students from the rest. Although we can correlate the students’ grades with performance on ability tests, such as IQ, the causal directions of these correlations are difficult to interpret because tests and grades were originally designed to measure the same thing. For example, in their pioneering research Binet & Simon (1915) searched for test items for their intelligence test to predict performance in school settings. Hence, the high correlation between IQ tests and school performance is a result of the design process of the original intelligence test. Moreover,
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the expert performance approach can be applied for understanding the superior performance on the IQ tests and subtests themselves. For example, one subtest that correlates very high with overall IQ scores is the test of vocabulary. The acquisition of these vocabulary items requires exposure to rare words in some context, such as during reading. Within the expert performance approach we view high performance on IQ tests, such as vocabulary tests, as a performance where the underlying mediating mechanisms can be identified and potentially explained by engagement in appropriate learning activities. By analyzing both the development of school performance as well as the performance on IQ tests, we can assess if and how the same learning activities and mediating mechanisms overlap. However, in other domains of expertise, such as chess, it would be surprising if deliberate practice in chess benefited development of knowledge of rare words and vice versa. We are not by any means saying that IQ tests are never correlated with performance in domains of expertise, as our review (Ericsson et al., 2007a) clearly shows. For example, in the initial acquisition of a skill, such as chess, task performance is correlated with performance on IQ tests, but the correlations decrease over hours, days, months, and years of practice (see Ackerman, 1987, 1988, 2000). The distinction between performance attained within a few hours or even less than 50 hours and the performance attained after 5,000– 20,000 hours of deliberate practice is crucial. In his chapter Gagn´e (this volume) does not acknowledge this distinction when he cites two examples as “the deliberate omission of other results contradicting their Antinat thesis” (p. 52). Both the study by Fox et al. (1996) on heritability of “pursuit rotor” performance and memory training by Baltes & Kliegl (1992) referred in both cases to a very limited amount of practice, namely 17 hours of training (Baltes & Kliegl, 1992) and 1.5 hours (three session of 30 minutes each in Fox et al., 1996) when compared to the thousands of hours required to reach expert levels of performance. In the case of pursuit rotor performance Gagn´e (this volume) even concedes there is evidence that heritability after brief training is unrelated to heritability of championship performance attained after hundreds or even thousands of hours of training. Moreover, with respect to Baltes & Kliegl (1992), Gagn´e (this volume) has mischaracterized the findings from this and other related studies and we discuss them in detail in the next section. All these
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misunderstandings derive fundamentally from the differences between Gagn´e and us with regard to the following proposition: After extended training process leading to skilled and expert performance the structure of mediating mechanisms change as more complex mechanisms are acquired and transformed through deliberate practice. Hence, correlations between target performance and performance on ability tests at early stages of training (0–20 hours) differ fundamentally from those obtained after extended deliberate practice (500–10,000 hours). We hope that Gagn´e in the future will restrict his counterexamples to cases involving highly skilled performance because he explicitly agrees that high ability can only be attained after much extended deliberate practice.
Mischaracterizing Baltes and Kliegl’s (1992) Testing-the-Limit Study In his chapter Gagn´e (this volume) expresses his outrage over the fact that our target article intentionally ignored reporting on the testing-the-limit study by Baltes & Kliegl (1992) even though the first author of the target article was one of the pioneers of this type of memory training and must have known about its findings. The first author has always been very familiar with these studies and even spent 2 years working with Baltes and Kliegl at the Max-Planck Institute in 1987– 89, when the data collection for most of the studies using the testing-the-limits method were completed. Gagn´e incorrectly assumes that these articles prove innate capacity differences among different adults. However, the individual differences referred to the quote from Baltes (1998) in his chapter (Gagne, this volume) concerned effects of age (the performance of 66 to 80 year olds versus the performance of 20 to 30 year olds). That study essentially examined a within-subjects variable—we all have been 20 years old and will eventually be over 60 years old. The same differences between age groups would be expected if participants’ performance on this memory task was tested first when they were 20–30 years old and then a second time at 60–80 years of age. Given that the genetic make-up (DNA) does not change with age these performance differences due to age cannot be explained by innate talent or inter-individual differences in genes. In fact, Baltes & Kliegl (1992, p. 123,
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italics added) summarized their result section with “[W]we submit, therefore, that the testing-the-limits strategy used indeed resulted in an outcome where age differences observed became increasingly associated with age per se rather than with other markers of cognitive functioning,” thus explicitly rejecting Gagn´e’s claim that “The large individual differences observed at the outset of both studies not only reappear at the end of the training, when subjects approach their maximum reachable performance, but show a significant increase” (this volume, p. 56). In none of the studies using the testing-the-limits approach (Lindenberger, Kliegl, & Baltes, 1992; Kliegl, Smith, & Baltes, 1990) were they able to show that their methods significantly enhanced inter-individual differences related to performance on intelligence and other ability tests. In fact, Lindenberger et al. (1992) found that the correlation for two of the subtests on Wechsler’s intelligence tests and memory performance after practice decreased from 0.69 and 0.53 to 0.27 and 0.00, respectively, when the effects of age and expertise were statistically controlled. Similarly, Kliegl et al. (1990) found no correlations between ability tests and memory performance before or after extended practice for their younger adult group (19–29 years of age). The only significant change with practice was that “factors associated with chronological age became more salient as the training unfolded” (Kliegl et al., 1990, p. 901). More importantly, the participants’ performance in Baltes & Kliegl’s (1992) after 17 hours of training was very far from an expert level. After 17 hours of training the young and old participants could only recall four and two words, respectively, of a list of 30 presented words when the list was presented with the one-word-per-second rate (see Kliegl, Smith, & Baltes, 1990, p. 897), whereas the digits-span expert could recall over 80 and over 100 digits with that fast presentation rate. To conclude, the training in Baltes & Kliegl’s (1992) study represents a small fraction (17 hours of training) of the total amount of training recorded for memory experts with over 200 hours (see Ericsson, 2003c, for a review).
Citing Beliefs and Opinions Rather than Reproducible Evidence The clearest difference between us and Gagn´e concerns Gagn´e’s (this volume) reliance on non-verifiable evi-
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dence and the cited opinions of scientists and journalists. In the following quote Gagn´e (this volume) relies on the beliefs of three people as a response to our documented failure of finding hard scientific evidence. As a response to Ericsson et al.’s (2007a, 2007b) conclusion that except for “fixed genetic factors determining body size and height, we were unable to find evidence for innate constraints to the attainment of elite achievement for healthy individuals” (p. 2), I will end this summary with a recall of some contrary statements. “Most of us could never achieve elite athlete status, however hard we trained” (MacArthur & North, 2005, p. 331). “Don’t expect to see a white man set a world record in a road race—any race, at any distance from 100-meters to the marathon” (Entine, 2000, p. 19). “It’s genetically improbable to expect to find any elite marathoners coming out of Cameroon, Nigeria, or Senegal” (Entine, 2000, p. 249). “The discovery could explain why “some people train for ages but remain eighty-pound weaklings, while others develop muscles very quickly,” said the team leader, Dr. Kathryn North [the same North as in MacArthur & North]” (Entine, 2000, pp. 254–255) (Gagn´e, this volume, pp. 39–40).
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Another problem with citing scientists’ beliefs and opinions is that scientists’ beliefs sometimes change. In his chapter Gagn´e (this volume) does not mention the more recent article by Sternberg (2001) in High Ability Studies with the title “Giftedness as developing expertise: a theory of the interface between high abilities and achieved excellence,” where he discusses evidence for negative correlations with general mental abilities such as Spearman’s g in some cultural environments. Sternberg (2001) concludes his article with “Until we expand our notions of abilities, and recognize that when we measure them, we are measuring developing forms of expertise, we will risk consigning many potentially excellent contributors to our society to bleak futures. We will also be potentially overvaluing students with expertise for success in a certain kind of schooling, but not necessarily with equal expertise for success later in life” (Sternberg, 2001, pp. 175–176).
For Gagn´e who is an expert at theories of giftedness and who cites Sternberg’s (2005) article on successful intelligence, we find it surprising that he In other places Gagn´e (this volume) claims that retis either unaware or has intentionally omitted menrospective testimonies by parents of talented children tioning the substantial change in Sternberg’s more re“are undeniable proof of precocity” (p. 43) without cent thoughts (Sternberg, 1999, 2001) that occurred even describing how the parents’ statements can be versince his commentary in Behavioral and Brain Sciified and claims examined with experimental objective ences (Sternberg, 1998). methods. Gagn´e (this volume) also cites famous scientists’ critique of evidence, such as Sternberg’s (1998) critique of Howe et al.’s (1998) argument that the empiri- If We Had Three Wishes from the Guardian cal evidence for innate talent is lacking.
Genie of the Science of High Ability
The second point is that there is little or no documented evidence in favor of innate talents. Virtually all the evidence they review is irrelevant to their point, adding bulk but no substance to their article. The problem is their misunderstanding of what would constitute evidence in favor of a genetic basis for talents. The only available evidence relevant to claims about genetic bases of talent are documented heritability statistics (Sternberg, 1998, pp. 425– 426). Sternberg goes on to explain how mean differences say literally nothing about individual differences, whereas the concept of natural abilities is all about individual differences (Gagn´e, this volume, p. 45).
If we were to meet the guardian genie of the science of high ability we would ask for three wishes for future research on high ability. First, we would wish that new researchers will read all the material discussed, namely Gagn´e’s chapter (Gagn´e, this volume) as well as our chapter (Ericsson et al., this volume) and the entirety of the High Abilities Special Edition (which includes our target article with our reply (Ericsson et al., 2007a,b) and all the commentaries, including Gagn´e’s (this volume) chapter is replete with citations Gagn´e’s (Gagn´e, 2007)) to form their own opinions of expressed opinions in support of his argument, when about the evidence and the scientific value of the acreproducible evidence is lacking. For example, Gagn´e counts provided by different theoretical frameworks. also admits that McArthur & North (2005) acknowl- Second, we would hope that all readers are committed edge the lack of reproducible evidence for effects of to the long and cumbersome path of collecting and anidentified individual genes and cites their belief that alyzing reproducible scientific evidence on high abilthere will exist such evidence in the future—but ex- ity rather than breezing through the literature lookpectations do not constitute scientific facts. ing for supporting opinions of popular authors without
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adjoining scientific evidence or failing to read scientific articles carefully. Remember that arguments based on cited beliefs of other people do not constitute reproducible scientific evidence! Our final wish is that scientists refrain from ad hominem attacks and debate topics with the normal tools of the scientific method.
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Chapter 7
Debating Giftedness: Pronat vs. Antinat Franc¸oys Gagn´e
Abstract This chapter pursues two main goals: (a) demonstrate that natural abilities—and their outstanding expression as gifts—really exist (the mainstream Pronat position) and that recent attacks by a few researchers who deny their existence (the Antinat position) can be easily parried empirically; (b) expose questionable scholarly behavior by some Antinat researchers. In the first part, I will examine the concept of natural ability, pointing out its six defining characteristics. I will then demonstrate with extensive empirical evidence that both general intelligence and physical natural abilities meet all six defining criteria of a natural ability. In the second part, I will illustrate how some influent Antinat researchers deliberately exclude relevant evidence, accumulate irrelevant evidence, ignore crucial objections, and select from published studies only the results that support their position. These cases of deliberate (mal) practice show their lack of desire to examine objectively all the available evidence and reassess their entrenched beliefs. Keywords DMGT · Natural ability · Measurement · Intelligence · Heritability · Predictive power · Physical abilities · Scientific misconduct · Relative age effect
Introduction Most scientists in psychology and education recognize without hesitation the existence of natural abilities. By natural ability, I mean mental or physical abilities (a) F. Gagn´e (B) Universit´e du Qu´ebec a` Montr´eal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada e-mail:
[email protected] whose development is significantly influenced by our genetic endowment and (b) that directly act as causal agents in the growth of competencies (knowledge and skills) characteristic of a particular occupational field. As for giftedness, the target concept of the present handbook, it corresponds to the top end of the normal distribution of natural abilities; simply said, gifts are outstanding natural abilities. In the analysis of competency development, natural abilities represent the “potential” pole on a potential-to-performance continuum. The developmental process draws on this potential to systematically construct competencies in every occupational field, including professions, trades, technology, arts, and sports. Consequently, natural abilities significantly predict, along with other important causal variables, the level of these occupational achievements. The above statements summarize a position that would probably rally a majority of scholars in all fields of talent development (e.g., academics, arts, music, sports). This mainstream position, which I will label Pronat, leaves room for a small minority of researchers, let us call them Antinats, who are not just skeptical about the “naturalness” of some abilities, but manifest strong opposition to that concept (e.g., Charness, 1998; Ericsson, 2003; Lehmann, 1998; Starkes & Helsen, 1998; Tesch-R¨omer, 1998). That opposition expressed itself most vocally through two direct attempts (Ericsson, Roring, & Nandagopal, 2007; Howe, Davidson, & Sloboda, 1998) to disprove the existence of natural abilities (whose giftedness level they usually call innate talent). In the first systematic effort against the mainstream position, Howe et al., (1998) concluded their review as follows: “The evidence we have surveyed in this target article does not support the talent account, according to which excelling is a consequence of possessing innate gifts” (p. 407). Thirty researchers pos-
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itively answered an invitation by the Behavioral and Brain Sciences editors to comment on that article. No fewer than 75% (18/24) of those who clearly took position on the core issue, namely the existence or not of “innate talents,” strongly rejected the authors’ negative conclusion. I will mention in this chapter some of their counterarguments and methodological critiques. In their response to the commentators, Howe et al. ignored most of the relevant objections expressed by these 18 critics and reaffirmed their initial position as follows: “On the central question of whether innate talents (as defined in the target article) are real or mythical, we have not encountered in the commentaries any convincing reasons for changing our position. Innate talents are, we think, a fiction, not a fact” (p. 437). In the more recent attempt, Ericsson et al. (2007) assembled a partially different set of counterevidence to the Pronat mainstream position. They came to an equally strong conclusion: “With the exception of fixed genetic factors determining body size and height, we were unable to find evidence for innate constraints to the attainment of elite achievement for healthy individuals” (p. 3). Twelve professional peers were invited to comment on that target article, me included. Again, a majority of those whose comments addressed the core question of the target article—the existence or not of “innate talents”—disagreed with the authors. Apart from these two sets of comments, I am not aware of any comprehensive response to these two attacks on the twin concepts of natural ability and giftedness. Consequently, it seemed a perfect occasion to include a formal counterpoint to Antinat positions in the most extensive handbook yet on the subject of giftedness. With its 70+ chapters, it dwarfs all past similar publications (e.g., Colangelo & Davis, 2003; Heller, M¨onks, & Passow, 1993;Heller, M¨onks, Sternberg, & Subotnik, 2000). In the first part, The case for giftedness, I will define the concept of natural ability, inserting it within the larger framework of my Differential Model of Giftedness and Talent (DMGT). I will focus on general natural ability since the existence of the whole concept, and not just its giftedness part, has been challenged. I will then look for evidence of its existence in two wellresearched ability domains, the intellectual and physical domains. In the second part, The case for Antinat deliberate (mal)practice, I will address a much more delicate subject, namely the recurring scholarly misconduct of some Antinat researchers, as they manifest themselves in the two target articles mentioned above.
This inappropriate scientific behavior will demonstrate why there is little hope for an eventual meeting of minds between the two opposing camps.
The Case for Giftedness No official Pronat position exists. The one I offer here shares many principles and ideas with other conceptions of giftedness, but has distinct idiosyncratic characteristics. This first part is subdivided into four sections. In the first one, I briefly present my Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent, a talent development theory that uses the terms gifts and talents in very distinct ways. The DMGT offers a general framework to analyze the dynamics of talent development over the life span; it also introduces a clearly defined set of terms to describe unambiguously all major components of the talent development process, as well as the prevalence of various levels of giftedness and talent. It will serve as my background structure throughout this debate. In the second section, I define the concept of natural ability through six differential criteria: two essential characteristics and four logically associated corollaries. The third and fourth sections are devoted to the constructs of general intelligence and physical ability, respectively. I first define them, then bring forth relevant scientific literature to demonstrate how each perfectly meets all six defining criteria of natural abilities.
The Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent (DMGT)1 Among current conceptions of giftedness (Sternberg & Davidson, 2005), the DMGT stands alone in its clear, distinct, and well-operationalized definitions of two key concepts in the field of gifted education: giftedness and talent. I will not describe the DMGT in detail, but survey its components and structure just enough to enlighten readers who have never encountered this theory; I will also define various terms that will regularly reappear in other parts of this chapter. Please keep in mind that all the terms defined in the following presen1 Since the writing of this chapter, the DMGT went through a major update, only recently unveiled. An overview of the revised DMGT 2.0 is available from the author.
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Fig. 7.1 Gagn´e’s differentiated model of giftedness and talent (DMGT.2007)
tation will maintain that specific meaning throughout the chapter, except when otherwise stated. Interested readers will find detailed presentations of the DMGT in various recent sources (Gagn´e, 2003, 2004, 2005a, in press; Van Rossum & Gagn´e, 2005). As shown in Fig. 7.1, the DMGT brings together six components: gifts (G), talents (T), the talent development process (D), intrapersonal catalysts (I), environmental catalysts (E), and the chance factor (C), They can be grouped into two distinct trios: (a) the talent development trio (G, T, D) and the “supporting cast” trio (I, E, C).
The Talent Development Trio The first trio includes the three components whose interaction summarizes the essence of the DMGT’s conception of talent development: the progressive transformation of gifts into talents. Here are formal definitions for the two target concepts. Giftedness designates the possession and use of untrained and spontaneously expressed outstanding nat-
ural abilities or aptitudes (called gifts), in at least one ability domain,2 to a degree that places an individual at least among the top 10% of age peers. 2 When I conceived the DMGT at the turn of the 1980s, I decided to adopt the term “domain” for categories of natural abilities (gifts) and the term “field” for talent areas; I hoped in that way to reduce confusion when discussing these two category systems. Csikszentmihalyi and Robinson (1986) independently proposed another differentiation, which they described as follows:
If by “domain” we mean a culturally structured pattern of opportunities for action, requiring a distinctive set of sensori-motor and cognitive skills—in short, a symbolic system such as music, mathematics, or athletics—we may designate by “field” the social organization of a domain. A field includes all the statuses pertinent to the domain; it specifies the habitual patterns of behavior—or roles— expected from persons who occupy the various statuses. (pp. 278–279) My own definition of field does not distinguish these two perspectives. Because I analyze the phenomenon of talent development from a less macroscopic or societal outlook, and more from a psycho-educational perspective, that distinction has limited usefulness. But note the large overlap between their defini-
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Talent designates the outstanding mastery of systematically developed competencies (knowledge and skills) in at least one field (see Note 1, p. 157) of human activity to a degree that places an individual at least among the top 10% of “learning peers” (all those who have accumulated a similar amount of learning time from either current or past training). The terminology used in the above definitions reveals the breadth of the theory. Although it was created to explain the transformation of gifts into talents, the DMGT also applies more generally to the transformation of average (or low) natural abilities into average (or low) competencies (knowledge and skills). Gifts (G). The DMGT distinguishes four natural ability domains (see Fig. 7.1): intellectual (Gi), creative (Gc), socioaffective (Gs), and physical (Gp). These natural abilities, whose development and level of expression is partially controlled by the individual’s genetic endowment, can be observed in every task children are confronted with in the course of their schooling. For instance, think of the intellectual abilities needed to learn to read, speak a foreign language, or understand new mathematical concepts; the creative abilities needed to solve different kinds of problems and produce original work in science, literature, and art; the physical abilities involved in sports, music, and sculpture; the social abilities that children use daily in interactions with classmates, teachers, and parents. Gifts can be observed more easily and directly in young children because environmental influences and systematic learning have exerted their moderating influence in a limited way. However, they still show themselves in older children and even in adults through the facility and speed with which individuals acquire new competencies (knowledge and skills) in any given field of human activity. Said differently, ease and speed in learning is the trademark of giftedness. Talents (T). As defined in the DMGT, talents progressively emerge from the transformation of these outstanding natural abilities or gifts into the well-trained and systematically developed competencies characteristic of a particular field of human activity. On the potential-performance continuum, talents represent the performance pole, thus the outcome of the talent development process. Talent fields can be extremely diverse.
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Figure 7.1 shows examples of talent fields relevant to school-aged youth. A given natural ability can express itself in many different ways, depending on the field(s) of activity adopted by an individual. For example, manual dexterity can be modeled into the particular skills of a pianist, a painter, or a video-game player. Similarly, intelligence can be modeled into the scientific reasoning of a chemist, the game analysis of a chess player, or the strategic planning of an athlete. Developmental process (D). In this theory, natural abilities or aptitudes act as the “raw material” or constituent elements of talents. The process of talent development manifests itself when the child or adolescent engages in systematic learning and practicing; the higher the level of talent sought, the more intensive this process will be. Developmental processes can take three different forms. (a) Maturation is a process largely controlled by the genetic endowment. It ensures the growth and transformation of all biological structures and physiological processes (called endophenotypes) that underlie phenotypic abilities. (b) Spontaneous learning corresponds essentially to knowledge and skills acquired as part of daily activities. Much of what is called “practical intelligence” (Sternberg & Wagner, 1986) results from such unstructured learning activities. The general knowledge, language skills, social skills, or manual skills mastered by young children before they enter the school system result almost totally from such unstructured activities. (c) Systematic learning is characterized not only by a conscious intention to attain specific learning goals but also by a systematically planned sequence of learning steps to achieve these goals. When that systematic learning reaches high levels, Ericsson’s concept of deliberate practice (Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-R¨omer, 1993) becomes a central part of the learning process. This third type is not necessarily formal. In its non-formal type, it corresponds to autodidactic or self-taught learning, done most of the time as a leisure activity. Still, the most common learning process remains formal or institutionally based and leads to an official diploma recognizing competence or talent. As a general rule, these three processes contribute in inverse ways to the development of gifts and talents. In the case of gifts, the major developmental agent is maturation, closely followed by informal learning; it is the opposite in the case of talents, with formal institutional tion of domain and my own definition of field. Since most relearning accounting for most of the developmental acsearchers in gifted education commonly use the term “domain” in their writings, I judged important to write this clarifying note. tivity.
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The prevalence question. Any definition of normative concepts must specify how subjects differ from the norm and what it means in terms of the prevalence of the population subsumed by the label. In the DMGT, the threshold for both giftedness and talent is placed at the 90th percentile. In other words, those who belong to the top 10% of the relevant reference group in terms of natural ability (for giftedness) or achievement (for talent) may receive the relevant label. This generous choice of threshold is counterbalanced by the use of five successive levels of giftedness or talent based on the metric system (Gagn´e, 1998b). Thus, within the top 10% of “mildly” gifted or talented persons, the DMGT identifies the following four progressively more selective subgroups, labeled “moderately” (top 1%), “highly” (top 1:1,000), “exceptionally” (top 1:10,000), and “extremely” (top 1:100,000), respectively.
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ences on the process of talent development. Gifted education programs within or outside the school belong to the category of provisions, as do similar types of programs in other fields; these more systematic forms of intervention contribute to foster—or hinder—the talent development process. Finally, significant events (the death of a parent, a prize or award, a major accident or illness) can alter the course of talent development one way or the other. Chance (C). Chance could be added as a fifth causal factor associated with the environment (e.g., the chance of being born in a particular family; the chance of the school in which the child is enrolled developing a program for talented students). But, strictly speaking, it is not a causal factor. Just like the type of influence (positive vs. negative), chance characterizes the predictability (controllable vs. uncontrollable) of elements belonging to three other components (G, I, or E). Chance’s crucial involvement is well summarized by Atkinson’s (1978) belief that all human accomplishThe “Supporting Cast” Trio ments can be ascribed to “two crucial rolls of the dice The talent development process is facilitated (or over which no individual exerts any personal control. hindered) by the action of two types of catalysts: These are the accidents of birth and background. One intrapersonal and environmental (see Fig. 7.1). The roll of the dice determines an individual’s heredity; the last component, chance, temporarily associated with other, his formative environment” (p. 221). the catalysts, will have its precise role revised in the near future. Intrapersonal catalysts (I). The intrapersonal cata- The Dynamics of Talent Development lysts include physical and psychological factors, many of them under the partial influence of the genetic en- For the model to become a theory, the six components dowment. Among the psychological catalysts, motiva- need to be dynamically associated, a process still in tion and volition play a crucial role in initiating the pro- progress. Here are a few glimpses of the theory part of cess of talent development, guiding it and sustaining the DMGT. it through obstacles, boredom, and occasional failure. Basic overview. The relationships among the six Self-management gives structure and efficiency to the components are expressed through a complex pattern talent development process, as it does to other daily ac- of interactions. The most fundamental is the causal retivities. Hereditary predispositions to behave in certain lationship between natural abilities (gifts) and compeways (temperament) and acquired styles of behavior tencies (talents), illustrated by the large central arrow in (e.g., traits and disorders) also contribute significantly Fig. 7.1. Because gifts are the constituent elements (or to support and stimulate, or slow down and even block, raw materials) of talents, it follows that the presence talent development. of talents implies underlying gifts. But that statement Environmental catalysts (E). The environment man- needs to be qualified. Of course, I and E catalysts, as ifests its significant impact in four different ways. The well as the D component, play a significant facilitatmilieu exerts its influence both at a macroscopic level ing (or hindering) role in the developmental process. (e.g., geographic, demographic, sociological) and at a As causal agents they take away from gifts part of the more microscopic level (e.g., size of family, age and predictive power for talent emergence, thus reducing gender of siblings, socioeconomic status). Many dif- the causal power of gifts to a moderate level. Conseferent persons, not only parents and teachers but also quently, at low levels of talent, we could observe indisiblings and peers, may have positive or negative influ- viduals with natural abilities below the gifted level hav-
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ing reached talent-level performances through strong inputs from intrapersonal and/or environmental catalysts, as well as from the developmental process itself (amount and intensity of learning and practicing). This moderate relationship between gifts and talents also means that gifts can remain undeveloped, as witnessed by the well-known phenomenon of academic underachievement among intellectually gifted children. The causal components usually act through the developmental process, facilitating or hindering the learning activities and thus the performance. But any pair of components can interact, and in both directions (e.g., G influencing I and vice versa); achievements (T) or their absence can even have a feedback effect on the other components. What makes a difference? Are some components generally recognized as exercising more powerful influences on talent emergence? It is possible to find in the scientific literature strong defenders for each of the DMGT’s components. It is clear, for instance, that strong environmentalists (e.g., Bloom, 1985a) will choose the E catalysts; for his part, Ericsson (Ericsson et al., 1993) has been insisting for almost two decades that his “deliberate practice” construct (a part of D) is the crucial element in talent development. My own review of the existing literature has brought me to propose the following hierarchy among the four components: G, I, D, E (see Gagn´e, 2003, 2004, 2005a, for a detailed discussion of that ranking). Because of its pervasive role through most components, I have put aside the chance factor. Still, that pervasive role achieved through non-controllable genetic and environmental influences would give it a top ranking. Creating a hierarchy should not make us forget that (a) all components play a crucial role in the talent developments process, and (b) that each individual story of talent emergence reveals a unique mixture of the four causal components (see Gagn´e, 2000, for an illustration). In a nutshell, the emergence of talents results from a complex choreography between the four causal components, a choreography unique to each individual situation.
gifts and talents; and without that distinction the whole DMGT edifice literally crumbles. No wonder that the drastic judgments pronounced by Antinat researchers make me react strongly! And their judgments are usually unmitigated, as we saw in the quotes presented in the introduction of the chapter. When I examined the evidence behind their strong statements, I found much room for critique, especially the omission of dozens of crucial facts supporting the Pronat position. I will present in the next two sections more than enough evidence to prove beyond any doubt the existence of natural abilities and gifts. But, I must first discuss the definition of the natural ability construct. I must do so because some Antinat researchers have advanced definitions that I find unsatisfactory. This exercise will begin with a brief survey of some existing definitions; I will then identify six defining criteria of natural abilities, pointing out in the process some submitted characteristics that I do not consider essential or even relevant. I will complete this definition with precisions on their measurement.
About Natural Abilities and Giftedness
3 I created the IGAT acronym (Intellectually Gifted and Academically Talented) to convey the idea that school districts select the vast majority of their gifted program participants with a combination of general intelligence and academic achievement measures.
As shown in the preceding section, the concept of natural ability anchors the DMGT’s distinction between
Survey of Differentiating Criteria The distinction between the aptitude–potential pair and the performance–achievement duo is probably one of the most ubiquitous distinctions in the field, not only in the gifted education literature, mostly interested by the IGAT3 population, but also in the larger talent development literature, which includes all other fields, especially arts and sports. Some years ago, I summarized my convictions about the nature of abilities, gifts, and talents in the form of 22 statements as logically sequenced as I could (Gagn´e, 1999b). They were grouped into three sections: (a) the nature of human abilities, (b) individual differences and their origins, (c) the specific case of gifts and talents. Six commentators reacted to that target article. One of them (Borland, 1999) did not mince his words: “Perhaps more important, I believe the natural-systematically developed dichotomy lacks utility” (p. 140). In my response to the commentators, I answered, “Its usefulness resides in my association of
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NAT and SYSDEV abilities with potential and achievement respectively. . ..It permeates every text ever written in gifted education and is also present, explicitly or implicitly, in most definitions of giftedness, talent, or both” (Gagn´e, 1999a, p. 204). I then quoted many examples of that distinction from the writings of major scholars in the field. Although the exact definition of aptitude has been the subject of some controversy (e.g., Anastasi, 1980; Lubinski & Dawis, 1992; Snow, 1992; Snow & Lohman, 1984), most scholars have readily adopted the aptitude–achievement dichotomy. I will present here two definitions that I find relevant to the present discussion. Angoff’s characteristics. Angoff (1988) was one of the most articulate in his support for a distinction between aptitude and achievement. He proposed the following differentiating characteristics: (a) slow growth (for aptitudes) vs. rapid growth (for achievement); (b) informal learning vs. formal; (c) resistance to stimulation vs. susceptibility to it; (d) major genetic substratum vs. major practice component; (e) more general content vs. more circumscribed; (f) “old formal” learning vs. recent acquisitions; (g) more generalizable vs. narrower transfer; (h) prospective use (predicting future learning) vs. retrospective use (assessing amount learned); (i) usable for general population evaluation vs. limited to systematically exposed individuals. It is worth noting that all these characteristics apply perfectly to the DMGT’s differentiation between gifts and talents. Howe et al.’s proposed properties. In their target article questioning the existence of gifts (innate talent), Howe et al. (1998) proposed five properties that should be observed for a particular characteristic to be called a “talent”: (1) It originates in genetically transmitted structures and hence is at least partly innate. (2) Its full effects may not be evident at an early stage, but there will be some advance indications, allowing trained people to identify the presence of talent before exceptional levels of mature performance have been demonstrated. (3) These early indications of talent provide a basis for predicting who is likely to excel. (4) Only a minority are talented, for if all children were, there would be no way to predict or explain differential success. Finally, (5) talents are relatively domain-specific (pp. 399–400).
The above quote exemplifies the interpretative ambiguities created by the lack of a clear distinction between giftedness and talent. The authors use the expression
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“innate talent” most of the time to designate the target concept of their article (the DMGT’s giftedness), but choose the expression “talent account” (without “innate”) to describe the theoretical position defended by Pronat scholars. In the second item, the meaning of the term talent is again ambiguous since it can refer to both gifts and early manifestations of talent. Indeed, the DMGT’s definition of talent recognizes that they may appear very precociously, in fact as soon as individual differences in the growth of competencies make it possible to pinpoint the top 10% achievers. At the same time, the fast pace of learning that produced these precocious high achievements serves as an indirect measure of giftedness. Again, in the third property, the expression “early indications of talent” can target both measures of giftedness or talent. With regard to their content, the first property requires only that we replace innate with hereditary (see DC-1 below). Except for its ambiguous terminology, the second property poses few problems so long as the “advance indications” can take other forms than direct measures of the natural ability itself, for instance clear indications of a faster learning pace. The third and fourth ones pose no problem although the fourth appears tautological; are not gifts and talents normative concepts by definition? Finally, the only unacceptable property is the last one. That rejection will be discussed below (see DC-4).
Two Basic Defining Criteria What distinguishes natural abilities from systematically developed competencies? Angoff (1988) did not specify which of his differentiating characteristics constituted core elements compared to more peripheral ones. For their part, Howe et al. (1998) considered each of their five properties to be essential. My own answer will borrow from both sources. After specifying a preliminary condition, namely that only “real” abilities be labeled gifts or talents, I will propose six defining criteria between natural abilities and competencies. The first two are the basic ones, from which the next four ensue, just like corollaries in a logical argument. In a nutshell, natural abilities (1) have direct genetic roots and (2) act as constituent elements of competencies. Because of these two basic characteristics, they (3) develop informally, (4) are field-independent, (5) have predictive power with regard to competencies, and (6)
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impose constraints on competency levels. Let us examine each of them in more detail. What are “real” abilities? This preliminary condition may appear self-evident, even tautological. Yet, I find it very important in view of the current tendency to extend the “giftedness” label to many human characteristics that do not belong to the realm of abilities (see, in this handbook, Bar-On’s chapter on emotional giftedness and Gottfried and Gottried’s chapter on gifted motivation). What are abilities? The term refers to the mental or physical power to do something; it is directly related to action, including the potential for action. By contrast, non-ability characteristics belong to the vast area of personality constructs; they correspond to behavioral “styles” (McCrae et al., 2000). Consequently, expressions like “gift of optimism,” “gift of will power,” or religious/spiritual giftedness (Piechowski, 2003) create undesirable ambiguity. I will readily acknowledge that some characteristics within the intrapersonal (I) catalyst component behave like abilities and that the border separating abilities, especially social abilities, from some I components remains imperfectly defined. Indeed, some DMGT catalysts are frequently described as abilities, like self-control abilities or motivation skills (Accel-team, 2007; Brown, 1976).4 Moreover, research has revealed the genetic roots of many of them, especially those associated with the Big Five personality constructs (Rowe, 1997). These genetic roots may tempt researchers and other professionals to use the label “giftedness” to convey the “given” part of these characteristics. I am worried that this broadening of the giftedness construct will dilute its meaning, exactly like it has begun to happen with the intelligence construct (e.g., Gardner’s (1983) multiple intelligences; Goleman’s (1995) emotional intelligence; Sternberg’s (2005) theory of successful intelligence). Unfortunately, I have not found an appropriate term to substitute for giftedness, although it is easy to replace natural ability with propensity or predisposition; we could add an adjective, like “high” or “strong.” Finally, this preliminary criterion applies of course to systematically developed abilities, like competencies and talents. This brings me to reject
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the label Moon (2003) chose to describe her recently proposed “personal talent,” a construct that globally overlaps the DMGT’s motivation–volition pair within the intrapersonal catalysts. DC-1. Natural abilities have direct genetic roots. The genetic origin of natural abilities constitutes the most basic of all six defining criteria. Indeed, the adjective “natural” directly refers to the underlying genetic substrate of these abilities. Many researchers in the field of behavioral genetics have assessed the heritability of natural abilities, especially those in the intellectual and physical domains (Bouchard, Malina, & P´erusse, 1997; Plomin, DeFries, McClearn, & McGuffin, 2001). The significant heritability of natural abilities does not make them “innate” as claimed by some (Howe et al., 1998; Ericsson et al., 2007). The term “innate” “implies hard-wired, fixed action patterns of a species that are impervious to experience. Genetic influence on abilities and other complex traits does not denote the hard-wired deterministic effect of a single gene but rather probabilistic propensities of many genes in multiple-gene systems” (Plomin, 1998, p. 421). Consequently, it conveys two false images about natural abilities (a) that the observed individual differences are immutable and (b) that they appear suddenly (see DC-3 below). Few scientists use the term “innate” to describe any type of human natural abilities or temperamental predisposition. Finally, the adjective “direct” in the expression “direct genetic roots” completes the differentiation between natural abilities and competencies. For example, research has shown that academic achievement measures have genetic roots (Plomin et al., 2001); but the genetic component in academic achievement almost completely overlaps the hereditary component of IQ scores. In other words, the genetic roots of academic competence are indirect; they have their origin in the strong relationship between intelligence and academic achievement (Plomin & Price, 2003). DC-2. Natural abilities are the constituent elements of competencies. This second basic criterion logically emerges from a common sense examination of any learning activity. The competencies—and talents—that progressively develop are not appearing out of thin air; sometimes, they barely differ from their natural origins. Think of sprinting or weightlifting for example. Yet even these athletic skills usually require months 4 Just “Google” the various expressions in this paragraph and and years of practice to be honed to Olympic stanyou will obtain dozens of sites related to motivation skills, relidards. The same parallelism applies to cognitive natgious giftedness, and so forth.
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ural abilities when children begin learning academic subjects. Finally, structural analyses of occupations reveal that a particular natural ability can serve as a building block for many occupations. For instance, speed is important not only in running but also in long jump and pole vaulting, in some positions in football, in bobsleigh (especially the last “pushing” member on teams of two or four), and so forth. Similarly, cognitive abilities contribute to the growth of professional skills (e.g., lawyer, doctor, chemist), technical skills (e.g., computer analyst, supervisor in manufacturing, electrician), or expertise in arts (music, drama, visual arts). Creative abilities play a significant role in scientific research, fiction writing, and choreography (dance, skating, gymnastics). In brief, even a casual look at any learning situation confirms the direct causal relationship between natural abilities and systematically developed competencies.
Four Crucial Corollaries As explained above, the last four defining criteria logically ensue from the hereditary and building block characteristics of natural abilities. But, and this is important, their logical status as corollaries in no way reduces their differentiating significance compared with the first two. DC-3. Natural abilities develop informally. In my description of the DMGT’s first trio of components I mentioned three developmental processes, with their inverse contribution to the respective development of gifts (mostly maturation and informal learning) and talents (mostly formal learning and practicing). This primary role of maturation, a process with strong genetic roots, and daily life learning explain both the partly uncontrollable and spontaneous development of natural abilities. Piaget’s developmental theory constitutes an excellent example of this type of development with regard to cognitive abilities. Natural abilities tend to develop more slowly on average than systematically developed competencies; maturational processes progress at their slow internal pace, but with large individual differences, and attempts to accelerate informal learning activities are not common (Angoff, 1988). Moreover, the hereditary component makes them much more resistant to change, one way or the other, than systematically developed competencies.
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By stating that natural abilities develop, albeit differently from competencies, I affirm that they do not appear suddenly. No doubt that individual developmental paces differ considerably, with some children showing much slower growth than average, and others much faster growth. But even the fastest developing children do progress only imperceptibly on a daily or weekly basis. This statement directly contradicts repetitive allegations by Ericsson et al. (2007) that Pronat scholars believe in sudden appearance of “innate talent.” Here are some examples. “Empirical investigations of superior performance that adhere to the criteria outlined above demonstrate that exceptional performance does not appear suddenly or without prior training, but gradually” (p. 20). “Exceptional achievements attributed to innate ‘gifts’ are typically thought to arise abruptly and naturally” (p. 14). “We are unable to find empirical support for the sudden emergence of high levels of performance” (p. 31). “We hope that the proponents of innate talent are challenged to identify any existing evidence on suddenly appearing reproducible abilities” (p. 45). I will not swear that no one in gifted education has ever spoken of sudden apparition; suddenness could have been used more or less metaphorically, or to suggest that the ability had remained unobserved until well developed. But I am convinced that not a single scholar in the large field of gifted education holds such a belief. Giftedness has nothing to do with suddenness, but with accelerated pace of learning, sometimes a quite exceptional acceleration, as shown by the prodigies that Antinat researchers keep excluding from the debate. DC-4. Natural abilities are field independent. Howe et al.’s (1998) fifth property states that “innate talents” are “domain” specific, which means field specific in DMGT terminology. To ensure terminological coherence within this chapter I will use field specific from now on. Two commentators (Detterman, Gabriel, & Ruthsatz, 1998; Starkes & Helsen, 1998) disagreed with the introduction of that necessary property. Detterman et al. noted the diversified predictive power of intelligence, while Starkes & Helsen invoked innate talents’ genetic roots. These two critiques can be restated as follows. First, the significant genetic roots of natural abilities preclude their association with specific occupational fields. Suggesting that a whole set of genes—since ability differences do not depend on single genes (Plomin & Price, 2003)—associated with a specific field of talent could have evolved within a few
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centuries directly contradicts evolution’s time frame of tens of millennia. Second, their causal role as building blocks of talents argues for the opposite, domain specificity, with openness to any occupational field— or sub-field—that might require any of them for the development of specific competencies. The same logic requires that we avoid using field descriptors to label natural abilities (e.g., musical giftedness, athletic giftedness, entrepreneurial giftedness, academic giftedness), unless it is clear that the expression refers to field-independent, but domainrelated natural abilities. For instance, depending on the particular sport discussed, “athletic” giftedness should refer to a specific combination of natural physical abilities, such as speed, strength, endurance, flexibility, coordination. Similarly, “academic” giftedness should clearly refer to intellectual giftedness until proof is shown that other domains of giftedness contribute significantly to academic talent. DC-5. Natural abilities predict future performance. Without some predictive power for future competence development, natural abilities would present little interest. Indeed, the parallelism between the giftedness–talent pair and the potential–achievement continuum implies that some relevant high potential (giftedness) leads to a specific form of outstanding achievement (talent). Note the direct filiation between this corollary and the basic building block role of natural abilities. If they act as the raw material for competencies, then individual differences in natural ability must logically generate parallel individual differences in achieved competencies, at least to some extent. DC-6. Natural abilities constrain attainable competence levels. The last corollary directly follows from the predictive power of natural abilities. It stands to reason that a causal relationship between two variables means that higher—or lower—levels in one are associated with higher—or lower—levels in the other. That is what correlations mean. Consequently, with at least a moderate correlation between a given natural ability and a competency, we should expect high natural abilities (gifts) to increase the probability of high competencies (talents), and vice versa. The quantitative nature of any correlation demands an equally quantitative definition of constraints; they are not an either/or condition, but a subject of varying probability. Within this quantitative perspective, lower natural abilities signify a growing weight on the learning process, a weight that
reduces the chances of high achievements, thus creating a practical ceiling to attainable performances, however intensive the amount of practice. No doubt that high motivation and strong willpower can allow some individuals with non-gifted abilities to reach talentlevel performances (top 10% in the DMGT). But, below average natural abilities will most probably prevent any individual, however large the input from the other components (I, D, or E), from reaching talentlevel performances, even less so performances at moderate (top 1/100) or high (top 1/1000) levels of talent. In the next two sections, I will present evidence on the major constraints imposed by intellectual and physical natural abilities on the level of achievement. This corollary is particularly important in view of Ericsson et al.’s (2007) main conclusion: “With the exception of fixed genetic factors determining body size and height, we were unable to find evidence for innate constraints to the attainment of elite achievement for healthy individuals” (p. 3). In other words, whatever the level of a person’s natural abilities—assuming, of course, they exist—they would pose no obstacle to reaching the highest levels of performance in any field. Any healthy individual would only need to invest a sufficient amount of time and deliberate practice, and the motivation to sustain that practice; observed differences in achievement would depend essentially on amount of deliberate practice and motivation level. As Ericsson (1998) states, “The real key to understanding expert and exceptional performance is in the motivational factors that lead a small number of individuals to maintain the effortful pursuit of their best performance during their productive career—when most other individuals have already settled for a merely acceptable level” (p. 414). I intend to show that this allegedly more parsimonious view of expertise emergence misses many significant variables and that the DMGT offers a much more complete framework to analyze talent development.
Measurement Issues Before closing this section, it seemed appropriate to include some general information on the differentiated measurement of natural abilities and competencies. Let us point out first that there is no airtight qualitative difference between natural abilities and systematically developed knowledge and skills
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(Lubinski & Dawis, 1992); both are abilities, and their differentiation rests on the type and intensity of the processes responsible for their respective development (Angoff, 1988). In other words, although well-trained professionals can categorize most ability measures as representing either natural abilities or competencies, there are a few instances of overlap. For example, the regular school curriculum includes the development of an extensive vocabulary, and some academic exams assess its mastery. At the same time, it is one of the most central measures in individually administered IQ tests; the Vocabulary subtest of the Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children (revised form) shows the highest correlation (.74) of all subtests with the global IQ score (Sattler, 1988). In this way, vocabulary knowledge becomes a central measure of general intelligence, a prototypical natural ability as we will see below. Similarly, the College Board’s (see “collegeboard.com”) SAT Reasoning Test (or SAT-I) officially measures academic achievement; all college-bound high school seniors must complete it (or its competitor the ACT). Yet its contents focus more on reasoning and analysis than on memorized factual knowledge; this is why it has become an instrument of choice in the assessment of exceptional precocity through the nationwide network of Talent Searches (see Brody’s chapter in this handbook). But, apart from a few cases like these, it is usually easy to measure either natural abilities or developed skills. Within the DMGT framework, the rule is simple: if the measure of individual differences is field related, then one is measuring learned competencies and not natural abilities. With competencies, any performance measure will do: school homework or exams, standardized achievement tests; music, dance, or visual arts competitions; professional examinations like the Graduate Record Examination (see “ets.org”), car driving exams, and so forth. Of course, sport leads in the comprehensiveness of its performance measures: speeds or heights reached, distances covered, times attained, baskets fielded, passes caught, and hundreds of others. In the case of natural abilities, measures exist for all four domains, but with unequal levels of psychometric soundness. The intellectual and physical domains stand out with the quality of their assessment tools, IQ tests in the first case and physical fitness batteries in the second. I will describe them briefly in the next two sections. The creative domain also has tests, but their psychometric qualities remain well be-
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low those of IQ tests, especially in terms of convergent validity (Plucker & Renzulli, 1999). Because of its more recent exploration, the social domain lags behind in terms of psychometrically sound measures; available instruments predominantly revolve around selfassessments or peer judgments (e.g., leadership rating scales, judges’ scores in public speaking competitions). The earlier the assessment is made, the “purer” the measure of the natural ability will be, since systematic skills development rarely begins before school age, and usually later for most fields of human activity. Within the DMGT framework, the intrapersonal and environmental catalysts contribute to the spontaneous development of natural abilities. It makes sense that young persons who discover their high natural ability in a given domain or sub-domain will be motivated by their initial progress and will tend to increase their informal practice of that ability. Consequently, it should be clear that natural ability measures do not just assess the genetic component of that ability; they include the normal influence of personal and environmental inputs. That is why they are called “natural” and not “innate.” Summary This section aimed at identifying the essential characteristics of a natural ability and, by extension, its outstanding manifestation as giftedness. Borrowing partly from two proposals, I identified six constituent characteristics that “real” abilities must possess to qualify as natural. The first two define their essential nature. (1) Natural abilities have strong roots in a person’s genetic endowment; (2) they serve as a reservoir of building blocks for systematically developed competencies— and talents. The last four have a corollary status, but keep a differentiating role as powerful as the first two. (3) Natural abilities develop informally and slowly, mostly through maturation and daily use, and are thus more resistant to change than competencies; (4) they are field independent, allowing them to contribute to a diversity of field-related competencies; (5) their causal role as building blocks gives them a significant predictive power with regard to systematically developed achievements. Finally, (6) the causal relationship between natural abilities and achievements generates significant upper limits for achievements; these limits appear and increase as the natural ability level decreases. Now that I have set the scene by defining the key construct, it is time to examine what empirical evi-
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dence exists to support the Pronat theoretical position that some abilities possess all the necessary characteristics to be labeled “natural.” I will limit that demonstration to two domains, the intellectual and the physical, simply because there is in both a large and diversified amount of relevant scientific literature. If my demonstration succeeds, there will be no reason to doubt that similar empirical data will eventually become available to confirm the “naturalness” of creative and social abilities.
Evidence from the Intellectual Domain Among the four natural ability domains identified in the DMGT, the intellectual domain is by far the richest in amount and quality of research, not only on the nature of intelligence but also on its genetic origins, and its predictive power for a large variety of significant personal and social outcomes (Gottfredson, 1997b). According to Plomin (1998), there is more research on the intellectual domain alone than on all the others combined.
Defining General Intelligence Intellectual giftedness represents the prototypical expression of a natural ability. It should surprise no one that the term gifted is spontaneously associated with intellectual giftedness: the field of gifted education is essentially built around professionals and scientists working with the K-12 population. For them, the term giftedness spontaneously brings up the image of bright kids. And the strong predictive power of intelligence measures with regard to academic achievement reinforces that relationship. This spontaneous association can be readily observed in many chapters of the present handbook (e.g., Gross’s chapter on highly gifted; Olenchak’s chapter on underachievement; Peichowski’s chapter on gifted individuals’ emotional sphere; Sayler’s chapter on gifted and thriving; Silverman’s chapter on feminine perspective; and no doubt many others). Even more, most professionals and scholars in other fields have acknowledged that association by abstaining to use the term gifted. Instead, they use “talent” to describe both outstanding natural abilities and exceptional achievements. A few will make a distinction by using “natural talent” to
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talk about giftedness, especially in sports (Tranckle & Cushion, 2006; Van Rossum & Gagn´e, 2005). This prototypical role of intellectual giftedness gives special importance to the demonstration made in the present section. As we enter the intellectual domain, the first step consists, of course, in defining clearly the core concept. Such a definition is important in view of the positions maintained by Antinats on that subject, either considering general intelligence irrelevant in the discussion of “innate talents” (Howe et al., 1998) or questioning its existence (Ericsson et al., 2007) (see section “Counterarguments”). Is it really a disputed concept? Not at all. As we will soon see, most specialists in the broad field of cognitive studies generally agree on its nature. That consensus was reaffirmed just a decade ago, soon after the publication of Herrnstein & Murray’s (1994) highly controversial The Bell Curve. Carroll (1997) relates that this book “spawned a veritable cottage industry in which almost numberless reviews, critiques, editorials, and the like were written—but only rarely by informed specialists—to express (mainly) negative views about Herrnstein and Murray’s data, analyses, and conclusions. . .even to the extent of questioning the very concept of intelligence, the instruments used in measuring it, and the methodology of psychometrics” (pp. 25–26). In reaction to these criticisms, a group of 52 specialists5 in the field of intelligence and cognition, under the leadership of Linda Gottfredson, decided to publish a statement on the empirical knowledge accumulated about intelligence and IQ tests (see Gottfredson, 1997a, for a narrative description of that initiative). Their position paper, called Mainstream Science on Intelligence (MSOI), took the form of a series of 25 short statements on the nature and measurement of intelligence, on the validity of IQ scores, as 5 Gottfredson invited 131 specialists to sign the declaration. They represented a diversity of disciplines: anthropology, behavioral genetics, mental retardation, neuropsychology, sociology, psychometrics, child development, educational psychology, and personnel selection. At the deadline, 100 had responded. Among the 48 who refused to sign, 11 declared themselves insufficiently informed, 10 gave no reason, 11 expressed their disagreement with one or more of the 25 statements, and 6 agreed with the content but not with the publication means. Finally, 10 said that they endorsed the declaration, but could not do so publicly for political reasons (Gottfredson, 1997a). This breakdown shows that many who refused did not do so because of their disagreement with the contents of the declaration.
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well as the origin and stability of individual and group differences (Gottfredson, 1997a). The document appeared in the December 13, 1994, issue of the Wall Street Journal. The first three statements, reproduced below, precisely circumscribe the concept of general intelligence. 1. Intelligence is a very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly, and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or testtaking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings—“catching on,” “making sense” of things, or “figuring out” what to do. 2. Intelligence, so defined, can be measured, and intelligence tests measure it well. They are among the most accurate (in technical terms, reliable and valid) of all psychological tests and assessments. They do not measure creativity, character, personality, or other important differences among individuals, nor are they intended to. 3. While there are different types of intelligence tests, they all measure the same intelligence. Some use words or numbers and require specific cultural knowledge (like vocabulary). Others do not, and instead use shapes or designs and require knowledge of only simple, universal concepts (many/few, open/closed, up/down). (Gottfredson, 1997a, p. 13)
The definition presented in that public declaration coincides with many others. For instance, Carroll (1997) states, “IQ represents the degree to which, and the rate at which, people are able to learn, and retain in longterm memory, the knowledge and skills that can be learned from the environment (that is, what is taught in the home and in school, as well as things learned from everyday experience)” (p. 44). In brief, contrary to the Ericsson et al.’s position mentioned above, most specialists in the field fully agree on the core nature of general intelligence.
The Genetics of Intelligence The MSOI declaration reserved five statements (statements 14–18) to an analysis of the source and stability of within-group differences. Here is a summary of their consensual position: St. 14: Individuals differ in intelligence due to differences in both their environments and genetic heritage; heritability estimates range from 0.4 to 0.8 (on a scale from 0 to 1), most thereby indicating that genetics plays a bigger role than does environment in creating IQ differences among individuals. St. 15: Members of the same family
167 also tend to differ substantially in intelligence (by an average of about 12 IQ points) for both genetic and environmental reasons. St. 16: That IQ may be heritable does not mean that it is not affected by the environment; individuals are not born with fixed, unchangeable levels of intelligence (no one claims they are). St. 17: Although the environment is important in creating IQ differences, we do not know yet how to manipulate it to raise low IQs permanently. St. 18: Genetically caused differences are not necessarily irremediable, nor are environmentally caused ones necessarily remediable. Both may be preventable to some extent (Adapted from Gottfredson, 1997a, pp. 14–15).
There is no point in repeating here what a large number of literature reviews have already said on the genetic origins of individual differences in intelligence (e.g., Plomin et al., 2001; Plomin & Price, 2003); they would simply confirm with more details the contents of the above five statements. By presenting this summary of the 52 scholars’ agreement on the nature–nurture question I only intended to maintain the continuity between their clear definition of intelligence and their statements concerning the hereditary origins of intelligence thus defined.
The Predictive Power of Intelligence The MSOI declaration devotes five statements (9–13) to the specific question of the practical significance of the intelligence construct as a predictor in daily life situations. Again, it is worth summarizing their consensual statements: St. 9: IQ is strongly related, probably more so than any single measurable human trait, to many important educational, occupational, economic, and social outcomes. Whatever IQ tests measure, it is of great practical and social importance. St. 10: A high IQ is an advantage in life because virtually all activities require some reasoning, and decision-making. Conversely, a low IQ is often a disadvantage, especially in disorganized environments. There are many exceptions, but the odds for success in our society greatly favor individuals with higher IQs. St. 11: The practical advantages of having a higher IQ increase as life settings become more complex (novel, ambiguous, changing, unpredictable, or multifaceted). St. 12: Differences in intelligence certainly are not the only factor affecting performance in education, training, and highly complex jobs (no one claims they are), but intelligence is often the most important. St. 13: Certain personality traits, special talents, aptitudes, physical capabilities, experience, and the like are important (sometimes essential) for successful performance in many jobs, but they have narrower (or unknown) applicability or “transferability”
168 across tasks and settings compared with general intelligence (Adapted from Gottfredson, 1997a, p. 14).
This set of five statements affirms not only the substantial predictive significance of general intelligence but also its priority status among predictors of various life outcomes. Strangely, Ericsson et al. (2007) affirm, “More importantly for our review is that we have found no studies that have demonstrated that IQ is predictive of achievement in domains where reliable, superior performance has been collected meeting our earlier criteria” (p. 38). Because of that quote I decided to devote some pages to a detailed survey of the relevant evidence. I will cover a variety of sources: academic, occupational, and general life outcomes. Two additional themes, one dealing with constraints and the other with the primacy of IQ as a predictor, will complete this section. Predicting academic achievement. During a major part of the past century, hundreds of researchers have examined the relationship between IQ and academic achievement; their samples cover all grades from kindergarten to postgraduate education. In most of these studies, the criterion instrument took the form of end-of-year exams or standardized achievement tests. Ericsson et al. (2007) identify three essential rules to ensure the scientific quality of performance criteria: First, the phenomena must be observable and correspond to measurable performance. Second, the associated performance must be generated under controlled and standardized conditions in the sense that it is possible to elicit it repeatedly by presenting representative tasks. Finally, performance on the representative tasks must be reproducibly superior to motivated control groups with different amounts of experience with the task domain [DMGT’s field]. The last two criteria are of utmost importance (p. 14).
Academic achievement measures, especially standardized achievement tests, meet these three rules perfectly. First, they are easily measurable; second, students take them under very controlled conditions— albeit with some occasional cheating!—and take them repeatedly year after year; third, assuming the general comparability of grade level cohorts, average performances increase from one grade level to the next as students add more learning and practice (Gagn´e, 2005b). Consequently, there is no reason for Antinats to reject concurrent and predictive validation studies that compare IQ scores with academic achieve-
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ment measures. Reviews of such studies (Herrnstein & Murray, 1994; Jensen, 1998; Sattler, 1988), as well as one major meta-analysis (Walberg, 1984), have confirmed uncorrected correlations of around .60 and .50 at the elementary and high school levels respectively. These high correlations speak for themselves: they reveal that brighter students achieve much better, thus have better chances to complete a high school diploma and access undergraduate and graduate programs. Here are a few specific statistics. Herrnstein & Murray (1994) used the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth database to assess the probability of obtaining a high school degree. They showed that 55% of students with the lowest IQs (bottom 5%) never completed a high school diploma, that 35% of those in the next 20% of IQ scores (between 76 and 90) did the same, but that fewer than 1% did not complete a high school degree among the top 25% in general intelligence (IQs of 110 and up). They used that same database to estimate the probability of obtaining a bachelor’s degree. They observed that more than 20% of students with IQs in the second decile (between the 10th and 20th centile) entered a 2-year or 4-year college during the 1980s. But they pointed out that “fewer than 2 percent of them [fewer than 10% of admitted students] actually completed a bachelor’s degree. Meanwhile, about 70 percent of the students in the top decile of ability were completing a B.A.” (p. 36). The text specifies neither the type of B.A. degree achieved by that 2% of low-IQ individuals nor the level of their SAT scores. These probabilities confirm that lower intelligence does create major quantitative constraints in students’ efforts to reach high levels of education; and this last set of data targets a rather common diploma reached by about 35% of the U.S. population (Herrnstein & Murray, 1994). The probabilities decrease significantly when we look at M.A. degrees and Ph.D. degrees. In a nutshell, because of the causal linear relationship between IQ and academic achievement, quantitative constraints to achieving higher education degrees monotonically increase as IQ scores decrease. Predicting occupational achievement. Literature reviews abound on the predictive validity of IQ scores with regard to job performance (e.g., Hunter & Hunter, 1984; Gottfredson, 1997b; Schmidt & Hunter, 1998). Ericsson et al. (2007) briefly cite the Hunter & Hunter (1984) review as follows: “The
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observed correlations between particular tests and the criterion performance is [sic] often relatively low and in the 0.1 to 0.3 range” (p. 13). Strangely, citing the same source, Gottfredson (1997b) presents a totally different picture, pointing out among other things that the predictive validity of IQ scores is directly related to job complexity. In their literature review, Hunter & Hunter (1984) subdivided general job families into three levels of complexity: low (e.g., assembler, forklift operator), medium (e.g., auto mechanic, radiology technician, high school teacher), and high (e.g., retail food manager, biologist, administrator). Gottfredson summarized their results as follows: “The validity of cognitive ability (corrected for unreliability and restriction in range) for predicting job performance rose. . .from .40, to .51, and .58, respectively, for the low, medium, and high ‘data’ complexity job families” (p. 82). She concluded, “g can be said to be the most powerful single predictor of overall job performance.. . .No other single predictor measured to date (specific aptitude, personality, education, experience) seems to have such consistently high predictive validities for job performance” (p. 83). In a more recent and extensive literature review, Schmidt & Hunter (1998) assessed the relative effectiveness of 19 predictors of job performance used in personnel selection. They compared general mental ability (GMA) with 18 other predictors of job performance or job training success (e.g., work sample tests, integrity tests, work knowledge, biographical data, even graphology). They concluded that GMA outranked all other techniques in predictive power. At best, a few predictors added about 25% to the predictive power of GMA alone. Predicting other life outcomes. The predictive power of IQ tests extends well beyond academic achievement and job performance. Herrnstein & Murray (1994) used a five-category breakdown of IQ scores (bottom 5%, next 20%, middle 50%, next 20%, top 5%) to examine the impact of individual differences in intelligence on various life outcomes. Their observations are disseminated through Chapters 5–11 in The Bell Curve. Gottfredson (1997b) summarized them in one table (Table 10, p. 118). To illustrate a few highlights from that table, I will use two comparison groups, the below average 20% (IQs between 76 and 90) and above average 20% (IQs between 111 and 125). Among other things, this comparison reveals the following disparities: (a) twice as many (17% vs. 7%)
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of the low-IQ mothers’ children had IQs below 75; (b) four times as many (17% vs. 4%) low-IQ mothers had illegitimate children; (c) five times as many low-IQ mothers lived in poverty (16% vs. 3%), or went on welfare after their first child was born (21% vs. 4%); (d) seven times as many (7% vs. 1%) low-IQ men had been incarcerated; (e) eight times as many (17% vs. 2%) low-IQ mothers were chronic welfare recipients; and, finally, (f) the ratio of high school dropouts between the two groups was no less than 85:1 (35% vs. 0.4%)! Again, we observe how IQ scores produce significant quantitative constraints to the quality of life among Caucasian adults, so much so that Gottfredson concludes, “There are many other valued human traits besides g. . .but none seems to affect individuals’ life chances so systematically and so powerfully in modern life as does g. To the extent that one is concerned about inequality in life chances, one must be concerned about differences in g” (pp. 120–121). The limits of IQ plasticity. Angoff (1988) mentioned resistance to change as one typical characteristic of natural abilities (aptitudes); it is directly related of course to the constraints that the genetic endowment imposes on their plasticity. With regard to general intelligence, three distinct sources of evidence illustrate this resistance: (a) stability indices of IQ scores, (b) early interventions with low-income and at-risk children, and (c) adoption studies. In their renowned handbook, Anastasi & Urbina (1997) review longitudinal studies of children’s intelligence. They point out that “as would be expected, retest correlations are higher, the shorter the interval between tests. With a constant interval between tests, moreover, retest correlations tend to be higher the older the children” (p. 324). Most of the correlations they cite exceed .60. For instance, they describe a long-term follow-up of children initially tested between the ages of 2 and 5 for the standardization sample of the 1937 Stanford-Binet. “Initial IQs correlated .65 with 10-year retests and .59 with 25-year retests. The correlation between the 10-year retest (mean age = 14) and the 25-year retest (mean age = 29) was .85” (p. 324). Anastasi & Urbina caution that these high values leave room for occasional significant changes over time, especially when individuals encounter long-term traumatic situations. The second source of evidence comes from systematic early education programs, especially with at-risk or low-income children. Everyone remembers Head
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Start, probably the most extensive of these early stimulation programs. Haskins (1989) reviewed short-term and long-term educational impacts of a large group of these model programs organized into the Consortium for Longitudinal Studies. On the basis of multiple follow-up IQ tests between the ages of 6 and 17 he described a pattern of initial gains followed by declines. He quoted a follow-up review by Lazar, Darlington, Murray, Royce, & Snipper (1982): “The authors’ conclusion that early education ‘produced an increase in low-income children’s intelligence test scores that lasted for several years’ but was ‘not permanent’ (p. 48) succinctly captures the complex set of IQ results” (p. 273). Concerning specific Head Start impacts, Haskins cited short-term intervention effect sizes “of .59 on IQ tests, .31 on school readiness tests, and .54 on achievement tests” (p. 277). But, he added, “effect sizes decline each year as children proceed through the public schools. None of the differences is educationally meaningful after the first year of schooling” (p. 277). The third and final set of data comes from adoption studies, where children from low-income families are adopted into families from higher socioeconomic status. Apart from a French study (Capron & Duyme, 1989) where a stronger impact of 12 IQ points was observed, other adoption studies obtained more modest results, with still unclear long-term impacts. In her seminal book The Nurture Assumption, Harris (1998) summarized the results as follows: Behavioral geneticist Matt McGue is probably the world’s leading expert on adoption studies of IQ. His current guess is that the long-term benefits of adoption might amount to about seven IQ points. Perhaps this finally closes the case on the boast John B. Watson made so long ago: “Give me a dozen healthy infants,” he said, “and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select—doctor, lawyer,” you name it. An increase of seven IQ points is not to be sneezed at, but it is not enough to get a child of average genetic endowment into medical school (Harris, 1998, p. 262).
tion (7–8 IQ points) when these children are adopted into families that offer more favorable developmental and educational environments. In other words, two crucial characteristics of natural abilities—here general intelligence—contribute to the level of constraints encountered by individuals. First, their genetic roots create important resistance to change; second, their causal power over various life outcomes reinforces the size of these constraints. Relative predictive powers. In statement 12 of the MSOI declaration the signatories affirm that general intelligence is often the strongest predictor of educational and occupational outcomes. Here is a recent contribution to the literature supporting that affirmation. Gagn´e & St P`ere (2002) reviewed the literature comparing the relative predictive power of intelligence and motivation with regard to academic achievement. Although hundreds of studies can be found for either variable, the authors found only five macrolevel (nonexperimental) studies in which researchers had jointly used both measures within an additive causal model. Which came out as the most powerful predictor? Here is Gagn´e & St P`ere’s conclusion; it needs no additional comment: Motivation’s independent contribution to the prediction of scholastic or occupational achievement appears limited. It is frequently non-existent. . .or much less powerful than the independent contribution of cognitive abilities.. . .The 4:1 and 6:1 ratios respectively extracted from Walberg’s (1984) and Schmidt and Hunter’s (1998) syntheses, probably upper-limit estimates, are more or less equidistant from the two extremes (p. 78).
Counterarguments
The authors of the two Antinat target articles did have a few things to say about general intelligence. This presentation would not be complete without a critical analysis of their views. From Howe et al. (1998). By introducing their fifth property, namely a need for “domain”(field)These three sets of empirical data converge on the specificity, Howe et al. (1998) automatically excluded same two conclusions. First, the level of general in- general intelligence from their analysis. They mention telligence stabilizes progressively during childhood; in it two or three times, but only to discuss its low the absence of major stressful events, it remains very relationship with some specific abilities (e.g., music, stable over the rest of the life span. Second, deliber- visual arts). For example, “Although the evidence ate efforts to rise the IQ of at-risk children have had of a genetic contribution to human intelligence is little long-term success, except for a moderate aver- consistent with the talent account, there are only weak age improvement of at most half a standard devia- correlations between general intelligence and various
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specific abilities” (p. 402). That quote acknowledges the genetic endowment of intelligence, points out weak predictive power with some specific skills, but completely ignores the large scientific literature associating IQ scores with academic achievement and occupational performance. Some commentators (e.g., Detterman et al., 1998; Gagn´e, 1998a; Plomin, 1998) criticized the authors’ decision to include the fifth property and thus ignore what Pronat scholars consider as the best documented instance of a natural ability. In their rejoinder, Howe et al. responded as follows: For most people there is a clear distinction between specific talents and general intelligence despite the fact that these are related. This consideration makes it impossible for us to agree with Plomin, Detterman et al., and Gagn´e that talent ought to be defined in a way that allows general intelligence or cognitive ability to count as an instance of it. The finding that intelligence is heritable does not seem to us to have much bearing on the viability of the talent account (pp. 432–433).
If I understand that statement correctly, it means that because “most people” (who are they?) entertain a field-specific belief, the authors must reject the judgment of experts, most of whom believe otherwise. It seems to me a very strange decision. But let us read again carefully the first sentence of their quote. Could these “people” have in mind, as a majority of lay people do (Gagn´e, B´elanger, & Motard, 1993), the DMGT’s distinction between gifts and talents? If so, then they do make a “clear distinction between specific [systematically developed] talents and general intelligence.” And, exactly because of that distinction, these talents are not “innate,” whereas general cognitive ability has a strong hereditary basis, as Howe et al. themselves acknowledge. From Ericsson et al. (2007). Ericsson et al. (2007) do not directly discuss the theme of general intelligence as a natural ability. Nowhere did I find direct and substantial counterevidence to the arguments presented here on the nature of intelligence, its heritability, and its predictive power. They briefly mention the subject within two sections of their target article. In the first one, they begin by criticizing the work of Binet and Simon, precursors of intelligence testing, saying that their approach “does not try to capture the essence of the criterial performance, namely performance on the school examinations themselves, but rather searches for any tasks and items of reasoning, memory, and other cognitive functions that correlate with and thus can predict the target performance” (p. 12). That cri-
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tique is unfair because it does not respect the mandate these scientists received from the French Minister of Public Instruction. He asked them to create a diagnostic instrument that would distinguish school children who were failing because they did not have the necessary— cognitive of course—aptitudes to succeed from school children who were failing for other reasons (Anastasi & Urbina, 1997). They were not asked to dissect the reasoning processes involved in answering language, geographical, or mathematical questions, just create an instrument with good concurrent validity. To better understand Ericsson et al.’s error of judgment, it is useful to introduce here Embretson’s (1983) twin outlooks for test validation. The first one, called “construct representation,” aims to “identify specific information-processing components and knowledge stores needed to perform the tasks set by the test items” (Anastasi & Urbina, 1997, p. 135). The second, called “nomothetic span,” is concerned with the network of relations a test entertains with other variables, including criterion performances and other real-life data. Binet and Simon’s mandate belongs to the second perspective, whereas Ericsson et al.’s critique pertains to the first perspective. Moreover, their critique does not even target the predictor but the criterion! Said differently, Ericsson et al.’s (2007) “complaint” that Binet and Simon did not try “to capture the essence of the criterion performance” means that they should have examined in depth the component skills that make up a particular field’s expert performance. The only valid purpose for such a “skill dissection” operation is to better understand the nature of the criterion itself; in other words, what does expertise look like? It will in no way help answer the question that professionals in the field of talent development consider their core problem: how do non-criterion variables (the DMGT’s G, I, D, and E components) causally contribute to the emergence of talents (Ericsson’s expert performances)? A few paragraphs later, Ericsson et al. (2007) state that “one of the goals of ability research is to uncover latent variables that measure cognitive capacities, such as ‘g’, by analyzing performance on a large number of test items for large representative groups of a population and then measure its relation to some other latent criterion variable measuring performance” (p. 13). Again, that “one” goal includes both the construct representation perspective (uncover latent variables) and the nomothetic span outlook (measure its relation with
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a latent criterion variable). Having stated that goal, they conclude that they are “unaware of successful attempts to understand many of these latent variables (abilities) beyond an intuitive level” (p. 19). It is not clear if the “latent variables” mentioned refer to the first set (the determinants of g) or the second (the nature of outside criteria). In the first case, there is a large amount of scientific literature on the “dissection” of cognitive tasks. It begins with Jean Piaget’s seminal work and includes hundreds of studies in the fields of cognition and psychometrics (Sternberg, 1982). It culminates in the seminal work of J. B. Carroll (1993) on the hierarchical structure of human abilities. As for the second case, namely the analysis of outside criteria, it is not relevant to the present theme because it concerns measures of talent and not giftedness. In their second brief look at general cognitive abilities, Ericsson et al. (2007) begin with the following statement: “Behavioral geneticists argue that most cognitive abilities and physical characteristics are determined in part by genetic factors and typically around half of the variance in individual differences is heritable” (p. 36). They say nothing about their own position concerning the heritability of general cognitive abilities, except by cautioning that “heritability does not imply immutability or unchangeability” (p. 36), a statement no expert will contest. That introduction is followed by a major argument, namely “that observed heritabilities for cognitive tasks in a similar manner do not reflect upper-bounds of functioning (limits on attainable performance) when we are addressing these issues within the domain of general psychology” (p. 36). I have tried in the preceding section to defend the opposite position. I must reiterate that the recognition of limits imposed by the level of natural abilities does not deny the immense improvements in performance that systematic learning and practice can bring about over months and years. But as shown by at least two studies (Baltes & Kliegl, 1992; Fox, Hershberger, & Bouchard, 1996), when individuals are followed through a long, testing-the-limits process of learning, they do not reach an almost identical level of maximal expertise. Quite the opposite, not only does the range of individual differences remain, but it approximately doubles in one case (Fox et al.), creating a fan spread effect similar to the one I observed with academic achievement test data (Gagn´e, 2005b). Both Howe et al. and Ericsson et al. completely ignored that crucial result from these two studies. I will come back
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to that “omission” in the second part (“Major Lapses” section). Then comes their only direct discussion of the nature of general intelligence: It is possible that a general ability could represent some form of genetic talent. Notably, whether such a general ability exists is still disputed. Some researchers claim that the evidence for a general cognitive ability, the ‘g’ factor, is overwhelming given findings from factor analyses of the well-replicated finding of positive manifold (Jensen, 1998; Carroll, 2003). These researchers claim that IQ scores, for instance, largely reflect such a factor. However, other researchers have disagreed with this interpretation, arguing that positive manifold may reflect whatever circumstances or influences that lead some individuals to acquire more of the skills measured in typical IQ tests. Indeed, many researchers have suggested that schooling plays a large causal role in influencing IQ scores (Ceci, 1991) (2007, p. 37).
This quote completely misrepresents existing theoretical views in the field of cognitive studies. First, as shown in the first three statements from the MSOI declaration described earlier, the existence of a general cognitive ability does not represent the “claim” of a few scientists, but a fact acknowledged by a large number of eminent specialists. Second, the strong heritability of general intelligence directly contradicts the environmentalist interpretations of the few—not “many” as claimed—scientists who question the concept of general intelligence and its heritability. Finally, I would be curious to know who, besides Ceci, are those “many” researchers who, according to Ericsson et al., “claim” that “schooling plays a large causal role [my emphasis] in influencing IQ scores.” I cannot remember having seen in the mainstream literature on general intelligence that strange inversion of the well-recognized causal relationship between IQ as a predictor and academic achievement as the criterion. From Ericsson et al., this handbook. Having obtained with the permission of the first author Ericsson et al.’s manuscript for this handbook, I was surprised to discover that the authors had chosen to completely ignore the subject of intellectual giftedness. Yet, from the references they cite in the target article (Ericsson et al., 2007), they know very well how closely the constructs of intelligence and giftedness are associated in the minds—and writings—of most specialists in gifted education. So, considering the focus of this handbook, that decision is indeed very strange. [Note. This is the only reference I will make to that chapter. I believe it would not be fair to discuss and criticize it if its authors did not get an equal opportunity
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to respond. That was not possible since I completed this chapter after they had sent theirs.]
Summary I tried in this section to pre-empt the major objections advanced by Antinats who reject general intelligence as a major natural ability. The evidence I presented makes it clear that general intelligence meets all six defining criteria I listed for an ability to be labeled “natural.” Not only does it clearly belong to the realm of abilities but its definition, as it appears in the MSOI declaration (Gottfredson, 1997a), is shared by a majority of specialists in the field. It has strong and undisputed genetic roots and develops progressively and informally, which makes it somewhat resistant to change. Its significant—and often preeminent— predictive power for a diversity of life outcomes (educational, occupational, societal) confirms that its reasoning and problem-solving processes serve as building blocks for a large variety of competencies; this fundamental role makes general intelligence totally field independent. Finally, because of its causal influence as a building block of skills, general intelligence creates major quantitative, thus practical, constraints to achievements. Said differently, as the level of intelligence decreases, the upper limit for achievements in many fields also decreases. As the Romans would say, “Quod erat demonstrandum.” [What was to be demonstrated.]
Evidence from the Physical Domain6 Since the realm of physical abilities is the second most researched ability domain with regard to genetic foun6 This section, initially planned, had been deleted because of its potential overlap with another chapter on the subject of talent development in sports (Van Rossum, this handbook). When I examined the manuscript, kindly sent by the author, I discovered that it almost completely ignored the question of physical giftedness and its impact on talent development in sports. I was expecting that the subject of physical giftedness would be its focus. Instead, Van Rossum devoted the lion’s share of his text to environmental factors (e.g., parents, school, coach, injuries). In view of this lack of information and although I am not a specialist in sport, the editor and I jointly decided to reintroduce a section on the physical domain.
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dations and predictive power, it can contribute substantial information to the present debate. I will adopt the same sequence here as in the preceding section. To avoid confusion, I will use the expression physical ability when discussing natural abilities, and (athletic) skills when describing the (systematically developed) competencies typical of a given sport.
Defining Physical Abilities The sensorimotor domain comprises two very distinct subgroups: sensations and motions. Although the first subgroup has received little attention in the field of sports, it is worth a brief look. The sensory component. The most common classification of the senses is no doubt the five senses: touch, taste, smell, hearing, and sight. This common sense classification can get much more technical. For instance, Kipfer (1997) distinguishes “deep senses (muscle, tendon, joint, deep pain and pressure), skin senses (touch, skin pain, temperature), special senses (vision, hearing, smell, taste, vestibular-equilibrium), and visceral senses (conveyance of information about organic and visceral events)” (p. 67). Kipfer’s first category, plus the vestibular-equilibrium special sense, could jointly correspond to kinesthesia or “the sensation, of position, movement, tension, etc. of parts of the body, perceived through nerve end organs in muscles, tendons, and joints” (Webster, 1983). Although the status of kinesthesia as a sensory or motor component appears unclear from various sources, that debate does not impact the present discussion. We commonly associate high sensory aptitudes with non-sport occupations, for instance smell and taste with wine tasting or professional cuisine, hearing with music, touch with osteopathy. In sports, the motor component gets most of the attention. But the quality of movements depends in no minor part on the constant perceptual integration of sensory inputs. Bartlett (1958) summarized that indissociable “partnership” very well. “Skilled performance must all the time submit to receptor control, and must be initiated and directed by the signals which the performer must pick up from his environment, in combination with other signals, internal to his own body, which tell him about his own movements as he makes them” (p. 14). And Gardner (1983) called one of his intelligences “bodily kinesthetic” thus linking the perceptual and
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motor (or mental and physical) dimensions of human activity. In brief, although this section will focus on the motor component, we should always keep in mind the close partnership between the two components. The motor component. The second component has direct relationships with sports, almost all sports.7 The preliminary condition I stated, namely circumscribing what belongs to the realm of abilities, is especially relevant here. Researchers in sports commonly mix behavioral measures of abilities (e.g., running speed, jumping height) with anatomical or morphological indices (height, weight, limb measurements), and/or physiological and metabolic measures (e.g., VO2 max, glucose tolerance). Only the first category meets my definition of ability; the other two must be excluded, not for lack of relevance to talent development in sports, but because they belong to a different level of analysis. Physiological or metabolic processes are endophenotypes; they correspond to “physical traits— phenotypes—that are not externally visible but are measurable. Endophenotypes can reveal the biological bases for a disorder better than behavioral symptoms because they represent a fundamental physical trait that is more closely tied to its source in a gene variant” (Nurnberger & Bierut, 2007, pp. 48–49). Similarly, Gottesman & Todd (2003) explain that in the case of phenomena having multi-gene origins endophenotypes provide “a means for identifying the ‘downstream’ traits or facets of clinical phenotypes, as well as the ‘upstream’ consequences of genes” (p. 637). This definition of endophenotypes excludes morphological characteristics; but, even though most morphological characteristics are directly observable exophenotypes, just like physical abilities and athletic skills, their stronger genetic roots place them at a more basic causal level. Both endophenotypes and morphological traits are part of the complex hierarchical causal chain8 7
A brief surf on the web reveals the debated nature of strategy games (e.g., card games, chess, backgammon) as “real” sports. Video games are probably the least disputed case. But the pro side got official support during the inauguration of the IOC Bridge Grand Prix held at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne. Damiani (1999) titled his report “Bridge is a sport” saying, “The words were spoken by the President of the IOC, Mr. Juan Antonio Samaranch, who stated that ‘bridge is a sport and, as such, your place is here like all other sports”’ (p. 1). If recognized as sports, these activities would require little competitive motor skills! 8 A more detailed hierarchical chain of causal influences from genes to human behavior could look somewhat like this:
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joining genes to physical abilities, and ultimately to athletic skills. For that reason, they will appear as relevant variables in the next two sections on the genetics and predictive power of physical abilities. Many different classifications have been proposed for natural motor abilities. Burton & Miller (1998) reviewed a few of them, including Harrow’s (1972) well-known description of the physical component in Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (1956). They then described their own developmental taxonomy of movement skills, in which foundation areas serve as building blocks for mature functional movement skills.9 Their foundation complex includes 11 elements: balance-postural control; body composition; body size and morphology; cardiovascular endurance; cognition; flexibility range of motion; knowledge; motivation and affect; muscular strength and endurance; neurological functioning reflexes; sensations-sensory integration-perception. That long list associates very disparate elements; its lack of structure made it less attractive. Among the taxonomies I examined, I preferred the well-structured model that Bouchard & Shepard (1994) proposed to analyze human fitness and performance. It includes five major components, three of which are endophenotypes (the first one only partly): morphological (e.g., body mass index, body composition and measurements, bone density, flexibility of joints), physiological (e.g., maximum aerobic power, heart and lung functions), and metabolic (e.g., glucose tolerance, insulin sensitivity) causal agents. The last two components represent natural abilities: (a) the muscular component expressed in power, strength, and endurance; (b) the motor component manifested in agility, balance, coordination, and speed. Readers will easily associate these abilities with specific sports, like strength with weight lifting, flexibility and balance genes → proteins → biological development of structures → morphological–physiological characteristics or processes → physical abilities → athletic skills. Any element mediating the relationship between genes and physical ability could be considered an endophenotype and help explain the processes through which genes exert their causal action. 9 Burton & Miller (1998) mention an ongoing debate on the existence of “motor” abilities. They affirm that “there is little evidence that motor abilities exist” (p. 43). Yet in a later chapter (Chapter 8), they discuss the difference between motor abilities and movement skills, proposing four key differences: generality, product of factor analyses, theoretical origin, and resistance to change. I will leave to sport specialists further discussion of this debated question.
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with gymnastics, speed with sprinting, coordination with many team sports, and endurance with road cycling. Measuring physical abilities. Natural abilities can be measured at a very early age, usually by the start of formal schooling, well before children have begun any specific training in sports. Physical education teachers regularly assess some of these abilities more or less formally during their physical education classes with young students. More systematic assessments also exist. For instance, Morrow, Jackson, Disch, & Mood (2005) describe four different youth fitness batteries: FITNESSGRAM (Human Kinetics), President’s Challenge (two distinct batteries), and Netherlands’s Eurofit battery. They include a diversity of tests: curlups, shuttle runs, endurance runs or walks, pull-ups, push-ups, and so forth. Published norms reveal that young children already differ considerably in their physical abilities. For example, in the norms used for the President’s Challenge (2007) fitness tests, 6-year-old boys in the bottom 5% (P5 ) take 18+ min to run/walk 1 mile (1.62 km), whereas those at the 95th percentile (P95 ) are twice as fast, covering that distance in a bit less than 9 min. The results are approximately the same for 6-year-old girls. In the case of curl-ups, 6-year-old boys and girls at P5 can do only seven in 60 seconds, whereas those at P95 can do 40 (boys) and 36 (girls), at least five times as many. Note that these comparisons exclude the top and bottom 5%. Note on talents in sports. As soon as children or adolescents start participating in systematic training programs, they begin building skills directly related to that sport. Their performance will no longer be measured through general tests of natural physical abilities, but assessments will examine individual differences in learned skills. The diversity of sports is such that classifications are not easy to make, especially classifications with mutually exclusive categories. Going well beyond the very basic individual/team dichotomy, Kipfer (1997, pp. 347–350) presented an interesting set of 11 non-mutually exclusive categories based on a special characteristic shared by groups of sports: air (gliding, parasailing), animal (hunting, rodeo), athletics/gymnastics (aerobics, decathlon), ball and stick (baseball, golf), combat (aikido, wrestling), court (handball, tennis), target (bowling, pool), team (football, volleyball), water (diving, surfing), wheel (bicycling, car racing), and winter (bobsledding, skiing).
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The Genetics of Physical Abilities Professional beliefs in the strong genetic roots of physical abilities and athletic performance go back many decades. In their seminal chapter on talent identification, R´egnier, Salmela, & Russell (1993) reviewed nine different models of talent detection published during the 1970s and 1980s (Bar-Or, Bompa, Dreke, Geron, Gimbel, Harre, Havlicek, Jones & Watson, Montpetit & Cazorla); all of these models gave a significant role, sometimes the predominant role, to natural abilities and their anatomical or physiological endophenotypes. But, although scholars created these models, many Antinat spokespersons will probably object that these theoretical models do not constitute hard evidence on the heritability of physical abilities. So, instead of describing them in some detail, I will go directly to empirical evidence. It began accumulating during the 1970s, and the pace of research increased from decade to decade. I will survey this progress by borrowing heavily from two very different sources: a recent technical literature review by MacArthur & North (2005) and a detailed examination of the size and sources of black–white differences in sport achievements by an award-winning journalist (Entine, 2000). The same scientists will be repeatedly cited by both sources, especially a large team under the leadership of Dr. Claude Bouchard, formerly from Laval University (Quebec). The MacArthur and North review. Right at the outset, in their abstract, MacArthur & North (2005) clearly state their strong belief in a significant hereditary component of individual differences in physical abilities, as well as their morphological and physiological understructures. That hereditary component applies not only to normal individuals but also to the sporting elite: Physical fitness is a complex phenotype influenced by a myriad of environmental and genetic factors, and variation in human physical performance and athletic ability has long been recognized as having a strong heritable component. Recently, the development of technology for rapid DNA sequencing and genotyping has allowed the identification of some of the individual genetic variations that contribute to athletic performance. This review will examine the evidence that has accumulated over the last three decades for a strong genetic influence on human physical performance, with an emphasis on two sets of physical traits, viz. cardiorespiratory and skeletal muscle function, which are particularly important for performance in a variety of sports. We will then review recent studies that have identified individual genetic variants as-
176 sociated with variation in these traits and the polymorphisms that have been directly associated with elite athlete status. Finally, we explore the scientific implications of our rapidly growing understanding of the genetic basis of variation in performance (p. 331).
MacArthur & North (2005) begin the text itself by pointing out that “elite athletes, viz. athletes who have competed at a national or international level in their chosen sport, represent a rare convergence of genetic potential and environmental factors” (p. 331), adding that “most of us could never achieve elite athlete status, however hard we trained [a clear statement of major constraints]. Just as genetic predisposition plays a major role in determining one’s susceptibility to multifactorial diseases such as diabetes and cancer, elite athletic performance is a complex fitness phenotype substantially determined by genetic potential” (p. 331). They tell how the first strong evidence for a genetic influence on physical performance came from familial studies (e.g., comparisons of identical vs. fraternal twins, biological vs. adopted siblings, parents vs. children). Bouchard and his team were pioneers in that type of research, gathering a large database called the HERITAGE (health, risk factors, exercise training and genetics) Family Study (Bouchard et al., 1995). A consortium of five universities in the United States and Canada joined forces to gather the database, composed of 101 white and 127 black families who were assessed in the sedentary state and in response to a standardized 20-week aerobic exercise training program (Bouchard, Malina, & P´erusse, 1997). MacArthur & North (2005) summarize some of the numerous studies (literally dozens of them) produced from that database. These researchers obtained heritability estimates ranging from 20% to 75% for a diversity of factors associated with physical performance: maximum oxygen uptake in the sedentary state and in response to training, oxygen consumption and power output during submaximal exercise, the exercise heart response rate to training, muscle adaptation to endurance exercise, vertical jump height, and various measures of muscle strength and response to training. The Laval group also demonstrated the significant heritability of “trainability,” the response of individuals to systematic training (Bouchard et al., 1997). MacArthur and North finally note Simoneau & Bouchard’s (1995) study in which they estimated that the genetic contribution to variation in the relative proportions of skeletal muscle fiber types lay between 40% and 50%.
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The HERITAGE findings and other similar ones encouraged attempts to identify genetic loci and specific polymorphisms that impact human physical performance. That line of research got a boost from various technical discoveries, as well as the decoding of the human genome. “The process of identifying and genotyping candidate genetic variations for performancerelated traits has accelerated over the last 5 years and the results are catalogued in the 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004 releases of the human gene map for performance and health-related fitness phenotypes” (MacArthur & North, 2005, p. 332). From just a few genes identified before 1997, the list grew to 48 by the end of 2003. Then, the number exploded; over 160 candidate genes had been identified by the end of 2005 (Rankinen et al., 2006). The authors of that specialized gene map state that “the physical performance phenotypes for which genetic data are available include cardiorespiratory endurance, elite endurance athlete status, muscle strength, other muscle performance traits, and exercise intolerance of variable degrees” (p. 1863). MacArthur & North (2005) examine a few of the genes that have received more attention, specially the ACE I/D variant, which they consider to be “the most widely studied genetic variant in the context of elite athlete status and performance-related traits” (p. 333). They note that results from dozens of studies “suggest that the two alleles at the ACE I/D polymorphism have differing effects on athletic performance, with the I [insert] allele favoring endurance ability and the D [delete] allele improving performance in sprint or power events” (p. 334). Looking at the future, MacArthur & North (2005) envision that “the process of talent identification could, in principle, be revolutionized by the discovery and characterization of genetic variants that strongly influence athletic performance, with routine genetic analysis being added to the existing battery of physiological, biochemical and psychological tests” (pp. 335–336). But, with the caution typical of good scientists, they point out that this field is embryonic, and that “there is still no evidence that any of these variants have any substantial predictive value for prospectively identifying potential elite athletes” (p. 336). Entine’s (2000) “Taboo” subject. Jon Entine’s book, Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We’re Afraid to Talk About It, is one of the most fascinating books I have read recently. It surveys very comprehensively the genetic, cultural,
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and physiological roots of black athletic superiority in sports. The author recounts the history of human migrations, specially in Africa, and the story of black segregation and eventual participation in various sports. He discusses sociological explanations and their limits, presents short individual vignettes of famous athletes, and describes the latest scientific breakthroughs in evolution and genetic research. Two types of information from Entine’s book appear relevant to the present debate: (a) statistics on the phenomenon itself and (b) highlights from Entine’s overview of the behavior genetics literature. Here are a few astounding statistical data: Check the NBA [National Basketball Association] statistics: not one white player has finished among the top scorers or rebounders in recent years. White running backs, cornerbacks, or wide receivers in the NFL [National Football League]? Count them on one hand. Roll the calendar back decades, to the 1950s, to find the last time a white led baseball in steals. A white male toeing the line at an Olympic 100-meter final? Not in decades. Don’t expect to see a white man set a world record in a road race—any race, at any distance from 100-meters to the marathon. It may happen. In some future decade. But don’t hold your breath. (p. 19) All of the thirty-two finalists in the last four Olympic men’s 100-meter races are of West African descent. The likelihood of that happening based on population numbers alone—blacks with ancestral roots in that region represent 8 percent of the world’s population—is 0.0000000000000000000000000000000001. (p. 34) [Yes, 33 zeros!] All told, Kenya has collected thirty-eight Olympic medals since the 1964 Olympics.. . .Based on population percentages alone, the likelihood that this Texassized country could turn in such a remarkable medal performance is one in 1.6 billion.. . .One small district, the Nandi, with only 1.8 percent of Kenya’s population, has produced about half of the world-class Kalenjin athletes and 20 percent of all the winners of major international distance-running events (pp. 39–40).
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sports, and also between blacks of different African descent, let us survey how Entine covers the scientific literature on the genetic roots of these differences. The following quotes come from his Chapter 19, Winning the Genetic Lottery.10 Entine first talks about morphologic differences. “With their ectomorphic physiques, Kenyans will never compete for the title of ‘world’s fastest human,’ no matter how diligently they may train. The converse holds true for West Africans. It’s genetically improbable to expect to find any elite marathoners coming out of Cameroon, Nigeria, or Senegal” (p. 249) [Damon et al., 1962; Roberts & Bainbridge, 1977]. “It’s estimated that 40 percent of the phenotypic variance of fiber type is due to environmental influences such as exercise, whereas 45 percent is associated with genetic factors (the remaining 15 percent is due to sampling error. Although physical activity can improve fitness, it cannot alter a person’s biological endowment” (p. 253). He then addresses early developmental differences: “Numerous studies have found that by age five or six black children consistently excel in the dash, the long jump, and the high jump, all of which require a short power burst. Racial differences become more pronounced over time” (p. 251) [Malina, 1969, 1986, 1988]. I doubt that such early differences can be satisfactorily explained just with informal practice differences, and without any differential maturational effects. The next quote illustrates direct differences in physical abilities with athletes who have reached peak performance: “Scientists. . .frequently test for vertical leap—the ability to jump into the air without a run-up. A jump of one-third of an athlete’s height is considered impressive. White members of a U.S. Olympic men’s volleyball team, known for their terrific vertical leap, max out at 50 percent. Black basketball players commonly exceed that figure” (p. 252) [Capouya, 1986]. I do not believe that disparities in deliberate practice can explain such large differences among elite athletes. The last three quotes, somewhat longer, present results from empirical studies briefly summarized by Entine:
The best summary I found of Entine’s evidence comes from a Burfoot (1992) quote: “Given the universality of running, it’s reasonable to expect that the best runners should come from a wide-range of countries and racial groups. This isn’t, however, what happens. Nearly all While searching for a gene responsible for muscle weakness caused by [muscular dystrophy], researchers the sprints are won by runners of West African deat a Sydney, Australia, hospital found that 20 percent of scent. Nearly all the distance races are won, remarkably, by runners from just one small corner of one small African country [Kenya’s Nandi district]” (En- 10 Most of the quotes I borrowed from Entine’s Chapter 19 intine, 2000, pp. 30–31). clude reference note numbers to the scientific references from Now that we have basic data on the large gap in which came the presented evidence. These references appear performance between white and black athletes in some within brackets immediately after each quote.
178 people of Caucasian and Asian background have what they affectionately called a “wimp gene,” a defective gene that blocks the body from producing a-actinin-3, which provides the explosive power in fast-twitch muscles. However, samples drawn from African Bantus, specifically Zulu tribal members, showed that only 3 percent had the wimp gene. The discovery could explain why “some people train for ages but remain eighty-pound weaklings, while others develop muscles very quickly,” said the team leader, Dr. Kathryn North. (pp. 254–255) [North et al., 1999] In a treadmill study, black marathoners consistently bested whites. . ..There was a dramatic difference in the ability of the blacks to run at a higher maximum oxygen capacity. In the case of the marathoners, blacks performed at 89 percent of the maximum oxygen capacity, while whites lagged by nearly 10 percent. The muscles of the black athletes also showed far fewer signs of fatigue as measured by lactic acid. (p. 258) [Coetzer et al., 1993] In one recent genetic study, Bouchard and his team found that individual differences in physical trainability can be directly correlated to specific gene sequences. A similar study by scientists at the University College of London have [sic] isolated what they have dubbed “high performance genes,” a stretch of DNA that helps regulate metabolic efficiency. Those who had this gene variant more efficiently transferred nutrients and oxygen to the muscles—they were able to work harder with less fuel, showed greater endurance, and responded to physical-fitness training far better than those who did not. The British scientists believe that 90 percent of the performance of athletes could be determined by their genetic makeup, although no research had yet been done on which population groups might be lucky enough to have high performance genes (p. 267) [Glausiusz, 1999; Rivera et al., 1997].
Between the British scientists’ very high heritability estimate and Antinats’ 0% estimate I hope that readers will have found in the above evidence enough support for a middle-of-the-road 50% proposal. Again, as the Romans were fond to say, “In medio stat virtus” [Virtue is in moderation].
The Predictive Power of Physical Abilities My limited expertise in sport psychology precludes any attempt at summarizing the vast scientific literature on the concurrent and predictive validity of natural abilities with regard to achievements in sport. But I do not believe that a satisfactory demonstration requires a comprehensive literature review; so long as I can show some clear evidence that physical natural abilities do predict sports achievements with at least moderate power, I will consider my point made. I will subdivide
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the evidence into indirect and direct forms. But first I would like to briefly discuss a particular characteristic of the field of sports that has considerable impact on the subject of predictive power. Preliminary question. Whether they are fast or slow learners, more or less intrinsically or extrinsically motivated, all children must attend school, at least until mid-adolescence. Compared with other fields of human activity, that unique characteristic of the schooling process has a direct impact on research: validation studies of the predictive power of intelligence will benefit from an almost unselected population of children from a given age group. Non-selection means large variations on both predictor and criterion measures; and more variation means more predictive potential. The picture changes drastically when we leave general education. A new major variable appears: liberty of choice. Unless subject to strong parental pressures, children with limited physical abilities or motivation can avoid sports almost completely. And even if they participate recreationally, they stand little risk of being chosen for—or applying to—competitive training groups. For those who wish to go further, the very first selective step to access competitive training becomes another powerful discriminator that further significantly decreases individual differences in both physical ability and motivation. But the reduction in ability variance does not stop there. Soon after they start participating in competitive sports, young boys and girls with limited abilities, modest interest and/or little perseverance, will start dropping out in large numbers from that first competitive cohort (Van Rossum, this handbook, Section Dropout). In other words, I believe that young boys and girls who are actively involved in the early steps of competitive training in most sports already constitute a very biased sample in terms of many personal and environmental characteristics, especially the level of their physical abilities. Compared to the general population of age peers, I would estimate that a majority of them belong to the physically gifted (top 10%) population. The impact of this hypothetical scenario on talent development research is clear: an early major decrease in ability and motivation variance reduces their predictive “potential” by comparison to other causal factors. These variables have already exerted their major impact at the very beginning of the talent development process. How plausible is that scenario? Unfortunately, the scientific literature on the predictive power of var-
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ious variables during the early steps of the talent development process seems very limited. The chapters on talent detection in both editions of the Handbook of Sport Psychology (Durand-Bush & Salmela, 2001; R´egnier et al., 1993) do not discuss it in detail, nor do they present empirical evidence on the short-term predictive power of various predictors during these early phases. Until such evidence becomes available, I remain convinced that by the time young athletes reach regional or state levels of competition, none of them still belong to the average population in terms of their physical abilities. Said differently, non-gifted physical abilities have practically constrained their access to middle levels of competition, let alone higher levels. And, as we will see below, athletes who have reached at least state-level competition constitute the vast majority of samples in predictive studies in sport. Yet, in spite of that intense selectivity, we will discover that natural abilities maintain significant predictive power. Now, let us move on to the first type of evidence. Indirect evidence. The first indirect piece of evidence comes from the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS). About 15 years ago, AIS professionals started a countrywide Talent Search Program based heavily on measures of natural abilities and physiological characteristics. They invited all secondary schools to administer a battery of tests to large numbers of young (14- to 16-year-old) adolescents. About 40% of invited schools across Australia did participate, implying that more than 100,000 high school students were tested (Hoare, 1996). Those with very high scores (about the top 10%) were offered a more detailed regional measurement session. Then, the regional high achievers were invited to the national center for even more advanced tests in their laboratories. Those who obtained high scores in the lab tests were offered a subsidized high-level talent development program, supervised by state and national sports associations. All in all, about 1,000 athletes joined a talent development program in a variety of sports. The program was judged very successful, producing many junior world medalists (Hoare, 1998). This approach, still in use along with other procedures (Jason Gulbin, personal communication, February 9, 2007), confirms the significant role that the AIS reserves for physical abilities in the initial detection of promising athletes. It also shows how restricted the range of physical abilities rapidly becomes among those involved in the successive steps of that AIS identification process: more than 95% of
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the population variation disappears, since chosen athletes all perform well in the top 5% of the population norms. Not a single one of them would be considered below the DMGT’s mild or moderate giftedness levels. The second piece of indirect evidence has its source in a widely cited interview study (Bloom, 1985a). Benjamin Bloom and his collaborators interviewed about 20 internationally renowned individuals in each of six fields: music and sculpture in arts, mathematics and neurology in science, tennis and swimming in sports. Right at the outset of the book, Bloom (1985b) expressed his strong environmental leanings: “It is likely that some combinations of the home, the teachers, the schools, and the society may in large part determine what portions of this potential pool of talent become developed” (p. 5). In the final chapter, he reiterated that credo, but added two important causal ingredients. First, he mentioned three critical intrapersonal catalysts, namely a strong commitment to the chosen talent field, a very high achievement motivation, and a willingness to put in great amounts of time and effort. Second, he acknowledged the role of giftedness: “Another general quality that was noted in each of the talent fields was the ability to learn rapidly and well” (p. 545). In fact, in an earlier preliminary publication on these interviews, Bloom had already acknowledged individual differences in natural ability among subjects in his sample: In homes where other children were also interested in the talent area, the parents sometimes mentioned that one of the other children had even greater “gifts” than the individual in the sample, but that the other child was not willing to put in the time and effort that the parents or the teacher expected and required (Bloom, 1982, pp. 512– 513).
The third and last example comes from one of my own studies (Gagn´e, Blanchard, & B´egin, 1998). We queried 467 athletes and coaches about their relative ranking of causal determinants of excellence in sports. They received a list of nine different characteristics (level of interest, perseverance and tenacity, level of aptitudes, personal qualities, parental supervision and encouragement, sport-centered family environment, amount of practice, quality of coaching, chance factors), and were asked to choose two (ranked 1 and 2) that best distinguished very successful athletes (national or international eminence) from unsuccessful ones (regional excellence), as well as two others (ranked 8 and 9) that least distinguished them. Perse-
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verance came well ahead of all others with an average ranking of 2.79, followed by three almost equally important factors: aptitudes (3.83), practice (3.89), and personality (4.04). The three environmental catalysts, as well as chance factors, were judged least important. Schader (2001) replicated that methodology with a large group of U.S. female Olympians, obtaining very similar results. We also got very similar results from large samples of musicians and music teachers (Gagn´e & Blanchard, 2003), as well as teachers and students in general education (Gagn´e, Blanchard, & B´egin, 1999). Altogether, these results show that a vast majority of teachers and learners in various fields believe that physical abilities (aptitudes) play as important a role in talent emergence as motivation and practice. If giftedness is a myth, as Tesch-R¨omer (1998) flippantly stated, then that myth has powerful roots! Direct evidence. The scientific literature in sport contains dozens of studies on the predictive effectiveness of physical abilities and/or their anatomical and physiological endophenotypes. R´egnier et al. (1993) surveyed much of the pre-1990s research. They classified empirical studies into three groups: (a) univariate studies, (b) unidisciplinary multivariate studies, and (c) multidisciplinary multivariate studies. R´egnier et al. pointed out that, because of their broader coverage of potentially relevant causal determinants, studies of the third type offer much better predictive potential, an observation that fits perfectly well with the multi-variable framework of the DMGT. Here are two illustrative examples from that third category: Deshaies, Pargman, and Thiffault (1979) measured 116 hockey players on 6 biophysical variables, 4 specific hockey skills, and 4 psychological variables. Expert evaluations of players were used as the performance criterion. Regression analysis yielded a predictive model that included 4 variables: anaerobic power, forward skating speed, visual perception speed, and motivation. Each of the three groups of variables was represented. The model explained 55% of the performance criterion variance, with biophysical variables alone explaining 17%, psychological variables 20%, and hockey skills 33% of the performance variance, respectively (R´egnier et al., 1993, p. 293).
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analogically, that we assess the mathematical problemsolving skills of students, and then use these scores to “predict” math achievement on a standardized test. Since the students would be using these same skills to do the test, we would expect, of course, a high correlation! The situation is exactly the same in the case of Deshaies et al.’s (1979) hockey skill measures; they do not constitute a real “predictor”; their use in that study creates a confusion of goals. When we look at the study’s methodology, it belongs to what Embretson (1983) called the “nomothetic span” perspective. In other words, it tries to examine the network of relations between predictors and performance criteria. But by including among the predictors a series of variables (hockey skills) that are not “real” predictors but just another way of measuring the criterion (talent), they switch to the “construct representation” perspective, which aims to “identify specific information-processing components and knowledge stores needed to perform the tasks set by the test items” (Anastasi & Urbina, 1997, p. 135). As mentioned in the preceding section, these two perspectives should not be mixed in the same study. In brief, the biophysical variables would have fared much better if they had not competed “unfairly” with parallel measures of the criterion! Still, they contributed significantly to that prediction, especially if we consider that the sample included players from the Quebec Junior Major Hockey League, the last step before the top: the professional National Hockey League. Now, here is the second example: Nagle, Morgan, Hellickson, Serfass, and Alexander (1975) measured 42 wrestlers trying out for the U.S. team of the 1972 Olympic Games on 12 psychological and 9 biophysical variables. A discriminant analysis between both groups of wrestlers (selected and nonselected) yielded a multiple correlation coefficient of .67 for the physiological variables, .73 for the psychological variables, and .92 when both series were combined (R´egnier et al., 1993, p. 293).
A decade after the Nagle et al. (1975) study, Silva, Shultz, Haslam, Martin, and Murray (1985) replicated its design with very similar results. Note the high level of competition in that study (as in so many others in Within the DMGT framework, hockey skills represent sports); all 42 wrestlers were trying out for the U.S. measures of talent, in the same way that goals scored Olympic team, no less. Yet, within that rarefied world do. Both belong to the same level of analysis (talent), of ultra-elite athletes, physiological variables—whose with hockey skills corresponding to process measures hereditary roots have been clearly shown in the precedof talent, whereas goals scored or expert evaluations ing section—still played as important a role as the psycorrespond to outcome or product measures. Imagine, chological variables. The strangest result in that study
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is that such high multiple correlation coefficients could be obtained within such a homogeneous sample. My last example comes from the best—but least employed—methodological approach to assess the predictive validity of causal determinants of excellence in sports: longitudinal studies. Very few researchers have conducted “real” longitudinal studies that look prospectively at the predictive validity of various causal determinants of talent in sports. Most of them adopted the more practical retrospective approach, like Bloom’s (1985a) or Hemery’s (1986) interview studies. In his review of the literature on motor skill acquisition, Seefeldt (1988) found none. Since then, at least one has been published, a German study on talent development in tennis (Schneider, B¨os, & Rieder, 1993; B¨os & Schneider, 1997). The sample included all the adolescent tennis players (73 boys, 34 girls) selected for the national junior teams for a period of five successive years (1978–1982). The researchers gathered a large set of measures from various domains, including motor abilities, specific tennis skills, physical, physiological, and psychological characteristics. The collected data were used to predict international tennis ranking, based on tournament results between 1985 and 1992. In a concise overview of the study, Schneider (2000) summarized its results as follows: “parents’ support, the amount and intensity of practice, as well as the level of achievement motivation significantly predicted children’s tennis rankings several years later” (p. 172). He added, however, that the importance of natural motor abilities should not be overlooked: One interesting aspect of the causal model estimated and tested by Schneider et al. (1993) was that although tennisspecific skills and the amount and intensity of practice accounted for most of the variance in children’s tennis rankings several years later, the effects of basic motor abilities on tennis performance could not be ignored. That is, when the basic ability construct was omitted from the model, the model no longer fitted the data. Although individual differences in basic motor abilities were not large in this highly selected sample, they made a difference when it came to predicting individual tennis performance (Schneider, 2000, p. 172).
Note the strange discrepancy between the predictors named in the two quotes; only one appears in both. A language barrier prevented a closer examination of the two original research papers. This study suggests two other comments. First, the causal role of tennisspecific skills as predictors of international ranking
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leaves me unimpressed; their use in this study brings back the same critique I made earlier about the Deshaies et al. (1979) study, namely a confusing concatenation of the two distinct validation outlooks identified by Embretson (1983). Second, note again the choice of a very selective sample: all the subjects were already members of the German national junior teams, thus excluding at least 99% of all young Germans who played any level of competitive tennis during that period. So, when Schneider mentions that “individual differences in basic motor abilities were not large,” I would consider that “the understatement of the year”! Many successive selection steps had no doubt occurred before these young players, some of them only 10 years old when first assessed, reached national-level competition and were included in that research’s sample (among them Steffi Graf and Boris Becker; Van Rossum & Gagn´e, 2005). In spite of that, basic abilities “made a difference when it came to predicting individual tennis performances.” Schneider recently confirmed this interpretation: “In my view, the fact that this variable was still important in predicting the outcome variable is non-trivial” (Wolfgang Schneider, personal communication, March 31, 2007).
Summary As in the preceding section, I first circumscribed the target concept of (natural) physical ability, with its outstanding manifestation in physical giftedness. The morphological, physiological, and metabolic characteristics defined by Bouchard & Shepard (1994) were qualitatively distinguished from abilities. But since these endophenotypes directly impact individual differences in measured abilities and are commonly assessed along with abilities, I judged appropriate to include them as relevant predictors of talent in sports. Two different sources of evidence (Entine, 2000; MacArthur & North, 2005) were tapped to cover research on the genetic roots of physical abilities. In each case, there was more than enough conclusive evidence that individual differences in physical abilities (and their morphological and physiological understructures) have genetic roots. That significant genetic endowment creates major constraints in reaching high-performance levels. The theme of constraints appeared again and again in the quoted sources. As a response to Ericsson et al.’s (2007) conclusion that
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except for “fixed genetic factors determining body size and height, we were unable to find evidence for innate constraints to the attainment of elite achievement for healthy individuals” (p. 3), I will end this summary with a recall of some contrary statements. “Most of us could never achieve elite athlete status, however hard we trained” (MacArthur & North, 2005, p. 331). “Don’t expect to see a white man set a world record in a road race—any race, at any distance from 100-meters to the marathon” (Entine, 2000, p. 19). “It’s genetically improbable to expect to find any elite marathoners coming out of Cameroon, Nigeria, or Senegal” (Entine, 2000, p. 249). “The discovery could explain why ‘some people train for ages but remain eighty-pound weaklings, while others develop muscles very quickly,’ said the team leader, Dr. Kathryn North [the same North as in MacArthur & North]” (Entine, 2000, pp. 254–255).
The Case for Antinat Deliberate (Mal)practice Scientific knowledge grows not only from the accumulation of new information but also from the confrontation of divergent theories. In these intellectual face-offs, evidence and counterevidence accumulate, one position progressively gains preeminence, then becomes a scientific fact. Its tenets are no longer questioned, albeit sometimes by fringe groups, as is still the case in the United States with Darwin’s Theory of Evolution (Harris & Calvert, 2003; Shermer, 2006). As part of that slow process of knowledge acquisition, scientists analyze past research to tease out new hypotheses, conduct original studies, and try to interpret their—and others’—findings as objectively as possible. Complete objectivity belongs of course to the realm of utopia; but most researchers make an effort to report their own results with appropriate caution, as well as describe other researchers’ studies as faithfully as possible. Cases of fraudulent behavior sometimes happen, as witnessed by Sokal’s famous “hoax” and his subsequent denunciation of inappropriate use of physics and math constructs by some postmodernist thinkers (Koertge, 1998; Sokal & Bricmont, 1998; Sokal & Lingua Franca editors, 2000). Thankfully, major improprieties like these are rare.
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In the course of debates that can go on for months and years, opponents present large quantities of facts as evidence or counterevidence. Ideally, members of both camps should read all the texts cited—and quoted— by their adversaries. That is not always feasible practically. Moreover, no one expects non-specialist readers to have read the cited sources; so they are the ones most at risk from any scholarly misconduct. Protagonists and general readers usually accept “as is” the citations and quotes presented by either side, confident that proper scholarship will ensure the objectivity of that information. Of course, researchers on both sides are aware that divergent positions will make for divergent interpretations; but they expect that the facts themselves will be at least reliably reported and that authors’ positions will not be distorted. Without such scholarly behavior, the confidence between scientific peers, as well as between authors and their readers, would rapidly crumble. Where does this introduction lead me? Readers may have wondered through the first part of this chapter about the reasons for such a huge chasm between the two positions discussed; we are not looking here at arguments over shades of gray, but at diametrically opposed views. Why has there been no progression over the past decade toward some consensual agreement on basic aspects of the question? In my view, the lack of progress in this “dialogue of the deaf” ensues in large part from repetitive Antinat behavior that does not respect the basic scholarly rules described above. This is a very severe judgment about the professional behavior of peers, and it demands adequate supportive evidence. This is why I reserved the whole second part of this chapter for that demonstration. I will analyze a variety of statements from the two target articles (Ericsson et al., 2007; Howe et al., 1998) discussed in the first part. I am well aware that the title adopted for the second part uses very strong terms. But, beyond its ironical— and deliberate—distortion of a pet Antinat construct, it conveys exactly my conclusion, namely that both groups of Antinat spokespersons are guilty of scholarly misconducts—Webster (1983) defines malpractice as “misconduct or improper practice in any professional or official position” (p. 1091); and these misconducts were in no way impulsive, thoughtless or unreflecting, but intentional and purposeful decisions by their authors. The title should become self-evident as my analysis unfolds. My accusations directly target the re-
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searchers who have signed the two Antinat articles discussed in this chapter. But they do indirectly include all other Antinat researchers who explicitly endorsed the views of these frontline spokespersons (e.g., Charness, 1998; Lehmann, 1998; Starkes & Helsen, 1998; Tesch-R¨omer, 1998); their almost uncritical support makes them accomplices in the dissemination of the false ideas resulting from this unacceptable behavior. Consequently, I feel comfortable with my occasional use of general expressions like “Antinat scholarship” when introducing or commenting some examples. This “dissection” of Antinat scholarship will be subdivided into two main sections: (a) the opponents’ selective choice of “acceptable” debating arenas and rejection of “unacceptable” ones; (b) their selective coverage of the relevant literature, and selective analysis and reporting of factual data that contradict their position.
Selective Choice of Debating Arenas The selective process adopted by Antinat spokespersons works in two distinct ways; either they exclude phenomena judged relevant by defenders of the mainstream Pronat position or they give priority status to themes that Pronats deem either non-controversial or irrelevant.
Selection by Omission This section adopts a macroscopic perspective, namely the deliberate omission of whole research areas. I will examine later more detailed instances, like the omission of specific adverse studies, specific counterevidence within studies, or specific critiques of their positions. I have already criticized (see DC-4) Howe et al.’s (1998) controversial decision to include field specificity among the required properties of “innate talent.” That decision allowed them to exclude the most heavily researched natural ability: general intelligence. I showed how poorly they had defended their decision, laying the blame on an unsubstantiated reference to “most” people’s definition of “innate talent.” Other commentators signaled additional omissions by Howe et al., among them their lack of—or very partial—coverage of the literature (a) on
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the genetics of intelligence (Detterman et al., 1998; Gagn´e, 1998a; Plomin, 1998; Winner, 1998), (b) on early precocity (Winner, 1998), (c) on the genetics of learning pace (Rowe, 1998), and (d) on the limited and transitory impact of early cognitive stimulation with at-risk populations (Gagn´e, 1998a). Two additional omissions deserve special attention; they concern deliberate decisions made by both Howe et al. (1998) and Ericsson et al. (2007). The rejection of “exceptional” individuals. Howe et al. (1998) did not completely bypass the subject of exceptionally talented behaviors manifested by these autistic individuals called “savants.” They briefly describe two examples in visual arts and music. Yet they rapidly conclude as follows: “Exactly why these children could do things that others could not remains largely a matter for speculation. . .There is no direct evidence that the causes are innate, and if they do have an innate component, its main direct effect may be to augment the individuals’ obsession rather than their specific skills as such” (p. 403). Two commentators (Rutter, 1998; Winner, 1998) disagreed strongly with their association of the genetic component with obsession rather than with the skills themselves. Rutter pointed out, “The reason for association between such skills and the very high genetic component in the underlying liability to autism (Bailey et al., 1996) remains unknown, but it is certainly implausible that the skills have been fostered by teaching” (p. 422). For their part, Ericsson et al. (2007) solved the problem of having to deal with the troublesome question of savant skills by specifying their goal as follows: “Given that we are interested in generalizations for normal, healthy individuals, we will not include evidence from populations with individuals who have any identified and medically recognized deficits” (p. 6). Although their decision conveniently pushes aside a very strong piece of counterevidence, it makes more sense than Howe et al.’s attitude. The rejection of testimonial information. Howe et al. (1998) describe two types of exceptionally precocious behaviors: the early mastery of advanced language skills and the prodigious achievements of many classical music composers. They reject without hesitation the validity of that information. In the first case, they state, “In none of these cases was the very early explosion of language skills observed directly by the investigator, and all the early studies were retrospective and anecdotal” (p. 401). The second
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type of information receives a similar brushing aside: units the learning pace of those thousands of young violin learners who “screech” their way through years of “The accuracy of such autobiographical reports is Suzuki classes? My own answer is predictably “Yes” to questionable considering that childhood memories of all these questions (Gagn´e, 2007, p. 68). the first three years are not at all reliable” (p. 401). Along with two other commentators (Feldman & Concerning their argument that such testimonies are Katzir, 1998; Winner, 1998), I strongly criticized their “not based on reproducible observable evidence,” how decision: can they be? Cloning? Here again, Pronats face another irrelevant requirement, just like Howe et al.’s (1998) According to them, information from parents, teachers, field specificity. The proof of precocious behavior refriends, colleagues, biographers, and even the subjects’ own recollections should not be believed. They refuse quires no replication at all, only reliable information, to discuss such information, even from direct observers. which is the case most of the time. As a way out, both What would they say of the following example? Dorothy Howe et al. and Ericsson et al. (2007) question the reDeLay, a renowned professor at New York’s Julliard liability of parents’ descriptions of their children’s preSchool of Music, recalled as follows her first encounter with the young prodigy Sarah Chang, who subsequently cocious achievements. But who cares about possible became her pupil. “I think she was six, or perhaps five, errors of a few weeks or months when the behaviors and she played the Mendelssohn concerto with real are advanced by 2 or 3 years! The basic fact remains emotional involvement, and I said to myself, ‘I have that these testimonies are undeniable proof of precocnever seen or heard anything quite like it in my entire life’ ” (Lang 1994, p. 123). Is professor DeLay an ity, sometimes exceptional precocity (Feldman, 1986); unreliable witness? How can one explain such extreme and that precocity must be explained. Is it just deprecocity without invoking some form of natural talent? liberate practice, as Antinats will argue, or are natuExamples like these abound; they show ease of learning ral abilities at work, as Pronats will maintain? Based at its most extreme (Gagn´e, 1998a, p. 416). on evidence presented in the last two sections of the In their rejoinder, Howe et al. (1998) completely ig- first part, it seems clear that children with precocious nored that critique. But it came back in the second tar- mental or physical development are perfect examples get article. Citing my Sarah Chang example above, Er- of giftedness’ trademarks: ease and speed in learning. icsson et al. (2007) argued that “such evidence is not In brief, Antinat spokespersons invoke indefensible arbased on reproducible observable performance but on guments to reject testimonial case studies of prodianecdotes that typically cannot be verified and in par- gies or other less extreme cases of exceptionally rapid ticular replicated under controlled test conditions. Such progress; their allegedly “parsimonious” theory based evidence is of little value to scientists and will not con- on deliberate practice cannot adequately account for tribute to sound empirical foundations” (p. 30). Again, that powerful collection of counterevidence. I reacted to this renewed refusal to acknowledge testimonial information: What a strange requirement to ask for controlled replication of publicly known achievements! Here is a short excerpt from Ms. Chang’s official biography (www. pittsburghsymphony.org/pghsymph.nsf/bios/Sarah+Chang): “Born in Philadelphia to Korean parents, Sarah Chang began her violin studies at age 4 and promptly enrolled in the Juilliard School of Music, where she studied with the late Dorothy DeLay. Within a year she had already performed with several orchestras in the Philadelphia area. Her early auditions, at age 8, for Zubin Mehta and Riccardo Muti led to immediate engagements with the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra.” Here are my questions to Ericsson. 1. Are these accomplishments “verifiable” facts about her extremely rapid progress? 2. Do her performances at age 8 qualify as “expert” performance? 3. Do her 8-year old achievements compare favorably with those of most “expert” adult violinists studied by Ericsson? 4. Is this a clear exception to the 10-year rule? 5. And, especially, does Ms. Chang’s early progress exceed by “galactic”
Selection by Inclusion Antinat researchers also evade contrary evidence by reorienting the debate toward preferred areas, whether or not they are relevant. Here are three different applications of this strategy. Irrelevant mean effects. Howe et al. (1998) chose Ericsson’s “deliberate practice” construct as their preferred causal explanation of the emergence of talented performance. To demonstrate that construct’s explanatory significance, Antinats typically show that each new rung on the talent development ladder requires on average more deliberate practice than the preceding one. They use various samples to illustrate these mean differences, for instance by comparing novice musicians to progressively more advanced ones (Ericsson
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et al., 1993). They also buttress the role of deliberate practice with “the 10-year rule,” which refers to the minimum time they claim a novice needs to reach elite level in any occupational field. They even show graphs with progress curves from novice status to expert status (e.g., Figure 4 in Ericsson et al., 2007). Antinats argue that the difference between novice and expert status depends more on amount and quality of practice than on any other factor. One of the commentators (Sternberg, 1998) focused his critique on that particular type of evidence: Howe et al. make two main points. The first is uncontroversial, the second, unsupported by their evidence or arguments. The first point is that deliberate practice is necessary, or at least extremely desirable, for the development of expertise. Although Howe et al. spend a great deal of space making this point, no one I know would deny it, so there is not much point to discussing it. . ..The second point is that there is little or no documented evidence in favor of innate talents. Virtually all the evidence they review is irrelevant to their point, adding bulk but no substance to their article. The problem is their misunderstanding of what would constitute evidence in favor of a genetic basis for talents. The only available evidence relevant to claims about genetic bases of talent are documented heritability statistics (Sternberg, 1998, pp. 425– 426).
Sternberg goes on to explain how mean differences say literally nothing about individual differences, whereas the concept of natural abilities is all about individual differences. For instance, it is a well-accepted fact that the growth of obesity over the past decade has its origins in environmental sources. Yet genetic influences almost totally explain individual differences in weight. In other words, as Sternberg rightly points out, mean differences cannot solve the nature–nurture question for any human characteristic; only documented heritability statistics (based on individual difference comparisons) can answer that question relevantly. Interestingly, Ericsson et al. (2007) introduce the obesity analogy in reverse to defend the idea that “heritability does not imply immutability or unchangeability” (p. 36), adding that “there are other [than height] characteristics such as weight and body mass, which have high heritabilities (Speakman, 2004) yet can be externally controlled by diet and vigorous exercise” (p. 36). That is exactly Sternberg’s point: the environmental intervention of exercise and diet for some individuals or groups does not change the basic fact that, by and large, individual differences in weight have genetic origins. In summary, when Antinats accumulate mean differ-
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ences on top of mean differences as if these were proofs against natural abilities, they are again sidestepping the core of the problem. Antinats often mix selective inclusion and omission in their discourse. For instance, Howe et al. (1998) completely ignored Sternberg’s (1998) central critique in their response to the commentators. They mentioned it as follows: “Sternberg goes further, suggesting that much of the evidence for and against talents is merely suggestive. He disputes neither our conclusion that there is little evidence for the talent account nor our view that no one source of evidence would be definitive” (p. 434). That summary of Sternberg’s comment completely misrepresents his strong message concerning the lack of relevance of their “proofs.” For one thing, by stating that “the only available evidence relevant to claims about genetic bases of talent are documented heritability statistics” Sternberg is directly disputing their “view that no one source of evidence would be definitive.” Moreover, after rejecting most of their evidence, he does not need to dispute their conclusion explicitly: the implicit denial is evident. But the story does not end there. Ericsson et al. (2007) announce at the beginning of their own target article that “throughout our paper we address a number of criticisms raised against the expert-performance approach by some theorists of giftedness (Gagn´e, 2005a; Subotnik & Jarvin, 2005; Simonton, 2005; Sternberg, 1996; von K´arolyi & Winner, 2005) as well as several commentators to the Howe et al.’s (1998) article” (p. 6). Yet they completely ignore that crucial criticism; just like Howe et al., they continue to pile irrelevant mean effects on top of irrelevant mean effects. What is missing from both texts is effect size measures: how much of the total variance do the between-group differences account for when compared with the within-group differences. These measures would precisely quantify the explanatory power of deliberate practice. As every scholar readily acknowledges, the values would no doubt be significant: practice does play an important role in talent development. But I am also convinced that a large part of the total variance would remain unexplained, that individual differences in amount and quality of practice within each level of performance (e.g., novice, intermediate, expert) would remain quite large. Neither Howe et al. (1998) nor Ericsson et al. (2007) offer that basic statistical information. In other words, if there is a “10-year rule,” a concept I will readily endorse
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as an average, exceptions abound as witnessed by Lehman’s (1953) seminal work on the precocious rise to eminence of individuals from eighty (80) different occupational fields. Evidence for the negative impact of non-gifted natural abilities abounds even more from those who never reach elite performance well past the “20-year rule!” Convenient “straw men.” One commentator (Freeman, 1998) complained that Howe et al. (1998) introduced “straw men,” namely untenable beliefs or positions that they falsely attribute to Pronat defenders, then easily demolish. Freeman described two of them: They write that “some people believe that talent is based on an inborn ability that makes it certain that its possessor will excel” (sect. 1.1, para. 2). However, in all my many years of research in this field I have never heard or seen this supposed belief that excellence follows potential without the means to develop it. . ..It is widely assumed, they say, that talent “can be detected in early childhood” (sect. 1, para. 2). However, one might equally well say that there is a widespread assumption that it is never too late to develop unrecognised talent (p. 415).
I mentioned earlier (see DC-3) another example of straw men, namely Ericsson et al.’s (2007) repetitious allegations that specialists in gifted education present high natural abilities (gifts) as appearing suddenly or abruptly. A fourth straw man targets an alleged Pronat belief in the unmodifiability of “innate talents.” Here is a quote from Ericsson et al. (2007) containing both straw men: “We hope that the proponents of innate talent are challenged to identify any existing evidence on suddenly appearing reproducible abilities and other abilities that are necessary for attaining expert and elite levels of performance, particularly those that cannot be improved and acquired through training” (p. 45). I emphatically denied any substance to the first straw man, while Plomin (1998) rejected the second one. Howe et al. (1998) completely ignored Plomin’s clarification in their response; and it did not prevent Ericsson et al. to bring it back a decade later. Cluttering. This special Antinat muddling strategy consists in accumulating short descriptions of studies presented as evidence for their position. Few details are given save a statement that tries to link the stated “fact” to the paragraph’s line of argumentation. In a proper scientific context, each mention would require a careful description of the study’s relevance, of all appropriate data, of methodological and interpretative limits, and so forth. They include none of that. Pronat scholars know that each statement tells just a small part of the
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“whole” truth, often not the most representative part. Each statement needs to be qualified, nuanced, and replaced in its proper context. That would require many more explanations than the original statement, almost a “Mission Impossible” within the limited space allocated to journal authors. Here is a typical example picked almost at random from Ericsson et al. (2007): Several theorists of genius and high ability have noted some curious findings. The children with the highest abilities do not grow up to become eminent (for a review see Freeman, 2000). Gardner (1993) argued that eminent individuals often have an unusual developmental history and individuals with highest ability in the domain were unlikely to produce innovations. Lykken (1998) and Simonton (1999b) argued that exceptional performance is not predictable from similarity with other family members and thus cannot be accounted for by simple independent genes. Instead they have proposed that the interaction of a unique combination of genes in a supportive environment lead [sic] to emergence of eminence. More recent research has shown, however, expert performance is no direct consequence of the same genetic endowment and environment. When identical twins engage in extended practice in the same domain the twins’ performance will not always be the same—in some cases it will differ significantly. For example, Klissouras et al. (2001) report an instance when one identical twin reached world class level whereas the other twin only reached a reliably lower level (p. 40).
In just half a paragraph, Ericsson et al. (2007) discuss three different subjects that allegedly challenge the existence of natural abilities: (a) highly intellectually gifted individuals do not become eminent nor produce innovations; (b) single genes do not predict exceptional performance, since eminence seems to emerge from unique combinations of genes; (c) however, even identical twins’ performances will differ between them. I believe that these three statements faithfully summarize the quote. Now let us comment each of them. Having not read Freeman’s review, I will assume that Ericsson et al. cited her correctly. The first statement attacks the predictive validity of IQ measures. The authors describe a situation in which both the predictor (high intellectual giftedness) and the criterion (eminence) constitute very rare phenomena. Within the DMGT, high intellectual giftedness (IQ ≥ 145) corresponds to a ratio of 1:1000 within the general population. As for eminence, still a fuzzily circumscribed concept (eminence in what?), the only person who dared operationalize it was Sir Francis Galton (1892/1962). He established its prevalence at 1:4000 among adult British males of his era. Expecting any level of predictive power within
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such a limited and stratospheric range of values makes no psychometric sense. For one thing, no IQ test can reliably measure individual differences within that rarefied level of exceptionality. Moreover, the DMGT shows that talent emerges from the interaction of many predictors; consequently, we cannot expect more than a moderate relationship between any one of them and a given criterion of talent. So, practically speaking, what are the chances of highly gifted individuals to produce innovations? Let us fix at 1:1000 the prevalence of highly intellectually gifted individuals within the general population (see DMGT description) and at 1:10,000 the prevalence of “innovators”—considering that eminence is not associated just with innovation—within that same population. Then, even with a perfect correlation between the two variables, only 10% of the highly gifted stand any chance of producing innovations. That is just basic statistics. In summary, the lack of a strong association between high giftedness and innovation proves absolutely nothing about the predictive power of general intelligence. With regard to the second theme, the mention of “simple independent genes” is another of these straw men I mentioned above, cleverly introduced here to muddle up the discussion. Of course, no single gene will ever be found that accounts for complex human behaviors, especially a complex behavior as fuzzy as eminence. Then, they mention (without naming it) Lykken, McGue, Tellegen, & Bouchard’s (1992) fascinating hypothesis of emergenesis, that extremely rare configuration—rather than a simple sum—of genes that could explain the equally very rare occurrence of diverse psychological phenomena that do not run in families (e.g., genius, inspirational leadership, exceptional parenting, or rare psychopathological syndromes). They just bring up that construct to confront it (they say “however”) with their third theme, the lack of perfect parallelism in life outcomes within pairs of twins. Concerning that third theme, I will first bring back my earlier argument about the moderate correlation between any predictor of talent and any corresponding criterion of performance. Within the DMGT’s framework (see Fig. 7.1), identical heredity is just one of many predictors of any talent. So, of course, identical twins’ performances will not “always” be the same. Moderate correlations leave ample room for outliers, individuals whose behavior places them far from the
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regression line, and who thus contribute to lower that correlation. In other words, cases like the one reported by Klissouras are not at all surprising. As the proverb goes, “One swallow doesn’t make a summer.” Let me add two comments about the Klissouras example. First, what do they mean by “a reliably lower level”? If the other twin did not reach world class level, but achieved at a state or national level, would not that still be an exceptional achievement? Second, notice that Ericsson et al. (2007) supported their position with that same testimonial evidence they reject when Pronat scholars use it! Looking back at these last paragraphs of comments, readers should understand better what I meant by the challenge Pronat scholars face when they encounter Antinat cluttering. These comments also demonstrate how extensively the quoted excerpt—as do many others!—distorts and caricatures the facts to make them appear supportive of the Antinat thesis. My comments show that in fact they are not.
Biased Analysis and Interpretation of Data This second section focuses on systematic biases found in Antinat analyses and interpretations of empirical studies. I separated minor scholarly lapses from more serious ones. I will first present two forms of relatively minor bias in the examination of scientific information. I chose these two “minor” forms according to a criterion of commonality; it means that they appear occasionally in scientific publications. It does not mean that they cannot be avoided; it only recognizes that the human mind—and ego—is not always objective in controversial situations. Still, their accumulation in Antinat publications leaves me skeptical about the capacity of these researchers to maintain proper scientific distance from their strong ideological beliefs.
Different Admissibility Criteria One recurring criticism of Howe et al.’s (1998) target article was their tendency to judge more leniently and generously studies supporting their position than those offering contradictory evidence. Here are a few examples of such comments. “Howe et al. demand different criteria in evaluating studies that yield empirical evi-
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dence pro and contra the talent concept. Findings favoring the talent construct are rejected on methodological grounds. Findings contrary to the talent construct are, on the other hand, readily accepted despite comparable shortcomings” (Heller & Ziegler, 1998, p. 417). “It is difficult to see why retrospective reports about unusual musical ability (as in the case of Mozart) or unusual language skills (as in the case study described by Fowler, 1981) should be less reliable than reports about the lack of early signs of excellence” (Schneider, 1998, pp. 423–424). “Howe et al. criticize others for relying on retrospective evidence, yet they rely on biographies to claim that the emergence of unusual skills in composers followed rather than preceded a period of high expectations and opportunity” (Winner, 1998, p. 431). Ericsson et al. (2007) manifest a similar biased leaning. Early in their target article, they devote a long section to criticisms of all forms of “evidence” based on subjective judgments (e.g., ratings, interviews, biographical information). Yet when that kind of information supports their views, they do not hesitate to introduce it. Here are a few examples. “Even biographies of very eminent individuals reveal that these individuals engaged in immense amounts of practice and their technique developed over time” (p. 32). “Biographies of the few successful prodigies reveal that these individuals took measures to ensure that they gained the knowledge and experience necessary to perpetuate their superiority” (p. 33). “Even studies using the subjective method of peer ratings (as we critically reviewed in the first section) found no significant Wechsler IQ differences between a more productive, creative group of female mathematicians as compared to a control group of other female mathematicians” (p. 38). The last quote is particularly interesting since the authors mention their own criticism of that type of information, yet use it to bolster their position!
One-Sided Interpretations Results from empirical studies frequently lend themselves to diverging interpretations. In such cases, researchers will propose two or three plausible explanations, weighing each of them carefully in order to choose the one that best fits the observed data and known theories. I found that interpretative caution to be often absent in these two Antinat publications. Here are two examples.
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Practice-related physiological changes. Ericsson et al. (2007) devote many pages of their target article to the description of anatomical and physiological changes in the brain and body produced by months and years of intense training and practice. They describe some of these anatomical and physiological changes as follows: “For example, endurance runners are able to increase the pumping capacity of blood as a result of an increased size of the heart. This change emerges only after years of extended intense practice” (p. 23). These examples bring them to conclude as follows: “In summary, individual differences in anatomical and physiological characteristics that mediate expert performance (with the exception of height and body size,. . .) appear on the basis of the current evidence to be the results of a long series of adaptations induced by biochemical responses to the strain induced by specific practice activities” (p. 23). In that whole section, the authors never open the door to alternative interpretations, nor to contradictory factual data (selection by omission). They single mindedly focus on adding another brick—relevant or not—to the ideological edifice of deliberate practice. But does that body of knowledge lead unequivocally to their conclusion? I do not believe so, and here is why. First, no one with minimal biological knowledge would question the existence of these changes; indeed, they would consider them necessary outcomes of intensive skills training. As specified in an earlier section, anatomical and physiological structures constitute biological underpinnings of observed behavioral abilities, natural and systematically developed. Second, genetic influences target these same biological understructures to create large individual differences before any systematic training has taken place. I demonstrated in the preceding section the significant heritability of both biological endophenotypes and behavioral ability measures (see Bouchard et al., 1997; Entine, 2000, Chapter 19; MacArthur & North, 2005). Third, with regard to the core question, these studies on physiological changes suffer from the same lack of relevance with which Sternberg (1998) characterized a large part of the evidence in Howe et al.’s (1998) target article. They are irrelevant because the data consist of mean changes over time, whereas natural abilities express themselves through individual differences around means. Moreover, Ericsson et al. (2007) completely ignore the large body of research mentioned above on the presence of important individual differences in these anatomical
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and physiological structures prior to intensive training. They also ignore studies showing important individual differences in the pace of progress during intensive training, including the fact that these trainability differences have demonstrated genetic roots (Bouchard et al., 1997). The relative age effect (RAE) in sports. The second example concerns a phenomenon commonly called the relative age effect (RAE); it refers to multiple observations that elite young (and older) athletes in some sports are born more often in the first half of the year than in the second. Ericsson et al. (2007) briefly discuss the RAE within a long section called A critical review of the proposed evidence for unmodifiable mediating mechanisms of expert performance (note the straw man “unmodifiable”); that placement confirms its intended role as one more piece of Antinat evidence. Here is an excerpt from their description:
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The Boucher & Mutimer (1994) study cited in the quote looked at two distinct populations of ice-hockey players: (a) all the elite players (N = 951) in Nova Scotia (Canada) from Novice to Midget level active during the 1988–1989 season; (b) all the Canadian-born players (N = 884) active in the National Hockey League (NHL) during the 1988–1989 season. Does that study present ratios of early vs. late birth dates between 3:1 and 6:1 as claimed by Ericsson et al. (2007)? Depending on the way we examine the data, we can indeed obtain such ratios. For instance, within the population of Nova Scotian players, 14.1% and 2.4% were born in January and December, respectively. The problem is that such microscopic monthly comparisons caricature the RAE phenomenon by exaggerating its “real” size over the whole year. Indeed, not a single one of all the scholarly studies I read on this subject cite single month comparisons. They use either ratios based on frequency comparisons between the first six and the last six months of the calendar year (since most coResearch on the efforts to identify talents in young athhort groupings are based on the calendar year), or quarletes show [sic] that can be changed to “athletes shows that”. the selection is systematically biased by factors unterly frequencies (e.g., Baxter-Jones, 1995; Boucher & related to innate talents. For example, professional athMutimer, 1994; Starkes, 2000). In their comprehenletes in soccer and ice hockey are born much more fresive review of RAE studies, Musch & Grondin (2001) quently (three–six times) in some months of the year than adopted semester ratios. In other words, comparing inin others (Boucher & Mutimer, 1994). The factors causing this ‘birth-date’ or ‘relative age’ effect are due to the dividual months is an unscholarly attempt to distort the grouping of young children together in age cohorts, such real size of the RAE effect in the direction of one’s— as children born between 1 January and 31 December. At Antinat—beliefs, especially when the real ratios given the age children start participating in sports, this means in the studies are omitted. If we use semester data to that some 6-year olds will be competing with 5-year olds. Coaches who do not know the children’s birth dates tend describe the Boucher and Mutimer data, we obtain a to perceive the oldest and most physically mature chilmuch more modest 2:1 ratio (65/35 in %) for both the dren within an age cohort as the most talented. The older Nova Scotian and NHL populations. children appearing more talented are given access to betHaving introduced the appropriate statistics, ter training resources that, in turn, accelerate their development. (. . .) Although it is not yet clear what spewe now can ask, How do these two 65/35 ratios cific cues coaches use during this identification process, compare with ratios from other studies? Musch & the early search for talent has powerful discriminatory efGrondin (2001) give the answer in a literature review fects when it selectively identifies more mature children that covers 25 studies spanning about 15 years. Their as being more “innately talented” (Ericsson et al., 2007, pp. 30–31). summary table presents 59 different ratios (including statements about lack of significant RAE) from 55 difIn this excerpt, Ericsson et al. (2007) appear confident ferent populations in 11 sports, but with 37 values from that they hold an Antinat “trump card.” They describe just two sports: soccer and ice hockey. My tabulation the RAE as a “systematic bias” whereby coaches “per- of these 59 ratios gave the following distribution: 19% ceive the most mature children within an age cohort as are below 55/45, thus judged non-significant; another the most talented.” That bias is powerful; athletes are 29% can be considered small effects (55%–59%). So, “born much more frequently (three–six times) in some null and small ratios account for almost half (48%) months of the year.” Consequently, they argue, a selec- of the total. The next 35% can be called moderate tion process that Pronat advocates present as based on effects (60%–69%), leaving 17% of the ratios (70%+) “innate talent” is in fact based on physical maturity. Let as strong effects. In 6 of the 11 sports represented us look more closely at the data behind that statement. (baseball, basketball, cricket, gymnastics, handball,
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volleyball), I roughly computed average ratios of around 55/45; they definitely constrain the generalization of the RAE. By and large, the global average for the 59 values included in the table was 60/40, a ratio at the transition point between small and moderate effects. Even in the two sports with the largest number of indices, average ratios remain below 65%. In other words, this literature review shows the presence of a real, but modest RAE effect in some sports, and its absence in others. Ericsson et al. (2007) completely ignore that well-known and well-received literature review. In summary, starting with Ericsson et al.’s (2007) “sensationalist” ratios of 3:1 to 6:1, I first brought them down to 2:1 (65/35) just by using semester ratios from the Boucher & Mutimer (1994) study they cited. I then showed through the Musch & Grondin (2001) literature review that it could be lowered to a 60/40 average ratio over 55 different estimates from 25 different studies. This last estimate confirms the substantial significance of the RAE, yet its modest impact on the selection process; there is ample room left for physical gifts and other catalyst variables identified in the DMGT (e.g., parental finances, motivation, geographical access to training facilities) to exert their influence on that process. This more moderate view of the RAE differs sensibly from Ericsson et al.’s (2007) dramatic presentation. But it represents much more faithfully the accumulated results from that body of knowledge.
Major Lapses The last trio of deliberate malpractices goes well beyond biases and distortions. In the first two examples, Antinat spokespersons very briefly cite—not even quote—articles, extracting from them, totally out of context, marginal comments that they falsely present as a core statement from these authors, whereas the core message says the opposite. The third example is even more serious; it involves the selective presentation of favorable results from a study, with the deliberate omission of other results contradicting their Antinat thesis. The APA Publication Manual contains in its section on the ethics of scientific research a very clear admonition: “Errors of omission also are prohibited. Psychologists do not omit troublesome observations from their reports so as to present a more convincing story” (American Psychological Association, 2001, p. 348).
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That admonition concerns not only the authors’ personal studies but their reporting of other researchers’ studies. The MacArthur and North literature review. In the section on the genetics of physical abilities I used two literature reviews, MacArthur & North (2005) and Entine (2000). The MacArthur and North review was particularly useful because it not only surveyed past familial studies, including dozens of results from the incomparable HERITAGE database, but also described more recent efforts to identify gene variants directly related to individual differences in human physical abilities. Did I find that literature review through normal computer searches in bibliographical databases? Not at all. When I analyzed Ericsson et al.’s (2007) manuscript, I noticed the following statement: “A recent review (McArthur & North, 2005) found that individual differences in attained elite performance in sports cannot, at least currently, be explained by differential genetic endowment” (p. 37). The cited article came from the journal Human Genetics. I was surprised that this type of journal would publish an article directly contradicting a large amount of evidence supporting the heritability of physical abilities. When I obtained the original article, I discovered that its content totally contradicted Ericsson et al’s citation. In fact, the contradiction was so complete, and the review so interesting for my own purpose, that it became a major source of information for my section on physical abilities. Let me recall a few statements made by MacArthur & North (2005) in the very first page of their review: Physical fitness is a complex phenotype influenced by a myriad of environmental and genetic factors, and variation in human physical performance and athletic ability has long been recognized as having a strong heritable component. . ..Recently, the development of technology for rapid DNA sequencing and genotyping has allowed the identification of some of the individual genetic variations that contribute to athletic performance. . ..Elite athletes, viz. athletes who have competed at a national or international level in their chosen sport, represent a rare convergence of genetic potential and environmental factors. . ..Most of us could never achieve elite athlete status, however hard we trained. . ..Elite athletic performance is a complex fitness phenotype substantially determined by genetic potential (p. 331).
These quotes clearly express the strong hereditary beliefs of MacArthur & North (2005). Moreover, the abstract clearly states their goal of reviewing three decades of accumulated positive evidence on the genetic roots of physical abilities. How can professional
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researchers turn upside down the gist of the message in their summary of an article’s content? In no way can it be an oversight, since they had to read the article very carefully in order to find toward the end the little cautionary sentence on which they based their citation. Readers will find that sentence included in the last two lines of my own summary of the MacArthur and North literature review. It cautions that “there is still no evidence that any of these variants have any substantial predictive value for prospectively identifying potential elite athletes” (p. 336). Read properly, that short sentence means that no researchers have yet published prospective longitudinal studies on the predictive power of identified gene variants for elite athletic performance. Considering the small number of published studies using that complex methodology, their absence in such a young field of inquiry should surprise no one. To repeat myself, the fact that this short sentence was almost hidden within a whole review of evidence in favor of “a strong genetic influence on human physical performance” (p. 331) clearly demonstrates that Ericsson et al. (2007) were well aware of that review’s content. Yet they deliberately decided to misrepresent its content, not only by presenting that cautionary note as a main message in MacArthur & North’s (2005) article but, more seriously, by totally ignoring that review’s incontrovertible evidence on the hereditary bases of physical endophenotypes and physical abilities. The Thompson and Plomin chapters. This second example illustrates a misrepresentation by Howe et al. (1998) of two well-known chapters (Plomin & Thompson, 1993; Thompson & Plomin, 1993) under the direction of Robert Plomin, a foremost scholar in behavioral genetics. The two texts overlap one another substantially. As their titles show, they focus on recent research (at the time!) aimed at demonstrating that heritability estimates obtained from populations in the normal range of IQ scores can be extrapolated to the intellectually gifted sub-population. In their target article, Howe et al. (1998) stated, Relatively little is known about the genetic origins of high-level ability (p. 403), and cited the Plomin & Thompson (1993) chapter as their source. Thompson & Plomin (1993) did indeed introduce a major section, called Quantitative Genetics and High Cognitive Ability, by stating that “much less is known about the origins of high ability [than about those in the normal range]” (pp. 107–108). But the rest of that second half of their chapter was
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devoted to the presentation of evidence supporting the extrapolation of normal range heritability data to the gifted population. And these results brought them to conclude “that genetics plays a major role in the story [of general cognitive abilities], and our DF analysis [DeFries & Fulker’s 1985 technique to assess group heritability] indicates that high ability is strongly heritable” (p. 111). That conclusion directly contradicts the Howe et al.’s statement attributed to their chapter’s content. Not only do Howe et al. reproduce totally out of context a statement that conveys a message totally opposite to the core of the text, but, just like Ericsson et al., they deliberately omit to talk about the evidence that Plomin and Thompson introduce as proof “that high ability is strongly heritable.” What I consider even less acceptable is that this error was pointed out to them (Gagn´e, 1998a); yet they chose to ignore it in their rejoinder to the commentators. The Kliegl and Baltes studies. In his critique of the Howe et al. (1998) target article, Baltes (1998) called attention—very gentlemanly—to the fact that the authors had completely ignored a major result from one of his studies (Kliegl, Smith, & Baltes, 1990) designed to test the limits of systematic learning. The following quote briefly describes the study and then identifies Howe et al.’s major omission: Our focus was on exceptional memory performance, a domain that is often used as a candidate for exceptional talent (Baltes & Kliegl, 1992; Kliegl et al., 1990). When people participated in 36 sessions of intensive and organized training in a memory technique (the method of loci) that can be used to reach exceptionally high levels of memory performance, all of them benefitted from this intervention. If continued beyond 36 sessions (Kliegl et al., 1987) people reached levels approaching those of memory experts. This finding is consistent with those reported in Howe et al. This testing-the-limits work, however, produced an equally convincing second finding that highlighted the fundamental significance of individual differences. As subjects were pushed toward the limits (asymptotes) of their maximum performance potential, individual differences were magnified (Baltes & Kliegl, 1992). The conclusion is clear: the talent for being a memory expert reflects both experiential and individual-differences factors. In this case, because of the age association and extreme robustness of the individual difference finding, the likelihood is high that biology based factors are involved (see Lindenberger & Baltes, 1995, for further expositions). Howe et al. make some use of our work, but their interpretation is one sided (sect. 4.1). They select only one of the two main findings, that is, the finding of major training gains for all. The equally compelling evidence of
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strangely. Completely ignoring the contradictory results presented, they focused on the last two sentences of the Rowe quote above saying, “as Rowe acknowledges, in some instances performance levels after practice bear little relation to performance prior to practice. This is further evidence against the importance of inRowe (1998) also mentioned a study similar to that of nate differences” (p. 435). Not only did they, again, toBaltes & Kliegl (1992) done with twins on the train- tally ignore the core of the critique, but, ignoring also ing of motor skills (Fox et al., 1996). Here is a brief Rowe’s sensible interpretation of the lack of correlation summary Rowe made of that study’s main results: between pre- and post-measures (from T. J. Bouchard’s personal communication), they blindly interpreted that Before training, twins varied widely in their performance on the “pursuit rotor” task (i.e., following a target on a rophenomenon as Antinat evidence. This reaction shows tating disk with a pen). The heritability of motor accuracy how entrenched their ideology is. was about 55%. . .After practice, the worst scoring perNow, what about Ericsson et al.’s (2007) reaction? son scored higher than the best scoring person had before It is a well-known fact that Anders Ericsson introduces practice As individuals differed in their level of improvement, variability of the accuracy scores also increased in most of his publications his early work on memwith training. Before practice, variance (s 2 ) equaled about ory training (Ericsson, Chase, & Faloon, 1980). He 100; after practice, it equaled about 400. The fourfold indid so again in the Ericsson et al. target article, tocrease in variance with practice means that practice actally ignoring both studies with a similar testing-thetually increased the range of individual differences. Heritability also increased after practice (from h 2 = .55 limit methodology. Even more seriously, he (and his to .65). Nonetheless, championship rotor pursuit perforco-authors) completely ignored the Baltes (1998) and mance was not very well predicted from initial perforRowe (1998) comments clearly mentioning these studmance (Bouchard, personal communication, 1997). One ies. explanation is that speed is particularly important among sizeable individual differences in acquisition curves and maximum performance potential is ignored. Moreover, they ignore that, contrary to their view (sect. 2.3), the correlation between the skill trained in this testing-the-limits experiment and a multivariate measure of intelligence was larger at the end of training (Baltes, 1998, p. 408).
highly skilled individuals, and the demand for speed was not apparent before training (p. 422).
The two studies mentioned by Baltes (1998) and Rowe (1998) constitute powerful contradictory evidence to Antinat positions. Both of them clearly show that intensive skills training—of the testing-the-limits type—does not bring everyone to an identical “expert” level. The large individual differences observed at the outset of both studies not only reappear at the end of the training, when subjects approach their maximum reachable performance, but show a significant increase. In the case of the Fox et al. (1996) study, the range approximately doubles (considering that the variance has quadrupled). Neither Howe et al. (1998) nor Ericsson et al. (2007) discussed these two crucial sets of results strongly favoring the Pronat perspective. How did they react? Let us look first at Howe et al.’s reaction toward the Baltes comment. Since they had quoted from the Baltes and Klieg’s work the main result that supported their position, it is hard to believe they had not noticed the other significant results contradicting their Antinat thesis. Even worse, the three authors completely ignored that criticism—as well as the contradictory data—in their rejoinder. Concerning Rowe’s (1998) mention of the Fox et al. study, they reacted even more
Summary I surveyed in the second part a diversified sample of professional misconducts by Antinat spokespersons. They include, among other things, (a) using indefensible motives to reject major bodies of contradictory evidence, like case studies of prodigies, (b) creating caricatured beliefs (straw men) that they falsely attribute to Pronat defenders, (c) showing unfair leniency and benevolence toward studies that favor their Antinat position, (d) extracting from published studies marginal comments which, presented out of context, appear to show a position opposite to the authors’ main position, and (e) selectively choosing from a published study the rare result that supports their thesis, while omitting to mention other results that strongly contradict that Antinat thesis. The last two examples constitute serious cases of scholarly malpractice. As noted earlier, the American Psychological Association formally prohibits the last one in its Publication Manual. Some might argue—as one reviser did—that they are not “really” deliberate or purposeful. They just ensue from the “overzealousness of busy people, big egos undervaluing alternate viewpoints, deluding
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themselves, and seeing themselves as righteous” (Confidential personal communication, April 7, 2007). I must disagree with that interpretation, not because the description is wrong, but because these alleged motives do not, in my view, mitigate the deliberateness of their behavior. We are speaking here of internationally renowned researchers with decades of scientific publications in major journals. They have to know the basic rules of their profession. Moreover, the deliberateness of their misconducts has less to do with the above examples than with the way these Antinat spokespersons reacted to explicit critiques of their work. I first refer to Howe et al.’s (1998) total disregard for the serious critiques made by many commentators, especially Baltes (1998), Detterman et al. (1998), Plomin (1998), Rowe (1998), and Sternberg (1998). They made a fully deliberate decision when they chose to ignore them in their response to the commentators, especially those that pointed out unethical behavior. These omissions are clearly cases of deliberate scholarly malpractice. As for Ericsson et al. (2007), the above arguments apply equally well to them. First, they made their own series of scholarly misconducts. Second, they were well aware of all the critiques expressed by Howe et al.’s (1998) commentators toward Antinat positions, and had even announced at the beginning of their target article that they would answer these critiques. They did not. For that too, they must share Howe et al.’s responsibility.
Conclusion This chapter pursued two main goals: (a) demonstrate that natural abilities—and their outstanding expression as gifts—really exist (the mainstream Pronat position) and that recent attacks by researchers who deny their existence (the Antinat position) can be easily countered with appropriate empirical evidence; (b) expose the scholarly misconduct of some Antinat researchers. As an introduction to these two tasks, I briefly described my Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent (DMGT), presenting it as my analysis framework, as well as a lexicon of clearly defined basic terms. About the first goal. Let me first remind readers that the first part of my chapter did not present “the” Pronat position. It is one among many. But I believe that most
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of its content would rally a majority of scholars who identify themselves with the basic Pronat thesis: the existence of human abilities that (a) have significant genetic roots and (b) act as building blocks for systematically developed competencies in various fields of human activity. I began addressing the first goal by defining the concept of natural ability—and its outstanding manifestation as giftedness—around two essential characteristics (genetic roots, building blocks of systematically developed competencies) and four ensuing corollaries (informal development, field independence, predictive power, and constraints on competency development). The next two sections surveyed available evidence on the genetics and predictive power of the two natural abilities with the largest amount of relevant empirical research, namely general intelligence and physical abilities. I believe that I demonstrated how both of them easily meet my six defining criteria for natural abilities. In other words, they both represent indisputable examples of what Antinat researchers stubbornly keep calling “innate talent.” As I was writing the first part, I asked myself regularly how Antinat defenders would respond to specific position statements and pieces of evidence included in the various sections. How, for instance, would they view my six defining criteria of a natural ability? Do they represent an acceptable definition? Would they agree with my operationalization of the giftedness and talent concepts in the respective measures proposed? What would they have to say about the definition of general intelligence borrowed from the Mainstream Science on Intelligence (MSOI) declaration? Would they agree that IQ test scores represent that concept adequately? Would they acknowledge the moderate (.4– .6 in explanatory power) genetic roots of general intelligence? Would they agree with my description of general intelligence as a moderate predictor of academic achievement, job performance, and other significant life outcomes? Would they acknowledge that, because of the causal relationship between general intelligence and the three types of outcomes mentioned above, individual differences in general intelligence create important constraints to real-life achievements? I could add similar questions from my discussion of the physical ability domain, especially the genetic roots of these abilities and their predictive power for various athletic performances. The responses of Antinat defenders to the above questions would contribute
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to clarify specific areas of disagreement. Readers could also ask themselves these same questions as a way to assess their level of agreement with my version of a Pronat position. About the second goal. Two observations influenced my decision to expose the scholarly misconducts of Antinat spokespersons. First, I observed that Pronat scholars adopted a general attitude of indifference toward these clear cases of deliberate malpractice; no one appeared motivated to say anything beyond an occasional critique of some of their evidence. Second, I observed that the Antinat message was rapidly spreading internationally through keynotes and highexposure publications; I frequently heard from colleagues and friends that many of their listeners and readers were influenced by the apparent strength of their arguments. The new frontal attack by Ericsson et al. (2007) became the straw that broke the camel’s back! To paraphrase a well-known Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, I judged that the time had come to say loudly, “these researchers have no clothes.” Some will argue that by moving the center of hostilities from evidence confrontation to the more personal domain of scholarly behavior I have killed any remaining hope for an eventual meeting of minds between the two camps. Let us be realistic: the fact that they had to resort to such questionable scholarship to justify their Antinat thesis proves their lack of desire for an objective examination of scientific evidence. Their avowed goal remains to defend their entrenched ideology at all costs. That attitude emerges quite clearly in Ericsson et al.’s (2007) concluding remarks: The progress of science is closely linked to the accumulation of base of reproducible evidence. We hope that the proponents of innate talent are challenged to identify any existing evidence on suddenly appearing reproducible abilities and other abilities that are necessary for attaining expert and elite levels of performance, particularly those that cannot be improved and acquired through training. . .. The sooner that we can share a common body of valid reproducible evidence the faster our theorizing will develop to provide a comprehensive account of the fascinating domain of exceptional performance (p. 45).
These three short sentences enshrine the irreducible gap between the two opposing camps. First, they keep using the expression “innate talent” although they were told (Plomin, 1998) that this label misrepresents genetically rooted natural abilities. Then, their second sentence brings back two of their imaginary Pronat straw men: sudden appearance and immutability. They are
still bringing up these straw men even though they have been told repeatedly—as I did again in this chapter— that Pronat scholars have never maintained that natural abilities, even with their significant genetic roots, appear suddenly or that they are immutable. And to cap it all they even challenge Pronat defenders to identify “any existing evidence” of these imaginary straw men! Finally, concerning the third sentence, how can we ever “share a common body of valid reproducible evidence” when Antinat defenders keep either rejecting or ignoring the evidence Pronat defenders present? Acknowledgments I would like to thank very sincerely the editor, Dr. Larisa Shavinina, for her constant support, encouraging feedback, and generous delays during the writing of this chapter. My gratitude also goes to Dr. Larry Coleman, Dr. Jacques Forget, and Daniel Viens who offered constructive comments and suggestions on various parts of the manuscript. But I take full responsibility for any errors in the facts, interpretations, statements, and judgments expressed throughout the chapter.
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Rejoinder to Ericsson et al.’s Postscript
This rejoinder follows the six main sections of Ericsson et al.’s (this volume) postscript. Concerning their introduction, I will let readers judge whether or not my chapter incites researchers to move away from a science of high ability, as the authors allege. On the other hand, I believe that my chapter clearly circumscribes a non-imaginary group of adversaries—not enemies— whose core position against the existence of genetically influenced “natural” abilities can rightly be labeled Antinat. Now, let us move to the heart of their postscript.
My “Unique” Reactions Ericsson et al. consider my reactions to be “unique” among those of premier researchers in the field. The term “reactions” is not particularly illuminating. According to their next sentence, it seems to mean that I was the only commentator who did not compliment them on their article. Unfortunately, I have not seen the other comments as I write these lines. Assuming this were the case, I would invoke two attenuating circumstances. First, when I wrote my short commentary, I had already accumulated most of the notes that led to the writing of my chapter, especially its second part. Needless to say I did not feel in a complimentary mood! Second, as a French-Canadian raised in Quebec within a French-Canadian community, I had little contact with the English-speaking minority until well after my doctorate studies. Only in my late twenties did I discover a typically British practice in oral and written communications. An English-speaking colleague and friend described it as the “sandwich theory.” He explained to me that it was customary in the English cul-
ture to “sandwich” any negative comments (the meat) between positively worded introductory and closing comments (the slices). I must confess that I have not yet mastered the technique. Gallic genetics, lack of deliberate practice, who knows? Still, I will be curious to look at the ‘meat’ in the 13 other comments to Ericsson et al.’s (2007) target article. More seriously, it seems that they were applauded almost unanimously for having advanced “the empirical foundation of a science of high ability” (p. 146). The reason for my disagreement with the alleged “enthusiasm” of the other commentators rests in our very different views of the nature of a “science of high ability.” This difference in views is also, I believe, at the heart of my alleged misunderstandings and misstatements (see the third section of their postscript). To avoid unnecessary repetitions, I will discuss these differences in the third section.
Avoiding Embarrassing Findings This second section starts bizarrely. The authors acknowledge that, as stated in my chapter, I did not see the other comments to their target article before writing my chapter, as well as this rejoinder. Yet in the very next sentence they complain that I did not read them carefully enough! Then, they contest my judgment that Antinat defenders regularly ignore embarrassing findings, in the present case on physical natural abilities as they manifest themselves differentially in black and white athletes. I confess that I have not read the first author’s papers cited as their rebuttal. But it is easy to imagine what these papers contain: not a single study in support of physical natural abilities, and everything
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he could find as apparent support for the Antinat position. The crux of the problem lies in the extremist position adopted by Antinat researchers. The “nothing or else” Antinat thesis leaves absolutely no room for discussion, except, of course, to endorse it or not. In contrast, Pronat defenders recognize the existence and significant role of both genetic and environmental influences, as evidenced, for instance, in the DMGT. Differences in points of view among Pronat scholars lie essentially in the relative importance given to nature and nurture. They are convinced that the Antinat thesis of no genetic underpinnings for human abilities makes no sense scientifically. To complete this reaction to the authors’ second section, I will comment on one specific statement. The authors state that Entine (2000) “concedes that he knew of no solid evidence for individual genes that could reliably explain the superiority of runners with African ancestry” (p. 146). I briefly pointed out in my chapter (see Cluttering section, p. 186) that the “single gene” argument is one of these straw men repeatedly mentioned in both target articles by Howe et al. (1998) and Ericsson et al. (2007). Allow me to reiterate here a few basic principles from the field of quantitative behavioral genetics. First, human behavior is understood to be “highly polygenic and influenced as well by non-genetic factors” (Plomin et al. 1990, p. 247). The term polygenic means that individual behavioral (phenotypic) differences will eventually be explained by the combined influence of many genes, each accounting for only a small portion of the observed individual differences. In a recent update on the search for “IQ genes,” Plomin (2006) stated that “the substantial heritability of intelligence is likely to be due not to a concatenation of such monogenetic disorders but to many QTLs [quantitative trait loci, or genes], which implies that the average effect of these QTLs will be small” (p. 515). And he confirms that not a single gene has yet been pinpointed with enough replicability to be placed in a list of contributing QTLs. Should Antinat researchers jump on that information and brandish it as proof for their thesis? Not at all. Whether good QTLs are identified next week, in a year, or only in 10 years changes strictly nothing to the strength of the evidence in favor of the heritability of natural abilities. I repeat: strictly nothing! As Plomin et al. 1990 summarized it, “Genetic influence means only that genetic differences among individuals relate to behavioral differences observed among them;
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no specific genetic mechanisms or gene-behavior pathways are implied” (p. 247). Said differently, hundreds of family, twin, and adoption studies have accumulated enough evidence to anchor solidly the partial genetic origin of both general intelligence and physical abilities. That is the evidence I briefly surveyed in the relevant sections of my chapter. No less than a decade ago, a premier scholar in behavioral genetics summarized as follows the Pronat vs. Antinat debate: That the debate now centers on whether IQ is 50% or 70% heritable is a remarkable indication of how the nature–nurture question has shifted over the past two decades. The anti-hereditarian position that there are no genetic influences on IQ has crumbled for want of any empirical data that would support such a radical view (McGue, 1997, p. 417).
In the face of so much positive evidence, it is hard to understand how Antinat researchers can maintain their entrenched position. It is also hard to understand their popularity among researchers and academics in the social sciences. Are there so few readers of the scientific literature?
My Alleged Misunderstandings The core of this third section concerns my alleged misunderstandings and misstatements of their position. Of course I disagree with these judgments, and will show why in the following paragraphs. I will examine here the two major misunderstandings Ericsson et al. identify. Misunderstanding their focus. They state that I overlooked their “extensive discussion earlier in the target article about how the research approach of studying general intelligence and its attempt to predict academic performance differs from the expert performance approach” (p. 146). As my pages of notes would confirm, I certainly did not overlook that discussion. In fact, that difference in perspective was one of the subjects I wanted to bring up in my chapter. Rereading my manuscript with their comment in mind, I realized that I had forgotten to discuss it in detail, only briefly alluding to it (see pp. 171–172). I must thank Ericsson et al. (this volume) for giving me an occasion to discuss that question in more detail. I intend to show how that difference in perspective—at least as I perceive it—demonstrates the limited relevance of the ex-
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pert performance approach—also called elsewhere the “science of high ability”—in the scientific study of talent development. My demonstration will use the two validation perspectives proposed by Embretson (1983) and briefly described in my chapter (see pp. 171 and 180); they are called “construct representation” and “nomothetic span,” respectively. Recall that the first perspective aims to “identify specific information-processing components and knowledge stores needed to perform the tasks set by the test items” (Anastasi & Urbina, 1997, p. 135). Within that perspective, the researcher looks at the structure of the task itself, at the various developed abilities or skills that operationalize the construct under study. For instance, when researchers perform factor analyses of test items to determine whether or not they measure a single construct, they are trying to better represent their construct. Anastasi & Urbina (1997) mention “task decomposition” and “protocol analysis” as two typical procedures belonging to the construct representation approach; they even cite two of Ericsson’s publications (Ericsson, 1987; Ericsson & Simon 1993) as applications of protocol analysis. The second perspective, “nomothetic span,” is the more traditional approach to the validation of psychological constructs. It is concerned “with the relations of test performance within a ‘nomothetic network’ of other variables. Such relations are generally investigated through correlations of test scores with other measures, which may include criterion performance and other real-life data” (Anastasi & Urbina, 1997, p. 135). Concurrent and predictive validity studies of psychological tests constitute the “bread and butter” activities associated with that perspective. How does Embretson’s distinction bear on the present debate? Let us look at Ericsson et al.’s own description of the difference between predictive studies of general intelligence and their expert performance approach. They state that it rests on their focus on “the measurement of the essence of expertise” and on “specifying the mediating mechanisms that can be assessed by process-tracing and experimental studies” (p. 146). Toward the end of that section, they restate it as a focus on changes in “the structure of mediating mechanisms. . .as more complex mechanisms are acquired and transformed through deliberate practice” (p. 148). As I understand their description, their main interest lies in looking at the evolution of the structure and complexity of the skills (the mediating
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mechanisms) as a learner moves from beginner status to a more advanced level, and eventually to expert status. That focus on skill transformation clearly belongs to the construct representation perspective. In other words, they look at what makes an expert an expert. They analyze in depth how experts solve problems related to their area of expertise, and they compare these more complex processes to the simpler process skills of beginners or less advanced learners. The construct representation approach is an attempt to dissect a construct into its building blocks, or more basic components. Another example would be efforts by researchers to understand the structure of general intelligence by doing factor analyses of various ability tests, just as Carroll (1993) did in his seminal study. By contrast, my own research perspective with the DMGT, as well as that of most scholars interested in talent development, belongs fully to Embretson’s “nomothetic span” perspective. Here, as defined above, the focus shifts toward the analysis of correlational and causal relationships between a group of constructs forming a network, just like they appear in the figural representation of the DMGT components (see Fig. 7.1). When scholars ask to what extent some variables (e.g., natural abilities, motivation, deliberate practice, coaching, parental support) contribute to the emergence of talent, they are working within that perspective. Here, talent becomes the dependent variable in a large network of potential independent— thus explanatory—variables, and the focus is on understanding which variables best explain individual differences on the dependent variable (in this case the level of systematically developed abilities). Simonton’s (1994) book Greatness represents a perfect example of the nomothetic span approach. Its subtitle Who Makes History and Why already announces that perspective, especially the “why.” It includes chapters on genetic influences, the drive to succeed, the role of creativity, the importance of intelligence or personality, and the significance of psychopathology. Each of these constructs is examined as a potential causal force in the emergence of greatness. Both perspectives are valuable, but none of them can answer the questions asked within the other perspective. There is definite value in examining the transformation of skills from novice behavior to expert performance. Understanding in what ways good problem solvers proceed through difficult tasks, or in what ways expert hockey players differ from less advanced ones,
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might help teachers and coaches refine their teaching methods. On the other hand, the construct representation perspective typical of Ericsson’s expert performance perspective brings little light to the most fundamental question facing talent development scholars, namely “why” do some individuals reach expertise while most others remain in the average crowd? Among all the potential causal variables illustrated in the DMGT figure, which have a significant causal effect on talent emergence? Why is it that among all those students who enter school only a few will achieve exceptionally throughout their schooling? What made the National Hockey League players reach that top level whereas millions of hockey-playing peers never had their dream fulfilled, some of them becoming early “road kill” on the way to eminence, while others almost reached the top? Which early characteristics can we measure that will become effective predictors of outstanding achievements at a later date? These are all questions the expert performance approach cannot answer. But what about the “deliberate practice” construct? No doubt that it is a potential explanatory factor of talent emergence. It appears prominently in my description of the DMGT’s developmental process. The problem with it is that it has been introduced strictly within the construct representation perspective. That limit was pointed out by Sternberg (1998), and I clearly mentioned it in my chapter (see p. 185). Until we have good measures of individual differences in the amount of deliberate practice, and until these measures are introduced as explanatory factors to assess their predictive power, the deliberate practice concept will remain of little use within the nomothetic span perspective. Misunderstanding the expertise domain. The second point I seem to have misunderstood is the nature of a domain of expertise. As proof they note that school performance has nothing to do with expertise. Their allegation invites three comments. The first one concerns the prevalence of expertise, a question directly related to the definition of the concept of expert (Gagn´e, 1998b). Who can be labeled an expert, and who should not? From my reading of some of the expertise literature, I have found a lack of clarity as to the exact nature of that concept, not only as a level of performance but also as a universe of fields/domains (see Note 1, p. 157). For some time, I thought that the DMGT’s definition of talent overlapped significantly with the concept of expert. But the more I read, the
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more I realized the much more selective character of the “expert” concept. Still, how much more selective remained elusive. No clear operational definition exists to my knowledge, and none is given in Ericsson et al.’s (2007) target article. The nature of expertise needs to be specified both in breadth and in depth. By breadth I mean the diversity of fields in which one can observe experts in action. In the DMGT, the concept of talent refers to outstanding performances that can be observed in most human occupations. By depth, I mean the normative intensity of the systematically developed skills necessary to confer the expert label. In the DMGT, the depth question is answered through the metric-based system of five progressively more selective levels of excellence, from mild to extreme (see p. 159). Some might disagree with my operational definitions, but one thing is clear: they are! Concerning the breadth of expertise, how large is the universe of fields of expertise? They state that schooling definitely does not belong. Then, they talk about “professional skills.” Does that mean that only professions belong to that universe? Can there be expert mechanics, gardeners, plumbers, graphic artists, nurses, teachers? I have not seen any clear answer to that question. Assuming that the breadth question has received an answer, the depth question remains. How good has one to be to be labeled an expert? What percentage of the population within any field of expertise would be labeled an expert? Could it be the top 10%, as is the case for the minimum threshold within the DMGT’s system of levels? Or is it reserved only the top 1%, or even the top 0.1%? Could there be fewer experts than that? I have yet to see an answer to that question. In their postscript, Ericsson et al. (this volume) use hours of deliberate practice to circumscribe the concept. But the numbers remain quite vague. On one page, they mention “the performance attained after 5,000 to 20,000 hours of deliberate practice” (p. 147); a few paragraphs later, the range of practice hours becomes 500–10,000. We have minimum values differing by a factor of ten, and ranges where the ratio of the top value to the bottom one is either 4:1 or 20:1; not a very enlightening answer! From examples given in their text, my own guess would be that experts constitute a very selective subgroup within a field, like Olympic-level athletes, chess grand masters, and internationally renowned musical soloists. Which brings me to my second comment.
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The second comment concerns the scientific impact of a very selective definition of expertise. I briefly discussed that problem in my chapter (see Cluttering section, p. 186). Such a definition does not pose much problem within a “construct representation” approach. A typical study will gather a small sample of these experts within a given field, analyze in detail the nature of their high-level skills by observing them as they accomplish various tasks—or by using protocol analysis—and compare their problem-solving processes with those of less advanced individuals, or even beginners. Unfortunately, it is not very well adapted to the “nomothetic span” perspective. Why is that? The best predictive validation studies typical of that approach use large samples of individuals who, after being assessed on a number of “potential” predictors of excellence, are followed for some years until they can again be assessed in terms of their achievements. But how can we predict the predictive power of any potential causal variable when the target group is such a tiny selective population? There might not be even one of these future “experts” within the starting sample. So the more selective the concept of expert is, the more difficult its prediction will be, even with the best measures. The third comment concerns the exclusion of schooling as a field of expertise. Allow me to use just one example. Students in middle school have deliberately practiced the basic disciplines of language and mathematics for much more than the 500 minimum hours required by Ericsson et al. Among them, those few in grades 7 or 8 who obtain 600+ SAT scores through Talent Search programs (Lupkowski-Shoplik et al., 2003) could be considered “experts” when compared with same age peers. They certainly belong to a tiny elite of extremely high math achievers. Why cannot they fit within the expert performance approach? When Ericsson et al. close that section of their postscript by admonishing me to restrict my future counterexamples to cases involving “highly skilled performance,” I have to request a clearer definition of that concept. Finally, when they point out my explicit agreement that “high ability can only be attained after much extended deliberate practice,” I must disagree with their ambiguous terminology. They should use “high talent” instead of high ability; within the DMGT the term ability is an umbrella concept that characterizes both gifts (the natural
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abilities) and talents (the systematically developed abilities).
Baltes and Kliegl’s Study I presented my Baltes and Kliegl critique as involving “the selective presentation of favorable results from a study, with the deliberate omission of other results contradicting their Antinat thesis” (p. 190); I mentioned at the same time an APA policy prohibiting errors of omission in the presentation of research results. The third paragraph of my quote from Baltes (1998) clearly states that Howe et al.’s (1998) “interpretation is onesided (sect. 4.1),” that they ignore “equally compelling evidence of sizeable individual differences. . .,” and, finally, that they ignore contradictory evidence in their Section 2.3. That third paragraph seems to me crystal clear evidence for my charge. I tried to contact Professor Baltes to discuss his comment. I discovered that he had passed away last year. On the other hand, I cannot see the relevance in Ericsson et al.’s (this volume) discussion of that study in their postscript. In my view, it completely sidesteps the ethical problem I raised.
My Lack of Reproducible Evidence I am accused of relying on non-verifiable evidence and on the cited “opinions” of scientists and—yuk!— journalists! It means that all three authors did not see my references to dozens of scientific studies. They first missed references to Plomin’s scientific literature reviews on the genetics of that natural ability “par excellence” called general intelligence. Neither did they see my mention of several scientific literature reviews on the strong predictive relationship between general intelligence and various easily measurable life outcomes like school achievement, occupational achievement, and stable employment. They also did not see my summary of Haskins’ (1989) broad scientific literature review of the short-term and long-term impact of early stimulation programs. In the section on physical abilities, it seems that they jumped directly to the final summary of “punchy” quotes, missing in the process my extended description of MacArthur & North’s (2005) scientific literature review, replete with citations of em-
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pirical studies on the genetics of physical abilities. They also missed a series of quotes taken from Chapter 19 in Entine’s book where all kinds of empirical— thus reproducible—studies on genetic differences between black and white athletes are briefly described, among them the discovery of a “wimp gene.” They forgot to examine the section where I reviewed a variety of scientific studies on the predictive power of natural physical abilities with regard to performance in sports. How could they have missed so much? Earlier in their postscript, the three authors accused me of not having read carefully enough a series of texts that they knew I had not been given access to. When they affirm that my position rests on non-verifiable evidence and opinions, who are the careless readers? Or could it be a case of “None so blind. . .”? Finally, readers no doubt noticed that Ericsson et al. (this volume) begin that section of their postscript by using totally out of context my final summary of “punchy” statements on the relevance of physical abilities as “real” natural abilities. They quote it as “proof” that I rely on non-verifiable opinions to support my Pronat position, although the text itself includes empirical evidence for all major positions defended. This is one additional example of the deplorable Antinat habit I described in the second part of my chapter. This recidivism, just after being confronted with that type of improper behavior, shows little inclination on their part to mind their behavior.
The Guardian Genie’s Three Wishes The three authors will probably be surprised to discover that I endorse almost fully their three wishes. First, I share their hope that not only new researchers but all current professionals and scholars involved in the field of talent development will peruse the major texts targeted by the present debate. I am confident that only the strictest Antinat defenders will not be swayed toward the Pronat position. Second, trading sideswipes, I would slightly reformulate their second wish as a commitment to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Finally, I endorse the need
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to avoid any ad hominem attacks. Because that third wish clearly targets the second part of my chapter, I will point out to them that I submitted my completed chapter to five outside readers, whose main task was to search for ad hominem attacks, namely accusations that were not supported by clear evidence. All of them gave it a clean bill of—ethical—health.
“My” Postscript That is my first and last contribution to this debate. Whatever else Antinat defenders write in the future, I will no longer respond because, as I said in my chapter, I consider this type of exchange a dialogue among mutes. From now on, I will focus on building the Pronat position, and enriching the DMGT. Still, I hope that other scholars in the field of talent development will keep a close watch for improper Antinat research behavior. I also hope that they will put aside the “sandwich theory” to expose it frankly.
Additional References Ericsson, K. A. (1987). Theoretical implications from protocol analysis on testing and measurement. In R. R. Ronning, J. A. Glover, J. C. Conoley, & J. C. Witt (Eds.), The influence of cognitive psychology on testing (pp. 191–226). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Ericsson, K. A., & Simon, H. A. (1993). Protocol analysis: Verbal reports as data (rev. ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Lupkowski-Shoplik, A., Benbow, C. P., Assouline, S. G., & Brody, L. E. (2003). Talent searches: Meeting the needs of academically talented youth. In N. Colangelo & G. A. Davis (Eds.), Handbook of gifted education (3rd ed., pp. 204–218). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. McGue, M. (1997). The democracy of the genes. Nature, 388, 417–418. Plomin, R. (2006). Editorial: The quest for quantitative trait loci associated with intelligence. Intelligence, 34, 513–526. Plomin, R., DeFries, J. C., & McClearn, G. E. (1990). Behavioral genetics: A primer (2nd ed.). New York: Freeman. Simonton, D. K. (1994). Greatness: Who makes history and why. New York: Guilford Press.
Chapter 8
The Arbitrary Nature of Giftedness Nancy B. Hertzog
Abstract This chapter demonstrates the arbitrary nature of giftedness in the United States. It describes five ways in which labeling and identifying children for gifted programs is an arbitrary decision. It will make explicit the subjective decision-making and value systems that underlie most protocols for identifying gifted children and describe the implications that it has on policies and practices in gifted education. Finally, the chapter will propose a vision for the field of gifted education that recognizes and celebrates the diversity of children and supports the role of the gifted educator to develop and nurture the strengths of all students. Keywords Arbitrary nature of giftedness · Gifted education · Identification · Policy · Practice · Reliability · Validity of identification process
the criteria if there was a seat available. My children were labeled gifted in Urbana but not in Champaign. Borland referred to this phenomenon as “geographical giftedness” (2003, p. 111). The number of classrooms and teachers Champaign agreed to provide in any given year determined the number of gifted children who received services in self-contained classrooms. One year, 45 students in Champaign were labeled gifted and the next year, 63. They simply added a new selfcontained classroom. The generous inclusion by Urbana was largely a “feel-good” label since no services were provided. The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate the arbitrary nature of labeling and discuss the impact it has on gifted programs and gifted education. Most importantly, I will make explicit the subjective decisionmaking and value systems that underlie most protocols for identifying gifted children.
Introduction Almost every school district in the United States has its own way of defining and identifying gifted children. Moving from one school district to another illustrates the arbitrary way in which children are defined or labeled as gifted in public schools. My family moved 10 minutes away from Urbana to Champaign. Urbana schools identified 20% of their population as gifted and had no separate programs for identified gifted students. Champaign identified the top 5% as gifted and offered self-contained classrooms for those students who met N.B. Hertzog (B) University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA e-mail:
[email protected] Definition of Arbitrary Arbitrary is defined as “based solely on personal wishes, feelings, or perceptions, rather than on objective facts, reasons, or principles” (Encarta World English Dictionary, 1999). Arbitrary also means “not permanently fixed, but having a meaning or value that can only be established in relation to something else and will change according to circumstances or context” (Encarta World English Dictionary, 1999). The arbitrary nature of giftedness is related to the number and types of decisions that label children gifted which are not objective. I propose five key reasons why giftedness is intrinsically arbitrary in the United States:
L.V. Shavinina (ed.), International Handbook on Giftedness, c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-6162-2 8,
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1. Designing criteria for gifted programs involves individuals or small groups of people who have their own value systems and reasons why they select specific criteria. 2. Selecting “top” scores on any given performance measures requires a ranking that is relative to the group, as opposed to an absolute scale. 3. Offering services for gifted students is dependent upon the number of spaces available or resources of a given district. 4. Changing the tests or measures results in a different population of students identified as gifted. 5. Identifying giftedness is culturally influenced. In this chapter I present issues with the current status of identifying children for gifted programs and propose new visions for these policies and practices. The new vision recognizes and celebrates the diversity of children and supports the role of the gifted educator to develop and nurture their strengths.
Decision-Making Finding the “Right” Combination and Criteria Consider the example of one school district that is representative of others. All first graders take the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test as a screening tool. For students who perform above the 80th percentile, the gifted program coordinator notifies parents of their child’s high score and recommends further testing, specifically the Cognitive Abilities Test Third Edition. The scores of the three components of the test are entered into a decision matrix. The standardized scores are used as “points on the matrix.” In other words, if a student scores 96% on the quantitative portion of the Cognitive Abilities Test (Lohman, Hagen, & Thorndike, 2001), 96 points are entered on the matrix. These standardized scores are combined with teacher recommendations that are based on the Renzulli–Hartman scales (Renzulli, Smith, Callahan, White, & Hartman, 1976). The scores from the rating scales are weighted and on the matrix may get 5 points for being between 35 and 40 or 4 points for being between 30 and 34. Thus, although multiple criteria are used, the major portion of the decision is based on the standardized test scores.
N.B. Hertzog
The design of the matrix provides more value to standardized test scores than the teachers’ (or parents’) judgment. This decision to weight scores differently is arbitrary. Most school districts pay particular attention to children from low-income or minority backgrounds. The Chicago Public School details their process for identifying children who are English Language Learners (ELL) (ELL Outreach and Identification Procedures for Gifted and Talented Programs Modified Consent Decree Commitment 52, p. 4). For confidentiality purposes, the CPS selects each year one of the following screening instruments to screen students for the ELL regional gifted centers: (1) Bilingual Verbal Ability Test (BVAT), (2) Boehm Test of Basic Concepts (English/Spanish), (3) Raven Progressive Matrices, (4) Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test (NNAT), (5) Otis Lennon School Ability Test (English/Spanish) (6) Cognitive Abilities Test (Level A only), Screening Assessment for Gifted Elementary Students Primary (SAGES-P) (Eng/Sp).
One can see that in any given year, the assessment system may change, possibly altering the characteristics or strengths recognized as gifted. Once children are assessed in the district, a committee scores and ranks the results. Each ranked group is relative to the pool of candidates tested or screened. In this example, the district states on its webpage how children are ranked, “High scores on the gifted screening are considered first, with the following criteria, which constitutes supporting data: (1) cumulative record card information, (2) report card information, (3) Teacher Checklist of Observable Behavior” (Chicago Public School Office of Academic Enhancement Gifted and Talented Programs, 2004). The example of the Chicago Public Schools is used to demonstrate the complexity and thoroughness by which personnel design non-biased and inclusive identification systems to find gifted children in all populations. However, it is clear that there appears to be a choice and a variety of avenues to select the “eligible children.” Nearly 20 years ago, Treffinger (1988) proposed a reexamination of the paradigm of gifted education, The central premise underlying gifted education is that gifted students can and should be distinguished or differentiated from the larger, non-gifted population, and once identified, should receive specialized services. This paradigm is strongly rooted in the psychometric tradition and draws upon the “medical model” by defining characteristics or “symptoms” of giftedness and developing
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The Arbitrary Nature of Giftedness quantitative indices to precisely identify those students with that condition. The current paradigm is inadequate in three areas: (1) dimensions of ability are not fixed and predetermined in any person over time and circumstances, and cannot be predicted comprehensively by traditional intelligence tests; (2) identification practices are arbitrary and contrived; and (3) a single, fixed program is provided for gifted students, relying on a resource room model and thus not offering opportunities for all students to learn and apply powerful learning and thinking tools (Treffinger, 1988, p. 1).
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The Relativity of an IQ Score
Over 25 years ago I taught a pull-out gifted program in a rural Connecticut town. I used 130 on an IQ test as the cutoff score for entrance into the gifted program to serve the “top” 5% of the population. When I moved to a small town outside Williamsburg, VA, only by going down to 117 as the cutoff score could I serve the top 5% in the gifted program. Most of my Virginia students missed the vocabulary word “hedge” (a row of bushes) Not much has changed in the field since 1988. A on their test. There were other terms and pictures they thorough discussion of the complexity of typical did not recognize. Robinson, Shore, & Enersen (2007) identification systems is discussed in Coleman and summarized the research on IQ tests and concluded, Cross’ chapter on identification (2005). The authors “tests are not biased in their later prediction of acadescribed three different school districts’ typical demic success” (p. 237); yet, few would refute the fact identification systems by detailing the definition, that standardized measures of ability or achievement screening procedures, and placement criteria. Coleman are culturally biased (Ford & Harris, 1999). Tannenand Cross concluded in their review that most school baum argued, districts’ systems converge on identifying children The social system rather than the test instrument harbors who typically have high abilities as measured by IQ prejudices, not only against racial and socio-economic tests. They maintained that it is a difficult dilemma minorities but also against groups classified by sex, still unresolved in the field of gifted education to age, education, geographic origin, and mental health. IQ identify the less traditionally gifted child—the child scores are sensitive to these differences. They represent one of the consequences, not causes, of bias in society with high creative or artistic abilities, or the child they by showing that some groups are denied a fair chance to described as coming from the non-modal gifted group achieve excellence. In other words, the test is only a re(Coleman & Cross, 2005). The authors stated, “If the flector, not a perpetrator, of bigotry (Tannenbaum, 1997, school program objectives are met, then the system is p. 32). appropriate” (p. 102). Robinson, Shore, & Enersen (2007) cited a study The dependence on the IQ test for identifying gifted from Patton, Prillaman, and VanTasse-Baska (1990) children perpetuates the under-representation of miwhich found that “more than 90% of states and territo- nority populations in gifted programs and not because ries used norm-referenced tests as their only or primary minority students are less bright. Indeed, intelligence method of identification for gifted programs, and only tests, according to Perry, Steele, and Hilliard, “are 40% indicated a lesser use of anything else” (p. 236). nothing more than ‘achievement tests’ that favor stuSilverman provides an extensive review of measures dents who have a privileged opportunity to be exposed of intelligence in her chapter within this text, and she to those things being measured on the tests” (2003, stated, “If we are comfortable that the children defined p. 135). Ford reminded us, “Tests exert a lot of power as gifted through the last century are the ones we want as they carry out the unpopular job of sorting students to continue to be able to identify, then tests based on g while a presumption of objectivity protects them. But like curricula, tests are value-laden—developed by are the most useful” (2007, this volume). The use of IQ tests has long been controversial be- humans—from the items selected to the test format, cause of the accusations that IQ tests are discrimina- to the response format, to the correct answer” (2003, tory. Furthermore, the use of the IQ scores as a mea- p. 149). In other words, the tests that identify children sure of giftedness assumes that intelligence is the defin- for gifted programs are also arbitrary. They may be ing characteristic of giftedness and is conceptualized changed or used in multiple ways to achieve different as high performance on a psychometric measure. Of- results. Sapon-Shevin stated, “In reality, identifying a cateten performance on the standardized test is used to rank students for high stakes decisions about involvement in gory of children as ‘gifted’ represents a decision. It is gifted programs. This ranking is relative and arbitrary. a decision to establish an arbitrary cutoff point along
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a continuum of scores or behaviors and to then act as though those above that point are qualitatively rather than quantitatively different from those below” (SaponShevin, 1993, p. 27). Assigning an arbitrary “cutoff” score is not educationally, morally, or legally sound. It does not even guarantee that the highest scoring children will join the gifted program. In one local district, when parents of children above the cutoff score declined the placement in the full-time separate gifted classroom, the administrators moved down the list of students until they reached the number of spaces available, thereby changing the cutoff score to suit the logistics of the district. To combat the discriminatory practice of using standardized tests for determining who is in or out of gifted programs, the Javits projects (Piirto, 2007) yielded a plethora of alternatives (case study approach, performance tasks, student portfolios, and special preparatory programs). Borland summarized the categorization of students, “All of this strongly suggests that ‘the gifted’ and ‘the average’ rather than being preexisting human genera, are labels for socially constructed groups that are constituted, in both theory and practice, in ways that are far from consistent and, in many cases, anything but logical, systematic, or scientific” (2003, p. 112). Plucker & Barab (2005) support Borland’s claim and offer another example of subjectivity: For example, if 10 children in a specific school have high ability and high scores on achievement tests, and are consistently mentioned on teacher ratings and recommendations, educators will have little problem establishing the reliability and validity of their gifted identification process. However, if two or three students have decent scores, only occasionally score well on teacher rating scales, yet have exceptional samples of work in their portfolios, the conception of giftedness explored in this chapter suggests that second group of children are no less talented than the first group and would perhaps view the second group as providing evidence of giftedness, whereas the first group has not yet provided such evidence (p. 208).
All of these cases and authors illustrate that who is identified as gifted is more dependent on the people who are designing the protocols and making the decisions of what to include, how to weight the measures, and how to achieve equitable representation of diverse populations in a specific gifted program than on the children themselves. How useful is such a system of identification if indeed it is so variable? What does the eligibility criteria do to inform teachers about the child?
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Usefulness of Labeling and Classifying Coleman and Cross stated, “Identification is primarily a classification process, not a diagnostic process, because the information obtained about a student is not specific enough to begin instruction in a subject area or field” (2005, p. 125). Ford also agreed that the identification system was a classification system and noted, “We have not been able to locate national data on how minority students are classified once identified as gifted. We often see an overrepresentation of minority students in the areas of creativity and visual and performing arts” (p. 187). The usefulness of the term gifted or the classification of giftedness is questioned here because the meaning affixed to the label may mask the exact nature of the strengths. With districts making their own decisions about who is gifted or who qualifies for gifted programs, teachers, families, and students themselves may question the meaning of the label and how it translates into learning needs. When 50 college students were interviewed about their prior experiences in gifted programs, most of them had no knowledge of the criteria used to place them in the gifted program and did not know why they were chosen (Hertzog, 2003). The literature on identification stresses the importance of matching identification to program options. Programming options across the country are as variable as how students get in them. Some programs are specifically designed to meet the needs of students who excel in math or science. Other programs are designed for advanced readers; still others address talents in the arts. In some school districts magnet schools cater to children with specific strengths. It is possible that students who are identified as gifted may not be placed in the program that develops their strength areas. It is also possible for gifted programs to accelerate content and serve children who do not need the acceleration. The students who described their gifted programs confirmed this variability. Some students recalled special pull-out classes that taught art or foreign language. Others described going to rooms and playing thinking games and working on creative activities. Still others shared their experiences in science and math competitions, reading clubs, and AP classes (Hertzog, 2003). Gifted programs that are designed to include more students from underrepresented groups often add program supports to help nurture those students to be successful in those programs. Borland, Schnur,
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and Wright (2000) identified key features that helped students from Project Synergy be successful in gifted programs, “transitional service classes, tutoring, parental support, and a message communicated to the students and their families that they were special” (as cited in Robinson, Shore, & Enersen, 2007, p. 257). The intervention of identifying the child as gifted may be enough to bring greater academic success to some students. The relationship of giftedness to “feeling special” illuminates why “despite the best of intentions, gifted education, as historically and currently practiced, mirrors, and perhaps perpetuates, vicious inequities in our society (Borland, 2003, p. 117). If “feeling special” resulted in higher achievement, would not all children benefit from that designation? Because the decisions that are made to select a specific group of students could be made in other ways, the access to those programs is also arbitrary. If gifted programs produce a higher quality of education and better outcomes for a group of students that is alterable under different conditions or definitions, then one could argue that those educational practices would improve outcomes for a variety of students. Certainly the students that were interviewed about their experiences in gifted programs felt that they received a better education than their peers who were not afforded opportunities to participate. I summarized their perceptions about the differences between their gifted and general education classes, “They spoke about differences such as activities that engaged them in higher level thinking, less emphasis on discipline, more content, and an overall better classroom atmosphere, all of which contributed to a better relationship between the teacher and the students” (Hertzog, 2003, p. 140).
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cation had an instructional identity (Tomlinson, 1996, p. 155). The unfairness stems from the fact that according to students who have been in gifted programs the curriculum and instruction is generally more challenging, more hands-on, more meaningful, and more engaging than what is found in general education classrooms (Hertzog, 2003). The research on tracking supports those claims of differences between general education and higher level classes, especially in secondary schools (Oakes, 2005). There are other examples of where curriculum and instruction that is traditionally taught in gifted programs has benefited non-identified gifted students. The premise behind the Accelerated Schools is to offer to all students the type of educational opportunities that is generally offered to gifted students. Accelerated Schools are advertised on their website, “Imagine a school that treats all children as gifted and builds on their strengths through enrichment strategies, independent research, problem solving, science, writing, music, and art” (Accelerated Schools Plus, 2007). Studies on the effectiveness of the Accelerated Schools report that compared to teachers in control sites, teachers in the accelerated schools made greater changes in their instruction than those in the control schools. They used more hands-on activities, more community resources, provided opportunities for students to exhibit what they learned before an audience, and collaborated more with other teachers in other subjects (Accelerated Schools Plus, 2007). Likewise, research supports positive achievement gains for students in Accelerated Schools (ibid.). In my own research, project-based learning and other strategies that are more typically found in gifted programs have shown positive gains in achievement of students who have been underserved in gifted programs (Hertzog & Ganguly, 2004). Other researchers Repercussions of Arbitrary Decisions: have found strategies that were implemented to benefit Unfair Access to Learning Opportunities gifted students also benefited those in the classroom who were not identified (Reis, 2003). When children who are not identified as gifted benDifferences between children who are eligible for efit from the type of curriculum and instruction that is gifted programs are not necessarily distinct or discrete typically found in gifted programs, then the rationale from those who are not. Learning experiences that are typically found in gifted programs have also falters for why we provide gifted education to only benefited children not identified as gifted (Renzulli gifted children. The repercussion of such practices is & Reis, 1994). Tomlinson has argued that most the charge of elitism. To counter that charge, it must not be arbitrary instructional practices used in gifted education benefit to be gifted and access to gifted programs must be all learners and questioned whether or not gifted edu-
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defensible. Tannenbaum’s conception of giftedness combined five factors that enabled people to achieve success. These included general ability, special aptitude, chance, environmental supports, and nonintellective requisites. In his model, “The objective is to elucidate the individuality of people and the uniqueness of the surrounds with which they interact, thus avoiding classification and labeling through standard methods” (1997, p. 30). Tannenbaum’s model recognized that giftedness was not defined as intelligence as measured on an IQ test. His theory valued children who were creative as well as academically ahead of their peers. He described potential giftedness in terms of producers and performers. Thus, Tannenbaum’s conception of giftedness, or rather his theories about how potential yields later adult achievement, demonstrates the complexities of designing systems to either predict or identify giftedness. In Tannenbaum’s model, people became gifted (either through products or performances) over time as they matured and chance played a factor. Rather than identify and sort children as gifted, Tannenbaum conceptualized the “making of gifted behavior” (p. 40). Renzulli (1978) also shifted the discussion of giftedness from being defined as a static cluster of inherent traits to an overlap of characteristics that interact to develop gifted behaviors. Talent development is now part of the discourse of the field (Renzulli, 1998). Some of the most notable research in the field of gifted and talented education is retrospective and investigates how giftedness is made. Bloom (1985) examined the circumstances that nurtured eminent artists and scientists to make significant contributions to society. Could these circumstances be repeated and replicated for more people—especially young people in school settings? There would be no arbitrariness about the subjects. By the time eminent people have displayed their talents, they are well known. No one questions their giftedness, talents, or abilities. They are labeled by their contributions to society. Tannenbaum believed luck played a role in their manifestations of giftedness. He said, “Chance factors should never be trivialized or neglected in the study of giftedness, especially given that so many eminent people place emphasis on their experiencing unpredictable events that help them reach the top” (Tannenbaum, 1997, p. 39). Chance as a factor in children’s capacity necessitates increasing opportunities (the chances) to develop their strengths and interests by creating environments
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that nurture potential. Gifted education provides systematic instructional methods that focus on challenge and individual growth. There is nothing arbitrary about facilitating students’ inquiry in their interest areas or pursuing resources to help them reach their goals. If giftedness is contextual (Plucker & Barab, 2005), then teachers should be trained to provide those contexts where students’ interests, passions, and creativity emerge.
From Gifted Programs to Addressing Diversity Identifying strengths of all students does not eliminate the identification of strengths in students that have traditionally been identified as gifted. Instead, it allows for more specific instruction to occur in students’ strength areas and it eliminates the need to develop criteria for the gifted label that I have demonstrated to be flagrantly flawed. Piirto (2007) summarized research on adolescents with high ACT test scores, “good pedagogical practice in talent education would be to look at domain-specific talent rather than general academic ability” (p. 324). She maintained that when composite scores were used, students’ specific strength areas were often lost and therefore, they were not guided toward opportunities and coursework in their strength areas. Instead of defining the field by the students (who are arbitrarily labeled and identified as gifted), could we embrace a new vision of the field defined as areas of expertise—including assessment, pedagogy, curriculum development, creativity, and social and emotional development? Using the field of special education as an example, inclusive practices did not diminish the need for the expertise of highly trained teachers in special education. On the contrary, recognizing that children with learning disabilities are not all alike, or children with severe disabilities do not all need the same supports, special education teachers became active members of the child’s teaching team and helped classroom teachers modify or adapt the curriculum to increase the likelihood that the child would be successful in school. Inclusive classrooms need resource specialists with varying areas of expertise. Gifted educators could provide leadership and expertise that promote a higher quality education for all students, including those we believe have
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potential and those who are demonstrating strengths and talents beyond their age or grade-level peers. A conceptualization of gifted education emerges without arbitrary labels of giftedness. Like other authors have said (Borland, 2003), we have to stop unfair practices in gifted education and devise innovative ways that bring us closer to the goal of designing curriculum and instruction “predicated on students’ current educational needs” (Borland, 2005, p. 229). Since the first federal definition was defined as those children “who require services or activities not ordinarily provided by the school in order to fully develop such capabilities” (Marland, 1972), the whole focus in gifted education has been on providing programs outside the realm of the classroom to meet the students’ needs. The federal definition was adopted or adapted by all the states and guided state policies for funding separate gifted and talented programs. Advocates in the field of gifted education have pushed for separate programs for gifted children. Recently the state of Illinois reinstated language in its school code to provide requests for proposals for innovative gifted and talented programs. Districts will have to propose some way by which they select their gifted program participants. The state will prioritize allocating funding to those programs that identify and serve students from underrepresented populations. And so it goes, a “win” to reinstate gifted programs in the State of Illinois, but a “loss” because only some children deemed eligible by an arbitrary identification system will participate and benefit from the funding and the high-quality programs. Many people in and out of the field of gifted education have recognized the failures of our systems and policies and acknowledged the ways gifted programs have perpetuated inequities in schools (Borland, 2003; Ford, 2003; Sapon-Shevin, 2003). Yet, as demonstrated by the most recent re-enactment of school code language in Illinois, the concept of serving gifted students outside the typical school setting remains. Gifted education has become synonymous with separate programs, instead of being synonymous with appropriately challenging all students in their educational setting. Unlike our colleagues in special education who aim to provide supports for their students to be academically successful in the classroom, the current role for most gifted education specialists focuses on
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developing high-quality learning experiences outside the classroom. What we know now in gifted education differs from what we knew in the 1950s when we selected children who excelled in math and science to protect our nation. We know that children with high test scores are not all alike, that identification systems are flawed, culturally biased, and value ladened, and that the curriculum we espouse for gifted children may also benefit children who did not meet criteria to be in a gifted program. We know a great deal about the arbitrary nature of giftedness and that whether or not a child is labeled gifted is more dependent upon a particular system in a district than the child himself/herself. Yet, high stakes decisions are made, in many cases for a student’s entire educational career, based on this arbitrary decision to label the child gifted. It is time for educators in the field of gifted education to follow our own traditions of problem solving and to think creatively about our own field. In Langer’s words, we must be mindful about our vision (Langer, 1997). When we are mindful, we implicitly or explicitly (1) view a situation from several perspectives, (2) see information presented in the situation as novel, (3) attend to the context in which we are perceiving the information, and eventually, (4) create new categories through which this information by may be understood (p. 111).
My vision for the field involves teaching for diversity. Recognizing that all children who are identified as gifted are still very diverse and that most of our classrooms are increasing in their diversity (e.g., linguistically, ethnically, and economically), I propose we focus on and spend our resources and energy in sharing what we know about how to make learning meaningful and challenging to all children. Tomlinson defined differentiation for general educators and it is much broader than its first meaning that distinguished curriculum that was appropriate for gifted and not appropriate for other students (Tomlinson, 1996). This notion to define the field differently is not new. Coleman, Sanders & Cross (1997) examined the field from three different modes of inquiry. These include the empirical-analytic mode, the interpretivist mode, and the transformative mode (p. 107). Depending on one’s mode of inquiry, one has different assumptions about the field. For example, the authors describe a basic premise,
212 The purpose of the field of gifted education is to identify gifted children in order to place them into programs with appropriate curriculum and with teachers who possess the necessary characteristics and skills for maximizing each student’s potentials (p. 107).
As the authors stated, the fact that “there is a definable group, is a foundation of the empirical-analytic mode” (p. 108). In the two other modes, there is no such definable group. Rather there would be different definitions and different contexts in which to attribute traits of giftedness. Culture, class, gender, and values would influence definitions of giftedness. Although Coleman, Sanders, and Cross concluded that people would never agree on conceptions of giftedness, they gave researchers lenses for exploring differences in viewpoints. These lenses bring greater tolerance and understanding for accepting the different viewpoints in the field and provide a multitude of possibilities for conducting research. Borland (2003) called for a paradigm shift which entailed getting rid of the term “giftedness,” identification systems, and separate programs and instead focusing on differentiating the curriculum. He concluded,
N.B. Hertzog minority student underrepresentation in gifted education from “How can we identify more minority students?” to “How can we provide opportunities and rewards for students of all degrees of ability from all backgrounds so that all will realize their full potentials? (p. 157).
Of course, to teach for diversity requires great teaching. It requires that all teachers focus on how children learn best. Whitaker (2004) acknowledged the important role of teachers, “We can spend a great deal of time and energy looking for programs that will solve our problems. Too often, these programs do not bring the improvement or growth we seek. Instead, we must focus on what really matters. It is never about programs; it is always about people” (p. 9). I refer now to a new vision, one that is void of arbitrary labeling, but rich with expertise in designing meaningful and challenging learning experiences. In the new vision of gifted education, the people are teachers, students, and families. The field is not just defined by a group of students labeled gifted. Instead, the field is defined by the learning that occurs in interactions between students and teachers. Both are learners. The teachers in the field of gifted education unThus, not only would making differentiated curriculum derstand the principles set forth in Brandt’s work on and instruction the norm for all students go a long way Powerful Learning (1998) and especially the principle toward meeting the needs of students traditionally labeled that “People learn more when they accept challenging “gifted,” it would make schooling more effective and hubut achievable goals” (p. 6). The teachers who specialmane for many students labeled “disabled” as well as those students thrown together in that great agglomeraize in gifted education would focus their instructional tion known as the “normal” or “average,” a group that, in strategies on challenge and growth. They would adapt practice, is largely educationally undifferentiated but that, the curriculum to be culturally responsive and personin reality is remarkably diverse (p. 119). ally interesting to foster engagement and inquiry. They Teachers need to be responsive to the great diversity would be instructional leaders in their buildings who of learners that they now have in their classrooms. would bring teachers together to inquire about ways to Tomlinson & McTighe (2006) describe the meaning of improve their overall instruction so that they maximize teaching responsively, the potential of all of their students. As instructional leaders, they would facilitate on-going professional deResponsive teaching suggests a teacher will make velopment in collaborative inquiry groups (Bray, Lee, modifications in how students get access to important ideas and skills, in ways that students make sense of and Smith, & Yorks, 2000) that engaged teachers in critical demonstrate essential ideas and skills, and in the learning and reflective thinking about the relationship between environment—all with an eye to supporting maximum teaching and learning. They would use student work success for each learner (p. 18). samples to examine the products of differentiated curAs Borland described (2003), gifted education would riculum and instruction. take place in inclusive schools with curricula and inI amend my first articulation of a redefinition for struction that are responsive to the diverse needs of gifted education and my original description of the individual students—schools in which the labels “nor- gifted education specialist (Hertzog, 1998). Instead mal,” “disabled,” and “gifted” not only are eschewed of being most concerned with those children needing but make no sense” (p. 120). more challenge, my new vision supports the role of the gifted education specialist as the advocate for Ford (2003) implored educators in the field to rethink our questions, We must rephrase the persistent question of all children to develop their talents, including those
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The Arbitrary Nature of Giftedness
who have already demonstrated their need for more advanced or accelerated curriculum. In the new vision for the field, gifted education is woven into the thread of everyday instruction for all students. The focus on all students relates to the fact that potential for developing talents is unknown and not predetermined. Resiliency studies prove that children who are given chances, opportunities, and high expectations to succeed, do so. Krovetz (2003) wrote, “No professional development program, no new instructional materials, and no infusion of technology will make a lasting effect on student learning if the key adults in the student’s life do not believe in the potential of each and every student” (p. 23). Challenges and special programs based on interests should be options for all students, and not just given to a predetermined arbitrary group. The gifted education specialist works in collaboration with all teachers to modify, adapt, design, and develop appropriately engaging and challenging experiences for all of his/her students. The gifted specialist is part of the moral framework of the school that supports the highest quality and most authentic learning opportunities for all students. This does not mean there are no more advanced level courses; instead the gifted specialist is needed to help prepare students for those courses. It does not mean that students who need acceleration will flounder in the general education classroom; gifted education, including acceleration, will be provided as needed to support students in all of their learning environments. Supporting and nurturing potential of all students from all backgrounds is the goal of American education and must be the expertise of those in the field of gifted education.
References Bloom, B. (1985). Developing talent in young people. NY: Ballantine Books. Borland, J. H. (Ed.). (2003). Rethinking gifted education. NY: Teachers College Press. Borland, J. H. (2005). Gifted education without gifted children: The case for no conception of giftedness. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.). Conceptions of giftedness (2nd ed.) (pp. 1–19). Cambridge University Press. Bray, J. N., Lee, J., Smith, L. L., & Yorks, L. (2000). Collaborative Inquiry in Practice: Action, reflection, and meaning making. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Chicago Public School Office of Academic Enhancement Gifted and Talented Programs (2004, May). ELL
213 Outreach and Identification Procedures for Gifted and Talented Programs. (Modified Consent Decree Commitment 52) retrieved March 19, 2007 from http://www.cps.k12.il.us/AboutCPS/deseg reports/#a52704. Coleman, L. J. & Cross, T. L. (2005). Being gifted in school. Waco, TX: Prufrock Press, Inc. Coleman, L. J., Sanders, M., & Cross, T. L., (1997). Perennial debates and tacit assumptions in the education of gifted children. Gifted Child Quarterly, 41(3) 97–103. c (1999) Microsoft CorEncarta World English Dictionary poration. All rights reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing. Ford, D. Y. (2003). Desegregating gifted education: seeking equity for culturally diverse students. In J. Borland (Ed.), Rethinking gifted education (pp. 143–158). NY: Teachers College Press. Ford, D. Y. & Harris, J. J., III. (1999). Multicultural gifted education. New York: Teachers College Press. Hertzog, N. B. (1998). The changing role of the gifted education specialist. Teaching Exceptional Children, 30, 39–43. Hertzog, N. B. (2003). The impact of gifted programs from the students’ perspectives. Gifted Child Quarterly, 47(2), 131–143. Hertzog, N. B. (2005). Equity and access: Creating general education classrooms responsive to potential. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 29(2), 213–257. Hertzog, N. B., & Ganguly, R. (2004, April). Serving underrepresented groups better: What the data don’t say. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Education Research Association. San Diego, CA. Krovetz, M. (2003). Expecting all students to use their hearts and minds well. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Langer, E. J. (1997). The power of mindful learning. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books. Lohman, D. F., Hagen, P., & Thorndike, R. L. (2001). Cognitive Abilities Test: Third Edition. Marland, S. P. Jr. (1972). Education of the gifted and talented: Report to the Congress of the United States by the U.S. Commissioner of Education and background papers submitted to the U.S. Office of Education, 2 vols. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. (Government Documents Y4.L 11/2: G36). National Center for the Accelerated Schools Plus (2007). Retrieved March 29, 2007, from www.acceleratedschools.net/ Oakes, J. (2005). Keeping track: How schools structure inequality (2nd Ed.). New Haven: CT: Yale University. Perry, T., Steele, C., & Hillliard, A. III (2003). Young, gifted and black. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Plucker, J., & Barab, S. A. (2005). The importance of contexts in theories of giftedness: learning to embrace the messy joys of subjectivity. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (2nd ed., pp. 201–216). New York: Cambridge University Press. Piirto, J. (2007). Talented children and adults (3rd ed.). Waco, TX: Prufrock Press. Reis, S. M. (2003). Reconsidering regular curriculum for high achieving students, gifted underachievers, and the relationship between gifted and regular education. In J. H. Borland (Ed). Rethinking gifted education (pp. 186–200). New York: Teacher’s College Press.
214 Renzulli, J. R. (1978). What makes giftedness? Phi Delta Kappan, 60, 2–6. Renzulli, J. R., (1998). A rising tide lifts all ships. Developing the gifs and talents of all students Phi Delta Kappan, 80, 104– 111. Renzulli, J. R., Smith. L. H., Callahan, C. M., White, A. J., & Hartman, R. K. (1976). Scales for rating the behavioral characteristics of superior students. Mansfield Center, CT: Creative Learning Press. Renzulli, J. R., & Reis, S. M. (1994). Research related to the schoolwide enrichment model. Gifted Child Quarterly, 38, 2–14. Robinson A, Shore, B. M., & Enersen, D. L. (2007). Best practices in gifted education. An evidence-based guide. Waco, TX: Prufrock Press, Inc. Sapon-Shevin, M. (1993). Gifted education and the protection of privilege: Breaking the silence, opening the discourse. In L. Weiss & M. Fine (Eds.), Beyond silenced voices (pp. 45–73). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
N.B. Hertzog Sapon-Shevin, M. (2003). Equity, Excellence, and school reform: Why is finding common ground so hard?. In J. Borland (Ed.), Rethinking gifted education (pp. 127–142). NY: Teachers College Press. Tannenbaum, A. J. (1997). The meaning and making of giftedness. In N. Colangelo & G. Davis (Eds.), Handbook of gifted education (2nd ed., pp. 27–42). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Tomlinson, C. A. (1996). Good teaching for one and all: Does gifted education have an instructional identify? Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 20, 155–74. Tomlinson, C. A., & McTighe, J. (2006). Integrating differentiated instruction + understanding by design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Treffinger, D. J. (1988). Programming for giftedness: Reexamining the paradigm. Paper presented at the 96th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Atlanta: GA. ED305787. Whitaker, T. (2004). What great teachers do differently. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.
Chapter 9
Gifted and Thriving: A Deeper Understanding of Meaning of GT Michael F. Sayler
Abstract Gifted and talented children one day become adults and the experiences of their pre-adult years at home, in their various communities, and in school settings impact both their success and their happiness as adults. While development, education, and life experiences affect all individuals, it is in the interactions of high ability, ability-related performance, and what can best be called wisdom that the gifted and talented individual will find happiness. This chapter explores the dynamics related to the transformation of gifts into personal thriving. Talent has been called the development of the gifts into high-level performances, thriving begins with talent development but looks beyond highlevel performance to deep satisfaction and what allows the gifted and talented to flourish across their life span. The notion of thriving includes academic and career success and adds the goal of personal happiness. Thriving is explored through the aspects of the psychology of human strengths, subjective well-being, strength of character, integrity, wisdom, the interaction of ability– interests–accomplishments, spirituality and faith, and positive personal relationships.
Keywords Gifted education · Talent development · Lifespan development · Thriving · Flourishing · Wasting · Happiness · Virtues · Character · Integrity · Positive psychology
M.F. Sayler (B) University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA e-mail:
[email protected] Introduction To be gifted or talented is not a phenomenon or condition that suddenly appears during K-12 education, although the label often is. Parents and others who interact with the gifted child can observe signs of giftedness such as high intellectual functioning, advanced verbal performance, intense interest, and unusual creativity at early ages (Sayler, 1999). Intellectual, social, emotional, and personality predispositions are present even before birth (Reiss, Neiderhiser, Hetherington, & Plomin, 2000), needing only time and environmental factors to be displayed and come to fruition (Reichlin, 1997). Nor does giftedness end with high school. Through out adulthood and to the ends of their lives these individuals continue to be gifted (Holahan, Sears, & Cronbach, 1995). Both remarkable constancy and remarkable change characterize the life span development of each gifted person. The goals, beliefs, and values held by the gifted, formed in childhood and identifiable in adolescence, remain in many ways the same values they have as adults and continue to influence they way they live and act (Lubinski, Schmidt, & Benbow, 1996). Looking back across a lifetime, outside observers and the older gifted individuals themselves can see clear antecedents of today in their childhood and youth (Holahan, Sears, & Cronbach, 1995). They also see the tremendous changes and refinements that have occurred across their lifetime. The development of the gifted individual is an iterative process involving personal change to the gifted person and the changes they engender in their parents and siblings, classmates, friends, teachers, mentors, coaches, colleagues, spouses, children, and all the institutions
L.V. Shavinina (ed.), International Handbook on Giftedness, c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-6162-2 9,
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and communities they encounter along their life path (Lerner, 2002). Life span development looks at change across the entire life course from conception onward and at the lifelong adaptive processes of acquisition, maintenance, transformation, and attrition in psychological structures and functions (Baltes, Staudinger, & Lindenberger, 1999). The model of giftedness and thriving takes a comprehensive view of the entire life of the gifted individual. The model’s insights will guide actions and decisions of the gifted person and of their parents, teachers, mentors, and others, all those who know them and those whose lives they influence. A vital life goal is to transform the gifted person’s natural abilities and predispositions into talents and talented performances (Gagn´e, 1985, 2005). The model of gifted and thriving includes talent development, but looks beyond the goal of high-level talent performance to the development of strong character, an integrated life, deep personal satisfaction, and happiness. The model shows how the gifted and talented can flourish from early childhood to the last moments of their life. It explores thriving through the aspects of facilitative psychological and philosophical dispositions, habits leading to strength of character, positive personal relationships, personal integrity, talent development, wisdom, spirituality, and faith.
A Life Span Model of Gifted Thriving A life span model for thriving by gifted individuals must accurately reflect and guide thriving for the indi-
Fig. 9.1 The model of gifted and thriving
M.F. Sayler
vidual as a young child, school student, talented adult, and in the maturity of their lives. It provides guidance on how to attain the good life, a life of talent development, personal flourishing, and happiness. Growth in skills, knowledge, confidence, and in a sense of security in personal relationships builds happiness; especially when the growth process challenges the individual to struggle beyond their current level of functioning and comfort in learning and in overcoming life’s challenges (Carver, 1998). The gifted have an exceptional ability to select and attain difficult life goals that fit their interests, abilities, values, and contexts (Moon, 2003). The model of gifted and thriving (Fig. 9.1) illustrates graphically the model’s component parts and their relationships. In the model high levels of natural abilities, temperaments, and predispositions are transformed over time by personal and environmental catalysts into personal flourishing This model complements and expands Gagn´e’s (1985, 2005) Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent (DMGT, see Chapter 5). It provides a parallel, inter-related, but more comprehensive model of the total life span development of the gifted individual. The thriving model incorporates and expands the goals of the DMGT to address all aspects of the gifted individual’s life. It includes their talent development and the development of their psychological, emotional, personal, physical, and spiritual well-being. Gifted individuals who are thriving build the common good of society by populating it with wise and talented individuals oriented to a coherent life of service to others as well as to their personal development (Lerner, 2002). The specific manifestations of thriving
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Gifted and Thriving
will vary across the individual’s life span, but with a remarkable stability over time (Reiss, Neiderhiser, Hetherington, & Plomin, 2000). Both models give the name gifts to the untrained, spontaneously expressed natural abilities and predispositions in at least one ability domain. They share the idea of desirable but not necessarily accomplished transformation and application of abilities into something greater (talent and thriving). This transformation occurs through normal development and through systematic learning which use and refine the person’s abilities. Both models recognize the catalytic effect of intrapersonal and environmental catalysts on this transformation. The models diverge, but do not separate in the outcome dimension described. In the DMGT, the outcome predicted or sought is talent. Talents are well-trained and systematically developed skills in a particular area of activity or performance (Gagn´e, 2005). In the model of gifted and thriving the outcome sought is also talent development, but with the addition of seeking high levels of thriving or flourishing. Talent development is not restricted to domains where success results in high financial rewards, high social prestige, or high technical, artistic, or athletic prowess. While some gifted will develop their talents in fields and domains where these consequences follow, others will choose to develop talents that are less noticeable. Such talents include such domains as parenting, teaching, health care, farming or gardening, service to a community, or a religious vocation. To thrive, the gifted individual must develop talents, but they may do so in any area of legitimate work or skill provided they do the work very well and at a high level of proficiency. The systematic transformation of natural abilities into personal well-being and happiness is the developmental process followed by all people. Well-being correlates with competency, success, personal thriving, and happiness (Lerner, 2002). Thriving is the sum effect of positive personal development in physical, cognitive, psychological, and spiritual dimensions. Most people are relatively happy (Diener & Diener, 1996) and have achieved some level of thriving. Some people are very happy, others are very unhappy, and their relative levels of thriving vary accordingly (Diener & Seligman, 2002). The potential manifestation of thriving stretches from the high levels to very low levels. Flourishing is the name given to the positive end of the
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thriving continuum in this model. Wasting is very low levels or a complete lack of thriving. Desirable movement along the thriving continuum toward flourishing happens when the individual develops their gifts into talents, lives a life of integrity built on strong character and virtues, maintains close longlasting and mutually beneficial personal relationships, and pursues an active spiritual or faith life. Without integrity, talent development becomes self-serving and reduces the level of thriving attainable by the individual. In some cases this lack of integrity leads to serious problems for the person and those around them. Gifted individuals can flourish and become wise when they are self-reflective, self-controlled, concerned with others, honest with themselves about themselves, prudent in seeking guidance, and strong in making required changes or adjustments to how they act or think (Sayler, 2005). Flourishing is desirable and attainable from childhood to the end of a person’s life. It is psychologically and physically robust enough that it emerges for an individual even under less than ideal conditions. Even individuals who have faced disasters, suffering, or oppression may retain character, wisdom, and happiness; they can flourish in at least some aspects of their lives (Frankl, 1963; Fredrickson, Tugade, Waugh, & Larkin, 2003). Wasting is the opposite of flourishing on the thriving continuum. It is associated with sadness, failure, depression, passivity, social estrangement, morbidity, and mortality. In an almost counter intuitive twist, some talented individuals live lives on the wasting end of this continuum. These talented but unhappy individuals have well-trained and systematically developed skills in their talent domains. They may have achieved success, fame, wealth, or power, but they lack integrity, well-developed character, and strong long-lasting personal and spiritual relationships. Consequently, they move toward wasting despite their apparent talent successes. Wasting does not happen all at once nor is it necessarily permanent or fatal although it may become so. Change from a state of wasting is possible, and a level of flourishing is then attainable. The gifted individual’s intellectual strength of reasoning is an asset in this change if they are honest in their self-reflection, seek guidance from wise mentors, and are not blinded by own apparent success to an extent that they do not see the problems in their lives (Sayler, 2005).
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Human beings have an innate drive to do well and experience deep pleasure in this striving (Meier, 1993). This deep pleasure of working hard and doing things well is experienced by the gifted only when they are challenged and must work hard to solve problems or find answers (King, 2001). Working intensely at something enjoyable brings additional benefits such as increased flow experiences. A person fully immersed in what he or she is doing engenders a pleasing and desirable mental state called flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). Flow experiences are more likely when there is an appropriate balance between a person’s skills and abilities and the challenge of the activity (Moneta & Csikszentmihalyi, 1996). Unless the gifted apply their high levels of natural abilities to appropriately challenging tasks, they do not flourish. The gifted possess a faster speed of processing, greater ease of knowledge acquisition, more frequent use of metacognition, and the more facile application of efficient learning strategies accelerating the transformation of abilities into talents (Steiner & Carr, 2003). Unfortunately, with these high levels of natural and developed abilities they often find school too easy and the work unchallenging (Colangelo, Assouline, & Gross, 2004). A lack of appropriate academic challenge and the subsequent loss of interest and motivation may have lifelong negative consequences for the gifted, reducing their level of thriving and in some cases deflecting them from even normal levels of professional and personal success (Gross, 2004a). The work in which an individual engages must challenge them or the activity will not develop into a lifelong passion (Peterson, 2006). Rawls (1971) postulates that when all other things are equal, human beings find satisfaction in developing their innate capacities into realized performances. The more an individual’s capacity is realized or the greater the complexity of the task undertaken, the greater the enjoyment. The gifted individual needs intellectual, creative, emotional, and physical challenges to thrive and become passionate about their lives (Rogers 2004; Robinson, 2004; Gross, 2004b). The need for these challenges exists whether the person is in and out of school whether they are children, youth, or adults. In the movement toward flourishing, a gifted individual who is self-reflective, honest in his or her self analysis, and who consciously internalizes virtues will gradually acquire wisdom (Sayler, 2005). There is not one clear or commonly accepted meaning of wisdom,
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but Heng and Tam (Chapter 31) give a good overview of several approaches to defining wisdom. These approaches that have strong potential for guiding research and conceptual understanding of wisdom as it relates to the gifted and talented. Wisdom grows from acting and then reflecting on those actions (See Heng and Tam, Chapter 31 for an extended discussion of the value of self-reflection), learning from the mistakes, and coming to a greater understanding of how to live a life shaped by such qualities as compassion, respect, and honesty (Bohlin, Farmer, & Ryan, 2001). The realization of talents does not a guarantee that the gifted and talented individual will be wise (Sternberg, 2000). Poorly guided gifted individuals, even those who are very successful, can fail to assess themselves and their performances accurately (Sternberg, 2001). These self-assessment failures come from an unrealistic optimism, egocentrism, a false sense of omniscience, unchecked power, and a sense of invulnerability. The development of wisdom is purposeful and lies in the interaction among the gifted person’s personal abilities and performances, the tasks they undertake, and the situations they find or place themselves (Sternberg, 2003). Someone who is wise in one context (e.g., work) may not necessarily be wise in another context (e.g., personal life). Some people may be wise more often than others may, but no one is wise all the time (Sternberg, 2004). Parents, educators, coaches, and mentors all guide and instruct gifted children and youth, but to what purposes? Obviously, these adults and the gifted themselves have goals for the acquisition of knowledge and skills so that they can make good use of their natural abilities in productive and satisfying ways. This is a good baseline expectation, but the adults in a gifted child’s life must also expect more than this. A more comprehensive set of goals is to have the young person become an adult whose life is characterized by actualized talent (Gagn´e, 2005), acquisition of strong moral dispositions (Lapsley & Narvaez, 2006), sustained happiness (Seligman, 2002), wise actions and thoughts (Sternberg, 2003), a habit of service to others (Winner, 2000), and understanding of what is important in life (Urry et al., 2004). The roles played by parents, educators, and other mentors change as the gifted child grows and matures through adulthood. Parenting practices that facilitate well-being are authoritative (Baumrind, 1971; Gray & Steinberg, 1999) and encourage a shift from direct
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guidance and decision making by the adult to autonomy, freedom, and self-direction for the gifted child or youth (Ryan & Deci, 2000). At first, this freedom occurs within the boundaries of the family beliefs and rules, but opens to complete autonomy as the gifted child matures. Teachers who have strong expectations for their students, who are fair, set rules, and are not negative in their interactions, facilitate the motivation and success of their students (Wentzel, 2001). Analysis of the longitudinal data from the National Survey of Families and Households suggests that healthy parent–adolescent relationships such as those marked by increased freedom within a clear family structure and beliefs facilitate their flourishing as young adults (Aquilino & Supple, 2001).
Intrapersonal Catalysts Affecting Thriving Dispositions, Virtues, Character, and Integrity Dispositions are developed personality characteristics and are related to, but different from, temperaments (Keirsey, 1998). Dispositions are developed traits for acting to exhibit frequently, consciously, and voluntarily a pattern of behavior directed toward a broad goal. Temperament is biological and represents the sum of a person’s biological inclinations related to personality. The right dispositions facilitate the development of virtues. Virtues are trait-like habits, not fixed by genetics. They represent more than an absence of bad character habits (Peterson & Seligman, 2004). Some scholars use the term character strength to means virtues (Peterson, 2006). Specific cultures define some virtues, but there is a ubiquitous core of character strengths across cultures and times (Dahlsgaard, Peterson, & Seligman, 2005). These virtues are basic to everyone’s progress in finding personal individual satisfaction and happiness (Ryff & Singer, 2000). Character can be developed in the gifted and talented, and Socratic methods are promising approaches to use in this training (see Ferrari, Chapter 54). Virtues play a series of important catalytic roles in the development of a life of integrity and personal flourishing. They carry moral weight that is valued in
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its own right (Peterson, 2006). There are individuals who show a striking embodiment of one or more virtues but character strengths or virtues are lacking in other individuals (Sarros & Cooper, 2006). They elevate others who witness the person exhibiting the virtues (O’Toole & Isaacson, 2005). These are habits deliberately sought after by institutions such as finance, medicine, business, the military, and politics (e.g., Ciulla, 2003; Glover, 1999; Fischman, Solomon, Greenspan, & Gardner, 2004). The world has seen sad examples historically (Simons & Riedy, 1969) and in the contemporary news (e.g., Toner, 2000; Bernat, 2002; Staubus, 2005) of talented individuals without character strengths, values, or personal integrity who cause problems, sometimes small and sometimes great, for others and for themselves. The value and role of virtue are very broad; it is an excellent guide for researchers (Harvey & Pauwels, 2004) and individuals (Starker, 1989) trying to understand flourishing and the ways to optimize human living. It is possible to trivialize and douse virtues with pop psychology or to study them scientifically, searching for causal relationships. Virtues give a practical measure to clarifying the best personal and professional practices for obtaining that life and provide a framework around which to teach and guide individuals in achieving the good life (Fowers, & Tjeltveit, 2003). Virtues are also stable across time (Lapsley & Narvaez, 2006). Each character strength has obvious negative opposites (Peterson & Seligman, 2004).Virtues often represent a golden mean between two extremes of character weakness (Aristotle, as cited in McKeon, 1992). For example, the virtue of prudence or good judgment is the positive catalytic virtue between the two bad habits or the negative catalytic character weakness of thoughtless rashness and snap judgments at one extreme and constantly thinking about a question or issue but never making a decision at the other extreme. Character is a configuration of enduring positive dispositions and virtues that frame the total pattern and quality of an individual’s behavior (Peterson, 2006). The word character comes from a Greek word charassein that means to mark permanently or engrave as on stone tablets. Character includes all those habits of an individual’s personality more or less indelibly engraved upon it. A person’s character is the basis of their personal integrity. Character is the organizing personality principle that integrates behavior, attitudes, and
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values (Lapsley & Narvaez, 2006). It provides an indelible mark of consistency and predictability to the individual’s life and influences the individual’s choices, actions, and reactions. Living a flourishing life for the gifted requires developing dispositions that facilitate and support the formation and maintenance of virtues. The consistency in living these virtues or character strengths leads to a life of integrity. The life of integrity built on virtues is the key to the highest levels of happiness and flourishing. Integrity is the most widely desired character strength for ethical business leaders (Sarros & Cooper, 2006). Integrity is a uniformity of beliefs and actions. It is personal wholeness based on a life of character. The word integrity itself comes from the Latin integer, which means whole, complete, or entire. According to Erikson, the final stage of development is integrity, a total integration of the person bringing with it a sense or feeling that his or her life is meaningful and worthwhile. The alternative end point according to Erikson is despair (Erikson, 1959). Flourishing is the result of the gifted individual developing and using their innate talents and strengths, developing a life of virtue and character, living a life of consistency and integration, and being self-reflective. Wasting results from the poor development or integration of these same things. Dysfunctional dispositions and disordered habits lead the individual to a life of increasing wasting, morbidity, and in some cases death. Values are the principles, standards, or qualities that guide human actions and are measurable and distinct from other intrapersonal catalytic factors (Park, Peterson, & Seligman, 2004). Values are enduring beliefs that some goals are better than others (Rokeach, 1979). Individuals acquire values through direct experiences; they serve a shared social purpose; and they define a person’s self-image (Hiltin & Piliavin, 2004). They serve the purposes of guiding an individual’s choices and actions and suggesting paths which are more or less important to the individual and ways to evaluate whether the decisions made or actions taken were good (Hansson, 2001). Having common values helps individuals fit into groups. Individuals are constantly looking at their values and those of the people and communities around them. A person’s values interact with the various communities’ values. Sometimes these outside or peer values can override previously held personal ones; this shift can have a positive or a negative effect on the person and on the community. The values
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a person lives tell the world and the person themselves who they are and what is most important to them. For example, the virtue or habit of prudence guides the individual as he or she determines which values to hold on to and which to change or adjust. Prudence directs the individual to gather data from those individuals and sources that are reliable and sound and then to make a decision based on the information and insights gathered. A person’s specific beliefs and values relate in causal and reactive ways to their behavior (Russell, 2001a). People want to do the right thing, however they define that (Peterson, 2006). Values, though, go beyond what we would like to do and deal with what we believe we should do (Rokeach, 1979). They are not biological imperatives, interests, preferences, duties, moral obligations, desires, wants, goals, pleasures, orientations, attitudes, or evaluations. Values are less related to specific behaviors than are attitudes. They are stable and trait-like. Universal value structure includes achievement, benevolence, conformity, hedonism, power, security, self-direction, stimulation, tradition, and universalism. Lickona (2004) suggests 10 essential virtues necessary for the development of character in childhood and adolescence: wisdom, justice, fortitude, self-control, love, positive attitude, hard work, integrity, gratitude, and humility. The collaborative group calling themselves Values in Action (VIA) has identified a set of common core values for moral behavior and for living the good life that were ascribed to by moral philosophers and religious thinkers around the world and across time (Dahlsgaard, Peterson, & Seligman, 2005). These authors examined philosophical and religious traditions in China (Confucianism and Taoism), South Asia (Buddhism and Hinduism), and the West (Athenian philosophy, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). They found these virtues common to all: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence. Others beginning with Cattell (1945) used factor analysis of personality descriptors to describe virtuelike factors in personality. This approach created clusters of traits that were then given names. Over time and with different rotation matrices five factors emerged, researchers call these factors the “Big-Five.” While the exact names given by various researchers vary slightly, the five factors are generally extraversion, agreeability, conscientiousness or dependability, emotional sta-
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bility, and culture or openness (Goldberg, 1999). Although not often mentioned in terms of talent development, an essential aspect of thriving is developing a disposition of care of and benevolence toward others (Schwartz, Meisenhelder, Ma, & Reed, 2003). This altruistic disposition supports the individual as they serve others in diverse fields such as in good parenting (Ackerman, Zuroff, & Moscowitz, 2000); in dedicated lives to the service of others such as lived by religious sisters (Danner, Snowden, & Friesen, 2001), and in the daily opportunities within all talent fields for the gifted to serve others (Bevan-Brown, 2005; Winner, 2000).
Environmental Aspects or Catalysts Things external to the gifted individual also affect who he or she becomes. The people, events, and external catalysts help form or deform the person. A large part of the environmental catalysts that affect gifted children and youth relate to school and other forms of training, mentoring, or coaching. These catalysts have long-term effects on the cognitive, psychological, and emotional development of the gifted individual (Gottfried, Gottfried, Bathurst, & Guerin, 1994). The effect is especially strong when those experiences are provided at a level appropriate to the gifted individual’s readiness (Colangelo, Assouline, & Gross, 2004). It is through the appropriate education and training that the gifted individual moves to deeper levels of knowledge, skills, and dedication to the work allowing the development of substantial skills and performances in all talent domains (e.g., Bloom, 1985; Gagn´e, 1985; Campbell, Wagner, & Walberg, 2000; Gould, Dieffenbach, & Moffett, 2002; Jørgensen, 2002). The people who interact with the gifted individual such as parents, siblings, friends, teachers, mentors, coaches, and others may exert a positive or negative catalytic effect on the development of the person. The places and activities in which the gifted person finds him or herself such as a specific home, community, school, classroom, or gifted program have positive or negative catalytic effects. Macro events or even chance events and conditions are catalytic for the individual. The events and conditions in the gifted person’s country or even continent, whether they live in a time of economic plenty or one of deprivation, whether this is a time of peace or war, accidents, health, the death of a parent, or other important person in their lives, or the
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winning of some content or recognition, all speed up or slow down the transformation of abilities into talents and personal thriving. Understanding the kinds and effects of environmental catalysts is important and well described by Gagn´e (1985, 2005). Understanding the mechanisms for why the environmental catalysts act the way they do is also important for understanding talent and thriving development. Gifted children react positively to the simplest modifications in their regular classrooms, more positively to pull-out classes and enrichment activities, and the most positively to accelerated options or special schools for the gifted (Delcourt, Loyd, Cornell, & Goldberg, 1994). Although the empiric data on long-term effects of enriched activities shows modest effects (Kulik, 2004), gifted students like them. Despite the common doubts among educators and parents about accelerative options (Southern & Jones, 2004), the gifted who are accelerated thrive and those who do not coast or even begin wasting. After attending a 2- or 3-week summer program for the gifted, many participants express enthusiasm for the experience and say things like, “I can survive an entire year back in my regular school if I can be here for a couple of weeks in the summer.” What is it that makes the responses of the gifted to appropriate gifted programming so positive? How can they bounce back so quickly from the negative experiences they often have in regular school? The resilience provided by eliciting positive emotions provides one possible answer. Positive emotions not only feel better, they help a person recover more quickly from stress such as that which manifests itself physically in increased heart rate, peripheral vasoconstriction, and blood pressure (Tugade & Fredrickson, 2004). Positive emotions experienced in the environment change the person’s responses to a stressful environment immediately and facilitate long-term motivation, enthusiasm, and success across other environments. The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions (Fredrickson, 1998, 2001) predicts that positive emotions are useful in long-term thriving. Appropriate curricular differentiation for the gifted increases and enhances their exposure to advanced content and processes. This exposure allows the gifted to learn and do things earlier than other children or to access opportunities usually available only to adults. These kinds of experiences are typically more challenging to the gifted and thereby bring
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them greater satisfaction. Anyone who has watched a gifted child or youth enjoying a challenging activity can attest to their enthusiasm; they have fun. Even when the individuals return to more mundane or less stimulating activities, they retain some of the motivation, the fondness for the content, materials, and the people involved in the experience, and they seek to return to similar kinds of experiences (Dai, Moon, & Feldhusen, 1998; Purcell, 1993; Adams-Byers, Moon, & Whitsell, 2004). Another possible factor influencing the effect of environmental catalysts is the psychological state of flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). Flow contributes to flourishing and life satisfaction but is not the same as satisfaction (Vittersø, 2003). Flow is characterized by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity, an enjoyment of what is being done, of working to full capacity. During periods of flow the person experiences a high degree of concentration, a total absorption in the activity with the person’s sense of time being lost. Sustained flow occurs when the person experiences an optimal balance of skill and challenge in the talent domain. There are examples of this in many talent domains; e.g., sports (Russell, 2001b), computers and online learning (Shin, 2006), medical professionals (Shanafelt, 2005), or in the business world (Vogt, 2005). These flow experiences seem to have a cumulative and building effect on the person so that events that cause even small flow experiences were desirable to adolescents (and probably everyone) and were sought after again (Shernoff, Csikszentmihalyi, Schneider, & Shernoff, 2003). If gifted programming or life’s work brings about more flow experiences, the gifted will want to engage in them and will seek them out. While real flow facilitates thriving, there is also junk or faux flow. These are engaging and fun experiences, but ones that are not intellectually challenging (Peterson, 2006). Faux flow experiences leave the person weary and unsatisfied. Playing video games or watching TV provide clear examples of faux flow. Some gifted program activities also provide faux flow experiences. These courses and programs for the gifted are fun, but empty of real content, deep processing, or integrative thought (Sawyer, 1988). Such programs deceive parents, students, and school officials about the quality of the education the gifted are receiving (Colangelo, Assouline, & Gross, 2004). Faux flow is better than no flow and this may be why gifted students
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appreciate even weak gifted programs, minimally challenging classes, or distractions such as video games. The external catalysts in the gifted person’s life also generate emotions that profoundly influence performance today and in the future. Too often for the gifted, formal schooling elicits negative emotional responses and a lack of effort. Negative emotions facilitate survival through generating the adaptive flight response to stress and danger. They incline the person to narrow their responses, act quickly to stop whatever is signaling danger, and to avoid that thing that causes the negative emotion in the future if possible (Plutchik, 1980). The gifted child or youth often feel these negative emotions in their experiences with school (Reis & Renzulli, 2004). Consequently, even for those who do not act out or become underachievers, gifted programs that elicit negative feelings have a dampening effect on their motivation. This dampening comes from their negative emotional reactions to repetitive review of things they already know, to hours spent practicing for tests, to friends who do not value learning, to teachers who do not listen to their ideas or suggestions, and to content well below their level of understanding and comprehension. Positive emotions signal the body that this is a safe and good person, place, or activity. Having positive emotional responses to environmental stimuli broadens attention, increases working memory, enhances verbal fluency, and improves openness to new information (Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005). Deep engagement in the learning engenders enjoyment, hope, and pride; it increases the person’s motivation, use of good learning strategies, accessing of cognitive resources, selfregulation, and academic achievement (Pekrun, Goetz, Titz, & Perry, 2002). Young gifted children start school with great interest in things and a desire for engaged learning (Smutny, 2004). Good education and appropriate pacing for gifted learners increase the positive emotions and deepens their urge to engage in greater exploration (Fredrickson, 2000). Contentment such as that provided by appropriate gifted education elicits positive autonomic nervous system responses as the child, youth, or adult savors and integrates the learning (Levenson, 2003). Love for the topic or for the person teaching or mentoring sparks a recurring cycle of these positive urges within the gifted individual providing another mechanism of effective and positive environmental catalysts.
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Spirituality, Religion, and Faith Understanding the development of flourishing gifted individuals must address the effects of their spirituality, religion, and faith. The very core or essence of what makes our species human is its quest for metaphysical understanding and meaning. Since the dawn of humanity, people have sought the sacred. This quest suggests Homo religious is at least an accurate name as Homo sapiens (Albright & Ashbrook, 2001) . The separation of spirituality and religion is a recent phenomenon (Hill et al., 2000). Both share the core goal of search for the sacred (Zinnbauer, Pargament, & Scott, 1999). Spirituality can be a form of philosophy and is generally know as metaphysics. Spirituality is a universal and phenomenological exploration and response to “mystery” whose ultimate aim is living of a life of compassion (Emmons & Paloutzian, 2003); for some it may have an eternal orientation. The domains of spirituality have been thought of as a personal or experiential search for individual purpose and meaning; identifying and seeking specific values or beliefs; transcendence and awareness of realities beyond the self; connecting to others, some higher power, God, Spirit, Divinity, or nature; and a reflection on personal experiences and behavior to better understand yourself (Martsolf & Mickley, 1998). There are no clear or agreed upon operational definitions of spirituality (Moberg, 2002). Even with this lack of operational definition, spirituality has a clear role to play in thriving. Gifted children from very young ages ask unusually mature questions about God, life, the universe, death, or their own mortality (Shavinina, 1999). Recent reviews of successful aging, for example, show a strong connection between spirituality and markers of happiness and thriving in old age (Sadler & Biggs, 2006). Married couples who see their marriage as oriented to the divine reported greater levels of satisfaction, more constructive problem solving, less marital conflict, and greater commitment to their relationship than couples who did not see the sacred in their married life (Mahoney et al., 1999). A simple but useful definition of religion is “a covenant faith community with teachings and narratives that enhance the search for the sacred and encourage morality” (Dollahite, 1998, p. 5). Religion also begins with a belief in God or a higher power and includes organizational or institutional beliefs and
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practices such as church membership or affiliation. Most individuals who describe themselves as religious also say they are spiritual, but there are a smaller number who see themselves solely as spiritual (Zinnbauer, Pargament, & Scott, 1999). Religion is organized spirituality and often involves private and communal prayer. Regular prayer is related to overall mental health, self-monitoring, empathy, moral insight, and other positive behaviors but negatively correlated to depression, impulsivity, and risky behaviors (Koenig, McCullough, & Larson, 2001). Brain scans during prayer and meditation show significant frontal activity (McNamara, 2002). Religious commitment plays a positive role in preventing mental and physical illness, improving how people cope with mental and physical illness, and facilitating recovery from illness (Matthews, 1998). Being religious as an adolescent is associated with thriving correlates such as holding pro-social dispositions and behavior and inversely related to non-thriving correlates such as related to suicide ideation and attempts, substance abuse, premature sexual involvement, and delinquency (Donahue & Benson, 1995). Faith is the reasonable, not irrational, personal assent to God. Epidemiological and clinical research supports some relationship between religion (e.g., frequency of religious attendance, private religious involvement, and relying on one’s religious beliefs as a source of strength and coping) and health (Myers, 2000). This relationship is more description of persons of faith than of those for whom religion and spirituality is more pro forma. Longitudinal data on religiousness and fear of death and dying found little or no relationship to general religiousness, but did find a stronger connection between the firmness of beliefs and practices consistent with faith (Wink & Scott, 2005).
Thriving Continuum Flourishing vs. Wasting Thriving is the name given to a continuum composed of the sum of a person’s positive personal, psychological, and spiritual well-being. The direction on the continuum and the degree of thriving rest on the gifted
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individual’s development of their natural abilities into talents and their development of dispositions, virtues, character, and integrity. As a person attains more of these talents or character integrity, his or her level of confidence and happiness increases. This process is self-perpetuating and self-intensifying. For the gifted person, a too easy life or underchallenging academic or professional experiences may actually be counterproductive to immediate and lifelong thriving. The positive extreme on the continuum of thriving is called flourishing. An individual who is flourishing is one who has developed his or her talents and whose life is consistently based on virtues and character; one of happiness, satisfaction, and peace; a life lived fully even if the events and circumstances and environment around him or her are not ideal or even bad. The other extreme of flourishing is wasting. Individuals who lack integrity develop dysfunctional dispositions and bad habits, suffer underachievement and sadness, and can even experience talent development and a life of social isolation, despair, or “hell on earth.” Ultimately, a life of wasting leads to emotional, psychological, or even physical decline, self-destructive behaviors, or even death. While no one starts out to live a life of wasting, the final state is the outcome of many small personal decisions and events and people external to the person. The wasting process begins with small inappropriate acts or omissions, bad choice, laziness, carelessness, etc. and when these continue over time, they lead to bad habits. Bad habits become serious vices that in turn lead to greater and deeper states of wasting when they remain unidentified and their elimination not seriously pursued. Many related terms and concepts have emerged for this positive flourishing including psychological wellbeing, subjective well-being, happiness, and quality of life (Urry et al., 2004). The capacity to love and to be loved is an inherently human tendency with powerful lifelong effects on well-being (Peterson, 2006). Good relationships with others may be the single most important source of life satisfaction and emotional well-being, across different ages and cultures (Reis & Gable, 2003). Having close personal relationships is central to flourishing. People who lacked ties to others were two to three times more likely to have died 9 years earlier than those who were socially connected and people who lack of social support will increase risk of various diseases as well as reduce length of life (Ryff & Singer, 2000). Having good and deep
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friends is a consistently correlated to life satisfaction and well-being (Peterson, 2006). Greater happiness characterizes the flourishing end of the thriving continuum. Happiness is most commonly used in everyday talk and in the popular literature to describe intrapersonal flourishing. A widely used definition of happiness is a subjective well-being made up of life satisfaction, a cognitive evaluation of one’s overall life, the presence of positive emotional experiences, and the absence of negative emotional experiences (Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith, 1999). The feeling of happiness accompanies a person’s behavior when the behavior reflects accomplishments consistent with the person’s potential (Waterman, 1993). Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics (McKeon, 1992) postulated that eudaimonia, literally “’having a good guardian spirit” or more generically, happiness is highest good achievable. To have or live eudaimonia is to flourish. Happiness is the total sum of all of our good feelings minus the total sum of our bad feelings (Peterson, 2005). Happiness has numerous positive effects for the individual, families, communities, and the society (Lyubomirsky, Sheldon, & Schkade, 2005). The benefits of being happy include earning a higher income and having superior work outcomes (e.g., greater productivity and higher quality of work); larger social rewards (e.g., more satisfying and longer marriages, more friends, stronger social support, and richer social interactions); more activity, energy, and flow experiences and overall better health (e.g., a bolstered immune system, lowered stress levels, and less pain); and longer life (Lyubomirsky, King, & Diener, 2005). Happy individuals are more creative, helpful, charitable, and self-confident, have better self-control, and show greater self-regulatory and coping abilities. Cumulative biological risk, called allostatic load, is an emerging method of assessing the biological effect of factors such as those found in flourishing. Sustained positive personal relationships are associated with lower allostatic load for mature men and women especially those with more social integrated and emotional support (Seeman, Singer, Ryff, Love, & LevyStorms, 2002). Although often assumed, happiness and good mood are not associated with having higher incomes (Kahneman, Krueger, Schkade, Schwarz, & Stone, 2006). People with above-average income are relatively satisfied
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with their lives, but are barely happier than others are. On the other hand, they are more likely to experience tension and do not spend any more time in enjoyable activities than do those who earn less. Moreover, any positive effect of income on life satisfaction is usually evanescent. Understanding happiness in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood requires an understanding of those factors that are associated with happiness. These factors differ in their order of their correlational magnitude with happiness (Peterson, 2006). The correlates most important to a theory of how to live a life of thriving are those that are amenable to personal choice and can be developed through the efforts of gifted person themselves with the support and guidance of their parents, teachers, mentors, directors, colleagues, and friends. Other correlates of happiness are not within the control of the gifted person or those around him or her. Luckily, these correlates tend to be small in effect. Demographic factors have an effect on happiness. This includes variables such as intelligence, age, gender, ethnicity, and physical attractiveness. Additionally, controllable factors such as education, having children, and income are correlated with happiness. The correlations between all of these factors and happiness are significant, but small, in the range of ±0.2. Moderate correlations (±0.3) to happiness exist for several things about which the gifted person often has a choice or can to some extent control or facilitate. These include number of friends they have, being married, religiousness, having leisure activities, physical health, conscientiousness, extraversion (or at least extraverted activity), and having an internal locus of control. There is also a moderate, but inverse relationship between happiness and neuroticism. Large correlates (±0.5 and above) to happiness exist for another set of several things about which the gifted person often has a choice or can to some extent control or facilitate. These include having a strong sense of gratitude, optimism, and self-esteem. Having a job is a strong correlate of happiness. Interestingly though, the highest correlation to happiness and the only variable that distinguished very happy people from happy people was having close relationships with others. Quality of life is a specific way to assess personal happiness. Quality of life is an overarching personal assessment of a one’s life taking into consideration all
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emotions, experiences, appraisals, and expectations (Huebner, Drane, & Valois, 2000; Park, 2004; Peterson, 2006). Subjective well-being is more specific than quality of life and is the individual’s current evaluation of his or her happiness. Life satisfaction is another concept and is a measure of subjective well-being. This is an overall judgment of the goodness of one’s life. Assessments of life satisfaction tend to be more stable over time than measure of momentary quality of life or happiness while still capturing changes in life circumstances of the individual. Childhood well-being is the absence of behavior problems and the presence of behaviors that lead to academic, interpersonal, athletic, and artistic success (Benson, Leffert, & Blyth, 2000). Because of the pervasive use of heterogeneous grouping and instruction in school gifted children and youth often have opportunities for doing OK academically and interpersonally, but many do not experience opportunities to be successful at the level of their abilities in many school settings (Colangelo, Assouline, & Gross, 2004). The lack of appropriate challenge lessens the gifted child’s or adolescent’s well-being. The Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development (Jackson & Davis, 2000) found being intellectually reflective, ethical, healthy, and having a life vision facilitated the well-being of youth. The level and type of their giftedness, the educational fit between the child’s abilities and the school activities, and child’s personality characteristics affect the well-being of school-aged gifted individuals (Neihart, 1999). Perceptions of cognitive and intrapersonal functioning, physical health, and mental health are the building blocks of adult well-being (Moore & Keys, 2003). The individual’s success and integration of these areas results in greater productivity and makes activities more enjoyable (Zaff et al., 2003). The integration of physical, cognitive, and social-emotional functioning assists in forming and keeping healthy social relationships and this integration allows the individual to overcome any psychosocial or environmental difficulties that come along (Berk, 2004). The greater an individual’s sense of well-being, the more likely he or she is to flourish. A lack of a sense of well-being acts to reduce the overall happiness and thriving an individual experiences. Wellbeing and a sense of satisfaction are associated with fulfilling one’s potential (Bornstein, Davidson, Keyes, & Moore, 2003).
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age peers (Sayler & Boazman, 2006). The model of gifted and thriving will have value if it is accurate and if helps understand and guide parents, teachers, coaches, Personal flourishing is the goal presented by this model mentors, and the gifted themselves in the specifics of for the gifted individuals across their entire life span. daily life at home, in school, and in their early, middle, Flourishing results when the young pre-school gifted and late adulthood to find and live the good life. child explores, creates, learns, and questions his or her world and those in it in an atmosphere of tenderness and love. The gifted students flourish when they are academically challenged, develop appropriate dispoReferences sitions toward work, life, and other people, find and embrace one or more talent fields, and have fun and friendships. In adulthood, the gifted individuals flour- Ackerman, S., Zuroff, D. C., & Moscowitz, D. S. (2000). Generativity in midlife and young adults: Links to agency, comish when they have developed and now use their talmunion, and subjective well-being. International Journal of ents, live a life of virtue and integrity, finding happiAging and Human Development, 50, 17–41. ness and peace in their spirituality, spouse and children Adams-Byers, J., Moon, S. M., Whitsell, S. S. (2004). Gifted students’ perceptions of the academic and social/emotional or other personal relations, and their avocational intereffects of homogenous and heterogeneous grouping. Gifted ests. Child Quarterly, 48, 5–20. One of the main tasks of the gifted is to discover Albright, C. R., & Ashbrook, J. B. (2001). Where God lives in the human brain. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks. their abilities, find a purpose and vision for their lives, and develop and apply both in ways that bring them Aquilino, W. S., & Supple, A. J. (2001). Long-term effects of parenting practices during adolescence on well-being outand others happiness and thriving. Thriving requires comes in young adulthood. Journal of Family Issues, 22, the development of character and an acceptance that 289–308. each life has meaning and purpose. Once the gifted in- Baltes, P. B., Staudinger, U. M., & Lindenberger, U. (1999). Lifespan psychology: Theory and application to intellectual dividuals find their purpose and vision, they must folfunctioning. Annual Review of Psychology, 50, 471–507. low it with all their energy and strength, but without Baumrind, D. (1971). Current patterns of parental authority. Dea self-serving orientation. Instead, the flourishing pervelopmental Psychology Monograph, 4, 132–142. sons learn to take care of and serve others. In doing so Berk, L. (2004). Development through the lifespan. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. they make their work a joy, they bring joy and comfort Bernat, J. L. (2002). Ethics and the humanities: The diagnosis. to others through their work, and they become wise and [review of the book Ethics and the humanities: The Diagnoflourishing humans. sis]. Medical Ethics, 9, 5. The model described here has its basis in many em- Bevan-Brown, J. (2005). Providing a culturally responsive environment for gifted Maori learners, International Educational piric studies of various aspects of gifted individuals Journal, 6, 150–155. and in positive psychology. It addresses some of the Bloom, B. (1985). Developing talent in young people. New York: major ideas related to living a good life, but has inBallantine. evitably missed others. The model is flexible enough Bohlin, K. E., Farmer, D., & Ryan, K. (2001). Building Character in Schools Resource Guide. San Francisco, CA: Josseyto incorporate new conceptual elements and to have Bass. the model itself modified as data tests and verifies the Bornstein, M., Davidson, L., Keyes, C., & Moore, K. 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Chapter 10
A Unique Type of Representation Is the Essence of Giftedness: Towards a Cognitive-Developmental Theory Larisa V. Shavinina To Professor Marina A. Kholodnaya, whose ideas found further development in this chapter
Abstract This chapter presents the cognitivedevelopmental theory that seeks to explain the very essence of giftedness. According to the theory, the structural organization of giftedness is presented at the six interrelated levels: (1) the neuropsychological foundation of giftedness, (2) its developmental foundation, mainly formed by sensitive periods, which significantly accelerate a child’s development, (3) the cognitive basis of giftedness, and (4–6) three levels of the manifestations of giftedness: intellectually creative, metacognitive, and extracognitive (i.e. specific feelings, senses, intuition, preferences, and intentions) abilities, respectively. The cognitive basis of giftedness is the specific cognitive experience of the gifted that manifests itself in their unique type of representations. It means that gifted individuals see, understand, and interpret everything differently. The gifted’s unique type of representations or their unique picture of the world or their unique vision is the essence of giftedness.
has been guiding my research since then. Many good theories of giftedness have been offered over the last three decades (see Colangelo & Davis, 2003; Heller, Monks, Sternberg, & Subotnik, 2000; Sternberg & Davidson, 1986, 2005; as well as many chapters included in this volume). However, some essential pieces of the puzzle are still missing. This chapter presents the cognitive-developmental theory that seeks to explain the fundamental nature of giftedness by thus answering the above-mentioned question. Based on a synthesis of findings from the psychology of high abilities, developmental, cognitive, and educational psychology, and especially on research of Marina Kholodnaya and Lev Vygotsky, the theory states that giftedness is formed by the six interrelated levels or layers, each of which provides a basis for the subsequent level or layer. The model presents the structural organization of giftedness as follows (see Fig. 10.1). The first layer is the neuropsychological foundation of giftedness, mostly connected to the exceptional neuKeywords Cognitive experience · Unique representa- ral plasticity of the brain of the gifted. The second level tions · Child prodigies · Sensitive periods · Conceptual is the developmental foundation of giftedness, mainly structures · Subjective mental space · Accelerated de- formed by sensitive periods, which significantly accelerate a child’s mental development through the actualvelopment ization of his or her intellectual and creative potential and the growth of the individual’s cognitive resources resulting in the appearance of a unique cognitive expeIntroduction rience (Shavinina, 1997, 1999). This experience is the cognitive basis of giftedness, the third layer in its struc“What is the essence of giftedness?” is the question tural organization. The specific cognitive experience of that captured my attention at the age of 15 years and the gifted manifests itself in their unique type of representation of everything what is going on around them (i.e. any event, idea, problem, etc.). It means that the L.V. Shavinina (B) gifted see, understand, and interpret the world around Universit´e du Qu´ebec en Outaouais, Gatineau, Qu´ebec, Canada them in a different manner than the rest of people. The e-mail:
[email protected] L.V. Shavinina (ed.), International Handbook on Giftedness, c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-6162-2 10,
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232 Fig. 10.1 The model of the internal structure of giftedness
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Extracognitive manifestations of giftedness
Metacognitive manifestations of giftedness
Intellectually-creative manifestations of giftedness
Cognitive basis of giftedness
Developmental basis of giftedness
Neuropsychological basis of giftedness
gifted’s unique individual picture of the world is the essence of giftedness and high abilities as a whole. Another aspect of the uniqueness of the gifted’s intellectual picture of the world is their objectivization of cognition. It means that the gifted are able to see the world “as it was, as it is, and as it will be in its objective reality” (Kholodnaya, 1990, p. 128; Shavinina, 1996). The gifted’s specific cognitive experience provides a basis for three levels of manifestations of giftedness (i.e. its various characteristics and traits). In other words, all multiple manifestations of giftedness can be categorized in three main groups. These three levels—intellectually creative, metacognitive, and extracognitive manifestations—represent the fourth, fifth, and sixth levels in the structural organization of giftedness, respectively (see Fig. 10.1). Taken together, these six levels describe the nature of giftedness.
In the sections that follow I will consider each of the levels. In the context of my analysis of the developmental foundation of giftedness, I will discuss the child prodigy phenomenon. As this is the only chapter in this volume that considers child prodigies, I will therefore review the existing literature in this area.
Neuropsychological Foundation of Giftedness John Geake (this volume) reviewed the field of the neuropsychology of giftedness and demonstrated that the brain of the gifted functions differently. Larry Vandervert et al. (this volume) suggested that the extraordinary achievements of the gifted in general and child
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prodigies in particular are the result of domain-specific high attentional control learned beginning in infancy and modulated between the prefrontal cortex and the cerebellum. They concluded that this high attentional control accelerates the production of high intellectual processes in a spontaneous version of deliberate practice (Ericsson et al., this volume). This is an interesting hypothesis. It looks like Layne Kalbfleisch (this volume) is currently the most close to the explanation of the neuropsychological basis of giftedness. Specifically, she argued that the neuropsychological foundation of giftedness is associated with the exceptional neural plasticity of the brain of the gifted. That is, giftedness is a type of neural plasticity that manifests itself in specific states of mind of the gifted. The “state of mind” concept is similar to the concept of a unique type of representations of the gifted briefly mentioned above. It is interesting to see how both neuropsychology and psychology of giftedness are independently going in the same direction. As Kalbfleisch comprehensively analysed neural plasticity and state of mind in her chapter, I will not review them here. I will only mention that neural plasticity provides a foundation for the developmental basis of giftedness discussed in the next section.
Developmental Foundation of Giftedness My explorations of the developmental basis of giftedness are related to my research on the child prodigy phenomenon. Specifically, I found that this phenomenon is a pure developmental phenomenon. As nobody in this volume considers the child prodigy phenomenon, I will therefore analyse it in detail. In my opinion, any discussion of the developmental foundation of giftedness requires the examination of the child prodigy phenomenon.
What Do We Know About Child Prodigies Today? People have always been interested in very young children who demonstrate extraordinary abilities and ex-
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ceptional talents. It appears to be unbelievable, but it has been and remains a reality: prodigies can be found in every generation of children. Prodigies’ gifts and talents are fascinating and amazing to everyone. Similar exceptional abilities in adults are not so impressive. The very essence of the child prodigy phenomenon is hidden right here. In fact, human beings have always been astonished by one thing: child prodigies are able to do something that is usually attributed to adults. Hence, a key to the understanding of the prodigy phenomenon should be sought in the age of prodigies. Age implies development and, consequently, the process of the development of child prodigies must be analysed. The importance of the notion of age for the understanding of the essence of the prodigy phenomenon was reflected in Feldman’s (1986b) definition of prodigy. He stated that “a prodigy is a child who, before the age of 10, performs at the level of an adult professional in some cognitively demanding field” (Feldman, 1986b, p. 161). Using such an age boundary (i.e. 10 years), this definition can be slightly changed to the following definition: a prodigy is a child who, before the age of 10 years,1 displays extraordinary intellectual-creative performance and/or achievements in any type of a real activity2 (i.e. intellectual, musical, or artistic activity, etc.).3 The
1 Note that both growing-up prodigies (i.e. those above the age of 10 years) and individuals who are simply gifted will be mentioned below. The chapter deals with a new and almost unstudied age phenomenon in the development of the gifted—sensitive periods—and, because of that, any evidence in favour of these periods is very important. From this viewpoint, it does not matter whether the signs of sensitive periods are manifested in child prodigies, growing-up prodigies, prodigies of the past (i.e. geniuses and outstanding people), or in various types of gifted at any age. 2 This definition is rather broad, but such a definition is appropriate for the current stage of research on the prodigy phenomenon where scientific studies of this phenomenon are not numerous and understanding of its nature is not very advanced. 3 It should be emphasized that this definition has nothing in common with the understanding of prodigies as children of exceptionally high IQ. For the most part IQ tests are based on the assumption that what is measured should be universal and unchangeable for an individual in the process of his or her development. However, the existing findings about sensitive periods, advanced levels of intellectual development, and asynchronous mental development (considered below) do not correspond to such an assumption.
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difference between “prodigy” and “the very gifted” consists mainly in the age boundary (i.e. 10 years). All prodigies are mental prodigies, because all of them manifest certain intellectually creative performance or/and achievements in various fields of human endeavour. I suggested that rather conventionally, prodigies in art, chess, and music can be considered as special type of prodigies. Correspondingly, prodigies who display advanced levels of thinking can be referred to as a general type of prodigies (Shavinina, 1999). In the individual development (cognitive, intellectual, emotional, personality, psychomotor, and social) of everyone and especially of children, there are certain age periods of heightened sensitivity, which are known as sensitive periods (Vygotsky, 1956; Leites, 1971). The underlying mechanism of the prodigy phenomenon that actualizes the potentially extraordinary abilities of a child should be seen in sensitive periods. My research presents a new approach to the understanding of the nature of the prodigy phenomenon, which is based on the sensitive periods and unique cognitive experience of a child (Shavinina, 1997). In this section, I will analyse thoroughly the developmental process of child prodigies, because its basis—sensitive periods—is common for other types of giftedness. First of all, I will critically examine the existing explanations of the child prodigy phenomenon. Second, I will analyse the nature of a child’s sensitivity and sensitive periods. Third, I will discuss the specificity of the functioning of sensitive periods in prodigies. The purpose of my explorations of the child prodigy phenomenon is more to understand the inner/fundamental mechanism of the prodigy phenomenon than various external factors or forces (e.g., social or historical) that can increase the probability of the appearance of prodigies. To understand the inner/fundamental mechanism of the prodigy phenomenon means to understand how this phenomenon develops within the child. Social environment is important, but it is only an external factor in the development of prodigies. Any external factors or forces do not provide scientific explanations of the prodigy phenomenon. Hence, the analysis of the existing studies on child prodigies will be made according to how the real nature (i.e. inner mechanism) of the prodigy phenomenon is interpreted in these studies.
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Explanations of the Nature of the Prodigy Phenomenon4 Revesz’s (1925) research on a 7-year-old music prodigy and Baumgarten’s (1930) study of nine child prodigies were the first psychological studies of the prodigy phenomenon. These studies were entirely descriptive and focused mainly on the listing of children’s characteristics and traits. Any field of science began from descriptive stages of its development. However, listing the various musical, intellectual, emotional, personality, and other characteristics of prodigies constitutes the traditional trait approach in the psychology of giftedness (Shavinina, 1995), which reveals little about the essence of the prodigy phenomenon. This approach is not a productive one, because it is unknown whether the child’s various traits predetermine his or her prodigious potential, or whether the latter leads to a specific reorganization of the prodigy’s mind and personality that result in his or her exceptional performance and achievements. In the late 1950s Natan Leites began his research on child prodigies in the former Soviet Union. He found that the prodigy phenomenon can be explained by high mental activity, well-functioning self-regulation, and a child’s age sensitivity or developmental sensitivity. High mental activity includes the ability to pursue mental work for a long period of time, a permanent need for intellectual activity, extraordinary curiosity, and a wide range of interests (Leites, 1960, 1971, 1996). Leites’s understanding of self-regulation is identical to regulatory processes in the structure of metacognition, which are responsible for planning, monitoring, and executive control (Brown, 1978, 1984; Flavell, 1976; Pressley, Borkowski, & Schneider, 1987; Shavinina & Kholodnaya, 1996; Shore & Dover, 1987; Shore & Kanevsky, 1993; Sternberg, 1986a). High mental activity and well-functioning self-regulation can be viewed as important manifestations of the prodigy phenomenon, but not as its inner mechanism. Leites’s
4 Sometimes one can find statements such as the following: “The literature contains only three systematic scientific studies of child prodigies” (Morelock & Feldman 1993; p.162), which refer to studies of Ravesz, Baumgarten, and Feldman. This is not true, since in this case Leites’s research was not taken into account. Unfortunately, his investigations are absent from the American literature and rarely cited in most European publications published in English.
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concept of age sensitivity has a potential to advance psychological knowledge about the nature of the prodigy phenomenon (to be considered below).
Feldman’s Co-incidence Theory As a result of his study of six child prodigies, Feldman (1986b) proposed a co-incidence theory of the prodigy phenomenon. Co-incidence means “the melding of the many sets of forces that interact in the development and expression of human potential” (Feldman, 1986b, p. 11). Among such forces, he distinguished biological qualities, individual psychological qualities, proximal context (i.e. childs external surrounding), intermediate context (i.e. family structure and its traditions), domain and the surrounding field (a key aspect of Feldmans theory), and distinct context (i.e. social–historical factors). The prodigy phenomenon is a result of a concordance of the forces of co-incidence leading to the exceptional manifestation of an individual’s potential. In my opinion, this theory has serious shortcomings. It seems that Feldman’s theory can explain everything: the nature of giftedness, talent, genius, creativity, intelligence, and wisdom. Furthermore, it can be applied with the same success to a wide range of brilliant manifestations of the human mind (e.g. various intellectual traits and characteristics). Feldman asserted that the co-incidence theory seeks to explain all human achievement, not only the prodigy phenomenon. Nevertheless, this is not entirely correct, because the above-mentioned phenomena—according to the existing research—are not the same. Intelligence is not identical to creativity, giftedness is not equal to wisdom, nor is talent or genius the same.5 All 5 Sternberg’s studies of “implicit” theories of giftedness, intelligence, creativity, and wisdom have demonstrated that even ordinary individuals had clear distinctions between giftedness, intelligence, creativity, and wisdom (Sternberg, 1985, 1990a, 1990b, 1990c, 1993b; Sternberg et al., 1981). “Implicit theories are constructions by people that reside in the minds of these people. They thus constitute people’s folk psychology. Such theories need to be discovered rather than invented because they already exist, in some form, in people’s heads” (Sternberg, 1990c, p.142). It is interesting to note that Sternberg’s implicit theory of giftedness (Sternberg, 1993a, 1993b) is different from his explicit theory of giftedness (Sternberg, 1986a). On the other hand, explicit theories and definitions of giftedness, talent, intelligence, creativity, genius, and wisdom provided
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these psychological phenomena are different and therefore cannot be explained by a single theory. Even if we suppose that differences in their natures are not particularly large, the same theoretical framework is insufficient for understanding them, because it is always possible to find something that would be different for each case, as, for example, the level of manifestations. That is, manifestations of wisdom are not identical to those of giftedness, and so on. Therefore, Feldman’s claim about the capacity of the co-incidence theory to explain all human achievement is not correct. In fact, his conclusions are correct in a slightly different sense: namely that the forces of co-incidence are indeed important factors and probably necessary conditions for the emergence of any human achievement, including a prodigy’s performance. However, they can be viewed only as factors or conditions, not as something universal that can explain everything. On the other hand, the following question arises: Are all Feldman’s factors sufficient for the exceptional development of human potential (as, e.g. in the case of prodigies)? The answer is not particularly clear. For
by professional psychologists also show distinction in the understanding of these phenomena (Detterman, 1993; Feldman, 1982, 1986b; Gagn´e, 1993, 1995; Gruber, 1982; Heller, 1993; Miller, 1996; Morelock & Feldman, 1993; Renzulli, 1986; Shavinina, 1998; Sternberg, 1986b, 1988a, 1988b, 1990a, 1990b; Tannenbaum, 1986, 1993; Wallace, 1985). For example, Feldman (1982, 1986) presented different definitions of giftedness, talent, genius, and child prodigy. Gagn´e (1993, 1995, this volume) proposed different interpretations of giftedness and talent. Similarly, Wallace (1985) wrote on the conceptual differences between giftedness and creativity. Such examples can be continued. Similarly, psychologists differentiate between intelligence and creativity (Detterman, 1994; Runco & Albert 1990; Sternberg, 1985, 1988b, 1990a; Sternberg & Detterman, 1986). For example, the well-known definition of creativity as the ability to generate something new, original, and appropriate (Mumford, 1996) is completely different from the existing definitions of intelligence (see, for instance, Sternberg & Detterman’s [1986] volume devoted to experts’ definitions of intelligence). The investigations of Sternberg, who is actively working in these fields, also support the distinction between intelligence and creativity. His triarchic theory of human intelligence (1985, 1990a) is not identical to his conception of creativity (1988a) or his investment theory of creativity (Sternberg & Lubart, 1995, 1996). Finally, although explicit conceptions of wisdom are close to the psychological understanding of intelligence, their authors, however, differentiate between wisdom and intelligence (Baltes, Staudinger, Maercker & Smith, 1995; Staudinger & Baltes, 1996; Sternberg, 1990b).
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instance, there are many families providing good external conditions (i.e. proximal and intermediate contexts) for the development of their children. Suppose these children have the necessary individual psychological qualities (in the sense of Feldman). Finally, assume that all the social and historical factors are favourable. Nonetheless, these children are not prodigies. Therefore, something else predetermines the development of prodigies.
The Socio-cultural and Multidimensional Approaches The socio-cultural and multidimensional perspectives can be found in the research literature about child prodigies. The main methodology of these studies is related to the application of the case study method to famous people who were prodigies in the past. Investigations in the framework of the socio-cultural approach mainly concentrate on the study of social and cultural factors (i.e. family, school, society, and other related environments) contributing to the appearance of child prodigies (Goldsmith, 1990; Howe, 1990, 1993; Radford, 1990). In fact, these studies continue Feldmans tradition by explaining the prodigy phenomenon via his co-incidence theory or its elements. Certainly, it is interesting to know all possible factors that facilitate the expression of the prodigy’s potential, but they are no more than circumstances in which some children become outstandingly accomplished at an early age. Definitely, research on the prodigy phenomenon conducted within the framework of the socio-cultural paradigm contains helpful conclusions for nurturing and education of the gifted. However, the first and the most important question “What is the nature of the prodigy phenomenon?”— does not have answers in Goldsmith’s conception or in Radford’s (1990) and Howe’s (1993) studies. The multidimensional perspective refers to the analysis of the prodigy phenomenon from different intersected views (e.g. developmental, cognitive, creative, personality, and social; Bamberger, 1982, 1986; Gardner, 1982; 1993a, 1993b). In this case, the inner mechanism of the prodigy phenomenon is generally understood as a sum of various character-
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istics. Thus, Gardner in his theoretical explorations is a follower of Feldman’s theory. In this light, he does not bring anything new to the explanation of the nature of the prodigy phenomenon. Gardner (1993a) conducted his research of the famous prodigy Picasso from interactive and developmental perspectives. Gardner’s (1993a) important finding consists in the demonstration of Picasso’s totally egocentric behaviour during his whole life, which can be explained by Picasso’s extraordinary gifts and talents: Picasso enjoyed the benefits and liabilities of a prodigious start. His gifts and energies meant that, with few exceptions, he was able to do whatever he wanted, whenever and wherever he wanted, throughout his life. His virtuosity was never seriously challenged, let alone vanquished... Picasso was not able to think beyond his gift. In many ways he remained childish... (Gardner, 1993a, p. 184).
Therefore, Gardner pointed out the necessity of personality development for prodigies. His interesting conclusion is that there is a strong contrast between the adult creators (who must discover their own styles of creativity and the domain in which they can excel, and are formed as personalities by their family) and the child prodigy (who must construct a creative personality, having his or her domain as given by the birthright) (Gardner, 1993b). Bamberger’s (1982, 1986) research on the prodigy phenomenon is mainly carried out in the framework of a cognitive-developmental perspective. Studying musical prodigies, she found a “midlife crisis” in their development: the period of the extremely important cognitive reorganization when new forms of internal representations of musical structure appear. This is an interesting finding directly related to the main thesis of this chapter about cognitive experience as a psychological basis of giftedness and an individual’s unique type of representations as the essence of giftedness. In general, the studies on the prodigy phenomenon within the multidimensional perspective are certainly not numerous. Nonetheless, they reveal some significant findings (e.g. “midlife crisis”), which definitely contribute to the psychological explanation of the fundamental mechanism of this phenomenon. I would predict the appearance of further investigations on child prodigies within the framework of the multidimensional approach. To sum up, early research on the prodigy phenomenon described various manifestations (i.e.
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external traits, characteristics, qualities, properties, and features) of child prodigies. Contemporary studies explore either favourable social factors, which increase the probability of the appearance of prodigies, or a combination of these factors and the numerous manifestations of child prodigies. The review of the existing investigations on the prodigy phenomenon demonstrates that they do not reveal its inner mechanism. It seems that sensitive periods constitute such a mechanism.
A New Approach to Understanding the Specific Development of Prodigies: Sensitive Periods
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development” (Silverman, 1993, p. 634). The interpretation of giftedness as synonymous with asynchronous development indicates the importance of such a development for the understanding of the nature of giftedness. Columbus group’s approach to giftedness is also a strong evidence of the uneven and periodical development of prodigies. However, this specificity of the development of the gifted and prodigies has only been described, not explained. Probably, a key to the understanding of the uneven, asynchronous, dyssynchronous, and, therefore, unique and unusual prodigious development should be seen in a childs age sensitivity.
Age Sensitivity and the Prodigy As I mentioned above, the prodigy phenomenon is first Phenomenon of all an age phenomenon because it is based on specific features of a child’s age. This phenomenon is a result of the unique development, and, consequently, the key to its understanding should be found in the process of the individual growth of a child. Many transformations take place along the way from birth to adulthood (i.e. to age maturity). Nevertheless, something unusual happens that in some cases leads to the prodigy phenomenon. What exactly? In my opinion, the psychological account is the following.
Unusual Development of the Gifted Individual development is not a smooth process. Instead, it has certain stages or periods. Many scientific findings, both in general and developmental psychology, testify to it (Ananiev, 1957; Case, 1984a, 1984b; Fischer & Pipp, 1984; Flavell, 1984; Piaget, 1952; Sternberg, 1990a; Vygotsky, 1956, 1972; Wallon, 1945), especially research on giftedness in the framework of the developmental approach, which reveals an uneven development of the gifted (Bamberger, 1982, 1986; Feldman, 1982, 1986a; Gruber, 1982, 1986; Shavinina, 1997; Silverman, 1993, 1994, 1997; Terrassier, 1985, 1992). In this context, the most interesting ideas can be found in the studies on the asynchronous (Silverman, 1993, this volume) and dyssynchronous (Terrassier, 1985) development of gifted children. Moreover, the Columbus group views giftedness in general as an “asynchronous
Following Leites (1971), I suggested that a child’s sensitivity plays a central role in the emergence of prodigies (Shavinina, 1997). Age sensitivity is defined as a specific, heightened, and very selective responsiveness of an individual to everything what is going on around him or her (Leites, 1996; Shavinina, 1999). Such a definition might seem rather general; however, it appears to be appropriate at the current stage of research on prodigies’ sensitivity, when the amount of data is restricted. Indications that age sensitivity takes a certain place in the appearance of prodigies and gifted children can be found in the literature (Feldman, 1986b; Jellen & Verduin, 1986; Leites, 1960, 1971, 1996; Kholodnaya, 1993; Piechowski, 1979, 1986, 1991; Silverman, 1993, 1994, 1997; Sternberg, 1986a). Leites (1971) asserted that the child’s sensitivity and sensitive periods are critical phenomena in the development of prodigies. Kholodnaya (1993) viewed prodigy phenomenon as a result of the specific development of a child during the early years. Piechowski (1991) considered sensitivity as an individual’s heightened response to selective sensory or intellectual experiences. He pointed out that unusual sensitivity reveals the potential for high levels of development, especially for self-actualization and moral vigour (Piechowski, 1979, 1986; Piechowski et al., this volume). Feldman (1986b) included unusual sensitivity in his theory of prodigy phenomenon, in the “individual psychological qualities” component.
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Sternberg (1986a) considered “sensitivity to external feedback” as one of the metacomponents of his theory of intellectual giftedness. Sensitivity is one of the main elements in Jellen and Verduin’s (1986) conception of giftedness. I distinguish between cognitive (i.e. sensitivity to any new information), emotional (i.e. sensitivity to one’s own inner world and to the inner words of other people), and social kinds of sensitivity, which intersect with one another, forming mixed kinds of sensitivity (Shavinina, 1997). Leites (1971) emphasized that each child’s age is characterized by one or numerous kinds of sensitivity. Vulnerability, fragility, empathy, and social responsiveness are the manifestations of sensitivity. Cognitive sensitivity is extremely important in a child’s development in general and in the development of the gifted in particular. Thus, the first years of a child’s life are characterized by the ease and stability of the formation of many abilities, skills, and habits (e.g. linguistic abilities; Leites, 1996). Probably, because of cognitive sensitivity, children’s knowledge acquisition is very quick; it may take place even from the very first experience. This is especially applicable in the case of the gifted and prodigies (examples given below).
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able to read well and even a lot. At that time, he began to write and was able to write quite correctly. By 3 years of age, he had started to solve mathematical problems designed for 8-year-old children. He knew quite well the natural world of our planet (i.e. plants and animals). At 5 years of age, Serge saw textbooks on geography and history written for 11-year-olds. He learned all the Russian Czars and governors in chronological order, as well as the wars in which Russia participated and the stages of the French Revolution. At that point, the period of classification and systematization began, which can be considered a sensitive period. Serge drew tables on paper and put into the columns everything he knew (countries, their capitals, big cities, historical personalities, animals, plants, cars, and people’s names). The child used various principles to create columns: his columns corresponded to continents, states, alphabetical or chronological order, and so on. All newly acquired information was immediately put into the tables in the corresponding columns. Very often the same information was placed in many different tables. He spent all his time classifying and systematizing almost everything. After some time, however, this period ended and a period of interest in foreign languages started, which can be considered a new sensitive period. Serge learned the Latin alphabet in 2 days and could read Latin, German, and English words. He Sensitive Periods as a Determinant of Prodigy asked his parents to teach him foreign languages. InDevelopment dividual differences in sensitivity are therefore a real phenomenon. A child’s sensitivity is not always the same; it changes Sensitive periods demonstrate the uniqueness of cerwith age. Special age periods of the child’s heightened tain stages in a child’s development and the tremendous sensitivity are defined as sensitive periods.6 Excep- potential of childhood. Sensitive periods provide temtionally favourable inner conditions and extraordinary porary favourable conditions for accelerated intellecpossibilities for cognitive and intellectual development tual development. Such periods occur in each child’s are presented during sensitive periods (Leites, 1996). age, even at the earliest years. For example, Skuse, The early years of language acquisition by children are Pickles, Wolke, & Reilly (1994) found that the first few a widely cited example of sensitive periods (Shavin- postnatal months constitute a sensitive period for the ina, 1997). Examples of sensitive periods are especially relationship between growth and mental development. impressive in the case of prodigies.7 It seems that childhood periods prepare and temporarFive-and-a-half-year-old Serge learned the alphabet ily conserve favourable internal possibilities for the dewhen he was only 2 years old. At the age of 3, he was velopment of exceptional early abilities. Another example of a child at a sensitive period is three-and-a-half-year-old Alexei. He began to read 6 Certainly, such a definition of sensitive periods is rather general and other definitions of this construct can also exist in psychol- when he was only two and can now read rather well. ogy. But the current state of the research on the sensitive periods The child especially likes numbers and is extraordiof the gifted is not very advanced; therefore, this definition seems narily good at memorizing them. He remembers the to be appropriate. 7 These examples of gifted children sensitive periods are taken numbers of buildings, apartments, cars, and the like. Alexei’s answers to the question “What time is it now?” from Leites (1996).
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are always correct. The parents reported that they had not taught their son to write numbers and the alphabet; the child learned the digits and letters himself, just memorizing them and writing them down. A few days ago, another manifestation of his unusual mental development appeared: adults told him any date (e.g., January 19, February 5, or March 27) and Alexei could say what day of the week it was (Monday, Friday, etc.). He was always right. One can see that each child is sensitive in his or her own way. Based on such examples of sensitive periods in prodigies, Leites (1971, 1996) concluded that the specificity of a child’s mind depends on the age period in which minds qualities appear. He found that in childhood years, the specific “temporary states”— sensitive periods—emerge at each age stage, which manifest significant opportunities for advanced mental development. Zaporozhets (1964) pointed out that “each period of a child’s development has its own age sensitivity, and because of that learning... is more successful in the early years, than in the elder ones” (p. 678). Rosenblatt (1976) also noticed the existence of sensitive periods and emphasized that all behavioural development (both in people and in animals) is divided into sensitive periods, among which there are internal relations and mutual transitions. He found that the rapidity of the appearance, effectiveness, and duration of a sensitive period depended on the specificity of the previous periods. Moreover, Rosenblatt has shown that certain stages of development appear within a sensitive period itself. The change of sensitive periods interrupts and, at the same time, continues the course of the individual’s development. Alexander displayed his unusual abilities at a very early age. He started to read very well and to calculate before he was 4 years old. His interest in numbers probably indicated the fist sensitive period. The boy continually demanded that all adults around him set up simple arithmetic tasks for him; he was hungry for them. In this period, he also liked to write various numbers. The number seven (7) was especially attractive for Alexander: he wrote it everywhere in different forms and sizes painted in various colours. This “digital” period eventually came to the end. Just over four, Alexander had a new sensitive period—the “geographical” one. He read a lot about continents, countries, cities, seas, mountains, and rivers. All his questions to adults concerned only
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geographical issues. He asked his parents to buy geographical books for him and looked for geographical articles in the newspapers. He watched TV programmes that were about travels around the globe and weather forecasts so that he could see a map of his country. As a result, his acquired knowledge of geography was very impressive. Nevertheless, his new sensitive period did not consist only of the acquisition of new knowledge of geography. All Alexander’s cognitive activity was directed to achieve one clear goal: to make a map of the world. All his time was devoted to this task. He prepared the map, conveying shapes and names of geographical objects (i.e. continents, countries, etc.) with amazing accuracy. Such an activity certainly required his artistic skills in drawing and painting, which were significantly developed during this period. In a few months, Alexander’s second— “geographical”—sensitive period was almost over. Such examples of sensitive periods in the gifted and prodigies demonstrate that a child’s heightened level of sensitivity is extremely important for the understanding of prodigious development. Vygotsky (1956) acknowledged the existence of sensitive periods and asserted that in these periods certain influences have big impact on all course of the individual development by provoking one or other deep changes. In other periods, the same influences can be neutral or even give opposite impact on child development. Sensitive periods coincide fully with... the optimal terms of learning (p. 278).
Daniel (an 8-year-old boy) once learned from science fiction that there might be a tenth planet in the solar system. The planet has the same size and moves along the same orbit as the Earth. However, this planet is invisible from the Earth because it is always behind the sun. This information immediately provoked a spark of Daniel’s intellectual activity. He could not resist thinking about this planet all the time. He imagined people living on the planet and he began to invent their languages (i.e. new alphabets). The period of geographical discovery on the planet was next. The boy left the shapes of the continents on the planet the same as on the map of the Earth, but the mountains, seas, rivers, countries, and cities were reinvented. At that point, he applied all his knowledge of geography. Furthermore, Daniel realized that his mathematical skills could also be used. He began to calculate how many people would live on this planet in 10, 20, or 50 years. His initial knowledge of geometry was used to measure
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the territories of the continents, states, cities, and seas. All his time was devoted to this activity. Interestingly, his parents noted that never before their son had been so impressed by any reading, although he had read a lot earlier. They also pointed out that Daniel had never before been involved in such an intense mental activity. The unusual 3-week period of intensive and nonchild questioning (about God, life, the Universe, death, her own mortality, and similar questions) in four-anda-half-year-old Jennie studied by Morelock and described by Silverman (1993) is another example of a prodigy’s sensitive period. This period of questioning can be explained by a 3-week period of heightened sensitivity to everything unknown to her (Shavinina, 1997). It should be added that the following stage in Jennie’s mental development was also a clearly distinct period, with a change in her external behaviour (e.g. she became quiet) and an incredible shift in her reading ability. Probably, it was her second sensitive period that explains Jennie’s transformed behaviour. The change of sensitive periods was very positive for her intellectual development, since Jennie reached new levels of cognition. It is not surprising that psychologists use a “cognitive leap” notion to describe her brilliant cognitive growth (Silverman, 1993). Such impressive and numerous cases of sensitive periods in prodigies and highly gifted children allowed Leites (1996) to conclude that even a child’s age sensitivity itself can be considered a specific kind of giftedness. Taken together, these findings demonstrate that the changes of age bring unrepeatable determinants of the individual development: sensitive periods. Sensitive periods mean a qualitatively new strengthening of the possibilities for mental growth, which appear during the early childhood years. The strengthening of such possibilities leads to the general heightening of a child’s cognitive resources (as, e.g., in the cases of Alexander, Alexei, Daniel, Jennie, and Serge). Therefore, the above considered findings demonstrate that sensitive periods are indeed a very real developmental phenomenon. It is not a fiction, nor a general psychological category for the combination of all the necessary conditions for the development of child prodigies8 and the gifted.
8
Of course, the following question can arise: “What is behind a child’s sensitivity and sensitive periods?” The scientific analysis of this question leads me to the consideration of the specificity of the development of the nervous system of children. The
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The Dynamics of Sensitive Periods: Developmental Losses and Individual Gains The favourable opportunities for the development of a child’s mind provided by sensitive periods can be seen very clearly in the gifted and in prodigies (see the above described cases of Alexander, Alexei, Daniel, Jennie, and Serge). However, the sad thing is that later such favourable possibilities for individual development will weaken at a fast or slow rate (Leites, 1971). The following questions arise: if I assert that such periods should be considered as an inner mechanism of the prodigy phenomenon and of the development of the gifted, can a child be named as a prodigy or as the gifted if he or she had one or a few sensitive periods? Similarly, can sensitive periods experienced by a child be the predictors of his or her intellectually creative productivity in adulthood? Definitely, sensitive periods indicate that exceptional development can be possible. Nevertheless, it is not enough. The answer to these questions will be “yes” only if two important requirements are fulfilled in the individual development of a child. First, all developmental capacities (i.e. new abilities, habits, skills, qualities, traits, and characteristics acquired during sensitive periods; these capacities can be called developmental capacities or acquisitions because sensitive periods are a developmental phenomenon in the life of a child; a manifestation of a child’s development) should be transformed into the stable individual acquisitions. Second, these acquired individual capacities should, in turn, be transformed into the unique cognitive experience of a child. Although all stages of childhood can be distinguished by the heightened sensitivity of a child, sensitive periods have their own “life story.” Sensitive periods emerge, exist, and even disappear during a child’s development (Leites, 1971). What is important is what remains in the child at the end of sensitive period(s) when these periods are already over and
neurological, physiological, physical, and genetic specificity of child development constitutes the “biological mechanism” underlying the emergence of sensitivity and sensitive periods. Biological correlates of sensitivity and sensitive periods will not be discussed in this chapter (except the neurological basis of giftedness briefly mentioned at the beginning), because its aim is to mostly consider the psychological essence of sensitivity and sensitive periods (i.e. their “psychological mechanism”). The issue of biological correlates of sensitivity was briefly analysed by Leites 1996) and Henderson & Ebner (1997).
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favourable opportunities for mental development are getting weak either suddenly or gradually. It seems paradoxical, but it is a fact: the favourable possibilities opened up by sensitive periods allow a child to advance significantly in his or her intellectual development by acquiring something new and valuable (i.e. knowledge, skills, habits, etc.), but he or she can also lose these acquisitions when a sensitive period is over. This is a real problem of sensitive periods. Psychologists differentiate between developmental and individual aspects of sensitive periods (Leites, 1996). If at the end of a sensitive period a child loses almost all the exceptional capacities that he or she acquired during the given period, then one can assert that these capacities were mainly a developmental phenomenon (i.e. developmental capacities). That is, a certain stage in the development of a child is over and all the extraordinary acquisitions accumulated during this stage via sensitive period(s) are lost. It is a key to the explanation of why so many gifted individuals who manifested exceptional abilities in their childhood become ordinary adults who do not express extraordinary talents and outstanding creativity. Gifted children lose their unusual abilities and talents in the process of their own individual development. At the same time, sensitive periods are also a foundation for the powerful individual acquisitions. If new extraordinary capacities acquired during a certain sensitive period remain in the developing child after this period, then one can assert that these capacities have been transformed into the individual acquisitions. Only in this case one can assume to a significant extent that the child can be called a prodigy or a gifted and that he or she has the potential to be an intellectually creative adult. Let us get back to the example of Alexander. When he was a five-and-a-half-year-old boy, a 7-year-old girl began to live temporarily in their family. She was admitted to school and a new educational period started for Alexander. The children did exercises together, solved mathematical problems, and learned poems by heart. Alexander started to go to kindergarten. His teacher was impressed by both Alexander’s mental development and his artistic abilities in drawing and painting. The accuracy of the presentation of even the smallest details was a distinguishing characteristic of his paintings. When he was seven, Alexander successfully passed all examinations and was admitted
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directly from the kindergarten into the fourth-grade class of school for 11-year-old students. All of his school grades were “excellent.” At that time, the third sensitive period started, which can be called an ornithological” period. At the age of seven, Alexander read three volumes of Brem’s book for university students, entitled The Life of Animals. This was the beginning of his interest in zoology; birds were especially attractive to him. The essence of a new sensitive period consisted of his writing (or, more precisely, creating) a book about birds. Alexander wrote down the summary of the corresponding chapters of Brem’s volumes and made many illustrations for them. He also used two lengthy articles about birds that he found. The scale of his work was impressive: the manuscript ran more than 300 pages with more than 100 drawings. The text was divided into chapters, and all chapters were interconnected with an internal integrity. Alexander had an extensive vocabulary. His linguistic abilities manifested themselves in the absence of mistakes in the writing of his manuscript, which included many foreign words and biological terms. Alexander continued to read a lot, preferring scientific literature. He often used encyclopaedias and dictionaries of foreign languages. It is interesting to mention what happened once: a psychologist, an expert on giftedness, opened the first chapter of Alexander’s manuscript and began to read the description of a bird. Alexander had not looked at this chapter for a few months. Then, the psychologist asked Alexander to continue the description. The boy recalled the subsequent text by heart correctly and in detail. Note that he used other words to express the essence of the text (not the same words that he had used to write this chapter). This clearly testifies to his completely conscious work (in contrast to simple memorization). Alexander’s drawings of birds were not copies of those he had already seen; they were his drawings based on the verbal descriptions of birds. In other words, all his reading about birds was immediately transformed into drawings of birds. Alexander’s manuscript had more illustrations than three volumes of Brem. The psychologist emphasized that the boy had a strongly developed visual memory and the visual (i.e. external) descriptions of birds were the main characteristic of Alexander’s “ornithology.” He was not much interested in birds’ instincts and their way of life; instead, he was very interested
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in form and size of beak, colour of feather, and so forth. He constantly drew and re-drew the birds for his book. When Alexander visited the zoo or zoological museum, he also made many drawings. There were so many drawings in the manuscript of his book that the psychologist concluded that they probably are the essence of his work: the drawings were not the illustrations to the text, but rather the text was the illustration to the drawings. The order of Alexander’s activity supported this conclusion: the boy first made drawings of birds and then he wrote the text. In summer, being in a country village, Alexander was fascinated by birds and butterflies. (He had read the book Life of Insects before summer, which probably stimulated his new interest.) The boy gathered a large collection of various kinds of butterflies and made numerous and accurate drawings of them. His ability to see even the small differences in the colour and form of butterflies was as obvious in these drawings as in his drawings of birds. Probably, it was Alexander’s fourth sensitive period. Nevertheless, his previous “ornithological” sensitive period also continued. Alexander’s knowledge of birds was getting more differentiated and enriched by his personal natural observations. In summer, the boy constantly observed birds in the forest and drew pictures of them. Using his own accumulated knowledge, he began to recognize birds in nature (according to their songs, colour, etc.). Every day he observed the behaviour of birds for many hours. He also found their nests and fed small birds. Remember that at that time Alexander was only a 7-year-old child.
The Essence of Sensitive Periods in Prodigies and the Gifted
L.V. Shavinina
opinion, this depends on the kind of sensitivity (i.e. cognitive, emotional, or social). Perhaps emotional sensitivity, more than any other kind of sensitivity, remains in the individual during his or her life, whereas cognitive sensitivity changes periodically (but certainly it does not disappear in prodigies and the gifted). Such characteristics of the gifted as sensitivity to a new experience and openness of mind (i.e. manifestations of cognitive sensitivity) can be regarded as evidence of this tendency of cognitive sensitivity. Perhaps the availability of cognitive sensitivity throughout the lifespan determines the exceptional mental abilities of an individual. If sensitivity remains in prodigies and the gifted for a long time, then it is possible to assert that new capacities acquired during a certain sensitive period will also remain in prodigies and the gifted for a long time. These capacities are fortified and developed later, and finally they are transformed into really individual acquisitions that have a potential to remain in the person throughout the lifespan. Consequently, one can predict the transition of a child prodigy into an outstanding adult who will be able to produce extraordinarily high intellectual and creative performance(s) and achievement(s). Alexander must be mentioned briefly once again. At fourteen and a half years of age, he graduated from the school with “excellent” grades. He graduated with equal success from the biological faculty of the Moscow State University and became a distinguished scientist. He participated in many expeditions, mainly to the North, related to the investigations of various birds. His adult life was characterized by the ability to work very hard, an intense interest in learning, the talent to make good drawings (especially of birds), high capacity to learn foreign languages, and an extremely clear and detailed memory. He was a great ornithologist.9 Alexander’s colleagues wrote, He was characterized by a combination of abstract think-
ing with deep knowledge of ecology and birds that he had The case of Alexander and the other cases presented learned during his numerous expeditions... He had strong above indicate the chain of sensitive periods in the will, excellent memory, and was able to work hard... He gifted and prodigies, which allows me to assume that was also able to read in many European languages includthe prodigies’ sensitivity does not disappear coming Scandinavian languages; he was perfect in English. Alexander was an excellent scientist, untiring, purposeful, pletely. In this light, Silverman’s (1993) conclusion and persistent. He could make an instant draft of a bird or concerning emotional sensitivity seems to be correct. She asserted that “extraordinary levels of sensitivity and compassion do not disappear with maturity. A 9 Unfortunately, Alexander died at the age of 43 when he concapacity for rich, intense emotions remains in the tracted a fatal disease in one of his numerous scientific trips to personality throughout the lifespan” (p. 642). In my Siberia.
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A Unique Type of Representation Is the Essence of Giftedness landscape... He had an unlimited ability to work... He created his own scientific school (Leites, 1996, p. 156).
What is impressive is a complete coincidence of the description of 43-year-old Alexander as a scientist by his colleagues with the description of Alexander as a prodigy provided by the psychologist (Leites, 1960, 1996). The case of Alexander demonstrates that his developmental capacities (i.e. those new capacities acquired during sensitive periods in childhood) were indeed transformed into powerful individual abilities that remained throughout the lifespan. Therefore, all the above written concerning sensitive periods demonstrates that they are not a factor, condition, characteristic, feature, or trait in a child’s development. They should be understood as an inner mechanism of prodigious development and the development of the gifted.
Understanding Exceptional Kinds of the Development in the Gifted It looks like any development leading to the significant expression of an individual’s potential (in the forms of giftedness, creativity, extraordinary intelligence, or genius) and resulting in any human achievement is influenced by a number of periods of heightened sensitivity. Perhaps the stages or levels of the gifted’s development (Feldman, 1982, 1986a; Gruber, 1982, 1986) as well as prodigies’ “mid-life” crisis (Bamberger, 1986) and “crystallizing experience” phenomenon (Walters & Gardner, 1986) correspond to certain sensitive periods (Shavinina, 1997). Moreover, if we ask ourselves, what is behind “asynchrony” and “dyssynchrony,” the answer probably is “sensitive periods.” It is interesting to note that there are some indications to sensitive periods in the definition of giftedness given by the Columbus group,10 for example, “advanced” (that means that something might not be advanced) and “heightened” (correspondingly, something might not be heightened).
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Furthermore, the asynchrony term itself is also connected to the very essence of sensitive periods in the following way: asynchrony assumes the emergence and disappearance (i.e. beginning and end) of certain qualities forming to some extent a disproportionality in child development. Sensitive periods also have a beginning and end.
Explaining Prodigies’ Extraordinary Performance Sensitive periods predetermine prodigious development as a fundamental mechanism: that is, they greatly accelerate and, therefore, advance intellectual development of prodigies. But do sensitive periods directly determine prodigies’ incredible achievements? What permits a childhood prodigy to be at the level of the professional performance of an adult before the age of 10, as it was asserted in the above-mentioned definition of prodigy? I assumed that prodigies’ unique cognitive experience (i.e. experience of the cognitive interaction of an individual with the external world) is responsible for their extraordinary performances (Shavinina, 1999). The cognitive experience forms the cognitive basis of giftedness, which I will consider in detail in the next section. After that I will get back to providing a thorough account of prodigies’ extraordinary performance. Before starting to analyse the cognitive basis of giftedness, I would like to emphasize a need in paradigm change in addressing the fundamental issue of the nature of giftedness.
Paradigm Change in Addressing the Issue of the Nature of Giftedness
Prior to analysing the cognitive basis of giftedness, it is important to discuss the following. It seems that the main difficulty in understanding the nature of giftedness is that the external manifestations of giftedness (e.g. personality characteristics, traits, and qualities) 10 According to this definition, “giftedness is asynchronous de- in any real activity have been the subject of psychovelopment in which advanced cognitive abilities and heightened logical research; but the psychological basis (or psyintensity combine to create inner experiences and awareness that chical carrier) of these manifestations has not been are qualitatively different from the norm. This asynchrony increases with higher intellectual capacity” (Silverman, 1993, p. studied. Understanding the nature of any psychologi634). cal phenomenon using only its own characteristics is
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unproductive. Contradictions and crises in psychology testify to it (Vekker, 1981). An entirely new research direction is needed that looks at giftedness as the unity of its two important parts: the manifestations of giftedness (i.e. traits, characteristics, qualities, properties, etc.) and the psychical carrier of these manifestations (that is, the psychological basis of giftedness). It means that there is a need to fundamentally reexamine the question of the nature of giftedness as a psychological phenomenon. That is, psychologists should not answer the question “What is giftedness?” by listing its various traits and characteristics (i.e. its external manifestations). Rather, they should answer the question, “What is the basis (a carrier) of those traits and characteristics associated with giftedness?” From this fundamentally changed point of view, researchers should examine the subjective experience of an individual and first of all his or her cognitive experience: the experience of the cognitive interaction of a person with the world around him or her, which is the psychological basis of giftedness or the psychological carrier of its manifestations (Shavinina & Kholodnaya, 1996).
Cognitive Basis of Giftedness The analysis of the existing approaches to the understanding of the nature of giftedness demonstrates that they touch the concept of “individual subjective experience” to a certain extent. For example, Sternberg’s conception of intellectual giftedness includes processes in the areas of the “internal” and “external” experience of an individual (1986). The concept of “experience” can also be found in the creative approach. For instance, the existing definitions of creativity might be read in a slightly different way, such as creativity is the saturation of an individual’s experience by a new content (Stein, 1967) or creativity is the process of the reorganization of experience (Mednick, 1962). Shavinina & Kholodnaya (1996) suggested that the cognitive experience of an individual is responsible for the ability to generate new and original ideas. Although the number of publications is not very large yet, research into the topic of experience began in developmental, cognitive, and expertise approaches. Walters & Gardner’s (1986) investigation of the phe-
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nomenon of “crystallizing experience” seems to be important. They define “crystallizing experience” as remarkable and memorable unusual encounters between a developing person and a particular field of endeavour (p. 307). This phenomenon manifests itself in changes in “an individual’s concept of the domain, his performance in it, and his view of himself” (p. 309). This reorganization of the individual experience later becomes a foundation for creative discoveries. DeGroot’s (1978) pioneering study allowed him to conclude that any creative product is not a consequence of a magical intuition, miraculous inspiration, or inborn genius. Rather, it is a result of a specific selfdevelopment of an individual, which is connected to rapid accumulation of fertile, differentiated, and useful experience in a certain field of human activity. Gruber (1986) asserts that human extraordinariness in its important creative achievements is a consequence of “protracted and repeated encounters of the creative person with the task he or she has undertaken” (p. 252). He notices that these encounters “deal rather with some ideas about the construction of social relations and of the self,” than with the changes in cognition (p. 254). In this period the possibility of extraordinary creative solutions depends on surrendering himself or herself to the requirements of the task and self-mobilization of every personal resource. Representatives of the expertise approach, such as Horgan and Morgan (1990), have shown that one of the important results of their longitudinal study of child chess experts is that improvement in chess skill significantly correlates with experience. Albert and Runco (1986) emphasize that noncognitive early family experiences are involved in the achievement of eminence. They found in their longitudinal study of exceptionally gifted boys and their families that experience-selecting agents play an important role in the development of giftedness, which itself is creative and an experience-producing phenomenon. Therefore, the available research on experience in the area of giftedness (Albert, 1992; Albert & Runco, 1986; DeGroot, 1978; Gruber, 1986; Horgan & Morgan, 1990; Sternberg, 1986; Walters & Gardner, 1986) allowed Kholodnaya (1993) and Shavinina & Kholodnaya (1996) to conclude that a subjective experience of an individual plays an important role in the understanding of the nature of giftedness. Kholodnaya (1993) suggested that cognitive experience—and
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A Unique Type of Representation Is the Essence of Giftedness
especially its structural organization—is a psychological basis of giftedness or a psychical carrier of all manifestations of giftedness.
Cognitive Experience and the Gifted’s Unique Representations: The Essence of Giftedness Cognitive experience is formed by conceptual structures (i.e. conceptual thinking), knowledge base, and subjective mental space (Kholodnaya, 1993). Why do conceptual structures, knowledge base, and mental space compose cognitive experience? The importance of conceptual structures is determined by scientific findings that indicate that conceptual thinking is the integrated cognitive formation (i.e. a form of the integrated functioning of human intelligence). The more conceptual thinking is a form of the integrated work of intelligence, the better organization of an individual’s intellectual activity will be (i.e. intelligence perfectly functions; see Kholodnaya, 1983; Vekker, 1981). The knowledge base is the second component in the structure of cognitive experience. Many psychologists stress the important role of the knowledge base in the development of intellectual giftedness (Bjorklund & Schneider, 1996; Chi & Greeno, 1987; Chi & Greeno, 1987; Chi & Koeske, 1983; Kholodnaya, 1993; Pressley, Borkowski, & Schneider, 1987; Rabinowitz & Glaser, 1985; Schneider, 1993; Shavinina & Kholodnaya, 1996; Shore & Kanevsky, 1993; Sternberg, 1985, 1990a). It was demonstrated that the quantity and quality of specialized knowledge play a critical part in highly intellectual performance and in the process of acquiring new knowledge (Bjorklund & Schneider, 1996). For example, productive problem solving cannot occur without relevant prior knowledge (Chi & Ceci, 1987). The knowledge base can facilitate the use of particular strategies, generalize strategy use to related domains, or even diminish the need for strategy activation (Schneider, 1993). The gifted are distinguished by an adequate, well-structured, well-functioning, and elaborate knowledge base, which is easily accessible for actualization at any time (Kholodnaya, 1993; Rabinowitz & Glaser, 1985). Moreover, this rich knowledge base can sometimes compensate for overall lack of general cognitive
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abilities (Pressley, Borkowski, & Schneider, 1987; Schneider, 1993). Conceptual structures and knowledge base generate subjective mental space, the third component in the structural organization of cognitive experience. Individual differences in flexibility, differentiation, integration, and hierarchy of the boundaries of the mental space influence a persons cognitive attitude to the world around and, therefore, predetermine his or her intellectual abilities. Cognitive experience—formed by these three components—expresses itself in a specific type of the objective representations of reality (i.e. how an individual sees, understands, and interprets what is going on in the surrounding reality and in the world around him or her). It was shown that an individual’s type of representations is the basic phenomenon of human intelligence (Kholodnaya 1990, 1997; to be considered in detail in my chapter on the identification of intellectual giftedness in this volume). The gifted see, understand, and interpret everything around them by constructing an individual intellectual picture of the world (of event, action, situation, idea, problem, and any aspects of reality) in a manner different from the rest of the people. In other words, the gifted have a unique intellectual picture of the world; that is, a unique point of view or a unique vision. This is exactly the essence of giftedness. In my experimental study of the individual cognitive experience of gifted adolescents and those who were not identified as gifted I indeed found that there are some essential differences in the cognitive experience of the two groups of adolescents. Specifically, differences in the degree of the development of their intellectual giftedness manifest themselves in their individual representations: the representations of the world as a whole, the representations of future events, and conceptual representations. For example, gifted adolescents’ specificity of the individual representations of the reality as a whole consists in the predominance of categorical (generalized) cognition. The gifted groups representations of the future are characterized by the differentiation of the vision of future events. Gifted adolescents are also distinguished by more complex and rich conceptual representations (i.e. their representations are rather unfolded and articulated phenomena). Furthermore, the correlation and factor analysis demonstrated a special character of correlations and a relative independence of the factor structural
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components in the cognitive sphere of the gifted group. This is the evidence of a specific integration of the cognitive experience of the gifted. To sum up, the cognitive experience of the gifted has more categorized, integrated, differentiated, and unfolded organization than the cognitive experience of those who were not identified as gifted. This specific structural organization of the cognitive experience of the gifted determines their unique intellectual picture of the world. Taken together, these findings provide further evidence that cognitive experience is a psychological basis of giftedness, which manifests itself in the gifted’s unique type of representation of everything what is going on around them. It should be noted that the mechanisms of the construction of these unique representations of the gifted play a key role in the organization of their experience, that is, those cognitive mechanisms, which are responsible for the construction of an individual’s more categorical, differentiated, integrated, and conceptually complex intellectual picture of the world. It is appropriate to mention here that the nature of cognitive experience (i.e. the individual differences in the extent of the development of this experience) is an important factor in the identification of gifted individuals (to be considered in my chapter on the identification of the gifted, this volume). The most important aspect of the uniqueness of the gifted’s intellectual picture of the world is the objectivization of their cognition. It means that gifted individuals see, understand, and interpret everything in highly objective manner. The significance of the gifted in society “should be seen not only in that they solve problems well and create new knowledge, but mainly in the fact that they have the ability to create an intellectuallyobjective picture of the world, i.e. they can see the world as it was, as it is, and as it will be in its reality” (Kholodnaya, 1990, p. 128; italics added). The objectivization of the cognition of the gifted will be analysed in detail in my chapter on scientific talent in this volume.
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prodigies—appear. The age or developmental foundation (i.e. exceptional opportunities for the accelerated individual development determined by age sensitivity) is a key to this explanation. It seems that in prodigies and the gifted—as a result of advanced development— the overlapping of age sensitivity occurs. In this case, sensitivity originates from different (i.e. previous, current, and subsequent) childhood periods. The description of Alexander’s summer life in his childhood supports this assumption. At that time, he had at least two sensitive periods: the “bird” period and the “butterfly” period. His interest in birds can be considered a previous (his intense interest at the age of seven), current (his summertime interest in the observation of birds), and subsequent (his renewed intense interest as a variation on his previous interest makes it new) sensitive period at the same time. A new—and also current— sensitive period was the period of his interest in butterflies. One can see the coexistence of two sensitive periods. Such an overlapping of a child’s sensitivity determines duplication and even multiple strengthening of the foundations for the rapid intellectual growth that finally leads to the appearance of prodigies and the gifted. Because of the overlapping of age sensitivity, a child prodigy or the gifted is always distinguished by cognitive sensitivity or any other kind of sensitivity. In this case, the probability of the transformation of all developmental acquisitions (i.e. all new capacities of a child’s cognitive experience that are acquired during sensitive periods) into the stable individual abilities is getting high. In other words, the gifted and prodigies are almost always in sensitive periods that actualize their cognitive potential and accelerate their mental development. The latter implies rapid accumulation of prodigies cognitive resources and the construction of those resources into the unusual cognitive experience that continues to enrich itself in the process of the further advanced development governed mainly by a heightened cognitive sensitivity. Prodigies’ and the gifted’s cognitive experiences most likely will quickly become differentiated, integrated, and unfolded phenomena (Shavinina & Kholodnaya, 1996). Correspondingly, the character of Explaining the Prodigy Phenomenon their representations will be generalized, categorical, and the Nature of Giftedness conceptually rich, and complex from the very early years. This allows child prodigies and the gifted In this section I will put all the pieces of the puzzle to- to have a unique “intellectual picture of the world,” gether and will explain how it happens that the gifted— which expresses itself in their exceptional performance and in some cases even the extremely gifted: child and achievement. For example, although Alexander’s
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A Unique Type of Representation Is the Essence of Giftedness
“ornithological” sensitive period was very long, his cognitive experience was certainly different in each stage of childhood. For instance, his initial drawings of birds were based on verbal descriptions from books because Alexander’s initial ornithological knowledge was from books, whereas his “summer” drawings were based on his personal experience of natural observations. As mentioned above, at that time his knowledge of birds reached a new level. Because of this, one can assert that Alexander had, in fact, a few “ornithological” sensitive periods. These periods can be considered as previous, current, and subsequent sensitive periods at the same time. The proposed explanation of the nature of the prodigy phenomenon and of giftedness as whole—via the specificity of a child’s age, which manifests itself in sensitive periods, and cognitive experience—is supported by the following psychological findings. For example, Silverman (1993) concluded that the heightened emotional sensitivity and responsiveness of the gifted are “directly related to their advanced cognitive development” (p. 637). The Columbus group also pointed out that asynchronous development increases with higher intellectual capacity (Silverman, 1993). Similarly, Roedell (1984) asserted that highly gifted children will be more vulnerable with increased intellectual advancement. Therefore, the presented theory of the child prodigy phenomenon and of giftedness states that the key to the explanation of their nature should be seen in the hidden possibilities of a child’s age. The prodigy phenomenon and giftedness should be explained by their inner mechanisms. They cannot be understood in terms of various forces and factors, which are in fact social influences. According to the proposed explanation, the prodigy phenomenon and giftedness in general are consequences of a specific development of a child. This specificity consists in the uneven, asynchronous, dyssynchronous, and, hence, unusual development, beyond which there are periods of heightened cognitive sensitivity. Sensitive periods accelerate a child’s mental development through the actualization of his or her intellectual potential and the growth of the individual’s cognitive resources, which leads to the appearance of a unique cognitive experience. The latter expresses itself in prodigies’ and the gifted’s unrepeatable intellectual picture of the world or their unique point of view and is responsible for their exceptional performance and/or achievements.
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It should be emphasized that this account is true with respect to all types of giftedness. The only difference is that a specific cognitive experience, which manifests itself in unique representations, is the most important in the case of the gifted, whereas the accelerated development during early childhood is the most important in the case of prodigies. This is why the child prodigy phenomenon is a pure developmental phenomenon. Consequently, the proposed approach to the understanding of the essence of the prodigy phenomenon and giftedness as a whole explains both the process/dynamic aspect of these phenomena (i.e. prodigious and gifted development) and their productive or resulted aspect (i.e. exceptional prodigies’ and the gifted’s achievements and performances).
Manifestations of Giftedness The previous sections provided a detailed analysis of the developmental and cognitive foundations of giftedness. As Fig. 10.1 shows, according to the cognitive-developmental theory of giftedness, there are three main levels of the manifestations of giftedness. An individual’s cognitive experience is the psychological basis or carrier of these manifestations. The first level is the level of intellectual abilities and it is composed by intellectual productivity, individual specificity of intellectual activity, and creativity (Kholodnaya, 1997; Shavinina & Kholodnaya, 1996). Intellectual productivity includes three types of the properties of intelligence: level properties, combination properties, and process properties. In other words, all properties of intelligence identified by psychological science were categorized by Kholodnaya (1990) into these three types. The level properties characterize the achieved level of the development of cognitive functions, both verbal and non-verbal. These properties form a basis for such cognitive processes as rate of perception, capacity of short- and long-term memory, concentration of attention, and vocabulary. Typical examples of the level properties of intelligence are those intellectual properties assessed by the Wechsler intelligence scales. The combination properties characterize the ability to find out various links, connections, and relations.
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This is the ability to combine the components of experience in various ways (spatial, verbal, etc.). These intelligence properties are measured by tests of verbal analogies or Raven’s Progressive Matrices, as well as reading comprehension tests and so-called sorting tests. The process properties characterize the elementary processes of information processing, as well as operations and strategies of intellectual activity. For example, Jean Piaget’s theory describes such properties of intelligence. Standardized intelligence tests may be used to measure process properties of intelligence (e.g. the Wechsler intelligence scales, the Stanford-Binet intelligence scales, Raven’s Progressive Matrices, and others). Individual specificity of intellectual activity manifests itself in cognitive styles of an individual. It was found that gifted adolescents are distinguished by better developed intellectual control because their reflectivity cognitive style (i.e. reflectiveness) is predominant in comparison with impulsivity style (i.e. impulsiveness). The smaller number of errors that they make in the situation of multiple choice according to the Matching Familiar Figures (MFF) Test (Kagan, Rosman, Day, Albert, & Phillips, 1964) testifies to this. This result demonstrates the gifted’s accurate analysis of visual space up to the moment of making decisions. Probably the gifted are more careful in evaluating alternatives, hence making few errors, whereas those who were not identified as gifted presumably hurry their evaluations and thereby make numerous mistakes. The active character of visual scanning by the gifted indicates to their ability to delay or inhibit a solution in MFF tasks containing response uncertainty, as well as to their ability to differentiate unimportant and essential features of the external stimulus (Shavinina & Kholodnaya, 1996). Creativity refers to an individual’s ability to generate new, original, and appropriate ideas, and thus characterizes fluency and flexibility of thinking (Kholodnaya, 1997; Shavinina & Kholodnaya, 1996). For instance, it was demonstrated that gifted adolescents generate more original ideas with respect to the future than the adolescents, which were not identified as the gifted, did. I will not discuss the topic of creativity here, as it is well presented in this volume by the chapters of Kaufman et al., Kim, and van Tassel-Baska.
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The second level of the manifestations of giftedness is formed by metacognitive abilities (i.e. metacognitive awareness and regulatory processes). Metacognitive awareness includes (a) a system of knowledge about the basic manifestations of intellectual activity in general and about ones own cognitive set-up, (b) the ability to evaluate the strong and weak aspects of his or her own intellectual functioning, and (c) the ability to manage his or her mental activity using various stimulation methods. Regulatory processes mean planning, guiding, monitoring, and co-ordinating one’s own cognitive processes (Kholodnaya, 1990; Shavinina & Kholodnaya, 1996). It is definitely important to know what you know. However, it is equally important to know what we do not know and how to compensate for a lack of knowledge in something. The compensatory mechanisms are therefore an essential part of metacognition. The gifted are characterized by highly developed metacognitive abilities and wellfunctioning compensatory mechanisms. As Shore et al. (this volume) comprehensively analysed metacognition in the gifted, I therefore will not discuss it here. Finally, the third level of the manifestations of giftedness is presented by extracognitive11 abilities, which refer to four interrelated—and at the same time obviously different—components:
r
r r r
Specific feelings: feelings of direction (in one’s own activity and in search of mentors), harmony, and style, including senses of destiny, good ideas, promising and elegant solutions, and feelings of being right, being wrong, or having come across something important. Specific beliefs and intentions (e.g. belief in elevated standards of performance and in hard work). Specific preferences and intellectual values (e.g. the “inevitable” choice of the field of endeavour and internally developed standards of working). Intuition (Shavinina, 1994, 2004; Shavinina & Ferrari, 2004; Shavinina & Sheeratan, 2004).
The frequently used word “specific” embodies the uniqueness of these abilities in the intellectual
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The word extracognitive is probably not the best one, but it seems appropriate for the description of a wide range of phenomena at the current stage of research when scientific studies are not numerous and psychologists only relatively recently began to study extracognitive abilities.
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functioning of gifted individuals. It is interesting to note that other psychologists also use the word “specific” in their accounts of the intellectually creative processes at the highest level. For example, Marton, Fensham, and Chaiklin (1994) wrote about a “specific form” of the feeling of being right and made reference to other “specifics” in their study of scientific intuition in Nobel Prize winners (to be analysed in my chapter on scientific talent, this volume). It was found that the gifted possess highly developed extracognitive abilities. This is true for intellectually gifted adolescents, exceptional scientific talents, including Nobel laureates, and gifted entrepreneurs (Shavinina, 2003, 2004, 2006a; to be considered below, as well as in my other chapters in this volume). It was concluded that extracognitive abilities represent the highest level in the intellectually creative development of the gifted (Shavinina & Kholodnaya, 1996). It is interesting to note that researchers working in the area of high abilities rarely studied extracognitive abilities. Besides Kholodnaya’s (1993) and Shavinina’s (1994, 2003, 2004; Shavinina & Ferrari, 2004) research just a few scholars analysed these phenomena. Thus, Gruber studied intellectual intentions of Darwin and demonstrated that they played an important role in his scientific discoveries. Renzulli et al. (this volume) wrote about a sense of destiny that characterizes gifted children (see also Dai, this volume).
The Extracognitive Abilities in the Cases of Fulfilled and Developing Giftedness This section will present the findings of the study of the extracognitive abilities in the case of Vladimir I. Vernadsky, a famous Russian scientist-genius of Nobel calibre and in three intellectually gifted adolescents in physics and mathematics.
The Extracognitive Abilities in an Outstanding Scientist
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many scientific theories like the theory of the biosphere and the theory of the noosphere. I have investigated Vernadskys extracognitive abilities by studying relevant autobiographical materials (such as his letters and diaries). I found the following components in the structure of his extracognitive abilities. First, Vernadsky’s aspiration to harmony and beauty in everything (in cognition, in science, and in life as a whole) should be pointed out. His feeling of harmony and beauty is seen in various spheres of his life and work. Let me mention just a few examples to illustrate. (a) In the field of cognition, he asserted, “...Looking for clarity where there is scarcely harmony.” “...There is a strong mathematical dependence in the shape of crystals; having measured 4–5 angles you can find out all the harmony.” “The idea is becoming clearer and clearer and I begin to recognize the beauty—the harmony. . . and I have a feeling that I will sort out everything soon...” (Vernadsky, 1988, p. 105; italics added). (b) As to his versatile interests in the arts, Vernadsky (1988) noticed, “...According to my present mood... I prefer theatre, rather than novels and tales. There is something in the former which is not worth looking for in the latter... This is the beauty of construction, the beauty of architecture. You feel the real whole beauty in the shape of this creation as in good architecture or sculpture...” (p. 91; italics added). (c) With regards to his private life, he wrote, for example, to his wife, “. . .I greatly appreciate that you possess a beautiful harmony of thoughts and that you live in harmony with thoughts...” (Vernadsky, 1988, p. 115; italics added). (d) In life as a whole, Vernadsky, admitting the fact that beauty and harmony exist, tried to understand what they are all about and tried to find in them something more general. Therefore, he asked himself, “Is it not the case that beauty is in thought, in the belief in truth...?”
According to Vernadsky, the creation of harmony in the Universe is only possible through the work of the Vladimir I. Vernadsky was a famous geologist, bio- human mind. He claimed, “Thought is the background chemist, geochemist, geobiochemist, philosopher, and of personality... It is deathless... It is the creator of harhistorian of science. He was a founder of such sciences mony in Universal chaos...” (Vernadsky, 1988, p. 78; as geochemistry, biochemistry, geobiochemistry and of italics added). He also wrote,
250 How important is the purity of thought! It seems to me that it is more important than anything else in life, because through it we experience the desire to seek harmony. The feeling of harmony is brought about this way. One must not think about the negative, or distract oneself with everyday problems and anxieties when all around there is so much areas in which to think more harmonic, more beautiful, more important thoughts... (Vernadsky, 1988, p. 113; italics added).
Vernadsky’s well-developed “feeling of style” is related to his harmonious vision of reality. He noticed, for example, in his diary, “I am reading the books of Marcus Aurelius with great pleasure. They are so wonderful, there is so much humanity, strength...” (Vernadsky, 1988, p. 63; italics added). In one of his letters, he pointed out, “...What a wonderful book–Don Quixote! There is so much humanity!” (Vernadsky, 1988, p. 112; italics added). It seems possible to conclude that Vernadsky had a harmonious vision of the world around him and an esthetic vision of life as a whole. His aspiration to harmony and beauty—and this should be especially emphasized—had a generalized character as it was directed to “life as a whole.” The second component in the structure of the extracognitive abilities of Vernadsky is his understanding of the value of mind work, the consideration of Thought (Vernadsky wrote this word with a capital letter) as the most important thing in the life of human beings. He was convinced that Thought is the most important thing in the whole life of human beings. It means everything. Goodness, dedication and feelings have a meaning for the life of individual persons.... Of course, it is impossible to live without them... But for the whole society and for all the people Thought replaces everything. I clearly and very strongly feel that it is very important and I am distressed by everything that could possibly restrict Thought... (Vernadsky, 1988, pp. 75–76; italics added).
L.V. Shavinina important than the power of the idea: it drives everything...” (Vernadsky, 1988, p. 107; italics added).
The third component of the extracognitive abilities of Vernadsky is his feeling of “the eternal.” For instance, he wrote, “It seems to me that I feel the pulse of eternity in each place and everywhere...” (Vernadsky, 1988, p. 260; italics added). As mentioned above, Vernadsky also saw the beauty of life in its “eternal change.” A special manifestation of the feeling of eternity is Vernadsky’s feeling of “historical process.” He pointed out, “I now have a very strong feeling... of historical process” (Vernadsky, 1988, p. 249; italics added). Vernadsky was interested in history as a whole and in the history of various scientific disciplines for a very long time. He tried to consider every single scientific event or problem from a historical perspective and in all aspects of its historical connections. The fourth element in the structure of the extracognitive abilities in Vernadsky’s mental functioning is related to his aspiration to the “endlessness” in his cognition of the essence of cosmogony, biochemistry, and other sciences as the most objective events in the world. For example, he wrote, “It seems to me, I have a subconscious understanding of scientific cosmogony problems. Once again, my mind longs for the endlessness” (Vernadsky, 1988, p. 230; italics added). The fifth component in the structure of the extracognitive abilities in Vernadsky’s intellectual activity is his aspiration to seek clarity in everything. In this connection he pointed out, “I often seek the clarity there, where there is no harmony...” (Vernadsky, 1988, p. 81). One of the distinctive characteristics of Vernadsky’s cognitive experience was his wish to understand the absolutely unknown puzzles of the world, of human origins, accompanied by his reflections about the obvious. For example, he wrote,
Vernadsky could not endure the fact, that “Thought is not yet accessible for everyone.” For instance, he It seems to me so clear that it is not worth writing about. However, usually everything which is most clear is the wrote, “...There is no mental search, there are no source of delusions of all kinds, because the human mind doubts for the majority of people. They have a quiet thinks very little about these issues; they seem obvious. . . family life... far from eternal and profound, but at the (Vernadsky, 1988, p. 142). same time beautiful problems, which are proposed by human history...” (Vernadsky, 1988, p. 116; italics Therefore, the extracognitive abilities in Vernadadded). His strongly developed faith in the power of sky’s intellectual functioning were characterized by a ideas is the special manifestation of his extracognitive unique combination of his feelings, preferences, intenabilities. He was convinced that tions, beliefs, and intuitive processes. They guided his mental activity on the way to his outstanding scientific There is one power and one strength—an idea... (Vernadsky, 1988, p. 115). “...I think that there is nothing more discoveries.
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The Extracognitive Abilities in Gifted Adolescents
interested in new ideas?” he answered, “I get interested if it seems to me that the idea is correct. And I reject it if I believe that the idea is wrong... The extracognitive abilities in the case of developing Perhaps, it is not generally correct, but personally giftedness were studied in three gifted adolescents in for me it seems correct... A new idea is great if I physics and mathematics (Shavinina, 1994). These feel it in my heart...” boys had real-life achievements like participation in local, national, and international Olympiads in physics (b) The next component of the extracognitive in the mental functioning of this student is his underand mathematics, as well as winning first prizes in standing of the high value of the human mind per these Olympiads. They were studying in a special se, that is one of his specific intellectual values. physics–mathematics school, the only one in Ukraine, In particular, he believes that “...Thought alone and were evaluated by teachers as “the most gifted.” makes a human being. If Thought dies, then the They were in the ninth or tenth grade and were 15–16 person will also die....” His answer to a question years old. about his life slogan also shows the extremely imPsychological methods for studying the extracogniportant status of Thought in his intellectual activtive abilities do not exist at present. It is well known ity. He said, “Think! It is very simple, because if that the initial research on any new scientific pheyou think—you exist. If you do not think—you do nomenon lacks adequate methods. For this reason the not exist...” method used by Max Wertheimer in his research on Albert Einstein’s way of thinking, which led to the eventual discovery of the theory of relativity, was adopted. The third student’s extracognitive profile consisted of, That is, conversations with gifted adolescents were (a) The feeling of direction: for example, to the quesused in the same way Wertheimer used discussions tion “Who is your ideal in science?” he answered, with Einstein (Wertheimer, 1959). During long con“I do not know... But I feel at the same time, that I versations I questioned students about the characterisaspire to something.” tics of their thinking and cognitive experience. None (b) Special beliefs: for instance, his answer to the of my questions was directly related to the extracogniquestion “What kind of feeling do you have when tive abilities. These findings arose indirectly during the new ideas come to your mind?” was the followconversations. The results of the research showed that ing: “When ideas come, I think about their practhe following components of the extracognitive were tical realization. Sometimes such ideas come into typical of these gifted students. my mind, although I do not know how to put them In the first of the boys, there was a very significant into practice... At the same time I very strongly manifestation of the extracognitive in his aspiration to want to do this. I believe that it will happen in the harmony, which had a multidirectional character in its future...” application to different aspects of his life. For example, (c) The feeling of truth, which is objectively correct and true: When asked whether it was easy for him (a) In the field of his scientific interests, he asserted, to become interested in new ideas, he replied, “I “...Each physicist is... a lyric poet in the depth get interested easily, if the idea looks promising. I of the soul... The physicist feels the harmony in get a feeling of whether it is correct or wrong...” shape, in form, and in a nice theory...” (b) Of his daily life he pointed out, “...It is essential to try to reach harmony... Daily life should not be very modest, but it should encourage activity and stimulate only the positive... It should be in harmony with a person...”
These findings demonstrate a fascinating similarity of the components of the extracognitive abilities in gifted adolescents and in distinguishing scientist, Vernadsky. Mental functioning of gifted adolescents is also influenced by the extracognitive. It would be wrong to assert Two components of the extracognitive were found that extracognitive abilities play an extremely important role only in the intellectual activity of outstandin the second student. ing creators in science and art. In his investigation of (a) One of them can be classified as “beliefs.” For ex- intuitive processes in famous scientists, Miller (1996) ample, to the question “Is it easy for you to get noted that it is impossible to reveal such processes
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in individuals other than adults. The above findings clearly demonstrate that such processes also exist in adolescents. Both intellectually gifted adults and adolescents are distinguished by (1) A specific feeling of direction in their creativity and in their life as a whole. In this respect the study of the extracognitive abilities of such individuals is closely related to current research on the subconscious and unconscious processes of creativity. Hence, the study of the extracognitive can be viewed as instrumental in advancing the research on high ability as a whole. (2) Specific beliefs. The world of these beliefs is very diverse and mainly includes the feeling of truth and faith in the power of ideas. (3) Specific preferences and intentions, including the aspiration to harmony and beauty, the understanding of mind work as very valuable, and the consideration of Thought as an important aspect of human life. The feeling of the “eternal,” the aspiration to “endlessness,” and clarity in everything are among these preferences. The results of these case studies allowed me to conclude that extracognitive abilities play an exceptionally important role in intellectual functioning of gifted individuals, both adults and adolescents (Shavinina, 1994).
Was Einstein Gifted as a Child? It seems now appropriate to consider the case study of genius in the light of the proposed theory. Specifically, I will briefly analyse high abilities of Albert Einstein. The cognitive-developmental theory—and particularly sensitive periods—is essential for the understanding of the origins of his scientific genius. Today everyone knows Einstein as a brilliant scientist, the greatest mind of the twentieth century. But what in his childhood or youth predicted the later manifestations of genius? As a child, young Albert did not say a word until the age of 2 or 3 years, was a late and quite a slow speaker, and was a loner: he often played alone even when other children were around as well as was a poor student and was expelled from the Munich school (Gardner, 1993a; Isaacson, 2007; Kuznetsov, 1979; Neffe & Frisch, 2007). Can we say that Einstein was gifted as
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a child? According to traditional understanding of giftedness, the answer to this question is a firm “No.” It is clear that he was a typical underachiever. Later Albert Einstein himself wrote in his autobiography that “my intellectual development was retarded” (Einstein & Infeld, 1949). In accordance with the cognitivedevelopmental theory of giftedness that I am presenting in this chapter, the answer is a definitive “Yes”: young Albert was a gifted underachiever characterized by uneven development in childhood that can be explained by sensitive periods (Shavinina, 2006b). The biggest problem with children like Einstein is that potential or hidden giftedness might not be usually expressed in a child’s day-to-day life, and, as a result, parents and other proximate caregivers cannot notice it. Potential or hidden giftedness is seen even more rarely in a traditional school environment, because schools are oriented to acquiring knowledge, not to developing each child’s talents. My research on Einstein’s potential or hidden giftedness reveals the following early manifestations of his high abilities. First, while little Albert was unhappy and an underachiever in school, he was an enthusiastic learner in some subjects which he liked. For example, once his uncle Jakob introduced him to geometry, he eagerly studied it on his own. Second, young Einstein did not hesitate to argue with the geometry book, when proofs made no sense to him. Authorities do not exist for the gifted. Third, he exhibited a strong dislike of the regimentation that characterized most German schools at the time. This can be considered a common feature of all high-able individuals. What do these three simple manifestations mean? From the point of view of the cognitive-developmental theory of giftedness presented in this chapter, the first manifestation of Einstein’s high abilities in childhood is the evidence of his intense intellectual motivation. The second indicates that his intellectual work from an early age was determined by subjective, internally developed standards, norms, and orientations, which can be thought of as intellectual intentions or extracognitive abilities discussed above. Although serious, his intentions were not in synch with the expectations of a conventional school system. The third testifies to the obvious fact that even as a child, Albert was characterized by a strongly negative reaction to any attempts to impose external standards on his intellectually creative behaviour. The Gymnasium in Munich was not a place where he was able to explore what he wanted
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and needed to explore. This is another evidence of his strongly developed from early age specific intellectual intentions or extracognitive abilities. As concluded above based on my research on many gifted children, adolescents, and adults, such intentions or abilities are a powerful predictor of real giftedness with subsequent outstanding intellectually creative achievements. It is not therefore surprising that from early years Einstein developed a unique sense of his own direction in everything that is one of the components of extracognitive abilities. It means that if his extracognitive abilities originate from childhood, then the sense of direction take its genesis from childhood as well. Later in life, Albert Einstein, in discussions with Max Wertheimer (1959) about the development of the theory of relativity and the way of thinking, which led to it, emphasized that
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fied in little Albert. The first was the compass that his father showed him at the age of 4 or 5 years. It had a strong impression on the young child. Many years later Einstein recollected that great impact, which this compass had on his subsequent development. The second sensitive period began when his uncle Jakob gave him geometry book. Geometry fitted nicely the boy’s developed visual abilities. The book provoked a feeling of profound wonder and the child spent many hours on solving mathematical problems presented in that book. These sensitive periods during childhood generated a sense of wonder in Einstein, an unusual curiosity about everything around him leading to the development of an ability to pose interesting questions and then ponder them at length. His developmental capacities (e.g. sense of wonder) were indeed transformed into the stable individual acquisitions (e.g. a long-standing curiosity). . . .during all those years there was the feeling of direcOne can therefore conclude that Albert Einstein was tion, of going straight toward something concrete. It is, truly gifted in his childhood, but because of his uneven of course, very hard to express that feeling in words; but it was decidedly the case, and clearly to be distinguished development and twice exceptionality (i.e. a pure unfrom later considerations about the rational form of the derachiever at school while a devoted learner in the solution (p. 228; italics added). subjects of his interest) his potential or hidden giftedMy research also demonstrates that the major indicator ness was not recognized at all and he was not considof Einstein’s hidden or potential giftedness is his strong ered as the gifted (Shavinina, 2006b). visual imagery that clearly manifested itself from early childhood. According to many accounts, young Albert assimilated information by forming mental pictures, Summary with a minimal use of complex terminology (Gardner, 1993; Miller, 1996). He thus processed informa- According to the cognitive-developmental theory of tion in images. His visual abilities certainly dominated giftedness presented in this chapter, the nature of giftedness is explained by its neuropsychological, over his verbal abilities. I also found the two important behavioural mani- developmental, and cognitive foundations. The neufestations of Einstein’s uneven development in child- ropsychological foundation of giftedness is mainly hood. First, although usually little Albert was quiet and connected with high plasticity of the brain of the gifted thoughtful, sometimes he exhibited powerful tantrums. (Kalbfleisch, this volume), which is the basis of their For instance, once he hurled a chair at a tutor. Second, unusual sensitivity. The first years of a child’s life young Einstein very much disliked school subjects re- are characterized by a number of sensitive periods— quiring rote learning and revealed his contempt by act- periods of a child’s heightened and very selective ing defiantly in class. Thus, once his teacher said that responsiveness to everything what is going on around Albert had undermined the respect of the entire class him or her. Sensitive periods—which constitute the by his rude behaviour. As I pointed out above, uneven developmental foundation of giftedness—accelerate development is an essential characteristic of the devel- the child’s mental development through the actualopmental process of gifted and talented children. In ac- ization of his or her intellectual potential and the cordance with the cognitive-developmental theory of growth of the individual’s cognitive resources. The giftedness, this development can be explained by sen- advanced intellectual development of the gifted during sensitive periods explains why gifted development sitive periods. Based on the available (auto) biographical sources, is the uneven, asynchronous, or dyssynchronous, at least two powerful sensitive periods can be identi- and, hence, unusual development. Periods of height-
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ened (cognitive, emotional, and social) sensitivity are beyond this specific development of the gifted (Shavinina, 1997, 1999). The accelerated intellectual development of the gifted leads to the appearance of their unique cognitive experience. This experience—which consists of conceptual structures, knowledge base, and subjective mental space—is a cognitive basis of giftedness (Kholodnaya, 1993; Shavinina & Kholodnaya, 1996). This uniqueness consists in a more complex, rich, integrated, differentiated, and unfolded structural organization of the cognitive experience of the gifted in comparison with the cognitive experience of those who were not identified as gifted (Shavinina & Kholodnaya, 1996). The cognitive experience manifests itself in a specific type of objective mental representations (i.e. how an individual sees, understands, and interprets everything what is going on in the surrounding reality; Kholodnaya, 1993). It means that gifted individuals have a unique intellectual picture of the world (Shavinina & Kholodnaya, 1996), which is responsible for their exceptional performance and/or achievements. In other words, the gifted see, understand, and interpret everything differently. The unique type of representations is the essence of giftedness. This is true for all categories of the gifted, including child prodigies, talented scientists of Nobel calibre, and great entrepreneurs (Shavinina, 2003, 2004, 2006a, 2006b). The cognitive experience serves as a psychological basis for the three main levels of the manifestations of giftedness (i.e. its various characteristics, traits, properties, and qualities): intellectually creative, metacognitive, and extracognitive abilities, respectively (Kholodnaya, 1993; Shavinina, 1994; Shavinina & Ferrari, 2004). That is, the gifted individuals’ highly developed intellectually creative, metacognitive, and extracognitive abilities are the manifestations of their unique cognitive experience (Shavinina & Kholodnaya, 1996; Shavinina & Sheeratan, 2004). Well-developed extracognitive abilities testify to the highest level of the development of giftedness (Shavinina, 1995, 2004). Therefore, according to the cognitive-developmental theory of giftedness, giftedness is a result of the protracted inner process of the construction and growth of the individual’s cognitive resources leading to a unique cognitive experience beyond which there are periods of heightened cognitive sensitivity. The
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unique cognitive experience manifests itself in the gifted’s unique intellectual picture of the world. The essence of giftedness is all about a unique point of view, a unique vision of gifted individuals. One of the most important aspects of this uniqueness is their ability to see everything in a highly objective manner. Consequently, the cognitive-developmental theory of giftedness presented in this chapter unifies both the feminine perspective on giftedness and the achievement-oriented perspective (Silverman et al., this volume). This is possible because the theory explains the process or dynamic aspect of giftedness (i.e. gifted development) and its productive or resulted aspect (i.e. the gifted individual’s exceptional achievements and/or performance).
References Albert, R. S. (1992). A developmental theory of eminence. In R. S. Albert (Ed.), Genius & eminence (pp. 3–18). Oxford: Pergamon Press. Albert, R. S., & Runco, M. A. (1986). The achievement of eminence: a model based on a longitudinal study of exceptionally gifted boys and their families. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.),Conceptions of giftedness (pp. 332–357). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ananiev, B. G. (1957). About the system of developmental psychology. Voprosi psichologii, 5, 112–126. Baltes, P. B., Staudinger, U. M., Maercker, A., & Smith, J. (1995). People nominated as wise: A comparative study of wisdom-related knowledge. Psychology & Aging, 10(2), 155–166. Bamberger, J. (1982). Growing-up prodigies: The midlife crisis. In D. H. Feldman (Ed.), Developmental approaches to giftedness (pp. 61–77). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Bamberger, J. (1986). Cognitive issues in the development of musically gifted children. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.),Conceptions of giftedness (pp. 388–413). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Baumgarten, F. (1930). Wunderkinder psychologische untersuchungen. Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth. Bjorklund, D. F., & Schneider, W. (1996). The interaction of knowledge, aptitude, and strategies in children’s memory development. In H. W. Reese (Ed.), Advances in child development and behavior (pp. 59–89). San Diego: Academic Press. Brown, A. L. (1978). Knowing when, where, and how to remember: A problem of metacognition. In R. Glaser (Ed.),Advances in instructional psychology (Vol.1, pp. 77– 165). Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum. Brown, A. L. (1984). Metacognition, executive control, selfregulation, and other even more mysterious mechanisms. In F. E. Weinert & R. H. Kluwe (Eds.), Metacognition, motivation, and learning (pp. 60–108). West Germany: Kuhlhammer.
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256 Leites, N. S. (1971). Intellectual abilities and age. Moscow: Pedagogica. Leites, N. S. (Ed.). (1996). Psychology of giftedness of children and adolescents.Moscow: Academia. Marton, F., Fensham, P., & Chaiklin, S. (1994). A Nobel’s eye view of scientific intuition: Discussions with the Nobel prize-winners in physics, chemistry and medicine (1970– 86). International Journal of Science Education, 16(4), 457–473. Mednick, S. A. (1962). The associative basis of the creative process. Psychological Review, 69, 220–232. Miller, A. (1996). Insights of genius: Visual imagery and creativity in science and art. New York: Springer Verlag. Morelock, M. J., & Feldman, D. H. (1993). Prodigies and savants: What they have to tell us about giftedness and human cognition. In K. A. Heller, F. J. M¨onks, & A. H. Passow (Eds.), International handbook of research and development of giftedness and talent (pp. 161–180). Oxford: Pergamon Press. Mumford, M. D. (1996). Insight, creativity, and cognition. Creativity Research Journal, 9(1), 103–107. Neffe, J., & Frisch, S. (2007). Einstein: A Biography. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Piaget, J. (1952). The origins of intelligence in children. New York: International Universities Press. Piechowski, M. M. (1979). Developmental potential. In N. Colangelo & R. T. Zaffrann (Eds.), New voices in counseling the gifted (pp. 25–27). Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt. Piechowski, M. M. (1986). The concept of developmental potential. Roeper Review, 8(3), 190–197. Piechowski, M. M. (1991). Emotional development and emotional giftedness. In N. Colangelo & G. Davis (Eds.), Handbook of gifted education (pp. 285–306). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Pressley, M., Borkowski, J. G., & Schneider, W. (1987). Cognitive Strategies: Good strategy users coordinate metacognition and knowledge. In R. Vasta (Ed.), Annals of child development: Vol. 4 (pp. 89–129). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Rabinowitz, M., & Glaser, R. (1985). Cognitive structure and process in highly competent performance. In F. D. Horowitz & M. O’Brien (Eds.), The gifted and talented. Developmental perspectives (pp. 75–97). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Radford, J. (1990). The problem of the prodigy. In M. J. A. Howe (Ed.), Encouraging the development of exceptional skills and talents (pp. 32–48). Leicester: British Psychological Society. Renzulli, J. S. (1986). The three-ring conception of giftedness: a developmental model for creative productivity. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.),Conceptions of giftedness (pp. 53–92). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Revesz, G. (1925). The psychology of a music prodigy. New York: Harcourt Brace. Roedell, W. C. (1984). Vulnerabilities of highly gifted children. Roeper Review, 6, 127–130. Rosenblatt, J. S. (1976). Sensitive periods in development: A problem of continuity/discontinuity in development. InProceedings of XXI International Congress of Psychology. Paris. Runco, M. A., & Albert, R. S. (Eds.). (1990). Theories of creativity. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
L.V. Shavinina Schneider, W. (1993). Acquiring expertise: Determinants of exceptional performance. In K. A. Heller, F. J. M¨onks, & A. H. Passow (Eds.), International handbook of research and development of giftedness and talent (pp. 311–324). Oxford: Pergamon Press. Shavinina, L. V. (1994). Specific intellectual intentions and creative giftedness. European Journal for High Ability, 5(2), 145–152. Shavinina, L. V. (1995). The personality trait approach in the psychology of giftedness. European Journal for High Ability, 6(1), 27–37. Shavinina, L. V. (1996). The objectivization of cognition and intellectual giftedness. High Ability Studies, 7(1), 91–98. Shavinina, L. V. (1997). Extremely early high abilities, sensitive periods, and the development of giftedness. High Ability Studies, 8(2), 245–256. Shavinina, L. V. (1998). On Miller’s insights of genius: What do we know about it? Creativity Research Journal, 11(2), 843– 845. Shavinina, L. V. (1999). The psychological essence of the child prodigy phenomenon: sensitive periods and cognitive experiences. Gifted Child, 43(1), 25–38. Shavinina, L. V. (2003). Understanding scientific innovation: The case of Nobel Laureates. In L. V. Shavinina (Ed.), The International Handbook on Innovation (pp. 445–457). Oxford, UK: Elsevier Science. Shavinina, L. V. (2004). Explaining high abilities of Nobel laureates. High Ability Studies, 15(2), 243–254. Shavinina, L. V. (2006a). Micro-social factors in the development of entrepreneurial giftedness: The case of Richard Branson. High Ability Studies, 17(2), 225–235. Shavinina, L. V. (2006b). Was Einstein gifted as a child? Invited lecture at the Canadian Museum of Nature on the occasion of the opening of a special exhibition on Albert Einstein (23 November, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada). Shavinina, L. V., & Ferrari, M. (Eds.). (2004). Beyond Knowledge: Extracognitive Aspects of Developing High Ability. Mahwah, New Jersey: Erlbaum Publishers. Shavinina, L. V., & Kholodnaya, M. A. (1996). The cognitive experience as a psychological basis of intellectual giftedness. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 20(1), 4–33. Shavinina, L. V., & Sheeratan, K. (2004). Extracognitive phenomena in the intellectual functioning of creative and talented individuals. In L. V. Shavinina & M. Ferrari (Eds.), Beyond Knowledge: Extracognitive Aspects of Developing High Ability. Mahwah, New Jersey, USA: Erlbaum Publishers. Shore, B. M., & Dover, A. C. (1987). Metacognition, intelligence and giftedness. Gifted Child Quarterly, 31, 37–39. Shore, B. M., & Kanevsky, L. S. (1993). Thinking processes: being and becoming gifted. In K. A. Heller, F. J. M¨onks, & A. H. Passow (Eds.), International handbook of research and development of giftedness and talent (pp. 133–147). Oxford: Pergamon Press. Skuse, D., Pickles, A., Wolke, D., & Reilly, S. (1994). Postnatal growth and mental development: Evidence for a “sensitive period.” Journal for Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 35(3), 521–545. Silverman, L. K. (1993). Counseling needs and programs for the gifted. In K. A. Heller, F. J. M¨onks, & A. H. Passow (Eds.), International handbook of research and development of giftedness and talent (pp. 631–647). Oxford: Pergamon Press.
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Part III
The Neuropsychology of Giftedness
Chapter 11
Neuropsychological Characteristics of Academic and Creative Giftedness John G. Geake
Gifted children process information more rapidly and with less attenuation than others. Such individual differences can be attributed to neurophysiological differences that affect neuronal efficiency. Geake (1997, p. 28)
Abstract Evidence for interpretable neural correlates of giftedness comes from two main lines of enquiry. First, studies comparing the neural functioning of gifted children with age-matched peers not identified as gifted consistently report that gifted subjects display enhanced frontal cortical activation and inter-hemispheric functional connectivity. Second, studies which compare the neural function and structure of high-IQ adults with those of average IQ consistently report that high-IQ subjects display relatively enhanced inferior lateral prefrontal cortical (PFC) activations, together with relatively enhanced activations in a network of other cortical regions including the inferior parietal cortex. The salience of PFC activations is supported by neuroanatomical studies in which the grey matter densities of high-IQ subjects in frontal regions are significantly higher than average. These data can account for enhanced executive capability as one important neuropsychological characteristic of gifted people and a more efficacious working memory as another.
Introduction It seems to be stating the obvious that gifted children have comparative neurophysiological advantages. However, this was not the case even a decade ago when educational discourse was reluctant to embrace the deliberations of cognitive neuroscience, including evidence for the neural basis of learning, memory, motivation, and individual differences in cognitive abilities (Geake & Cooper, 2003). Now we are fortunate in having available convergent evidence for the neurobiological basis of individual differences in academic performance and intellectual potential, including giftedness (Kalbfleisch, 2004). The aim of this chapter is to review evidence for such differences in neural function and structure that can account for high levels of cognitive abilities. The evidence is mostly drawn from cognitive neuroscientific studies employing contemporary neuroimaging technologies1 : functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI),2 positron emission tomography 1
Keywords Neuropsychology of giftedness · Neural structure · Neural function · Frontal cortex · Parietal cortex · Fronto-parietal network · Executive function
J.G. Geake University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales, Australia e-mail:
[email protected] For a more detailed description of these neuroimaging techniques see the relevant sections of either the Oxford Companion to the Mind 2nd Edition (Gregory, 2004), the Handbook of Functional Neuroimaging of Cognition (Cabeza & Kingstone, 2001), or Van Horn’s chapter on Cognitive Neuroimaging in The Cognitive Neurosciences III 3rd Edition (Van Horn, 2004). 2 Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) images blood oxygen level changes in active areas of the brain using the interaction of pulsed (RF) resonant energy with a very strong magnetic field (typically 1.5 or 3.0 T). These changes involve neurally induced dilations of local vasculature resulting in a dilation of concentrations of (slightly paramagnetic)
L.V. Shavinina (ed.), International Handbook on Giftedness, c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-6162-2 11,
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(PET),3 and event-related potential encephalography (ERP).4 At the outset it has to be stated that there are important caveats to the claims of any neuroimaging research which depend on the strengths and limitations of the method employed. Foremost is the validity of the various surrogate variables (e.g. haemodynamic fluctuation, rate of local glucose metabolism, and relative electric dipole strength) for measuring neural activity. In fMRI or PET, it could be that suppression rather than activation of metabolism in some places is important, but this might not be seen in the resulting images. In EEG, electrical emissions from one location in the brain can be detected by many electrodes (and the converse), making the source of the signals difficult to determine. Other potential restrictions include experimental and analytic limits to spatial and temporal
deoxygenated haemoglobin, generating the blood oxygen leveldependent (BOLD) response. The BOLD response measures stimulus-induced reductions in signal distortion. However, because vasculature changes are relatively sluggish, fMRI is uninformative about the relevant temporal dynamics. As a non-invasive technique, fMRI can be used to image the spatial neural correlates of high-level cognition. Because this method of neuroimaging has no known deleterious effects, it can be employed for repeated measure designs, and random presentation of contrasting stimuli over long time periods. The main drawback is that the subject experience can be somewhat uncomfortable, with loud noises and potential claustrophobia. 3 Positron emission tomography (PET) images metabolism in active areas of the brain using emissions of a radioactive tracer injected into the blood. The radioactive tracer is usually an unstable isotope of oxygen within molecules of glucose. Metabolism in response to stimuli increases the rate of radioactive decay of positrons, which interact with nearby electrons to produce gamma radiation which is detected by a radiation counter surrounding the brain. Because the half-life of the radiation is short, for safety reasons, the presentation of experimental stimuli is restricted to block design over a shorter time period than with fMRI. Repeated subject designs are not conducted, again for safety reasons. 4 Event-related potentials (ERP) are a particular form of electroencephalography (EEG). EEG records the electrical field through the scalp of the neural activity of the cortex beneath. These data are recorded by sensitive electrodes on the scalp. EEG recordings are usually categorised into different frequency bands, from high frequency (gamma waves) to low frequency (alpha waves). ERP data consist of changes in the EEG in response to experimental stimuli. The waveforms of interest typically occur 100, 300, or 400 ms after the stimulus onset. In other words, ERP data are temporally sensitive. However, as the extrascalp electrical field is a result of widespread neural activity, the technique is insensitive to spatial correlates. Many neuroscience imaging laboratories now combine ERP and fMRI data by using non-metallic EEG electrodes in the MRI scanner. Because EEG is a passive technique, it is suitable for use with young children.
J.G. Geake
resolution; the statistical nature of activation data; constraints on the type and extent of tasks that subjects can undertake while being imaged; and subject selection. Most neuroimaging subjects are screened to be right handed so that individual data can be combined for a more statistically powerful group effect, on the assumption that 95% of right-handed people have a similar distribution of functional areas in their brains. This is more likely with males. Left-handed people only have about a 60% chance of similar functional distribution (Kolb & Wishaw, 1996). This in turn imposes limits on generalisability. Another effect which is less often acknowledged is the subjective experience of being imaged, and its possible effects on cognition (Geake & Kringelbach, 2007). Whereas the definition of giftedness in academic and creative domains has been contested over the years (e.g. Gagn´e, 1985; Renzulli, 1986; Kanevsky, 1995), in neuroscientific studies giftedness is operationalised as either achieving high levels of general intelligence on standardised IQ tests (usually the Ravens Advanced Progressive Matrices (RAPM), or batteries from either the WISC/WAIS or Stanford-Binet III or IV), or demonstrating precocious levels of performance, usually in formal educational settings. And whereas in recent decades IQ has been generally disregarded by educationists as an impoverished measure of intellectual ability, in the laboratory the IQ offers several advantages as an independent variable to be correlated with neural variance: (1) for younger subjects IQ scores are age-normed, controlling for the covariance of age, although not always as well with gifted subjects (Gross, 2004); (2) full IQ scores or g capture the common variance shared by all cognitive abilities (Carroll, 1993), thus controlling for individual differences in talent areas enhanced by experience (the counter-examples of savants and prodigies, where IQ is no predictor of performance, not withstanding); (3) psychophysical data on significant (inverse) correlations between temporal response (e.g. reaction time (RT), inspection time) and IQ (Chen & Buckley, 1988) suggests that IQ can act as a surrogate measure of some putative global neurophysiological attribute such as neural processing speed. For example, Lehrl and Fisher (1990) found significant correlations (around r = −0.60) between the basic period of information processing, defined as the time period to process one bit of information, and global IQ. That is, about one third of the variance in general intelligence estimates could be accounted for by
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measures of neurophysiological efficacy, independent of task content. Such findings, however, beg the question: neurophysiological efficacy at what exactly? Johnson, ImBolter, and Pascual-Leone (2003) have argued that to understand the development of cognitive abilities in children, including gifted children, information processing speed needs to be coupled with capacities for attention and efficiency of inhibition. They point out that differences in RT between gifted and non-gifted children increase with task complexity and can actually disappear on trivial tasks (to which a similar observation could be made about many classroom activities). That said, the search for neural correlates of giftedness is constrained by the nonlinearity of neural structure–function relationships in general and the range of neural attributes which contribute to the manifestation of intelligence (Gray, Chabris, & Braver, 2003; Fuster, 2003; Jung & Haier, 2007). These include the following:
r r r r
The cytoarchitecture (gyri and sulci) of cortex in key areas of functionality The interconnectivity of functional modules that enable information transfer The density and distribution of grey matter and white matter that enable information processing The efficacy of modular functions, especially those in the lateral prefrontal cortex.
r
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The cerebellum in enabling physical and mental coordination during performance (Vandervert et al., this volume).
Thus, a gifted child might be expected to have superior neurophysiology in some or all of the above. The evidence to date, while supportive of such a prediction, is necessarily partial, given that the task of mapping the neural correlates of the vast repertoire of human cognitive behaviours, much less giftedness, is still in its early days. In contrast, the cognitive characteristics of gifted children have been well catalogued and described (Clark, 1997). Among these are the following:
r r
r r
Intellectual precocity (high IQ being normed to chronological average), as demonstrated in performance on above-age school tests An ability for rapid information processing, gifted children requiring less repetition for comprehension, but sometimes paradoxically requiring more time for classroom answers, presumably due to processing larger quantities of information A preference for top-down understanding, gifted children preferring big-picture, abstract styles of description, as well as harbouring a zealous passion for knowledge A predilection for creative thinking, gifted children often making original connections between different ideas.
Consequently, many brain structures and functions contribute (presumably in synchrony) to all acts of These cognitive characteristics can be used to make predictions about the collective differences in the neuintelligence (Fuster, 2003), not least: rology of gifted children when compared with their r The lateral prefrontal cortex in supporting working (not identified as gifted) peers, such as the following: memory (WM) (Baddeley & Sala, 1998; Rypma, r Denser intra-cortical white matter (enabling more Prabhakaran, Desmond, Glover, & Gabrieli, 1999) r The hippocampus and entorhinal cortex in enrapid information processing) r Denser focal cortical grey matter (enabling greater abling long-term memory storage (Shapiro & knowledge storage) Eichenbaum, 1997) r The orbitofrontal cortex in enabling decision- r Greater prefrontal efficacy (enabling, amongst many things, higher levels of abstract and creative making (Rolls, 1999) r The limbic subcortex in generating emotional methinking) r Earlier maturation of frontal cortices (enabling diation (LeDoux, 1998) r The fusiform gyrus and temporal lobe in sequencabove-age academic performance and high IQ scores). ing symbolic representations including language (Howard, 1997) r The parietal lobe in generating conceptual inter- The remainder of this chapter reviews evidence in suprelationships (Luria, 1973) port or otherwise for these predictions.
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Neuroanatomy and IQ Several neuroimaging studies report neuroanatomical correlates with IQ, with quantitative and qualitative differences between high-IQ subjects and subjects with average IQ in the focal density of both white and grey matter. In Russia, Orzhekhovskaia (1996) conducted post-mortem analyses on people whose personal records (from the era of the Soviet Union) included IQ test results. The results showed IQ-related differences in the neurophysiology of frontal areas. In fact, the density of neurons and gliocytes and the thickness of cortical layers in the lateral frontal areas were more than double in people with high IQ than in the brains of people with average measures of IQ. Moreover, this result was consistent across age groups. Given that neural information processing is dependent on the extensive interconnectivity of cortical neurons, typically of the order of 10,000 synapses with neighbouring neurons (Kolb & Wishaw, 1996), a doubling of the number of neurons in a focal region implies a massive advantage in potential computational power. Orzhekhovskaia’s finding has been replicated more recently with live subjects using voxel-based morphometry (VBM)5 to measure brain cell density (Haier, Jung, Yeo, Head, Alkire, 2004). About 6% of the grey matter volumes which correlated with IQ were distributed in the brain, with different patterns for males and females in both grey and white matter clusters. Whereas most were in the frontal lobes, significant numbers of the IQ-correlated voxels were also found in the parietal lobes, particularly for older subjects, and in the temporal lobes, particularly for younger subjects. In other words, the neuroanatomical expression of intelligence is dynamic. Moreover, the neuroanatomical development of intelligence is dynamic. In a longitudinal MRI study of intellectual ability and cortical development in 300 children and adolescents (Shaw et al., 2006), data
5 Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) uses high-resolution MRI to compare cell density in the tissues of the brain. MRI can distinguish between the different types of cerebral tissue, particularly grey matter (unmyelinated) and white matter (myelinated), through the differing quantum resonance responses of the protons in the water in the tissue. In VBM, each voxel (a small 3D volume of brain tissue, typically a few cubic millimetres cubed) is classified as grey matter, white matter, CSF, and so on. These data are then combined to give regional or whole-brain estimates of tissue density.
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sampled over 6 years indicated that the trajectory of change in the thickness of the cerebral cortex, rather than cortical thickness itself, was most closely related to levels of intelligence. Most interestingly, the thickness of the cortex was thinner in the high-IQ group when these children were young, but rapidly grew so that by the time the gifted children had reached their teens, their cerebral cortices were significantly thicker than average, especially in the prefrontal cortex. Thus, it could be speculated that the neural dynamics of gifted children’s brains, at least in the frontal cortices, are different from those of their peers. This seems consistent with previous evidence that the precocious academic performance of gifted children can be attributed to an early maturation of their frontal lobes. In an ERP comparison of highly gifted (top 0.5% of IQ distribution) students from the Iowa study of mathematically precocious youth (CY-TAG) (mean age approximately 13 years) with age-matched peers on a chimeric faces preference task (chimeric faces are created by swapping halves of two photographs, one smiling, the other neutral, to elicit laterality bias from responses as to which seems the happier, information from each visual field being processed in the contralateral hemisphere), there were significant differences in frontal EEG recordings of the gifted group (O’Boyle, Benbow, & Alexander, 1995), suggesting that [E]hanced frontal activity is a uniquely important characteristic of intelligent (perhaps gifted) brain functioning. (p. 438)
As executive cognitive control in the form of attentional focus and selective inhibition (albeit mostly unconscious) is a central function of the lateral areas of the frontal lobes (Baddeley & Sala, 1998), a main benefit of relatively enhanced frontal activity for gifted children is . . . a finely tuned capacity for activating (or inhibiting) the very brain regions known to play (not play) specialized roles in the performance of a given task. . . . That is, precocious individuals are especially facile at knowing [sic] what steps to take in solving a given intellectual problem. (p. 438)
Accounting for such a difference in neural function seems to presume a concomitant difference in development, as evidenced by Shaw et al. (2006). And this in turn could account for the improved learning outcomes for gifted children when they are timetabled to
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attend classes (with older children) according to their activated in their original PET study. To explain this prior knowledge and current learning needs – both in result, Duncan (2001) suggested that primary/elementary school (Ryan & Geake, 2003) and [T]hroughout much of the prefrontal cortex . . . the rein secondary/high school (Fardell & Geake, 2003). sponse properties of single neurons are highly adaptable. In a follow-up study, Alexander, O’Boyle and Ben. . . Any given cell has the potential to be driven by many bow (1996) compared the (resting alpha power) EEG different kinds of input – perhaps through the dense inof 30 gifted adolescents from the CY-TAG programme terconnections that exist within the prefrontal cortex. In a particular task context, many cells become tuned to code with 30 age-matched peers and 30 college students. information that is specifically relevant to this task. In this The main contrast of interest was between the gifted sense, the prefrontal cortex acts as a global workspace or adolescents and the college students. While there were working memory. (p. 824) differences in alpha band power over the temporal and parietal lobes, Such adaptability, Duncan argued, implies selective attention or emphasis on relevant inputs while filtering . . . there were no differences in alpha power at the frontal and occipital lobe locations between gifted adolescents out irrelevant inputs, a high facility for which is a charand college age subjects suggesting that the two groups acteristic of gifted brain functioning (O’Boyle et al., have a similar level of brain maturation for these regions. 1995). Moreover, Duncan (2001) speculated that such (p. 30) focussed frontal information processing supports inforIn this case, the frontal lobes of the young gifted mation processing in other relevant areas of the brain, subjects seemed to be operating with the equivalent the combined effect of which is to create a tempomaturity of students some 5 years older already in rary dominant active state of concern towards that paruniversity. It was speculated that one source of contrib- ticular problem. As this regional involvement is stautory variance to such precocious neural development tistical, it increasingly recruits overlapping regions of could be differential prenatal exposure to testosterone, the frontal cortex as problem engagement continues. one of several neurotaxic hormones which mediate In other words, sustained and focussed thinking reepigenetic brain organisation (O’Boyle & Benbow, quires high working memory demand. By this model 1990). it is clear why enhanced working memory capacity, as These findings about the neural development of supported by efficacious frontal functioning and strucgifted children are consistent with the results of studies ture, is a hallmark of intellectual giftedness, enabling of the neural correlates of intelligence in general gifted people to achieve superior measures in IQ tests, populations, such as the PET study of the neural as well as high levels of creative intelligence through correlates of general intelligence (g) conducted by task adaptation and selectivity (described more fully Duncan et al. (2000) at the University of Cambridge. below). Exploiting the fact that in an IQ test the difficulty of While it might be noted parenthetically that this each individual item is directly correlated with the could be interpreted as yet more evidence against the final IQ score (g-loading), Duncan’s group contrasted notion of multiple intelligences, Duncan’s work (Dunthe activations of subjects attempting both high-g and can et al., 2000; Duncan & Owen, 2001; Duncan, 2001) low-g-correlated IQ test items. The contrast of high-g also provides a basis for explaining talent. Kalbfleisch over low-g items revealed bilateral inferior prefrontal (2004), from her review of the neural basis of incortical activations for both spatial and verbal tasks. telligence, creativity, and expert performance, defined In other words, high general intelligence requires talent as “the maximal and productive use of either efficacious frontal cortical functioning. In order to or both of one’s high level of general intelligence or better understand the nature of the frontal cortical domain-specific ability” (Kalbfleisch et al., this book). neurophysiology involved in undertaking high-g tasks, This raises a critical issue: what is the relationship beDuncan and Owen (2000) conducted a meta-analysis tween these two drivers of talent? How can a high of 20 neuroimaging studies of cognition: inductive level of general intelligence generate an outstanding reasoning, deductive reasoning, arithmetic reasoning, domain-specific ability? The issue is taken up towards linguistic reasoning, etc. Interestingly, the centres of the end of the chapter after first considering some reactivation of all of these studies fell within the same search about the neural characteristics of talented indiregions of bilateral inferior prefrontal cortex that were viduals.
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Neural Interconnectivity and Talent In an information processing study of musical coherence in precocious young musicians, Geake (1996) found that despite the obvious requirement that musical information has to be processed first in its order of perception – serially for melody and simultaneously for harmony – it was executive cognitive control processing that was most important for predicting outstanding musical ability. He concluded that
For gifted young musicians, it is their superior use of executive or metacognitive strategies [mediated by the frontal cortex], such as inward-directed attention, that contributes most towards their remarkable abilities. (p. 41)
A notable characteristic of Geake’s study cohort, 12-year-olds who were performing at professional or near professional standards, was their enthusiasm for practice, typically every afternoon after school when most of their peers were letting off steam outside. Three common behaviours were evident. First, hours of practice were necessary to achieve high levels of performance. Second, practice was very efficient. Whole pieces were learnt quickly and correctly; occasional mistakes were overlooked and certainly not rehearsed. Third, these modern-day Mozarts enjoyed learning and enjoyed music making. There was strong positive affective feedback. These behaviours are all consistent with a high efficacy of frontal functioning. Positive (and negative) emotions, generated in the subcortical limbic areas of the brain, support motivation by way of inputs (both distal neuronal and dopaminergic) to the frontal cortical areas responsible for sustaining focussed attention (LeDoux, 1998; Rolls, 1999). The manifestation of talent, then, is not just dependent on giftedness and practice, but is much driven by positive affect. Consistent with Geake’s conclusion, in an EEG study of musically talented vs. normal adults, Birmbaumer, Lutzenberger, Rau, Braun, and Mayer-Kress (1996) found that the greatest contrast in the complexity (Hausdorff dimension) of the frontal EEG was in talented college musicians listening to pseudo-classical music compared with other college students not identified as musically talented (by self-report) listening to pseudo-pop music. The researchers remarked that
J.G. Geake Complex music produces complex brain activity in complex people, simple music excites simple brain activity in simple people. (p. 268)
Although this summary might seem rather abrasive at first read, their point is that talent development is also dynamic: a neurophysiological advantage (or potential) can turn into a significant performance or talent advantage through a positive feedback cycle. It could be noted that Porter (1997) has modelled this cycle by adding a cognitive feedback loop to Gagn´e’s model of talent actualisation (Gagn´e, 1985). Importantly, it would be incorrect to infer from the above that all of the variance contributing to high intelligence resides exclusively in functioning of the frontal regions. Frangou, Chitins, and Williams (2004) found IQ correlates in regions of the non-cortical hindbrain, the cerebellum (Vandervert et al., this volume). The VBM study of Haier et al. (2004) (noted above) found that regions of cell density which correlated with IQ were distributed throughout the brain, particularly within the parietal cortices as well as the frontal. Interestingly, the spatial distribution of such neural activity seems to be independent of cognitive load (Haier, White, & Alkire, 2003). By comparing neural responses to watching soap-opera videos, this fMRI study showed that differences in g predicted brain functioning on non-reasoning tasks. Prosaically, high-IQ people think about “dumb stuff” differently from average-IQ people, which could help explain why gifted children prefer to socialise with other gifted people (Gross, 2004), especially with older gifted children and gifted adults (Shavinina, 2006). Recent reviews of this literature have concluded that high intelligence is supported by frontal functioning, not in isolation, but within a fronto-parietal network (Gray et al., 2003; Jung & Haier, 2007). Direct evidence for this network model comes from Lee et al. (2006) in Korea who replicated Duncan’s study using fMRI, but with two groups of participants: adolescents from the Korean national academy for the gifted (RAPM > 99%) and an aged-match control group from local high schools. As with Duncan, high-g-loaded tasks specifically increased activity in bilateral prefrontal regions. But for the gifted subjects, there was a stronger activation in the anterior cingulate, a region involved in emotionally weighted decision-making (Rolls, 1999), and the posterior parietal cortices, regions involved in forming concep-
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tual inter-relationships, especially of a quasi-spatial representation (Fuster, 1999; Luria, 1973), where the BOLD (see Note 2) response correlated positively with RAPM measures of g. Lee et al. concluded that These results suggest that superior-g may not be due to the recruitment of additional brain regions but to the functional facilitation of the fronto-parietal network particularly driven by the posterior parietal activation. (p. 578)
This could be regarded as a particular instance of Duncan’s (2001) model (reviewed above) wherein adaptive frontal functioning maintains task commitment through persistent activation of relevant inputs from other brain areas. The extent to which such neural support is more extensive and focussed for gifted individuals is a manifestation of greater working memory efficacy (Geake & Dodson, 2005), or in other words, a more efficient dynamic workspace (described below) (Dehaene, Kerszberg, & Changeux, 1998). Consistent evidence for a frontal-parietal network as a feature of the gifted brain comes from an fMRI study by O’Boyle et al. (2005) of mathematically gifted male adolescents engaged in mental rotation. Whereas previous studies had shown mental rotation to be more of a right parietal activity, O’Boyle et al.’s gifted subjects demonstrated bilateral activation of the parietal lobes and frontal cortex, along with heightened activation of the anterior cingulate, during mental rotation. The researchers conjectured that
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right-sided inputs are processed in the left hemisphere. Significantly higher recognition scores or tapping rates for one side or other would indicate a processing preference for the contralateral hemisphere. The results here showed that the usual left hemisphere bias was not evident for these math-gifted subjects. In other words, math-gifted children seemed to be utilising their right hemispheres much more than their peers. In sum, [E]nhanced development and subsequent processing reliance on the specialized capacities of the right hemisphere, coupled with a fine-tuned ability for rapid and coordinated exchange of information between the hemispheres, are hypothesized to be unique processing characteristics of the mathematically gifted brain. (p. 676)
This is consistent with an earlier PET study (Haier and Benbow, 1995) of college students with high vs. average scores on the SAT Math (university selection exam) where for the high-SAT-M group, there were no (temporal lobe) hemispheric differences in glucose metabolism while undertaking a set of 23 SATM maths problems. Interestingly, the characteristic of relatively enhanced bilaterality might not be restricted to abilities at mathematics. Studies of the neural development of language in infants show that the greater the vocabulary, the higher the degree of bilaterality of its instantiation (Mills, Plunkett, Prat, & Schafer, 2005). Since variance in vocabulary is a measure of how well an infant learns from its lexical environment, [I]t may be that enhanced (and bilateral) activation of the as well as an indicator of the relative richness of parietal lobes, frontal cortex, and the anterior cingulate that environment, recourse to bilateral brain function are critical parts of an all-purpose information processing network, one that is relied upon by individuals who might be a way in which gifted children allocate more are intellectually gifted, irrespective of the nature of their neural resources to support their prodigious learning. exceptional abilities. (p. 586) As many aspects of language production become Further evidence for enhanced bilaterality as a neu- lateralised by adolescence, such a conjecture would ral characteristic of mathematical giftedness is sum- imply that the neural development of gifted children marised by Singh and O’Boyle (2004). Such evidence follows a different trajectory from the norm (Giedd includes the results from psychophysical studies aimed et al. 1999), as Shaw et al. (2006) also concluded. to elicit laterality biases in gifted subjects from the CYFurthermore, if the neural correlates of giftedness TAG programme, using such experimental probes as involve a bilateral fronto-parietal network, then the efsplit (left and right) visual field word reading, dichotic ficacy of the long-distance white matter tracts between listening (different words simultaneously presented to the hemispheres, and between frontal and parietal corleft and right ears), and concurrent left and right finger tices, and other regions, becomes paramount. There is tapping while word reading (O’Boyle, Gill, Benbow, evidence for denser intra-cortical white matter tracts & Alexander, 1994), as well as psychological profiling in gifted people. In the ERP study of a sample of (O’Boyle & Benbow, 1990). The logic behind the psy- highly gifted students from the CY-TAG on a chimeric chophysical laterality bias methods, as noted above, is faces preference task noted above, the gifted subjects that sensory information is processed contralaterally: showed more bilateral frontal and right parietal actileft-sided inputs are processed in the right hemisphere; vation, with the gifted girls showing higher bilateral
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frontal activity than the boys, while the gifted boys’ left temporal activity was significantly inhibited (higher alpha band power) (O’Boyle, Alexander, & Benbow, 1991). As these lateralised activations were synchronised, it was suggested that another characteristic of gifted subjects might be a high level of development of inter-hemispheric interconnectivity allowing for rapid interactions between the two cerebral hemispheres. As inter-hemispheric interactions are primarily conducted via the most prominent white matter tract in the brain, the corpus callosum, this conclusion is consistent with gifted subjects having denser white matter tracts enabling more substantial information transfer and processing. It could also be noted that evidence for the cooperative interaction of the cerebral hemispheres stands in firm contrast to one of the prevailing neuromyths (at least at the time of writing) in education that there is separate left- or right-brain thinking, a misinterpretation of laboratory studies (historically with split-brain patients) seeking spatial correlates of the functional modularity which supports higher level cognition, especially language. As Singh and O’Boyle (2004) point out when introducing their report on a local–global letter task comparison of gifted vs. average-ability students, which again demonstrated the absence of hemispheric differences in the gifted group, Functional asymmetry and processing specialisation of the left hemisphere (LH) and right hemisphere (RH) are well-documented characteristics of the human brain. Yet, as compelling as these hemispheric propensities may be, the brain does not consist of two hemispheres operating in isolation. In fact, the different cognitive specialities of the LH and RH are so well integrated that they seldom cause significant processing conflicts in neurologically normal individuals. Thus, hemispheric specialisation cannot be conceptualised as a static difference in the processing capacity of two independent and isolated hemispheres, but rather consists of a dynamic interactive partnership between the two. (p. 671)
Their point has particular salience for limitations on interpretation of neuroimaging studies arising from subject selection, noted at the beginning of this chapter. By far the majority of subjects in neuroimaging experiments have been male, mainly because of a greater predilection for lateral asymmetry in male brains. In Singh and O’Boyle (2004) and O’Boyle et al. (2005), all subjects, including the gifted, were male. This makes the finding that the gifted (males) demonstrated significant hemispheric symmetry all
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the more remarkable, prompting Haier and Benbow (1995) to propose that high (maths) ability males “have a different way of mathematical reasoning from everyone else” (p. 411). Further evidence for greater synchronised recruitment of both hemispheres by gifted individuals comes from a diffusion tensor imaging (DTI)6 study of the white matter correlates of creativity, as measured by the Torrence Test of Creative Thinking (Samco, Caplovitz, Hsieh, & Tse, 2005). Creative individuals had more organised white matter in frontal networks subserving semantic processing, working memory, and attention. In contrast, less creative individuals had more organised white matter in a predominantly left temporal network involving syntactic processing and memory retrieval. This finding, consistent with Duncan’s (2001) model of adaptive frontal functioning, could also explain the results of an earlier ERP study by Carlsson, Wendt and Risberg (2000) which found significant differences in frontal activity between high- and low-creative subjects: the high-creative group utilised bilateral prefrontal regions, while the low-creative group used frontal functions predominantly on the left side. It could be noted that such bilateral utility for the highly creative is consistent with the bilateral model of mathematical giftedness proposed by O’Boyle (Geake & O’Boyle, 2000; Singh & O’Boyle, 2004; O’Boyle et al., 2005). As Geake (2006) has argued, gifted mathematical thinking involves a high degree of creativity. Mathematical talent can be manifested in an intrinsically motivated student with high task commitment engaging in challenging mathematical activities through the application of unusual divergent thinking towards high-quality outcomes. Importantly, the underlying necessary cognitive abilities fall into two independent factors: academic and creative (Livne, N., Livne, O. & Milgram, 1999). Academic mathematical ability is related to general intelligence and is manifest in computational accuracy, symbolic manipulation, memory for number facts, and so on. Creative mathematical ability is related to measures of creative thinking,
6 Diffusion weighted MRI or diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is an MRI technique in which the directions of movement of water in white matter tracts, such as the corpus callosum connecting the two hemispheres, are compared. Significant directional biases (fractional anisotropy) are indicative of a more robust interconnectivity of those tracts.
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involving fluidity in mathematical ideas such as finding multiple solutions to a problem, or engaging in real-world problem solving. That mathematical thinking requires contributions from both academic and creative abilities might explain some popularised extremes in mathematical performance. First there are the autobiographical reports of some great mathematicians, such as Benoit Mandelbrot of fractals fame, who performed relatively poorly at primary school arithmetic, where opportunities for creative input were largely absent. In contrast, it is certainly the case that calculation savants (as portrayed in the film Rain Man) cannot do mathematics in the constructive and creative manner that professional mathematicians do. Such a dichotomy is suggestive of a neural double dissociation – evidence that academic and creative mathematical abilities rely largely on separate brain systems. Geake (2006) has reviewed evidence for such a double dissociation, with computation being more reliant on posterior functioning, while creative and innovative mathematical thinking is more reliant on frontal functioning. Importantly, both types of thinking involve networks of functional modules from both hemispheres. For example, it has been conjectured that symbol–object mapping requires both the left (for symbols) and the right (for objects) fusiform gyri (Geake, 2005b). This inter-hemispheric integration is all the more so for gifted mathematical performance, as shown by O’Boyle’s neuroimaging studies, where both hemispheres contributed to the information processing of his gifted mathematical subjects. In other words, for the gifted mathematician, the academic or computational and creativity dimensions of mathematical cognition are seamlessly integrated through highly efficacious intermodular communication. In contrast to the dissociated stereotypes above, there are many professional mathematicians who are “calculating geniuses”, perhaps the best know being Richard Feynman, Nobel Laureate in theoretical physics (Gleick, 1992).
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explanations, insightful questions, elegant proofs, original creations, and quirky humour. Such a basket of behaviours begs the question of an underlying cognitive generator, and hence some delineating neural correlates. At the cognitive level, a productive approach has been to conceptualise intelligence as analogy-making, and hence creative intelligence as fluid analogy-making (Hofstadter, 1995; Holyoak & Thagard, 1995; Geake & Dodson, 2005). As William James (1895) wrote over a century ago, A native talent for perceiving analogies is . . . the leading fact in genius of every order. (p. 530)
Certainly a characteristic of good teachers and gifted students is their ability to create analogies for explanation and clarification. It has been suggested that fluid analogy-making underpins creative human intelligence (Hofstadter, 2001; Mitchell, 1993), because fluid analogising is the process which working memory (WM) employs to access the differing forms of information from other parts of the fronto-parietal network, including sensory afferents, and long-term memory (LTM) retrieval (Geake & Dodson, 2005). This suggestion is consistent with accounts of the evolution of intelligence wherein hominid brains evolved as modular multifunctional organs in which the separate cognitive modules did not interact in an analogical manner – hence the intellectual stasis of pre-homo sapiens hominids (Mithen, 1996; 2005). The intellectual progress of homo sapiens is, in contrast, distinguished by intermodular information flow, enacted by the analogising processes of WM, enabled by the adaptive neurons of the lateral prefrontal cortices (Duncan, 2001). There is evidential support for such an account (Dehaene et al., 1998). To control information processing, the brain can be conceptualised as having, alongside specialised processors, a distributed neural system or “workspace” “with long-distance connectivity that can potentially interconnect multiple specialised brain areas in a co-ordinated, though variable manner” (Dehaene et al., 1998, p. 14529). Importantly, this dynamic workspace provides a common “communication protocol”, which allows communiCreative Intelligence and Working cation between modular systems that do not directly Memory interconnect. Such intense mobilisation of neural resources gives rise to the subjective phenomenon of For many educators in the field of gifted education, conscious effort. This neural synchronisation allows the most endearing characteristic of gifted children is possible inter-relationships between problem and their creative intelligence: their capacity for original context to be explored by fluid analogising with
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the resultant variance iteratively creating temporary solutions in WM (Fuster, 2003). Presumably, then, this process is more efficacious in the brains of the gifted (Geake, 2005a). There is evidence for a relatively greater neural synchronisation in gifted subjects. In an ERP study of the information processing involved during a visual search task with gifted and average school children in China, the interaction effect between task and comparative neural efficiency as determined by P3 amplitudes and latencies was explained by a more spatially and temporally coordinated neural network operating in the gifted children (Zhang, Shi, Luo, Zhao, & Yang, 2006). A better coordinated neural network would presumably enable creatively intelligent individuals, with a greater neural activation in WM (Carlsson et al., 2000; Gray et al. 2003), to consider more analogical combinations (Fuster, 2003). The key concept here is “consideration”, that is, how long can various competing ideas and concepts be kept active in WM. There is evidence that creatively gifted people can keep ideas longer “in mind” before discarding them. Carson, Peterson, and Higgins (2003) found a significant relationship between the various indicators of creativity and reduced latent inhibition, holding online, rather than rejecting a priori, a greater number of creative insights or solution trajectories. That latent inhibition is relatively depressed in creatively intelligent individuals is consistent with the findings of Johnson et al. (2003) that gifted children, compared with children not identified as gifted, did not show greater capacities for inhibition. Rather, the gifted showed relatively developed abilities for task attention. Moreover, intellectually creative people are characteristically highly task motivated (Clark, 1997), so continually refresh their WM with the problem, context, and candidate solutions (Geake, 1997). Selection criteria are both hedonic and knowledge based (Baddeley & Sala, 1998). As noted above, sources of relevant inputs to WM or dynamic workspace include long-term memory store, effective coding of knowledge being another cognitive characteristic of gifted individuals (Clark, 1997). However, it is information prioritising that becomes critical for successful task completion, and this in turn utilises feelings associated with similar tasks in the past as criteria by which critical selection for relevance is made (LeDoux, 1998), a notable facility which is observed in gifted people (Geake, 1997; see also Piechowski et al., this book). This is consistent
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with findings that enhanced capacity of WM is associated with increasing familiarity as a result of acquired experience (Cowan, 2005). To the extent to which this leads to an increase in processing speed, assumed to be due largely to the development of enhanced connections between and within neural systems (Gray et al. 2003), it could explain the significant correlations between IQ and RT noted at the beginning of the chapter. The above characteristics of giftedness have been combined into a neuropsychological model of creative intelligence proposed by Geake and Dodson (2005), in which creative thinking is the output of the dynamic workspace (Dehaene et al., 1998; Duncan, 2001), which in turn is underpinned by a process of fluid analogising (Mitchell, 1993). Geake and Dodson’s model features a number of nested feedback cycles which enable WM to drive analogical combinations and re-combinations of new perceptions and extant knowledge from LTM within the dynamic workspace in order to monitor task progress and maintain task motivation. Creatively gifted individuals exhibit superior performance in WM through a process of neural Darwinism (Geake, 1997) involving the internal generation of greater mental variance (more varied thoughts of potential solutions), and/or more combinations of those thoughts, and/or relatively enhanced latent inhibition of discarding outlier thoughts too early (Carson et al., 2003), and/or a more sensitive appreciation of the social milieu in which creative output must find acceptance (Csikszentmihalyi, 1998). Certainly, successful gifted scientists (of whom Richard Feynman and Karl Frederick Gauss are two outstanding exemplars) display creative intelligence in their scientific work: in the research questions that they pose, in the innovative design of the experiments that are employed to bring relevant evidence to bear on the problem, and in the rigorous analysis that they subject their experimental results to (Gleick, 1992; Steptoe, 1998). There is neuroimaging evidence to support fluid analogising as the core process in Geake and Dodson’s model. In an fMRI study of subjects whose IQ scores ranged from above-average to well-above-average, Geake and Hansen (2005) had subjects process fluid analogy letter strings derived from the Copycat AI program of Hofstadter (1995) and Mitchell (1993). Importantly, the responses were recorded in terms of plausibility, as a measure of creative thought, rather than as correct or incorrect. Activations were found in a fronto-parietal network, a similar pattern to those
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found in other fMRI studies of the neural correlates of working memory. However, Geake and Hansen also found two areas of left frontal cortex where neural activity during fluid analogising correlated with verbal IQ as determined by knowledge of irregular words. In other words, IQ as determined by a measure of crystallised intelligence predicted neural activation in regions for working memory engaged in a fluid or creative analogy task. A wider knowledge base, it seems, can support a greater facility for fluid thinking, at least in high-IQ subjects. More recently, Geake & Hansen (2006) have demonstrated that fluid analogical thinking across analogy types recruits the same fronto-parietal network highlighted by Gray et al. (2003), Haier et al. (2004), and Jung and Haier (2007) in their reviews of the neural bases of general intelligence. For the stimuli in the 2006 fMRI study, Geake and Hansen created analogues of the Copycat letter strings with number and polygon strings. Despite these different types of informational format, the fronto-parietal activation patters were statistically identical for processing fluid analogies incorporating letters, numbers, and geometric shapes. This result is further evidence in support of the claim for fluid analogising as a core cognitive process. Moreover, Geake and Hansen (2006) found an area of the right frontal cortex where neural activity during fluid analogising across types positively correlated with scores on the RAPM, a high-demand spatial processing task. Together with the previous result involving a correlation of left frontal cortex activations with IQ as determined by the NART, a language processing task (Geake & Hansen, 2005), these results suggest that the gifted person’s success at creative intellectually demanding tasks is significantly determined by how well their brain enables fluid analogising as a fundamental cognitive process (Gentner, 1983). Consistently, in a classroom-based eye-tracking study, Vigneau, Caissie, and Bors (2006) reported that differences in intelligence predicted student’s strategies at analogical reasoning. Higher intelligence students were better at analogical reasoning due to reliance on constructive matching of information to task goal; lower ability students fared worse due to their limited matching of proximate information to task goal, an interpretation consistent with the DTI creativity study of Samco et al. (2005) reported above.
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Conclusion These results converge to suggest that the “gifted brain” is characterised by high-level prefrontal cortical functioning within a bilateral fronto-parietal network (Haier et al. 2004; Singh & O’Boyle, 2004). The network can be conceptualised as providing a dynamic workspace in which information is processed; the greater efficiency and extent of the network in the brains of gifted people support their superior capacity for information processing (Geake, 2005a). This neural instantiation of giftedness supports a relatively enhanced executive capability, with a more efficacious working memory (Geake & Dodson, 2005). Specific high-level executive functioning cognitive abilities and WM attributes of gifted children (and adults) include: focussed attention (Geake, 1996), evaluative selection (Geake, 1997), creative analogising (Geake & Hansen, 2005; 2006), delayed closure (Carson et al., 2003), and comprehensive information processing (O’Boyle et al., 1995), with attendant differences in their neural developmental dynamics (Shaw et al., 2006). Importantly, these neural differences are structural (Haier et al., 2004); talented performance arises from functional plasticity enhanced through positive feedback. In other words, gifted kids cannot help being gifted, and therefore cannot help learning like gifted kids, because of and as a result of their “gifted brains”. Acknowledgments Support from the British Academy in the preparation of this chapter is gratefully acknowledged.
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Chapter 12
The Neural Plasticity of Giftedness M. Layne Kalbfleisch
Abstract Based on known types of neural plasticity such as phantom limb, pediatric hemispherectomy, and synesthesia, this chapter proposes that giftedness is a type of neural plasticity not well understood. Three questions guide the exploration of this idea. First, how does state of mind contribute to the acquisition and demonstration of giftedness? Second, what is the contribution of stress to the acquisition or demonstration of expertise? Finally, what are the contributions of sensory, perceptual, and motivational mechanisms to superlative higher level cognition and resulting performance state(s)? A larger paradigm is required to integrate existing empirical and theoretical information to guide the exploration of the potential nature of individual differences, human performance, and creativity on an elaborate scale. This chapter will reconcile these topics and issues into a general theory of giftedness as another type of neural plasticity. Keywords State of mind · Neural plasticity · Fluid intelligence · Reasoning · Cerebellum · Basal ganglia · fMRI · Domain general ability
Introduction Structural changes in the human brain over the course of typical development are becoming well documented with neuroimaging and genetics studies (Geidd et al., 1999; Sowell, Thompson, Holmes, Jernigan, & Toga, M.L. Kalbfleisch (B) George Mason University, Arlington, VA, USA e-mail:
[email protected] 1999; Sowell, Thompson, Tessner, & Toga, 2001; Posthuma, de Geus, & Boomsma, 2001; Posthuma, Mulder, Boomsma, & de Geus, 2002; De Geus & Boomsma, 2002; Thompson et al., 2002; Wright, Sham, Murray, Weinberger, & Bullmore, 2002; Shaw et al., 2006). Further, emerging evidence indicates that individuals with superior intelligence experience different developmental patterns of white matter growth in the brain than their intellectually average or even above-average peers (Shaw et al., 2006) – a suggestion that the historical precedent of the bell-curved psychometric classification of intelligence may be appropriately described. A clarification is necessary as to why the field of cognitive neuroscience refers to developmental states as ‘typical’ or ‘atypical’ rather than ‘normal’ or ‘abnormal’? It is a neutral descriptor which encapsulates the variance of normative development and provides a way to refer to ‘other’ aspects of development. Traditionally, atypicality refers to medically defined alterations in brain development in cases such as autism, dyslexia, and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (Gilger and Kaplan, 2001). Atypicality is a construct further complicated by burgeoning information from heritability studies which suggest the influence of genetics on cognitive development (Posthuma et al., 2001, 2002; De Geus & Boomsma, 2002; Thompson et al., 2002; Wright et al., 2002). In particular, this chapter broadens the definition of atypicality to include neuroscientific aspects of a ‘gifted’ brain and to refer to individuals whose brains are simultaneously disabled and enabled, sometimes labeled ‘paradoxical learners’ (Tannenbaum & Baldwin, 1983) or ‘twice exceptional’ (Whitmore, 1980; Whitmore & Maker, 1985; Kalbfleisch and Iguchi, 2007; Lupart et al., this volume).
L.V. Shavinina (ed.), International Handbook on Giftedness, c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-6162-2 12,
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To date, the relationship between aspects of the structural development of the brain and its function fail to account for vast ranges we see in the realms of behavior and performance. A larger paradigm is required to integrate these works to guide the exploration of the potential nature of individual differences on an elaborate scale. This chapter will reconcile these issues into a general theory of giftedness as a type of neural plasticity and highlight structural and functional aspects of the human brain that contribute to behavior and performance we ascribe to ‘giftedness’ in twice exceptional children (Kaufman, Kalbfleisch, & Castellanos, 2000; Craggs, Sanchez, Kibby, Gilger, & Hynd, 2006, Kalbfleisch, VanMeter, & Zeffiro, 2006, 2007; Kalbfleisch and Iguchi, 2007; Kalbfleisch and Banasiak, 2007). A fundamental aspect of this chapter will press the reader to consider the difference between examining processes of the brain and states of mind which characterize giftedness. Studies of brain plasticity in children who have undergone hemispherectomy – the removal of a hemisphere of the brain to halt epileptic seizures – (Boatman, Vining, Freeman, & Carson, 2003; Chen, Cohen, & Hallett, 2002; Pulsifer et al., 2004; Johnston, 2004; Battaglia et al., 2006; Werth, 2006) and in adult amputees (Ramachandran, RogersRamachandran, & Stewart, 1991; Ramachandran & Rogers-Ramachandran, 1996; Borsook et al., 1998; Ramachandran, 2005) illustrate that the capabilities of the human brain have been grossly underestimated. Based on the multiple ways that ‘giftedness’ is defined or accounted for to date, this chapter proposes that giftedness is a type of neural plasticity that we do not yet fully understand (Kalbfleisch, 2004). Neuroscientist, Ira Black, defines plasticity as ‘brain mutability and flexibility, which underlies the alteration of structure and function over time in response to environmental change’ (1997, p.5). With the publication of the structural study by Shaw and colleagues (2006), there is now empirical evidence to support the notion that differences in brain structure and their patterns of development are related to psychometrically measured levels of superior intelligence. An understanding of cognitive functions which support giftedness is suggested by models described in this chapter (Jung and Haier, 2007; Schmithorst and Holland, 2006; Kalbfleisch et al., 2006, 2007; Schmithorst & Holland, 2007) and others (see chapters by Geake and
M.L. Kalbfleisch
Vandervert and Liu in this volume), but even these have yet to be tested in samples of highly gifted adults and, most importantly, highly gifted children. As Einstein once said in relation to his own gifted mind, Sometimes I ask myself how it came about that I happened to be the one to discover the theory of relativity. The reason is, I think, that the normal adult never stops to think about space and time. Whatever thinking he may do about these things he will already have done as a small child. I, on the other hand, was so slow to develop that I only began thinking about space and time when I was already grown up. Naturally, I then went more deeply into the problem than an ordinary child (Doctorow, 2006, pp. 160–161).
Indeed, one hallmark of creative giftedness is the ability to remain resilient and child-like, to suspend reason or entertain multiple forms of it during the intentional (volitional) wrestling with a thought and the unintentional (incubatory, non-volitional) tumbling of ordinary bits of knowledge while awake and asleep (Hobson & Pace-Schott, 2002; Peigneux et al., 2003; Kalbfleisch, 2004; Fischer, Drosopoulos, Tsen, & Born, 2006) that amalgamate in the moment of ‘aha!’ Thus, while we have begun to theorize with greater certainty about the physical nature of certain forms of giftedness, due to the addition of methods that permit the noninvasive interrogation of human neural systems such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI enables us to spatially map neural systems involved in specified cognitive tasks), magnetoencephalography (MEG enables us to spatially and temporally map neural systems involved in specific cognitive tasks), and electroencephalography (EEG allows us to measure the time course of neural activity in a specific region of the brain or globally detect patterns of the brain’s electrical charge as they change in relation to cognitive activity during certain tasks), the open challenge to verify and replicate the qualitative differences we might see in specific indications of giftedness still stands. If we are nearing the point where we have a recipe of sorts for various cognitive processes (attention, working memory, audition, visual perception) and the knowledge of the neurobiology supporting their function, we still do not have knowledge of ‘it.’ What is ‘it?’ ‘It’ is the special combination of factors that are not just cognitive, but also emotional, motivational, and inspirational which combine to enable innovation, creativity, and superlative performance. ‘It’ is the neural plasticity of giftedness. A person’s intelligence quotient or ‘IQ’ (based on the measure of
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cognitive substrate abilities such as working memory, visual perception, and reasoning) does not necessarily pre-determine chances for a successful display of giftedness. In fact, IQ negatively correlates with creative performance above a measure of 120 (Amabile, 1996; Barron, & Harrington, 1981), which brings me to a fundamental departure from current aspects of the neurobiological investigation of giftedness. While cognitive neuroscience methods are becoming competent at documenting cognitive processes in the brain, the construct which requires innovative methods and needs to be much better understood is state of mind. To set the stage between distinguishing cognitive process from state of mind, one neuroimaging study demonstrates two separate properties of cognitive processing. Sakai and Passingham (2006) refer to the role of the prefrontal cortex as it facilitates preparation and readiness to perform a task (what they call ‘set’) separate from handling the direct cognitive requirements of a task. This neural activity shows up as sustained neural activation in certain parts of frontal and parietal cortex throughout the task separate from other neural activity related to executing the task. In similar fashion, emotion, motivation, and inspiration occur as processes in the brain, but also facilitate an internal context and special sort of ‘readiness’ or ‘set’ that determines state of mind. For example, someone can either be motivated and excited about solving math equations or be paralyzed by anxiety at the thought of it. In each case, the individual may possess the ability or have learned the skill needed to solve the problem, but the state of mind surrounding the exercise determines a fundamentally different experience for the individual and a different outcome (Beilock, Bertenthal, McCoy, & Carr , 2004; Beilock, Kulp, Holt, & Carr, 2004; Beilock & Carr, 2005). This chapter will argue that state of mind watermarks the neural plasticity of giftedness by exploring the following questions: First, how does state of mind contribute to the acquisition and demonstration of giftedness? Second, to a certain extent, what is the contribution of stress to the acquisition or demonstration of expertise? Finally, what are the contributions of sensory, perceptual, and motivational mechanisms to skilled higher level cognition and the resulting performance state(s)?
This chapter will argue that whether stress is a negative factor or a positive factor to an individual is based upon subjective perception and may or may not be
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impacted by feedback. When a gifted person performs, risk taking can exert a positive influence on executing a novel process or a performing a familiar process in a novel environment or circumstance. This perception may bias the neural systems that balance cognitive and motivational elements, driving those systems in a state of ‘positive risk’ (facilitated by orbitofrontal, pre-limbic systems in frontal cortex) rather than the systems most traditionally characterized in studies of emotional perception and stress (amygdala-driven systems in limbic cortex). The recruitment of these neural systems may differentiate the states in which someone perceives stress to be a positive enhancing factor to performance or a negative limiting factor and impact the demonstration of giftedness. From my point of view, we cannot fully characterize factors that contribute to cognitive processing and states of mind bearing on giftedness until we can control for contributions from fundamental neural processes, map their binding sites (intersections in the brain where they interact and connect with one another), and estimate the time courses of functional connectivity in the human brain. A new paradigm is required to integrate these component questions to guide the exploration of individual differences (from typical to atypical) on an elaborate scale. Ultimately, this chapter may generate more questions than answers. That being said, cognitive neuroscience has matured to a point where asking more questions, and potentially the most important ones, is now possible. It is an exciting time to be exploring the nature of human ability, creativity, and expertise.
Intelligence, Domain General Ability, and Giftedness It is important to note the incongruities of historical definitions of ‘g’ or general ability. One prominent fissure in the definition of intelligence surrounds the question of whether we are smart because we think fast or because we think well? One view purports that general ability is based on processing speed as measured by reaction time (Eysenck, 1986; Vernon, 1987; De Geus & Boomsma, 2002). In keeping with this, expert performance is characterized by greater automaticity and less effort (Beilock, Wierenga, & Carr, 2002; Beilock, Bertenthal et al., 2004). Yet, imaging studies of expertise have shown on a limited scale that some
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forms of expertise require more of the brain during execution, not less (Landau & D’Esposito, 2004; Moore et al., 2006; Bor & Owen, 2007). Furthermore, other research has shown that possessing expertise hastens its development (Tervaniemi, Rytkonen, Schroger, Ilminiemi, & Naatanen, 2001; Palmeri, Wong, & Gauthier, 2004). The chapter by Geake in this volume postulates on this relationship. Our understanding of giftedness is complicated by the fact that intelligence, like giftedness, and to which some forms of giftedness are ascribed, defies unitary definition. Another fissure in the historical definition of intelligence lies in the differences between general intelligence and fluid reasoning. Blair (2006) presents evidence for distinguishing between what he terms ‘fluid cognition’ and psychometrically assessed general intelligence. He defines ‘fluid cognition’ as ‘all purpose cognitive functioning not necessarily associated with any specific content domain’ and is comprised of three primary processes: information encoding and maintenance, attention shifting, and interference resolution. These are abilities encompassed within the separate neuropsychologically defined constructs ‘working memory’ (Baddeley, 1968), ‘executive function’ (Norman & Shallice, 1980), and ‘cognitive control’ (Posner & Snyder, 1975). In a quite comprehensive review of the psychological and neuroimaging literatures, Blair lays out a well-defined array of neurobiological systems which undergird the brain’s ability to deploy various neural systems (working memory, attention, emotional regulation, response to stress) to achieve a goal we would term ‘higher level thinking.’ Blair suggests that the Flynn effect (a year by year rise of IQ scores by approximately three points) (Flynn, 1984, 1987) can account for the dissociation between fluid cognition and crystallized knowledge, explaining that subtests related to fluid cognition are responsible for the considerable gains seen over the past century, and that if you examine subtest analyses related to those measuring crystallized intelligence (an index of stored knowledge and memory), the gains are much smaller. Blair concludes from Dickens and Flynn (2001) that aspects of parenting, nutrition, and educational influences have enhanced fluid abilities and not necessarily promoted the enrichment and increase of overall IQ. Similar to Damasio’s Somatic Marker hypothesis (1996), Blair offers another point of clarification from studies in three populations who exhibit changes in fluid performance without impaired IQ: patients with
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frontal lesions (Duncan, Burgess, & Emslie, 1995; Waltz et al., 1999), patients with schizophrenia (Kremen, Seidman, Faraone, & Tsuang, 2001; Amminger et al., 2000; Gunnel, Harrison, Rasmussen, Fouskakis, & Tynelius, 2002) and patients with phenylketonuria, or PKU, a genetic disorder related to the dopamine system characterized by an inability of the body to synthesize phenylalanine (Diamond and Herzberg, 1996; Diamond, Prevor, Callendar, & Druin, 1997). The review goes on to catalogue studies that show evidence of fluid cognition impacting academic achievement by exploring its absence in cases of reading disability in children and adults (McCandliss & Noble, 2003; Pugh et al., 2001; Shaywitz et al., 2002). Furthermore, a recent diffusion tensor-imaging study (DTI assesses the status and growth of axonal white matter tracts in the brain measured by fractional anisotropy – an index of the direction of water diffusion across neuronal membrane boundaries) demonstrates that working memory abilities supporting reading are dependent upon the integrity and development of white matter tracts in the frontal areas of the brain separate from posterior parietal brain areas which support processes more directly associated with reading (Niogi & McCandliss, 2006). Ultimately, Blair’s review includes several commentaries which raise both praise and controversy over his presentation. The overriding story, regardless of whether or not you accept Blair’s construction of the argument, is that this quality of ‘fluid cognition’ is extremely important and appears to determine the extent of someone’s ability to demonstrate their potential. The extant literature includes experiments that have begun to illuminate certain aspects of high cognitive ability related to general intelligence (Duncan, Emslie, Williams, Johnson, & Freer, 1996; Duncan et al., 2000; Duncan & Owen, 2000; Gray, Chabris, & Braver, 2003; Duncan 2003; Haier, White, & Alkire, 2003; Geake & Hansen, 2005), Spearman’s g (Colum, Jung, & Haier, 2006), and domain-specific expertise (O’Boyle, Benbow, & Alexander, 1995; Kaufman et al., 2000; Craggs et al., 2006). An attempt to articulate the direct relationship between brain structure and high-ability brain function is elaborated in a review of 37 neuroimaging studies by Jung and Haier (2007) which resolves these works in a presentation of the Parietal–Frontal Integration Theory (P-FIT), a synthesis aiming to provide an account of the neural systems that centrally support cognitive abilities related to
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Fig. 12.1 Brodmann’s areas designated for measured intelligence (dark grey) according to the P-FIT model (Jung and Haier, in press). Emerging evidence shows Brodmann’s Area 25, the
subcallosal gyrus (see arrow), as an area of frontal cortex that is ‘pre-limbic’ and facilitates state of mind during cognitive processing
individual differences in intelligence test scores. The P-FIT model includes areas present in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (BAs 6, 9, 10, 45, 46, 47), the inferior parietal lobe (BAs 39/40), the superior parietal lobe (BA7), the anterior cingulate gyrus (BA32), the temporal lobe (BA21 and 37), and occipital lobes (BA18 and 19). ‘BA’ is short for ‘Brodmann’s Area’ a term designated by Korbinian Brodmann (1909) who parsed the brain into functional regions and then assigned them according to a numerical system (Fig. 12.1). Today, this system is still widely held as a common convention for annotating specific areas of the brain. Jung and Haier (2007) submit that these areas comprise a broad neural network engaged during tests which psychometrically assess intelligence such as the Wechsler Scales of Intelligence and the Raven’s Progressive Matrices. These studies are pioneering our early understanding of the biological basis of intelligence. An important caveat, however, is that many of them report findings based only in the neocortex. As the name suggests, these are the newest layers of cortex in the human brain (layers I–VI). While, unarguably, the neocortex facilitates complex forms of behavior, its function is driven by other subcortical areas of the brain which contain our memory (hippocampal complex and basal ganglia) and motor systems (basal ganglia and cerebellum) and the chemical engines and regulators (hypothalamus, brain stem) which drive higher level function from a more primitive base. In order to have a true understanding of the neurological basis of behavior, these models must seek to integrate findings which show meaningful connectivity between subcortical and neocortical areas.
Jung and Haier (2007) submit that these neocortical areas are exclusively detected in these studies because they are the areas which vary according to individual differences as measured by psychometric instruments. Whereas, subcortical areas are less open to variation because they are of critical importance to the maintenance and homeostasis of the body. Another factor potentially limiting these data relates to the methods used to acquire functional images during fMRI scanning. Sometimes, a scientist opts to only collect images in certain parts of the brain based upon their hypotheses and previous findings. By doing so, they limit their findings to the areas that they scanned and acquired data from. The cognitive neuroscience literature on intelligence has been influenced by the broad assumption that the frontal cortex is what differentiates intelligent behavior in humans by enabling working memory, conflict resolution, and emotional control. Forthcoming discussion in this chapter is based on data acquired in the whole brain and demonstrates the integration of neocortex and subcortical areas during fluid reasoning, argued here as the ability that fundamentally allows one to turn latent potential into demonstrated expertise.
Fluid Intelligence, State of Mind, and Giftedness The cognitive neuroscience literature reports significant gain on the topic of sex differences in intelligence reported in tissue volume and correlates of intelligence (Haier, Jung, Yeo, Head, & Alkire, 2005), brain structure correlates of intelligence (Haier, Jung, Yeo,
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Head, & Alkire, 2004), chemical correlates of intelligence in frontal lobe white matter (Jung et al., 2005), intelligence and higher cognitive function in children (Schmithorst, Wilke, Dardzinski, & Holland, 2005; Schmithorst & Holland, 2006), and interhemispheric connectivity and measures of intelligence (Schmithorst & Holland, 2007). Based on findings from functional neuroimaging, I submit that the conditions under which someone reasons, pays attention, or performs some other cognitive operation effect which neural systems support those functions (Kalbfleisch et al., 2006, 2007). This is a relevant distinction because there are current assumptions about the neurobiology of learning, performance, and decision making which have been biased by the imaging methods themselves and have limited our ability to understand and characterize human cognition on a natural level, something that is paramount to understanding the phenomenon of giftedness. It is unclear under what conditions an ‘expert’ has a flexible intelligence that is capable of jumps in logic, or a rigid one. In the publication, How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School (1999), the National Research Council outlines features of expert behavior: (1) Experts notice features and meaningful patterns of information that are not noticed by novices. (2) Experts have a depth of content knowledge organized in ways that reflect a deep understanding of the domain. (3) Expert knowledge reflects applicability and cannot be reduced to isolated sets of facts. (4) Experts are able to flexibly retrieve important aspects of their knowledge with little attentional effort. (5) Experts may know their domain thoroughly but still be unable to teach others. (6) Experts have varying levels of flexibility in their approach to new situations. (p.19). One way to explore the natural deployment of cognition is through studies of fluid reasoning. Fluid reasoning is a type of learning ability influencing how fast and how much someone learns, and their ability to manipulate and use information in the reasoning process. Nonverbal matrix tests (i.e., Ravens Progressive Matrices) serve as an index of fluid reasoning because they are comprised of non-specific geometric pictures. They are commonly used to measure ability in persons whose success on IQ tests would most often be
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limited due to issues with second language, cultural bias, or lack of educational enrichment/achievement. They are appropriate to study fluid reasoning because they have been shown to represent reasoning in other content domains (Goel, Gold, Kapur, & Houle, 1997, Goel, Gold, Kapur, & Houle, 1998, Osherson et al., 1998, Goel, Buchel, Frith, & Dolan, 2000, Goel & Dolan, 2001, Prabhakaran, Rypma, & Gabrieli, 2001, Luo et al., 2003, Ruff, Knauff, Fangmeier, & Spreer, 2003) and other strategies (Rao et al., 1997, Koechlin, Basso, Pietrini, Panzer, & Grafman, 1999, Wharton et al., 2000, Goel & Dolan, 2003, van den Heuvel et al., 2003, Goel & Dolan, 2004). Thus, fluid reasoning measured with matrix analogies tests suggests a fundamental signature for the abilities that comprise this form of intelligence and underlie other forms as well. One fMRI study (Kalbfleisch et al., 2006, 2007) examined processes of fluid reasoning on portions of a contemporary matrix reasoning test (Fig. 12.2), the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test (Naglieri, 1997), to show that under natural conditions, this type of problem solving is supported by the cerebrocerebellar system (one of the three divisions of the cerebellum), a subcortical system that has not been functionally well characterized despite historical appreciation for its role in higher level cognition (Kim, Ugurbil, & Strick, 1994; Middleton, & Strick, 1994, 2000; Schmahmann and Pandya, 1995; Karatekin, Lazareff, & Asarnow, 2000; Molinari, Filippini, & Leggio, 2002), and, especially, mental dexterity (Leiner, Leiner, & Dow, 1986). Specifically, a neural network comprised of the following Brodmann’s areas (BA) was identified for fluid reasoning on this task: left and right middle frontal gyrus (BA6), right superior parietal lobule (BA7), left inferior parietal lobule (BA40), left lingual gyrus (BA19), and left cerebellum (Lobule VI). These are a subset of areas identified in the larger P-FIT model of general intelligence (Jung and Haier, 2007). The corticostriatal system (one of five loops of the basal ganglia) is the neural system traditionally affiliated with and reported in fMRI studies of high-level problem solving. The basal ganglia support skill learning and procedural memory and are often reported in studies where higher level skilled thinking is required (White, 1997; Graybiel, 1998; Middleton & Strick, 2000). But, the conditions of this study required participants to perform high-level reasoning under conditions of uncertainty and time pressure. Participants
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Fig. 12.2 An example of the NNAT serial reasoning items used in the NNAT-SRT fMRI task of fluid nonverbal reasoning (Kalbfleisch et al., 2006, 2007).
were not pre-trained to an expert level to solve these task items prior to participating in the fMRI experiment (Fig. 12.2) and were under a strict time deadline to choose the solution. It is common practice to train volunteers to a point of expertise prior to an imaging study in order to maximize the power of the neural signal in the moment of response. But, this practice biases results and, in the examination of higher level cognition and fluid reasoning, is akin to giving the brain a hard post test rather than a challenging and novel problem that the brain must solve ‘on the fly.’ Under the conditions of uncertainty and time pressure, the brain instead appears to utilize the cerebrocerebellar system to support fluid reasoning when the natural condition of ambiguity (induced by deadline and novelty) is preserved in the experimental paradigm. One notion derived from this experiment was that the brain appears to know when it is solving a problem correctly (identified by the neural network for successful problem solving on the task) even when the individual does not. Participants in this experiment were not given any feedback on their performance. Indeed, the cerebellum has been shown to facilitate decision making under uncertain conditions (Blackwood et al., 2004). This hints at a balance required for cognitive processing between imposing an internal model or pattern on new information and knowing when to allow new information to reshape the model. Perhaps giftedness is a particular biological adaptation based on the brain’s implicit sense of when to organize according to each rule. Neurologist and scientist
Vilayanur Ramachandran (Ramachandran et al., 1991; Ramachandran & Rogers-Ramachandran, 1996; Ramachandran, 2005) studies neural plasticity related to phantom limb syndrome, sensations that persist when one loses a limb to amputation. In his work, patients who have lost an arm to amputation place their existing arm in a mirror box, tricking their brain into thinking that they have two arms (Ramachandran and RogersRamachandran, 1996; Ramachandran, 2005). He documents a number of diverse reactions in his patients that range from perceiving new feeling in the phantom limb to emotional release as phantom pain is relieved. Based on his work, he poses two reasons for a paradigm shift in the field of neurorehabilitation (2005). First, the adult brain holds a tremendous amount of nascent potential based on this plasticity. Second, the brain should be thought of as a set of interacting networks that maintain homeostasis through dynamic interaction with the environment instead of as a hierarchy of processes that combine to create higher level cognitive function. How, then, does this insight bear on the idea that state of mind is as important to giftedness as superlative cognitive processing? Another finding emerged from the experiment by Kalbfleisch and colleagues (2006, 2007) that speaks to this idea. The subcallosal gyrus (BA25) in the orbitofrontal cortex was identified in association with the interaction between task difficulty and task correctness (Fig. 12.1). Several imaging experiments explain that the subcallosal gyrus is involved in decision making and reinforcement under conditions of uncertainty that resolve in a positive outcome (Elliott, Frith, & Dolan,
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1997, Kilts et al., 2001, Paulus, Hozack, Frank, & Brown, 2002, Rogers et al., 2004) and ‘hot’ or emotional reasoning (Goel and Dolan, 2003). In this study, that positive outcome was getting the difficult reasoning problem correct under deadline pressure. This finding extends our thinking about the cognition of expert performance from stress management to uncertainty management. Indeed, some of the traits of giftedness and certainly of creativity are the ability to tolerate intellectual ambiguity, take risks, and remain persistent in the face of difficulty. The compelling suggestion from this experiment is that the brain has an internal detection mechanism for managing uncertainty and determining success in the absence of overt external feedback. Furthermore, this is a system supported by the orbitofrontal cortex separated from the classically defined amygdala-driven, limbic stress response system (Davidson, 2002). Even when we are uncertain on a conscious level about our performance, the brain has an internal monitoring system that knows when it is getting it right. This may represent the neural system that supports the ‘expert sense’ or tacit knowledge observed in giftedness and illustrates that the brain has alternative systems for managing uncertainty that can enhance cognitive processing. Understanding the cognitive and neural routes which support states of mind during information processing in the gifted is necessary to fully characterize the trajectories that lead to this specialized demonstration of expertise. The psychological literature refers to ‘tacit knowledge’ to describe the condition when someone has a natural feel for a domain or a skill. It is associated with practical intelligence, the ability to use knowledge or skill in circumstantially appropriate ways, or fluid intelligence, the ability to solve unique problems and use knowledge in novel situations (Wagner, 2000). In his seminal work, The Savage Man, Claude Levi-Strauss (1966) defined the concept of ‘bricolage’ to describe odd jobs. Berry and Irvine (1986) adapted this idea to individuals who are capable of completing a task with whatever resources are available to them (they assess and then improvise) and called them ‘bricoleurs.’ Some individuals are ‘bricoleurs’ and others possess a ‘tacit knowledge’ that makes them more comfortable with specific abilities and more certain in some environments. A beginner/novice may experience a learning environment through an emotional lens (governed by a stress response), while an expert (someone who trained and/or has a tacit knowledge for the domain) processes
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it in a higher cognitive context where he or she is able to evaluate task logistics and surroundings more logically (managing uncertainty and staying open and flexible) in a state which can be likened to the ‘flow’ of creative production (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). Perhaps, cognitive processes supported by the orbitofrontal cortex underlie this ‘tacitness?’ In other words, having enriched frontal neural circuitry may be a necessary condition for the expression of giftedness but not a sufficient one. Related to this possibility, giftedness may be characterized by this tacit confidence enabled by a neural plasticity of cognitive systems supported by both motor systems (cerebellar and striatal) in the brain and a reward system which, via the subcallosal gyrus (BA25), nourishes the frontal cortex during uncertainty. The historical literatures established by scholars such as Piechowski (1979) and Dabrowski (1979) use the term ‘excitabilities’ to characterize the heightened sensitivity experienced by the gifted in sensory, perceptual, and emotional realms. These excitabilities (described under the categories of psychomotor, sensual, intellectual, imaginational, and emotional), in turn, influence state of mind. This is where the plasticity of giftedness resides. The manifestation of the neural plasticity of giftedness is a multi-faceted interaction between cognitive systems that are in some combination enhanced by genetics, shaped by experience, and sometimes strengthened by a focal disability; and the state of mind that allows the person to demonstrate their potential. For example, would not state of mind be the difference, between obsessive, unproductive fixation, and genius? State of mind is also an aspect of plasticity impacted by developmental disabilities. Developmental disabilities are as much disturbances of state of mind (for example, the internal perseveration of autism, the heightened perception of external sensory stimuli present in attention deficit disorders) as they are of certain aspects of cognitive processing. Cerebellar dysfunction related to fluid processing abilities has been described as a central characteristic of disorders such as autism (Ravizza & Ivry , 2001; Baron-Cohen, 2004; Courchesne, Redcay, Morgan, & Kennedy, 2005), schizophrenia (Andreasen et al., 1996; Rapoport, Van Reekum, & Mayberg, 2000), and attention deficit disorders (Berquin et al., 1998; Castellanos et al., 2002). As the study by Kalbfleisch and colleagues (2006, 2007) suggests, the construct of ‘state’ needs to be further explored and
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defined in the cognitive realm. Giftedness should be added to the ‘atypicality’ continuum and must also be explored and defined on the axes of cognitive processing and state of mind. The overarching goal of neuroscientific inquiries into giftedness is to more realistically characterize the intersections of cognition and motivation and the functional neural systems which modulate not only the overt cognitive performance but also the subtle performance states associated with fluid cognition. We already know these factors overlap, but we understand little about the edges and boundaries where these processes are optimally dynamic and ripe for inhibition, intervention, or enhancement. Thus, the remaining questions are not only what are the neural systems that support giftedness, but in what state do they occur and how are they related? It is these systems that I hypothesize universally support the state of mind and the mental dexterity underlying giftedness in its many forms.
Creative Giftedness Creativity is a boundary condition. Sometimes physicists and geologists refer to a boundary condition in the context of something called a phase transition zone. A phase transition zone is a space where the matter contained within it is malleable, adaptable, and changeable; a dynamical system. Many have described the brain as a dynamical system (Singer, 1995). An act of creativity is like this or like the paradox of the second law of thermodynamics which implies that everything is heading toward disorder and entropy. Creativity is the disintegration of a known structure that retains the useful content of that structure and permits new input which, in turn, resolves the structure into something new. It reaches its own point of criticality, when something will collapse and re-organize as a part of the homeostasis of the condition itself, like an avalanche or like the Sand Pile Problem in Michael Waldrop’s book Complexity (1992), in which a sand pile in an hourglass is self-organizing as it experiences iterations of small collapses to keep its form. Thus, creativity is a boundary condition because it is that state of criticality where the balance is tipped toward the formation of something new and consequential. It is also a boundary condition because (1) there are cognitive processes and divergent thinking strategies that
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scholars have attempted to capture psychometrically (Torrance, 1966), and then (2) there are processes of memory consolidation that occur during sleep to make room for insight and transformation to emerge from the complexities caused by shifts in cognitive processing that occur during REM sleep and dreaming (Hobson & Pace-Schott, 2002; Peigneux et al., 2003; Kalbfleisch, 2004; Fischer et al., 2006). In this way, sleep may factor largely into the neural plasticity of creativity. E.L. Doctorow’s book, Creationists: Selected Essays: 1993–2006 (2006), begins with the following statement about creativity: This gathering of essays is a modest celebration of the creative act. It acknowledges composition as the reigning enterprise of the human mind; it affirms that we know by what we create . . . A novel or a play has its origins in the peculiar excitements of the writer’s mind. These are powerfully felt, even inspired, responses to what may be the faintest or most fleeting stimuli – an image, the sound of a voice, a kind of light, a word or phrase, a bar of music. Or there may be an idea for which the writer has a strong sense of recognition, so strong that it becomes his to deal with as his domain . . . Of course, not all – in fact very few – of the writer’s states of arousal are resolved as finished works . . . (p. ix).
Doctorow observes that creativity is both a process (which may or not resolve into something the world recognizes as big C creative) and a product. What he terms ‘states of arousal,’ Piechowski and Dabrowski would call excitabilities, and are what I mean by boundary conditions. A fundamental component (another necessary but not sufficient) of creative achievement is intrinsic motivation. Motivation is a state of biological relevancy. When an individual is interested in learning or performing something new, he or she feels a desire, an excitement, and a surge of energy toward that goal. This surge of energy and excitement is often accompanied by an increase in heart rate, a person may be flushed, and he or she may sweat or tingle at the thought of starting the endeavor. These physical sensations result from the release of adrenalin and dopamine. Adrenalin, an excitatory chemical in the brain, prepares the body for performance. Dopamine, an inhibitory chemical in the brain, accomplishes two things. First, it dampens extraneous environmental stimuli bombarding the brain and allows the person to focus on the desired goal at hand. Second, it bathes a portion of the limbic system called the nucleus accumbens. The nucleus accumbens facilitates the
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brain’s response to reward (Pennartz, Groenewegen, & DaSilva, 1994). These neural systems emerge over the course of adolescent development (Graber, & Petersen, 1991; Geidd et al., 1999; Thompson et al., 2000; Giedd et al., 2006). Dopamine pathways also connect the subcallosal gyrus (BA25) to the limbic system serving as a way station for the interaction of emotion and cognition that supports cognitive function under uncertain or ambiguous (like incubation) conditions (Rogers et al., 1999). In this way, emotions drive performance. They help produce a physical state in the body that makes it easier to perform when there is something that is subjectively relevant to the person. Arousal (Martindale, Anderson, Moore, & West, 1996), ‘flow’, and ‘excitability’ are important to the exercise of creativity. A heightened state of arousal and ‘flow’ is often reported as a positive consequence of mania in the discussion of the relationship between manic depression and creativity (Jamison, Gerner, Hammen, & Padesky, 1980; Jamison, 1985). Highly creative individuals have greater access to both hemispheres of the brain during certain types of mental production (Carlsson, Wendt, & Risberg, 2000), suggesting that ‘flow’ is due, in part, to enhanced accessibility of brain networks during creative production. An fMRI study of mental rotation abilities in mathematically precocious adolescents also revealed enhanced bilateral activity in frontal and parietal cortices, lending further support for this idea (O’Boyle et al., 2005). In the nonverbal fluid reasoning study by Kalbfleisch and colleagues (2006), participants’ Wechsler Full Scale IQ scores correlated with their scores on the psychometric version of the NNAT but did not correlate with their performance on the fMRI task, demonstrating a dissociation between psychometrically measured ability and behavioral performance. In his book, On Knowing: Essays for the Left Hand, Jerome Bruner (1979) says that the creative process is a result of the ‘conversion of impulse.’ His language is a beautiful metaphor for what happens in the creative moment – how intuition becomes action, action performance, and performance transcendent. The human capacity for creativity, insight, and innovation demonstrates the loosely fixed, dynamical complexity of the brain. The creative process is the system’s ability to add fresh structure to whatever is emerging in the moment. Work such as Vandervert’s and Liu’s presented in this volume has exciting potential
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to advance our understanding of how our bodies and minds spur creativity. Creativity is a novel response to a problem or a need or a transformation of the known to fit the novel (Feldman in sternberg (Ed.), 1999). Feldman discusses creativity as a universal, a point where someone performs beyond learning and convention and, also, the role of dreams in realizing a creative idea (1994). Creativity is the result of a specialized deployment of fluid ability during both effortful and implicit thought, occurring while awake, facilitated by sleep.
Domain-Specific Ability, Twice Exceptionality, and Giftedness Thus far, this chapter has advocated for a general theory of giftedness based on neural plasticity related to fluid cognition (based on evidence from studies of nonverbal reasoning, mental rotation, and creativity). But, there are specific instances when giftedness is concomitant with a diagnosed learning disorder such as dyslexia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or asperger’s syndrome (Kalbfleisch and Iguchi, 2007; Kalbfleisch and Banasiak, 2007; Lupart et al., this volume). Some of the consequences of this ‘twice exceptionality’ are cognitive strengths observed in domain-specific contexts (Whitmore, 1980; Whitmore & Maker, 1985). Sometimes these individuals are referred to as ‘paradoxical learners’ (Tannenbaum & Baldwin, 1983) because they fail at basic processes or tasks, but excel at more complex intellectual levels. Ramachandran, who studies phantom limb, also studies a phenomenon called ‘synesthesia.’ Synesthesia is another type of plasticity linked to more specific cognitive processes which yield specific cognitive strengths (Ramachandran & Hubbard, 2001). The omnipresent online encyclopedia Wikipedia catalogues the different types of synesthesia (grapheme > color; music > color, number form; personification; lexical > gustatory) and defines synesthesia as: . . . a neurological condition in which two or more bodily senses are coupled. In the most common form of synesthesia, known as grapheme → color synesthesia, letters or numbers are perceived as inherently colored, while in ordinal linguistic personification, numbers, days of the week and months of the year evoke personalities. In spatial-sequence, or number form synesthesia, numbers, months of the year, and/or
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The Neural Plasticity of Giftedness days of the week elicit precise locations in space. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia#Associated cognitive traits).
Negative aspects of synesthesia involve reported difficulties with writing and mathematics. Synesthetes are also reported to be extremely sensitive to external stimuli (Cytowic, 2002) – again, a nod toward plasticity linked to ‘excitability.’ Positive aspects of synesthesia involve superior memory (Smilek, Dixon, Cudahy, & Merikle, 2002) and high creativity (Rich, Bradshaw, & Mattingley, 2005). While there is high variability in this population (Hubbard & Ramachandran, 2005), despite individual differences, the extraordinary sensory capabilities of synesthetes is a superlative example of twice exceptionality and the potential which lies in this type of brain. This and other examples such as a savant’s extraordinary calculation abilities in mathematics or facility for instrumental music hint that there are distinct aspects of cognition that can be positively influenced by something that is medically characterized as a disorder (Heaton & Wallace, 2004). There is also now biological precedent for enhanced visual spatial ability in dyslexia. A study of a large family with superior IQ levels and developmental dyslexia has resulted in the detection of a specific structural change in the parietal operculum, an area of the brain known to support visual and spatial function (Craggs et al., 2006). Specifically, the planum temporale, a sulcus, or fissure, along the parietal neocortex is significantly altered in these family members who demonstrate superior visual and spatial abilities (Eikhoff, Amunts, et al., 2006; Eikhoff, Schleicher, et al., 2006). Examination of Einstein’s brain reveals similar alterations (Witelson, Kigar, & Harvey, 1999). Consequentially, these atypicalities in the morphology of visual and parietal cortex may lead to enhanced support for visual and spatial functions subserved by these areas of the brain. While the idea for enhanced visual spatial processing in dyslexia has been previously suggested (Winner, 2001; Winner et al., 2001), this is the first direct neurological evidence to lend empirical support for those observations. Similarly, in relation to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), there are observations that heightened perception to external stimuli caused by ADHD are the basis for enhanced divergent thinking capabilities in this population. There is limited but promising evidence of this from an EEG study
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performed in boys who were both gifted and ADHD, but the precedent is still ripe for deeper investigation (Kaufman et al., 2000). One fMRI study shows evidence of alterations in areas of temporal and parietal cortex in ADHD (Vaidya et al., 2005). The authors submit that these areas are compensatory, assisting the ADHD brain with processes typically subserved by frontal–striatal systems. Additionally, in some studies, ADHD children have preferentially activated right inferior parietal cortex (Rubia et al., 1999; Durston et al., 2003) corresponding to evidence of increased gray matter in ADHD children (Sowell et al., 2003). Taken together, these data suggest that posterior areas of the brain are maturationally or functionally altered in ADHD. In the case of twice exceptionality, this may result in a bias toward positive cognitive function and intellectual strength. An fMRI study of visual spatial processing in children with autism revealed that function in parietal cortex was preserved in spite of compromised function in frontal areas of the brain (Silk et al., 2006). Results were less robust in their fMRI study of ADHD, but still showed a trend toward the engagement of posterior areas (Silk et al., 2005). A review of the functions of posterior and visual areas in autism also suggests a model of enhanced perceptual processing that may underlie the special abilities of savants and those with Asperger’s syndrome (Mottron, Dawson, Soulieres, Hubert, & Burack, 2006). A PET imaging study performed by Haier and colleagues (2003) found altered patterns of activity in posterior visual and parietal brain areas in people with high IQ’s (BA19 and 37) even when they were engaged in simpler, more passive intellectual tasks (i.e., video watching). This lends further support for the idea posed here that enhanced sensory capabilities in posterior areas of the brain may give rise to twice exceptional abilities when the disability resides in a person with a psychometrically measured high IQ. Summarily, in cases of twice exceptionality, future studies of brain maturation may reveal specialized developmental trajectories that give rise to these disabilities, but that also, consequentially, result in focal neuro-cognitive strengths. Eventually, these atypicalities will be as well documented as synesthesia, giving rise to information about plasticity in twice exceptional individuals that we now only observe on a behavioral level.
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Conclusion The development of Theory of Mind, a child’s ability to distinguish himself and his own beliefs and desires from those of others, relates to children’s ability to deceive (Talwar and Lee, 2002a 2002b; Wilson, Smith, & Ross, 2003). For example, first-order beliefs (beliefs that are different from the actual event, the denial of information or a simple lie) and second-order beliefs (knowledge of what information should be withheld in order to deceive) are necessary precursors to a child’s ability to deceive. Some children 3 years of age and most children 4 years of age are capable of firstorder beliefs, while the ability to hold second-order beliefs typically develops around 6 or 7 years of age. In one study, children between the ages of 3 and 7 were placed in staged scenarios of lying (Talwar and Lee, 2002a, 2002b). When na¨ıve parent observers watched the tapes of these scenarios play out, they were unable to detect deception from the nonverbal behavior of the children. It was only when they heard the verbal interactions that they were able to discern clues about who was lying. Saxe, Carey, and Kanwisher, (2004) put forth evidence to support the existence of a specific system for Theory of Mind which is distinct from other systems that support attentional control and syntactic processes associated with language. They argue that systems which help one reason about goals and actions are separate from a system for representing belief attributions. Further, these systems develop early in childhood. Around the ages of 3 or 4, children begin to use beliefs to explain actions. As they explain in their review, the false belief task (Wimmer & Perner, 1983) is a standard way to test this ability in children. During the task, children are told a story where the character’s belief about the location of a target becomes false when the object is moved out of place without the character’s knowledge. To elaborate: In Wimmer and Perner’s original version, Maxi’s mother moves the chocolate from the green to the blue cupboard while Maxi is outside playing. The children are then variously asked to report the content of the character’s belief (Where does Maxi think the chocolate is?), to predict the character’s action (Where will Maxi look for the chocolate?), or sometimes to explain the complete action (Why did Maxi look for the chocolate in the green cupboard?). The critical feature of the false belief task is that the correct answers to all three of these questions – even the ones that do not specifically query a belief content –
M.L. Kalbfleisch require the child to pay attention to Maxi’s belief, and not to the actual location of the chocolate. (Saxe et al., 2004, p. 30).
The compelling issue goes beyond the fact that this ability emerges at such as young age. What does this kind of success indicate? Two possibilities that are currently debated are (1) that children undergo a significant change that permits this kind of conceptualization to occur, or (2) that this ability is already intact, but masked by immaturities in sensory (inhibitory control) and language (syntactical) systems. Saxe and colleagues argue the first premise. Other scholars suggest that this is only one way of examining belief and that it cannot completely characterize the concept of belief. For example, Bartsch and Wellman (1995) investigated children’s spontaneous talk about beliefs (when sentences incorporate ‘think’ and ‘know’ that highlight differences between individuals, or truth and fiction) and found that these references appear about 6 months earlier than when children tend to explain actions in terms of beliefs. Why bring up abilities related to belief attribution in children in a chapter discussing the neuroscience of giftedness? Because children who are gifted display these traits, other cognitive skills, and emotional range (cognitive control, capability for deception, ability to strategize and perform meta-cognition) at much earlier ages than their intellectually average peers. Gifted children do not fit the developmental molds that account for what children can do, how they do it, and when. Short of observation and determination of IQ (where measures to adequately characterize high function fall short), we lack ways of normatively characterizing their idiosyncrasies – seemingly an oxymoron. In a previous publication (Kalbfleisch, 2004), I pose the idea that research with gifted children might be a way to further explore the Somatic Marker hypothesis (SM) in people free from disease and injury (Damasio, 1996). Not all gifted children experience problematic dissociation between their emotional development and their cognitive development, but the topic has received treatment in the gifted literature (CathelineAntipoff, & Poinso, 1994; Winner, 2001). More recent work has explored and challenged the validity of the SM hypothesis (Suzki, Hirota, Takasawa, & Shigemasu, 2003; Maia, & McClelland, 2004; Garon and Moore, 2004; Overman, 2004; Bechara, Damasio, Tranel, & Damasio, , 2005; Dunn, Dalgleish, & Lawrence, 2006). Some studies have documented sex
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differences in how the task is performed (Overman, 2004; Garon and Moore, 2004) and offered alternative but competing explanations for decision making on the Iowa Gambling Task, the task at the base of SM (Suzki et al., 2003; Maia & McClelland). Rigorous exploration of this paradigm turns rich ground for exploring emotional influences on higher level cognition in gifted populations. There is a paucity of research on highly gifted children as a group on many levels ranging from epidemiological, to developmental, to neuroscientific. In general and in cases of twice exceptionality, they are the other end of ‘atypical’ from medical characterizations of developmental disabilities that impact cognitive and neurological function. It is a good time to round out the continuum to include knowledge about the human condition in ways that reflect not only disability, but also ability, and the relationship between the two. This chapter attempted to address three questions: (1) what contribution does state of mind make to acquiring and demonstrating giftedness? (2) what role does stress play in acquiring and demonstrating giftedness, and (3) what are the contributions of sensory, perceptual, and motivational processes to higher level cognition and states of mind? I have argued that the neural plasticity of giftedness encompasses both processes of the brain and states of mind. This view is expanded from evidence of existing types of neural plasticity such as pediatric hemispherectomy, phantom limb, fluid reasoning, synesthesia, the Somatic Marker hypothesis, and belief-attribution in children. The ability to proceed in the endeavor to define the neural plasticity of giftedness requires that we begin to view this work as transdisciplinary and not just interdisciplinary. What do I mean by this? Indulge one final story to make my point. Hideaki Koizumi is a gifted scientist and visionary (Igawa et al., 2001; Yamashita, Maki, & Koizumi, 2001; Taga, Asakawa, Maki, Konishi, & Koizumi, 2003; Sato et al., 2006). He published one of the world’s earliest papers on near-infrared spectroscopic imaging (NIRSI), another non-invasive method for physiologically measuring cognitive activity in the brain from the top of the scalp (Maki et al., 1995). He holds multiple patents and additional research interests that range from cognitive development in infants and children to human spirituality. To that end, he has had audiences with Pope John Paul II and the Dalai Lama. I met Dr. Koizumi at a meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark during the winter of 2006 where he
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presented data from Japanese scientists demonstrating task-specific brain activation in a comatose patient. This patient was hooked up to a NIRSI instrument and was asked to try to move his fingers. In response, the appropriate areas of the premotor cortex activated. The patient was asked to try to speak and to imagine a story. In response, appropriate temporal areas of the brain activated. The implications of this demonstration could alter how medicine defines consciousness, let alone modern science, and hints that human brain function operates on a scale where we have only barely scratched the surface. In turn, contemporary methods of neuroscience are now becoming sophisticated enough to detect and characterize the metabolism and energetics of the brain with more certainty, enhancing our ability to capture dynamic states of the brain on chemical as well as physiological and electrical levels (Shulman, Rothman, Behar, & Hyder, 2004). In a short essay in the journal Endocrinology Letters, Koizumi distinguishes between interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary inquiry (2001). The key difference between the two is that in the first instance, multiple fields collaborate and combine their efforts to address an area of interest. In the second instance, two or more fields combine in such a way that a new field emerges. Just as Ramachandran appeals for a paradigm shift in the field of neurorehabilitation, one is needed also to guide the inquiry of questions related to the fundamentals of human potential and greatness. Contemporary and futuristic research must become transdisciplinary in order to fully characterize ‘atypicality’ and discern the types of neural plasticity underlying giftedness.
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293 Witelson, S. F., Kigar, D.L., & Harvey, T. (1999). The exceptional brain of Albert Einstein. The Lancet, 353, 2149–2153. Wright, I. C., Sham, P., Murray, R. M., Weinberger, D. R., & Bullmore, E. T. (2002). Genetic contributions to regional variability in human brain structure: Methods and preliminary results. NeuroImage, 17(1), 256–271. Yamashita, Y., Maki, A., & Koizumi, H. (2001). Wavelength dependence of the precision of noninvasive optical measurement of oxy-, deoxy-, and total-hemoglobin concentration. Medical Physics, 28(6), 1108–1114.
Chapter 13
Working Memory, the Cognitive Functions of the Cerebellum and the Child Prodigy Larry R. Vandervert
Abstract During the past 20 years the study of cognitive functions of the cerebellum has become an indispensable part of the neurosciences. In the vein of this growing body of research, Vandervert and Vandervert, Schimpf and Liu proposed that working memory and the adaptive functions of the cerebellum collaborate to produce high intellectual achievements in discovery and innovation. The present chapter extends this framework to a new explanation of the fundamental dynamic of the child prodigy, what Winner refers to as the “rage to master.” It is argued that the extraordinary achievements of child prodigies are the result of domain-specific high-attentional control learned beginning in infancy and constantly modulated between the prefrontal cortex and the cognitive-modeling functions of the cerebellum. It is concluded that this highattentional control in child prodigies accelerates the production of high intellectual processes in a spontaneous version of deliberate practice as espoused by Ericsson and his colleagues.
necting the cerebral cortex and the cerebellum) contribute to the skillful manipulation of ideas: It has often been remarked that an explanation is required for the threefold to fourfold increase in the size of the cerebellum that occurred in the last million years of evolution (Washburn & Harding, 1970). If the selection pressure has been strong for more cerebellum in the human brain as well as for more cerebral cortex, the interaction between the cerebellum and the cerebral cortex should provide some important advantages to humans. Because the cerebellum is traditionally regarded as a motor mechanism (Holmes, 1939), these cerebrocerebellar interactions are usually thought to confer [only] a motor benefit on humans, such as increased dexterity of the hand (Tilney, 1928). But...a detailed examination of cerebellar circuitry suggests that its phylogenetically newest parts may serve as a fast information-processing adjunct of the association cortex and could assist this cortex in the performance of a variety of manipulative skills, including the skill that is characteristic of anthropoid apes and humans, the skillful manipulation of ideas. (p. 444)
Since this quote was written, the study of the cognitive functions of the cerebellum has become a large and indispensable part of the cognitive neurosciences Keywords Attentional control · Cerebellum · Child (Ackermann, Mathiak & Ivry, 2004; Blackwood prodigies · Deliberate practice · MOSAIC · Long-term et al., 2004; Cabeza & Nyberg, 2000; Chein, Ravizza working memory · Mental models · Working memory & Fiez, 2003; Desmond & Fiez, 1998; Imamizu, Higuchi, Toda & Kawato, 2007; Ito, 1993, 1997, 2005; Kelly & Strick, 2003; Leiner, Leiner & Dow, 1989; Middleton & Strick, 2001; Ramnani, 2006; SchmahIntroduction mann, 1997, 2004; Thach, 1996). Vandervert (2003a, 2003b) sketched a preliminary Two decades have passed since Leiner, Leiner and theory of how creativity and innovation arise through Dow (1986) proposed that the phygenetically newest the collaboration of working memory and the cognitive cerebro-cerebellar loops (looping neural pathways con- functions of the cerebellum. Vandervert’s working memory/cerebellar theory of creativity was more recently elaborated along with commentaries in VanL.R. Vandervert (B) American Nonlinear Systems, Spokane WA, USA dervert, Schimpf and Liu (2007a; 2007b). The overe-mail:
[email protected] arching premise of the working memory/cerebellar L.V. Shavinina (ed.), International Handbook on Giftedness, c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-6162-2 13,
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theory of creativity and innovation is, as Leiner et al. (1986, 1989) suggested that just as the cerebellum adaptively improves the execution of physical acts that are repeated, the cerebellum also adaptively improves the execution of thought processes that are repeated in the recursive loops of working memory: The hypothesis states that in the human brain the newest cerebrocerebellar loops could contribute to skilled mental performance in much the same way that the older loops contribute to skilled motor performance. In both cases, when incoming data are processed repeatedly (italics added) in these neural loops, it becomes possible for the cerebellum to learn new programs for carrying out skilled activities. (Leiner et al., 1986, p. 443)
This initial, early idea proposed by Leiner et al. (only a hypothesis at the time) was soon corroborated and greatly elaborated, especially as to the mechanisms behind the adaptive “skilled manipulation of information and ideas” (e.g., Imamizu et al., 2007; Ito, 1997; Schmahmann, 1997,2004). In a nutshell, Vandervert (2003b) and Vandervert et al. (2007a) proposed the following research and theoretical framework: (a) High intellectual productivity (including creativity and innovation) is the result of the continuously repetitive processes of working memory (central executive, visuo-spatial sketchpad, speech loop; Baddeley, 1992; Baddeley & Logie, 1999; Cowan, 1999) that are learned in the form of adaptive cognitive control and modulation models in the cerebellum (e.g., Ito, 1997). (b) These adaptive cerebellar models (Ito, 1997; 2005) consist of multiple-paired predictor (forward) and controller models within the MOdular Selection and Identification for Control (MOSAIC) and hierarchical MOSAIC (HMOSAIC) cerebellar architectures1 that explore, test, and adapt to problem-solving requirements (Haruno, Wolpert, & Kawato, 1999, 2001; Imamizu et al., 2007; Wolpert, Doya, & Kawato, 2003). (c) When resulting, newly formed, more abstractive predictor/controller models are subsequently fed 1 The acronyms “MOSAIC” and “HMOSAIC” have the same origins among scientists studying the cerebellum and may be thought of as interchangeable for the purposes of this chapter. The “H,” standing for “hierarchical,” was added at a later date to indicate that the MOSAIC structure is arranged in layers of abstraction learned over time.
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forward to the cerebral cortex to more efficiently modulate the operations of working memory, they are blended with existing cortical strategies (Imamizu et al., 2007) and thereby lead to new conceptions and new problem-solving tactics. All of the above-cited lines of research will be reviewed briefly below. Before moving on, it should be noted that while one might imply from the foregoing introduction that a creativity theory of the child prodigy phenomenon is presented, this is not the case. The tremendous volume of newer research on the cognitive and affective functions of the cerebellum, some of which is cited above, is so broad as to indicate that everyday cognition, creativity (including both Winner’s (1996) little-c and big C creativities), crystallized and fluid intelligence, learning, long-term memory, language, and much of personality, for example, are all governed and modulated to various degrees by aspects of the reciprocal collaboration of working memory and the cognitive/affective functions of the cerebellum. (Schmahmann (2004) is succinctly instructive in regard to affective functions.) In this chapter, Vandervert’s (2003a, 2003b) theory of the modeling capacities of working memory and the adaptive influence of the cerebellum are applied directly to a theory of the extraordinarily skilled manipulation of information and ideas by child prodigies in its own right.
Purpose The purpose of this chapter is to extend Vandervert’s (Vandervert, 2003b; Vandervert et al., 2007a) working memory/cerebellar creativity theory to an explanation of the fundamental dynamic characteristic of child prodigies, what Winner (1996) called the “rage to master”: Gifted children are intrinsically motivated to make sense of the domain in which they show precocity. They exhibit an intense and obsessive interest, an ability to focus sharply [italics added], and what I have come to call a rage to master. They experience states of “flow” [italics added] when they are engaged in learning in their domain – optimal states in which they focus intently [italic added] and lose sense of the outside world. (pp. 3–4)
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Fig. 13.1 Flattened view of cerebellar surface illustrating that the anterior lobe and intermediate parts of the posterior lobe are related to “motor and somatosensory functions,” whereas the lateral posterior cerebellum is related to “cognitive functions.” To orient properly to the anterior/posterior axis of the flattened view, the viewer should keep in mind that anterior/posterior refers to what is actually a substantially convex cerebellar surface (see smaller drawing to left). Arrows at (a) indicate difference between “motor” (note modularity of somatotopic maps at top and
bottom) and “cognition” found in previous neuroimaging studies. Arrows at (b) indicate modularity within the lateral posterior cerebellum for two different cognitive functions. In lower right corner note that right hand movements activate ipsilateral right hemisphere of cerebellum. In the cerebral cortex motor control is contralateral. Note. Imamizu et al. (2003). Copyright 2003 by Hiroshi Imamizu. Reprinted with Permission
The overall theoretical premise of this chapter is that (a) Winner’s description of the prodigy’s rage to master fits, precisely, high cerebellar forward control of attention (Akshoomoff, Courchesne & Townsend, 1997) in working memory, (b) this high level of forward control of attention had been modularized toward a specific domain through learning early infancy in the posteriorlateral cerebellum, see Fig. 13.1 (Imamizu, Kuroda, Miyauchi, Yoshioka, & Kawato, 2003), and (c) within the high-attentional frameworks of a and b, the high productivity of the prodigy is effected by a spontaneous deliberate practice (Vandervert, 2007) which is mediated by the accelerated blending of already-learned mental models of the cerebral cortex and forward models of the cerebellum (Vandervert, 2008). Since certain juxtapositions of research topics presented in this chapter may be new to readers, it will be helpful to first review pertinent specifics of working memory, the cognitive functions of the cerebellum and their connections with the prefrontal cortex, and related ideas from the area of conceptual development in early infancy proposed by Mandler (1988, 1992a, 1992b, 2004). Following these discussions a more detailed theoretical position, which will be referred to as “The Child Prodigy Hypothesis,” will be provided. Finally, this more detailed position will be examined via the analysis of pertinent case
reports. We now turn to a brief review of the major research areas involved.
Working Memory: The Ongoing Stream of Cognitive Consciousness Working memory consists of a collection of cognitive functions that is engaged whenever we are doing what most people would call “thinking” – that is, whenever we are carrying out both simple and complex everyday cognitive tasks. When, for example, we read an chapter in the newspaper (or a scientific journal), mentally rearrange the furniture in our living room to make room for a new sofa, compare and contrast the attributes of several new cars before making a purchase, give directions to our home, or even make change at the grocery store, we are using working memory (Miyake & Shah, 1999, Chapter 1). Working memory is also at “work” in the high-level performances of experts in all fields (mathematical calculators, chess and music masters, on-the-feet thinking of seasoned university professors, and so on) (Ericsson & Kintsch, 1995; Ericsson, 2003a). Because working memory in such experts involves a good deal of readily accessible long-term memory material that has
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been acquired over many years of study and practice, Ericsson and Kintsch (1995) refer to their approach to working memory as long-term working memory.2 We will have occasion to return to Ericsson’s work later in this chapter. Of course, Vandervert (2003a,2003b) proposed that the naturally repetitious processes or working memory lead, through collaboration with the cerebellum, to creativity. Another interesting, but not often mentioned, example of working memory occurs whenever a person responds to items in a psychological test of, for example, personality, creativity, or, of course, intelligence (including tests of fluid intelligence).
L.R. Vandervert Working memory refers to cognitive processes that retain information in an unusually accessible state [italics added], suitable for carrying out any task with a mental component. The task may be language comprehension or production, problem solving, decision making, or other thought. (Cowan, 1999, p.62)
The key to understanding the cognitive processes of working memory is that they have the purpose of bringing forth and retaining information from memory stores (both short-term and long-term memory) within a mentally graspable range during thought. Nearly all working-memory theorists agree that the working-memory components that accomplish this information selection and maintenance task include a central executive function (attentional control) and two repetitive (refreshing) slave functions: a visuospaWorking Memory Consists of Repetitive tial sketchpad and a speech loop (Baddeley, 1992; Baddeley & Logie, 1999; Cowan, 1999). Mental Processes To illustrate the dynamic operation of these three components of working memory any of the everyday Cowan (1999) provided the following definition of examples cited earlier could be used – all require the working memory; this definition is in close general various kinds of thinking mentioned above in Cowan’s agreement with definitions provided by most other definition of working memory. The example of readleading working-memory theorists (see Miyake & ing a newspaper will be used. First, attentional control 3 Shah, 1999, pp. 450–452) : in reading and thinking about various newspaper chapters is carried on by working memory’s central execu2 It is important to note that Ericsson and his colleagues found tive functions. Attentional functions of the central exthat experts and exceptional performers deliberately avoid ex- ecutive supervise, schedule, and integrate information clusive automaticity, or preprogrammed skill patterns in their from different memory sources. In order to accomplish abilities by engaging in problem solving about how to constantly improve their skills at each level of mastery (Erics- this supervision, the central executive controls anticson, 2002, 2003a). In fact, quite to the contrary to reliance exclu- ipatory attention shifting and attention orienting in a sively on automaticity, Ericsson (2002, 2003a, 2003b) has shown rapid, sequenced manner as the newspaper is read. The how deliberate practice (defined as practice aimed toward convisuospatial sketchpad and the speech loop are, respecstantly elevated levels of performance) leads to the development of high-level skills in both responding to novel situations and tively, manipulation and rehearsal processes for retainmanufacturing novel behavior. This deliberate practice of con- ing appropriate visuospatial images and speech inforstantly new levels of problem solving behavior, like all other mation that are needed (have been brought under attenregularly practiced routines, is itself (as a patterned regime of tional control) for the online comprehension, decision behavior) apparently made constantly more efficient through the collaboration of working memory and the cerebellum. That is, making, and thinking about the contents of the various deliberate practice is itself a mental model which is modeled newspaper chapters. To maintain information in a conadaptively in the cerebellum. Such increasing levels of problem solving are supported by the development of hierarchical levels in the HMOSAIC cerebellar architecture. 3 Miyake & Shah (1999) combined 10 definitions of working memory provided by leading theorists in the following allencompassing definition: Working memory is those mechanisms or processes that are involved in the control, regulation, and active maintenance of task-relevant information in the service of complex cognition, including novel as well as familiar, skilled tasks. It consists of a set of processes and mechanisms and is not a fixed “place” or “box” in the cognitive archi-
tecture. It is not a completely unitary system in the sense that it involves multiple representational codes and/or different subsystems. Its capacity limits reflect multiple factors and may even be an emergent property of multiple processes and mechanisms involved. Working memory is closely linked to LTM [long-term memory], and its contents consist primarily of currently activated LTM representations, but can also extend to LTM memory representations that are closely linked to activated retrieval cues and, hence, can be quickly activated. (p. 450)
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scious, “online” state so that these mental tasks can be completed, the central executive employs the visuospatial sketchpad and the speech loop in a continual process of repetitive manipulation, rehearsal, and updating of memory information that makes sense of what is being read. In sum, in order to maintain memory information in the “unusually accessible state” described above by Cowan and to constantly flow forward (in a patterned anticipatory manner) in the service of problem solving, decision making, and so forth, the three above components of working memory are constantly regenerated through active repetition. That is, central executive attention is constantly scanning, selecting, shifting, and orienting in a variety of learned patterns. Under this forward-flowing executive attentional supervision, the two slave components are constantly refreshing and updating (looping) visuospatial and linguistic information (Baddeley & Andrade, 2000). The cerebellum’s important adaptive involvement in all of these repetitive activities is indicated in neuroimaging studies (Cabeza & Nyberg, 2000; Chein et al., 2003).
The Cognitive Functions of the Cerebellum Due to the fact that much of the research on the cognitive functions of the cerebellum is not only relatively new, but particularly new to perhaps the typical reader of this journal, neuroscience jargon related to the study of the cerebellum will be kept to a minimum. Since cerebellum research pertinent to the purposes of this chapter tends to be spread over many sub-areas of theory and investigation, a more lengthy discussion than was the case with working memory will be necessary. There has been an attempt to organize the several necessary subsections on the cerebellum in a manner that will provide an overall view of the pertinent ideas.
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playing computer games, or playing basketball), a person soon becomes able to execute the required tasks more quickly and precisely, and in a myriad of novel ways. People in all walks of life rely on this fact. It is well established that, across the board, these adaptive increases in efficiency are the result of control routines that are learned in the cerebellum and subsequently fed back to control improved timing and sequencing of the operations of the movement-generating (motor) portions of the brain’s cerebral cortex (Bloedel, Dichgans & Precht, 1985; Ito, 1984a, 1997; Kornhuber, 1974; Thach, 1996). These increases in efficiency and adaptability, in part, also lead to automaticity of behavior (Ito, 1997, 2005; Leiner et al., 1986, 1989; Kihlstrom, 1987), in that, the more often the physical acts are repeated and the more skilled the movements become, the more automatically (unconsciously) they are executed. And, at the same time, the increases in efficiency and adaptability equally lead to the development of creative and innovative cerebellar control routines for the cerebral cortex – one may think of the unique signature moves that many professional athletes develop – moves that occasionally change the way the game is played or an Olympic sport is scored (Leiner et al., 1986, 1989). More will be said below in the section titled The Role of the Cerebellum in the Manipulation of Thought Via Mental Models: Conscious and Unconscious Control in Working Memory on how these two seemingly contrary control outcomes (automaticity and novelty) complement one another.
The Newer Conception of the Cerebellum Includes Cognitive Functions
In the past 20 years, understandings of the cerebellum have moved far beyond the earlier, more traditional idea that its functions are limited to motor control. A number of newer and converging lines of research and theory, especially those arising from neuroimaging studies, demonstrate that the cerebellum provides a fast computational system for the timing, sequencing, and modeling aimed at the rapid manipulation of The Traditional Role of the Cerebellum both motor and cognitive processes, including those of working memory (Ackermann et al., 2004; AkIt is a common experience that in the course of every- shoomoff et al., 1997; Blackwood et al., 2004; Cabeza day repetitive physical activities (for example, learning & Nyberg, 2000; Chein et al., 2003; Desmond & movement skills required in a new job, driving a car, Fiez, 1998; Doya, 1999; Haruno et al., 1999, 2001;
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Houk & Wise, 1995; Imamizu et al., 2007, 2003; Ito, 1993, 1997, 2005; Ivry, 1997; Leiner & Leiner, 1997; Leiner et al., 1986, 1989; Molinari, Petrosini, Misciagna & Leggio, 2004; Ramnani, 2006; Restuccia, Marca, Valeriani, Leggio, & Molinari, 2006; Schmahmann, 1997, 2004).4
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Klein et al., the cerebellum enlarged by an astonishing three to four times and that the cerebro-cerebellar system (the extensive hardwiring between the cerebral cortex and the cerebellum) became more elaborately and extensively interconnected. Central to the arguments of the present chapter, Leiner et al., as noted at the beginning of this chapter, also proposed that the cerebellum had, during this evolutionary time, become involved in the skilled manipulation of ideas. The The Evolution of Cognitive Functions skillful manipulation of ideas, of course, is precisely in the Cerebellum the job of the retrieval structure of working memory – the evolution of the huge capacity of human working It appears that both overall human memory and memory and the three- to fourfold increase in the working memory assumed much of their present sys- size of the cerebellum over the past million years are tems of components (including the central executive, undoubtedly closely related. In a follow-up chapteryears later, Leiner et al. (1989) visuospatial sketchpad, speech loop discussed above) extended their findings and arguments to include the during the past million years of hominid evolution (Baddeley, 1993; Baddeley & Andrade, 2000; Klein, skillful manipulation of language functions: Cosmides, Tooby & Chance, 2002). A decade and We conclude that the phylogenetically newest circuitry a half before Klein et al. proposed their somewhat in the human cerebro-cerebellar system enables the cerebellum to improve the speed and skill of cognitive and detailed explanation of the evolutionary selection of language performance [particularly circuitry connected the retrieval structure of memory, Leiner et al. (1986) with Brodmann areas 44 and 45, which constitute part speculated that the cerebellum contributed to such of Broca’s language area], in much the same way that mental skills. In their foundational publications on the the phylogenetically older circuitry enables the cerebellum to improve the speed and skill of motor performance. cognitive functions of the cerebellum, Leiner et al. (p. 999) pointed out that during the same million years cited by Leiner et al. (1986, 1989) also proposed that decisional and search skills (functions of the central 4 According to the computational scheme for mental modexecutive and the same memory control skills proposed els set for originally by Ito (2005) and extensively elaboby Klein et al., 2002) are learned in the cerebellum rated by Johnson-Laird (1983), thought processes construct predictive models that are imitative, small-scale computational through its extensive feedback loop connections with representations of the external world that retain the external the prefrontal areas of the brain. The ensuing 15 years world’s relation-structure. Mental models discussed throughout of human neuroimaging studies of the activities of this chapter are characterized by both Ito (1997, 2005) and Badthe cerebro-cerebellar system has born out Leiner deley & Andrade (2000) as the Johnson-Laird type. Craik described how the preserved relation structure of the model is com- et al.,’s (1986, 1989) preliminary evolutionary arguputationally parallel in its predictive ability to that which it imi- ments and evidence of extensive reciprocal feedback tates: modulation between the cerebellum on the one hand, and language and a variety of other mental skill areas A calculating machine, an anti-aircraft “predictor”, and Kelvin’s tidal predictor all show the same ability. In all of the cerebral cortex, including those associated with of these cases, the physical process, which it is desired to working memory on the other (Ackermann et al., 2004; predict, is imitated [by preserving the relation-structure] Cabeza & Nyberg, 2000; Chein et al., 2003; Desmond by some mechanical device or model which is cheaper, & Fiez, 1998; Doya, 1999; Schmahmann, 1997, 2004). quicker, or more convenient in operation. (1943, p. 52) Thus, today, there is ample evidence that, indeed, In the case of modeling by the cerebellum, models (forward and controller) are composed from of mental models operat- working memory and the cerebellum have, over the ing in the cerebral cortex, including those of working memory. course of human evolution, come to collaborate in Thus, Ito (2005) suggests the relation-structure of the cerebellar making all online thought processes increasingly more model captures the fundamentals of predictive operation of menefficient and adaptive (see Ito, 1997 for a thoroughgotal models employed in the cerebral cortex; the cerebellar model thereby makes the operations of the cortical models faster, “neu- ing treatment of the adaptive role of the cerebellum in rologically cheaper,” and adaptive. a variety of levels of human and animal brain function).
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Working Memory, the Cognitive Functions of the Cerebellum and the Child Prodigy
For the Cerebellum, Movement and Thought Are Identical Control “Objects” In order to understand the logic of how the cerebellum’s role in the manipulation of ideas need not be differentiated from its manipulation of movement, Ito (1993, 1997, 2005) pointed out that, at the neurological level, movements and thoughts can be shown to be identical “control objects” (control objects are things we intentionally manipulate or imagine manipulating): In thought, ideas and concepts are manipulated just as limbs are in movements. There would be no distinction between movement and thought once encoded in the neuronal circuitry of the brain; therefore, both movement and thought can be controlled with the same neural mechanisms. (1993, p. 449)
The control of the components of working memory in solving problems, for example, reading a newspaper, or mentally rearranging the furniture to make room for a new sofa, and so on is not different in neurological principle from the control of limbs in solving problems, for example, lifting a cup of coffee to the lips, or using the feet, legs, arms, and hands to execute shooting a basketball into a hoop. Both thoughts and limbs can be “moved around” by the same neural mechanisms. (Also, see Rosenbaum, Carlson and Gilmore (2001) for a more recent and far-ranging version of this argument.) Thus Ito (1993, 2005) has shown how, as the use of either thought or limb components is repeated, the cerebellum acts to make the manipulations smoother, faster, more efficient, more appropriately adaptive, and automatic.
The Enormous Computing Capacity of the Cerebellum Following Leiner et al.’s (1986, 1989, 1991) early foundational arguments on the evolution of the functions of the cerebellum, Leiner and Leiner (1997) suggested that the evolutionary selective advantage of the greatly enlarging cerebellum was that cerebellar computing capacities were being selected as an “operating system” (determining the which, when and where of cerebro-cerebellar information flows) for the evolving, yoked complexities of human
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movement, language, and thought. The Leiner’s computer-operating system metaphor appears to be an apt one. The million or so years of rapid evolution of cerebro-cerebellar circuitry would have included, of course, operating system adaptive control of the central executive, visuospatial sketchpad, and speech loop of human working memory (Cabeza et al., 2000; Chein et al., 2003). To provide a view of the leap forward for mental life of this very rapid evolutionary advance, Leiner and Leiner (1997) described the huge computing capacity of neural connections between the human cerebellum and the cerebral cortex at some 40 million nerve tracts – greater than the number of optic nerve tracts. In addition, the cerebellum itself contains approximately 100 billion neurons; this is more than the rest of the entire brain (Andersen, Korbo & Pakkenberg, 1992). Furthermore, although the cerebellar anatomy of most of these 100 billion neurons is nearly uniform throughout, through evolution, functions have been organized topographically in the cerebellum. That is, specific areas in the cerebellum are interconnected, in a bi-directional manner, with specific functional areas in the cerebral cortex, including those of working memory (Schmahmann, 1996, 2004). The details of this enormous amount of dedicated cerebro-cerebellar connectivity are beyond the scope of this chapter, but it is significant to recognize that the influence of the cerebellum in the attentional, linguistic, and spatial/temporal adaptive control in the internal world of the brain might be considered to rival, in the modulation of motor and mental skills, the influence of the nerve tracts of the visual system on the perceived spatial and temporal dimensions of the external visual world (see Leiner & Leiner, 1997, pp. 542–547; Leiner et al., 1986, 1989; Schmahmann & Pandya, 1997; Schmahmann, 2004). It will be helpful to keep these powerful “computational” ideas in mind when, later in this chapter, we examine the internal experiential worlds of the child prodigy and of Albert Einstein.
How Cerebellar Control Models Influence Working Memory Processes Toward Higher Levels of Abstraction Everyday, we are confronted with a myriad of movement and mental situations, some of which may
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arise unexpectedly and require out-of-the-ordinary responses. In terms of movement, it may be as simple as needing to catch (or divert) a falling cup of coffee that is headed for freshly completed draft of a research paper, or, mentally, for a teacher, it might be trying to calmly engage an over argumentative student (or colleague) with novel counter arguments. For working memory to meet such a variety of situations in a quick, smooth, and appropriately adaptive manner, “dynamics” control models are learned in specialized neural circuitry in the cerebellum (see footnote 4). The key to the adaptability of these dynamics models is that they do not learn specific movement and thought patterns but rather abstract the dynamics of such movement and thought (Imamizu et al., 2003; Ito, 1997; Kawato, 1999). By virtue of this type of abstractive construction, the resulting dynamics models are adaptable to a broad variety of future situations that share the same general state space of the original movement and thoughts (Ito, 1984a, 1984b, 1993, 1997). Neurological details describing how cerebellar dynamics models are learned are beyond the scope of this chapter but can be simplified for purposes here in the following manner. The abstraction (or “redescription”) of activity of the cerebral cortex into cerebellar dynamics models can be described in terms of convergence ratios of incoming movement and thought information (neural connections) onto cerebellar Purkinje cells and their resulting classification of these inputs into distilled patterns of movement and thought – each Purkinje cell is contacted by approximately 200,000 diverse inputs (for a discussion see Houk & Wise, 1995). This convergence-driven abstraction of movement/thought information (based on error signals during repetitive learning) results in abstracted dynamics models (see Ito, 1997, 2005). One may think of the resulting state space of the dynamics model as a three-dimensional problem space of previously learned movements or conceptual thought patterns (like those, for example, confabulated in repetitive working memory processing) (Haruno et al., 1999, 2001; Imamizu et al., 2003; Ito, 1997). This state-space of possible movement or thought tendencies is available at a mostly unconscious level and is triggered automatically. It is a common experience for people to automatically respond with great speed and deftness, often to their own surprise, to both of the situations described above involving the falling cup of coffee or the overly argumentative student. More will be said of
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the learning of this “automaticity” of response in the next section.
The Role of the Cerebellum in the Manipulation of Thought via Mental Models: Conscious and Unconscious (Automatic) Control in Working Memory In repetitive-learning processes, the cerebellum acquires two types of dynamics models, namely, forward (predictor) models and inverse (controller) dynamics models. A forward model predicts the outcome of a movement or thought; the prediction is confirmed by the sensory consequences of the forward action, either motor or mental. For example, everyone has had the experience of assuming the predictive “hypothesis” that, for example, a particular cup of coffee was full when actually empty. Then, when the cup is lifted, the discovery is made that the hypothesis was in error as the cup overshoots the expected degree of lift. The point is that the cerebro-cerebellar system had used a forward model of the situation that turned out to be in error. On the other hand, inverse dynamics models are defined as neural representations of the motor commands related to control objects necessary to achieve movement goals, just the opposite of the forward models (see, Ito, 1997, p. 481; Kawato & Gomi, 1992, pp. 445–446). This may sound a little complicated, but in everyday language this differentiation simply means that predictor (forward) models permit behavioral/mental predictions associated with rapid, skilled movement/thought at a conscious level, while cerebellar controller (inverse) models (learned from repetitive forward models) permit the motor cortex to be bypassed, thus allowing rapid, skilled movement/thought to take place at an unconscious level. When we are first learning to shoot baskets, drive a car, or solve problems in working memory (for example, make change in a foreign currency) each conscious attempt is controlled by a predictor (forward) model, and error signals indicate the appropriateness of the predictor model. After much practice (repetition) and the predictor model is established, a controller (inverse) model is formed as practice continues so that the task can be accomplished automatically without conscious effort (Ito, 2005). For-
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ward models often generate novel or creative behavior and cognition; inverse models show how practice (either conscious practice or state-space generated) leads to automaticity of behavior and cognition. For simplicity, forward and inverse dynamics models may hereafter be thought of as predictor and controller models. Ito (1997) provided an example of the respective operation of predictor and controller models that can be used to describe the learning of mental models of working memory activity by the cerebellum: According to the psychological concept of a mental model (Johnson-Laird, 1983) [see endnote 3], thought may be viewed as a process of manipulating a mental model formed in the parietolateral association cortex by commands from the prefrontal association cortex. A cerebellar microcomplex [consisting of a Purkinje cell and so forth as described above] may be connected to neuronal circuits involved in thought and may represent a dynamics [predictor] or an inverse dynamics [controller] model of a mental model. In other words, a mental model might be transferred from the parietolateral association cortex to the cerebellar microcomplex during repetition of a thought. By analogy to voluntary movement, one may speculate that formation of a dynamics [predictor] model in the cerebellum would enable us to think correctly [and rapidly] in a feedforward manner, i.e., without the need to check the outcome of the thought. This may be the case when one performs a quick arithmetical calculation [accomplished, of course, in working memory]. . ..However, an inverse dynamics [controller] model in the cerebellum would enable us to think automatically without conscious effort. (p. 483)
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cerebellar models are thought to operate in multiple, tightly coupled pairs which can decompose, reorganize, and newly combine aspects of the thought processes of working memory.
Multiple Pairs of Predictor and Controller Cerebellar Models: The Basis of Synthesis in Thought
Wolpert and Kawato (1998) proposed multiple-paired predictor (forward) and controller (inverse) models for motor and thought-related imagery control. Within this cerebellar architecture, a relatively small number of separate but interconnected pairs of predictor and controller models have been shown to cover an enormous range of learning and control contexts, including both motor and cognitive tasks such as those associated with working memory (Haruno et al., 1999, 2001; Imamizu et al., 2003; Kawato, 1999). As indicated in the Introduction to this chapter, this overall adaptive cerebellar architecture is referred to as MOdular Selection and Identification for Control (MOSAIC/HMOSAIC) (Haruno et al., 2001; Imamizu et al., 2003; Wolpert et al., 2003). In the MOSAIC/HMOSAIC cerebellar architecture each of several paired models (each with a predictor and a controller model) that is brought to bear on a Ito’s above speculation that forward mental models particular behavioral/mental situation has a particular learned in the cerebellum, then fed back to the cere- “responsibility” predictor function associated with bral cortex, would allow us to think correctly in a feed- it. This responsibility predictor determines the pair’s forward manner has been born out by more recent re- contribution to the current movement or thought search on the cognitive-modeling functions of the cere- situation. The responsibility predictor of each pair of bellum (Blackwood et al., 2004; Haruno et al., 1999; models is probabilistic, based on its history of learning Imamizu et al., 2007, 2000, 2003; Wolpert et al., 2003). errors in that context. For example, in a case where It is important to recognize here that Ito is talking about working memory is repetitiously culling and mulling a cerebellar model of a mental model being used in over information in a problem situation, the responsiworking memory of the cerebral cortex. bility predictor function would result in the activation How many predictor (forward) and controller of some predictor (forward) models of the several (unconsciously manipulated) mental models might the pairs and not others. The activation of these predictor cerebellum abstract from working memory processes? (forward) models would be experienced in working What drives the speed and domain selection for the memory as situation-related imagery, the execution “rage to master” described by Winner (1996)? How do of situation-related overt behavior, and would also the new, more efficient cerebellar models become part include imagery associated with stimulus-independent of the dynamics of working memory? thought (e.g., contemplation, reflection, daydreaming, To begin to answer these questions and address how Teasdale et al., 1995), and “internal speech” (Ackerthey might be related to the child prodigy phenomenon, mann et al., 2004). As attentional control in working we will now examine how predictive and controller memory processing continued moment-by-moment,
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the details of the mental situation would change, and responsibility would accordingly shift to other predictor (forward) models as various pairs’ appropriateness to the situation also changed. In addition, when working memory is manipulating different ideas with unknown collective dynamics, the cerebellum simultaneously runs multiple predictor models to test hypotheses concerning their appropriateness to the problem at hand (Wolpert et al., 2003, p. 596). That is, each predictor model can be thought of as a hypothesis tester for the problem situation being addressed in working memory (see Blackwood et al., 2004). The multiple-paired models in the MOSAIC/HMOSAIC architecture have the following properties that, when combined, are especially salient, depending on the level of attentional control in working memory, to the synthesis of variant ideas, to wholly new ideas, to the acquisition of ideas learned from others or from the environment at large, and to the level of abstraction achieved with these ideas. First, the predictor (forward) model of each pair is used to adaptively simulate the imaginary manipulation of thoughts/ideas (Imamizu et al., 2003; Wolpert & Kawato, 1998) in stimulus-independent thought in working memory. In addition, multiple predictor (forward) models can be combined to produce an enormous repertoire of such adaptive mental imagery. Second, multiple pairs of models can represent decomposed motor/conceptual primitives (Haruno et al., 1999; Imamizu et al., 2003; Wolpert & Kawato, 1998). This allows complex problems to be broken down into smaller sub-problems, each learned by a separate pair of models or collection of paired models. Below, the special relevance of this property of decomposition to the world of the child prodigy will be discussed in terms of Mandler’s (2004) work on the origin and nature of conceptual primitives. Third, each pair of multiple-paired models generalizes to novel objects (either motor or conceptual primitives) whose dynamics lie within the problem space of already-learned dynamics (Blackwood et al., 2004; Haruno et al., 2001; Wolpert & Kawato, 1998). Thus the responsibility predictor function, along with the above features of the paired-models architecture, has the potential to act to explore both previously learned and newly formed problem spaces. Fourth, segments of the entire foregoing framework of adaptive modifications to cortical models can be repeatedly mulled over in working memory and thus be further modeled
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in MOSAIC/HMOSAIC and thereby be further abstracted/redescribed toward higher and higher levels of abstraction. In addition to the above properties of MOSAIC/HMOSAIC, as learning beginning in infancy progresses, concepts are derived on top of established movement and thought repertoires at different levels of abstraction, and a hierarchy of responsibility control for these different levels develops. This is the hierarchical aspect of the HMOSAIC cerebellar architecture (Haruno et al., 2001; Imamizu et al., 2003; Wolpert et al., 2003). Responsibility control for movement and thought can be shifted up and down the learned layers in the HMOSAIC architecture. For example, imageschematic conceptual primitives learned in early infancy (a foundational layer of HMOSAIC) can be interpreted as powerfully influencing the development of language modeling in a bottom-up direction (Mandler, 2004; Vandervert et al., 2007b), and high-level language abstractions learned later in development can downwardly influence the ongoing decomposition of these same image-schematic conceptual primitives for use in the visuospatial sketchpad of working memory to solve highly abstract problems (those associated with higher level layers of HMOSAIC). It will be argued in the final section of this chapter that all of the above properties of paired models within the HMOSAIC architecture allows analysis, in terms of imagery control, of the constantly shifting working memory world of the child prodigy in the same way HMOSAIC allows the analysis of the detailed control operations of the worlds of movement and cognition in general (see Oztop et al., 2005; Wolpert et al., 2003).
The Theoretical Bases for Working Memory/Cerebellar Accounts of the Child Prodigy’s “Forward-Modeling,” Unique Experiential World The term “forward modeling,” is used in this chapter to capture the meanings of Winner’s (1996) “rage to master” characterizations of case accounts of child prodigies. “Forward modeling” incorporates a variety of inherited and learned “forward” tendencies that arise from the working memory/cerebellar reciprocal
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organisms with advanced nervous systems.5 Perhaps for highly mobile vertebrates the most common daily selective situations requiring fast-paced, forwardmodeling, predictive responses are prey–predator skirmishes. A wolf can be imagined chasing a rabbit, each of them following a respective zigzag pursuit or escape path through a complex environment with some moments unexpectedly favorable to either. These daily skirmishes, of course, usually end by being deadly or reaffirming and thus, for both animals, strongly favor the selection of swift, appropriate and highly coordinated perceptual-motor control, memory search, and decisional processes. An inherited capacity in the nervous systems of such skirmishing animals (including humans) to quickly learn and then Evolutionary Context errorlessly execute escape, avoidance, and/or pursuit responses to novelty-laden patterns of behavior on the Before embarking on the discussion of the child parts of other animals in such skirmishes would have prodigy’s unique experiential world, we must address been constantly selected – it would have been a (if two interrelated theoretical issues that are critically not the) prime selector of the nervous system’s higher important to understanding the neurophysiological cognitive control functions. bases upon which we will interpret it. First, what evoSpecifically to this point, as part of their lutionary selection led to the progressive collaboration foundational evolutionary arguments on the cogof working memory and the cerebellum in regard to nitive functions of the cerebellum (portions of progressively forward-exploring modeling of behavior which were presented earlier in this chapter), Leiner and cognition? Second, within this evolutionary et al. (1986) proposed how cerebellar modulation of context, what was the experiential advantage bestowed by the forward-exploring three components of working memory (the central executive and its two recursive 5 The entire scenario of a typical prey-predator skirmish would (rehearsing) slave systems, the speech loop and the require both the prediction and the initiation of a series of nonlinvisuospatial sketchpad)? An account of the details of ear events (each subsequent move of the predator/prey being an the adaptive evolution of the probable categories of attempt at “novelty”). For example, Ito (2005) pointed out that: “Since the dynamics of organism movements and their interacthe experiential world of these three components and tions with the dynamics of other organisms and with the environhow they are modulated by the MOSAIC/HMOSAIC ment are usually nonlinear phenomena, rapid simulation is the cerebellar architectures will allow us to get “inside,” only available approach to prediction and hence behavior conby way of the attentional control of mental models, ducive to survival” (pp. 160–161). The neurological substrates of the prefrontal lobes as connected with the cerebellum that surthe child prodigy’s early age-sensitivity, and “rage to vived countless generations of such nonlinear selection would, master.” as Leiner et al. (1986) suggested, no doubt entail capacities for relationship, and variously means, depending on the operational context, forward modeling, forward exploring, or forward driven. This is an important conception in the neurosciences and is one which is implicit in the study of memory of all types, the integrative, goal-oriented, “planning” and future-oriented roles of the prefrontal areas of the brain (Blackwood et al., 2004; Ingvar, 1985; MacLean, 1991; Miller & Cohen, 2001), and the “adaptive” modeling roles of the cerebellum (Ito, 1997, 2005). It has been commented upon at length by many neuroscientists.
The Evolutionary Premise for the Collaborative Forward Modeling of Working Memory and the Cerebellum The requirements for forward-modeling cognition and behavior arise in the vagaries of the everyday novelty-laden (nonlinear) survival situations of all
forward and automatic simulations (modeling) of probabilistic predictions of events about to unfold. Directly along this line, Ito (2005) argued that the collective-modeling functions of the cerebellum essentially comprise a future-state simulator. This is a fruitful way of looking at the cerebellum, for it must be recognized that the integrative memory functions of the prefrontal lobes, the memory functions of the hippocampus (Miller & Cohen, 2001), and the anticipatory modeling of the cerebellum (all bi-directionally interconnected) were selected for the advantage of predicting future states in a threatening, rapidly changing environment. In sum, an organism only has an evolutionary need for memory of any kind if it has an evolutionary need to anticipate and predict the course of future moments and the movements they will likely require.
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conceptual information would be a critical selective advantage in novel situations: In confronting a novel situation, the individual may need to carryout some preliminary mental processing before action can be taken, such as processing to estimate the potential consequences of the action before deciding whether to act or to refrain from acting. In such decisiongenerating processes, the prefrontal cortex is activated (Roland, 1984) [see Miller & Cohen, 2001]. This cortex, via its connections with the cerebellum, could utilize cerebellar preprogramming to manipulate conceptual data rapidly. As a result, a quick decision could be made. This could then be communicated to the motor areas (Goldman-Rakic, 1992), including the supplementary motor area. (p. 448)
In addition to the prefrontal cortex, such preliminary mental processing (forward modeling) would occur in conjunction with, for example, (1) frontal motor imagery areas where imagined movements are activated, (2) both cognitive and emotional adaptive functions of the cerebellum (Schmahmann, 2004), and (3) emotional functions of the limbic system and functions of many other brain areas (Miller & Cohen, 2001; Roland, 1984; Wolpaw, Birbaumer, McFarland, Pfurtscheller & Vaughan, 2002). (Also see footnote 5.)
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that constitutes the internal environment of the brain. The prefrontal cortex acts as an executive cortex [the central executive functions of working memory] and manipulates the mental models represented in the internal environment [consisting of the visuospatial sketchpad and language loop of working memory], and this is thinking. Based on a formalistic analogy between movement and thought, the author views a thought to be the control of a mental model, just as a voluntary movement is the control of a motor apparatus (Ito, 1991, 1993). In movements and thoughts, the objects to be controlled are very different from each other in nature, but they are equivalent to each other as control objects. Thus. . .while the executive cortex manipulates a mental model, the cerebellum copies it to form a forward [italics added] model and thereafter, the executive cortex can perform the thought by manipulating the internal model. The inverse model [also called a “controller” model] control system for voluntary movements. . .can also apply to the inverse control [automatically performed without consciousness] of thought. If the forward and inverse model controls are combined, an interesting possibility emerges that the cerebellum conducts the entire process of thinking [within certain sub-areas of thought]. . .which will not come up to the level of consciousness. This may explain our daily experience that, after repeated trials of learning, a correct answer pops out readily without a conscious effort. (Ito, 2005, p. 102)
The Cerebellum Is Critical in the Composition, Rate of Acquisition, and Forward Drive of the Developing Child’s Working Memory Store of Mental Models
The Developmental Floor of HMOSAIC as an Unconscious “Driver” of Attentional Control in Working Memory
Masao Ito (2005), a recipient of the Japan Prize, described the sequence of events through which the cerebral cortex and the cerebellum jointly participate in the mental confabulation of the mental models of phenomenal experience. Ito’s following description of this construction (mental modeling) of the experiential world begins in infancy, certainly by age 6–12 months (Colombo, 2001; Mandler, 2004) and would apply to both typical children and to child prodigies: When we think, the object to be controlled is a mental model, more concretely, a visual image or an abstract concept or idea. . ..Mental models are formed in the neuronal circuit of the cerebral cortex by associating various pieces of information received through the sensory cortex or arising from other areas of the cerebral cortex, and stored in the temporoparietal cortex
Of course, not only are collections of individual mental models acquired in the fashion described above by Ito. In the same manner, accompanying “regimes” of attentional control models are learned in the central executive of working memory beginning in infancy (Akshoomoff et al., 1997). How the cerebellum’s adaptive architecture of control is imparted to such regimes through learning was described earlier in this chapter as consisting of multiple-paired models (each pair, consisting of a forward model and a controller model) within hierarchical MOdular Selection and Identification for Control (HMOSAIC) (Haruno et al., 1999, 2001; Wolpert et al., 2003). These cognitive control regimes drive the confabulation of a complex, consistent internal experiential world in the mind of any child.
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To what degree is the cerebellum involved in copying prefrontal cortex models of attentional control regimes and adaptively modulate them? Through the copying of working memory’s central executive processes the cerebellum is a full partner, with the prefrontal cortex and temporoparietal cortex, in the early infant’s HMOSAIC regime-establishing process – we might refer to the adaptive purpose of these regimes as “the attentional control architecture of the mind.” Akshoomoff et al. (1997) have concluded that attentional control in the cerebellum responds selectively in advance of stimulation, as opposed to merely enhancing general responsiveness. Because Akshoomoff et al. illustrate how attentional control (via the HMOSAIC architecture) ties together the working memory world, we quote their conclusions at length: A recent attempt to account for a whole range of physioanatomical facts theorizes that the cerebellum is a master computational system that adjusts responsiveness in a variety of networks to attain a prescribed goal (Courchesne, 1995; Courchesne et al., 1994c). These networks include those thought to be involved in declarative memory, working memory, attention, arousal, affect, language, speech, homeostasis, and sensory modulation as well as motor control. This may require the cerebellum to implement a succession of precisely timed and selected changes in the pattern or level of neural activity in these diverse networks. We hypothesized that the cerebellum does this by encoding (“learning”) temporally ordered sequences of multi-dimensional information about external and internal events (effector, sensory, affective, mental, autonomic), and, as similar sequences of external and internal events unfold, they elicit a readout of the full sequence in advance of the real-time events. This readout is sent to and alters, in advance, the state of each motor, sensory, autonomic, attentional, memory, or affective system which, according to the previous “learning” of this sequence, will soon be actively involved in the current real-time events. The results from our neurobehavioral and neurophysiological studies showing deficits in shifting and orienting attention in patients with cerebellar damage, as well as new fMRI studies showing cerebellar activation during focused attention and shifting attention in normal adults, suggest that the cerebellum plays an important role in several aspects of selective attention. (1997, pp. 592–593)
Following directly in line with Akshoomoff et al.’s above findings and conclusions, it is proposed that (1) a unique cerebellar attentional control architecture (HMOSAIC) is set up very early in each child through repetitive learning, (2) the resultant system of attentional sensitivities and anticipatory capacities drives the composition, acquisition rate, and forward drive
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characteristics and levels of the working memory mental modeling regime of the child’s internal world, and (3) that it does this through cortical plasticity (e.g., Buonomano & Merzenich, 1998). In this view, the cerebellum can be looked upon as the “cortical plasticity driver” for the exceptional performance of the prodigy. That is, the cortical plasticity(s) of working memory are driven toward higher capacities by adaptive cerebellar modeling (e.g., Blackwood et al., 2004; Haruno et al., 1999, 2001; Wolpert et al., 2003). The foregoing three-part proposal comprises the overarching neurophysiological premise for the hypotheses which will be presented below. Before moving to the final section and the formal hypotheses of this chapter a brief account of conceptual learning in infancy will be presented. This account will place under a micro scope the infant’s seemingly silent learning of attentional control regimes as described above by Akshoomoff et al. and as placed within the HMOSAIC cerebellar control architecture. It is the contention of this chapter that this early learning of attentional control regimes is the most important differentiating precursor of the typical child from the child prodigy, much as, and based on the same brain mechanisms, years of deliberate practice (Ericsson, 2002) can differentiate typical from expert performance.
The Birth of the Central Executive of Working Memory Working in the area of early conceptual development in infancy, Mandler (1988, 1992a, 1992b, 2004) proposed that repetitive perceptual analytic processes occurring during infancy (as early as three months) “redescribe” perceptual information into conceptual primitives (primitive mental models), which in turn underlie the later acquisition of the relational aspects of language. The following abstract from Mandler (1992b) provides a handy synopsis of the tenets of her position: The theory proposes that perceptual analysis redescribes perceptual information into meanings [italics added] that form the basis of an accessible conceptual system. These early meanings are represented in the form of image-schemas that abstract certain aspects of the spatial structure of objects and their movements in space. Image-schemas allow infants to form concepts such as animate and inanimate objects, agents, and containers.
308 It is proposed that this form of representation serves a number of functions, including providing a vehicle for simple inferential and analogical thought, enabling the imitation of actions of others, and providing a conceptual basis for the acquisition of the relational aspects of language. (p. 273)
The critical feature of Mandler’s theory is perceptual analysis, which more recently she calls perceptual meaning analysis (Mandler, 2004) to emphasize that it is a framework of meanings that is extracted by the process. Within Mandler’s theory, perceptual meaning analysis “redescribes” (recodes) perceptual information (both visual and kinesthetic) into spatial meanings, and thus initiates the beginnings of concept formation. In the context of this chapter these earliest spatial meanings erect the foundational floor or level of the infant’s developing cerebellar HMOSAIC attentional control architecture. Strongly supportive of this notion, Mandler (1992b) also proposed that the “redescription” process begins whenever the infant attentively “notices” (not merely looks at) some aspect of the environmental/bodily stimulus array. “Noticing,” of course, signals endogenous (willful) forward modeling of attentional control on the part of the infant. Mandler indicates that the redescription of perceptual information results in a simplified form of information that is of less detail, but of “distilled meaning” (Mandler, 1992a, p. 277). Although Mandler did not propose brain mechanisms as part of her theory, “distilled meaning” can readily be interpreted to mean that, in conjunction with the prefrontal cortex, repetitive perceptual meaning analysis employs abstractive cerebellar modeling (both forward and controller models) as described earlier in this chapter. Mandler’s model can be usefully interpreted as a picture of the awakening operation of working memory starting in infancy. In this interpretation, the central executive of working memory arises from biases that first manifest in the infant’s innately driven perceptual meaning analysis. The resulting image-schematic meanings (originally erected through the central executive and cerebellar modeling) provide the neurological platform that drives the imagery of working memory’s visuospatial sketchpad. The system of meanings inherent in the visuospatial sketchpad provides a distilled, perceptual/cognitive structure upon which advanced phonological (speech) information and language is mapped (Mandler, 2004).
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Accordingly, it can be hypothesized from this point of view that the evolution of language (in both phylogeny and ontogeny) provided the selective advantage that the central executive, with constant cerebellar modulation, could further organize, control, and accelerate the flow of imagery in thought and, of course, during communication. Put a slightly different way, the advantage of language evolution was to control, further decompose and re-compose, organize, and speed the flow of imagery in adaptive ways (these are the management properties of multiple pairs of cerebellar models within the HMOSAIC architecture listed earlier in this chapter; Haruno et al., 1999, 2001; Wolpert et al., 2003). This squares with the three- to fourfold increase in the size of the cerebellum during the past million years of hominid evolution noted by Leiner et al. (1986) and cited at the beginning of this chapter. Language would be represented in a higher level (more abstract) layer of HMOSAIC than the more fundamental image-schemas (conceptual primitives) proposed by Mandler. Thus Mandler’s image-schemas would provide the bottom-up meaning basis for the visuospatial sketchpad in a foundational layer of HMOSAIC, while language would act to decompose and reorganize the multiple-paired models of image-schemas in a top-down fashion to construct an unending world of abstract conceptions, while still retaining the image-schematic grounding in meanings. Examples of such bi-directional control in the HMOSAIC architecture are provided by Wolpert et al., (2003). In the next section we will have occasion to discuss how Albert Einstein conceived of “thinking” as originating in the floor of image-schemas.
Working Memory/Cerebellar Child Prodigy Hypothesis We have now prepared the research and theoretical groundwork for a formal and rigorous hypothesis for the origins and mechanisms that lead to the exceptional intellectual and artistic performances of the child prodigy. In general, the child prodigy behavior to be explained is as described in the following case report excerpt cited by Shavinina (1999). In the excerpt, examples of both Shavinina’s (1999) concept of agesensitivity and Winner’s (1996) idea of the “rage to master” are readily apparent:
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Working Memory, the Cognitive Functions of the Cerebellum and the Child Prodigy Alexander expressed his unusual abilities at a very early age. He started to read very well and to calculate before he was four years old. His interest in numbers probably indicated his first sensitive period. The boy continually demanded that all adults around him set up simple arithmetic tasks for him; he was hungry for them. In this period, he also liked to write various numbers. The number seven (7) was especially attractive for him: he wrote it everywhere in different forms and sizes painted in various colors. This “digital” period eventually came to an end. Just over four, Alexander had a new sensitive period – the “geographical” one. He read a lot about continents, countries, cities, seas, mountains, and rivers. All his questions to adults concerned only geographical issues. He asked his parents to buy geographical books for him and looked for geographical chapters in the newspapers. He watched TV programs that contained travels around the globe and meteorological news (in this case, he could always see a map of his country). As a result, his acquired knowledge of geography was very impressive. However, his new sensitive period did not consist only of the acquisition of new knowledge on geography. All Alexander’s cognitive activity was directed to achieve one clear goal: to make a map of the world. All his time was devoted to this task. He prepared the map, conveying shapes and names of geographical objects (i.e., continents, countries, etc.) with amazing accuracy. Such an activity certainly required his artistic skills in drawing and painting, which were significantly developed within this period. In a few months, Alexander’s second – “geographical” – period was almost over. (Shavinina, 1999, p. 30)
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inition of deliberate practice, and see Ericsson, Roring, and Nandagopal (2007). It is further proposed that this heightened attentional control accelerates the blending of already-learned cortical models with cerebellar internal models as found by Imamizu et al. (2007) and this, in turn, produces higher rates of internal forward and controller paired model formation in the cerebellum (in the HMOASIC architecture) and thus the rage to master in the child prodigy..
The Forward-Modeling, Anticipatory “Triggering” of the Child Prodigy’s Exceptional Performance
Based on the research and theory presented earlier in this chapter, the foregoing child prodigy hypothesis is now applied to Shavinina’s (1999) case description of Alexander. First, it should be recognized that by the time of Alexander’s first period of exceptional performance (numbers) and apparent “rage to master” (he was hungry for arithmetic tasks), his unique heighten attentional propensities for this domain of information had likely already been developing for perhaps 3 years. This contention is based on the necessary development of the attentional floor of conceptual primitives in the This report clearly illustrates a persistent “rage to mascerebellar HMOSAIC architecture as described earter” first numbers and then geographical topics that, lier (Akshoomoff et al., 1997; Colombo, 2001; Mancombined, extend across three sensitive periods. We dler, 2004). This means the development of the unique will return to short excerpts from this report below. attentional control propensities of the central executive in Alexander’s working memory and cerebellar forward models thereby included specific knowledge domains that had quite early been undergoing preparation The Child Prodigy Hypothesis to drive forward in the acquisition of particular categories of information (see Fig. 13.1b). Hypothesis: It is proposed that the exceptional accomIt is important to recall here that the entire plishments of child prodigies are the result of heightened attentional control learned beginning in early infancy and framework of attentional control is anticipatory and originating jointly through bi-directional circuitry congoal directed (see Akshoomoff et al., 1997; Leiner necting prefrontal-parietal lobe cognitive control (cenet al., 1986, 1989; Miller & Cohen, 2001) and that tral executive of working memory) and cerebellar attenthe adaptive thrust of cerebellar models is forward or tional forward and controller modeling. Heighten attentional control, depending on the experiential history of the anticipation oriented (Ito, 1997, 2005). While the child infant, becomes specific to knowledge domains, see modprodigy may have attentional control propensities only ularity of cognitive functions Fig. 13.1b. The working in a particular knowledge domain, the origin of which memory/cerebellar induced “heightened attentional conwould be traceable to domain-related patterns in the trol” and resultant accelerated drive in forward/controller model production (“rage to master”) are thus spontaprodigy’s infant experiences (including perceptual neously triggered as the child develops, and follow a longmeaning analysis as described by Mandler), he or she term working memory developmental course as a spontamay well have learned multiple domain propensities, neously initiated (but seemingly “deliberate”) and acceland may, by the same early learning, also be higher erated form of the strategy of deliberate practice as described by Ericsson (2002, 2003a), see footnote 2 for defin attentional control in general than the typical child.
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Fig. 13.1b illustrates how the learning of differing cognitive domains may be modularized in the cerebellum. In passing, it should be noted that the research that led to the finding that learned cognitive tasks were spatially segregated in the cerebellum (Fig.13.1b) also concluded that the finding supported the MOSAIC cerebellar architecture (Imamizu et al., 2003).
Around What Modules Are the Early Infant’s First Attentional Sensitivities Organized? Following the argument of the foregoing section, as described earlier Mandler (1992a) proposed specific conceptual primitives that are learned through perceptual meaning analysis scanning in early infancy. These learned conceptual primitives (or image-schemas) include the schemas of animacy, agency, causality, containment, path (or trajectory),links (among things,
Fig. 13.2 Pictorial representations of Mandler’s image-schemas (conceptual primitives)
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events), and support (see Fig. 13.2). Attentional control propensities around these conceptual primitives would be the first modeled in the prefrontal cortex and the cerebellum (as a result of repetitious perceptual meaning analysis) and thereby begin to set up an overall attentional control regime in the individual that includes differential propensities across the various primitives as learned “conceptual domains” or “modules” (Fig. 13.1b). In regard to Shavinina’s (1999) report of Alexander’s sensitivity to or fascination with numbers, because numbers, per se, can be reduced to series (path) and linkages, it can be speculated that the conceptual primitives of path andlink may be the earliest conceptual basis for an accelerated forward modeling of the numbers domain. Thus, in the infant Alexander’s developing working memory system, these primitive modules would not only comprise the individual’s foundational layer of hierarchical Modular Selection and Identification Controller (HMOSAIC), but the foundational layer of attentional control in the prefrontal cortex and the accompanying passion
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or emotional component of the rage to master (see Schmahmann, 1998, 2004 in connection with the passion or emotional components). It is the position of this chapter that as Alexander continues to develop even small differences in the attentional control propensities in these earliest prefrontal/HMOSAIC layers would differentially forward model experiences into the further, hierarchical layers by way of the HMOSAIC abstraction process. These prefrontal/HMOSDAIC layers embody the control parameters for working memory. In this scenario small differences in attentional propensities in Alexander’s early infancy would soon become very large ones. In this manner, it is believed this process is the beginning of a “spontaneous” version of deliberate practice as described by Ericsson et al. (2007). In deliberate practice one endures solitary practice (with very high attention) involving “repeated practice attempts to reach beyond one’s current level with frequent failures” (Ericsson et al., 2007, p. 18). To explain the cumulative power of deliberate practice, Ito (2005) cited Imamizu et al. (2007) findings that when encountering a new challenge the brain attempts to cope by blendingin output from cerebellar models previously learned. The prefrontal and parietal areas of the cerebral cortex contribute to this blending (see also the quote by Ito, 2005, page XX this chapter p. 29 of this ms). Vandervert argued that the high-attentional control and proliferation of cerebellar models in the child prodigy accelerates this blending process producing the “faster speed, superior selection of actions, and more precise motor execution” (Ericsson, 2003b, p. 100) obtained through deliberate practice. Alexander’s precocity would therefore be accounted for as high-attentional control-induced (spontaneous) deliberate practice.
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swer this question, we will examine Albert Einstein’s lucid, phenomenological account of thinking. Einstein was quite interested in mental processes related to advances in theoretical physics and to science and mathematics in general (Holton, 1979). For example, in talking about mental events occurring in his own mind he referred to “psychical entities” and how thinking arose from “combinatory play” (Hadamard, 1945). And, he often mentioned “intuition” and its indispensable role in the discovery of mathematical and scientific axioms (self-evident truths) (Einstein, 1956). In his “Autobiographical Notes” (Einstein, 1949) he focused on the psychical entities and processing structure of his own internal world. In this 1949 discussion, Einstein offered an account of visual–spatial imagery (a process of working memory) in a sequence of mental events that brings forth a new “ordering element.” The mental sequence leading to this new ordering element can be viewed as the generation of a new attentional control parameter in cerebellar HMOSAIC architecture that is then blended, as described above, into working memory. Einstein referred to the mental process that produced the ordering element as “thinking”: What, precisely, is “thinking”? When, at the reception of sense-impressions, memory-pictures emerge, this is not yet “thinking.” And when such pictures form series, each member of which calls forth another, this too is not yet “thinking.” When, however, a certain picture turns up in many such series, then – precisely through such return – it becomes an ordering element for such series, in that it connects series which in themselves are unconnected. Such an element becomes an instrument, a concept. I think that the transition from free association or “dreaming” to thinking is characterized by the more or less dominating role which the “concept” plays in it. It is by no means necessary that a concept must be connected with a sensorily cognizable and reproducible sign (word); but when this is the case thinking becomes by means of that fact communicable. (Einstein, 1949, p. 7)
In Einstein’s phenomenological account of thinking (perhaps in the mathematical context of possible Working Memory Phenomenology and Cerebellar HMOSAIC Development During equations being used to solve a problem) each pair of forward (predictor) and controller cerebellar modSpontaneous Deliberate Practice els would represent a “trajectory” of “memory-picture series” related to a hypothetical solution. In the termiIt would be valuable to supplement Alexander’s behav- nology of deliberate practice, the “problem” might be ioral account of the formulation of concepts of num- that of reaching the next level of desired performance. bers and geography with a phenomenological account In any case, these trajectories of memory-picture series of high-attentional control-induced deliberate practice. would include conscious/unconscious-level decompoCan we track the conceptual events that take place dur- sitions and recombinations of working memory maing spontaneous deliberate practice? To attempt to an- terial from several levels of the learned HMOSAIC
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architecture (Vandervert et al., 2007a), very significantly including the foundational-level, learned conceptual primitives (image-schemas) described by Mandler (1992a, 2004).
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learned (most fundamental) layer of image-schemas (see Fig. 13.2). It is also suggested that it is because the new concept development (as Einstein calls it) is ultimately guided by image-schematic conceptual primitives, which are precursors to language, that the new concept may or may not, as Einstein observes, be connected with words. What Drives the Cognitive Picture Series In sum, the state of image-schematic primitives in Toward the Solution of Problems? the lower levels of Einstein’s personal HMOSAIC architecture would act to guide the adaptive error calcuIn Einstein’s memory-picture description, the picture lations of his three “competing” hypothetical predicseries would be activated by working memory’s cen- tor imageries toward the constructive selection of the tral executive attentional control of its visual-spatial new ordering element (see Haruno et al., 1999). Thus sketchpad. As suggested earlier in the case of Alexan- a new level of abstraction is achieved in the HMOder, the higher the attentional control, the more rapid SAIC hierarchy of control parameters. Since the new would be the repetitions in working memory slave sys- cerebellar model is fed forward to and blended with tems in retrieving memory information, and, thus, the the cortical areas of working memory, this new level more rapid the developmental growth of the cerebellar constitutes a new capacity for thought (and/or movement) in the frontal and prefrontal cortices. It is a new HMOSAIC architecture. For simplicity of illustration, let’s say there are three stage in the capacity to think that has been achieved sets of memory-picture series running repetitiously through “practice” (Einstein’s mulling of ideas). It is in Einstein’s working memory. Simultaneously in believed that precisely the same constructive process the cerebellum these picture series consist of pairs of occurs in the development of new stages of capacity forward (predictor) and controller models exercising through deliberate practice. That is, the collaboration modulation of adaptive control (Ito, 1997, 2005). of working memory and the paired forward/controller Each of these three collaborative cerebro-cerebellar models of the cerebellum is a general workhorse protrajectories may be thought of as running hypotheses cess that builds the structure of the thought process concerning the problem situation at hand (see Wolpert in a stage-wise manner in all people. High attention, et al., 2003, p. 596). Then, in his description, Ein- repetitive learning can build this structure of thought to stein says a certain picture turns up in many series, adaptively operate more quickly and accurately and to and this certain picture thereby serves as an order- a higher level. ing element. In the multi-paired model/HMOSAIC analysis, this ordering-element picture would be a new “least error” image arising from the mix of the three forward/controller model series that was Does Heightened Attentional Control evolving in an online fashion in Einstein’s working Trigger Exceptional Intellectual memory (Blackwood et al., 2004; Wolpert et al., 2003; Performance? Attention Capacity Imamizu et al., 2003). What would guide the selective emergence of the new least error forward (predictor) and Fluid Intelligence model? Recall, as argued in the previous section, that working memory/cerebellar control operations Following from Einstein’s conception of thinking it is are, within the present theory, ultimately based on of considerable relevance to (and corroborative supthe system of image-schematic primitives (basic port for) the heightened attentional control hypothemeanings) learned in infancy (Mandler, 1992a, 2004). sis presented in this chapter that attentional capacity This means that with other and more abstract layers in in working memory has been heavily investigated and the HMOSAIC architecture are also ultimately “error- shown to be an important driver of fluid intelligence. guided” by these foundational conceptual primitives, Over the past several decades a close relationship has the new concepts that will connect the most varied been proposed, first between short-term memory and sources of observations will be based on the originally intelligence, and subsequently between working mem-
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Working Memory, the Cognitive Functions of the Cerebellum and the Child Prodigy
ory and intelligence – see Hanbrick, Kane and Engle (2005) for a history and review. Most recently, Engle and his colleagues from several working memory research labs have demonstrated that individual differences in working memory capacity (differences in the ability to control attention) are highly related to fluid intelligence (Engle, Tuholski, Laughlin & Conway (1999); Heitz, Unsworth & Engle (2005); Kane, Bleckley, Conway & Engle, 2001). Engle and his colleagues have convincingly argued that the prefrontal cortex provides the critical (but not only) cerebral cortical substrate for the executive attention control associated with working memory capacity and fluid intelligence (Kane & Engle, 2002). Cowan (2005), a major developer of working memory theory and whose definition of working memory was cited earlier in this chapter, has proposed that adjustable-attention processes are key to understanding individual differences in working memory capacity and fluid intelligence. Cowan argues that a flexible attention system can zoom in to hold onto a goal (despite attentional interference) or zoom out (in the absence of interference) to apprehend more information to account for working memory capacity and fluid intelligence within and across individuals. Cowan (2005) includes parietal lobe functions (cp. Ito, 1997, 2005) as the seat of this attention, whereas he feels the frontal lobes are more involved in its control. While the arguments of the present chapter are in general agreement with foregoing attention-based approaches of Engle and his colleagues and with Cowan, the present discussion of working memory and intelligence departs from theirs in three extremely important ways. First, the mental modeling aspects of working memory are emphasized (`a la Baddeley, 1993). This emphasis permits attentional control of working memory to be related to the leading modelbased theoretical approaches to cognitive processes in both the prefrontal cortex and the cerebellum. Second, the working memory/cerebellar attentional control approach offers an explanation for domainspecific exceptional intellectual performance by way of modularity of cognitive/attentional functions in the cerebellum (Fig. 13.1b). Third, the working memory/cerebellar approach to the child prodigy, while critically involving the prefrontal and parietal lobes of the cerebral cortex, shifts much of the explanatory burden for high intellectual ability to the reciprocal learning relationships between the anticipatory,
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adaptive cognitive affective and attentional-modeling functions of the cerebellum and those of the cerebral cortex. In closing, it must be said that, in a very real sense, explanations of either the intelligence or the child prodigy without strong reference to the adaptivemodeling functions of the cerebellum seem to be like the patient with cerebellar damage who shows gross dysmetria of thought. Dysmetria of thought is a collection of cognitive and emotional manifestations of the “cerebellar cognitive affective syndrome” proposed by leading cerebellum researcher Jeremy Schmahmann (1988, 2004) and his colleagues: It [dysmetria of thought] is characterized by (1) disturbances of executive function, which includes deficient planning, set-shifting, abstract reasoning, working memory, and decreased verbal fluency; (2) impaired spatial cognition, including visual-spatial disorganization and impaired visual-spatial memory; (3) personality change characterized by flattening or blunting of affect and disinhibited or inappropriate behavior; and (4) linguistic difficulties, including dysprosodia, agrammatism and mild anomia. The net effect of these disturbances in cognitive functioning was a general lowering of overall intellectual function. (2004, p. 371)
Conclusion During the explosive enlargement of the cerebellum over the last million years of hominid evolution, working memory required new, more complex attentional control for the faster-than-real time manipulation of pre-language and language that has alerted us to the cerebellum’s role in all aspects of high-level thought. Creativity, fluid intelligence, expert performance, and the exceptional abilities of child prodigies are all implicated. When examined in the context of conceptual learning in early infancy, the necessity of attentional control modeling by working memory’s central executive (prefrontal cortex cognitive control) and the cerebellum becomes apparent. The collaboration of working memory and the cognitive cerebellum builds a powerful attentional control platform (HMOSAIC) that is domain specific and that serves working memory throughout life. The hierarchical levels of HMOSAIC, while developing throughout life, always retain a solid footing in those first conceptual primitives of relations among objects, space, and time learned in infancy.
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As Fox (1988) pointed out, since the movements of organisms in their survival relation to the movements of other organisms and the environment usually nonlinear, the selective evolution of attentional control must always be anticipatory; it is always about the probabilities of future circumstances (see endnote 5). The main high-level thrust of the human nervous system, as seen in the finely articulated bi-directional control between the prefrontal cortex and the cerebellum, is anticipatory forward modeling. In the case of high intellectual performance though extended deliberate practice, even though every mind is wrapped in the protection of advanced culture, the power of this extended forward modeling shows through. Ericsson found that “the essence of expert performance is a generalized skill at successfully meeting the demands of new situations and rapidly adapting to changing conditions” (Ericsson, 2002, p. 41). In light of the accelerated modeling produced by the cognitive control of the prefrontal cortex and the attentional control functions of the cerebellum, the entire powerful theoretical framework of Ericsson’s deliberate practice can be pushed back to a point beginning in early infancy. This, it is believed, is true in the case of the accelerated extraordinary performance and “rage to master” of the child prodigy, except the prodigy is usually limited to figurative processing or what Winner (1996, 2000) refers as little-c creativity (not domain altering). This limitation is dependent, perhaps, upon the stage (preoperational) reached in the development of prefrontal cortex cognitive control and coordinate levels of cerebellar HMOSAIC when the heightened attentional control finds a suitable domainspecific outlet – Einstein was certainly not limited to little-c creativity.
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L.R. Vandervert Schmahmann, J. (2004). Disorders of the cerebellum: Ataxia, dysmetria of thought, and the cerebellar cognitive affective syndrome. Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, 16, 367–378. Schmahmann, J., & Pandya, D. (1997). The cerebrocerebellar system. In J. D. Schmahmann (Ed.), The cerebellum and cognition (pp. 31–60). New York: Academic Press. Shavinina, L. (1999). The psychological essence of the child prodigy phenomenon: Sensitive periods and cognitive experience. Gifted Child Quarterly, 43(1), 25–38. Teasdale, J., Dritschel, B., Taylor, M., Proctor, L., Lloyd, C., & Nimmo-Smith, I., et al. (1995). Stimulus-independent thought depends on central executive resources. Memory & Cognition, 23, 551–559. Thach, W. T. (1996). On the specific role of the cerebellum in motor learning and cognition: Clues from PET activation and lesion studies in man. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 19(3), 411–431. Vandervert, L. (2003a). How working memory and cognitive modeling functions of the cerebellum contribute to discoveries in mathematics. New Ideas in Psychology, 21, 159–175. Vandervert, L. (2003b). The neurophysiological basis of innovation. In L. V. Shavinina (Ed.) The international handbook on innovation (pp. 17–30). Oxford, England: Elsevier Science. Vandervert, L. (2007) Cognitive functions of the cerebellum explain how Ericsson’s deliberate practice produces giftedness. High Ability Studies, 18(1), 89–92. Vandervert, L. (2008). The evolutionary basis of accelerated learning in the child prodigy. Manuscript submitted for publication. Vandervert, L., Schimpf, P., & Liu, H. (2007a) How working memory and the cerebellum collaborate to produce innovation and creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 19, 1–18. Vandervert, L., Schimpf, P., & Liu, H. (2007b). Rejoinder: Authors’ responses to commentaries. Creativity Research Journal, 19, 59–68. Winner, E. (1996) Gifted children: Myths and realities, (New York, Basic Books). Winner, E. (2000). The origins and ends of giftedness. American Psychologist, 55, 159–169. Wolpaw, J. R., Birbaumer, N., McFarland, D. J., Pfurtscheller, G., & Vaughan, T.M. (2002). Brain-computer interfaces for communication and control. Clinical Neurophysiology, 113, 767–791. Wolpert, D. M., Doya, K., & Kawato, M. (2003). A unifying computational framework for motor control and social interaction. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B, 358, 593–602. Wolpert D. M., & Kawato M., (1998). Multiple paired forward and inverse models for motor control. Neural Networks 11, 1317–1329.
Part IV
Developmental and Cognitive Foundations of Giftedness
Chapter 14
Developmental Trajectories of Giftedness in Children Christoph Perleth and Annett Wilde
Abstract Our article focuses on the development of giftedness in children. First, we outline demands for a model that wants to describe giftedness development and introduce the Munich Dynamic Ability-Achievement Model. Second, we summarize and review current approaches that explain how giftedness in children develops, e.g., genetic psychology, cognitive psychology, expertise research, or research with focus on interest, personality, family, or learning environment. The genetic approach for instance shows that there are various interactions between innate aspects and environmental factors. Expertise research on the contrary concentrates on practice. Other approaches try to identify factors of the child like motivation, attribution, or curiosity. Special attention will be directed at gender differences. One problem is that giftedness in girls is more often overlooked. Reasons like different expectations from parents and educators or different performances by boys and girls shall be explored. Finally, we shortly point out some ways to promote gifted children. Keywords Children · Development · Expertise · Gender · Giftedness model · Influences on giftedness development
Introduction Since Terman (1925) and Terman & Oden (1947) marked the beginning of giftedness research a major C. Perleth (B) Rostock University, Rostock, MV, Germany e-mail:
[email protected] aim in this field is the prognosis of later extraordinary achievement in specific domains. While society is interested in the identification of individuals who have high potentials for later excellence, parents are more interested in information on environmental factors which foster an optimal development of the abilities of their children. From both points of view it would be highly welcome to be able to identify or foster the respective children as early as possible. However, there are disappointing few studies which investigated the development of gifted pre-school children. Most longitudinal studies start with primary school children or – as Terman states – even later (see e.g., Heller, M¨onks, Sternberg, & Subotnik, 2000; Subotnik & Arnold, 1994). Apart from general problems to collect samples in pre-school age or even earlier (in Germany, for example, most pre-school teachers are a little hostile to empirical investigations using quantitative methods), there are many problems from the issue itself which make research in (probably) gifted pre-schoolers troublesome and difficult: Above all, the low stability of personality and ability factors in early age causes lots of methodological problems, therefore research in gifted pre-school children is either impossible or extremely expensive (see Perleth, Schatz, & M¨onks, 2000). In this chapter we first try to sum up our rationale on the early and later development of gifted children. Therefore, we will introduce the Munich Dynamic Ability-Achievement Model (MDAAM) which is characterized by the integration of different aspects of giftedness and a developmental focus. Then we discuss findings on factors that determine the development of gifted children and give a short outlook on the role of gender for the development of gifted children.
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A Comprehensive Model for the Development of Giftedness and Achievement Demands for Such a Model During the last decade of the 20th century there was an intensive discussion dealing with exceptional achievement between two antagonistic streams of psychological research. While giftedness research emphasized that important contributions to society are made by individuals who must have exceptional gifts, expertise research stressed that this could be done by any individual or by individuals with a wide range of ability who, however, are willing to concentrate on a long- and hard-learning and practice process. A major attack from expertise research was conducted by Ericsson (Ericsson & Charness, 1994, 1995) who strictly denied the traditional giftedness assumption that it is necessary to have exceptional levels of talent for high achievement. The main argument for Ericsson and colleagues was (and is until today, see Ericsson, Nandagopal, & Roring, this volume) that (innate) giftedness or intelligence is totally unimportant for exceptional achievement. Instead the role of experience is stressed, in the terminology of Ericsson “deliberate practice,” which involves task commitment, motivation, and self-control. These competencies are regarded as key characteristics for the development of the expertise that is needed for exceptional achievement. Gardner (1995) defended the traditional giftedness conceptualization and counterattacked the Ericsson position (see also the discussion during the symposium of the CIBA foundation in Bock & Ackrill, 1993). A closer analysis, however, shows that there is a considerable overlap between giftedness and expertise conceptualizations. These two approaches result from different accents and not from unbridgeable opposite standpoints. Perleth (1997; 2000) points out that expertise and giftedness represent different aspects of the same reality from different points of view. And no giftedness researcher would deny that deliberate practice is a prerequisite for extraordinary achievement. Which elements should be taken into account when constructing a model of giftedness that can integrate relevant findings from diverse fields of psychology? Expertise as well as giftedness researchers agree for ex-
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ample that the analysis of giftedness and achievement has to be done in a domain-specific manner. Models such as the Munich Model of Giftedness and Talent (Heller, Perleth, & Lim, 2005; Perleth & Heller, 1994) or the Gagn´e model (Gagn´e, 1993) stress this point explicitly. The following criteria have to be considered when constructing a model for giftedness development: 1. Extraordinary performance has to be conceptualized as domain specific As can be seen from Fig. 14.1, the Munich Dynamic Ability-Achievement Model stresses the domain specificity of giftedness and achievement factors as well as the role of personality and environmental factors that moderate the relationship between ability and achievement. 2. The model must show that the development of extraordinary achievement needs long periods of practice Giftedness and expertise researchers agree that an extraordinary achievement level can be reached only if one is ready to undertake a long, laborious, aimrelated learning process with the aims always in view. This long phase of deliberate practice explains why most individuals produce extraordinary achievement in only one domain. With the exception of Gagn´e’s (1993) model that stresses learning processes in school, most models of giftedness do not reflect this demand. 3. Separation of knowledge and general competencies Expertise as well as intelligence research shows that a rich domain-specific knowledge is a central prerequisite for exceptional achievement. Reflecting this demand, Perleth and Ziegler (1997) modified the Munich Model of Giftedness and Talent (Perleth & Heller, 1994) by explicitly referring to the long time that is needed to acquire specific knowledge and competencies. 4. The quality of the learning process A decisive prerequisite for reaching a high level of expertise is the maintenance of an active and aim-related learning process (“deliberate practice” sensu Ericsson) over a long period of time. Exceptional achievement demands an active learner who is permanently ready to overcome barriers hindering the acquisition of the next expertise level. Such achievement requires the individual to push himself to his limits. Expertise and giftedness researchers agree about the fundamental importance of personality characteristics for individuals who want to reach high levels of performance.
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Fig. 14.1 The Munich Dynamic Ability-Achievement Model (MDAAM) (Heller & Perleth, 2004; Perleth, 1997)
5. Giftedness as a dynamic construct Ericsson and Charness (1994) claim that intelligence tests measure nothing than learned knowledge. Even if one does not agree, it is clear that good achievement in intelligence tests requires a solid knowledge base. In other words, experiences are important for the development of both intelligence and giftedness. From this perspective we have to differentiate between giftedness factors (in the sense of traits) as prerequisites for achievement and innate dispositions (see next point). As already pointed out even extreme expertise researchers accept the importance of motivational personality characteristics: A high level of expertise can be achieved only after a long and partly laborious activity in a specific domain, for which a high degree of motivation and a positive attitude toward achievement are necessary (Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-R¨omer, 1993; Gruber, Weber, & Ziegler, 1996). Therefore, excellence has to be regarded as a product of giftedness and
personality factors as well as personality characteristics and characteristics of the learning environment. 6. Taking into account innate characteristics An integrative model of giftedness and achievement cannot ignore the recent findings of genetic psychology. Plomin (1994) provides convincing evidence of the interrelations between genetic gifts and learning environment. Scarr and McCartney (1983) and Plomin (1994) describe three types of this interrelation: a)
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Passive correlations between gifts and environment are found because children and parents share genetic and environmental influences. If, for example, a child inherits some musical ability from his parents, it is also likely that musical parents will provide a family environment in which music plays a prominent role (e.g., the family of Mozart). Correlations because of reactive gifts– environment–relationships occur when the
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environment (namely, teachers in school or other adults) reacts to the gifts of the children and offer learning opportunities in which the talents can be developed (e.g., Gauss, the son of a poor cobbler, whose teacher detected his extraordinary mathematical ability and recommended the boy to the Duke of Brunswick). Finally, active gifts–environment–relationships are caused by the fact that gifted children actively shape their environment according to their wishes and needs by seeking out friends with similar interests (e.g., musical children choose friends who prefer musical activities).
The Munich Dynamic Ability-Achievement Model (MDAAM) as an Integrating Framework for Giftedness Research Perleth (1997; 2000; 2001a) attempted to bridge the gap between the more process-oriented fields of cognitive research and expertise research in the development of the Munich Dynamic Ability-Achievement Model (MDAAM). This model is presented in Fig. 14.1; it attempts to integrate the above-discussed important perspectives of expertise and giftedness research and to put them into a common and consistent framework. Even if at the first glance the model might produce an opposite impression, it is meant to hold an appropriate level of complexity so that it is convincing to teachers as well as parents of gifted children and youth (fulfilling one of Sternberg’s, 1990, criteria for a good definition of giftedness). The seeming complexity is due to the examples that were chosen to illustrate the different groups of variables. (No examples for the expertise domain were given because no selection seems adequate with respect to the nearly unlimited possibilities.) Individual characteristics or traits such as aspects of attention and attention control, habituation, memory efficiency (speed of information processing), aspects of working memory, level of activation, perception, or motor skills can all be seen as innate dispositions or prerequisites (left side of the model). Perleth et al. (2000) regard these characteristics as representing the basic cognitive equipment of an individual. The model distinguishes between three or four stages of achievement or expertise development that are related to the main phases of school and
vocational training: pre-school, school, and university or vocational training. These stages can be roughly characterized by the classification Plomin (1994) uses to distinguish passive (pre-school age), reactive (primary school age), and active (adolescence and older) genotype–environment relations. The fourth phase of professional activities is only indicated in the model and has to be completed by conception (see Ackerman, 1988). Surely it has to be expected that deviations from this sketched “normal” development will occur, especially with gifted individuals. There are different learning processes attached to each of these stages. They serve the buildup of knowledge and competencies and are symbolized by the grey triangles. These triangles open to the right which indices growth of abilities, knowledge, or competencies. The left corner of the triangles shows when the respective learning process begins (different tones of grey are used to make the figure clearer):
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During pre-school years the formation of general domain-related competencies is assumed. These are abilities or talents that are depicted in the model as giftedness factors. Examples are intellectual or creative abilities, social competencies, and musical or motor abilities. The development of these competencies is contrasted even in this early age by the accumulation of knowledge (nature, reading, writing, calculation). During school years the formation of knowledge in different areas is predominating, and this knowledge has to be acquired in active, goal-oriented learning processes (“deliberate practice”). The stage of university or vocational training is the phase of increasing specialization and the development of expertise in a domain. Depending on the domain, this specialization can also start considerably earlier. Professional musicians or high-performance athletes, for example, often begin to occupy themselves with their domains as early as pre-school or primary school years (symbolized by the respective long triangles in Fig. 14.1).
The model not only identifies ability factors and knowledge domains as well as the respective learning processes but also highlights personality (motivational) characteristics that are important for the development of achievement and expertise. As shown in the model, these traits develop during pre-school and the first years of primary school (see also Helmke, 1997),
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and they are conceptualized as being relatively stable later on. Finally, aspects of the learning environment are emphasized in the model. Different factors for the three main stages of development are specified for the development of achievement and expertise (see Fig. 14.1 for more details). All in all, the influence of the family dominates in the first years, and then the characteristics of the school’s learning environment gain more and more influence (e.g., extra courses for the fostering of the gifted, school and class climate, and extracurricular activities). At the same time, the importance of friends and like-minded fellows increases. A more detailed description of the model is provided by Perleth (1997; 2001a).
hered (see Perleth, 2001b). These innate determinants of intellectual functioning do hardly respond to practice; they constitute, as it were, the hardware of our mental system. These are among others (see Perleth, Schatz, & Gast-Gampe, 2001 for the following sections):
Influences on the Development of Giftedness
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Different and sometimes directly opposed approaches try to explain how giftedness in children originates and develops (see also the chapter of Moltzen, this volume). We focus here on the five most common approaches to explain the development of giftedness: genetic psychology, cognitive psychology, expertise research, research with focus on interest and personality, and research with focus on family and learning environment.
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Genetic Psychology Approach During the past years genetic psychology has given interesting new impetus and enriched the field of giftedness research. It is in the first place the work of Plomin (1994) that convinces with a sophisticated view on the interactions between genetic dispositions and environmental factors. His approach goes far beyond the last decades’ simple attempts to estimate percentages of genetic dispositions and environment. Following Scarr and McCartney (1983), Plomin (1994) described three types of disposition–environment correlation: passive, reactive, and active interaction between dispositions and environment (see above). Most scientists agree that perceptional, cognitive, and motoric characteristics of the individual are in-
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Memory efficiency which refers to the velocity of cognitive processes. This speed of information processing can be compared with the clock speed of a computer. Processing capacity applies to the amount of information an individual can deal with simultaneously. This would be the random access memory (RAM) in our computer analogy. Memory capacity is the amount of information that can be stored in the long-term memory or, in computer language, the hard disc storage unit. Activation level refers, in technical terms, to the working voltage of an individual. Gender differences in childhood for example such as differences in aggressive behavior can be explained with different activation levels of boys and girls. There are different perceptional channels like vision, hearing, olfaction (sense of smell), or tactile sense. How precise the perception with these different senses works and how good one can calibrate information from different perceptual channels is important for giftedness development. Attention and attention control also contribute to giftedness development. Is the attention concentrated on a wide array of environmental cues or on a limited field? It is a vantage if the attention can be zoomed in on a broader or narrower section of the environment depending on the demands of a task. A narrow field of attention (like a telephoto lens) is useful with strongly restricted tasks such as memorizing a poem whereas a wide field of attention (“wide angle lens”) is useful with tasks that require paying attention to as much information as possible (e.g., driving a car). Habituation means how fast children adapt to novel stimuli and how quickly they recognize familiar stimuli. Consequently habituation can be regarded as an indicator for learning speed. In recent years researchers tried to measure habituation in very young infants and to predict later giftedness. However, this prediction is quite limited as the research results show. Correlations with developmental tests in later
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infancy are rather low and long-term predictions until school age nearly impossible. Finally, aspects of the motor function are inhered as well, such as muscles, bones, and nerve tracts and can influence giftedness development.
It is worth noting, however, especially in the context of giftedness development in pre-school age that innate attributes can be influenced. We can take the perfect pitch as an example. The psychologist and expert for musical talent John A. Sloboda and his colleagues assert that more children than expected can develop the perfect pitch (Sloboda, 1991, 1996). We understand by perfect pitch the ability of an individual to exactly determine the tone pitch of a heard tone. A person with perfect pitch can clearly distinguish between different notes. Children with perfect pitch (and good memory for melodies) are able to intone a melody in exactly the same pitch as heard before. It was without controversy for a long time that this rare ability is inhered. But Sloboda and colleagues found that pre-school children who had musical instruments available at home (especially keyboard instruments like piano) developed a perfect pitch more often. We can assume therefore that this special musical talent only develops in children if certain innate auditive characteristics and memory aspects concur with beneficial learning stimulation in the family environment. That a psychological characteristic is innate does not mean that it is unchangeable. In contrast, in modern genetic psychology nobody argues if child development depends on environment or genes. Scientists like the psychologist Robert Plomin rather try to find out how genetic dispositions and social environment interact during the mental development. We can conclude that even if abilities and temperaments are determined by genetic dispositions they are malleable and can be affected by socialization and education. The learning opportunities that are provided in the environment of the child are crucial for giftedness development.
Cognitive Psychology As an example for a cognitive intelligence model we want to introduce the model of Campione and Brown (1978) because it is most useful to explain performance development in children, even if it
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was originally derived from research with retarded children. According to the authors the identification of problems learning-disabled children face can raise our awareness of important but otherwise overlooked aspects of giftedness. Contrary to other researchers the authors do not assume that intelligence can be defined by one single factor. The basic concept of Campione and Brown’s model is the differentiation between the architectural “hardware” level and the higher “executive” system. Whereas the “hardware” is neither changeable nor trainable developmental processes underlie the executive system, therefore it can be improved by training measures. The hardware level consists of a three-storage space memory model (sensory register, short-term memory, and long-term memory, see Wessells, 1984 for a summary). The characteristics of these memory parts (capacity, duration, and efficiency) do not underlie developmental processes; therefore, they are not malleable and not related to intelligence. The operative efficiency of the cognitive system on the contrary, that is, the speed of information processing and retrieval, does correlate to parameters of intellectual functioning (see Swanson, 2006). The components of the executive system can also be influenced by practice. These components are for instance knowledge base, rules and strategies, or executive meta-cognitive control processes. Meta-cognitive control processes are used in the regulation of memory tasks, comprehension processes, or complex problem solving. Following Campione, Brown, and Ferrara’s (1982) practice generally plays an important role for the development of intelligence. Intelligence could even be defined by learning speed or the ability to transfer knowledge to other areas. While Campione and Brown (1978) originally developed the model for retarded children, Borkowski and Peck (1986) modified it in a way that conclusions can be drawn about the characteristics of gifted children. Comprising research literature and own empirical studies they found that gifted children outclass their peers in various components of the model (for cognitive characteristics of gifted children see also Gross, this volume). An important difference between gifted children and children with average intellectual abilities seems to be the superior knowledge base and the higher information processing speed of gifted children. In contrast,
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the findings with respect to meta-cognitive components as well as learning and problem-solving strategies are unclear. While some researchers found indicators for superior strategies of gifted children in these areas (Borkowski & Peck, 1986; Kurtz & Weinert, 1989), others did not (see Perleth, 1994). Nevertheless the approach of Campione and Brown (1978) seems convincing for various reasons. First, the authors succeeded in establishing a link between giftedness and expertise research by highlighting the importance of the knowledge base. Reading or calculating in young age can be explained very well by the model. Second, they differentiate between inhered aspects of intelligence which are not malleable and parameters that can be changed by practice. Finally, the approach can be considered as an attempt to get a clearer picture on how exactly a gifted child becomes an expert.
Expertise Research In the 1990s a novel approach, expertise research, disturbed the traditional giftedness research by partly radically denying the importance of intelligence and talent for performance development. Trying to comprise various definitions, Gruber (1994) defines an expert as an individual who permanently excels in a given area. Beyond question the most radical position in expertise research in the last years is adopted by Ericsson and colleagues. On the basis of the controversy between Ericsson and Charness (1994; 1995) and Gardner (1995) we want to elaborate the positions of the expertise approach. It is important to note that Ericsson and Charness (1994) explicitly focus on individuals with high performance or extraordinary expertise level. On the basis of their literature review the authors conclude that there is no evidence that high performance or expertise in various areas like chess, sports, and music or manual tasks such as typing is determined by talent in the sense of innate dispositions (see also Ericsson, Nandagopal, & Roring, 2005). In contrast, it is important to recognize that even basic determinants of cognitive functioning like extent and speed of perception, motoric parameters, reaction times and also physical characteristics like the size of heart and lung, the strength of bones, or flexibility depend on practice. Therefore, giftedness characteristics (in the traditional
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psychometric sense) have no predictive validity for high performance; this is especially true for the relevant psychometric tests that measure giftedness. According to the authors these measures for (innate) abilities pose significant methodological problems because they inextricably mix up cognitive dispositions and acquired knowledge, they conclude that these tests measure mainly acquired knowledge. Elaborating on these statements Ericsson and Charness (1994) say that with the usual tests performance can be predicted at best in a restricted area (including school performance) and over a short period of time, but in either case before achieving a high expertise level. However, the reasoning of Ericsson and colleagues falls back on a rather simple and very traditional understanding of intelligence when equating talent or intelligence with general intelligence. To strengthen the case against the effects of disposition on performance and expertise development, Ericsson and colleagues argue with the exceptional performances of young experts or child prodigies. These children excel in very early life in areas like chess or music. Following Feldman (1986), Ericsson and Charness (1994) say that these children pass through the same developmental learning stages like other children but the relevant stages faster and in younger age. In contrast it could be shown that the performance level of precocious children is directly related to intensive promotion from teachers and parents. Most adults who show high expertise were not labeled precocious as children but engaged early and intensely in their later area of expertise. The experience gained during the learning process is according to Ericsson et al. the fundamental motivation for the development of expertise. However, not every experience leads to expertise but the learning has to be active and purposeful. Ericsson, Krampe and TeschR¨omer (1993) refer to this learning process as “deliberate practice.” Deliberate practice is characterized by the following criteria (see Perleth, 1997):
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Specialization in one single area: Examples show that knowledge in different areas grows rapidly and that there are hardly people who gain expertise in more than one domain. Therefore, Ericsson and Charness (1994) conclude that expertise refers to the specialization in one single area, an expert has to dedicate all of his time to his area of expertise.
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Early outset and dedication of much time over many years: The achievement of expertise on an international level needs at least 10 years of intensive engagement in an activity (10-year rule). Therefore, it is useful to engage as early as possible in an area of expertise. Though initial progress is much bigger when the engagement in practice activities starts in later age, the late beginners can hardly catch up with the early beginners because the achievement curve runs asymptotically. As Ericsson and Charness (1994) outline differences in expert performance can be explained by differences in practice extension and starting point of engagement in an activity. But it is important to notice that the correlation between practice time and performance improvement decreases with increasing performance level. Deliberate practice: Various studies show that experience cannot be accumulated in any manner but it is crucial that competent, experienced, and motivated teachers facilitate the learning process. These teachers have not only to support and guide the learners and to focus the activity on important aspects but also to give constant feedback on the performance. Deliberate practice is usually not motivating in itself but has to be considered as hard work. This work must be distinguished from ordinary work and other activities because of the following reasons:
Fig. 14.2 Stages of performance development (adapted from Bloom, 1985)
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◦ It is targeted on performance improvement by overcoming present obstacles and performance plateaus. ◦ Contrary to ordinary work it does not lead to immediate social or monetary rewards, the future expert must be able to delay the fulfillment of needs. ◦ Most people use deliberate practice only until a certain level of performance is achieved and are not interested in further enhancement.
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Stages toward expert performance: According to Bloom (1985) individuals have to go through three stages to achieve expert performance (see Fig. 14.2). If we take as an example how individuals attain high expertise status in the field of music, the first stage in childhood is characterized by engagement in the domain through play. If parents regard their child as talented, they might engage a teacher and the child will engage in deliberate practice, at first on a limited scale. At this stage it is important that the parents support and motivate the child and take care that it practices regularly. The second stage is reached when after some years the young expert can increase performance only by notably intensifying efforts and engaging full time in the area of expertise. At that time the hobby turns into profession. The amount of deliberate practice is extended again and the young expert
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will look for teachers with outstanding abilities. threshold model his view on the relation of talent, pracFinally the individual becomes an expert and tice, and performance: professional in his or her domain. The final state r High basal abilities are neither sufficient nor neceswhich according to Bloom (1985) is not taken by every expert is characterized by the effort to r sary for expertise performance development. If the basal abilities exceed a certain threshold or advance ones performance further and contribute limit than noncognitive learning, prerequisites such eminent achievements to the domain. That in turn as commitment, perseverance, concentration, and will ideally contribute to the advancement of the success orientation as well as factors of the family area of expertise as well. and school environment will determine what performance level will be achieved. r This threshold must not be in the realm of high Only a few who started a promising career will fiability (normally more than two standard deviations nally reach the expert level or deliver outstanding conabove average) but can sometimes be at a surpristributions to their domain. Most people will have to be ingly low level. content with the performance level at the second stage. r The relevance of basal abilities seems to increase For this reason parents and educators are very interwith growing complexity of the domain. ested to obtain indicators that allow predicting the performance of the future expert. As Ericsson and CharGruber (1994) agrees that differences in expert ness (1994) highlight (see above), talent does not play performance cannot be explained without factoring in a role for this prediction, the only important prognostic abilities based on dispositions. He proves this with the variables are motivation and interest. noticeable performance differences some years ago Gardner (1995) agrees in his comment on Ericsson between the best chess players in the world, Kasparov and Charness’s (1994) article on the structure and ac- and Karpow, and the other international grand masters. quisition of expert performance that deliberate prac- It is not likely that these performance differences are tice is essential for expert performance. He argues fur- due to practice differences. And even with intensive ther that the constellation of motivation, interest, and practice not every person succeeds in becoming a temperament that Ericsson and Charness (1994) intro- chess expert. duce as main determinant for expertise development (together with cognitive characteristics) can be interpreted as talent as well. But Gardner (1995) disputes their suggestion that the development of expertise in a Interest and Motivational Characteristics given domain does not fundamentally differ between experts and people who do not reach expert status. He As research shows certain motivational and personalsays that in order to explain their “skilled memory” ap- ity characteristics of the child can be beneficial for proach expertise research should be able to show that giftedness development. These are for instance curioschildren can become experts in randomly assigned ar- ity, special interests, certain attribution styles, achieveeas, something that has not been proven yet. Finally ment, and intrinsic motivation (see Howe, 1990; JohnGardner (1995) critically comments that it cannot be son & Beer, 1992; Rost, 1993). In children, even in the aim of research to explain solely extremely high young age, curiosity and interests manifest itself in performances while losing sight of “normal” high per- exploratory behavior (as described in the paragraph formance. To focus more on the latter could even have on expertise). During the cognitive development exmore practical implications for the promotion of talents ploratory behavior becomes more and more elaborated. The assessment of motivational variables in young than the study of extreme populations. Schneider (1992) acknowledges that various stud- children is difficult because interest and motivation deies in the context of expertise research support the im- velop little by little and consolidate not until primary portance of deliberate practice for expert development. school age. Besides it is difficult to find tests that reliBut this does not allow concluding that basal intel- ably measure these traits in young infants (see also Perlectual abilities are not important for performance de- leth et al., 2000). Consequently more results are availvelopment. Schneider (1992; 1993) summarizes in his able for children in primary school age. Rost (1993)
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found in his longitudinal study on gifted children (Marburg Giftedness Project) that gifted children positively differ from children with average abilities with regard to achievement motivation, causal attribution, and dealing with failure (see also Perleth et al., 2000). At the end of primary school gifted children have been found to show higher intrinsic motivation (Gottfried & Gottfried, 1996). Compared to high-achieving peers gifted middle school students had higher general self-concept and attributed (social) success more on ability and effort (Bain & Bell, 2004). Pruisken (2005) reanalyzed the data of the Marburg Giftedness Project with regard to interest differences between gifted and primary school children with intellectual abilities in the average range (control group). While she found massive gender differences (in both groups), there existed nearly no differences between gifted and control students. The only exception of the eight interest domains explored (e.g., music, construction, biology, or arts) was the greater interest of gifted children in mathematics and languages/reading, however, the effect sizes of these differences were rather small. Furthermore the gifted children possessed significantly more books than their peers from the control group (irrespective of the socioeconomic status of their parents) and spent more time on reading. The superior exploratory skills and curiosity of the child are favorable in dealing with complex information in unstructured play situations, in the long run they are advantageous for the development of cognitive abilities and the building of a complex knowledge base, better problem solving and meta-cognition (see the model of Campione and Brown above or Perleth et al., 2000). Since curiosity and exploratory behavior are important for giftedness development the social environment of the child (in the first place parents and teachers) should seek to satisfy the child’s curiosity and make room for exploratory behavior. Research shows that meta-cognitive strategies such as dealing with obstacles during problem solving or the modification of strategies are acquired during the interaction with significant others. Therefore, it is crucial in which manner parents and educators react on the child’s curiosity. Especially helpful for the acquirement of meta-cognitive strategies are verbal and nonverbal cues from interaction partners. If these cues are appropriate for the child and comply with the child’s abilities, the child can adopt these strategies. Mothers of gifted children have been found to promote the development of meta-
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cognitive strategies by pointing out to the child important relations between problem aspects (“A piece of the puzzle is missing here, that has at least two tabs”). Mothers of less-gifted children in contrast seem to give more often direct advice in order to solve a problem (“This piece fits in here”).
Family Environment Giftedness development strongly depends on the good interaction of individual characteristics and environmental factors. Families provide learning experiences and opportunities that are crucial in order to transform gifts and talents into achievement. When the child gets older, not only parents but also teachers, other mentors, or gifted peers serve as role models (see Perleth et al., 2000). Certain characteristics can be seen as typical for families with gifted children:
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Socio-economic background: Children identified as gifted often stem from wealthy and intellectual middle and upper class families (Birx, 1988; Howe, 1990). These families provide the children with the monetary as well as intellectual resources for giftedness development. Social family variables: Howe (1990) found that successful scientists (e.g., Nobel Prize winners) came from intact families and reported a happy childhood. Other research indicates that gifted children were planned children and pregnancy and birth went without difficulties (Berger, 1984). Educational style and family climate: These variables are inextricably tied to the before mentioned socio-economic and family variables. An educational style that favors motivation development has to balance freedom and pressure. A medium level of control and discipline has to be compared with high positive emotional regard (Perleth et al., 2000; for contrary findings see Rost, 1993). Dwairy (2004) compared the family climate in families of gifted and adolescents not identified as gifted (control group) and found that parents of gifted adolescents were more authoritative and less authoritarian. Furthermore, an authoritative parental style was positively correlated with the mental health of the gifted and the students of the control group.
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An authoritarian style on the contrary was only for gifted students negatively correlated with mental health. In contrast, Schilling, Sparfeldt and Rost (2006) did not find differences in family climate, parental style, or intellectual–cultural orientation between families of gifted German adolescents and the respective control group of students in the middle range of the distribution (up to one standard deviation below and over the mean).
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be motivational problems and off-task behavior of good students and self-concept problems, demotivation, and dropout of students with poor performance. In the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), it was found that German elementary school teachers tend to offer high-performing students more of the same instead of offering them tasks that match the students’ competence level and interests (Bos et al., 2003). Another example for sometimes quite subtle mechanisms is teachers’ attribution of students’ performance. Research and observations in the classroom show (e.g., Ziegler, 1999) that teachers attribute good performance of girls in mathematics or School Environment science on effort and the good performance of boys on ability. Conversely, poor performance of girls in this As Tannenbaum (1992) pointed out, many children area is rather attributed to a lack of ability and that of who showed indicators of giftedness in early years lose boys on a lack of effort. their head start compared to their peers until the end of primary and the beginning of secondary school (see also Hotulainen & Schofield, 2003). One reason for Gender Differences this development might be found in the learning enGenerally boys slightly outnumber girls in the samples vironment provided by family and school. The first important tasks of schools and their prede- of the most studies on giftedness, regardless of the cessors like kindergarten and play school is to identify method of sampling (see Benbow, Lubinski, Shea, & talents. They accomplish what was described above as Eftekhari-Sanjani, 2000; Perleth & Sierwald, 2001; reactive interaction between dispositions and environ- Rost, 2000; Swiatek & Lupkowski-Shoplik, 2000). ment, which means the environment (in this case the In the Marburg Giftedness Project an unselected teachers) reacts on the talents of the child. This is es- sample of more than 7000 primary school children pecially important for children with parents who can- was screened with respect to intelligence (Rost, 1993, not detect (for various reasons) the giftedness of their 2000), here the final sample consisted of 56% boys child. Furthermore, teachers and educators can con- and 43% girls. Another large German longitudinal tribute to the promotion and development of giftedness study, the Munich High Ability Study, found at least by mentoring gifted children, helping them to find new among the very high intellectual gifted more boys than fields of interest, or enabling them to perform activities girls (Perleth & Sierwald, 2001). Furthermore, girls in their favorite domain or field of interest. Often this were more often selected as gifted because of their exceeds the possibilities the child has at home. Educa- high music or social abilities. In the United States in tional institutions, especially such with special gifted the 1970s the Study of Mathematically Precocious programs, can also provide opportunities to meet like- Youth (SMPY) was started, a longitudinal study minded people and to grow into a community of excel- running until today (for an overview, see Lubinski & Benbow, 2006). As part of a talent search students lence. However, a barrier with regard to an adequate took the SAT (mathematics and verbal). While no promotion of giftedness at school is the lack of gender differences were found on the verbal test there individualization. The educational schedule is not appeared stable gender differences in mathematical specific enough for children’s individual talents and reasoning with a ratio of 12.9 to 1 in the highest levels interests. Teachers have difficulties in managing (Benbow et al., 2000). This research already gives the impression that gifts the variety of talents and learning conditions of the children and orient toward the average which leads and talents of boys and girls lie in different areas. to inadequate performance requests for both students Boys are found to be more spatially or mathematiwith good and poor performance. Consequences can cally gifted whereas girls’ talents are found more often
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in languages (see also Brody, Barnett, & Mills, 1994; Eccles & Harold, 1992; Swiatek, Lupkowski-Shoplik, & O’Donoghue, 2000). Gender differences are even more pronounced when it comes to interests and activities (see Benbow et al., 2000; Pruisken, 2005; Rost & Hanses, 1992; Schober, Reimann & Wagner, 2004). These differences always go in a traditional direction with boys being more interested in science and mathematics and girls preferring art, humanities, and languages. In this regard gifted children do not differ from their peers with average abilities. The picture is more mixed however when it comes to gender differences in self-concept and motivational variables among gifted children. Generally differences in these variables tend to be not so large and pronounced like the differences in interests and preferences mentioned above (Finsterwald & Ziegler, 2002; Perleth & Sierwald, 2001; Rost & Hanses, 2000; Sch¨utz, 2004). Finsterwald and Ziegler (2002) conducted a meta-analysis on gender differences in variables such as motivation, attribution, locus of control, self-concept, and anxiety. In neither of these variables a clear effect of gender could be found. More recent research shows the same picture. So did Rost and Hanses (2000) for instance report an equally high self-concept of gifted boys and girls while other research reports lower self-concept of girls as well as more effort for achievement and less-optimistic control beliefs (Dresel & Haugwitz, 2005; Hong & Aqui, 2004). Schober, Reimann and Wagner (2004) compared the self-concepts of adolescent boys and girls. While they did not find differences in actual test performance, gender differences appeared in various self-concept variables. Girls had a lower mathematical self-concept, scored higher on helplessness, and girl’s parents had lower achievement expectations. While these students attended “normal” classes a second research sample consisted of boys and girls taking part in a special gifted school program. Here as well gender differences were found. Again, girls had a lower mathematical self-concept, besides and different to the first study they showed lower aspiration level and a lower motivation to succeed. Even if gender differences in self-concept and motivational variables are found they do not always go in the same direction. The research reported so far indicated better outcomes for boys, however, some exceptions are found. Generally girls have better grades at school, gifted or not (Reis, 2002). Schober et al. (2004)
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found gifted girls who took part in a special gifted school program to have a higher general academic selfconcept, a more positive attitude toward school, and a higher intrinsic motivation than gifted boys. Hotulainen and Schofield (2003) tested Finnish children at pre-school age and after 10 years of school. The children identified as gifted performed better at school then the children with average abilities, however, this effect was more pronounced for girls. The authors conclude that during school time gifted boys succeeded much less than girls in realizing their potential. If gender differences exist (as with different areas of giftedness or different interests and preferences of boys and girls) research remains divided however on the question to what extent these differences are inhered. Some scientists (e.g., the American psychologist Sandra Scarr) regard hormonal influences as the main reason for gender differences in science and mathematics. Others (like the Munich research group of Heller and colleagues) see an important part of gender differences rooted in socializational and educational influences from parents and educators. Because boys are expected to be more mathematical than girls they adopt this view and develop in consequence more science-related interests. From adolescence on this is reflected in better performance in science both in school and tests (see for instance Nagy, Trautwein, Baumert, K¨oller, & Garrett, 2006). In primary school boys and girls perform equally well in mathematics but even then girls underestimate their mathematic abilities (Stipek & Gralinski, 1991; Tiedemann & Faber, 1995). In addition, typical games like building with Lego bricks and also climbing on trees foster the development of mathematical and spatial skills. Because of their higher activation level boys rather than girls tend to turn to such male activities (see above). This, again, shows the complex interaction of environment and dispositions for giftedness development. The superior verbal skills of girls that are found sometimes can be attributed to their stronger preoccupation with games such as role play, where manifold verbal skills are needed. This ranges from verbally establishing and settling the rules of the game to the communication during the game itself. Typical topics of these role plays are “playing house,” “marriage,” or reenacting stories and fairy tales. It might be useful to have a closer look on parents and teachers expectations for boys and girls because this is the point where change can begin. While gender
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differences in attributes of the children are rather small (just like gender differences in other domains, usually gender differences are smaller than differences between individuals), popular beliefs about gender differences in giftedness are quite persistent and can through parental expectations influence children’s self-perceptions and performance (see Reis, 2002). This is reflected among others in the smaller number of girls who are recommended for identification measures like tests. Parents as well as teachers have such stereotyped expectations (see Busse & Dahme, 1986; Endepohls-Ulpe, 2004; Perleth & Stave, 2006; Perleth, S¨uhlfleisch-Thurau, & Joswig, 2004). One reason for the strong association of giftedness with boys might be gender stereotypes and gender role expectations. Gender stereotypes are beliefs about the attributes of men and women (Ashmore & Del Boca, 1979). Following Prentice and Carranza (2002) they have a prescriptive (how men and women should be) and a descriptive (what characteristics men and women typically have) aspect. Feminine attributes such as being affectionate, sensitive, or kind are considered more typical of women; attributes such as being aggressive, strong, or logical are considered more typical of men (see Williams, Satterwhite, & Best, 1999). Even if the roles of men and women have changed in the last decades gender stereotypes have remained relatively stable (see Prentice & Carranza, 2004). From the perspective of social role theory (Eagly, Wood, & Diekman, 2000) stereotype content is rooted in the division of labor. Men’s concentration in leadership and other high-power roles leads to the assumption that men have agentic characteristics (e.g., self-assertion, dominance); women’s concentration in subordinate and caretaking roles leads to the assumption that they have communal characteristics (e.g., kind, supportive). In a 5-year longitudinal study Trautner and colleagues (Trautner, 1992; Trautner et al., 2005) examined the development of children’s gender stereotypes. Already at the age of 4 years children knew which behavior and characteristics are typical for men and women, this knowledge was especially pronounced for sex-typed behavior. Between 4 and 8 years this knowledge was characterized by a rigid attribution of traits; feminine traits and behaviors were considered to be typical for women, but not for men and masculine traits were supposed to be typical for men but not women. From the age of 6 years on children’s stereotypes be-
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came more and more flexible, that is, the children knew that men and women can posses both masculine and feminine characteristics. The phase of rigidity concerning gender stereotypes reached its peak around the age of 6 years, from then on flexibility grew continuously. As Geis (1993) pointed out, gender stereotypes can act as self-fulfilling prophecies. Based on their stereotypes people develop expectations (in this case about the intellectual abilities, talents, and interests of boys and girls) and behave according to these expectations. Children then might in turn adapt their self-perceptions or behavior accordingly. This can for instance result in different toy and activity preferences between boys and girls (see Maccoby, 1998; Trautner, 1995) (of course parents’ expectations is just one factor to explain gender differences in play behavior). As the model of Trautner (1995) on the development of gender stereotypes pointed out, children pass through a developmental stage of rigid gender stereotypes. Especially during this stage children might be quite open-minded about and easily influenced by the gendered expectation of significant others.
Conclusions In the beginning we gave important demands for a model that wants to describe giftedness development which were taken up and elaborated in the Munich Dynamic Ability-Achievement Model. We then described factors that influence giftedness development: innate characteristics, personality factors, and aspects of the environment. From this we can draw useful conclusion about an optimal promotion of gifted children. Domain specificity of talent has to be taken into account. Even if there can be identified central personal characteristics as memory or speed of information processing which underlie different forms of giftedness, there is no such thing as “The gifted” but rather different areas of giftedness must be differentiated. This means that the environment should offer opportunities for children to find out where their talents lie. Furthermore, giftedness development must be seen as a dynamic interaction process between innate dispositions, personality factors (such as motivation), and characteristics of the learning environment. It is especially expertise research that stresses the importance of competencies and personality charac-
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teristics like task commitment, motivation, and selfcontrol. Because long phases of deliberate practice are necessary to excel in an area such motivational competencies have to be fostered. Parents and educators have to be aware that for excellent achievement deliberate practice must be initiated and maintained over long periods of time. Finally, it is not just talent and practice but also rich domain-specific knowledge which is acquired in long learning processes: here the necessary learning opportunities have to be provided to acquire this knowledge. Innate characteristics must be regarded as important, however, when promoting children it has to be kept in mind that there are various kinds of interaction possible between innate characteristics and environment. To better understand giftedness development in children appropriate methods of analyzing longitudinal data should be applied. It would be very fruitful to follow the suggestions of Singer and Willett (2003) as described in the framework of the multilevel model for change. Instead of analyzing giftedness development at group level grow curve modeling can be used to examine individual developmental trajectories of gifted children, for instance with respect to cognitive functioning or personality factors such as mentioned above. In the next step one might identify distinctive groups of individual trajectories and find out whether interindividual variation is systematically related to context variables.
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Ericsson, K. A., & Charness, N. (1995). “Expert performance: Its structure and acquisition”: Reply. American Psychologist, 50, 803–804. Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. T., & Tesch-R¨omer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 100, 363–406. Ericsson, K. A., Nandagopal, K., & Roring, R. W. (2005). Giftedness viewed from the expert-performance perspective. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 28(3), 287–311. Ericsson, K. A., Nandagopal, K., & Roring, R. W. (2009). An Expert-Performance Approach to the Study of Giftedness. In L. Shavinina (Ed.), International Handbook of giftedness, 129–154. Feldman, D. H. (1986). Nature’s Gambit. Child Prodigies and the Development of Human Potential. New York: Basic Books. Finsterwald, M., & Ziegler, A. (2002). Geschlechtsunterschiede in der Motivation: Ist die Situation bei normal begabten und hoch begabten Sch¨uler(inne)en die gleiche? [Gender differences in motivation: Is the situation comparable for average and gifted school students?]. In H. Wagner (Ed.), Hoch begabte M¨adchen und Frauen. Begabungsentwicklung und Geschlechtsunterschiede. Tagungsbericht (pp. 67–83). Bad Honnef: Bock. Gagn´e, F. (1993). Constructs and models pertaining to exceptional human abilities. In K. A. Heller, F. J. M¨onks, & A. H. Passow (Eds.), International handbook of research and development of giftedness and talent (pp. 69–87). Oxford: Pergamon Press. Gardner, H. (1995). “Expert performance: Its structure and acquisition”: Comment. American Psychologist, 50, 802–803. Geis, F. L. (1993). Self-fulfilling prophecies: A social psychological view of gender. In A. E. Beall & R. J. Sternberg (Eds.), The psychology of gender. (pp. 9–54): Guilford Press. Gottfried, A. E., & Gottfried, A. W. (1996). A longitudinal study of academic intrinsic motivation in intellectually gifted children: Childhood through early adolescence. Gifted-ChildQuarterly. Special Issue: Motivation and Giftedness., 40, 179–183. Gross, M. U. M. (2009). Highly gifted young people: Development from childhood to adulthood. In L. Shavinina (Ed.), International Handbook of giftedness, 337–352. Gruber, H. (1994). Expertise. Modelle und empirische Untersuchungen [Expertise. Models and empirical studies]. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Gruber, H., Weber, A., & Ziegler, A. (1996). Einsatzm¨oglichkeiten retrospektiver Befragungen bei der Untersuchung des Expertiseerwerbs [Possibilities of using retrospective interviews in studies of acquistition of expertise]. In H. Gruber & A. Ziegler (Eds.), Expertiseforschung. Theoretische und methodische Grundlagen (pp. 150–168). Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Heller, K. A., M¨onks, F. J., Sternberg, R. J., & Subotnik, R. F. (Eds.). (2000). International handbook of giftedness and talent (2nd ed.). Oxford: Pergamon. Heller, K. A., & Perleth, C. (2004). Adapting Conceptual Models for Cross-cultural Applications. In J. R. Campbell, K. Tirri, P. Ruohotie, & H. Walberg (Eds.), Cross-cultural Research: Basic Issues, Dilemmas, and Strategies (pp. 81–101).
333 H¨ameenlinna, Finland: Research Center for Vocational Education (RCVE). Heller, K. A., Perleth, C., & Lim, T. K. (2005). The Munich Model of Giftedness designed to identify and promote gifted students. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (pp. 172–197). New York: Cambridge University Press. Helmke, A. (1997). Individuelle Bedingungsfaktoren der Schulleistung – Ergebnisse aus dem SCHOLASTIK-Projekt [Individual determinants of academic performance: Literature review, results from the SCHOLASTIK project]. In F. E. Weinert & A. Helmke (Eds.), Entwicklung im Grundschulalter (pp. 203–216). Weinheim: Beltz. Hong, E., & Aqui, Y. (2004). Cognitive and motivational characteristics of adolescents gifted in mathematics: Comparisons among students with different types of giftedness. Gifted Child Quarterly, 48(3), 191–201. Hotulainen, R. H. E., & Schofield, N. J. (2003). Identified pre-school potential giftedness and its relation to academic achievement and self-concept at the end of Finnish comprehensive school. High Ability Studies, 14(1), 55–70. Howe, M. J. A. (1990). The origin of exceptional abilities. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Johnson, L., & Beer, J. (1992). Specific and diversive curiosity in gifted elementary students. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 75, 463–466. Kurtz, B. E., & Weinert, F. E. (1989). Metamemory, memory performance, and causal attributions in gifted and average children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 48, 45–61. Lubinski, D., & Benbow, C. P. (2006). Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY) after 35 years: Uncovering antecedents for the development of math-science expertise. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 1, 316–343. Maccoby, E. E. (1998). The two sexes: Growing up apart, coming together. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press/Harvard University Press. Moltzen, R. (2009). Talent development across the lifespan. In L. Shavinina (Ed.), International Handbook of Giftedness, 353–380. Nagy, G., Trautwein, U., Baumert, J., K¨oller, O., & Garrett, J. (2006). Gender and course selection in upper secondary education: Effects of academic self-concept and intrinsic value. Educational Research and Evaluation, 12, 323–345. Perleth, C. (1994). Strategy use and metamemory in gifted and average primary school children. In K. A. Heller & E. A. Hany (Eds.), Competence and responsibility. The Third European Conference of the European Council for High Ability held in Munich (Germany), October 11–14 (Vol. 2, pp. 46– 52). Goettingen: Hogrefe & Huber. Perleth, C. (1997). Zur Rolle von Begabung und Erfahrung bei der Leistungsgenese. Ein Br¨uckenschlag zwischen Begabungs- und Expertiseforschung [The role of giftedness and experience in the genesis of achievement. A bridge over the gap between giftedness and expertise research]. M¨unchen: LMU. Perleth, C. (2000). Neue Tendenzen und Ergebnisse in der Begabungs- und Intelligenzdiagnostik [New trends and results in giftedness and intelligence diagnostics]. In H. Joswig (Ed.), Begabungen erkennen – Begabte f¨ordern (pp. 35–64). Rostock: Univ. Rostock.
334 Perleth, C. (2001a). Follow-up-Untersuchungen zur M¨unchner Hochbegabungsstudie [Follow-up results of the Munich Longitudinal Study of Giftedness]. In K. A. Heller (Ed.), Hochbegabung im Kindes- und Jugendalter (pp. 357–446). G¨ottingen: Hogrefe. Perleth, C. (2001b). M¨oglichkeiten und Grenzen der Begabungsdiagnose bei Vor- und Grundschulkinder [Possibilities and limits of giftedness diagnosis in pre-school and elementary school children]. In Arbeitsstab Forum Bildung (Ed.), Finden und F¨ordern von Begabungen. Fachtagung des Forums Bildung am 6. und 7. M¨arz 2001 in Berlin (Vol. 7, pp. 80–98). Bonn: Forum Bildung. Perleth, C., & Heller, K. A. (1994). The Munich longitudinal study of giftedness. In R. Subotnik & K. Arnold (Eds.), Beyond Terman: Contemporary longitudinal studies of giftedness and talent (pp. 77–114). Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Perleth, C., Schatz, T., & Gast-Gampe, M. (2001). Die pers¨onliche Begabung entdecken und st¨arken. Unter Mitarbeit von Daniel Ringhand [Discover and encourage individual talents. In collaboration with Daniel Ringhand]. Berlin: Urania-Ravensburger. Perleth, C., Schatz, T., & M¨onks, F. J. (2000). Early indicators of high ability. In K. A. Heller, F. J. M¨onks, R. J. Sternberg, & R. F. Subotnik (Eds.), International handbook for giftedness and talent (pp. 297–316). Oxford: Pergamon. Perleth, C., & Sierwald, W. (2001). Entwicklungs- und Leistungsanalysen zur Hochbegabung [Analyses of development and achievement of the gifted]. In K. A. Heller (Ed.), Hochbegabung im Kindes- und Jugendalter (pp. 171–355). G¨ottingen: Hogrefe. Perleth, C., & Stave, U. (2006). “Wir k¨onnen auch anders”: Das Klientel der Beratungsstelle im Rostocker Odysseus-Projekt [Clients of the giftedness center of the Rostock Odysseusproject]. Journal f¨ur Begabtenf¨orderung., 6, 37–44. Perleth, C., S¨uhlfleisch-Thurau, U., & Joswig, H. (2004). Zwei Jahre Begabungspsychologische Beratungsstelle “OdysseusProjekt” an der Universit¨at Rostock – Konzeption, Ergebnisse und Erfahrungen [Two years counseling center for giftedness “Odysseus-Project” at Rostock University – conceptional design, results, and experiences]. In H. Joswig & H. Drewelow (Eds.), Begabungsf¨orderung: Von der Einzelfallberatung zur Lernkultur (pp. 173–200). Rostock: Universit¨at Rostock. ¨ Perleth, C., & Ziegler, A. (1997). Uberlegungen zur Begabungsdiagnose und Begabtenf¨orderung in der Berufsaus- und Weiterbildung [Considerations on diagnosis and promotion of gifted in personnel training and vocational education]. In U. Kittler & H. Metz-G¨ockel (Eds.), P¨adagogische Psychologie in Erziehung und Unterricht (pp. 100–112). Essen: Die Blaue Eule. Plomin, R. (1994). Genetics and experience. The interplay between nature and nurture. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Prentice, D. A., & Carranza, E. (2002). What women and men should be, shouldn’t be, are allowed to be, and don’t have to be: The contents of prescriptive gender stereotypes. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 26, 269–281. Prentice, D. A., & Carranza, E. (2004). Sustaining Cultural Beliefs in the Face of Their Violation: The Case of Gender Stereotypes. In M. Schaller & C. S. Crandall (Eds.), The psychological foundations of culture (pp. 259–280). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
C. Perleth and A. Wilde Pruisken, C. (2005). Interessen und Hobbys hochbegabter Grundschulkinder [Interests and hobbies of gifted elementary school students]. M¨unster: Waxmann. Reis, S. M. (2002). Gifted females in elementary and secondary school. In M. Neihart, S. M. Reis, N. M. Robinson, & S. M. Moon (Eds.), The social and emotional development of gifted children: What do we know? (pp. 125–135): Prufrock Press. Rost, D. H. (1993). Lebensumweltanalyse hochbegabter Kinder [Analysis of living circumstances of gifted children]. G¨ottingen: Hogrefe. Rost, D. H. (2000). Hochbegabte und hochleistende Jugendliche. Neue Ergebnisse aus dem Marburger Hochbegabtenprojekt [Gifted and high-performing adolescents]. M¨unster: Waxmann. Rost, D. H., & Hanses, P. (1992). Spielzeugbesitz und Spielzeugnutzung bei hochbegabten Jungen und Maedchen [Toy ownership and toy use among gifted children]. Zeitschrift fuer Entwicklungspsychologie und Paedagogische Psychologie, 24, (2) 91–114. Rost, D. H., & Hanses, P. (2000). Selbstkonzept [Self-concept]. In Hochbegabte und hochleistende Jugendliche (pp. 211– 278). M¨unster: Waxmann. Scarr, S., & McCartney, K. (1983). How people make their own environments: A theory of genotype-environment effects. Child Development, 54, 424–435. Schilling, S. R., Sparfeldt,. R., Jr, & Rost, D. H. (2006). Families with gifted adolescents. Educational Psychology, 26(1), 19–32. Schneider, W. (1992). Erwerb von Expertise. Zur Relevanz kognitiver und nichtkognitiver Voraussetzungen [The acquisition of expertise: On the relevance of cognitive and noncognitive prerequisites]. In E. A. Hany & H. Nickel (Eds.), Begabung und Hochbegabung. Theoretische Konzepte, empirische Befunde, praktische Konsequenzen (pp. 105–122). Bern: Huber. Schneider, W. (1993). Acquiring expertise: Determinants of exceptional performance. In K. A. Heller, F. J. M¨onks, & A. H. Passow (Eds.), International handbook of research and development of giftedness and talent (pp. 311–324). Oxford: Pergamon Press. Schober, B., Reimann, R., & Wagner, P. (2004). Is research on gender-specific underachievement in gifted girls an obsolete topic? New findings on an often discussed issue. High Ability Studies, 15(1), 43–62. Sch¨utz, C. (2004). Leistungsbezogenes Denken hochbegabter Jugendlicher [Achievement-related cognitions in gifted adolescents]. M¨unster: Waxmann. Singer, J. D., & Willett, J. B. (2003). Applied longitudinal data analysis: Modeling change and event occurrence. New York: Oxford University Press. Sloboda, J. A. (1991). Musical expertise. In K. A. Ericsson & J. Smith (Eds.), Toward a general theory of expertise: Prospects and limits (pp. 153–172). New York: Cambridge University Press. Sloboda, J. A. (1996). The acquisition of musical performance expertise: Deconstructing the “Talent” account of individual differences in music expressivity. In K. A. Ericsson (Ed.), The road to excellence: the acquisition of expert performance in the arts and science, sports and games (pp. 127–166). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
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Sternberg, R. J. (1990). What constitutes a “good” definition of giftedness. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 14, 96–100. Stipek, D. J., & Gralinski, J. H. (1991). Gender differences in children’s achievement-related beliefs and emotional responses to success and failure in mathematics. Journal of Educational Psychology, 83, 361–371. Subotnik, R., & Arnold, K. D. (1994). Longitudinal study of giftedness and talent. In R. Subotnik & K. Arnold (Eds.), Beyond Terman: Contemporary longitudinal studies of giftedness and talent (pp. 1–23). Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Swanson, H. L. (2006). Cognitive processes that underlie mathematical precociousness in young children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 93(3), 239–264. Swiatek, M. A., & Lupkowski-Shoplik, A. (2000). Gender differences in academic attitudes among gifted elementary school students. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 23(4), 360–377. Swiatek, M. A., Lupkowski-Shoplik, A., & O’Donoghue, C. C. (2000). Gender differences in above-level EXPLORE scores of gifted third through sixth graders. Journal of Educational Psychology, 92(4), 718–723. Tannenbaum, A. (1992). Early signs of giftedness: Research and commentary. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 15(2) 104–133. Terman, L. M. (1925). Genetic studies of genius: Mental and physical traits of 1000 gifted children. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
335 Terman, L. M., & Oden, M. H. (1947). The gifted child grows up. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Tiedemann, J., & Faber, G. (1995). M¨adchen im Mathematikunterricht: Selbstkonzept und Kausalattributionen im Grundschulalter [Gender differences in elementary school children’s self-concept and attributions in mathematics]. Zeitschrift f¨ur Entwicklungspsychologie und P¨adagogische Psychologie, 27, 61–71. Trautner, H. M. (1992). The development of sex-typing in children: A longitudinal analysis. German Journal of Psychology, 16(3), 183–199. Trautner, H. M. (1995). Boys’ and girls’ play behavior in samesex and opposite-sex pairs. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 156(1), 5–15. Trautner, H. M., Ruble, D. N., Cyphers, L., Kirsten, B., Behrendt, R., & Hartmann, P. (2005). Rigidity and flexibility of gender stereotypes in childhood: Developmental or differential? Infant and Child Development, 14(4), 365–381. Wessells, M. G. (1984). Cognitive psychology. New York: Harper & Row. Williams, J. E., Satterwhite, R. C., & Best, D. L. (1999). Pancultural gender stereotypes revisited: The five factor model. Sex Roles, 40, 513–525. Ziegler, A. (1999). Motivation [Motivation]. In C. Perleth & A. Ziegler (Eds.), P¨adagogische Psychologie. Grundlagen und Anwendungsfelder (pp. 107–117). Bern: Huber.
Chapter 15
Highly Gifted Young People: Development from Childhood to Adulthood Miraca U.M. Gross
Abstract Highly gifted children and adolescents are students at risk because they differ so significantly from their age-peers in many aspects of their cognitive and affective development. The cognitive strategies they employ are not readily understood by classmates or, often, by teachers. In the elementary school years, their strong intrinsic motivational orientation is at variance with the “reward” philosophy of many classrooms. Their conceptions and expectations of friendship differ strongly from those of age-peers and more closely resemble those of older students. Their moral reasoning tends to be more akin to that of students some years older. Longitudinal studies which have traced these young people’s development through adolescence and adulthood have identified strongly positive academic and social outcomes of various forms of academic acceleration, including, for exceptionally and profoundly gifted students, thoughtfully monitored programs of radical acceleration which allow graduation from high school three or more years earlier than usual. Keywords Acceleration · Affective development · Altruism · Cognitive strategies · Friendships · Grouping · Highly gifted · Humor · Moral reasoning · Motivational orientation
Highly gifted children are students at risk and many scholars over the last 80 years have argued that those in the very highest ranges of cognitive development may be the group at greatest risk M.U.M. Gross (B) The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia e-mail:
[email protected] (Hollingworth, 1926, 1942; Silverman, 1993; Terman, 1925). Many of the difficulties these young people experience in school arise from teachers’ lack of awareness of the enormous range of ability within the intellectually gifted population. Many teachers assume that giftedness “begins at” an IQ of 130 and that students within this top two percent comprise, in terms of their capacity to learn, a relatively homogeneous group. For highly gifted students, this misconception can lead to seriously inadequate curriculum provision and inappropriate grade placement (Gross, 2004). Silverman (1989, p. 71) defines the highly gifted as “those whose advancement is significantly beyond the norm of the gifted.” Within the broader classification of “highly gifted,” however, are sub-categories of students with increasingly differentiated cognitive characteristics, and more specific terminologies have been developed to classify and describe these children. Intellectually gifted children can be classified as mildly, moderately, highly, exceptionally, and profoundly gifted. Levels of intellectual giftedness, as defined by IQ ranges, and the level of prevalence of such children in the general population, appear as follows:
Level
IQ range
Prevalence
Mildly (or basically) gifted Moderately gifted Highly gifted Exceptionally gifted Profoundly gifted
115–129
1:6–1:40
130–144
1:40–1:1,000
145–159 160–179
1:1,000–1:10,000 1:10,000–1:1 million Fewer than 1:1 million
L.V. Shavinina (ed.), International Handbook on Giftedness, c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-6162-2 15,
180+
337
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In recent years Gagn´e (for example, 2003) has proposed a different and somewhat idiosyncratic five-level hierarchy (mildly, moderately, highly, exceptionally, and extremely gifted), based on the metric system, with the four highest levels each having a range of only 10 IQ points and with individuals of IQ 165 and above subsumed in a single category of “extremely” gifted. However, as I will discuss in this chapter, significant differences have been found, in both cognitive and affective development, between young people in the lower and upper levels of Gagn´e’s “extremely gifted” categorization. Indeed, this might be expected; variability is greater at the extremes of any curve of ability. Goldstein, Stocking and Godfrey (1999), show that the range of scores of children in the top 1% on IQ – from 135 to more than 200 – is as broad as the range of scores from the 2nd percentile (IQ 64) to the 98th (IQ 132). In terms of intellectual capacity, the profoundly gifted student of IQ 190 differs from moderately gifted classmates of IQ 130 to an even greater degree than the latter differ from intellectually disabled students of IQ 70. This chapter will use the broad term “highly gifted” to define students scoring above IQ 145 – young people who appear in the population at a ratio of fewer than 1:1000 – but will use the more precise terminologies of “exceptionally gifted” and “profoundly gifted” when discussing findings that relate specifically to these subpopulations.
Cognitive Characteristics of Highly Gifted Students Few large-scale comparative studies have been undertaken of differences between the cognitive functioning of moderately and highly gifted children, in part because of the relative scarcity of the highly gifted. However some interesting findings have emerged from such studies as have been conducted.
Cognitive Style and Strategies Cognitive style was defined by Rogers as “consistencies in the unique manner in which a learner acquires or processes information” (1986, p. 19). A wide range
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of studies have found that intellectually gifted children tend to differ in cognitive style from age-peers of average ability. For example, intellectually gifted children prefer to study independently rather than in mixedability groups, display intrinsic rather than extrinsic motivational orientations, and dislike being given responsibility for the learning achievements of classmates (Dunn, Dunn, & Price, 1981; Ricca, 1984; Ristow & Edeburn, 1985). Findings on motivational orientation and study preferences will be discussed in a later section dealing with affective differences between moderately and highly gifted students. In Canada, Kanevsky (1994) compared differences between the problem-solving strategies used by young children of average ability (mean IQ 104) and those used by highly gifted age-peers (mean IQ 153) when attempting the Tower of Hanoi puzzle and found differences in motivational orientation which appeared to be strongly ability related. The highly gifted children were more likely to display intrinsic motivation – a delight in mastery of the task – rather than extrinsic motivation – pleasure in the instructor’s praise at their success. Indeed these highly gifted youngsters actively sought to enhance their own enjoyment of the problem-solving exercises by monitoring and sustaining the levels of challenge they were able to build in to the task. By contrast, children of average ability presented as more extrinsically motivated by the researcher’s interest in their progress. Studies have identified quite striking differences between the cognitive strategies selected and employed by highly gifted and average ability students not only in structured problem solving but also in daily tasks. Rogers (1986) notes that gifted students use higherorder (metacomponential) information processing strategies more frequently and more effectively than do average-ability age-peers. These include the swift and spontaneous generation of a series of steps toward the resolution of a problem, the setting of priorities, the systematic monitoring of progress and solutions, a longer period of thoughtful pre-analysis of the problem before beginning the attempt toward its solution, and the representation of information through structures more usually employed by an expert in the field. As a child, Ian Baker, a member of Gross’s longitudinal study of young Australians of IQ 160+, whose ratio IQ on the Stanford-Binet L-M was in excess of 200, was fascinated by cartography. By age nine this profoundly gifted young lad could identify and clas-
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Highly Gifted Young People
sify, in terms of his state’s Department of Roads descriptors, any major or minor road in his home city of one million people. Before he was 12, he began a correspondence with the State Transport Authority (STA) in his home state regarding his theories (demonstrated by self-drawn maps) of how the road systems and traffic flow of various suburbs could be improved. In addition he synthesized the bus, train, and streetcar timetables produced by the STA to provide more effective service linkages (Gross, 1992). The SAT urban planners with whom he communicated by mail were unaware that the young man whose suggestions they were thoughtfully analyzing was a child. Ian’s fascination with structural analysis and the strongly spatial orientation of his problem-solving strategies were apparent in every area of his schoolwork and throughout his leisure pursuits. He was extremely reluctant to use narrative text, explaining that the detail and subtleties of the schemas he was developing were much more comprehensively explained diagrammatically than he could possibly achieve using words that, for him, were an imprecise and subjective vehicle of communication. As his mother explained: “Everything his teacher or parents asked him to do, he would convert into a diagram, a maze, a flow-chart, a timetable or a calendar; Everything had to be set out and analyzed” (Gross, 1992, p. 123–124). Sternberg (1981) has noted significant differences between gifted and non-gifted learners in tasks involving analogical thinking and in the acquisition of new information, the retrieval from storage memory of information previously required, and the application of a range of problem-solving heuristics across a range of problems. Ian Baker’s skills in translating verbally expressed concepts into spatial form to represent their inter-relationships more clearly can be viewed as a manifestation of Sternberg’s “transfer components,” the skills required for generalizing concepts from one context to another (Sternberg, 1981). Humor arises, in part, from an appreciation of relationships between ideas, for example, an appreciation of incongruities. A keen sense of humor in young children has often been noted as an indicator of intellectual giftedness but the degree of sophistication of that humor increases with the level of ability. David, another member of Gross’s study of children of IQ 160+ had, at age 9, a difficult relationship with his sister which was characterized both by sibling rivalry and by widely differing hobbies and interests. David was playing with
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a globe of the world which a relative had given him for his birthday when his sister came into the room. “See that, Jess,” he said, spinning the globe on its axis “That’s us – poles apart with a world of difference separating us!” Even more impressively, Silverman (1989) describes the 2-year-old who was playing beneath his mother’s bed and when told she was trying to have a rest, spontaneously explained, “Does that mean I’m under arrest?” The analogical reasoning noted by Sternberg (1981) and the capacity to transfer ideas between contexts at early ages and with unusual facility can help to explain the delight in puns and wordplay which seems to characterize highly gifted children even in the early years. A striking characteristic of exceptionally and profoundly gifted children is their capacity for “dual processing” – the seeming ability to process two sets of information simultaneously and in parallel. In this writer’s experience, both the prevalence and the quality of this are significantly more marked in children in the upper reaches of Gagn´e’s “extremely gifted” category – children of IQ 175 or above. Christopher Otway was assessed on the Stanford-Binet (L-M) at the age of 11 and passed virtually every item on the test, right up to Superior Adult Three. He scored at the ceiling of the test; however, a ratio calculation gave him an IQ of 200. The psychologist’s assessment included some interesting analyses of Chris’s styles of processing information. (Christopher) works hard at trying to put every piece of information or every problem which he has to solve into some sort of category. Perhaps at his level of intellectual activity this is the most efficient way of handling the multitude of information and ideas which he handles each day. I have also observed (as have his parents) that Christopher is one of the few people who truly seems to be able to handle information in parallel. For instance, when he was working on quite a difficult question in the assessment, and was obviously thinking and talking on that particular problem, he suddenly interrupted himself to produce the solution to a previous problem which he felt he could improve on (Gross, 1993, p. 15).
When Chris was 11 he discussed with me the process – to the degree that he could consciously analyze it – which allowed him to work on two sophisticated mathematics problems in parallel. As he described it, he seemed to be able to sense the point at which one set of predictions/speculations/calculations (Problem 1) was nearing the point of resolution. At that time he would put that problem on hold and bring Prob-
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lem 2 to the forefront of his mind, aware that his subconscious mind was simultaneously working in parallel on Problem 1. When Problem 1 had attained resolution it would explode back into his conscious mind as an “aha!” moment which would bring the keenest intellectual and emotional pleasure. The solution would remain with Chris in detail and with complete clarity while he continued to work on Problem 2. The extremely complex and effective cognitive processing strategies which characterize exceptionally and profoundly gifted children, including the capacity for sophisticated and sustained analysis and synthesis, must be an important element in this capacity to process information in parallel. Chris’s younger brother, Jonathon, who also ceilinged out on the Stanford-Binet (L-M) at the age of 8 years 4 months, obtaining a ratio IQ of 170, has a similar cognitive style, although, as the psychologist found, this often manifests itself differently through Jonathon’s puckish sense of humor. Jonathon’s verbal responses (were) of exceptionally high quality. He is a very fluent and articulate sort of child, who has highly developed abstract reasoning skills. It was also obvious that Jonathon has a well-developed sense of humour, too, and often he handled test items on two levels. Firstly he would answer the test question exactly as it was given at a very high level, but then he would give me a supplementary and much more humorous answer or interpretation of the item which he had just completed (Gross, 1993, p. 17–18).
Affective Characteristics of Highly Gifted Students Motivational Orientation As discussed earlier, Kanevsky’s comparative study of the problem-solving strategies employed by young children of average intellectual ability and a group of highly gifted age-peers noted that the highly gifted children were characterized by high levels of intrinsic motivation (Kanevsky, 1994). In a later, Australian, study of motivational orientation, Gross (1997), comparing intellectually gifted 7th grade students with an unselected population of age-peers, found that the gifted students were significantly more task oriented. However Gross also examined a third group; highly and exceptionally gifted students in a school for the
M.U.M. Gross
academically gifted who were telescoping 7th–12th grade into 5 years rather than the customary 6 years, a synthesis of fulltime grouping and acceleration. These students were very significantly more task oriented than even the moderately gifted group, and, as the assessment of motivational orientation was made in the first few days after entry to the special program, it seems likely that their unusual degree of task orientation predated their enrolment. Indeed, students who are intrinsically motivated and stimulated by intellectual challenge would probably be more attracted to a program which allows them to progress much faster than is usually permitted, in the company of classmates who are similarly gifted, than would students who are extrinsically motivated and stimulated by external rewards. In the United States, the Fullerton Study found that, as early as age 7, intellectually gifted children displayed stronger academic intrinsic motivation than did age-peers of average ability and showed a stronger orientation to test themselves against challenging and rigorous tasks (Gottfried, Gottfried, Bathurst, & Guerin, 1994). Indeed, over the course of this longitudinal study intrinsic motivation has presented so strongly as a characteristic of intellectually gifted students that the Fullerton team has now proposed “motivational giftedness” as a construct in itself (Gottfried, Gottfried and Guerin, 2006).
Study Preferences A number of studies (e.g. Diezmann & Watters, 2001) have suggested that intellectually gifted children prefer to work alone, or with one other student of similar ability, rather than in small or larger mixed-ability group settings. Mulryan (1992) noted that gifted students placed in cooperative learning groups may withdraw and become passive. Robinson (1990) argued against the placement of gifted students in mixed-ability cooperative learning groups on the grounds that all too often the gifted student was, effectively, made responsible for the learning and performance of the other members of the group. The study which traced the academic and social development of highly gifted students enrolled in a special school who were also telescoping 6 years of schooling (7th–12th grade) into 5 (Gross, 1997) also
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reported a substantial shift in the students’ attitude toward collaborative work (Muznieks, 2000). Many of the students reported that in elementary school they had strongly disliked working on a common task in small groups of mixed-ability as they felt they were placed in something of a forced-choice dilemma. If they resisted the temptation to correct or improve the contributions of the other students, the quality of the work presented by the group would be significantly below what they would have achieved on their own; however, if they contributed suggestions or corrections, the other students would all too often abrogate their own responsibilities and the highly gifted students would be left with the majority – or sometimes the entirety – of the work. By contrast, in the ability grouped and accelerated setting, in which all were academically gifted, group work was truly collaborative with everyone contributing amicably and productively. The students’ attitudes toward collaborative work improved significantly over the 5 years of the program to the point where they developed a range of individual and group study “strategies” which they would happily employ according to the strategies’ effectiveness in different work settings.
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measures her achievements against the level of her previous performance and interprets “advancement“ as the degree to which she has improved on her own standards, through to a norm-referenced perspective from which she compares her achievements against those of her peers. However, this shift in perspective is much more closely linked to mental age than to chronological age; thus a highly gifted child of 4 or 5 years may already have reached a stage of norm-referenced behavior which her age-peers of average ability may not achieve until the age of 7 or 8 years. Because of this early onset of the ability to make social comparisons, highly gifted children may become aware, at an early age, that they are “different,“ in many ways, from the other children around them. However, contrary to popular belief, this rarely leads to arrogance or feelings of superiority. Rather, gifted children may act swiftly to change their behavior in order to conform to the social and behavioral norms of their age-group. Many highly gifted children enter school with the reading accuracy and comprehension of children several years their senior (Terman & Oden, 1947, Gross, 1993). If the teacher does not recognize this precocity and respond to it appropriately, the highly gifted young child may stop reading, or deliberately decrease the quality and quantity of her reading, after only a few The Onset of Norm-Referencing and the weeks in school, as happened with a substantial perAwareness of Difference centage of Gross’s subjects of IQ 160+ (Gross, 1993). The highly gifted child who is anxious to “fit in” with Earlier we discussed the common misconception her classmates may mimic their academic and social among educators that, while gifted students differ behavior so successfully that the teacher who is relyfrom their age-peers of average ability in terms of their ing only on behavioral indicators of possible giftedness capacity to learn, they are relatively homogeneous in may have little chance of detecting her remarkable abilterms of levels and styles of cognitive functioning. ities. Hollingworth made clear her conviction that the difThis is often coupled with a lack of awareness of the degree to which intellectually gifted students ficulties in peer relationships experienced by highly differ from their age-peers in aspects of their affective gifted children did not arise from deficiencies within development and the degree of difference within the the children themselves but through the unlikelihood gifted population. In fact, affective differences among of their easily finding others who share their abilities the gifted can become evident, not only to adults but and interests. to the children themselves and to their classmates, at surprisingly early ages. This can lead, quite early, to This difficulty of the gifted child in forming friendships difficulties in peer relationships. is largely a result of the infrequency of persons who are like-minded. The more intelligent a person is, regardless As children move through the pre-school and of age, the less often can he find a truly congenial comprimary years the egocentricity of early childhood panion. The average child finds playmates in plenty who gradually gives way to an awareness of the opinions, can think and act on a level congenial to him, because attitudes, and abilities of others. The child moves there are so many average children (Hollingworth, 1936 p. 79.). from a self-referenced perspective, from which she
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Studies of Friendship Several studies have compared the peer relationships of moderately and highly gifted children. Gallagher (1958), comparing the friendship patterns of gifted children scoring below and above IQ 165, noted that the very high scoring group tended to have greater problems of social acceptance than did children scoring between IQ 150 and 164. DeHaan and Havighurst (1961) examined the differences between what they termed “second-order” (IQ 125–159) and “first-order” (IQ 160+) gifted children. They believed that second-order gifted children achieve good social adjustment because they have sufficient intelligence to overcome minor social difficulties, but are not “different” enough to induce the severe problems of salience encountered by the exceptionally gifted. Unlike the longitudinal studies of Hollingworth and Terman, however, these studies were of short duration; no attempt was made to trace the emotional development of the subjects through their school careers. A few studies have investigated aspects of the social and emotional development of groups of exceptionally and profoundly gifted children. Gallagher and Crowder (1957) investigated a group of 36 such students in primary school and found that one quarter had considerable emotional difficulties. Selig (1959) studied the personality structure of 27 New York elementary school students of mean IQ 180, as revealed by the Rorshach technique. In this group the incidence of emotional and social maladjustment was five times the estimated incidence among children generally. Sheldon (1959) found that 15 of his sample of 28 children of IQ 170+ reported feelings of isolation and rejection; however he concluded that an extremely high IQ is not in itself a sufficient cause for perceptions of isolation; he agreed with Hollingworth that the negative self-perceptions of his subjects arose in part from the unfortunate reactions of classmates. A significant contribution to the research on extremely gifted students was made in the early 1980s by Janos, who compared the psychosocial development of 32 children aged 6–9 with IQs in excess of 164 with that of 49 age-peers of moderately superior intellectual ability (Janos, 1983). Although the exceptionally gifted were generally rated higher in terms of their academic performance, they were more isolated than their age-peers and had greater problems of social develop-
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ment. However, like Sheldon, Janos emphasized that the social isolation experienced by these children was not the clinical isolation of emotional disturbance, but was caused by the absence of a suitable peer group with whom to relate. There are virtually no points of common experience and common interest between a 6-year-old with a mental age of 6 and a 6-year-old with a mental age of 12. Hollingworth would doubtless have agreed; she emphasized that when exceptionally gifted children who have been rejected by age-peers are removed from the inappropriate grade placement, and are permitted to work and play with intellectual peers, the loneliness and social isolation disappear and the child is accepted as a valued classmate and friend (Hollingworth, 1942). A study by Janos, Marwood, and Robinson (1985) compared two groups of children centering on age 8, an exceptionally gifted group of IQ 163+ (mean IQ 167.9) and a group of age-peers of IQ 125–140 (mean IQ 131.2). Exceptionally gifted children were significantly more likely to report that most of their friends were older. Interestingly, very few children stated that they had difficulties in making friends; however, the exceptionally gifted were significantly more likely to say that they had too few friends and that being smart made making friends harder. Parents of the exceptionally gifted children were more likely to report that their child had only one close friend, or no close friends at all. Gross’s longitudinal study of 60 Australian children of IQ 160+, commenced in 1983, found that those children who were retained in the inclusion classroom with age-peers, or permitted a “token” grade advancement of a single year, experienced significant and ongoing difficulties with peer relationships. Many reported that they had few friends, or no friends at all, despite deliberate and prolonged academic underachievement in efforts to gain acceptance, or at least tolerance, from age-peers. By contrast, as will be discussed later in this chapter, the 17 students who were radically accelerated, and who entered university aged between 11 and 15, reported warm and fulfilling friendships with the older students with whom they learned and socialized through their childhood and adolescence (Gross, 1993, 2004, 2006). In a study of students selected not on IQ but on mathematical or verbal aptitude, Dauber and Benbow (1990) compared the popularity, peer acceptance, and peer interaction of extremely gifted students who
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had scored 700 or more on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (Mathematical) or 630 or more on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (Verbal) before age 13 (an achievement placing them at the top 1 in 10,000 among their age-peers) with those of moderately gifted students who scored at the 97th percentile on a grade-level math or verbal achievement test. Moderately gifted students were viewed both by themselves and by their age-peers as being more popular, more socially active, and more socially valued than were the extremely gifted students. Students with extreme verbal talent rated themselves as having the lowest social standing of the four groups, a finding which Dauber and Benbow perceptively attribute both to society’s higher valuing of mathematical talent than verbal talent and to the fact that while extreme mathematical ability may be less obvious on social occasions, students who are extremely talented verbally may be conspicuous due to their sophisticated vocabulary. It could also be noted that students who wish to mask or partly conceal their exceptional mathematical ability for peer acceptance need to moderate their achievements principally in math classes, while students who wish to conceal extreme linguistic precocity have to be much more consistently on guard against “breaking cover.” The strain of keeping up a false front to one’s peers is hardly conducive to the establishment of the openness and trust which are necessary precursors to the development of an intimate friendship (Gross, 1998). Many highly gifted students find themselves in a “forced-choice dilemma” (Gross, 1989). If they wish to satisfy their drive for excellence, they must risk sacrificing the attainment of intimacy with their agepeers. If the pursuit of intimacy is their primary need, they must moderate their standards of achievement, conceal, to some extent at least, their intellectual interests, and conform to a value system that may be seriously at variance with their own level of moral development, to retain the approval of the group into they wish to be accepted. Hollingworth (1926) defined the IQ range 125–155 as “socially optimal intelligence.” She found that, in general, children scoring within this range were balanced, confident, and socially adept individuals who were able to win the confidence and friendship of their classmates. By contrast, it was above the level of IQ 160 that the difference between the exceptionally gifted child and his or her age-mates was so great and so obvious that it led to special problems of
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development linked to social isolation. Disturbingly, those difficulties appeared early and Hollingworth affirmed that they seemed particularly acute at ages 4–9. Previous international studies have found that children’s conceptions of friendship develop in stages and are hierarchical and age related (see, for example, Bigelow & LaGaipa, 1975; Selman, 1981). More recently, an empirical study undertaken with 700 children aged 5–12 explored whether children’s conceptions of, and expectations of, friendship are determined primarily by chronological age or by mental age (Gross, 2000, 2002) and whether intellectually gifted children have conceptions of friendship which are more mature than those held by their age-peers. The study surveyed, through a standardized questionnaire, conceptions of friendship held by three groups of children aged 6–12: children of average intellectual ability, moderately gifted children, and exceptionally gifted children. The study confirmed that children’s conceptions of friendship do indeed form a developmental hierarchy of age-related stages, with expectations of friendship, and beliefs about friendship, becoming more sophisticated and complex with age. The five stages appear in order as follows, from the lowest to the highest level in terms of age and conceptual complexity: Stage 1: “Play Partner”: In the earliest stage of friendship, the relationship is based on “playpartnership.” A friend is seen as someone who engages the child in play and permits the child to use or borrow her playthings. Stage 2: “People to chat to”: The sharing of interests becomes an important element in friendship choice. Conversations between “friends“ are no longer related simply to the game or activity in which the children are directly engaged. Stage 3: “Help and encouragement”: At this stage the friend is seen as someone who will offer help, support, or encouragement. However, the advantages of friendship flow in one direction; the child does not yet see himself as having the obligation to provide help or support in return. Stage 4: “Intimacy/empathy”: The child now realizes that in friendship the need and obligation to give comfort and support flows both ways and, indeed, the giving of affection, as well as receiving it, becomes an important element in the rela-
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tionship. This stage sees a deepening of intimacy, an emotional sharing and bonding. Stage 5: “The sure shelter”: The title comes from a passage in one of the apocryphal books of the Old Testament. “A faithful friend is a sure shelter: whoever finds one has found a rare treasure” (Ecclesiasticus, 6:14). At this stage friendship is perceived as a deep and lasting relationship of trust, fidelity, and unconditional acceptance. As a highly gifted 12-year-old described it: “A real friend is a place you go when you need to take off the masks. You can say what you want to your friend because you know that your friend will really listen and even if he doesn’t like what you say, he will still like you. You can take off your camouflage with a real friend and still feel safe.” The study found, however, that what children look for in friends is dictated not so much by chronological age but by mental age. A strong relationship was indeed found between children’s levels of intellectual ability and their conceptions of friendship. In general, intellectually gifted children were found to be substantially further along the hierarchy of stages of friendship than were their age-peers of average ability. Gifted children were beginning to look for friends with whom they could develop close and trusting friendships, at ages when their age-peers of average ability were looking for play partners. However, the differences between gifted children and their average ability age-peers were much larger in the primary and early years of elementary school than in the later years. In grades 3 and 4, even moderately gifted children have the conceptions of friendship which characterize average-ability children at least 2 years older. Significant differences were observed between exceptionally and profoundly gifted children; both groups held conceptions of friendship which do not normally develop till several years later but some profoundly gifted children in the early years of school had expectations of friendship that normally do not appear until the years of early adolescence. These children face almost insurmountable difficulties in their search for friendship, at an age when most children view a friend as a companion for casual play. As discussed earlier, highly gifted children tend to look for friends among other gifted children of approximately their own age or older children of above average ability (Gross, 1993; Hollingworth, 1926;
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Janos, Marwood, & Robinson, 1985). The present study (Gross, 2002) suggests that these children may not only be seeking the intellectual compatibility of mental age-peers but also be looking for children whose conceptions and expectations of friendship are similar to their own. Hollingworth (1926) noted that the social isolation experienced by many highly gifted children was most acute between the ages of 4 and 9 years. The present study supports Hollingworth’s findings. Exceptionally gifted children (children of IQ 160+) tend to begin the search for “the sure shelter” – friendships of complete trust and honesty – 4 or 5 years before their age-peers even enter this stage. Indeed, in this study exceptionally gifted girls aged 6 and 7 already displayed conceptions of friendship which do not develop in children of average ability until age 11 or 12 years. Substantial gender differences were noticed. At all levels of ability, and at all ages, girls presented as significantly higher on the developmental scale of friendship conceptions than boys. Exceptionally gifted boys who begin the search for intimacy at unusually early ages may be at even greater risk of social isolation than girls of similar ability. Such are the differences in the friendship conceptions held by average and gifted students in the earlier years of primary school that it is at this level that gifted children are most likely to have difficulty in finding other children who have similar expectations of friendship. The results of this study raise, once again, the question as to why schools in Australia and the United States so often reserve programs of ability grouping for students in the upper years of elementary school, and why teachers are so reluctant to allow young gifted children to accelerate. This study suggests that it is in the lower, rather than the upper, grades that placement with chronological peers, without regard to intellectual ability or emotional maturity, is more likely to result in the gifted child experiencing loneliness or social isolation. Ability grouping and grade advancement can be of invaluable assistance in the early years of school to young gifted children whose accelerated conceptions of friendship are urging them to seek the sure shelter of a relationship of trust, fidelity, and authenticity, at ages when their age-peers are seeking playmates or casual conversation. In the case of exceptionally and profoundly gifted children, it is difficult to justify, either
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educationally or socially, the inclusion of these chil- Gifted students’ motives for desiring to develop their dren in classes comprised of age-peers whose concep- personal strengths were significantly more altruistic tions of friendship are so radically different from theirs. and philanthropic than the motivations of the comparison group with the differences being particularly notable in gifted girls. The Gifted Education Research, Resource and InMoral Reasoning and Altruism formation Centre (GERRIC) at the University of New South Wales in Sydney offers to 20 gifted students aged Several studies have found significant correlations 14–16 a program entitled Young Leaders of Change between scores on individual or group tests of in- (YLOC). Participants are assisted, over a 6-month petelligence and high scores on measures of moral riod, to identify a social issues project which they can development, while several studies have noted un- develop and implement in their own setting with help usually accelerated levels of moral development in from adult mentors. The course explores the meaning highly gifted children. Quite early in his longitudinal of leadership and assists the young people to monitor study Terman reported that the average 9-year-old and evaluate the success of the community assistance in his sample (IQ 153) scored, on tests of “trustwor- projects they have designed. Assessment with O’Leary’s DSPQ at the start and thiness” and “moral responsibility”, at levels more usually attained by children at least 5 years older close of the 6-month program found that while even (Terman, 1925). Thorndike (1940) found that the at the start of the program a primary motivation for moral development of 50 highly gifted children aged engaging in it was students’ strong altruistic belief that 9–12 correlated much more highly with their mental they should give to others, this perception strengthages than with their chronological ages. Using the ened significantly over the course of the program Defining Issues Test (Rest, 1979) as a measure of (Rogers, 2006). It was surprising and gratifying to the moral judgment, Janos and Robinson (1985) compared GERRIC team that, at an age when adolescents are 24 radically accelerated university students aged often so inwardly focussed on their own development 11–18 years with two groups of gifted high school and social needs, the YLOC group was focussed on students who had not been accelerated and with a third their enjoyment in helping others and their strong group of typical university students. All three gifted belief that it was important that they should do so (see groups exhibited significantly higher levels of moral Rogers, this volume). Terman reported, in the earliest volumes of his judgement than did the typical undergraduates. longitudinal study, the propensity of the parents of Gross (1993) assessed eight 11–13-year-olds of IQ his gifted group to become involved with community 160 on the Defining Issues Test (DIT); all scored above organizations – often charities which support children the mean for American Junior High School students with special needs or families in difficulties – to which and four scored above the American high school mean. they gave voluntary service, often over many years Reassessment 10 years later, when the young people were in their 20s, found their DIT scores were still sig- and often as unpaid administrators. In later volumes nificantly beyond the scores for graduate students al- his research team described how, as the gifted group though, in most cases, ceiling effects on the instrument young people grew up, many of them continued this precluded an assessment of the full degree of advance- “tradition” of service. “Their roles as volunteers often included responsibility and influence comparable ment. An Australian study comparing 400 students in 9th to those of many paid occupations” (Holahan & through 11th grade identified as gifted with age-peers Sears, 1995, p. 97). Gross (2004) has reported similar findings with the not so identified found significantly higher scores parents of her subjects of IQ 160+. As with Terman’s for the gifted students on the Defining Issues Test (O’Leary, 2004). Through an instrument developed parents, they tend to demonstrate a talent for organizafor the study, the Development of Personal Strengths tion and leadership and are thus often elected to leadQuestionnaire (DPSQ), the study also investigated ership positions in the community organizations they students’ interest in developing their personal strengths serve, spending much of their free time in voluntary and their motivations for wanting to develop these. and unpaid service. Many of them are involved in or-
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ganizations which support children with intellectual or physical disabilities. This stands in striking contrast to the stereotyped perception of parents of the gifted as over-ambitious and selfish individuals whose only concern is to promote the interests of their own children! Like Terman’s subjects, many of Gross’s exceptionally and profoundly gifted young people have followed the lead of their parents in becoming involved in service organizations. Details of this can be found in Gross (2004).
Highly Gifted Children Growing Up Longitudinal studies are one of the most timeconsuming forms of research – but they are invaluable in allowing us to trace the development of young people of remarkable potential as they develop through the years of adolescence, adulthood, and later maturity.
The Terman Study Almost half of Terman’s subjects could read before school entry (Terman, 1925) and on standardized tests of academic achievement they consistently scored, on average, 40% ahead of their age-peers as they progressed through school. Twenty percent were permitted to skip all or part of first grade and by the time they graduated from high school 10% had skipped two grades and a further 23% had skipped one (Terman & Oden, 1947). In high school, despite so many of them being younger than their classmates, they consistently scored in the top 10% of their classes in achievement. They enjoyed school – many of them, in middle age, spoke reminiscently about the support and encouragement they had received both from their families and from their teachers – and many more went on to college than was customary at that time. Indeed, around 65% of the men and almost 60% of the women went on to take further degrees. Laycock (1979) points out how remarkable this is because most were undertaking tertiary studies during the economic depression of the 1930s when the proportion of women graduating from college was very much smaller. Students who had accelerated in primary or secondary school were more likely to enter postgraduate
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study than equally gifted students who were not, and they were also more likely to complete postgraduate study successfully. A survey undertaken in 1977, when the average age of the group was 67 years, asked them to look back on their lives and rate the satisfaction they had found in various areas. The responses of people who had been accelerated were generally more positive than those who had not. Accelerands reported significantly greater satisfaction in their work, in recreational activities, and, interestingly, in social activities and friendships than did non-accelerands (Cronbach, 1996). Terman and his colleagues concluded that, in general, academically gifted students of IQ 140 or above “should be promoted sufficiently to permit college entrance by the age of 17 at latest and that a majority in this group would be better off to enter at 16” (Terman & Oden, 1959, p. 72). Certainly, as we will discuss later, for highly gifted children this seems to be sound advice. As with education, the careers of the Terman group reflect the era in which the study was set. By the time of the 1957 survey more than half the women were housewives with no steady outside employment. Of those who did have jobs, the largest group was in teaching and the next largest in business, as secretarial or administrative assistants. The women who did have professional careers tended to do extremely well; there were women with distinguished careers in science, art, education, writing, and business. In 1954 Terman recorded the accomplishments of his group showing that by age 40 they had written 67 books, more than 1,400 articles in professional or research journals and more than 400 short stories or plays. He pointed out that this was 10–30 times as large as could be expected for 800 randomly chosen people of the same age (Terman, 1954). In the middle and later years of the study, Terman’s research team compared men who were rated as “most successful” and “least successful” in their careers. One of the strongest findings was that the “most successful” group had, as children, parents who themselves had significantly higher education than was usual for the time and who passed on a strong valuing of education to their children, while the families of the “least successful” group had much less encouragement and valued education less. Another strong but unsurprising difference is that the “most successful” had a much stronger drive to achieve than did the least successful group. There is no evidence, however, that these
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groups were distinguishable, in childhood, in terms of motivation. The most recent report of the study, undertaken when the Terman group were in the years of later maturity, has re-emphasized the degree to which the higher intellectual ability of the Terman children influenced so many aspects of their development as young people. Throughout the school years and into adolescence these children’s interests, attitudes and knowledge developed in correspondence with their mental age rather than with their chronological age. Their academic achievement as measured by tests, their interest and liking for various future occupational careers, their knowledge about and interest in games, their choice of recreational reading materials, and their moral judgments about hypothetical conduct were all characteristic of older non-gifted children whose mental age-range was approximated by this much younger and brighter group. Even the intellectual level of their collections was more mature than that of their chronological age-mates (Holahan & Sears, 1995, p. 16).
The Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY) The best known and most extensive longitudinal study of modern times is the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY) which was initiated by Julian Stanley in the early 1970s. Stanley’s associates, principally Camilla Benbow and David Lubinski of Vanderbilt University, are in the fourth decade of a planned 50 year study of 5,000 mathematically or verbally gifted adults who scored, as adolescents, on the Maths or Verbal scales of the Scholastic Aptitude Tests, at a level that would place them in the top 1% of the population. The study has produced a wealth of findings, some of which bear out and extend many of the findings of previous scholars; others which open up important new areas for discovery and debate. Brody, in this volume, provides an extensive account of the conduct and findings of the SMPY and CTY (Center for Talented Youth) programs. Children who are highly gifted mathematically or verbally use problem-solving strategies that do not seem to develop in children of average ability until some years later. It is not only that they are talented in math or language, it is that they seem to engage with, and manipulate, math or language in ways that are more characteristic of students several years older.
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These young people tend to possess an internal locus of control, accepting that they themselves are largely responsible for their academic successes or difficulties. They are less likely than their age-peers to attribute difficulties to external factors and are somewhat more likely to accept that they do indeed have unusual math or verbal talents and that this, together with motivation and effort, has contributed significantly to their academic success. Talent Search participants tend to retain, and use, their high abilities. An investigation of one cohort of Talent Search participants when they were in their early 30s found that 90% of them had Bachelor’s degrees, while fully 25% held doctoral degrees (as against 1% of the American population as a whole) (Benbow, Lubinski, Shea & Eftekhari-Sanjani, 2000). Men and women in the study had equal educational attainments. As with the Terman Study, the picture for these young people in adulthood is very far from the stereotyped “early ripen, early rot“ predictions for exceptional childhood talent. The highest achievers in the Talent Searches tend to maintain their superiority in adult life. In the late 1990s Lubinski, Webb, Morelock, & Benbow (2001) surveyed Talent Search students from the early 1980s who had scored, on the SAT, at levels achieved by fewer than 1 in 1,000 in the population. More than 50% of these young people were already pursuing doctorates. Even though they were only in their twenties, many had published several articles or secured patents for their inventions. A sizeable number had already won prestigious awards in their fields. However, Talent Searches have also identified that achievement and success are by no means built in for gifted students. Where schools have not provided structured opportunities for talent development, these students perform, in school, and in later life, at levels significantly below their true capacity. Even remarkably high ability is not by itself sufficient; exceptional ability does not develop into exceptional achievement unless the educational system accepts its responsibility to actively facilitate this process. Talent searches have noted significant differences in the adult achievements of equally gifted students whose schools have or have not provided special opportunities. One intervention has proved effective beyond any other for Talent Search participants. Cronbach (1996) points out that, although a remarkable range of studies have been undertaken over the last 50 years on
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the short-term and long-term outcomes of acceleration, one finding is consistent, regardless of the era of the study or the modes of acceleration employed. Where accelerands are compared, on academic or socioaffective variables, to equally gifted students who have not been permitted acceleration, and where differences have been found, they favor accelerands.
An Australian Longitudinal Study Since 1983 Gross has traced the education, careers, and personal lives of 60 young people of IQ 160. This study’s findings have been reported in several publications (e.g. Gross, 1992, 1993, 1998, 2004, 2006) and we will address, here, only issues related to the usage, or rather the underusage, of acceleration with these remarkably gifted young people. The positive or negative influences of educational decisions extend far beyond the classroom. As Feldhusen has commented (1985), rather than worrying about the consequences of accelerating gifted students, we should turn our attention to the consequences of not accelerating them. The 60 young Australians in Gross’s study are among the most intellectually gifted young people ever discovered. There is little doubt that all of them would have benefited from academic acceleration; instead, the majority were retained with age-peers for their entire schooling or permitted a single grade advancement. In several cases schools justified the decision not to accelerate these students on the grounds that it would be unfair to offer an “advantage” to one child that could not be offered to all. The mother of one such student was informed by the school principal that it would be a violation of the principles of social justice if her son was given any work that could not be mastered by the majority of students in his class. “A Nation Deceived” a two volume report on the history, structure, and research underpinning acceleration (Colangelo, Assouline & Gross, 2004) identifies and describes 18 forms of acceleration. Radical acceleration is usually defined as any combination of accelerative procedures which results in a student graduating from high school 3 or more years earlier than is customary. It is very rare indeed for radical acceleration to comprise a single, 3-year, gradeskip. Usually the grade advancements are separated by periods of
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consolidation. Obviously, radical acceleration is rarely practised, first because it is suitable only for extremely gifted students who are very mature socially and emotionally and who are eager to move much more speedily through school, and second because most schools will not even consider it as an option. However, when thoughtfully planned and carefully monitored it is a highly successful intervention for highly gifted students who are also socially and emotionally mature. When the 60 young adults in Gross’s study are grouped in terms of the degree of acceleration permitted, some interesting patterns appear. A B C D
Young people who have been radically accelerated. Who accelerated by 2 years. Who accelerated by 2 year. Who were retained with age-peers for the whole of their schooling.
Group A: Radical Accelerands Seventeen of the 60 young people in Gross’s study were allowed to radically accelerate through school. None regrets their acceleration. Those who say that they would in retrospect, have changed things, affirm that they would probably have preferred to accelerate still further or that they would have preferred to start earlier. This exactly parallels the views expressed by the extremely gifted young Americans in the SMPY study who were surveyed in their 30s by Lubinski et al. (2001). Some of the young people had a less than fortunate start to school but things improved for them later. Hadley Bond, who became Australia’s youngest school dropout at age 5 after 2 weeks of stultifying boredom being “introduced” with the other 5-year-olds to “reading readiness” although he had been reading since age 2, is one of these; when he re-enrolled a few months later at another school the principal allowed an immediate grade skip – and he met and worked with other avid readers. Others were fortunate enough to enrol, right from the start, in schools where a teacher or school administrator recognised their remarkable abilities and argued for a strongly individualised program. All 17 are characterised by a passionate love of learning and almost all have gone on to take PhDs.
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Despite being some years younger than their classmates, the majority topped their state in specific academic subjects, won prestigious academic prizes, or represented their country or state in Math Physics, or Chemistry Olympiads. Several won scholarships to attend prestigious universities in Australia or overseas. In every case, the radical accelerands have been able to form warm and lasting friendships. They believe that this was made possible because their schools placed them, relatively early in their schooling, with older students to whom they tended to gravitate in any case. The few who experienced social isolation say that it disappeared after the first gradeskip. Two of the radical accelerands are married with children, two others are engaged to be married, and the majority are in permanent or serious love relationships.
Group B: Two-Year Accelerands The six young people who accelerated by 2 years report as much, or almost as much, personal satisfaction with their education as do the radical accelerands – although most say they would have preferred to do another gradeskip. None has any regrets about accelerating. They are less likely to do Ph.D. study than Group A, but the majority have taken Bachelor’s Honours degrees. They are almost as likely as Group A to report satisfactory personal and love relationships. However, those who were not permitted acceleration until later in their schooling tend to find socializing rather more difficult. Exceptionally and profoundly gifted students should have their first acceleration in the early years of school before they experience the social rejection which seems to be a significant risk if they are retained in mixed-ability classes. The skills of friendship building (rather than just playing together) are first learned in the early years of school, and children who are rejected by their classmates may miss out on these early and important lessons in forming relationships.
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isfied with their education. They would have loved to accelerate by more than 1 year. After the euphoria of having new, challenging work, school became just as boring as it had been before. Despite the first acceleration having been so successful, these students’ schools were afraid that further acceleration might lead to social rejection or emotional damage. In two cases the school was concerned for the self-esteem of other students because the accelerated student was performing so much better than they were! This group has tended to take undergraduate degrees but not go further into postgraduate study. Although these young people certainly have the capacity to pursue research degrees, they have never had the experience of pitching themselves successfully, and over a period of time, at work which is truly challenging. They therefore have no idea of the full extent of their capacities; indeed, they have tended to enrol in undemanding academic courses and have consequently found university intellectually unchallenging. It is with this group that a serious dissatisfaction with friendships and love relationships starts to appear.
Group D: Students Not Permitted Acceleration
The remaining 33 young people were retained in a lockstep curriculum with age-peers in the mixedability classroom for the entirety of their schooling. With few exceptions, they have very jaded views of their education. Two dropped out of high school and a number have dropped out of university. Several more have had ongoing difficulties at university – not because of lack of ability but because they find it difficult to commit to undergraduate study which is less than stimulating. Several of the non-accelerands have serious and ongoing relationships problems. These young people find it very difficult to sustain friendships because, having been, to a large extent, socially isolated at school, they have had much less practice, in their formative years in the “give and take” of social relationships. Roger says wryly: “Socially, I have three feet; two left feet and the Group C: One-Year Accelerands third one that I seem to put in my mouth every time I open it.” A number have sought counselling to assist Four of the young people were permitted a single grade with their social difficulties. Two have been treated for advancement. These young people are not deeply sat- severe depression.
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Conclusion As we discussed in the introduction to this chapter, highly gifted children differ from their age-peers on a wide range of cognitive and affective variables. They have many more differences than commonalities with the children with whom they will be placed for the purposes of instruction and, ironically, for the purposes of socialisation. They differ in their cognitive styles and strategies, in their approach to learning and in their motivation for learning. They differ in the style and maturity of their sense of humor; it is ironic that, for gifted children, shared laughter, which should lead to social bonding, can often be withheld from them because their age-peers have not yet “grown into” the ideas which gifted students find amusing. They differ in their motivational orientation and their study preferences and, because they are able, rather earlier than their classmates, to engage in social comparisons, they may be poignantly aware of many of these differences. Even their conceptions and expectations of friendship can set them apart from their peers. Highly gifted students require a curriculum that is differentiated in content, pace, level, and degree of complexity. However, the delivery of such a curriculum in the mixed-ability classroom can be problematic; with whom can the highly gifted student work on this enriched and enhanced material? The highly gifted student may be placed in a forced-choice dilemma; work on material that meets your learning needs but do so alone – or work in collaboration with other students but at a stage or level you have already passed through. Ability grouping and acceleration are interventions that we should and must provide for highly gifted students. For exceptionally and profoundly gifted students the greatest gift of all may be an individually tailored, thoughtfully designed, and monitored program of radical acceleration.
References Benbow, C. P., Lubinski, D., Shea, D. L., & Eftekhari-Sanjani, H. (2000). Sex differences in mathematical reasoning: Their status 20 years later. Psychological Science, 11, 474–480. Bigelow, B. J., & LaGaipa, J. J. (1975). Children’s written descriptions of friendship: A multidimensional analysis. Developmental Psychology, 11, 857–858.
M.U.M. Gross Colangelo, N., Assouline, S. G., & Gross, M. U. M. (2004). A nation deceived: How schools hold back America’s brightest students. Iowa City: University of Iowa. Cronbach, L. J. (1996). Acceleration among the Terman males: Correlates in midlife and after. In C. P. Benbow & D. Lubinski (Eds.) Intellectual talent (pp. 179–191). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Dauber, S. L., & Benbow, C. P. (1990). Aspects of personality and peer relations of extremely talented adolescents. Gifted Child Quarterly, 34(1), 10–14. DeHaan, R. F., & Havighurst, R. J. (1961). Educating gifted children. (Revised edition). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Diezmann, C. M., & Watters, J. J. (2001). The collaboration of mathematically gifted students on challenging tasks.Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 25, 7–31. Dunn, R., Dunn. K., & Price, G. E. (1981). Learning styles: Research vs. opinion. Phi Delta Kappan, 62, 645–646. Feldhusen, J. F. (1985). Excellence in educating the gifted. Denver: Love. Gagn´e, F. (2003). Transforming gifts into talents: The DMGT as a developmental theory. In N. Colangelo & G. A. Davis (Eds). Handbook of gifted education (3rd ed.), (pp. 60–74). Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Gallagher, J. J. (1958). Peer acceptance of highly gifted children in the elementary school. Elementary School Journal, 58, 465–470. Gallagher, J. J., & Crowder, Y. (1957). The adjustment of gifted children in the classroom. Exceptional children. 23, 306–319. Goldstein, D., Stocking, V. B., & Godfrey, J. J. (1999). What we’ve learned from talent search research. In N. Colangelo & S. G. Assouline (Eds.) Talent Development III: Proceedings from the 1995 Henry B. and Jocelyn Wallace National Research Symposium on Talent Development. Scottsdale, AZ: Gifted Psychology Press. Gottfried, .W., Gottfried, A. E., Bathurst, K., & Guerin, D. W. (1994). Gifted IQ: early developmental aspects: The Fullerton longitudinal study. New York and London: Plenum Press. Gottfried, A. W., Gottfried, A. E., & Guerin, D. W. (2006). The Fullerton longitudinal study: A long-term investigation of intellectual and motivational giftedness. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 29(4), 430–450. Gross, M. U. M. (1989). The pursuit of excellence or the search for intimacy? The forced-choice dilemma of gifted youth. Roeper Review, 11(4), 189–194. Gross, M. U. M. (1992). The early development of three profoundly gifted children of IQ 200. In P. N. Klein & A. J. Tannenbaum (Eds.) To be young and gifted (pp. 94–140). New Jersey: Ablex. Gross, M. U. M. (1993). Exceptionally Gifted Children. London: Routledge. Gross, M. U. M. (1997). How ability grouping turns big fish into little fish – or does it? Of optical illusions and optimal environments. Australasian Journal of Gifted Education, 6(2), 18–30. Gross, M. U. M. (1998). The “Me” Behind the mask: Intellectually gifted children and the search for identity. Roeper Review, 20(3), 167–174. Gross, M. U. M. (2000). From “play partner” to sure shelter“: A comparison of conceptions of friendship between children of average ability, moderately gifted and highly gifted chil-
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dren. Unpublished keynote address: Fifth Wallace International Research Symposium on Gifted Education and Talent Development, University of Iowa, May 19. Gross, M. U. M. (2002). Gifted children and the gift of friendship. Understanding Our Gifted, 14(3), 27–29. Gross, M. U. M. (2004). Exceptionally gifted children (2nd ed.). London: RoutledgeFalmer. Gross, M. U. M. (2006). Exceptionally gifted children: Long-term outcomes of academic acceleration and nonacceleration. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 29(4), 404–429. Holahan, C. K., & Sears, R. R. (1995). The gifted group at later maturity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Hollingworth, L. S. (1926) Gifted children: Their nature and nurture. New York: Macmillan. Hollingworth, L. S. (1936). The development of personality in highly intelligent children. National Elementary Principal, 15, 272–281. Hollingworth, L. S. (1942) Children above IQ 180: Their origin and development. New York: World Books. Janos, P. M. (1983). The psychological vulnerabilities of children of very superior intellectual ability. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. New York University. Janos, P. M. and Robinson, N. M. (1985). ‘Psychosocial development in intellectually gifted children’, in F. D. Horowitz and M. O’Brian (Eds.) The gifted and talented: Developmental perspectives. pp. 149–195. Washington, DC: American Psychogical Association. Janos, P.M., Marwood, K. A., & Robinson, N. N. (1985). Friendship patterns in highly intelligent children. Roeper Review, 8(1), 46–49. Kanevsky, L. K. (1994). A comparative study of children’s learning in the zone of proximal development. European Journal of High Ability, 5(2), 163–175. Laycock, F. (1979). Gifted children. Glenview. Illinois: Scott, Foresman and Co. Lubinski, D., Webb, R. M., Morelock, M. J., & Benbow, C. P. (2001). Top 1 in 10,000: a 10-year follow-up of the profoundly gifted. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 718–729. Mulryan, C. M. (1992). Student passivity during cooperative small groups in mathematics. Journal of Educational Research, 85, 261–273. Muznieks, C. (2000). Psychosocial and academic outcomes for selective high school students undertaking a program of cohort acceleration. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. O’Leary, K. (2004) The development of personal strengths and moral reasoning in gifted adolescents. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
351 Rest, J. R. (1979). Development in judging moral issues. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Ricca, J. (1984). Learning styles and preferred instructional strategies of gifted students. Gifted Child Quarterly, 28, 121– 126. Ristow, R. S., & Edeburn, C. E. (1985). Learning preferences: A comparison of gifted and above-average middle grades students in small schools. Roeper Review, 8, 119–124. Robinson, A. (1990). Point-counterpoint: Cooperation or exploitation? The argument against cooperative learning for talented students. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 14, 9–27. Rogers, K. B. (1986). Do the gifted think and learn differently? A review of recent research and its implications for instruction. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 10(1), 17–39. Rogers, K. B. (2006). The impact of leadership training on the self-efficacy and self-directedness of gifted adolescents. Australasian Journal of Gifted Education, 15(2), 16–26. Selig, K. (1959). Personality structure as revealed by the Rorschach technique of a group of children who test above 170 IQ on the 1937 edition of the Stanford-Binet. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, New York University. Selman, R. L. (1981). The child as a friendship philosopher. In S. R. Asher & J. M. Gottman (Eds.) The development of children’s friendships (pp. 242–272). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sheldon, P. M. (1959). Isolation as a characteristic of highly gifted children. The Journal of Educational Sociology, January, 215–221. Silverman, L. K. (1989). The highly gifted. In J. F. Feldhusen, J. VanTassel-Baska, & K. Seeley (Eds.), Excellence in educating the gifted (pp. 71–83). Denver: Love. Silverman, L. K. (1993). Counseling the gifted and talented. Denver: Love. Sternberg, R. (1981). A componential theory of intellectual giftedness. Gifted Child Quarterly, 25, 86–93. Terman, L. M. (1925). Genetic studies of genius (Vol. 1). Mental and physical traits of a thousand gifted children. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Terman, L. M. (1954). The discovery and encouragement of exceptional talent. American Psychologist, 9, 221–230. Terman, L. M., & Oden, M. H.(1947). Genetic studies of genius: Volume IV: The gifted child grows up. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Terman, L. M., & Oden, M. H. (1959). Genetic studies of genius (Vol. 5), The gifted group at mid-life Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. Thorndike, R. (1940). Performance of gifted children on tests of developmental age. Journal of Psychology, 9, 337–343.
Chapter 16
Talent Development Across the Lifespan Roger Moltzen
Abstract The systematic study of the lives of extraordinary individuals is a relatively new science. This work has taken two main approaches. One method has been to track gifted children from childhood to adulthood. The other approach has been to focus on the life stories of eminent adults. The findings from the longitudinal investigations demonstrate that many gifted young people fall short of the expectations held of them by their teachers and parents, while the retrospective studies reveal that many eminent adults were perceived as anything but gifted in childhood. It is generally recognised that those who achieve greatness start with some genetic advantage; however, the interaction of this potential with environmental circumstances is a complex and a somewhat mystifying phenomenon. In addition, the process of talent development is unique to each individual. Nonetheless, studies in this field do offer some pointers as to the conditions that may enhance the likelihood of potential translating into performance. Keywords Gifted · Talented · Development · Lifespan · Eminence · Longitudinal · Retrospective · Marginalisation · Birth order
Introduction The number of new biographies and autobiographies that are published each year are testimony to the fact that people are interested in learning about eminent individuals. This interest goes well beyond learning R. Moltzen (B) University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand e-mail:
[email protected] of these luminaries’ actual accomplishments, as these are often well known and fully documented elsewhere. What seems to sell the books (and what attracts people to other sources such as television documentaries) is the ‘human side’ of these people. There appears to be a universal fascination with discovering the person behind the accomplishments. For many of us, part of this is also an interest in factors that might help to explain an individual’s rise to prominence to gain a better understanding of how talent develops. Throughout history people have had a love–hate relationship with the extraordinary among them (Gardner, 1997). On the one hand, we value and benefit from their contributions, while at the same time ‘we entertain misgivings about those who have been endowed with great gifts and those who exert a profound influence on our lives’ (Gardner, 1997, p. 2). In the first instance, we are often reluctant to recognise their achievements, and then, when these have been acknowledged, we often search for signs of weakness, or flaws, that may redress a perceived imbalance. ‘Even as we esteem our heroes, we mortals equally love to denigrate them’ (Gardner, 1997, p. 3). Some researchers view history as biography and contend that the history of the world is simply a history of outstanding individuals (Simonton, 1984). In this view, history is moulded by the personalities and accomplishments of individuals in two major ways. The first are the creators, those who ‘make lasting contributions to human culture, whether as scientists, philosophers, writers, composers or artists’ (Simonton, 1984, p. 1). The second are the leaders, ‘who transform the world by their deeds, rather than their ideas or emotional expression’ (Simonton, 1984, p. 1). Many civilisations are defined by the achievements of their most able. Throughout history, there
L.V. Shavinina (ed.), International Handbook on Giftedness, c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-6162-2 16,
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are numerous examples of talented individuals being singled out so that their abilities could be nurtured and developed. Early records show that the Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Chinese and Japanese nurtured outstanding abilities and talents for the good of the state. In Renaissance Europe, governments encouraged and supported creative artists and the church provided sponsorships for artists, sculptors and musicians. In 18th century Europe, royalty and nobility often sponsored those with notable gifts. However, the first systematic attempt to explain the phenomenon of outstanding achievements did not occur until the 19th century and was undertaken by the English scientist Sir Francis Galton. Galton’s (1869) study, followed in the next century by the work of Alfred Binet (e.g. Binet & Simon, 1905), Lewis Terman (e.g. Terman, 1925) and Leta Hollingworth (e.g. Hollingworth, 1926), laid the foundation for a modern interest in gifted children. From the early part of the last century to the present day, gifted children have been studied extensively. Most of the research attention directed towards these young people has been related to their education, resulting in the publication of numerous books and articles positing the type of environment most likely to translate into adult achievement.
Changes in Notions of Giftedness One of the enduring issues in this area, and one that is central to any investigation of giftedness and talent, is a conceptual one. Debates around the meaning of the term ‘gifted’ and how this might be used to define and identify a specific sector of the population are features of the literature in this field. This literature is replete with alternative definitions, with one reviewer reporting having identified 213 different interpretations of the concept (George, 1997). McAlpine (2004) noted that the concept is dynamic and changes over time. He reported that From a rather narrow concept based on intelligence and the IQ, it has become increasingly developed into a multicategory concept based on a wide range of abilities including academic aptitude, creativity, social leadership, and more recently ‘wisdom’, as a form of ‘meta talent’. (McAlpine, 2004, p. 33)
The development of ideas about giftedness very closely mirror changes in notions of intelligence.
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Galton (1869) argued that intelligence was related to sensory ability – the keenness of vision, smell, hearing, taste and touch. His approach to measuring intelligence involved testing visual and auditory acuity, tactile sensitivity and reaction time. These were the first systematic and scientific attempts to test intelligence, and although his thesis was soon to prove inadequate, it did pave the way for later efforts by others. As far as Galton was concerned, intelligence was a fixed trait and something that remained constant from birth to death. Although the words ‘nature and nurture’ were first put together in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Galton (1869) can be credited with introducing the terms into behavioural science and with starting the nature–nurture controversy. The Frenchman, Alfred Binet, rejected the notion that intelligence could be measured by focusing on elementary cognitive processes (Binet & Simon, 1905). He believed that to study intelligence, it was essential to focus on complex mental processes and his test of intelligence assessed 10 ‘mental functions’: memory, imagery, imagination, attention, comprehension, suggestibility, aesthetic appreciation, moral sentiments, muscular force (will power) and motor skill. Binet did not see these abilities as independent and unrelated, but as specific abilities that contributed to an underlying general ability. Terman (1925) developed an American version of the Binet and Simon intelligence test and used this to identify 1528 gifted children for his longitudinal study. To Terman, giftedness was synonymous with high general intelligence (he put the level at an IQ of 130 or more) and he maintained that the most valid and reliable way of determining levels of general intelligence, or ‘g’, was the intelligence or IQ test. Gottfredson (2003, p. 26) defined g as, ‘the ability to learn, think abstractly, reason, and to solve problems’. She maintained that, ‘a highly general intelligence factor forms the common core for all mental abilities yet studied. It is therefore likely that a favourable g level forms an essential foundation for most, if not all, highly valued forms of cultural achievement’. However, Gottfredson (2003) also pointed out that even if a high level of g is necessary for outstanding performance, it does not guarantee it and that personal traits and opportunities can be critical factors. Terman’s approach, equating giftedness with high general intelligence, dominated thinking in education
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and psychology for most of the 20th century. However, in the early 1970s, ideas about intelligence began to change, and the notion of intelligence as an innate, unitary, fixed and measurable trait came under threat. In a similar manner, concepts of giftedness began to shift and the first formal outworking of this change appeared in the Marland Report to the Congress of the United States Commissioner of Education (1972). This definition extended the notion of giftedness from general intelligence to include specific academic aptitude, creative and productive thinking, leadership ability, visual and performing arts and psychomotor ability. Since that time others have taken a similar approach. A more recent development has been the idea of multiple intelligences. Sternberg (1985) proposed three intelligences: academic, creative and practical. Gardner (1983) argued for the following eight different intelligences, none of which single out ‘general’ intellectual ability: linguistic, logical– mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily kinaesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal and naturalist. Both Sternberg and Gardner have asserted that their models of intelligence can be directly applied to defining giftedness. As the concept of giftedness expanded, the term ‘gifted and talented’, rather than ‘gifted’ became more widely used. In most instances ‘gifted and talented’ is used as a single definition, implying synonymy, although some writers do differentiate between ‘gifted’ and ‘talented’ (e.g. Gagn´e, 1985). Gottfredson (2003) suggested that these broader approaches have become popular because they imply that everyone can be smart in some way. She claimed that many researchers have for many years searched for major mental abilities that are independent of g but are yet to discover a single one. Carroll (1993) concluded that at least four of Gardner’s ‘intelligences’ (linguistic, logical–mathematical, visual–spatial and maybe musical) consist primarily of g and Gottfredson (2003) argued that while there may be different kinds of giftedness, these different gifts do not represent different intelligences. ‘Rather, they are more like differently flavored ice creams – wonderfully different but all depending on the same basic ingredient’ (Gottfredson, 2003, p. 28). Most definitions of intelligence have their roots in Western European culture. Terms such as ‘intelligence’ and ‘giftedness’ actually function in discourse to promote or endorse certain actions. In Western
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societies the common descriptors of intelligence are very closely connected to the traits that are considered important to succeed in education, including ‘clever, sensible, careful, methodical, inventive, prudent, acute, logical, witty, observant, critical, experimental, quickwitted, cunning, wise, judicious, and scrupulous’ (Serpell, 2000, pp. 549–550). In societies without a history of formal schooling, the notion is likely to be associated with different meanings. For example, Serpell (2000) reported that among rural African communities, intelligence is more related to wisdom, skill, an ability to take responsibility, obedience, understanding, attentiveness and trustworthiness. In many cultures, intelligence is only esteemed in an individual if it is deployed in a socially responsible manner. The Baganda and Batoro peoples of Uganda, for example, view intelligence as socially oriented behaviour that contributes to the collective good (Wober, 1974). Bevan-Brown (2004), in a comprehensive overview of Maori notions of special ability, made a similar point, noting that, ‘There is an inherent expectation that a person’s gifts and talents will be used to benefit others’ (Bevan-Brown, 2004, p. 179). Giftedness, therefore, is a social construct and is interpreted differently from one time in history to another and from one cultural context to another. In countries with a devolved system of educational administration, where schools are largely autonomous, such as in New Zealand, schools can take very different approaches to giftedness. In schools, those who are identified as gifted and therefore, who gain access to special or differentiated programmes, will be determined by how the school defines the concept. In research, any findings that are offered about the gifted must be interpreted in the light of participant selection criteria, which will inevitably be an expression of how the concept is conceived. In the context of trying to understand how talent develops, issues associated with the myriad of interpretations of terms such as giftedness, talent, eminence, genius and prodigy make a complex task even more challenging.
Studying Talent Development Most scientists who have researched human behaviour have been more interested in the ‘patterns’ among individuals than in the ‘differences’ that might distinguish
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some from others (Gardner, 1997). As Gardner (1997) pointed out, the ‘science of the extraordinary’ is an emerging science and our knowledge in this area is still very limited. He suggested that extraordinary individuals might lead lives that are so different that no generalisations can emerge from intensive studies of their individual characteristics. On the other hand, scientists may find no striking differences between ‘the Charles Darwins and the James Smiths’ (Gardner, 1997, p. 4). However, as Gardner also stated, it would be presumptuous to draw either conclusion without trying to discover whether there are parallels in the lives and personalities of the extraordinary among us. Since the first systematic study of eminent adults conducted by Galton (1869), numerous other researchers have attempted to explain the development of talent. Their studies have employed a range of methods but these can be generally classified according to two main approaches. The retrospective approach draws mainly on autobiographies, biographies and other documented evidence, information obtained directly from talented individuals themselves and from others with knowledge about them. Longitudinal studies generally involve tracking a cohort of gifted individuals over a number of years. The retrospective studies can be further classified into two main groups. The first involves studying people of eminence who are no longer living. Here, researchers draw on autobiographies, biographies, diaries, historical records, recorded interviews and other documented sources. This ‘literary’ approach to the study of eminence dominated the early retrospective research in this area (e.g. Cox, 1926; Galton, 1869). The second approach involves studying ‘living’ luminaries and here researchers work with eminent individuals personally but may also draw on other sources, both human (e.g. parents, siblings, mentors and teachers) and documentary (e.g. biographies, autobiographies, articles and recorded interviews) (e.g. Bloom, 1985; Csikszentmihalyi, 1996; Roe, 1952). The longitudinal approach to studying giftedness has its roots in the work of the Stanford psychologist, Lewis Terman. In the 1920s, Terman selected a group of 1528 children with high IQs and traced their development from childhood to midlife and beyond (Burks, Jensen & Terman, 1930; Oden, 1968; Terman, 1925; Terman and Oden,1947, 1959). This longitudinal method of studying high achievement has been used to test the hypothesis that gifted children become gifted
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adults. Accordingly, following the developmental pathways of gifted children is thought to offer reliable insights into the antecedents of high achievement. Most longitudinal studies involve repeated personal contact between researcher and participant. Although this represents the primary source of information for the researcher, many triangulate their methods by combining participant interviews with observations, interviews with family members, biographical material and the like. The proponents of the longitudinal approach argue that it provides a much more complete picture of an individual, that there is the opportunity to obtain detailed contextual information and that the complexities of an individual’s life can be best captured through multiple contacts over time (Subotnik & Arnold, 1994). Researchers using the longitudinal method maintain that the researcher/participant relationship becomes much closer and the data provided much richer by virtue of the heightened rapport that develops over time. However, the time and resources needed to obtain such detailed information can present some real challenges for the researcher. While the retrospective studies usually require less time and money to undertake than longitudinal studies, there are also some limitations associated with this method. For example, studies that draw on biographical data will be significantly affected by the quality of that material. The researcher is also limited by the scope of the material available and this may severely limit his or her ability to explain the ‘process’ of development. Cox (1926), for example, found that someone as eminent as Shakespeare had almost nothing of value recorded about his childhood and youth. Where information is available, it may be difficult to ascertain its reliability. Simonton (1994, p. 143) contended that Sometimes even when we possess rich information about a historical figure’s childhood, we cannot always trust it . . . After someone becomes world-renowned, there is often no shortage of parents, siblings, teachers, friends, and neighbors who saw the critical event that propelled the soul towards glory!
Simonton (1994) also maintained that ‘hindsight bias’ is a factor that can impact on the reliability of retrospective accounts: ‘Judging from the evidence, the victims of hindsight bias are sincerely duping themselves, reconstructing their recollections to comply with actual events. To a large extent, hindsight bias is a memory distortion’ (Simonton, 1994, p. 73). Although history might be suspicious of memory and seek to suppress
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and destroy it (Nora, 1989), life history researchers all begin with the assumption that it is helpful to remember (Tierney, 2000). Becker (1997) claimed that, ‘The linear approach to historical writing so frequently employed in the twentieth century gives the impression that human experience moves sequentially, act by act, with each experience slightly more significant than the past’ (p. 344). Tierney (2000) believed that the problem with this approach is that no two people engage time in the same way. Life history, he pointed out, is not just valuable because it adds voices to what already exists but it also has the ability to refashion identities. Longitudinal studies of talent development of necessity involve issues of definition. Most studies of this type have used IQ tests to select the participant group. However, in some cases this has not been the only approach. For example, Terman only tested students after teachers had identified those whom they felt were possible candidates for inclusion in the study. The conceptual debates about the nature of giftedness and talent are much less relevant to participant selection in retrospective studies. Retrospective studies look for evidence of outstanding achievement and here the challenge is not about ‘potential’ but defining the level of ‘performance’ that constitutes eminence, greatness, giftedness or talent and deciding on the domains of achievement for inclusion. This usually results in the study of achievement across a very broad range of human endeavours. For example, Galton (1869) included judges, military commanders, writers, scientists, poets, musicians, painters, clergymen, scholars, oarsmen and wrestlers. For others, such as Goertzel and Goertzel (1962), categories were largely irrelevant and performance was the primary criterion for inclusion. As a consequence, their group included greats from an extremely diverse range of activities.
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importance of hereditary factors. Eysenck (1995) was of the view that this generation-to-generation sequence was ambiguous and said it could be argued that eminence was due to genetic or environmental factors. However, he did concede that the ‘emergence of genius from poor soil is difficult to account for except in terms of segregation of genes, and hence speaks powerfully for heredity’ (p. 14). In examining the backgrounds of a group of mathematicians he claimed were the most famous of all times, Eysenck reported a distinct absence of mathematical ability in any of their close relatives. For example, Pascal’s father was a civil servant, the fathers of Newton, Laplace and Gauss were peasants or small farmers, Monge’s a peddler and Boole’s a shopkeeper. According to Eysenck, there is a difference between talent and genius. He believed that few of Galton’s group could be considered geniuses but were better described as talented, and according to Eysenck, evidence exists for family clustering of talent. He cited evidence of family clustering of talent in music, art, sport and in particular in mathematics. However, the emergence of genius is unique and ‘demands a very unusual segregation of genes which would be so unlikely to occur that we would look in vain for anything resembling it in the family of the genius’ (Eysenck, 1995, p. 15). To support this contention, he pointed out that there is no record in history of a genius giving birth to a genius. Further, he argued that the laws of ‘regression to the mean’ Would invalidate any genetic tendency for genius to cluster as Galton thought: not only intelligence, but also all other genetic tendencies contributing to genius and eminence, such as creativity, motivation and persistence would regress to the mean, leaving a much less distinguished progeny, on the average. (Eysenck, 1995, p. 15)
Like Eysenck, Simonton (1994) also considered that Galton underestimated the impact of environment in determining achievement. Clearly, belonging to a Explaining Outstanding Achievement distinguished family means much more than inheriting a genetic disposition towards achieving distinction. Biological Explanations The accessibility of education, the exposure to role models, the provision of mentors and the greater The idea that talent has a genetic base is one of the social resources available are but a few of the benefits oldest and most universally accepted notions in the of belonging to such families. While in hindsight, world (Simonton, 1994). Galton (1869) was in no many of Galton’s ideas seem na¨ıve, he did lay the doubt that his discovery of a generation-to-generation foundation for the field now known as ‘behavioural sequence of eminence was a clear indication of the genetics’ and many of Galton’s techniques provided
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the basis for inquiry in this discipline. Arguably, the most significant of these involves the study of twins. Behavioural geneticists have for many years studied twins in an attempt to estimate the relative influence of heredity and environment. Typically, this has involved comparing monozygotic twins, who are genetically identical, with dizygotic twins, who are on average 50% genetically the same (Thompson & Plomin, 2000). Most of the research in this area involves scientists using a statistic called ‘hereditability’ to describe the proportion of variance in behaviour that can be accounted for by genetics (H2). Environmental influences are generally divided into shared (C2) and nonshared. The shared influences include the experiences that all family members are exposed to. However, in all families individual members are exposed to unique experiences that contribute to dissimilarity. These are called non-shared environmental factors (E2). Thompson and Plomin (2000, p. 158) reported that, ‘Developmental behavioural genetic studies have consistently suggested that as children mature from infancy through adolescence the magnitude of H2 increases and C2 decreases’. Researchers such asThompson and Plomin (2000) claimed that although intelligence is a complex trait and is influenced by both genetic and environmental factors, ‘quantitative geneticists have demonstrated that individual differences in intelligence are highly heritable’ (p. 162). Even if we accept that heredity is a significant factor in determining general intelligence, to what extent does this necessarily apply to achievement? ‘Social potency’, the self-perceived ability to influence, lead or dominate others, has been found to be closely matched in monozygotic twins, whether raised together or apart (Lykken, 1982). Using the approach of the behavioural geneticists, it would seem reasonable to predict that if one of a pair of dizygotic twins evidenced this disposition, there should be a 50% chance the other twin would share the trait. Yet Simonton (1994) reported that in terms of ‘social potency’ dizygotic twins are no more likely to be similar than any two individuals randomly selected from the population. One explanation for this somewhat confusing finding can be found in the concept of ‘emergenesis’ (Lykken, 1982). Inherited traits are often considered to result from the separate contributions of many genes. This is an ‘additive model’, where the contribution of one gene is regarded as independent of the contribution of another. Yet some traits may require all the genes to participate
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if that trait is to appear. Simonton (1994) suggested ‘social potency’ may fit this description. The emergence of this trait may depend on some degree of physical attractiveness, confidence, assertiveness and charisma, and if one element is missing ‘social potency’ may not emerge. Emergenesis provides one explanation as to why some of Galton’s group were the children of parents who were anything but eminent and why others failed to produce offspring that came close to achieving their parents’ level of greatness (Lykken, 1982; Simonton, 1994). It also helps explain why it is usually only one child in a family who achieves eminence. If creative achievement depends on the complex interaction of a cluster of traits, then even if these traits do run in family lines, it is highly unlikely that more than a very small proportion of its members will inherit the complete set. It is quite clear from the research in this field that the environments of high achievers share some very specific elements. This is certainly considered by many to support the environmentalist position. However, this evidence may in fact support the hereditarian view (Simonton, 1999a). The reasoning here is that the dispositions of the parents cause them to act in a particular way. For example, intelligent parents generally have a need for intellectual and cultural stimulation. They will purchase books, join libraries, visit museums and galleries and engage in other activities and experiences to satisfy this need. Their children are likely to inherit a need for a similar level of intellectual and cultural stimulation and will take advantage of the opportunities available to them. Simonton (1999a) argued that the environmentalist researcher could look at this pattern and falsely conclude that it was the enriched environment that stimulated the children’s intellectual growth. In fact, if the parents had not catered for this need in their homes, these intellectually able youngsters would probably have sought out stimulation elsewhere. Children with innate talents often exert pressure on the environment to meet their need for stimulation. Parents, at least those with the resource capacity, will often respond and offer an environment that more closely matches their children’s talents. Again, it would be easy to conclude that it was the environment that was influential in shaping the child’s talents, where in reality it was the child who shaped the environment. The literature on child prodigies contains many examples of those who insisted on pursuing specific interests in spite of parental discouragement.
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It is tempting to dismiss hereditarianism out of hand in this context, and a major motivation for doing this is because the environmentalist explanation offers a far more optimistic view of talent development. However, as illustrated above, what may appear to be able to be explained as environmental influences may actually be more closely connected to innate dispositions. Simonton (1998, p. 154) contended that, ‘We cannot deny that biology provides a critical underpinning of both giftedness and genius’ but that ‘contemporary research has teased out some complications . . . not foreseen by either Galton or Terman’.
cally. Julius Caesar and Genghis Khan could be considered small or even frail and Napoleon was a mere 5 2 (Simonton, 1994). One of the explanations offered for this is that human warfare is much more sophisticated than that of other primates and the development of techniques to ‘kill from a distance’ mean size is of limited consequence. In fact, size may even be a disadvantage in warfare of this type, as it presents the enemy with a larger target. Nor are these military leaders prolific reproducers. Galton (1869) noted the relative infertility of great soldiers in his study. It could be that the military leader is simply away from home too often to produce an abundance of offspring.
Sociobiological Explanations
Learning Explanations
To the sociobiologists, patterns of interactions and social structures are products of evolutionary processes (Simonton, 1994). These theorists refer to the most powerful male in a primate group as the ‘alpha male’. This male is the group’s leader, has privileged access to food and sex, and in return leads in physical conflict. Typically, the ‘alpha male’ is physically strong and experienced and has usually fought to achieve his status and will be constantly challenged to defend it. History’s eminent leaders may simply be ‘alpha males’. Certainly many leaders throughout history have acquired reputations for sexual prowess (Simonton, 1994). Some research suggests that even a leader’s physical height is an important antecedent to his or her success. For example, among American presidential candidates there are only a few exceptions to taller candidates being preferred to their shorter opponents (Simonton, 1994). Those considered by scholars to be the greatest presidents – Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson and Franklin Roosevelt – were all over 6 1 in height. There also seems to be a suggestion that popularity as a political leader is associated with participation in aggressive activities prior to entering politics. According to Simonton (1994), this trend can be observed in absolute monarchs, American presidents and modern exemplars of charismatic leadership, who are often seen as leading their respective nations to military victory. Unfortunately this argument is weakened when we consider how many effective leaders do not fit the ‘alpha male’ template. For example, some of history’s greatest leaders were anything but impressive physi-
Learning explanations, while not identical, are characterised by the view that learning involves A stable change in a person’s potential to behave; therefore, development means increase of potential to perform and behave . . . The potential to perform higher order activities is not the result of spontaneous orgasmic growth, but is the outcome of learning appropriate techniques. (Monks & Mason, 2000, p. 142)
From a behavioural perspective, the drive to achieve greatness can be linked to reinforcement. As an individual achieves a degree of recognition for achievement from family, teachers and peers and experiences the tangible rewards that often accompany this, the likelihood he or she will continue to strive is increased. Accompanying this may be a lack of reinforcement when the person is perceived to have fallen short, or not produced, which diminishes the likelihood of these behaviours being repeated. Certainly experimental research has shown how creative outputs can be increased through reinforcement. In an experiment conducted by Glover and Gary (1976) eight children were given 10 min to list ‘all possible uses’ for an object. Reinforcement was provided over a 5-day period. These researchers reported that elaboration, originality, fluency and flexibility increased with reinforcement. Other researchers have demonstrated similar trends in children’s painting (Goetz & Salmonson, 1972), block building (Goetz & Baer, 1973) and drawing (Holman, Goetz & Baer, 1977). The creative product becomes the operant and the recognition of others, prizes, awards and the like, the reinforcers.
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In contrast, Amabile (1983) maintained that intrinsic motivation is conducive to creativity but extrinsic motivation is detrimental. Simonton (1999a) contended that Amabile’s conclusions have been drawn from work undertaken in laboratory simulations, and he argued that when the lives of illustrious creators are examined it is much less clear if extrinsic reinforcement is counterproductive. However, there do appear to be some serious limitations to the idea that great accomplishments can be explained by reinforcement and reward (Simonton, 1999a). First, the feedback available to achievers is often inconsistent and the early ideas and products of great creators are rarely universally applauded. Second, reinforcement, both positive and negative, and punishment are not stable over time. While one achievement may be lauded, others may be ignored or rejected. Third, even where the feedback is consistent and stable it rarely offers anything but minimal information about the basis for success or failure. In reviewing the relevant findings in this area, Simonton (1999a) reported that it is almost impossible for a creator to make inferences from feedback that would have any consequence. He claimed that this holds for both scientific and artistic products. Reinforcement may be far more influential in some talent domains than in others. For those, such as performers and political leaders, who have chosen the public arena to express their abilities and for whom the public determine the measure of their success, recognition and reinforcement may be very powerful influences. While one can only speculate as to the extent to which public attention is their primary motivation, there is no doubt public reaction ‘shapes’ their behaviour in specific ways. West (1984) studied public reaction to candidates’ speeches during the 1980 United States’ presidential campaign. He found that the more successful candidates took cognisance of the feedback they received from their audiences and adjusted their subsequent speeches accordingly. While there is certainly evidence that training over a long period of time is a necessary prerequisite for the realisation of talent in some areas (see Bloom, 1985), it is widely accepted that the behavioural view fails to offer a comprehensive explanation of talent development. One criticism of learning explanations generally is that they ignore the influence of innate abilities and the diversity of human characteristics (Monks & Mason, 2000).
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Cognitive Explanations In the past, cognitive approaches to explaining high performance assigned primacy to perception. Rather than seeing the mind as a ‘black box’ that mediates between stimuli and responses to stimuli, cognitively oriented psychologists were interested in the sequences of mental operations used to solve various kinds of problems. The difference between lower and higher achievers was believed to be in the speed and accuracy with which relevant cognitive processes were executed. The reasoning was that high achievement is associated with high intelligence and those supporting this connection pointed to studies that indicated that people with higher measured intelligence process information more rapidly than those with lower measured intelligence (e.g. Hunt, 1978; Jensen, 1982; Sternberg, 1977). This view had fallen from favour by the 1980s and the focus shifted away from a general-process view. Many researchers now maintain that a key difference between the expert and the novice is in the way information is organised in the memory. Sternberg (2000, p. 56) contended that, ‘abilities take the form of various information processes operating upon mental representations at varying levels of experience to, shape, and select environments’. In his view, more intelligent people are fundamentally superior at acquiring, organising and utilising information. Sternberg has developed a model of ‘developing expertise’ based on the notion that these abilities are flexible rather than fixed, and are to some extent modifiable. He acknowledged that both inherited and environmental influences impact on the development of expertise and that people can become gifted by developing various kinds of expertise (Sternberg, 2000). To Sternberg, expertise involves the acquisition, storage and utilisation of two kinds of knowledge: explicit and implicit. Explicit knowledge is knowledge of the facts, formulae, principles and the major ideas in an area. Implicit knowledge is the knowledge needed to attain success in a field. The Developing Expertise Model (Sternberg, 2000) involves the following six elements, which are critical to the development of high performance in any area: 1. Metacognitive skills. Understanding and controlling one’s own cognition 2. Learning skills. Acquiring explicit and implicit knowledge and skills
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3. Thinking skills. Processing information analytically, creatively and practically 4. Knowledge. Acquiring declarative (facts, concepts, principles, laws, etc.) knowledge and a procedural tacit (how systems function) knowledge 5. Motivation. Having achievement motivation and competence (self-efficacy) motivation 6. Context. Attaining meaning from a context In explaining why some individuals achieve much more highly than others, Sternberg (2000) pointed to the different abilities of people to learn from what is taught. Connected to this is ‘practicing’ what is learned and he suggested that those with more ability may practice more, although he did concede that practice may play a lesser role in the development of creative giftedness. Some psychologists have proposed that it takes a minimum of 10 years for the novice to master a domain (e.g. Gardner, 1983; Simon & Chase, 1973). The process by which practice leads to increasing expertise ranges from ability as a function of the number of hours of practice (Ericsson & Charness, 1994; Sloboda, 1996) to more talent-based explanations (Sternberg, 1996; Winner,1996). Gardner (1995, p. 15) stated, ‘Our understanding of the nature and processes of leadership is most likely to be enhanced as we come to understand better the arena in which leadership necessarily occurs – namely, the human mind’. In this context, leadership extends to any person ‘who significantly influences the thoughts, behaviours, and/or feelings of others’ (Gardner, 1995, p. 6). While not dismissing the significance of culture in leadership, Gardner saw leadership as a process that occurs in the minds of individuals who live in a culture. His focus was on ‘stories’, including the ability to create stories and to understand and evaluate these stories. Gardner believed that there are several factors that are fundamental to an understanding of leadership. The first is related to our primal heritage. In contrast to most other species, the order of primates is hierarchical. There is competition for place or position in the hierarchy and some members become dominant over others. The dominant males according to Gardner, ‘exhibit characteristic patterns of neurotransmitters . . . such as a greater production of serotonin, and lower overall levels of stress’ (p. 23). He noted that these physiological characteristics shift with changes of position in the hierarchy. There is also a proclivity in primates to imitate. The critical issue is what to im-
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itate and when. However, lower status primates invariably imitate higher status primates. These ‘dominance processes’, Gardner proposed, are observable in nonhuman primates and can also be readily seen in the social behaviour of quite young children. For example, dominant young children in a group will often control the toys, limit access to equipment and decide who is included in games and the rules governing the games. It is clear that size, strength, intelligence, physical attractiveness and gender play a role in who occupies what position in a hierarchy (Gardner, 1995). According to Gardner, as primates we generally expect social structures to comprise leaders and followers. The second factor influencing roles in society, according to Gardner, is early socialisation. One aspect of this is the establishment of a secure bond between child and caregiver. This is believed to affect how an individual reacts to authority. ‘Comfort in the presence of others [or] one’s estrangement from others contributes powerfully to how one aligns oneself in later life with members of one’s own group or with more remote groups’ (Gardner, 1999, p. 24). Also important are the development of a sense of self and the appreciation of how one is similar to certain other individuals. Gardner observed that children imitate others from an early age, but that this imitation develops in time into a sense of identification where the child feels much more akin to an older person or role model. Over time the child does not just imitate this role model, he or she begins to learn how their role model would respond in certain situations. Gardner noted that most children identify with role models in their immediate environment, but reported that a ‘marker’ of future leaders is that they are more likely to identify with a more distant authority figure. Children as young as 5 years of age Can appreciate simple stories and, indeed, even create simple patterned narratives of their own . . . they already have assumed positions (still relatively flexible ones) within various dominance hierarchies and are becoming proficient at recognising signals of leading, following, and relating to equals in peer-peer interactions. (Gardner, 1999, p. 26)
The third element crucial to the development of leadership, said Gardner, is the attainment of expertise in various domains. Some domains are mandated and this differs from culture to culture. For example, most Jewish boys raised in Russia were expected traditionally to play the violin and to master chess. Other domains are optional but are governed by culture, time, family
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interests and resources, the school and the interests and abilities of the individual. In the past, others made the decision as to the option or options an individual would pursue. More recently, at least in Western European cultures, individuals themselves usually make these decisions. As an individual develops to the level of expert in a domain, he or she begins to appreciate the achievements of the masters in the domain. Gardner suggested that historically, early talent identification has been limited to intellectual ability and scholastic achievement, or talent in a specific domain, such as music, art, sport or mathematics. Some societies have valued interpersonal and intrapersonal abilities, those who are ‘exquisitely sensitive to the needs and interests of others, and/or individuals who are correlatively sensitive to their own personal configuration of talents, needs, aspirations, and fears’ (Gardner, 1999, p. 31). There have been few systematic studies conducted to identify the early ‘markers’ of leadership (see Rogers, this volume). However, Gardner reported that some generalisations have been proposed. It is important at this point to be reminded that Gardner’s ideas relate to both direct and indirect leadership. The direct leaders address their public face-to-face; the indirect leaders exert impact through the works they create. Gardner believed his cognitive explanation provided a new perspective on how both forms of leadership develop. The leader is in essence a storyteller.
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that may be produced from a creator’s mind. These developmental experiences can be direct or indirect. The direct ‘are those that expand the intellectual capacity for remote association and divergent thinking – the very cognitive processes that produce ideational variations’ and the indirect ‘are those that may encourage the development of the Darwinian personality that optimally supports engagement in the variational process’ (Simonton, 1999a, p. 113). Simonton pointed to Terman’s study to illustrate this notion. Terman’s group of 1500 young people had high levels of intelligence. Intelligence is a primary Darwinian trait required for general success in any area. The majority came from highly supportive and resource-rich homes. In most cases the parents of these children were well educated and placed a high value on learning. Such home environments are often promoted as the ideal for the development of exceptional achievement and there is no doubt that early stimulation enhances children’s development. Yet, while Terman himself was convinced that his ‘Termites’ had become outstanding adult achievers, commentators such as Simonton have challenged this claim. Simonton proposed that the development of creative talent requires experiences that ‘encourage the diversification of the intellect’ (Simonton, 1999a, p. 113), an element, he argued, was missing from the experiences of most of Terman’s group. A similar rationale can be applied to Arnold’s (1995) valedictorians, promising students When one thinks of the leader as a storyteller, whose stofrom predominantly middle class backgrounds whose ries must wrestle with those that are already operative in the mind of an audience, one obtains a powerful way of adult achievements were generally unspectacular. conceptualising the work of leading. It is important for The degree of diversity of home environments necleaders to know their stories, to get them straight, to comessary to produce exceptional achievement may vary municate them effectively, and, above all, to embody in across the different domains of creativity. Schaefer and their lives the stories they tell. Anastasi (1968) studied male high school students in (Gardner, 1999, p. xv) the United States who demonstrated creative talent in either science or art. Compared with a control group Darwinian Explanations of less-talented students, this group came from homes where the parents were better educated, read more, Simonton believed that creative genius could be best valued creativity and supported their children’s talents. understood as a Darwinian process of variation and While these homes provided stimulation for both selection (1999a). The focus here is on isolating ‘the talent areas, the homes of the young artists were much individual-difference variables that might facilitate a more environmentally diverse than those of the young person’s ability to engage in the creative process . . . scientists. The young artists were more likely to have Similarly, certain kinds of environmental experiences travelled more and to have lived in a greater number may be more likely to enhance an individual’s capacity of states. Their parents were more likely to have been for Darwinian creativity’ (Simonton, 1999a, p. 112). born in a country, city or state different from where He asserted that some experiences are likely to in- the family currently resided. The families of the young crease the number and range of ‘ideational variations’ scientists were much less mobile, and their parents
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were much more likely to have pursued conventional careers. The Darwinian view offers an explanation for the contrasting educational experiences reported across the studies in this field. While school performance seems to be reliable in predicting adult success in some areas, Simonton (1999a) reported that it has no predictive value in others, particularly those requiring higher levels of creativity. The lack of a correlation between school performance and later achievement is most pronounced in artistic creativity, and artistic creators are much more likely to hold negative attitudes towards their school experiences than scientific creators (Simonton, 1999a). It is also clear that an advanced formal education is not necessary for creative achievement, particularly in artistic areas where it may be considered irrelevant. In fact, there is a suggestion that formal education may increase the probability of attaining creative success, but only to a certain point and that beyond this it may lessen the likelihood (Simonton, 1999a). The location of this threshold varies according to the domain, but Simonton assessed that for creators in the arts and humanities this point is reached in the last 2 years of an undergraduate programme. For scientific creators, he speculated, it may be nearer to the first year or two of a postgraduate programme. To succeed educationally generally requires a relatively high degree of conformity to conventional thinking and approaches, and in addition, the longer individuals stay in ‘the system’ the more specialised their focus becomes. Both these factors may result in a narrowing of the ideational variations that a person can conceive. However, self-education may have the opposite effect and compensate for the limitations imposed by formal education. Although formal education does not seem to closely correlate with creative development, those who create at the highest levels are almost always engaged in self-education (Simonton, 1999a). Some researchers have pointed out that the experience of trauma or loss in childhood can exert a positive influence over talent development. There is certainly evidence that incidence of physical and sensory disabilities (Goertzel & Goertzel, 1962) and chronic illness (Roe, 1952) may be greater among eminent creators than it is for the population generally. There is also evidence of many eminent individuals being raised in homes characterised by economic hardship or dra-
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matic changes in fortune, sometimes to the point of bankruptcy or poverty (Simonton, 1999a). Most explanations of how traumatic events may ultimately influence achievement are centred on the notion that such events must have a ‘dramatic’ effect on the individual. The divergent-developmental hypothesis does not presume that the events are necessarily sensational. In fact, Simonton (1999a) suggested that a number of small events might yield the same results ‘which is to set the talent on a developmental path that sets him or her apart from the crowd’ (p. 117). Simonton pointed out that the incidence rates for trauma and adversity vary across domains of creative achievement and because domains differ markedly in terms of the amount of Darwinian creativity required, there should be a correlation between the two. There is certainly some evidence to support this contention. For example, a study by Berry (1981) found that orphanhood among Noble Prize winners for literature was eight times higher than those who received the same award for physics. From this perspective, the experience of marginalisation could also serve to increase an individual’s ability to generate ideational variations. Simonton (1999a), in further explaining the failure of Terman’s sample of gifted children to achieve to the level expected, reports that, on the whole, the group represented white, AngloSaxon, Protestant America. These young people were the best of the mainstream and to a very significant extent they became involved in activities that reflected mainstream values. There is a reasonable body of evidence to suggest that creativity may be nurtured by being marginalised. Park (1928), for example, in explaining the significant place of immigrants in innovation, noted that these people had to straddle two cultures and ‘the “cake of customs” is broken and the individual is freed for new enterprises and new associations’ (p. 81). Campbell (1960, p. 391) noted that those who have been, ‘uprooted from traditional culture, or have been thoroughly exposed to two or more cultures, seem to have an advantage in the range of hypotheses they are able to consider, and through this means, in the frequency of creative innovation’.
Attitudes, Beliefs and the Influence of Culture Kroeber (1944) contended that culture takes primacy over the individual in any explanation of human
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beliefs, emotions and actions and that eminence is no exception to this principle. In his study of outstanding achievers, Kroeber presented his greats, not by domain of achievement, but first by nationality and then in strict chronological order. His intention was to disprove Galton’s genetic theory of genius. He maintained that genius did not appear in isolation but rather a genius tended to cluster with others in adjacent generations. His demonstration of such ‘clustering’ presented a serious challenge to the notion of inherited ability. If genius is simply a product of genetic inheritance, there should be a relatively even distribution of outstanding achievement from one generation to the next. Kroeber, and others since him, provided fairly clear evidence that this does not occur. He explained clustering of accomplishment this way: Genius is fostered by emulation, and it is now envy, now admiration, which kindles imitation, and, in the nature of things, that which is cultivated with the highest zeal advances to the highest perfection; but it is difficult to continue at the point of perfection, and naturally that which cannot advance must recede. And as in the beginning we are fired with the ambition to overtake those whom we regard as leaders, so when we have despaired of being able either to surpass or even to equal them, our zeal wanes with our hope; it ceases to follow what it cannot overtake, and abandoning the old field as though pre-empted, it seeks a new one. (Kroeber, 1944, p. 18)
Kroeber argued that race or ethnicity exerts no influence upon human creativity, maintaining that the culture within which an individual lives is the sole determinant. This view is compatible with contemporary ideas about imitation and social learning (Simonton, 1994). Walberg, Rasher and Parkerson (1980), in their study into the biological antecedents of fame, found approximately 82% of those studied were exposed to many adults in their childhood and about 68% came into contact with adults who were working in areas where these children would achieve eminence as adults. Simonton (1984) believed that this exposure to creative role models could be essential to the development of genius. He pointed out that an intergenerational influence may not need to be in the form of personal contact and that ‘growing up in times of exceptional intellectual or aesthetic vitality may be conducive to creative development all by itself’ (Simonton, 1984, p. 35). As Isaac Newton said of his own outstanding accomplishments, ‘If I have seen farther than other men, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants’.
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As noted earlier, anthropologist Alfred Kroeber sought to disprove Galton’s ideas of genius as a genetically endowed ability and to demonstrate that it was more a socio-cultural phenomenon. His evidence showed that outstanding achievement does tend to cluster into cultural configurations. Galton certainly saw clusters of genius associated with different cultures but his explanation was one of racial superiority. Whereas Galton’s emphasis on the individual has a bias towards European culture, Kroeber’s focus on chronology and domains saw the inclusion of achievements from a much broader range of cultures and civilisations. In the previous discussion of Kroeber’s ideas, the principles of emulation, admiration and imitation were explained. Simonton (1999a) found that generational time-series analyses have consistently demonstrated that the number of eminent creators in one generation is a positive function of the number in the preceding generation who have succeeded in the same or related fields. The influence of mentors, role models and other predecessors is thus extremely influential in success in a domain. However, having contemporaries is also important. In both the arts and the sciences there is ample evidence to show that eminent individuals are more likely to emerge when they can connect or form relationships with others working in the same or related fields (Simonton, 1999a). Another cultural factor that is influential in outstanding achievement is a society’s ‘intellectual receptiveness’. Simonton gave the example of Charles Darwin to illustrate this point. He proposed that if Darwin had lived during the middle ages, when the cost of heretical ideas could have resulted in death, it is unlikely his ideas would have been anywhere near as influential. During the period Darwin was developing his ideas, others such as Mill and Spencer were challenging widely held views in different areas. While Darwin may not have been part of these philosophical movements, he was certainly aware of and undoubtedly influenced by the more widespread challenge that was being mounted against intellectual hegemonies. It seems that, ‘when a civilisation is characterised by conspicuous ideological diversity – the presence of numerous rival philosophical schools – then creativity tends to increase, even in those domains that have relatively little to do with intellectual trends’ (Simonton, 1999a, pp. 212–213). There is definitely evidence that great achievements do tend to cluster
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culturally but there are numerous examples of geniuses emerging in relatively dark periods in a nation’s history.
Zeitgeist Studies of eminent individuals clearly demonstrate that there have been times and places where outstanding achievement is much greater than at other times or in other places. Simonton (1994) provided numerous examples of a ‘clustering’ of talent, where two or more individuals working separately arrive at the same idea at around the same time. Some commentators have pointed to such events to suggest that creative ideas are the product of the ‘zeitgeist’ or the spirit of the times. The zeitgeist is believed to reveal itself in patterns or regularities that are manifest by historical events over time. While some see this as a cyclic process others believe it is progressive, ensuring that societies advance and progress (Simonton, 1984). Simonton pointed out that advances can be both cyclic and progressive and that the two processes can be complementary. Creativity is not an autistic activity, but occurs within a social context (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). For example, creative individuals must be able to effectively communicate their ideas with others. A number of studies have attempted to ascertain how an individual’s creativity may have been helped or hindered by specific types of social interactions (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996; Jackson & Padgett, 1982; Price, 1965; Simonton, 1984). Simonton (1999b) concluded that the influences from Zeitgeist fall into four categories: 1. Cultural factors (e.g. the prevailing disciplinary or aesthetic milieu) 2. Societal factors (e.g. population growth, social structures and the position of minority groups) 3. Economic factors (e.g. prosperity and investment) 4. Political factors (e.g. the impact of war) Simonton (1984) claimed that political fragmentation is the most reliable predictor of creativity. His analysis of Western civilisation from 700 BC to AD 1839 led him to conclude that growing up in an environment characterised by numerous sovereign states increases the likelihood of creative productivity, whereas greater political unification with an emphasis on homogenisa-
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tion is associated with a decline in creative expression. In his view, creative development could well depend on exposure to cultural diversity. However, rebellion against the influences of ‘imperial homogenisation’ is ‘strongly associated with the resuscitation of ideological diversity’ (Simonton, 1984, p. 145). Furthermore, he argued that most historians have propounded the notion that economic prosperity is the foundation for socio-cultural achievements. He maintained, however, that few historiometric inquiries have tested the notion that prosperity and creativity go together and in fact, on some occasions extreme wealth was associated with very little in the way of cultural activity. However, there have been a number of studies examining the circumstances and the emergence of different ideologies. Sorokin (1947) drew attention to the relationship between religion and economical prosperity and depression, showing that religious activity is generally associated with economic decline. Simonton (1984, p. 143) noted that, ‘In times of economic insecurity people seem to need something definite to believe in – whether it be a dogmatic religion, irrational superstition, or a strong authoritarian leader’. The salient question in this context is the extent to which the zeitgeist is influential over the individual. Is genius subordinate to the situation? Tolstoy’s position on this issue was very clear: A king is history’s slave. History, that is, the unconscious, general, hive life of mankind, uses every moment of the life of kings as a tool for its own purposes . . . In historic events the so-called great men are labels giving names to events, and like labels they have but the smallest connection with the event itself. Every act of theirs, which appears to them an act of their own will, is in an historical sense involuntary and is related to the whole course of history and predestined from eternity. (Tolstoy, 1942, pp. 666–667)
Simonton (1984) examined the lives of 342 European monarchs and found some evidence to support Tolstoy’s eponymic explanation: ‘The more battles, revolts, reforms, laws, and the like, the greater the eponymic value of the ruler, and hence the larger the ruler’s distinction’ (p. 148). He noted that it mattered little whether the events were positive or negative, what did matter was that they were recorded in history. Nor did it seem to matter whether or not the monarch had personal control of the events that counted towards his or her fame. However, Simonton rejected the idea that zeitgeist alone could account for a leader’s status,
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and he argued that individual intelligence, morality and leadership ability play just as crucial a role. In an examination of the eminent philosophers and zeitgeist, Simonton (1984) proposed that the greatest thinkers in the Western philosophical tradition have not been representative of their time. Nor have they been ahead of their time. Rather than being ahead of their times, Simonton said that the most notable thinkers have been a product of the previous generation’s zeitgeist, or the zeitgeist of their youth. The great thinkers are more likely to emerge in times of intellectual inactivity and are less likely to develop during periods of political instability or anarchy. The presence of role models in the previous generation has a negative impact on the development of outstanding thinkers, where the second generation is more characterised by discipleship rather than leadership. Simonton (1984) identified three individual characteristics that distinguished the more-illustrious philosophers from their less-auspicious peers. First, the most eminent philosophers embraced a much broader perspective than less-celebrated thinkers. Second, they were much more likely to hold extreme views and third, they were able to present their ideas in original ways. Simonton concluded that the greatest philosophers were not typical of their times and often rose above the influences of the zeitgeist. Of course another possible explanation here is the interactionist perspective, or as Simonton (1984, p. 165) put it, ‘being the right person, in the right place at the right time’. Stewart (1977) examined the relationship between birth order and achievement and concluded that the different developmental experiences of an only child, a first-born son, a middle-born son and a last-born son prepared the adult leader for different political environments. The only child is likely to rise to leadership in times of social upheaval and civil conflict; the first-born son during times of international crisis and war; the middle born during times of peace, where fine-tuning of internal affairs is demanded; and the last born when revolution is required.
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interactions with others (Rosenberg, 1979). We learn to see ourselves as others see us. Those who achieve highly in society have probably grown up around other highly successful individuals. The less successful have arguably spent more time around others who have not achieved great heights. The language used to describe the abilities and achievements of children growing up shape how they define themselves. For example, children who are told they are ‘gifted’, that their efforts are ‘clever and creative’, will undoubtedly see themselves quite differently from those whose abilities and efforts attract ambivalent or negative responses. A more recent development in this area is the ‘narrative’ approach, which considers the self from the perspective of a story (Hermans & Poulie, 2000). The assumption here is that the events of one’s life receive meaning as part of a narrative structure. Hermans & Poulie (2000, p. 279) stated that When a talented person succeeds in realising his or her ability, creativity, and motivation in one or more performance areas or, on the contrary, is not able to do so as a result of obstacles, the resulting achievements or failures are understood as positively or negatively experienced events in an organised self-narrative.
Simonton (1998) claimed, however, that this interpretation cannot tell the whole story. For example, how does this explanation account for the luminaries who saw themselves as different from most others? History is full of examples of innovators whose original ideas were rejected by their peers. Yet these greats persisted, holding to a self-view that was in complete contrast to the opinion of others.
Realising Talent: What Seems to Count
Gardner (1997) defends the inquiry into extraordinary talent and points out that such a ‘science’ must pursue the ‘apartness’ of extraordinary lives, yet at the same time embrace their ‘non-distinctiveness’. This task is enormous, and currently our ability to be able to explain the talent development process with any precision means that the capacity to predict who might be destined to succeed is extremely limited. The converse Symbolic Interactionism is equally true, and any teacher or parent who thinks or claims that a child will never amount to anything Proponents of this view contend that the self is not de- great needs to read the life stories of some of history’s fined by intrapsychic processes but is the product of most eminent individuals. Numerous stereotypical
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attitudes about success exist, which see one ‘type’ of child viewed as a potential success and another ‘type’ as a potential failure. These views are persistent and pervasive and probably held unconsciously by many parents and teachers. While some children rise above the low expectations of others, and achieve in spite of these (and sometimes even in response to them), one can only speculate how many others succumb to what influential adults have perceived as their destiny. Numerous studies of eminent adults report that many of them failed to achieve to a level in childhood or adolescence that might have predicted the degree of success they were to achieve as adults (e.g. Bloom, 1985; Ludwig, 1995; Moltzen, 2005). The findings from studies of talented individuals, particularly the retrospective studies, clearly demonstrate that teachers and parents need to be very tentative in determining who is, and who is not, gifted. It is clear that even the most comprehensive and multi-faceted used to identify potential talent frequently overlook significant numbers of future high achievers. There are a number of reasons for this. First, talent emerges at different times and under different conditions, and some future greats offer few indicators in childhood of their potential for success. Second, there is often no relationship between what schools offer and the domains that some adults achieve in and thus no context within which to demonstrate their exceptionality. Third, how some of the more creative abilities are manifest at school may be interpreted as anything but an indication of the potential to achieve creative eminence. An implication of this is that teachers and schools need to start from a position where all students are seen as potentially gifted. This is not to advocate a lessening of provisions for those readily identified as exceptionally able. What is important is that schools offer multiple opportunities across multiple contexts for children and young people to discover and evidence their special abilities. The gifted group should be seen as fluid rather than fixed. This is a challenge to schools and teachers as there is a tendency that when ‘a’ group has been identified as gifted, that it is then perceived as ‘the’ gifted group within the school. While the findings from studies designed to explain how talent develops over time offer some insights into the process, to view these as a template or recipe for success would be spurious in the extreme. Moltzen’s (2005) life history study illustrates the individuality of the talent development process. He reported that the
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life stories told by his luminaries were each unique and the differences between them much more of a feature than their similarities. These differences related to almost all aspects of the participants’ developmental pathways. Outstanding achievers are born different and each possesses a distinctly unique genetic makeup. How these heredity factors impact on their subsequent development seems best explained by the notion of ‘emergenesis’ (Lykken, 1982), an ‘interactive’ rather than an ‘additive’ model of genetic influence. If the influence of our genes is interactive, as is proposed here, it is little wonder that individuals born to the same parents and raised in similar environments turn out to be so different. This approach to understanding the relationship between nature and nurture helps to explain why none of the parents or siblings of Moltzen’s participants appeared to reach the heights of the family’s most acclaimed member. With the possible exception of monozygotic twins, even our prenatal environments are different, and when we consider differences in family, education, culture and numerous other influences and experiences, it is not surprising that most researchers in this area stop well short of offering any definitive guidelines for success.
Birth Order Many studies that have focused on high achievers have reported a relationship between birth order and achievement. The findings in this area are relatively consistent and suggest that birth order exerts an influence over the degree of achievement, as well as the domain of achievement. In 1874, Galton surveyed 200 notable English scientists and one of his findings was that first borns were disproportionately represented among this group (Galton, 1874). Since Galton, other investigators have identified a similar birth order effect (e.g. Cox, 1926; Goertzel & Goertzel, 1962; Gottfried, Gottfried, Bathurst, & Guerin,1994; Ludwig, 1995; Roe, 1952; Terman and Oden, 1947). Based on analysis of 196 birth order studies, Sulloway (1996) reported that first borns are more conforming, traditional, achievement oriented, organised, responsible, intense, assertive, extraverted and more upset by failure. Grosse (2003) maintained that first borns as a group tend to be goal-setters, high achievers,
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perfectionists, responsible, rule keepers, determined and with an eye for detail. These traits, together with a reasonable amount of talent, would seem to be a solid foundation on which to structure a highly successful life. However, such traits may improve the first born’s opportunities for success in some areas but they may impose severe limitations for success in others. As and Goertzel and Goertzel (1962) discovered, first borns tend to succeed within the mainstream. It is the later-born children who are more likely to be found on the margins, or involved in ‘fringe’ activities, where they may be challenging the very conventions the first borns are intent on preserving. This birth order effect is well captured in the title of Grosse’s (2003) book, Why first borns rule the world and why last borns want to change it. One explanation for this phenomenon is related to intelligence and achievement. If, as has been suggested by many researchers in this area, there is a relationship between intelligence and achievement, and if levels of intelligence vary according to birth order, this could account for a birth order effect on achievement. A Dutch study involving 400,000 participants demonstrated a decline in intelligence from first borns to last borns (Belmont & Marolla, 1973). This trend was said to be independent of family size and socio-economic class. A study in the United States of 800,000 students who sat the National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test confirmed the findings from the study undertaken in the Netherlands, with a steady decline in IQ performance from first-born to last-born children (Breland, 1974). Simonton (1994) reported that first borns are also overrepresented among child prodigies. He maintained that, ‘primogeniture implies intellectual superiority’ and that first borns are conspicuous among the notables because, ‘they have brains on their side’ (Simonton, 1994, p. 147). Cross-sectional studies have tended to report that the higher the place in the family the higher the intelligence, which may not be altogether surprising where the tool used to assess intelligence is an IQ test. If first borns are more likely to be more convergent and conservative in their thinking, they will understandably do well on tests that reward responses of this type. It has long been argued that creative and divergent thinking is unrewarded by IQ tests. Zajonc (1986) proposed the confluence model, where the ordinal position of a child dictates the level of intellectual stimulation that can be accessed. The
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first-born child is exposed to the ‘mature’ interactions of two adults, but the quality of this interaction is ‘watered down’ as subsequent siblings arrive and the home environment is increasingly influenced by the less-mature activities of older siblings. This model, it is suggested, explains the success of two groups of later-born siblings, namely, those who lost an older sibling early in their childhood and those with a large age gap between them and their older siblings. However, as Simonton (1994) pointed out, there are some problems with this explanation. First, it does not explain why last-born children are also overrepresented among high achievers. Second, there are domains where a high level of intelligence is not a significant factor in success, yet where first borns as a group maintain superiority over later borns. A contrasting explanation of the relationship between birth order and intelligence is found in the admixture hypothesis (Page & Grandon, 1979). They argue that other factors, such as parental intelligence and socio-economic status, may account for large families and low IQ and suggest that those with lower IQ scores have more children, thus making it appear as if IQ lessens with every subsequent sibling birth. This could explain why some longitudinal studies of birth order have reported no relationship between place in the family and IQ (Berbaum & Moreland, 1980; Retherford & Sewell, 1991; Rodgers, Cleveland, van den Oord, & Rowe, 2000; Schooler, 1972). Alfred Adler provided an interesting explanation for the overachievement of first borns. To Adler (1938), social interactions in early childhood were very significant in shaping an individual’s personality. Adler maintained that first-born children never get over the birth of other siblings and when a brother or sister enters the family the first born becomes a dethroned king. From that moment on, this child is driven by the desire to regain his or her former preferential position and does this by continuous attempts to win parental affection. From an Adlerian perspective, this drive to win approval sets the first born on a path towards high achievement. However, while this theory may have some currency in explaining the achievement of first borns, the reasoning would be somewhat weakened if ‘only’ children achieved to a similar level of adult success to the first born in families of two or more children. Interestingly, there do seem to be some patterns of difference between the achievements of first born and only children. For example, very few US presidents
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have been only children, yet many have been first-born children, while a number of vice presidents have been only children (Simonton, 1994). Adlerian psychology also offers an explanation for the achievements of later-born children. While the first born may resent the attention and affection given to his or her younger brother/s or sister/s, the later-born siblings envy the special status of the first born and consequently rebel against all that the eldest sibling represents. The further away a sibling is from the first born, the greater the intensity of this resentment and rebellion (Simonton, 1994). This also may explain why later-born siblings achieve lower scores of ability and achievement. It may be less a reflection of their intelligence and more a reflection of their disdain for authority and conformity (Simonton, 1994). It is certainly true that many later borns can be found among the more Bohemian personalities, the artistically creative, the political revolutionaries and the leaders of religious movements (Simonton, 1994). Another theoretical explanation for this birth order effect centres on intrauterine or congenital factors (e.g. Adams, 1972; Ernst & Angst, 1983). There is a suggestion that first borns may be exposed to a richer uterine environment. First borns could be exposed to more trauma and injury during labour and delivery than later borns, and this may result in parents being more protective and indulgent and thus restricting the development of independence and autonomy. There are also powerful historical, cultural and economic factors associated with birth order. Primogeniture is of significance from who gets to sit on the throne to who inherits the family business. In many cultures, at least historically, the first-born male of a family has had birthright advantages and opportunities later-born siblings rarely receive. The various explanations for the impact of birth order over achievement, both in determining the level and the direction of attainment, generally refer to unconscious forces playing out in the individual (e.g. Simonton, 1999a). This might explain why no participants in a study by Moltzen (2005) saw their position in the family as a particularly significant influence on either the degree or the domain of their accomplishments. In this study of a group of exceptional adult achievers, the participants were asked to account for their successes. Only a small percentage of participants mentioned their family position as having any significance in the development of their abilities from child-
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hood to adulthood, and within this group no one saw it making any more than a minimal contribution. In this study, siblings were not identified as playing a particularly significant role in the participants’ achievements. The birth order effect was more a feature of the findings of early research studies in this field. It is possible that changes in family life, such as smaller families, have weakened the influence of birth order over achievement. In addition, as an increasing number of families are reconstituted, a child’s place in a family may change, sometimes within a very short space of time and sometimes on a number of occasions. In addition, many children in reconstituted families will occupy a different place among his or her ‘siblings’ as they move from one family context to another.
The Gifted Personality The relationship between personality and achievement has been extensively studied and to do full justice to this area requires much more depth of examination than this chapter allows. Terman and Oden (1947) identified a group of 150 high-achieving adults and a group of 150 low-achieving adults from within Terman’s greater group of 1528. The personality traits of both groups were self-rated, spouse rated and parent rated. They concluded from this comparison that personality was extremely influential to achievement. Successful individuals, they reported, were less moody, impulsive and conformist. These people demonstrated higher self-confidence, sociability, perseverance, integration towards goals, commonsense and an absence of inferiority feelings. However, these findings must be interpreted in the light of criticisms made previously about the relative homogeneity of this research group. More recently, researchers have suggested differences between the personality characteristics of scientists and artists. Feist (1999) reported on research that showed artists to be more anxious, emotionally labile and impulsive, with a disposition towards intense affective experience. Russ (1993, p. 67) said that, ‘One of the main differences between artistic and scientific creativity may be the importance of getting more deeply into affect states and thematic material in artistic creativity’. Feist believed because artistic production involves introspection and science an external focus, it is not surprising that artists are more sensitive to and
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expressive of internal emotional states than scientists. Another identified difference between the two groups is in the areas of socialisation and conscientiousness. Artists tend to rate lower than the general population on ‘socialisation’, ‘communality’, ‘tolerance’ and ‘responsibility’ (Feist, 1999). Scientists, in contrast, tend to be more conscientious and orderly. From his studies of creative achievers Csikszentmihalyi (1996) identified ‘complexity’ as what makes their personalities different from others. By this I mean that they show tendencies of thought and action that in most people are segregated. They contain contradictory extremes – instead of being an ‘individual’, each of them is a ‘multitude’. Like the color white that includes all the hues in the spectrum, they tend to bring together the entire range of human possibilities within themselves. (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996, p. 57)
He proposed the following 10 pairs of apparently antithetical traits, which he said that highly creative people vacillate between, as indicative of this complexity of personality: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
Energy and activity versus quiet and rest Smart versus na¨ıve Playful versus disciplined Imagination and fantasy versus reality Extroversion versus introversion Humility versus pride Masculine versus feminine Rebellion and independence versus traditional and conservative 9. Passion versus objectivity 10. Suffering and pain versus enjoyment Csikszentmihalyi believed that these 10 pairs of contrasting personality traits were possibly the most telling characteristics of creative people. To some people, this fragmentation of personality represents a very artificial explanation of the relationship between personality and the development of talent. The humanist psychologist Abraham Maslow (1970) offered a much more holistic approach to understanding the character of eminent individuals and his study of self-actualisers was aimed at presenting a more optimistic picture of humanity. Maslow’s self-actualisers included politicians, reformers and humanitarians, scientists and inventors, philosophers and thinkers, poets and essayists, painters, and composers and musicians. He concluded that as a group, self-actualisers are more efficient, more comfortable
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in accepting ‘reality’, more accepting of themselves and others, and acknowledge flaws yet still ‘appreciate’. They tend to exhibit simplicity, naturalness and spontaneity in their interactions and avoid the artificial or contrived. They are empathetic and have a strong sense of right and wrong. Their character tends to be democratic rather than authoritarian. They value autonomy, independence and freedom. There is a tendency to focus on issues outside themselves and generally these individuals are much less self-absorbed or ego driven, characteristics Maslow considered prerequisite to creative productivity. Most can identify a defining moment or moments, a peak experience, which became a primary motivator in their lives. Virtually all studies of eminent individuals have demonstrated that motivation, persistence, perseverance and hard work characterise extraordinary achievers. What is very clear from these studies is that there is no substitute for effort. As Cox (1926) concluded, less than the highest levels of intelligence may be compensated for by a high degree of persistence and perseverance. However, she maintained that the reverse does not hold true, and that there is no substitute for drive and determination. This may help explain why some gifted students fail to reach the heights expected of them and why those whose early abilities were more modest surprise many with what they achieve. What is much less clear from any of the studies in the field is, first, the source of this tendency to strive and, second, how it might be encouraged and developed. Many outstanding achievers were raised in homes where at least one parent exhibited high levels of drive (Cox, 1926; Goertzel & Goertzel, 1962; Moltzen, 2005; Streznewski, 1999). These parents not only espoused hard work, persistence and perseverance as virtues, even more importantly, they modelled these in their own attitudes and actions. There is also evidence that teachers who model these behaviours have a positive influence on achievement (e.g. Csikszentmilhalyi, Rathunde & Whalen, 1993). However, exposure to hard-working role models and being reinforced for displaying this trait would seem an inadequate explanation for levels of drive required to achieve excellence in a field. Freud believed that many people sublimate or divert excess libidinal energy into socially acceptable activities (Jones, 1953). Others, such as Fairbain (1938)
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and Segal (1957), suggested that creative drive was associated with a need to atone for unconscious destructive or aggressive urges. Rogers (1954) considered that drive was synonymous with a motivation to fulfil one’s potential. According to Rogers, this drive for self-actualisation is present in everyone, but to be fully expressed it needs to occur in a context of selfevaluation rather than a concern with the evaluation of others. Other theorists have argued that what is crucial to sustaining motivation and drive is a deep love for and enjoyment of the tasks being undertaken. This is often referred to as intrinsic motivation, what Collins and Amabile (1999, p. 299) described as, ‘motivation to engage in an activity primarily for its own sake, because the individual perceives the activity as interesting, involving, satisfying, or personally challenging; it is marked by a focus on the challenge and enjoyment of the work itself’. Rawls (1971) offered an explanation for the pleasure and enjoyment that some people derive from what others would consider the tedium of hard work. According to Rawls, the Aristotelian principle suggests that, ‘Other things equal, human beings enjoy the exercise of their realized capacities (their innate or trained abilities), and this enjoyment increases the more capacity is realized, or the greater its complexity’ (p. 426). Murray (2003) stated that, ‘Exercising our realized capacities is, in the truest sense of the word, enjoyable’ (p. 386). In Maslow’s words,
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I have been put on earth to do is more likely to accomplish great things than someone who doesn’t’ (p. 391). Across the longitudinal studies tracking gifted children, there are examples of extremely promising young people who seemed to fail to realise their early potential. Terman’s study has been referred to early in the chapter to cast doubt on his claim that gifted children, almost as a matter of course, will become gifted adults. Also noted earlier was Arnold’s (1995) study of high school valedictorians whose accomplishments as adults were less spectacular than their achievements in adolescence might have predicted. Dylan Thomas contended that, ‘There’s only one thing that’s worse than having an unhappy childhood, and that’s having a too-happy childhood’ (Thomas cited in Ferris, 1977, p. 49). Some recent commentators suggest that this can account for the fact that children brought up in a very stable, supportive and affirming environment are very good at running the world, but are unlikely to change it. There may be another explanation for this apparent under-representation of some groups of gifted children among the greats of history. Duskin Feldman (2000) suggested that those identified as being gifted at a young age have early experience of success and, therefore, exposure to the rewards that accompany it. She speculated that some gifted young adults may deliberately reject the widely accepted ‘symbols of success’ and ‘status seeking’ and are more attracted to the pursuit of autonomy and self-actualisation. An issue that has not been explored to any extent in this chapter is A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet notions of success. Any conclusions drawn from the must write, if he is to be ultimately happy. What man can findings of studies of talent development need to be be, he must be . . . This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more what one is, to become considered against multiple interpretations of success. everything one is capable of becoming. In most studies, the indices of success in adulthood involve accomplishment that is widely acknowledged as (Maslow, 1943, p. 383) outstanding. The gifted person who has devoted his or To Murray (2003), this drive is not just about plea- her life in service to others, and is doing this in relative sure, it is also about purpose. He argued that, ‘A major obscurity, could be included by researchers among the stream of human accomplishment is fostered by a cul- gifted who did not deliver on their early promise. In ture in which the most talented believe that life has a the opinions of some, however, such an individual may purpose and that the function of life is to fulfill that pur- represent the very highest level of accomplishment. What is also relevant to consider in this context pose’ (p. 391). As Murray pointed out, while fame can is the extent to which the personality traits associcome easily, excellence is almost always accompanied ated with achievement may be timeless and, as such, by extremely hard work that demands a single-minded intensity. The willingness to make such a commitment, will continue to predict high accomplishment in the according to Murray, is usually associated with a sense future. It is difficult to imagine that such qualities of vocation. In many instances this sense of purpose would ever become redundant. However, researchers will not be ascribed to any source, but Murray main- such as Goleman (1995) have proposed that those who tained that, ‘A person with a strong sense of this is what succeed in many areas in today’s world are those with
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well-developed interpersonal skills, as well as expertise, self-discipline and a strong work ethic. Goleman (1995) has argued that an individual working in isolation to achieve a notable breakthrough is largely a former phenomenon. In recent times, he contended, achieving the highest level of success demands the ability to work effectively with others. It is not enough, he claimed, to be capable and committed. In today’s world, and arguably even more so in the future, to achieve eminence in some fields will require a person to be an effective team player. It may be as common in the future to talk about gifted groups, as it now is to talk about gifted individuals. This notion has implications for practice in gifted education, where an emphasis on collaboration and cooperation should arguably replace the traditional emphasis on individualisation and competition.
Nurturing Talent in the Family A significant number of investigations into the family backgrounds of talented adults have found that the middle and upper class families are overrepresented. Both Roe (1952) and Moltzen (2005) concluded that the critical element in nurturing ability is the provision of an enriched home environment, which is not necessarily the preserve of the more affluent. The reason why the homes of the middle and upper classes offer an environment that may be more conducive to the development of special abilities is likely to be connected with tradition, education and to a lesser degree resources. Middle class parents are more likely to have grown up in more enriched early environments themselves. They are probably better educated and more familiar with the conditions that promote achievement than their contemporaries from lower socio-economic groups. This educational ‘edge’ probably equips them with a richer understanding of children’s development and of the longer-term benefits of some specific approaches to child rearing. These parents possess, in large measure, the cultural capital important to success. They may also have greater access to the resources to provide their offspring with an enriched environment. Moltzen (2005) reported that a greater number of his participant group were raised in poverty than were raised in privilege, with only a small number growing up in what might be considered resource-rich, middle
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and upper class families. Nonetheless, these individuals considered their home environments to be rich. Their childhood households were characterised by a love of learning and a love of books. There was a free flow of ideas, and the children in many of these families were exposed to these exchanges and were encouraged to participate in them. In spite of the fact that many of their parents had not received a higher education themselves, they placed a high value on education and although they lacked formal educational qualifications, their love of learning meant that they were well educated. As parents, they modelled a strong work ethic and expected the same of their children. Their children were not shielded from difficult experiences and with high expectations often came high demands. Most parents were less concerned about their offspring being ‘well rounded’ and encouraged and supported the development of specialised interests and abilities. The parents’ views generally were more liberal than conservative, and some accorded their children high levels of freedom. Many adult achievers enjoyed a childhood where they were encouraged to challenge and to question, to explore and to inquire and some were even encouraged to be contentious. An early environment of the type described above is clearly no guarantee of a high level of success in childhood, adolescence or adulthood, any more than the exclusion of any or all these elements precludes the emergence of talent. It must also be pointed out that children interact with their environments and from a very young age shape their parents’ responses (Gottfried et al., 1994; Simonton, 1999a). The traits typical of many young gifted children will invariably demand a home environment that is different from their lessable peers (Porter, 2004). According to Porter, young gifted children achieve developmental milestones early, learn quickly, show advanced preferences for books and films, have a quick and accurate recall, are imaginative and creative, understand abstract concepts early and are often active in eliciting stimulation from their environment. For children to achieve highly nowadays, however, generally requires much more input from parents than simply modelling and reinforcing a desire to excel and providing an enriched and stimulating early environment. As Bloom (1985) illustrated, to reach the very highest level in many disciplines requires many years of training and expert mentoring, and in some fields success in adulthood is contingent upon accessing this
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support when a child is quite young. Thus, in the initial stages of talent development at least, children’s parents play a vital facilitative and supportive role. Children born into families where the parents are not willing or not able to make this level of commitment will be precluded from reaching the top echelons in some fields of endeavour. History offers many examples of people who have emerged from relative obscurity to a level of outstanding success, and at times a lack of background in a field can appear to act as an advantage. While this phenomenon will no doubt continue in the future, it is probable that cases of individuals achieving meteoric success from limited experience or training in a field will become increasingly rare.
Nurturing Talent at School The findings here, as one might expect, are mixed. On the one hand, history is well represented by outstanding figures whose school performances were unremarkable or even dismal. For example, the study by Goertzel and Goertzel (1962) reported that approximately 60% of their eminent adults hated school. The majority of those who had positive experiences at school found fame in science or politics. On the other hand, Terman’s group were very positive about their schooling and Goertzel, Goertzel and Goertzel (1978) reported that among renowned achievers in ‘modern’ times, one-fifth were honour students. While high academic achievement at school is certainly no guarantee of success, many of those who do well in school continue that pattern into adult life. According to Simonton (1994), to make sense of these contradictory findings, it is important to consider the nature of an individual’s educational experience. Whether or not a future luminary does well in school can depend very much on the specific school environment and the teaching methods employed. There seems to be general agreement across numerous research studies in this area that approaches to education that encourage curiosity, independence, autonomy, creativity and the pursuit of individual interests are better suited to more able students and to stimulating outstanding achievement. These values are more characteristic of classrooms today than even a decade or two ago. The classrooms of more than 50 years ago were typically much more formal, took limited cognisance
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of individual differences, drew on a much narrower curriculum and there was little flexibility to allow for the pursuit of interests that fell outside the curriculum. It is little wonder then that a high proportion of bright and creative students of a few generations ago recalled their school experiences with some revulsion. As Einstein said, It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mostly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wreck and ruin without fail. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by a means of coercion and a sense of duty. (quoted in Schlipp, 1951, p. 17)
Csikszentmihalyi (1996) painted a rather cynical picture of the school experiences of creative achievers and suggested that frequently school had little effect, or in fact threatened to extinguish the interest and curiosity that had been developed and nurtured beyond the school gates. ‘The record is rather grim, especially considering how much effort, how many resources, and how many hopes go into our formal educational system’ (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996, p. 173). He noted that although schools rarely received a mention as a source of inspiration, individual teachers did. These teachers, he said, were influential because they, ‘noticed the student, in his or her abilities and cared [and] showed care by giving the child extra work to do, greater challenges than the rest of the class received’ (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996, p. 174). He reported that this type of recognition and support was much more likely to be given to mathematically and scientifically able students than those with ability in the humanities or the arts. Memorable teachers seemed to also be those who had an enthusiasm for their subjects, something that appeared to be lacking in other teachers’ classes. Some eminent adults in Csikszentmihalyi’s study could not identify a single teacher they would rate above mediocre. Simonton (1994) revisited Cox’s (1926) data to gauge the relationship between formal education and training, and success. He found through this analysis that fame as a leader was negatively correlated to education. The most famous leaders in Cox’s study had the least formal education. The relationship between education and creative achievement was less linear and more curvilinear. Those who achieved highly as creators tended to benefit from education but only to a certain point, and beyond this threshold additional
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education and training seemed to decrease the likelihood that eminence might be achieved. Simonton reported that these trends had been confirmed in other, more recent studies. With respect to leadership, there appears to be relationships between levels of education, dogmatism and eminence. Simonton (1984) found that dogmatism could be the product of little formal education, but also of a high level of education. He maintained that dogmatism and creativity represent ‘opposite ends of a bipolar dimension’ (p. 66). The mixed findings of the relationship between educational experience and educational attainment and later success also reflect the complex nature of talent development. What does seem consistent across numerous studies is that those who achieve in mathematics and science-related areas tend to do better within formal education and are much more likely to recount their educational experiences in positive terms. However, early high achievement in these areas is by no means a predictor of success later on (Simonton, 1994). Creators and leaders are much more likely to recall their educational experiences negatively, and their educational attainments are sometimes anything but outstanding. This may reflect a mismatch between what schools offer and value and the interests and values of these individuals. There may be benefits, though, to creative students becoming disillusioned with formal education and opting out, because as Simonton (1994, pp. 164–165) pointed out, ‘Getting the breadth is probably conducive to achievement, whereas increased specialization may impair the creative mind’. What seems to mediate the school experience across many areas of accomplishment is the quality of that experience (Moltzen, 2005). Where there is a goodnessof-fit between the interests and abilities of the able student and what school encourages and provides for, the experience is much more likely to be viewed positively. In Moltzen’s study, academically able students who attended academically oriented schools reported that they were accepted by both their teachers and their peers and that they felt no pressure to mask their abilities to fit in. It may not be inconsequential that many in this group attended single-sex schools. It is the highly creative child who seems to have the greatest difficulty fitting into the school system; or that the school finds the greatest difficulty accommodating. Traditionally, schools have placed a high value on and rewarded convergent thinking and convergent ways of behav-
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ing. A good example of this is the value placed on results from standardised tests, such as IQ tests. Torrance (1981) maintained that the abilities of the majority of creative children are completely missed when using such a measure of ability. Often creative students display behaviours that are less acceptable to their teachers, parents and peers, behaviours that may be viewed as inappropriate. The behaviours that can result in creative students conflicting with teachers and others, include questioning and challenging of authority, resistance to routine and repetition, indifference to social conventions, limited interest in things perceived as unimportant, uncooperativeness, stubbornness and cynicism (Torrance, 1981). Arnold’s (1995) research provides a good example of the limitations of placing such a high value on conformity. Her group of valedictorians, the best and brightest students in their respective schools, had high grades, continued to do well at university, but in their post-education lives Arnold found that they were best suited to running the world, but not to changing it. In other words, these leading lights were more imitators than innovators and more disposed towards reproduction than transformation. Reflecting on the results of her study Arnold questions whether or not schools are in fact rewarding the right people as its highest achievers. This question is not just applicable to schools, with some creators reporting that university fell short of their expectations and tended to reflect similar values and approaches to that of their high schools (Moltzen, 2005). It could be that, like many schools, universities are better at nurturing convergent thinkers and less successful at providing for divergent thinkers or creatively oriented students. Studies of talented adults yield some compelling reasons for schools to consider identifying and supporting talent across a wide range of ability areas and taking a more liberal approach to conceptualising giftedness. Not only do these approaches accommodate a wider range of talent areas, they are also more responsive to different cultural interpretations and expressions of exceptional ability (Bevan-Brown, 2004). Moltzen (2005) asked the participants in his study to single out the teachers who supported their talents and to identify the characteristics that these teachers possessed that made them different. This group of adult achievers valued teachers who knew their subject matter, were enthusiastic about it, offered challenge and inspired their students to learn. They took a personal
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interest in their talented students and provided opportunities for them to pursue areas of special interest and ability. That these outstanding adults could readily identify a teacher who made a difference underscores the vital role teachers play in supporting exceptional ability. What is also important to note is how few could recall a teacher of significance.
Marginalisation and the Development of Talent The experience of being an outsider seems common to many extraordinary achievers. This marginalisation can take many forms, including ethnic, economic, religious, gender, sexual orientation and professional. Many of the participants in Moltzen’s (2005) study talked of being an outsider and spoke of an emotional sensitivity and intensity that set them apart, something many writers have claimed is consistent with the gifted personality. Feist (1999), for example, in a comprehensive review of studies in this area, claimed that those in the artistic professions are indeed more emotional and sensitive than non-artists. He concluded that, ‘The creative personality does exist and personality dispositions regularly and predictably relate to creative achievement in art and science’ (Feist, 1999, p. 290). However, he also pointed out that how these dispositions develop and exert an influence over each other is little understood. We can speculate on the basis of this and other studies that achievement generally, and creative productivity in particular, might be enhanced by the experience of marginality. Some, like Gardner (1997) and Simonton (1999a), have suggested that feeling totally comfortable, secure and part of the mainstream of society tends to constrain achievement and creative productivity. There are a number of explanations for how being an outsider may benefit an individual in terms of achievement and creativity. It is clear that the perspective from ‘outside’ the mainstream of society is somewhat different and this unique view may be necessary to produce something distinctive and original. The experience of being on the outside may raise an individual’s consciousness to issues of exclusion, bigotry, disparity, inequity and prejudice. This may act as a catalyst to action that speaks against social injustice. Another possibility is that a lack of acceptance or rejec-
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tion or simply feeling different may result in increased resolve, determination and drive, in the same way that early adversity is thought to influence achievement. Finally, the marginalised person may feel so apart from others that any rejection that could occur as a result of their intense interest or exceptional abilities is of little consequence, as they are already an outsider. It is possible that for every child who is marginalised and who succeeds there are many more whose progress is negatively affected by being on the outer. Gardner (1997) maintained that those who have been marginalised and who achieve great things have made the most of their differences. They have seen this as strength and have exploited it. This would seem to have implications for parents and teachers of the gifted. Rather than putting energy into trying to help the gifted fit in, it may be far more appropriate and advantageous to help them to appreciate their differences and use these to their advantage. Encouraging, coercing or even forcing the gifted to join the mainstream may rob them and us of the contribution that those with a view from the margins might be able to make. The challenge for teachers and parents is to ensure that it is safe for the gifted child to occupy a place on the fringe of society. Where the family and the school is strongly committed to conservative values and convergent ways of perceiving and responding, operating on the outer can be a high-risk activity.
Conclusion Investigating the lives of talented individuals, both children and adults, is a most engaging experience and, unlike some other research topics, interests laypersons and experts alike. This wide range of interest is reflected in the diversity of implicit and explicit explanations for why some individuals achieve such lofty heights while most of us, even with grand ideas and hard work, achieve much more modest levels of success. For some researchers, including this writer, their interest in talent development has grown out of work with gifted children. Teachers always take an interest in their former students and are intrigued why some of them seemed to fail to deliver on their childhood promise, while others, who demonstrated little ability or motivation at school, achieved great things later in life.
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This is a relatively new science and the number of significant studies undertaken in this area is few. However, we are indebted to the likes of Galton, Terman, Cox, Roe, Bloom and the Goertzels, and latterly to people like Gardner, Csikszentmilhalyi and Simonton, who have laid a strong foundation in this area. However, most of the substantive studies in the field were undertaken some time ago. These early studies also tended to focus almost exclusively on eminent males and although increased attention has been paid to gifted women recently (see Reis et al., this volume; Silverman et al., this volume), this imbalance still remains. Additionally, almost all of the existing studies are monocultural and little work has been undertaken to examine how talent develops in diverse cultural and ethnic groups. We know what is recognised as a gift or talent varies from one culture to another. It is also clear that differences exist between cultures in how a gift or talent is expressed. What we are much less knowledgeable about is how these abilities are developed within different cultural contexts. Not surprisingly, the research confirms that the process of talent development is unique to every individual. The way talent develops also appears to be different within different domains of achievement. For example, the development of talent in the arts appears to be quite different to the development of scientific and mathematical abilities. It is now widely accepted that inherited dispositions and environmental conditions interact in complex and unique ways to shape a person’s abilities, which largely remain a mystery. For example, the childhood environments of many gifted adults are characterised by a love of reading and a love of learning, where children are encouraged to question, inquire and to engage with ideas. Is this an artefact of being raised in a family with more intelligent parents, whose offspring may be similarly endowed? Or does such an environment really make a difference? Or could it be that more able children demand such levels of stimulation and thus shape their own environment? A consistent finding across studies of eminent individuals is that they are extremely motivated and exhibit high levels of persistence and perseverance (see also Friedman et al., this volume). In fact, many achievers attribute their successes almost exclusively to these attributes (Moltzen, 2005). Such people seem less concerned with being well rounded and often exhibit what Duskin Feldman (2000) referred to as a ‘divine discontent’. This almost obsessive quality is characterised by
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a very blurred line between what constitutes work and what constitutes pleasure, with many viewing these as one and the same. If such high levels of drive and determination (obviously combined with a degree of ability) are essential to outstanding performance, should we not be paying more attention to developing these traits in childhood? Where do today’s generation of children learn to persist and persevere? Could it be that for many children, at least in Western societies, life is ‘too’ comfortable, gratification ‘too’ instant and the experience of failure ‘too’ rare? Is it possible that our well-intentioned efforts to keep children safe, to protect their self-esteem and to ensure that they experience the good life are shielding them from the very experiences that grow the traits necessary to achieve excellence. Finally, it is unquestionable that some of our potential greats, those with the ability to transform our world, will grow up on the margins of society. For some, their entire family will be seen as different. For others, the marginalisation will be associated with ethnicity, religion, politics, economic circumstances, appearance, or with just being different, and seeing and responding to the world in novel ways. We must learn to value these young people more, to acknowledge and affirm their abilities and perspectives. In schools, we must make it safe to be different and become preoccupied with producing well-rounded and solid citizens who will run the world and create space for those with intense interests, the propensity to challenge and with the ability and inclination to make a difference.
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Chapter 17
Creative Cognition in Gifted Youth Katherine N. Saunders Wickes and Thomas B. Ward
Abstract We focus on the cognitive processes that gifted adolescents bring to bear on creative tasks, particularly open-ended tasks that involve generating novel, candidate ideas and developing those ideas into creative products. We use the Geneplore model of creative cognition as an orienting framework and focus on processes of divergent production, problem finding and construction, and retrieval of conceptual stored knowledge at different levels of abstraction. We consider the extent to which gifted individuals employ those processes differently than individuals who have not been so identified. However, we also incorporate findings regarding motivation, the proclivity toward innovative action, implicit theories, and creative selfconcept because, although a complete understanding of creative cognition in the gifted requires attention to cognitive processes, it also requires a consideration of factors outside the purely cognitive realm.
tional, skilled individuals who do so. Although there are no data we are aware of to support the claim that these robot inventors come disproportionately from the population of adolescents who have been identified in their schools as gifted, they nevertheless present a classic gifted picture of bright, creative individuals who are motivated by challenges, as fictionalized in a recent combat-robot episode of the popular teen show, Zoey 101. What factors differentiate gifted individuals who choose to tackle difficult problems and generate creative solutions from others who either shy away from difficult problems or are unable to generate novel solutions? To answer this question, we will focus on specific cognitive processes and on the creative self-image of individuals who have been identified as gifted. These factors represent two of the “four Ps” that are needed to fully characterize creativity, namely processes and the attributes of the creative person Keywords Creativity · Creative cognition · Giftedness (Mooney, 1963; Rhodes, 1961; Taylor, 1988). The two · Implicit theories · Creative self-image · Creativity in remaining Ps, the product and peripheral influences or “press,” will be given less attention, though the gifted adolescents latter is well covered in other contributions to this volume. The process approach examines the mental mechIntroduction anisms people use while engaged in creative and noncreative acts. Research within this broad approach The broadcast of several robotic combat shows on focuses on basic cognitive processes involved in various television channels, which pit robot creation accessing and applying knowledge, such as problem against robot creation, has inspired a growing number finding, retrieval of task-relevant information, conof individuals to construct their own combative robots ceptual combination, evaluative or critical thinking, and has popularized the image of brainy, if unconven- and metacognitive functioning (Brown, 1989; Finke, Ward, & Smith, 1992, Mumford, Reiter-Palmon, & Redmond, 1994; Runco & Chand, 1995; Sternberg T.B. Ward (B) & Lubart, 1999; Ward, 1994; 1995; Ward, Smith, & University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA Finke, 1999a). e-mail:
[email protected] L.V. Shavinina (ed.), International Handbook on Giftedness, c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-6162-2 17,
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The person approach is largely concerned with the attributes of people who would be characterized as being creative and what differentiates them from people who show lower levels of creativity (Mooney, 1963; Taylor, 1988). This approach focuses on the study of personality and motivational factors, and coincides with much of the early research on the “creative personality” (Mooney, 1963; Taylor, 1988). Such research has indicated that the creative person is one who has a positive sense of self, a tolerance for ambiguity, and who is open, intelligent, introverted, and attracted to complexity (Barron & Harrington, 1981; Sternberg & Lubart, 1999). For this chapter we will concentrate mainly on two distinct but interrelated lines of research we have been pursuing. To illustrate the process perspective, we will outline the creative cognition approach (Finke et al., 1992) as an orienting framework and then describe studies concerned with generative thinking processes, focusing in particular on research on the processes people use when generating novel ideas (e.g., Ward et al., 1999a). To illustrate the person approach, we will focus more narrowly on our research concerned with implicit theories of creativity, including a consideration of creative self-image, how implicit theories might link to the motivation to behave creatively, and the extent to which they are associated with the tendency to engage in real-world creative activities.
Creative Cognition in the Gifted One question to be asked initially is whether or not gifted adolescents show particularly high levels of creative performance on a range of tasks. In a way, the answer may depend on how one conceptualizes and identifies giftedness. Research on the gifted has long sought to define creativity as one of the special skills or attributes that the gifted possess (Brown, 1989; Renzulli, 1986; Winner, 2000). This research has found that the gifted often perform well on cognitive and metacognitive measures of creative ability, demonstrating greater abilities in divergent thinking, problem finding, idea evaluation, metamemory, attentional focus, and generative thinking than either adults or their more average peers (Groboroz & Necka, 2003; Mumford, Baughman, Costanza,
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Uhlman, & Connelly, 1993; Runco, 1986a, 1986b; 1987; 1993; Schwanenflugel, Stevens, & Carr, 1997; Sternberg & Lubart, 1993; Wakefield, 1985; Ward, Saunders, & Dodds 1999b). Rather than focus on the breadth of differences in creative functioning, our approach has been to concentrate in depth on particular aspects of that functioning. Our attack on the issue derives from the creative cognition approach (Finke et al., 1992; Ward et al., 1999a), which views creativity as emerging from the application of fundamental cognitive processes to existing knowledge structures which results in ideas that are novel and useful. Importantly, the processes that are most involved in producing such ideas are within the capabilities of most, if not all, normal people. In effect, the potential for creative thought is normative, rather than rare for humans. However, noting that people are capable of performing the mental operations needed to develop creative ideas is not the same as saying that we all use our creative capabilities productively most of the time. It is also not the same as saying that there are no individual differences in creative capacity. Indeed, if we take seriously the idea that gifted individuals are more likely than others to display creative behavior, one attribute that may distinguish the gifted is that they are more likely to spontaneously deploy basic processes in ways that result in creative outcomes. There is little doubt that novel and useful ideas emerge from mental operations performed on existing knowledge, but the true value of the creative cognition approach is that it goes beyond that generality to describe specific processes and their specific interactions with existing knowledge that are particularly relevant to creative functioning. In doing so, the approach provides a way of characterizing ways in which highly creative individuals, whether they be gifted adolescents or not, differ from their less-creative peers. Within the creative cognition approach, a particularly useful heuristic framework is the Geneplore model, which differentiates between phases of creative activity (Finke et al., 1992; Ward et al., 1999a). The model posits that most creative accomplishments can be seen as involving a generative phase in which candidate ideas are brought to mind and an exploratory phase in which those ideas are evaluated, expanded, revised, or otherwise developed (Finke et al., 1992; Ward et al., 1999a). The initial candidate ideas, sometimes called preinventive ideas, are not seen as either creative or noncreative, but merely as having more or
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less creative potential. It is only through exploration that the potential in preinventive ideas is brought to fruition. The production of a truly creative idea may require several iterations between the generative and exploratory phases.
Generating Divergent, Original Candidate Ideas With the Geneplore model as a framework, we begin by considering work relevant to early generative stages. A number of studies have assessed how differences in intellectual ability in general, and giftedness in particular, may link to very early phases of generative or divergent thinking. The studies have used measures, such as the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (Torrance, 1972; 1974), and tasks derived from Wallach and Kogan (1965). The former has verbal and figural forms and can be scored for fluency (the number of ideas produced), flexibility (the number of different categories of ideas produced), and originality (the extent to which a response is unique to the person responding) among other things. The latter yields similar scores and includes a range of tasks, such as Instances (list as many round things as you can), Similarities (how are a mouse and cat alike), and Uses (uses for a shoe) as verbal items and Pattern Meanings and Line Meanings (list what a given pattern or line might be) as figural items. Because the tasks are primarily concerned with listing initial ideas rather than developing them into complete creative products, they can be thought of as indicators or the earliest generative processes in the Geneplore framework. In one very early study, Feldhusen, Treffinger, Von Mendfrans, & Ferris (1971) tested students of varying levels of academic achievement on the TTCT under a variety of task conditions, including standard instructions and instructions that fostered a more game-like atmosphere. In addition to the scores from the TTCT, the investigators had access to the previous year’s grades in the areas of English, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies. TTCT performance was broadly predictive of academic grades across a range of test conditions and domains of achievement, but the most consistent predictor was TTCT verbal flexibility scores. Importantly, the correlations held even when variance due to IQ was controlled. Although high achievement in school is not
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synonymous with giftedness, the results provide an important hint that the processes that underlie the initial production of diverse responses are associated with intellectual accomplishment, independently of their possible link to intelligence. Runco (1986b; see also Runco, 1984) directly compared the performance of fifth- through eighth-graders who had been identified as gifted or talented or neither. For purposes of group assignment, gifted individuals were those who had been nominated by teachers to the gifted and talented program, who also had IQs greater than 130. Talented were those individuals who had been nominated to the program, but whose IQ scores were below 130. The control group was composed of children who had not been nominated for the program. All children were administered five of the Wallach and Kogan (1965) divergent thinking tasks, including three verbal ones (Instances, Uses, and Similarities) and two figural ones (Line Meanings and Pattern Meanings). In a standard instructions condition, which imposed no time limits, characterized the tasks as games, and emphasized that there were no right or wrong answers, the raw mean fluency, flexibility, and originality scores for the gifted children exceeded those of the other two groups on all five tasks. A multivariate analysis showed a significant overall advantage for gifted children over those who had not been identified as either gifted or talented, whereas the talented individuals and those not identified as such did not differ from one another. Teachers may nominate individuals as gifted for a variety of reasons, but whatever traits they are sensitive to it appears that the combination of teacher nominations and high IQ may be critical markers that can help to signal the capacity for generating a range of ideas potentially applicable to new situations. A particularly intriguing feature of the Runco (1986b) paper is that the study also included an instructional manipulation. For some items, participants were given instructions to “be creative,” which consisted of encouragement to give original responses (ones that nobody else would think of) that were also worthwhile. Fluency and flexibility actually decreased in the “be creative” condition, whereas originality increased. More importantly, the gifted children were less influenced by the creativity instructions than were the other two groups. In fact, their originality scores were slightly lower that those of the other two groups in that condition. What the results suggest is that gifted children naturally approach divergent thinking tasks,
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and by extension, other tasks for which generating novel ideas might be useful, as ones that can benefit from the application of creative strategies. They do not need special instructions to cue them in to the idea that certain situations call for generating novel and useful ideas. We will revisit this idea in the section on problem finding, where we will consider other results which suggest that gifted individuals conceptualize problem situations in ways that differ from their average peers. Albert & Runco (1989) also reported data that reveal differences between different groups of gifted individuals. They compared three groups of gifted boys, two of which were characterized as exceptionally gifted. The exceptionally gifted adolescents either had IQ scores greater than 150 and were identified in the Mentally Gifted Minors programs or were identified as being at the 99th percentile or beyond in math–science abilities. The “ordinary” gifted boys had mean IQ scores of 133. The main focus of the Albert & Runco (1989) work was a potential connection between independence and creativity, but of most interest in the present context, they administered three items from each of Wallach and Kogan’s (1965) Instances, Uses, and Similarities divergent thinking tasks. The mean fluency scores for the high-IQ, high-math–science, and control-gifted groups were 46.4, 45.3, and 30.7, respectively. Clearly, both groups of exceptionally gifted boys generated more ideas than their nominally gifted peers. One cautionary note is that the exceptionally gifted boys were tested in their homes, whereas the control-gifted group was tested in a school setting. It is possible that some aspect of the test setting influenced performance. On the other hand, the differences in fluency are quite large and it is reasonable to assume that at least some of the difference is due to ability or propensity over and above any difference due to test conditions. Consistent with the Runco (1986b) findings, giftedness does seem to be associated with advantages in the processes that underlie initial idea generation. Importantly however, pervasive differences between gifted children and those not so identified are not always found on divergent thinking measures. For example, Kershner & Ledger (1985) administered the Verbal and Figural, Form A TTCT to 60 fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-graders, half of whom had been identified as gifted based on teacher nominations and on having IQ scores in excess of 130. The other half of the sample,
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not identified as gifted, was from mainstream classes and had IQs between 95 and 110. Fluency, flexibility, and originality scores were calculated for both the verbal and figural tests, and elaboration was also scored for the figural tests. Among the possible score comparisons, the only significant advantage for the gifted individuals was on verbal originality. Because the sample size was somewhat smaller than in Runco’s studies, it is not clear whether the more limited findings of a gifted advantage in the Kershner and Ledger study reflect a critical failure to replicate or a limitation of power in the study to detect differences. Interestingly, there is at least one study that reveals lower performance by gifted adolescents on a divergent thinking task. Gallucci, Middleton, & Kline (1999) administered the TTCT to two different groups of gifted children, one from Louisiana and the other from Connecticut. Somewhat surprisingly, the children’s mean performance was just under 96, in contrast to 100 for national norms. Without a direct comparison of their scores to those of children from the same settings who were not identified as gifted and who were tested by the same investigators under the same conditions, it is not possible to draw firm conclusions, but there is certainly no evidence of especially strong divergent thinking by that particular sample of gifted children, and even a hint of a possible disadvantage. Research on divergent thinking in gifted individuals also reveals what might be characterized as qualitative differences in the way novel ideas are generated. Specifically, one limitation of divergent thinking scores in the general population is that fluency, flexibility, and originality scores tend to be strongly correlated, which can undermine their utility as distinct measures of early generative processes. The problem is especially important because, conceptually, the capacity to generate a lot of ideas may well be distinct from the capacity to generate ideas that fall into several different categories or that are unusual or unique. But, if the measures cannot be distinguished statistically, the conceptual distinction cannot be investigated in any meaningful way. Runco (1985) provided evidence that fluency and flexibility may be more meaningfully distinguished in intellectually high-achieving individuals. He examined the reliability (interitem correlations) of flexibility scores on the Instances, Uses, Similarities, Line Meanings, and Pattern Meanings items for a large group of children who were divided into quartiles based on their performance on the California
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Achievement Test (CAT). After partialing out variance associated with fluency, adequate reliability for flexibility was found only for the children in the highest quartile on the Uses, Similarities, and Line Meanings. Thus, the tendency to generate a range of distinct ideas may be especially distinguishable from the capacity to generate a large number of ideas in those with high intellectual achievement. Put differently, flexibility in initial idea generation may be an especially reliable trait among intellectually gifted individuals that sets them apart from their less-able peers. Runco and Albert (1985) made a similar case for distinguishing between fluency and originality among those children who achieve the highest levels of originality, especially on figural tests. Another indicator that the generative processes underlying the divergent production of ideas may distinguish between gifted individuals and those not so identified comes from a study by Runco (1986a). In that study, Runco examined correlations between verbal divergent thinking performance (Instances, Uses, and Similarities) and self-reported involvement in creative activities in the domains of writing, music, crafts, art, science, performing arts, and public presentation. Only the gifted sample showed an extensive pattern of correlations between their divergent thinking performance and the quantity of their self-reported creative activities, which suggests a greater coherence of generative thinking capacities and propensities in the gifted. Finally, there is evidence for more subtle differences in the generation of divergent ideas across different types of gifted individuals. Runco & Albert (1986) for example examined correlations between the divergent thinking performance of exceptionally gifted boys and their parents. The boys were characterized as exceptionally gifted based on IQ scores (above 150) or on the basis of achievement, including in math and science. For the former group, correlations between their scores and those of both parents were significant, whereas for the latter, only the correlations with their mothers’ divergent thinking scores were significant. Although the exact meaning of the pattern is open to debate, the result itself provides a hint that the capacity to generate novel and useful ideas and the factors that foster that capacity may be differentially involved in different types of giftedness. Future research needs to be sensitive to variations within gifted populations and not just to potential differences between the gifted and others.
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Problem Finding Although differences in the divergent generation of candidate ideas are important in their own right, and may reveal critical process differences, they also may point to differences in the way gifted individuals conceptualize the tasks they encounter in the world around them. Thus, it is useful to take a step back and consider that an important first step in any problem-solving situation that can set the stage for later cognitive processing is problem finding, a broad term that covers the ways in which people identify, formulate, represent, or otherwise define the problems they are confronting (Runco & Chand, 1994). The classic work that drew attention to the problemfinding process (or set of processes) is a study reported by Csikzentmihalyi & Getzels (1971). In that study, art students were given the task of making still life drawings based on a selection of objects. The students were free to select a subset of objects for their own drawings from a larger set and then configure them in whatever way they chose prior to drawing. A number of measures of their exploratory activities were taken, including how much time they took in selecting and arranging the objects and how many they touched in considering their selections. A key finding was that greater levels of exploratory behavior were associated with higher rated creativity of the drawings. Although the particular problem-finding process observed in the Csikzentmihalyi and Getzels study were specific to art, they nevertheless highlight the more general point that processes at work in the initial formulation of problems play a role in the quality of the eventual outcome. Since that study, many models of creativity have emphasized the importance of problem formulation or definition processes and their influence on the likelihood of achieving original or creative solutions (see e.g., Basadur, 1994; 1997; Mumford, Mobley, Uhlman, Reiter-Palmon, & Doares, 1991; Runco & Chand, 1994; 1995; Sternberg, 1988; Treffinger, Isaksen, & Dorval, 1994). One approach to assessing problem finding involves a variation on the divergent thinking tasks described earlier. Rather than simply giving participants prompts and asking for responses that may be relevant to those prompts (e.g., list all of the things you can think of that are square), participants are asked to develop their own prompts and then provide responses to them. For
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example, in addition to having participants list possible solutions to realistic, experimenter-presented problems, Chand & Runco (1992) had them generate their own problems and then list solutions to problems that they chose from their own lists. Generating problems can be seen as indicative of a sub-process of problem identification, in which people consider situations that may be problematic, whereas selecting from the lists might be characterized as problem discovery in which people determine which problems are worth solving or may yield viable solutions. The point here is that problem finding includes a number of more-specific processes. Research on problem finding that compares gifted children to those who have not been identified as gifted is sparse, but because of its critical importance, a few relevant studies will be considered here. Hoover & Feldhusen (1990), for example, examined scientific problem finding in gifted ninth-grade students participating in advanced biology classes. The students had been selected for participation in the classes based on intelligence and achievement scores, previous science grades, and teacher recommendations. They were given ill-defined natural science problems, such as accounting for the decline in a local population of crabs. Hoover and Feldhusen examined how the students worked their way through the problems, asking questions, forming hypotheses, gaining information relevant to them, and ultimately, generating final hypotheses. The value in using this type of ill-defined problem situation is that it allows an assessment of how the problem solver imposes structure and formulates the problem. Skills needed include searching memory, integrating, organizing, and using information, as well as monitoring progress, metacognitive process. Hoover & Feldhusen (1990) also had access to students’ scores on measures of verbal and quantitative abilities, as well as various aptitudes, such as verbal, numerical, mechanical and abstract reasoning, clerical speed, and language use. They found significant correlations of moderate size between those measures and various aspects of the quality and quantity of the children’s scientific problem finding. Because of the modest size of the correlations, Hoover and Feldhusen downplayed their importance, but they do provide at least suggestive evidence for a link between intellectual giftedness and problem-finding ability. In addition, because the sample was a highly select group, it is possible that a restriction of range reduced the observed cor-
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relations and that the connection between intellectual giftedness and problem finding is even stronger than it would appear from this study. A subsequent study by Hoover (1994) also found some limited connections between measures of problem finding and scores on the verbal TTCT. Specifically, fluency on the TTCT was associated with the number of ideas in scientific problem finding, and flexibility on the TTCT was correlated with the number of ideas and the number of good ideas in the problem-finding task. As in the Hoover and Feldhusen study, because the correlations were small, Hoover downplayed their importance, but again, restriction of range may be an issue. Neither the Hoover & Feldhusen (1990) nor the Hoover (1994) studies included an average ability comparison group, thus precluding conclusions regarding gifted individuals in comparison to others, but the results do point to the idea that problem formulation is a distinct phenomenon that should be the focus of future gifted-average comparisons in its own right. In some studies, aspects of problem finding are found to link to measures of intelligence and creativity. Getzels and Smilansky (1983), for example, gave students of varying levels of ability the task of listing and characterizing problems related to their school situation. Note that this type of task is most relevant to a problem identification sub-component of problem finding (see e.g., Chand & Runco, 1992). The children also were given the TTCT and the investigators had access to other indicators of intellectual capacity, including intelligence and aptitude test scores. There were some differences in the content of the problems (e.g., higher levels of intelligence, aptitude and divergent thinking were linked to a greater concern about cliques), but there were also differences in the rated quality of the children’s problem descriptions, with quality being defined in terms of the extent to which the description of a problem took into account the perspectives of others or only the student describing the problem. Although most problem descriptions were rated low in quality, the students with higher levels of performance on the intellectual measures did pose some problems in more socially aware ways. As with the Hoover and Feldhusen studies, the Getzels and Smilansky study does not offer a direct contrast between students identified as gifted and other students, but to the extent that higher levels of intelligence, aptitude, and divergent thinking are correlates of giftedness, the study provides a hint that
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gifted individuals may excel at the problem-finding sub-process of problem identification. Consistent with this possibility, Anderson (1986) analyzed problemsolving protocols of gifted children in comparison to average and below-average children and concluded that the gifted children were not only better able to solve problems they were also better able to identify problems. Taking a somewhat different theoretical perspective, Shavinina & Kholodnaja (1996) advocated a focus on cognitive experience as a basis of giftedness and reported data that fit well with the idea that gifted individuals may be especially adept at problem-finding processes. They argue that gifted individuals may experience, interpret, and represent the world around them differently than their average peers. Presumably this general tendency would manifest itself in specific situations, including problem-solving tasks, which might be interpreted quite differently by gifted and average individuals. To provide evidence regarding the concept of cognitive experience, Shavinina & Kholodnaja (1996) compared the performance of ninth- and tenth-grade boys who were gifted in physics and mathematics to that of average boys of the same age on a series of tasks. The tasks included, for example, generating questions to ask of an omniscient computer and listing the problems they might study if they were scientists concerned with illness. The gifted boys showed advantages on most of the measures, and in particular asked more categorical (e.g., What are the laws of the universe?) and fewer concrete (e.g., How many stars are there?) questions, and formulated more complex and high-quality problems. The gifted boys do seem to interpret tasks, and their world in general, differently, and they seem to seek different types of information. Again conceptualizing problem finding as a broad umbrella term for a skill that relies on a range of processes (e.g., Chand & Runco, 1992), it is useful to note that gifted individuals have been theorized and observed to excel in comparison to other individuals in a wide range of associated processes, including planning and using strategies, hypothesis testing, monitoring performance and correcting mistakes, and selectively encoding, comparing, and combining taskrelevant information (see, Hoover & Feldhusen, 1994). In spite of productive initial work on these topics, however, work on problem finding in the gifted has not blossomed in a way consistent with the importance of
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the process, and much work remains on this vital phenomenon. What are the key cognitive processes that underlie problem finding and that most differentiated those who excel from those who do not? What types of processes are most associated with giftedness or talent in specific area of emphasis, and what types are general enough to contribute to superior accomplishment regardless of the domain under consideration? Are the problem-finding skills exhibited by gifted individuals indicative of stable traits, or might it be that averageperforming individuals can be helped to achieve more by adopting some of the approaches shown by the gifted? Regarding the last question, there is at least some evidence that initial problem formulation approaches are malleable and that encouraging more effective problem formulations can lead to increased originality. Mumford, Reiter-Palmon, & Redmond (1994), for example, had college students develop a marketing survey and advertisements for a fictitious product, a 3D television. Some of the students were pushed in the direction of problem construction through instructions to list the important factors to consider and to restate the problem prior to engaging in the generation task. Others were given no special instructions. The results showed that students given the problem construction boost produced ideas that were higher in quality and originality than those produced by the uninstructed students. Consequently, in addition to contributing to a theoretical understanding of giftedness and potentially informing educational practice regarding the gifted, research on problem finding in the gifted has the potential to suggest ways in which all students may be helped to be better problem solvers.
Retrieval of Specific Versus Abstract Information: A Closer Look An important aspect of research and theory in creative cognition is that it seeks to add another level of detail to that available via traditional psychometric approaches to understanding creative thought, such as relying on fluency and flexibility scores from divergent thinking tests. That is, although the work on divergent thinking reviewed earlier is informative with respect to initial preinventive idea generation, it is possible to consider processes at a more detailed level. When a person
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achieves a certain fluency score on a divergent thinking task by listing items in response to a prompt (e.g., alternate uses for a shoe), for example, the listed items may have been derived from the application of a wide range of processes, including episodic retrieval (e.g., recalling having used a shoe to kill a bug), mental imagery (e.g., scanning a mental image of a shoe, noting that it has laces, and realizing that they could serve a specific purpose), analysis of features (e.g., noting that shoes have the property of being heavy and therefore could be used as doorstops), and abstraction (e.g., interpreting a shoe as a container, with the consequence that it could be used to store things), among many other possibilities. The point is not that any one participant uses all of these specific processes, but rather that it is the underlying processes that are doing the work and therefore are of most interest; the divergent thinking score is simply the end result. There is nothing wrong with using the score as an indicator, but a more precise characterization of creativity in the gifted will require a detailed consideration of the processes that were used in generating the items that led to that score. One generative process that has been shown to matter is the retrieval of stored information in service of establishing a starting point for novel ideas. In particular Ward, Patterson, Sifonis,Dodds, and Saunders (2002) have shown that there are individual differences in the type of information people retrieve in creative tasks and that those differences are associated with differences in the originality of their outcomes. The predominant tendency, shown by about two-thirds of college students, is to retrieve fairly specific, highly representative exemplars from the domain being considered and to project the properties of those instances onto the novel ideas they are developing. For example, in developing imaginary extraterrestrial animals, people tend to gravitate toward specific, highly representative, highly accessible types of Earth animals, such as dogs and cats as starting points for their creations. Ward et al. (2002) examined the tendency to access and use specific representative exemplars across the knowledge domains of animals, tools, and fruit in a sample of college students. To determine the representativeness or accessibility of specific exemplars in each of the three domains, Ward et al. (2002) had some groups of college students perform the noncreative task of listing the first 20 items that came to mind for each of the categories. The students’ responses were tabulated to derive indicators of accessibility, such as Out-
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put Dominance, defined as the number of students listing each exemplar. For instance, of the 30 students who listed animals, 27 listed dog; therefore, the Output Dominance of “dog” for the category “animal” was 27. Ward et al. (2002) had other separate groups of college students perform creative generation tasks in which they were to imagine, draw, and describe animals, tools, and fruit that might exist on other planets. After developing their creations, the students then gave open-ended statements in which they listed all of the factors they could think of that influenced them during the creation process. The statements were examined for references to specific exemplars from those knowledge domains (e.g., dogs, hammers, apples) to derive a measure termed Imagination Frequency, an indicator of the frequency with which any given exemplar was used as a starting point for a novel creation. For instance, of the 71 college students who developed imaginary animals, 7 mentioned they based their creations on dogs. Thus, the Imagination Frequency score for “dog” was 7. The major results of Ward et al. (2002) were that roughly two-thirds of the participants mentioned relying on specific exemplars in the creative generation tasks, and Output Dominance and Imagination Frequency scores were significantly positively correlated, indicating that the students tended to rely most heavily on those category exemplars that are most accessible. An additional finding of great interest was that the students who reported they based their creations on specific category exemplars developed products that were rated as lower in originality. This reliance on specific exemplars appears to be a strategic choice because when people are encouraged to take more abstract approaches to accessing information they readily do so, and they produce products that end up being rated as more original (Ward, Patterson, & Sifonis, 2004). The Ward et al. (2002; 2004) findings suggest that one of the major constraints on creativity lies in the tendency to rely on previous examples when thinking of novel concepts or ideas. This raises the very specific cognitive process question of whether or not gifted individuals will show the tendency to rely on specific exemplars to the same extent. Conversely, if they do exhibit more creativity, is that higher level of performance based on adopting cognitive strategies other than retrieving specific, constraining exemplars? To begin to provide some evidence on the issues raised in the preceding discussion, in our first study of creative generation (Ward et al., 1999b), we tested
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a group of 54 gifted adolescents whose mean age was 13 years 10 months and who were enrolled in a summer enrichment camp at Texas A&M University. We highlight this study because it reveals both similarities and differences in the creative functioning of the gifted participants in comparison to other individuals. The primary criterion for inclusion in the summer program is intellectual giftedness (as opposed to artistic, musical, or other creative talent). Most of the participants had been identified via the Duke Talent Identification Program, which relies heavily on performance on standardized tests of achievement, aptitude, or ability. Thus, the selection criteria do not automatically guarantee that the participants will perform well in a creative task. It was an empirical question. In the creative generation task, the gifted campers were asked to imagine a fruit that might exist on another planet and to draw and describe it in detail. Some of the participants were in a Control condition and received no special instructions about how to approach the task. Others were in a Creative condition and were instructed to be as creative as they could be while completing the task. After completing their creations, all participants provided open-ended descriptions of any factors they could think of that influenced their creations. Coders rated each creation for originality, and they also examined participants’ open-ended descriptions of the factors that had influenced their creations for any references to specific types of Earth fruit. Of most interest were the proportion of individuals who reported relying on specific known instances, the link between originality and those reports, and the morespecific connection between the Output Dominance of instances and their use in the creative generation task. Overall, about 40% of this gifted sample reported that their imagined fruit was based on some specific instance of Earth fruit, such as an apple or orange. As is true for college samples (Ward et al., 2002), the instances that the gifted adolescents relied on tended to be those that are highly accessible in the fruit category. Correlations between the Output Dominance of exemplars (from college student responses) and Imagination Frequency of those exemplars (from our gifted sample) were positive and as large as those between Output Dominance of the exemplars and Imagination Frequency for those exemplars as derived from college students’ creative generation performance. Thus, when gifted adolescents do rely on specific instances as starting points for their new ideas, access to those
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instances seems to be guided by the same properties of conceptual structure as is true for other individuals. In addition, as is true for college student samples (see Ward et al., 2002), the gifted campers who reported that they based their creation on a specific known exemplar developed products that were rated as significantly less original. Apparently, gifted individuals who retrieve specific instances as a way of getting started on a generative task are constrained by those examples in the same way that other individuals are. Despite the commonalities noted in the previous paragraph, there also seem to be differences in the way gifted individuals performed the creative generation task. For one thing, the percentage who reported retrieving and using specific category instances (40) was somewhat lower than is typically found for college students in such tasks, which tends to be between 60 and 70% (see, e.g., Ward et al., 2002). So, even though the gifted show some tendency to be trapped by the details of specific instances, they seem to be less likely to do so than other individuals. This difference in the type of information accessed (specific exemplars versus more abstract principles) is also important in that it points back to the observation noted earlier that gifted individuals seem to approach, formulate, or define problems differently. That is, the majority of college students tested seem to define the goal of creative generation tasks as something akin to imagining what a “space dog” or a “space orange” would look like. In contrast, the majority of gifted individuals seem to formulate the problem as something more general, such as envisioning “the kind of thing that might exist on a planet with certain environmental conditions.” There are important consequences of those different formulations in that individuals taking the former approach generate ideas that are rated as lower in originality than the latter (Ward, 1994; Ward et al., 2002), presumably because the properties of individual exemplars (e.g., dogs) are more specific and constraining than the properties associated with higher levels of abstraction (e.g., two eyes symmetrically placed in the head versus some sort of organs for sensing environmental conditions). For example, the more abstract property of “sensing environmental conditions” affords a greater range of possibilities (beyond symmetrically located eyes) for the information being sensed and the organs through which that sensing occurs. It should be noted then that the rated originality of the gifted individuals’ creations in Ward et al. (1999b) was higher overall than ratings for comparable products developed by college students.
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Finally, unlike college students who produced more original creations when instructed to be creative (Ward et al., 2002), the gifted adolescents were unaffected by instructions. Originality scores did not differ between the Control and Creative conditions. It appears that gifted individuals approached the task creatively without needing any special instructions or encouragement to do so. It is important to note that the college samples were older and that the conditions of testing were different from those used with the gifted sample. Thus the differences noted above need to be interpreted cautiously. Nevertheless, the pattern of similarities and differences is intriguing and worthy of additional research consideration. In a second study involving the creative fruit generation task, we again tested gifted individuals who were participating in the Texas A&M summer camp (Saunders Wickes & Ward, 2006, Study 1). This time, we instructed some of them to rely on specific instances of fruit that they were familiar with, and some to adopt a more abstract approach of considering what properties fruit would need in order to survive. Previous research has shown that these types of instructions affect the performance of college students, such that those in the abstract instruction condition reduce their reliance on specific exemplars and produce more original creations (Ward et al., 2004). However, as with instructions to be creative, the gifted individuals were unaffected; the originality of their creations did not differ across instructional conditions. Again, it appears that gifted individuals have a clear sense of what is needed in a creative task, and pursue that objective independently of being instructed to do so. As detailed more fully in the section of this chapter that deals with implicit theories, the Saunders Wickes & Ward (2006) creative fruit generation study was more complex and involved additional measures, but it is described here for another reason. It also included a self-report measure of the campers’ involvement in art, crafts, music, writing, math and science, performance, and other miscellaneous creative activities, called the Creative Behaviors Inventory (CBI), taken from Runco (1987) and Hocevar (1979). Some of the items were modified to be more appropriate for our sample and time frame (e.g., “How often have you cut a record?” was changed to “How often have you recorded your own musical compositions?”). The questionnaire measured total involvement in activities,
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capturing both the number of activities the adolescent was involved in as well as the degree of involvement, with higher scores being given for more frequent participation in each type of activity. Of most interest is that, in a regression that included several additional measures (e.g., creative self-image), originality on the fruit generation task still predicted variance in the overall reported levels of involvement in these real-world creative activities. Thus, although we rely on laboratory-based tasks in our research to get fine-grained evidence about cognitive processes, those tasks are not so artificial and constrained that they bear no relation to real-world accomplishment. On the contrary, they predict it in gifted adolescents even when factors such as creative self-image are accounted for. Saunders Wickes & Ward (2006, Study 2) also reported data from a creative generation task in which gifted adolescents from the A&M summer camp were asked to design a novel sport. Unlike the findings for the fruit task, originality on the sport task did not predict reported involvement in creative activities. It is not clear whether the failure to replicate is connected with the domain (sport versus fruit) or to some other factor, but is clear that additional research on the topic is warranted to clarify the picture. Finally, based on data reported in Saunders Wickes (2004), the gifted campers produced sports that were rated as being higher in originality than those produced by a sample of adolescents not identified as being gifted who were tested in a school setting. As with comparisons to the college samples noted above, caution is needed because the conditions of testing were different, and the need for caution is especially salient because, unlike with most other findings in the literature, the gifted campers actually performed more poorly than their non-gifted peers on the Just Suppose task from the TTCT. Nevertheless, the creative generation results do appear consistent with the idea that gifted individuals tend to outperform other individuals on at least some tasks that involve creative thought, particularly when a product, rather than a simpler listing of ideas, must be generated. As noted at the beginning of this section, the creative cognition approach seeks to identify specific processes and sub-processes that underlie both creative and noncreative accomplishments (Finke et al., 1992; Ward et al., 1999a). As such, it holds promise for further investigation of cognition in the gifted, for whom
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creativity may be one central facet of their lives. Two broad areas of particular importance to creative cognition are visual imagery and analogy. Although there have been some comparisons of visuospatial processing in gifted and other populations (e.g., van Garderen & Montague 2003), as well as demonstrations of superior analogical thinking in the gifted (e.g., Caropreso & White, 1994; Kulikowich & Alexander, 1990; Marr & Sternberg, 1986), much work remains to create a detailed picture of the ways in which gifted individuals differ from their average peers in those and other processes.
Implicit Theories, Creative Self-Image and Creative Behavior The results described in the previous section indicate that, when confronted with creative generation tasks, gifted adolescents tend to rely on cognitive processes that differ from those used by other individuals, and they develop more original creations as a result. Often, though not always, they outperform their peers in the fluency and flexibility with which they generate ideas in divergent thinking tasks. They also excel at the cluster of processes linked to problem finding, and they are less likely to rely on retrieval of specific known ideas in developing their own creative products. Both of the latter findings are consistent with the view that gifted individuals perceive and understand tasks, and the world around them in general in ways that differ from their average peers. Thus, specific cognitive processes and the propensity to interpret situations as calling for those processes are important links in the causal chain associated with creative cognition in the gifted. Further, the results indicate that the gifted tap into their creative skills without being instructed to do so. The latter finding is inconsistent with results on the role of instructions in creative performance in unselected populations (e.g., Harrington, 1975), but consistent with other findings on the limited role of instructions in gifted populations. Thus, it appears that the gifted possess some generalized motivation for or proclivity toward originality. They have an orientation toward creativity, and instructions do not push them any further in that direction. Taken together, these results suggest that creative abilities in the gifted may be the result of both their exceptional cognitive abilities and “something” that facil-
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itates their use of those abilities in creative situations. Our view is that implicit theories of creativity may be the “something” that accounts for resistance to the role of instructions and the general tendency to outperform peers on creativity tasks that the gifted demonstrate. Implicit theories are personal theories people develop in the process of coming to understand and explain the world around them. These theories contain assumptions regarding the causal nature and structure of a wide range of physical, biological, and psychological phenomena, the latter including mental events and behaviors (see e.g., Wellman & Gelman, 1988; 1992). Implicit theories of psychological phenomena are not formal in the way that scientific psychology theories are, but they nevertheless guide people in identifying, understanding, describing, and making predictions about those mental events and behavior in both the self and others (Sternberg, 1985; Runco & Bahleda, 1986). Within the psychological realm, people appear to have theories regarding affect, intelligence, and achievement among others, and those theories influence their perceptions of their own abilities and the abilities of others in those domains (Ablard & Mills, 1996; Barden, Zelko, Duncan, & Masters, 1980; Bempechat, London, & Dweck, 1991; Little & Lopez, 1997; Murrone & Gynther, 1989, 1991; Sternberg, 1985; Sternberg, Conway, Ketron, & Bernstein, 1981). Implicit theories of creativity, then, should be informative in regard to the behaviors and thought processes people think of as a part of creativity, and they should serve as guides for people in assessing creativity in themselves and others. Personal theories of creativity should also be able to distinguish between those who engage in creative behaviors on a regular basis and those who do not, particularly for complex behaviors. Those individuals whose implicit theories of creativity define them as capable of creative behavior should be more likely to be motivated to display such behaviors in real life. Such motivation to be creative, mediated by an implicit theory of self as a creative person, should show greater resilience to the detrimental effects of reward, as seen in the work of Hennessey & Amabile (1988). Additionally, those whose personal theory of creativity is such that they define themselves as capable of creative performance should also be less likely to rely solely on external prompts as the cause of their creative behaviors. If the gifted possess such theories, it would help to explain the Ward et al. (1999b) and Saunders Wickes &
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Ward (2006) findings that gifted adolescents, in comparison with a general college student population, were more creative and less reliant on instructions to be creative in a creative generation task. So, what are implicit theories of creativity like? Research by Sternberg (1985) and Runco & Bahleda (1986) have provided evidence regarding the structure of adults’ implicit theories of creativity. Sternberg (1985) had domain experts list attributes they believed to be associated with creativity, and college students sort the attributes according to those that would likely go together in a creative person. A factor analysis yielded four main dimensions that structured peoples’ views: (1) non-entrenchment and intellectuality, including non-conformity, high ability, and productivity, (2) aesthetic taste and imagination, including an ability to draw, write, or compose music, (3) perspicacity, perceptiveness, an ability to question conventions, and a drive for accomplishment, and (4) inquisitiveness and intuition. Implicit theories of creativity would also be expected to influence the external evaluation of creative behaviors, products, and even creative people. Perhaps best likened to what Czikszentmihalyi (1988) defined as the creative field, implicit theories of creativity are, by definition, constructed to help define and evaluate behavioral phenomenon in both the self and other. Personal theories of creativity would then be used to evaluate the creativity of an object, behavior, or person. Sternberg (1985) found that when asked to rate a series of letters describing individuals with varying the numbers of attributes positively associated with creativity, participants were more likely to judge the individuals as creative when they were described in the letters as having more of those attributes. That is, they seemed to be tapping implicit theories of creativity in making their assessments. From a slightly different angle, Runco (1990) found that adults and children generate a different set of ratings when asked to rate the creative originality as compared to the popularity of an idea, indicating that they hold and use different theories about what makes something creative versus what makes something popular. This reliance on our implicit theories to evaluate the creative product of another may explain why research on the creative product shows that people are consistently able to rate creativity but have difficulty defining the specific attributes which make any given product creative. Thus, differences in implicit theories should
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explain differences in the subjective ratings of creativity, such as those found between students and professional artists (Runco, McCarthy, & Svenson, 1993). So taking in all of the realms of influence that an implicit theory has on creativity, individual differences in implicit theories should impact the display of creative competence in several ways. Implicit theories of creativity may alter both creative task motivation and participation in real-life creative activities as well as the perseverance individuals demonstrate in novel situations requiring creative thought. These theories should also affect an individual’s perceptions of what it means to be a creative person both with regard to the self and others. Finally, these theories, as the driving component of our definition of creativity, should affect our ratings of creative products in the real world as well. With such a broad influence, personal implicit theories of creativity provide the tie that binds together all of the various skills and sources of information that drive our perception of our creative competence in the real world. Hence, discovering the nature and development of personal implicit theories of creativity should provide a source of information to explain the substantial amount of variance in creativity often left unexplained by conventional research on the gifted. Although our research is not yet developed to the point where we can illuminate all the issues, we nevertheless have begun to make progress in assessing gifted adolescents’ implicit theories of creativity. In Study 1 of Saunders Wickes & Ward (2006), in addition to performing the creative generation task and reporting on their creative activities as described in the section on Creative Cognition, the gifted summer camp participants also responded to a Creative Self Checklist (CSC) that asked them to rate themselves on a set of 40 positive and negative attributes adapted from the results of previous studies on implicit theories of creativity (Runco & Bahleda, 1986; Sternberg, 1985). Positive creative attributes, such as originality, imaginativeness, or artistic skill, were defined as those that participants in prior studies had indicated as being important to creativity (Runco & Bahleda, 1986; Sternberg, 1985). Negative creative attributes, such as bookish, boring, lazy, and wealthy, were ones that participants in those previous studies had endorsed as being less related to creativity (Runco & Bahleda, 1986; Sternberg, 1985). We anticipated that our gifted participants’ positive and negative creative beliefs would relate to their perfor-
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mance on the creative generation task and to their reports of involvement in real-world creative activities. A factor analysis on the gifted participants’ ratings of the applicability of the 40 attributes to themselves led to a six-factor solution accounting for nearly half of the variance in the ratings. The factors, in order of percent variance accounted for, were risk taking (e.g., impulsive, adventurous), likeableness (e.g., skilled at speaking, popular), inquisitiveness (e.g., questions conventions), productivity (e.g., productive, intrinsically motivated), dullness (e.g., boring, awkward), and non-conformity (e.g., unorthodox, original). The factors are similar to those found for adults by Sternberg (1985), but there were also some differences in emphasis, in particular less focus on intellectual aspects and more on the social aspect of likeableness. More important than the structure of the adolescents’ implicit views is their link to creative performance. A key finding from a regression analysis that included positive and negative attribute endorsements, and fruit originality as predictors, was that endorsement of positive attributes (those positively associated with creativity by Sternberg’s adult participants) about the self significantly predicted reported involvement in real-world creative activities over and above the variance associated with performance in the fruit task. That is, the more the gifted campers said that they possessed traits which adults consider to be associated with creativity, the more they engage in creative activities. Although the results are correlational, and no causal statements can be definitively supported, the results are consistent with the idea that those with a stronger creative self-image are more likely to try to do creative things. An unexpected finding was that endorsement of negative attributes (i.e., those attributes less associated with creativity according to Sternberg’s adult sample), but not positive attributes, was significantly related to originality of the imagined fruit in the creative generation task. One possible explanation is that the effect is driven by the gifted participants’ high levels of endorsement of attributes such as bookishness and skillfulness at speaking that may be central to their sense of themselves as academically gifted. Such attributes may be less central to the self-image, and therefore to the implicit view of creativity of adults from previous studies. Put differently, in contrast to adults’ perceptions, bookishness, etc. may be part of
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gifted adolescents’ implicit theories of creativity and consequently may be expected to predict their creative performance. In Study 2 of Saunders Wickes & Ward (2006), in addition to performing a creative sport generation task and the TTCT, and reporting on their creative activities, gifted campers responded to a reduced list of 28 of the Creative Self Checklist items and also responded to a Creative Individual Checklist on which they rated those same items in terms of how true they would be of an ideal creative person. The factor structure for selfratings was similar to that from Study 1 in that it included a substantial contribution from risk taking (including energetic or active and willing to take risks) and awkwardness or dullness (including dull boring, awkward, and a negative link to popular). The factor structure for rating of the ideal creative other differed somewhat, and included the four factors of artistic individualism, activity level, popularity, and questioning. However, despite the differences in the structure, there are important links between the gifted campers’ views of their own status on the attributes and their views of the applicability of those traits to an ideal creative person. Most importantly, the gifted adolescents’ ratings of both the positive and negative aspects of their own creativity were significantly positively correlated with their endorsement of those attributes as being representative of the ideal creative other. In other words they had positive creative self-images in the sense that they believed themselves to possess the attributes they considered characteristic of creativity in other people. As in Study 1, endorsement of positive creative attributes in the self proved to be a significant predictor of participation in real-world creative activities. Endorsement of positive attributes as being characteristic of an ideal creative other also significantly predicted participation in those activities. The results again support the idea that implicit theories of creativity, both about the self and others, as well as one’s creative selfimage link to the tendency to behave in creative ways. In Study 2, endorsing negative creative attributes about the self was negatively related to originality, fluency, and flexibility on the TTCT. In addition, high endorsement of positive attributes in the creative other and low endorsement of negative attributes in the creative other was associated with higher levels of originality on the sport creation task and higher levels of originality, fluency, and flexibility on the TTCT. Because by definition the positive attributes are the ones
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adults associate with creativity and the negative attributes are ones they do not associate with creativity, the results suggest that a well-developed implicit theory of creativity (i.e., one that more closely matches an adult’s), especially as it characterizes an ideal creative individual, is linked to higher levels of performance in creative tasks.
Conclusions The overall picture that emerges is consistent with the view that the gifted are endowed with intellectual skills and aptitudes that give them an edge in creative tasks and that they also possess a greater level of motivation that makes them more likely to pursue creative activities (Brown, 1989; M¨onks & Mason, 1993; Mumford et al., 1993; Renzulli, 1986; Sternberg & Lubart, 1993; Winner, 2000). Consistent with other previous research, our findings show that the gifted seem to be undaunted by tasks requiring creative skills. They demonstrate high degrees of creative competence as compared to non-gifted individuals regardless of whether they are prompted to be creative or to adopt strategies associated with higher levels of originality (Saunders Wickes & Ward; 2006; Ward et al., 1999). The findings on the limited impact of the external factor of instructions are also consistent with the observations that the gifted demonstrate an internal focus of motivation and so that, beyond any differences in creative ability, they will display a more internal locus of control than their non-gifted or underachieving gifted peers (Knight, 1995; Tidwell, 1980). The results also extend earlier findings by identifying specific mechanisms of access to stored knowledge that seem to underlie higher levels of creative functioning in the gifted, namely retrieving conceptual information at levels more abstract than that of specific, basic level exemplars (see Ward et al., 2002). The findings discussed in this chapter also highlight the idea that creative self-image and, more generally, implicit theories of creativity may play a role in the link between motivation, the application of fundamental processes in creative ways, and the development of creative products. Gifted adolescents’ views of their own positive and negative creative traits and their views regarding the traits of the ideal creative person were linked to several aspects of performance in cre-
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ative generation and divergent thinking tasks, as well as to reports of engaging in creative activities in realworld settings. Although more data and causal modeling analyses are needed to verify this conjecture, it appears that a creative self-image may lead to the motivation to be creative, which in turn leads to the global tendencies to engage in creative activities and employ creative strategies without prompting and with the consequence that creative outcomes are more likely. Success in creative endeavors and the consequent further development of creative skills may also feed back positively into self-image and motivation. A recent model of cognitive abilities in the gifted indicates that unusual creativity, much like unusual processing speed, may be one of the cognitive abilities common to gifted students (Song & Porath, 2005). Creativity, then, for the gifted will be a skill that they activate within domains that they are interested in or motivated to pursue (Song & Porath, 2005). It is a skill they seem motivated to apply spontaneously, without prompting, and it seems to be connected to their images of themselves as creative individuals.
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K.N. Saunders Wickes and T.B. Ward Sternberg, R. J., & Lubart, T. I. (1999). The concepts of creativity: Prospect and paradigms. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Handbook of creativity. New York: Cambridge University Press. Taylor, C. W. (1988). Various approaches to and definitions of creativity. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.). The nature of creativity: Contemporary psychological perspectives. New York: Cambridge University Press. Tidwell, R. (1980). Gifted students’ self-images as a function of identification procedure, race, and sex. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 5, 57–69. Torrance, E. P. (1972). Predictive validity of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. Journal of Creative Behavior, 6, 236– 252. Torrance, E. P. (1974). Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. Bensenville, IL: Scholastic Testing Services. Treffinger, D. J., Isaksen, S. G., & Dorval, K. B. (1994). Creative problem solving: An overview. In M. A. Runco (Ed.), Problem finding, problem solving, and creativity (pp. 223–236). Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Company. van Garderen, D., & Montague, M. (2003). Visual-spatial representation, mathematical problem solving, and students of varying abilities. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 18(4), 246–254. Wallach, M. A., & Kogan, N. (1965). Modes of thinking in young children: A study of the creativity-intelligence distinction. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston. Wakefield, J. F. (1985). Towards creativity: Problem finding in a divergent-thinking exercise. Child Study Journal, 15, 265–270. Ward, T. B. (1994). Structured imagination: The role of conceptual structure in exemplar generation. Cognitive Psychology, 27, 1–40. Ward, T. B. (1995). What’s old about new ideas? In S. M. Smith, T. B. Ward, & R. A. Finke (Eds.), The creative cognition approach. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Ward, T. B., Smith, S. M., & Finke, R. A. (1999a). Creative cognition. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Handbook of creativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ward, T. B., Saunders, K. N., & Dodds, R. A. (1999b). Creative cognition in gifted adolescents, Roeper Review, 21, 260–266. Ward, T. B., Patterson, M. J., Sifonis, C. M., Dodds, R. A., & Saunders, K. N. (2002). The role of graded category structure in imaginative thought. Memory & Cognition, 30, 199–216. Ward, T. B., Patterson, M. J. & Sifonis, C. (2004). The role of specificity and abstraction in creative idea generation. Creativity Research Journal, 16, 1–9. Wellman, H. M., & Gelman, S. A. (1992). Cognitive development: Foundational theories of core domains. Annual Review of Psychology, 43, 337–375. Wellman, H. M., & Gelman, S. A. (1998). Knowledge acquisition in foundational domains. In W. Damon, D. Kuhn, & R. S. Siegler (Eds.) Handbook of child psychology, (5th ed. Vol. 2). New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Winner, E. (2000). Giftedness: Current theory and research. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9, 153–156.
Chapter 18
A Metacognitive Portrait of Gifted Learners Marion A. Barfurth, Krista C. Ritchie, Julie A. Irving and Bruce M. Shore
Abstract Examining the cognitive psychological concept of metacognition in gifted children and adolescents illuminates the link between childhood giftedness and adult expertise, helping us to understand the ways very able children and adults think and solve problems. This chapter summarizes research on metacognition – the explicit awareness and conscious manipulation of one’s own thoughts, abilities, and learning processes – and, from this perspective, ways in which giftedness is realized. It also introduces the concepts of flexibility and preference for complexity. Research methodologies used to examine metacognition and giftedness are critically examined and contemporary theoretical contexts such as social constructivism, cultural historical activity theory, and social learning theory are introduced. Suggestions are offered regarding new perspectives for future research. The chapter concludes with learning and teaching suggestions, for home and school, that result from thinking about giftedness in relation to metacognition, including inquiry-driven learning and exchanging or interchanging roles between teachers and learners.
are about how to support learning. Ideally, this would have an impact on children’s learning from preschool to formal school and even throughout early adulthood. This chapter focuses specifically on our knowledge of metacognitive processes of gifted learners. Metacognition is important to the understanding of giftedness because it draws the conversation about the meaning of ability into the realm of highly able adults. One of the shortcomings of IQ as a conceptual coat hook for understanding giftedness is that it more or less tops out during the teenage years. Expert-novice views of abilities allow for a lifespan view of the development of intellectual abilities and talents, and metacognition has been found to be one of the threads that enable a conceptually consistent discussion of ability from early infancy into creative adulthood. This chapter is divided into three parts. In the first we review what is known from the research with regard to our understanding of metacognition in gifted learners. The second part focuses on methodological issues and looks at how we can further enhance our understanding of metacognition and giftedness. To this end, contemporary theoretical frameworks and Keywords Activity theory · Adult abilities · Au- research methodologies emanating from cognitive tonomous learning · Classroom roles · Classroom- science are discussed to identify how and what they based research · Cognitive development · Cognitive can potentially contribute to our knowledge. The third part of the chapter illustrates how our knowledge about science · Creativity metacognition and giftedness can be used to guide parents, teachers, and curriculum.
Introduction
The greater our understanding of the development of intellectual abilities and talents, the more informed we
Links Between Metacognition and Giftedness
Bruce M. Shore (B) McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada e-mail:
[email protected] Metacognition. Perhaps some of the most convincing evidence for the theory of giftedness as evolving ex-
L.V. Shavinina (ed.), International Handbook on Giftedness, c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-6162-2 18,
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pertise stems from the observation that gifted children and adolescents appear to have enhanced capacity for metacognition. While it was not until the early 1990s that expertise theory became a recognized lens through which to examine the cognitive processes of gifted children, in 1979 Flavell made the firm assertion that how children solve problems by monitoring, self-control, self-instruction, and evaluation was an important area of inquiry. When he asked “what adult like knowledge and behavior might constitute the developmental target here, toward which the child progresses?” (p. 906), he laid the groundwork for the uncovering of parallels between gifted children’s thinking and that of adult experts. Keating (1990) expanded this idea through his discussion of domain-general versus domain-specific habits of mind, while researchers such as Sternberg, Shore, as well as Chi and Glaser, have attempted to explicitly address Keating’s notion in the context of studies with high-achieving and highpotential students. This research has lead to preliminary support for what could potentially be a cogent, contemporary view of high ability, with many practical implications. Metacognition, the explicit awareness and conscious manipulation of one’s own thoughts, abilities, and learning processes, has been demonstrated to play a key role in the process of the successful performance of a difficult task. It includes both metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive control or self-regulation. As Shore (2000) summarized, Metacognition and flexibility . . . refer to two related parts of expert performance: (a) self-regulation and (b) the combination of a more extensive repertoire of knowledge (whether procedural or declarative) and the selective use of this knowledge as circumstances warrant. The parts are related at least at the level of adjusting strategies in response to monitoring and evaluating that one’s course of action will not lead to the desired outcome (or that another kind of error, such as grammar or miscalculation, has been made along the way). A person must also have a store of suitably interconnected knowledge to be flexible. (p. 169)
Schraw and Graham (1997) have further highlighted other features of metacognition from the literature. Their features include the following:
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Metacognitive knowledge develops slowly and continues to develop through early adulthood. Metacognitive knowledge is not necessarily stable or conscious.
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r
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Metacognitive knowledge and control are intercorrelated in a reciprocal manner: “More knowledge leads to better control, while better control leads to the acquisition and construction of new metacognitive knowledge” (p. 5). Metacognitive knowledge and control appear to develop earlier in gifted than nongifted students.
Shore’s research with his colleagues and students has examined the question of whether expert-like thinking can be found in gifted children, focusing on the following characteristics:
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Self-regulatory processes (metacognition) Automaticity Long pauses in early stages of problem solving Goal-driven nature of problem solving with more complex interconnected nature of problem categorization (problem better connected to prior knowledge) Forward movement in strategy – steps or groups of steps are evaluated with expected effects or outcomes relative to the goal
He summarized the context of this research and the link to exceptional performance by young learners in this way: The general cognitive hypothesis underlying our studies is that performance should be enhanced by the flexible use of metacognitive strategies. That is, learners who have a repertoire of problem-solving strategies and are able to monitor, evaluate, and correct their thinking processes flexibly in the course of problem solving should do better than those who do not exhibit such strategies (Shore, 1981, 1982, 1991). (Shore, 2000, p. 170)
Research. Earlier research done in the 1970s and 1980s as summarized by Coleman and Shore (1991) and again by Shore and Kanevsky (1993) identified distinguishing qualities of the cognitive performance of gifted learners. These included the following:
r r r r r r r r r
The differential use of existing knowledge Being more reflective More monitoring of progress toward a goal Relatively more time spent planning Spontaneously generating series of solution steps Setting priorities for solution directions Better problem representation More “insight” skills Spontaneously generating more elaborate solution strategies
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A Metacognitive Portrait of Gifted Learners
Distinguishing relevant from irrelevant material Deciding which resources to assign to problem solving A larger repertoire of strategies and flexible use of them Greater memory skills
More recent research as reviewed by Shore (2000) continued to demonstrate that gifted children share similar “metacognition, strategy, flexibility, strategy planning, the use of hypotheses (which may be related to forward chaining), preference for complexity, and the hierarchical and extensive webbing of knowledge about both facts and procedures” with adult experts (p. 181).
How Gifted Children Think Differently In this section we review what we have learned about how gifted children think, what actions they take, how they take them, and what they do when faced with difficult problems, or work in a complex context. This section reviews the research to date and groups the results into themes surrounding metacognition, flexibility, and learning contexts. Monitoring thinking. Monitoring refers to awareness and tracking of one’s own actions that would, in theory, lead to the optimization of strategies that get to the desired solutions or results. Often considered as part of self-regulation strategies, monitoring includes both monitoring for success and to correct errors. Much of the research done on monitoring was done using an information-processing theoretical framework. Earlier research has indicated that monitoring ability develops slowly and is often found to be poor in both children and adults (Pressley & Ghatala, 1990). Further work on this topic has suggested that monitoring ability can improve with training and practice (Delclos & Harrington, 1991). Findings surrounding how gifted children selfmonitor their actions and strategies reveal that they do, in fact, employ such strategies in ways that are different from other children. Kanevsky (1992) compared groups of preschool-aged children on a reasoning task and found that the high-ability children demonstrated significantly better ability to explain their own strategies, and why they had used them,
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than lower performing students. Sheppard (1992) also found that high-ability children were more aware of and able to describe their own self-regulatory processes. Coleman and Shore (1991) reported that gifted students were better able to make correct evaluations of their thinking processes on physics problems. More recently, Benito (2000) demonstrated that gifted children as young as 6 years old were aware of several mathematical operations and were able to use them automatically, and they knew which strategy they usually used for solving problems. In comparing gifted high and low achievers, Berkowitz and Cicchelli (2004) found that the frequency of strategy use (although not significantly different), particularly in monitoring, was more homogeneous in high achievers and more heterogeneous in underachievers. In order to better understand the developmental process of metacognition and the role it plays in intellectual ability and talent, it is helpful to look at it from the perspective of other exceptionalities. This helps fill in the gaps of what is missing with regard to the developmental process of related metacognitive skills and knowledge. Garrett, Mazzocco, and Baker (2006) reviewed the recent research on learning disabilities and metacognition and conducted a study that looked specifically at metacognitive skills that either precede or follow task engagement. They compared children with mathematics learning disabilities from those without mathematics learning disabilities. The children with mathematics learning disabilities were less accurate in evaluating their correct or incorrect solutions and also in predicting which problems they could solve correctly. However, with respect to accessing what they could not do, children with mathematics learning disabilities were as accurate as their peers in correctly predicting that they could not solve specific mathematics problems. These findings point to the usefulness of children’s self-review during mathematics problem solving. Strategy flexibility. In addition to enhancing our understanding of actual metacognitive strategies, research has also looked at how the flexibility of use of strategies actually occurs. The importance of strategy flexibility and metacognition in relation to giftedness was reviewed and further confirmed by Jauˇsovec (1994). Shore, Rejskind, and Kanevsky (2003) explicitly reviewed strategy flexibility from both more general studies on cognition and those in the area of high ability. Their review included
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flexible strategies such as being able to change one’s own perspective of a situation by either redefining the task or relinquishing one solution strategy with a more appropriate one. In his own research studies, Shore (2000) delimited the relationship between metacognitive knowledge and strategy flexibility by being “at least at the level of adjusting strategies in response to monitoring and evaluating that one’s course of action will not lead to the desired outcome (or that another kind of error, such as grammar or miscalculation, has been made along the way)” (p. 169). According to Shore, Rejskind, and Kanevsky (2003), using another appropriate solution strategy involves “having a repertoire of strategies, effectively knowing how to draw selectively on them, and being appropriately motivated to act and not give up” (p. 193). Research on flexibility and giftedness has been studied by Dover and Shore (1991), Kanevsky (1990), Krutetskii (1976), Shore (1982), Shore and Carey (1984), and Sternberg (1985). For example, Dover and Shore (1991) employed a water-jar or “Einstellung” task to study metacognition and flexibility in elementary school-aged children. The task required breaking an induced set that is presumed to predispose the problem solver to use a particular solution strategy. A demonstration was given for the first two problems, and the given strategy was an applicable solution strategy for the following three tasks (3 to 6). However, a novel strategy was required to solve problem 9, and such an alternative strategy could be used for 7 and 8 as well. Metacognition in children was assessed in a post-task interview, and speed and flexibility were also assessed. A three-way interaction was found between giftedness, speed, and flexibility, with metacognitive knowledge as the criterion. Children who were gifted and flexible in their use of strategies completed the tasks more quickly. The authors concluded that “Flexible gifted children who took less time revealed more metacognitive knowledge (in an interview) than those who took more time. At all speeds, inflexible average children had less metacognitive knowledge, but slower, flexible nongifted children indicated greater metacognitive knowledge” (p. 173). In another study that looked at mathematical tasks, Kaizer and Shore (1995) concluded that “high performance in regular high school mathematics may better reflect the ability to execute the sequence of a solution
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than to select an appropriate strategy. Extremely high competence was associated with being able to select an appropriate alternative when one approach failed” (p. 178). Identifying and understanding the use of strategy flexibility point to some important issues with regard to a much more in-depth understanding of the metacognitive processes actually being employed by highly successful children. Monitoring, evaluating, and revising one’s own strategies in progress is impossible except in the context of a repertoire of strategies. Learning to do one strategy well, e.g., solving a particular kind of problem in a particular set of circumstances – a situation in which metacognition can be observed, is a task that can be observed in children of widely ranging abilities. Gifted learners and experts in adult domains go beyond this performance and more frequently, more effectively, and more spontaneously monitor, evaluate, and revise the process of selecting a suitable strategy from a repertoire of tried or potential strategies. It is almost a kind of meta-metacognition. In effect, by design or circumstance – and teachers and curriculum designers can make it design – highly able students have not practiced simply to perfect the application of a particular strategy to a particular task. Their metacognitive advantage is demonstrated in their having, in effect, practiced preparing to tackle novel or unfamiliar tasks. Cohen (2008), in an essay on musical performance as a creative act and a form of inquiry, calls this practicing for creative variability rather than repeated identical perfection (the latter of which is actually a major performance block). This is what enables a performer in any domain to deal effectively with the unexpected, to capitalize on distraction, to get past errors, and, as he puts it, to continually “sketch and test” different ways of dealing with any form of performance. This is the essence of why multiple repetitive problems of a single type represent such bad pedagogy, especially for the gifted, and perhaps for so many others who deserve to learn to think in a “gifted fashion.” Preference for complexity. Research has also revealed that gifted children have a preference for complexity. Shore, Rejskind, and Kanevsky (2003) defined two main features for a task to be considered complex. First, it involves some unfamiliarity, novelty, or nonroutine elements. Second, it cannot be accomplished in a single step by a means that is either obvious (apply a rule or formula) or automatic. Research on giftedness (Bowen, Shore, &
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Cartwright, 1992; Garofalo 1993; Kanevsky,1990, 1992; Maniatis, Cartwright, & Shore, 1998) shows a preference for complexity. Maniatis et al. (1998) used virtual environments with 9- to 11-year-old school-identified and high IQ children and compared them with average IQ children on LOGO turtle-graphics tasks. The gifted children generated and completed more complex projects with more nested routines or subroutines. Kanevsky (1992) also found that high IQ preschool children were attracted to complex tasks, made suggestions while solving them on how to make them even more complex, and preferred a novel complex task to one that was only complex. Bowen et al. (1992), doing research with a piece of software called The Factory in which various shapes could be virtually machined, found that the more able students made suggestions for improving the software that would increase its complexity and challenge. The learning of metacognitive skills. Aside from demonstrating that gifted children display some of the metacognitive strategies of adult experts, research has also demonstrated that high-ability students can greatly benefit from instruction specifically aimed at imparting metacognitive awareness and skills. Austin and Shore (1993) administered brief training in concept mapping to a group of junior college students in physics. A second group received practice reviewing physics material, but did not learn concept mapping. Students who learned to map their concepts did better on conventional tests of physics performance, particularly those involving multi-step problems. The maps proved to be a useful guide for instructors to track misunderstandings of concepts, and high-performing students generated more complete concept maps which were also more complex and hierarchical. In a study of six gifted elementary students by Sheppard and Kanevsky (1999), those from a homogeneous gifted class showed a greater increase in the number of control functions performed by the “mind-machines” they proposed, offered descriptions of their machines that were longer, more sophisticated, and more creative, and leap-frogged off each others’ ideas. Another study by Puntambekar and du Boulay (1997) used a specially designed system called Metacognition in Studying from Texts (MIST) to help students develop metacognitive skills by providing a process-based interface and support for collaboration and reflection. A study of 20 ninth graders determined that high-ability
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students used the interface and intervention productively, but that low-ability students had difficulty.
The Need for Sustained Research on this Topic Shore (2000) concluded that there are qualitative differences and, at the same time, not qualitative differences between the thinking of gifted and other learners, in that gifted learners do not seem to use strategies that others never use. In this sense, there is support for the notion of “universals” posited by many cognitive psychologists. The differences that Shore (2000) did identify are in the extent to which different strategies are invoked and the fluency and speed with which they are used. He and his coresearchers have also shown that gifted performance resembles expert performance in ways that include the diversity of metacognitive strategies employed (including forward chaining and the use of hypotheses), the flexibility of such strategies, and the associated complexity of factual (declarative) and procedural knowledge structures. One question that should be asked is how to contribute to our understanding of giftedness in ways that can inform educational implications so as to have an impact on the largest student population that can benefit from this understanding with respect to thinking and learning: To understand differences in thinking processes, we must examine children or adults who are exceptional in contrast to others in some recognized way. It is necessary to identify target processes that distinguish types of high performance, and to discover the correlates, predictors and consequences of these processes, with reference to the original variable on which the different groups were identified, and also with other variables. (Shore & Kanevsky, 1993, p. 133)
As more recently noted, The lack of coherence in theory development in the field of gifted education has been well documented (Sternberg & Davidson, 1986). Without a theory of giftedness, research does not become integrated in a cogent whole. This wholeness is necessary to really understand and deal with all the variables involved, and to develop programs for a better education of the gifted. (Pelletier & Shore, 2003, p. 239)
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Theoretical and Methodological Considerations
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7) Having schemas containing a great deal of procedural knowledge about strategies 8) Having automatized many sequences of steps within problem strategies The mildly entangled history of cognitive science and 9) Showing highly efficient problem solving gifted education provides a foundation for directing fu10) Solving problems more quickly than novices when ture research and practice that may result in a richer untime constraints are imposed derstanding of the developing metacognitive processes 11) Accurately predicting the difficulty of solving parof gifted learners. With this history in mind, in this secticular problems ond main section of this chapter we briefly describe 12) Carefully monitoring their own problem-solving identification and methodological approaches used to strategies and process date in this area of research and propose possible fu13) Showing high accuracy in reaching appropriate ture directions that are built upon three contemporary solutions to problems (p. 13) lenses that have guided some of the research done so far: social constructivism, social learning theory, and The links Shore and Sternberg have made between cultural historical activity theory. expertise in cognitive science and giftedness do not represent the first time that these two seemingly distinct areas of research have met. Cognitive science and research in gifted education have a less widely known A Brief History of Research Approaches relationship that began much earlier than the application of expertise as a framework for understanding 1970s to Early 2000s gifted individuals. For example, Keating’s academic career illustrated a historical link between cognitive The evolving understanding of developmental path- science and the study of gifted students. He has been ways toward expertise (DPE) in the field of cognitive well known for nearly two decades in cognitive sciscience (see Keating, 1990, for further reading about ence for his work on developmental pathways toward DPEs) has been promoted as a way of understanding expertise (Keating, 1990; Keating & Miller, 1999). the development of gifted learners (Shore, 1986, 2000; His early work, however, focused on children of Sternberg, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001). Sternberg (1998) average and high ability and gifted mathematics operationally defined an expert by a set of criteria that education (Keating, 1975a, 1975b, 1975c, 1975d; look much like the metacognitive processes indicative Keating & Bobbitt, 1978). One chapter (Keating & MacLean, 1987) and one article (Matthews & of gifted students: Keating, 1995) merged his work in gifted education 1) Having large, rich schemas containing a great deal and cognitive science by considering the cognitive development of high-ability students in terms of of declarative knowledge about a given domain 2) Having well-organized, highly interconnected considering their “habits of mind.” Habits of mind is a (mutually accessible) units of knowledge stored term Keating continued to propose in his later writing on developmental pathways toward expertise; howin schemas 3) Spending proportionately more time determining ever, he did not also continue to talk about high-ability how to represent test problems than in search for students in his writing about expertise. and in executing a problem strategy 4) Developing sophisticated representations of test problems, based on structural similarities among 1960–1970s problems 5) Working forward from given information to implement strategies for finding unknowns in a do- Cognitive science began with a reaction against behaviorism in the form of an initial focus on individuals main 6) Generally choosing a strategy based on elaborate demonstrating outstanding performance. Early studies on chess players examined masters to understand schemas for problem strategies
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how they processed information and constructed knowledge. Simon and Chase (1973) explored the acquisition of reasoning skills and memory by comparing the strategies of master chess players and computer programs designed to simulate expert game playing. They also explored differences in patterns of perceptual structures that chess players of varying ability perceived on chessboards (Chase & Simon, 1973). Work done on expertise in the 1970s did not include children in part because expertise was very domain specific. It was Keating’s (1990s) later distinction between general and specific expertise that allowed an application of this template to children. Gifted children can be understood as being on one of several possible pathways toward domain-general expertise in particular (further elaborated by Pelletier & Shore, 2003), and in some cases domain-specific expertise (e.g., studies of mathematical or musical prodig´es). Since the 1970s, cognitive science has evolved to study a wide range of ages in a multitude of contexts (for more about the history of cognitive science, see Bechtel, Abrahamsen, & Graham, 1998). Research questions about the development and implementation of metacognitive processes, such as (a) How do metacognitive processes develop over time and how might various learning activities support development? and (b) In what ways do students who differ in levels of academic performance differ in the metacognitive strategies employed to achieve academic goals?, could be best approached by collaborative work between researchers in the field of gifted education and applied cognitive science. It was also in the mid-1960s that meeting the needs of low-performing students became a political and pedagogical movement that resulted in the rapid growth of what was called “special education.” It is logical that the use of intelligence tests is so pervasive in the special education system: Special education especially began a century ago with Binet’s application of developmental tasks then the use of the Stanford-Binet to identify students who needed differentiated instruction. Does redefining giftedness cause a rift in our historically based understanding of differentiation and gifted education? If the criteria change, so must educators’ understanding of their students and the differentiation required to support learning. Reframing giftedness as developing expertise might not require the upheaval in education and research initially imagined. Scores on intelligence tests, like every other test, are indicators
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of a kind of performance. Observed performance is a primary means of assessing expertise. This begs the question: What kinds of developing expertise are we looking for in students? If the answer to this question involves any of the skills that a high performance on intelligence tests requires, then intelligence tests are one option when choosing multiple criteria for assignment to gifted education programs. A multitude of potential indicators are required to identify the variety of ways students of different grades, sex, and cultures express their achievements.
Current Approaches We reviewed recent literature with a hope to connect issues of identification, theoretical frameworks, and research methods among researchers aiming to increase our depth and breadth of knowledge about gifted learners and their metacognitive awareness and processes. Current approaches, theoretical perspective, and suggestions for research design are discussed in turn, in relation to specific issues in the field. This section is intended to identify some of the overarching themes in relation to identification, current approaches, and use of theory with just a few recent studies provided as supporting examples. For a more comprehensive review of literature that has the goal of merging thinking in cognitive science and gifted education, see Hettinger Steiner and Carr (2003). Identification. Synthesizing studies about gifted learners with varied samples can be difficult due to the lack of agreement and necessary context specificity of criteria for identifying gifted learners. Many current researchers have identified giftedness entirely by high IQ (Alexander, Johnson, Leibham, & DeBauge, 2004; Neber & Schommer-Aikens, 2002; Pajares & Graham, 1999; Shore & Lazar, 1996). Shore and Lazar (1996) stated explicitly that their study was simply a comparison of only high and average IQ students and also identified the potential cultural bias of only having sampled White males. This clear statement of a constraint on generalization is an appropriate way to utilize IQ as a method of identification while acknowledging and working within its limitations. Others, including some studies within our own laboratory, appear to have branched out to include more varied and context-specific criteria.
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Blumberg, Hollaner, and Genovese (2001) sampled second and fifth graders attending an ethnically diverse elementary school for intellectually gifted children in New York City. Renzulli and H´ebert (1995) relied on teacher identification based on school criteria for a specific gifted and talented program. These studies, like most, did not provide the specific identification criteria used by the school or program. Nor did they paint a portrait of their samples based on alternative criteria, such as assessment of student-selected tasks, knowledge of students’ cultural and environmental background, or multiple formats for expressing talent (for more information on alternative criteria, see Brown et al., 2005). We have experienced this problem in our own studies, especially in schools that have special programs but vaguely stated criteria for identification or from which access to those details is denied by the administration or parents (more often the former). With descriptive details about identification provided in the Participants section of studies, the value added of varied diagnostic criteria will come from being able to answer the question: Are there systematic trends emerging across groups of students identified with different diagnostic criteria? Identifying such trends will lead to a better understanding of giftedness and metacognition and their connections. There is much to be learned by the coordinated study of high-achieving persons sampled using varying criteria. The challenges in synthesizing studies on giftedness that apply different identification criteria are the scarcity of studies, the variation in research questions asked, and methodological approaches applied without replication. A future research need is to pose similar research questions in similar ways, with learners identified as gifted based on different criteria with the goal of clearly identifying communalities. Either this could be done in one large study or assembled in a meta-analysis. Furthermore, the implications of gender and culture in terms of the identification of gifted students have long been of interest and will continue to present challenges in terms of identification as studies of the metacognitive processes of gifted children move forward. Expanding our means of identification beyond IQ-based methods, despite the obvious inconvenience, is necessary. In order to fully observe and understand the nuanced development of metacognitive processes in gifted students, it is important to expand our field of
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inquiry to one which considers the experiences both of those who excel and develop expert-like thinking in a given area and of those who do not. Attending to factors such as motivation and the fit between the individual and the larger socio-cultural context of the classroom (and beyond) is crucial. Relying on IQ as a primary means of identification poses the risk of excluding gifted and talented girls in a number of subject areas such as mathematics and science, as well as overlooking the metacognitive processes of children and adolescents from a range of cultural groups (Greenfield, 1997; Kerr & Nicpon, 2003). As our conception of what underlies giftedness shifts toward a more cognitive developmental perspective, should our measurement and identification strategies not change correspondingly? Our current standardized IQ tests tend to focus on individual performance, speed of task completion (“power” in testing jargon), and the existence of a single “correct” answer. Such an emphasis on decontextualized learning is in many ways inconsistent with constructivist notions of intelligence and giftedness. Moreover, the format of most IQ tests rewards convergent thinking and can lead to a loss of points for the divergent or creative thinking that characterizes some gifted students (Harrington,1982). Current methodological approaches. Among the recent articles we found, most either designed (a) structured laboratory tasks in which a researcher worked one on one with a series of students or (b) questionnaire-based studies within which groups of students completed questionnaires anonymously for subsequent statistical analysis. A few studies of each type will be reviewed to get a feel of current methodological approaches to understanding metacognition in gifted students. Structured laboratory tasks are an excellent way to paint detailed portraits of processes students engage in when problem solving. Because students are often alone with one researcher, the student can do a “thinkaloud” (Shore, 1991) to let the researcher know everything she or he is thinking and planning. It also provides opportunities to videotape each student’s engagement in tasks assigned, and fully controlled and understood by the researcher, and to conduct reflective interviews after completing such tasks. This approach can take many shapes and will always be a source of rich data about individual performance in conditions predetermined by the researcher. Following are three examples of such studies with brief comments.
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A Metacognitive Portrait of Gifted Learners
In order to explore whether manipulations of children’s goals for game playing differentially affected videogame performance of gifted second and fifth graders, Blumberg, Hollaner, and Genovese (2001) removed students from class individually and asked them about their experiences playing a particular videogame in the past. Students were then directed by the researcher to focus on one of three goal foci (evaluative, outcome, process) and to play for 10 minutes. A control group was also taught how to play the game but their goal focus was not primed by the researcher. Students were recorded and three follow-up questions were presented: (a) What were you thinking as you played the game? (b) Suppose you were going to tell someone else who has never played the game before how to play it: Are there any special secrets or rules that you would tell them about?, and (c) What would you tell future players to pay attention to? Over 60% of the children made comments about their process, indicating self-awareness of processes. It would have been more interesting to qualitatively describe explanations of their processes by looking for themes in students’ responses to questions and making between-group comparisons. This could have shed additional light on how gifted students approach and interpret goals and performance. Shore and Lazar (1996) taught students how to use educational software that required them to play a pattern-recognition game. Each student played the game independently in order to answer the research question: Do students with high IQs gain their overall speed advantage in problem solving on the execution of the solution rather than exploration of the problem? The time advantages for bright students arose in the execution rather than the exploration phase. By looking at a structured task, Shore and Lazar obtained a unique insight into the metacognitive processes of bright students. Employing the strategy to spend more time planning was associated with less time executing or using a trial-and-error strategy. Follow-up questions or implementation of think-aloud protocol could have added additional detail about what students were thinking during the exploration and execution phases (data have been collected for such a follow-up analysis of whether or not gifted students create a testable hypothesis during the exploration stage of problem solving). A structured laboratory task was designed by Alexander, Johnson, Leibham, and DeBauge (2004)
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to be consistent with kindergarten students’ current curriculum about dinosaurs, in order to explore the extent to which children’s cognitive aptitude influenced their domain-specific learning and the extent to which cognitive aptitude and domain-specific knowledge contributed to children’s strategic question generation while playing “20 questions.” The goal of this study was to better understand strategic performance in the context of classroom activities and curricular content. Each child was tested individually in a quiet part of the school just before the curriculum began, at the end of each of the three weeks and at the end of the fourth week for follow-up testing. Strategies being tested in the 20-question game were either singlededuction questions or multiple-item-elimination deduction questions to figure out which dinosaur the researcher chose as the “special dinosaur.” At the end of the 20 questions, children were asked task-specific metacognitive questions: How did you decide what questions to ask? Did you think of anything special to help yourself think of which question to ask? Ninety percent of all children asked multiple-item-elimination questions, which is more strategic than asking single-item-elimination questions, but high IQ students asked a higher proportion of multiple-item-elimination questions. Therefore, although all children could employ the more complex strategy, those with higher IQs employed the strategy more often. Unlike Blumberg, Hollaner, and Genovese (2001), Alexander et al. (2004) did ask children follow-up questions about the strategies they employed, with the intent to analyze responses qualitatively. Unfortunately, the children were not able to answer the open-ended questions that asked them to discuss their strategy usage explicitly. This brings up the issue of developmental appropriateness of various research designs. The follow-up questions were good, but kindergarten pupils were unable to understand or answer them. Although this study was unable to elaborate on the students’ perspective of the process (due to the children being unable to articulate their experiences), the researchers did contextualize the quantitative analyses with descriptions of the teacher’s involvement and the structure and content of the three-week curriculum unit on dinosaurs. This level of contextual detail makes clear to the reader how domain-specific knowledge and skills being taught in the classroom might inform the strategies employed by students.
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A primary benefit of structured, laboratory-based tasks is the ability to structure activities that prime the participant to engage in the processes that researchers want to explore. This is a great opportunity for painting detailed qualitative portraits of specific metacognitive processes. Rather than simply counting frequencies of types of comments or percentages of strategic questions asked, the study shifts to what these questions look like and in what ways the comments that are counted vary qualitatively. It is promising that we are able to construct authentic tasks that shed light on specific, predetermined research interests. We still have work to do in the area of fully representing the rich data that result from such one-on-one time with learners. We also must consider how students’ actions vary due to having so much attention from a researcher and not having the regular constraints and supports of a classroom context when engaging in strategic activity. This issue is not mentioned to criticize laboratory-based approaches. Rather it is to propose that structured laboratory tasks can be used as an initial elaboration of processes of interest to researchers before dealing with the complexities of inferring such processes while they interact with a multitude of classroom dynamics in classroom-based research. The second most popular methodological approach to the study of metacognition in gifted students uses questionnaire-based data. Such studies allow researchers to broadly portray correlational and causal relations among metacognitive and other psychological and contextual factors of interest to researchers. Because of the efficiency of questionnaires, the researcher can quickly collect a lot of information about a multitude of factors when entire classes complete questionnaires in one setting. For instance, McCoach and Siegle (2003) investigated the relationships among student achievement with academic self-perception, motivation, metacognition, goal valuation, and attitudes toward school, teachers, and classes. All these variables were subscales of one standardized questionnaire. The only other data they needed to collect were IQ scores (to assess ability) and GPA (to assess achievement). Pajares and Graham’s (1999) research questions are prime examples of the kinds of questions appropriate for questionnaire-based studies: Does mathematics self-efficacy make a significant independent contribution to the prediction of mathematics performance when other motivation and previous
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achievement variables that have been shown to predict performance are controlled? What is the extent to which mathematics self-beliefs change from beginning to end of the first year of middle school (grade 6)? Do motivation constructs, including self-efficacy for self-regulation, vary as a function of gender or regular versus gifted program placement? Rather than observing the processes involved in development, this study implemented the same questionnaire at two separate test times to infer extent of development from change over time. These studies did not measure actual student reports of their metacognitive strategy use. Pajares and Graham (1999) were interested in students’ judgments of their confidence to self-regulate and McCoach and Siegle (2003) measured students’ knowledge of metacognition (rather than use of metacognitive strategies). The meaning can vary when we say we are interested in metacognition and giftedness. Are we interested in students’ confidence to self-regulate, their knowledge about metacognition, or their actual use of metacognitive processes? One way for the reader to verify the metacognitive quality being assessed is to seek studies that provide sample items from the questionnaires. Regarding questionnaire-based studies in general, not specifically with reference to the above examples, when planning a questionnaire-based study, above and beyond the need for statistical analyses to be considered in advance and appropriate for the kinds of numerical data that selected measures will obtain, questionnaires also have qualitative potential not to be overlooked. For example, elaborative open-ended questions can provide a context for students’ responses to close-ended Likert-scale items that might add an unanticipated richness to the story being told. It is also necessary to situate results from this form of education research in the social context in which the questionnaires were administered. Details about the participants and the classrooms or testing circumstances give the reader a feel for who the students were, the curriculum, and the kinds of learning activities behind the responses. If one is interested in motivation and the variety of strategies students report using, for example, the results could look very different based on whether the students were, for an extreme example, in a traditional lecturebased or student-centered and inquiry-based form of schooling.
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A Metacognitive Portrait of Gifted Learners
Theoretical Perspectives We want to highlight a few key theoretical perspectives on educational phenomena that might rekindle research interest in the links between giftedness and metacognition and make these theories more broadly relevant and important to educational discourse. With this goal in mind, we shall explain how social constructivism (Vygotsky, 1978), cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) (Engestr¨om, 1987, 1999), and Social Learning Theory (SLT) (Bandura, 1977, 1986) are complementary. A common characteristic among social constructivism, CHAT, and SLT is their explanatory power regarding mediation being central to goaldriven activities and development. Vygotsky’s (1978) constructivism has been the foundation for later theorists, such as Engestr¨om and Bandura. Engestr¨om’s writing about CHAT was built upon Vygotsky and Leont’ev’s work in order to explain how individual learning occurs through social, interpersonal processes whereas Bandura’s SLT elaborates on primarily the psychological, intrapersonal aspects of learning and development. Constructivism. Vygotsky’s constructivist perspective views knowledge and development as socially constructed and places the learner at the center in creating meaning through various individual and social activities. “Every function in the child’s cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological). This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relationships between individuals” (p. 57). According to constructivist theory, students have previous knowledge, intentions, and learning strategies that filter how the learning context is interpreted and influence the learning that takes place. Constructivism has become widely read and applied in both cognitive science and gifted education research. Vygotsky’s central premise of mediation provides an explanation for the need for curricular differentiation for gifted learners. Vygotsky’s (1978) triangular model of mediated activity includes a triad of subject (student), object (goal), and mediating artifact (e.g., scaffold in the form of teacher, other student, technology, or gifted and talented program). Learning is a process of development that occurs sequentially in a zone of prox-
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imal development (ZPD) within which students are scaffolded from what they can do alone (intrapsychological) to what they can do with assistance (interpsychological). Research in gifted education could take a constructivist and situative perspective that views learning as changes in participation in social activities. Such a perspective also emphasizes that individuals’ active use of knowledge is a pivotal aspect of participation in social practices (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Cultural historical activity theory (CHAT). CHAT is a lens through which researchers could enhance understanding of learning processes in the social practices fostered in gifted education programs. For instance, how do students differentially engage in enrichment versus acceleration programs? These two approaches place the student in different social contexts with different peers, academic goals, and expectations for the rules and division of labor within a classroom. Cultural historical activity theory grew out of the work of Vygotsky by the efforts of many of his students and followers. The central goal of CHAT is to understand mental processes while focusing on the cultural and environmental mediation of activity. CHAT theorists focus on explaining the influences and interactions of cultural, historical, and social factors on and with human activity. Engestr¨om (1987, 1995) elaborated Vygotsky’s triangle of mediated activity to include a wider context that takes into consideration the complex and virtually endless interactions within the triad of individual–population–environment. For instance, individuals act within the rules and divisions of labor of the population and the population contains communities that are restrained by environmental factors, such as material resources and tools. A challenge with respect to gaining a fuller understanding of metacognition is closing the gap between the observable level of performance involving enacted strategies by students in particular classroom settings and the internal processes that students engage in, such as setting goals, planning how to solve problems, making evaluations and other metacognitive activities. Ethnography and phenomenology (cf. Creswell, 1998) are methodological means to connect students’ reports of metacognitive strategies to the social context that frames student engagement. CHAT is a useful lens through which researchers could gain a better understanding of the context specificity of gifted learners’ enactment of metacognitive processes to achieve academic goals. The social and cultural
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factors surrounding the gifted learner will influence their motivation, goals, and methods of achieving such goals. This theoretical understanding is required to explain metacognition as it is embedded in the complex activity systems of gifted and regular education. Researchers could ask students to reflect on and explain videorecorded classroom activities by asking students why they did or said particular things, how they reacted to the teacher’s assignment, and what they plan to do for homework to complete the assignment (Nardi 1996, 1998). Researchers could also observe classes and use observational tools, such as the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Functions (BRIEF; Gioia, Isquith, Guy, & Kenworthy, 2000), to obtain quantitative estimates of students’ executive functions. An option less intensive than live observation or videorecording would be to invite students to participate in interviews or complete questionnaires that ask about the metacognitive strategies employed and contextual factors that, from their experience and perspective, influenced how they engaged in classroom activities. Cultural historical activity theory has framed a lot of research in cognitive science (Fishbein, Eckert, Lauver, VanLeeuwen, & Langmeyer, 1990; Nardi, 1996; Russell, 1997; Jonassen & Rohrer-Murphy, 1999; Bracewell & Witte, 2003), but the same cannot be said for gifted education. Naturalistic studies provide a depth of understanding complementary to the breadth of results that can be obtained from longitudinal designs. CHAT is an ideal lens through which researchers can construct naturalistic, observational studies of gifted learners in classrooms and other meaningful learning contexts. This framework is appealing to applied cognitive scientists and should be to other education researchers because it brings together intraand interpersonal aspects of performance. It does so by explaining how people interact with external activity systems. Social learning theory, on the other hand, focuses on the individual and explains how external factors interact with internal systems. Metacognitive processes (knowledge and selfregulation) are crucial activities for academic success and lifelong learning. Metacognition consists not only of internal representations, plans, and regulation. External influences (called tools) such as teachers, calendars, and learning technologies interact with the individual’s goals and internal symbolic processes to result in the context specificity of metacognitive activities employed. If researchers conceptualize metacognitive processes as activities from a CHAT
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perspective, then activity, which includes goals, tools, rules, and divisions of labor, becomes a complex unit of analysis in educational research and particularly a part of the understanding of giftedness. Social learning theory. SLT elaborates on ways mediation occurs from an individual-in-context perspective. Bandura (1977, 1986) emphasized the importance of individual perceptions of the behaviors, attitudes, and reactions of models on the formation of learners’ (a) symbolic representation and processing, (b) goals influenced by self-beliefs and attributions, and (c) behavior. SLT frames learning as a continuous process of mediation between cognitive, behavioral, and environmental influences. Central constructs in Bandura’s theory are models, attention, self-beliefs, attributions, motivation, prior knowledge, cognitive strategies, and behavior. Social learning theory situates Moss’s (1990) study (a dissertation in our laboratory) that showed how preschool children with high IQ internalized the patterns of their mothers’ thinking, which was more metacognitive in nature compared to the mothers of children with average IQ. SLT would assert that the modeling of the mother scaffolds the children to acquire a repertoire of metacognitive skills, which will be an advantage when adapting to and succeeding in school. Gifted children’s exceptional abilities to learn and think create a potentially lifelong advantage with continuous accumulating benefits. This success creates a snowballing effect, which can be viewed as one pathway toward developing expertise. Snowballing is the process by which advanced knowledge and skills are an impetus for subsequent knowledge and skill acquisition. SLT also encourages researchers interested in metacognition to expand their scope beyond only cognitive factors. When studying cognitive processes from a social-cognitive perspective, it is difficult to isolate metacognition from the mediating influences of volition, interest, self-efficacy, affect, motivation, and the nature of interactions with peers or models (see Neber & Schommer-Aikens, 2002, for more discussion about social-cognitive models of metacognition). Researchers could predict students’ scores on the BRIEF from measures of self-efficacy, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, interest, and attributions of success and failure. A comprehensive framework that addresses research in both gifted education and cognitive science would result in research that contributes to a clearer and deeper understanding of the interplay among metacognition (knowledge of self and self-regulatory
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A Metacognitive Portrait of Gifted Learners
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processes), self-beliefs, motivation constructs, context, performance in particular classes (e.g., science verand achievement. Understanding the individual in sus history)? Are these differences sustained across context can be achieved from a constructivist persubject areas? spective with particular focus on cultural historical 2. Do differences in qualitative portraits of students’ activity theory and social learning theory. The goal of metacognitive processes vary as a function of the bringing together internal and external processes as kinds of academic tasks assigned (e.g., mathematics framed by abstract explanatory theories is no simple word problems versus open-ended inquiry projects feat. How do we simultaneously observe the tools, in mathematics classrooms)? tasks, and interactions at the social level and under- 3. How do students and teachers explain, in openstand these social activities’ relations to intrapersonal ended interviews or focus groups, the role of peer psychological processes? This is both a theoretical and collaboration or teacher support in how students apa methodological challenge that, if taken on, could proach academic tasks? lead to the richer understanding of the complexities of 4. How does working alone versus working with peers metacognition among gifted learners that we seek to influence the metacognitive strategies employed achieve. and resources students seek in classroom activities? 5. Does or how does student interest in the task influence the extent to which they engage in and employ Suggestions for Research Questions metacognitive strategies to do well? and Design 6. Do students break down tasks, generate explicit or implicit solution hypotheses, forward chain, and self-monitor in similar ways for tasks that vary in The classroom context is fascinating to explore when familiarity and level of difficulty? inquiring about learners’ metacognitive processes because social context has the potential to both constrain and facilitate the application of metacognitive processes during learning activities. Given the potential context specificity of how and when students choose to employ their repertoire of metacognitive strategies, classroom-based research is imperative. Renzulli and H´ebert’s (1995) multiple case study is a good example of how we can begin to understand the individual learner’s context-specific experiences. Rich descriptions of high-achieving-potential underachieving students were obtained within a contextual frame in which various aspects of the problems were identified and studied over the time of the intervention. Triangulation was achieved by using the student, the teacher, and the products as converging data sources. Also, reviewing the data collected from a CHAT perspective could provide a structure to meaningfully interpret the rich data these authors obtained. More classroom-based research (despite its limitations of convenience samples and uncontrolled sources of variance) would open opportunities to see how learning processes are distributed across, and scaffolded by, teachers, peers, and other contextual, and potentially unanticipated, features. Here are some research questions for consideration as future studies:
Unexpected dynamics not observed in laboratory settings can only be explored in naturalistic settings. Phenomenography (Creswell, 1998) is a methodological approach that, in gifted education, could explore qualitative differences in how gifted students experience learning activities and employ strategies to achieve goals. A phenomenographic approach to understanding learning processes is recommended to those who agree that learning is based on learners’ experiences of a situation, which are determined by relating one’s self to relevant aspects of the learning situation. The underlying assumption of this approach to research is that learning situations have a structure of relevance for those who experience it. Research should describe the learners’ interpretation of context and learning processes, which is the goal of phenomenography. Reis, McGuire, and Neu (2000) achieved this goal in a qualitative study designed to explore the compensation strategies used by high-ability students with learning disabilities and their experiences in elementary, secondary, and post-secondary institutions. Ethnographic and phenomenographic methods (Creswell, 1998) can also yield detailed descriptions of the multitude of significant aspects of metacognition 1. Are there differences between metacognitive por- and gifted education from students’ and teachers’ traits of students who vary in levels of academic perspectives.
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There are commonalities across recent studies worthy of note and reflection. All of the studies that we found are from North America. Although a few studies identified the need to explore cross-cultural issues when studying metacognition and gifted learners (Pajares & Graham, 1999; Shore & Lazar, 1996), no such studies were found in our search of the literature. Identification of gifted children in other cultures has been extensively discussed, along with how other systems of education adapt to the needs of gifted learners, but scholarship has not yet appeared to ask questions that parallel the studies that have so far informed our understanding of the connections between metacognition and giftedness. As Sternberg (2004) asserted, a predominance of single-culture studies can contribute to false assumptions, over-generalization of findings, and the negation of many rich potential sources of data. Research studies have focused on all levels of education, from kindergarten to university populations, but only two studies (Alexander, Fabricius, ManionFleming, Zwahr, & Brown, 2003; Neber & SchommerAikens, 2002) found in this review of recent literature spanned across levels of education. We can begin to piece together hypotheses for developmental studies from the current literature. Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies spanning across levels of education would be a fascinating contribution to our understanding of the development of both gifted learners and metacognitive processes. Taking a constructivist, developmental approach to understanding gifted learners and metacognition requires longitudinal studies. The call to understand qualitative differences of metacognitive processes could be answered by comparing factors that account for the “who, what, when, where, and how” of metacognition within the events in which such processes occur. This would be a massive undertaking, but one readily done step by step. Approaching this challenge in a systematic way that builds on previous research is but one pathway to advance our methodological approaches and understanding of metacognition and giftedness.
Implications for Home, Classroom, and School How can or should awareness of links between metacognition and giftedness (as well as the related
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issues of flexibility and preference for complexity) be used to guide parents on preschool activities, teachers on classroom processes, and schools on curriculum? Our goal in this section is to offer a modest list of relatively general suggestions that arise directly from the first two sections of this chapter.
Implications for Parenting and the Home Long before children become school pupils, they learn important lessons from parents and others who care for them. “Young children construct a coherent set of beliefs about themselves, their confidence, the nature of tasks, the usefulness and availability of cognitive strategies, and the social dispositions of other people in the classroom. With young children, these beliefs are often implicit and imprecise; nevertheless, they are used to mediate efforts to self-regulate their learning” (Zimmerman, 1990, p. 13). Based on the work done in our laboratory by Moss (1990), when working on puzzles and games, or in any circumstance in which children are given an opportunity to ponder a question or make a choice, children’s thinking is helped by patiently awaiting replies, encouraging children to think about what they want to say, and to prompting with questions that encourage reflective thinking rather than comments that simply seem to be rushing the process. For example, when solving a jig-saw puzzle, it is more helpful to ask what kinds of pieces should be sought to go beside one that has a blue edge and, when directly helping, speaking aloud the reasons for the choices rather than admonitions to persist. When using building toys, let the child decide what to build and ask questions that encourage deciding what to do next. If tasks are not trivial to the doer, they will sustain interest but require time (Pelletier & Shore, 2003). Parents can, in their interactions, usefully help the child set priorities (just two at a time, not a long list), decide if more time is needed to plan the activity, and distinguish relevant from irrelevant ideas or objects. The answer to a particular question or problem or puzzle is not the most important goal; rather, it is to learn strategies that can eventually be applied to other situations. Parents can, therefore, usefully ask preschool children to think about how new situations may be similar to others they have experienced. In parent talk to very young
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children, comments on how situations or events are related to earlier ones experienced are likely to be useful preparation for such a frame of mind. Parents can also usefully articulate how different people see situations or objects differently, helping children to develop their ability to distinguish their view from that of others. More than three decades ago, developmental psychologist and Piaget interpreter Flavell (1976) stated the goal simply and clearly for parents and teachers: “Try to find out what is running through the child’s mind as he or she wends his or her way through the task” (Flavell, 1976, p. 234). Shore and Kanevsky (1993) proposed that such an approach as proposed above will “reinforce and model metacognitive strategies” and “nurture an awareness of self-regulatory activity” (p. 143). Children who acquire such a frame of mind at home arrive at school with a distinct advantage; “metacognition is not merely part of a specific solution strategy, but an active state of mind” (Shore, 2000, p. 173).
411 difficult points in a task before beginning it, and be prepared with alternative approaches? Can they benefit from working collaboratively? (Shore, 1982, p. 143)
What follows is neither a manual on gifted education nor a guide to metacognitive education. It is a distillation of four broadly stated elements found or created in classrooms, and that arise from the links between metacognition and giftedness: (a) rich and complex learning tasks, (b) knowledge creation and transfer, (c) favoring planning time over emphasizing speed of completion, and (d) teacher–learner role change toward peer and autonomous learning. These four ideas or guidelines respect several basic assumptions that arise equally from the presentations above. First, gifted children and adults do not have a monopoly on metacognition, but providing circumstances that raise the likelihood that metacognition will be enhanced raises it for all. The goal of the exercise is to raise the whole platform, not close a gap. Indeed the gap might widen while everyone benefits. Second, “Problemsolving strategies need to be taught and learned not merely as single paths to predetermined answers” Implications for Teachers (Shore, Rejskind, & Kanevsky, 2003, p. 195). The goal and the Classroom is not to replace all other activities but to add to the teaching and learning repertoire that makes it possible One of the first publications to link high ability and for a learner (of any age) to respond to the challenge metacognition presented a composite picture of sound to find another way to resolve this problem, or to come pedagogical practice that is still relevant to this consid- up with another similar problem. Good teachers and eration: good coaches have been doing this for a long time, but now it has a place in theory. When learning new material it is possible to summarize Rich and complex learning tasks. Shore, Rejskind, the main points and to consider how this new learning and Kanevsky (2003) observed that “The tasks that is related to previous learning in the same and different help define expertise are often complex and rich as subjects, and to general experience. The links, direct or learning situations – ill-defined rather than wellfuzzy, become as important as the points. When students are working on a project or task, they can be asked and defined. There are not always predetermined right ask themselves to assess how their work is proceeding, answers known by the asker. Indeed, sometimes the whether it appears to be leading them to their desired outtask is not even to find an answer, but to come up with come, and whether they wish to reconsider part of the plan a good question . . .” (p. 184). They further noted that they are pursuing (if they have not such a plan, this exercise might help). Students can try to divide their work “One implication of the findings on the preference for on tasks into information-gathering and execution stages. complexity by experts, gifted students, and creative They can concentrate on evaluating the quality of their individuals is to highlight the need to raise or remove harvest in the first stage before launching into the latter. the ceiling on the level of complexity of the content They can judge if they reached out and adequately into the extremes of linked knowledge in order to make the best of processes involved in learning activities. This can be their current activity. Are there other suitable strategies, or accomplished by introducing a metacognitive dimenhow would someone with other expertise approach this? sion to lessons by embedding and valuing reflective When they encounter a difficulty, what adjustments to questions during learning. Simply offering children plans may be useful? Do they sense themselves guessing inappropriately? Can they anticipate what might be the open-ended activities is not sufficient” (p. 198). Non-
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trivial tasks have the added benefit of being inherently interesting, thereby sustaining interest. One of the most direct ways to create a rich and complex task as the basis for learning is to engage the learners in designing the task or some of its qualities. This enhances the inquiry potential of the task and, in the case of highly able students, takes advantage of their demonstrated preference to introduce their own complexities in their learning experiences (Bowen et al., 1992; Garofalo, 1993; Kanevsky, 1992; Kanevsky & Rapagna, 1990; Maniatis et al., 1998). Knowledge creation and transfer. In their “best practices” chapter on higher level thinking for gifted students, Robinson, Shore, and Enerson, (2006) argued that a curriculum on thinking should include four key elements. In addition to respecting their social constructivist roots, these elements directly create conditions that arise from the connections between metacognition and giftedness. These practices are (a) thinking and content learned together (thinking does not need to wait until the child has acquired a large base of knowledge about a field); (b) learning about thinking as the students are learning to do thinking (“learning about” teaches metacognitive skills, and “learning to do” teaches the ways of organizing thinking and provides practice); (c) giving students opportunities to become more and more autonomous (teacher introduction, small group work, solo activities); and (d) providing attention to transfer (deliberate awareness and teacher modeling of using strategies in varied contexts; O’Tuel & Bullard, 1993; Swartz & Perkins, 1990). (pp. 104–105)
They further advised that “Emphasis in classrooms, with the support of the school administration, should be on rewarding thinking, inquiry, reflection, and the consideration of alternatives in lieu of memorization, drill, reliance on lower level recall, and tight control of content and class work” (Robinson et al., 2006, p. 206). Learning events that promote thinking also favor the acquisition of knowledge, but they also go further in promoting children’s creation of new knowledge (Shore, Rejskind, & Kanevsky, 2003). Children need to construct their own knowledge with suitable guidance, whether it is new discrete knowledge or, equally importantly, how new and old elements of discrete knowledge, whether facts or skills, are related to each other. Gifted children, like experts, routinely internalize more and better knowledge structures and see more common elements among related information or problems (Austin & Shore, 1993; Pelletier & Shore, 2003; Shore, 1982). In the classroom, this translates into ac-
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tivities that include starting with multiple ideas that may not be initially closely tied together, rather than discrete questions, connecting ideas, generating new ideas, and ending with assignments that explicitly involve making connections across topics, times, disciplines, or outcomes, just to cite some possibilities. In addition, the assignments should pose challenges such as to suggest other problems that could be addressed, not only to find a “correct” answer that the teacher already knows. In order to do these complex and rich tasks effectively and efficiently, and to practice monitoring, evaluating, and revising thinking strategies, as well as to build a flexible repertoire of strategies for problem finding and solving, students need to conduct these tasks both alone and in active discourse with their classmates as well as teachers. They need to be reminded and to learn to identify for themselves when they are creating new knowledge (at the minimum for themselves, but eventually things others may not know) and to apply their knowledge from one situation to another, as well as how to choose what information or skills are relevant to the solution of specific issues. The easiest way to do this is to ask students especially in groups but also alone to think about what resources will be useful in resolving a problem. When they eventually come to standard science laboratory tasks with their lists of materials and equipment, they will be very able to generate these themselves and move the exercises a step up or more from “cookbook” exercises. Speed versus planning time. Once we get past power tests such as IQ as the golden standard for the identification and understanding of giftedness, we also need to go beyond (without rejecting) the performance qualities that lead to high IQ scores, especially getting the largest number of correct answers to short questions in the shortest possible time. There are many real-life situations in which rapid response is indeed critical, including some medical decision making and responding appropriately to fire, flood, or other danger. We too often confuse, however, the circumstances in which we learn what we need to know or how to act versus those in which we exercise or execute that knowledge after we have learned it. For a learner especially, nontrivial tasks warrant the planning time they need. Eventually they can be executed rapidly. Flavell’s challenge (noted earlier) to learn what is going on in the learner’s head is not only advice for the teacher. It is a metacognitive event for the learner, too, in all
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its dimensions (knowledge, awareness, motivation, and performance). It is a complex task and should not be rushed. The bottom line is that accuracy trumps speed. Therefore we should de-emphasize speed: Even in IQ, accuracy is more important than speed to a high score (Lajoie & Shore, 1986). There is far too much emphasis on speed in learning situations, emphasis that should be redirected to careful planning, thinking about the plan, and using it as a road map while engaged in the task. Dover and Shore (1991) also found strong links among flexibility and metacognition. Eventually flexibility (having more than one appropriate way to tackle a problem) leads to quicker performance, and “accurate students with good metacognitive skills are better suited to working more quickly than any student, gifted or not, who may be deficient in either metacognition or accuracy” (Shore, 2000, p. 174). Bright children automatically slow down when tasks have the potential for alternative solution paths, and they spend more time planning before executing a solution, as long as the task is not trivial. One very likely learns what can be learned about being smart by learning to plan. The challenge and opportunity for the teacher to capitalize on these connections is to take time and help the students take the time to well understand the issues they are addressing, not to sacrifice understanding for speed during the learning of new concepts, and to help students build strategies for evaluating the quality of their thinking in that new realm. The speed will follow on its own when needed and can be practiced for fun in the later stages of learning. Teacher–learner role change toward peer and autonomous learning. Metacognition cannot be imposed from without during either learning or performance. In the most classic sense, it needs to be drawn out from within the student. If students are always waiting for teacher approbation, they will never become metacognitive. The opportunity and then the duty to self-evaluate must be mandated. This is usually done in steps that include some responsibility shifted to the peer group as well. It is becoming clear that “students need to be directly taught the components of inquirybased learning – from asking high level and interesting questions, to valuing their own judgments, to criticizing arguments, to presenting reports – and given practice in bringing these components together” (Robinson et al., 2006, p. 114). These are benefits from planned,
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not random, opportunities for peer learning and autonomous learning. This is, however, a zero-sum situation. If the students do more evaluating, the teacher must do less. Students will not learn to self-evaluate if they are always second-guessed by the teacher whose final authority makes their engagement moot. If the students are to teach themselves more, they cannot be second-guessed by the teacher’s flying squad that fixes what they teach themselves poorly. Instead, it is important to help students in groups and individually assess the quality of their learning through internal and external criteria. Pedagogically, the metacognition and giftedness literature points toward the importance of processoriented student discourse. Specific teacher actions can include building in opportunities for students to explain to themselves and each other their paths to their ideas and answers. This includes ensuring that the task is clearly understood (an excellent group activity), appropriately categorizing the task (i.e., relating it to past knowledge), filtering relevant from irrelevant information useful to addressing it, thinking about their personal strengths that could help them deal with the task and also to think about special talents their classmates might have that could especially help, developing a plan or (even better) multiple plans for the solution steps, and thinking ahead of ways to test if they are on a good path to a solution that they will be happy with, even before they get there: One way to use a metacognitive theory to nurture creativity is to offer children the opportunity to share how their minds work while they are engaged in an activity that involves creative thinking. . . . Preparatory activities (and possibly teacher modeling) are probably necessary to provide students with opportunities to describe their thinking in a variety of tasks, to reflect upon this thinking, and to be able to act on these thoughts (Kanevsky, 1992). Another strategy is to encourage students to “try on” the strategies of their creative classmates. (Shore, Rejskind, Kanevsky, 2003, p. 189)
The benefits of peer collaboration on strategy use, metacognitive causal attribution, and recall have been supported in two studies that examined outcomes in the short term and over nearly 6 weeks (Manion & Alexander, 1997, 2001). There is a caveat. When metacognition and high ability interact, the teacher and students have shifted roles. The teacher engages in some but less direct teaching, and to a greater degree engineers an environment in which students increasingly teach themselves
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and evaluate the outcomes. Individual teachers need to As classrooms are the daily collegial space for stuaccept this, and the school as a whole has to support dents, schools are the equivalent for teachers. Xenossuch a learning and teaching environment. Whiston (1989) made the fascinating discovery that teachers of gifted students are themselves more likely to be contributors to knowledge than other teachers. We do not know the causal connections, but this echoes the connections forged above regarding students. These teachers seem to have some of the experiences that we Implications for Curriculum and Schools are proposing would also be appropriate for their stuAt issue are the overall instructional environment and dents. For those without such predispositions, Masui the assumptions made about the roles of students and and De Corte (2005) demonstrated with a large class teachers, as well as the tolerance for what may look like (n = 141) of first-year business economic students that chaos but is in fact a high level of differentiation. If the self-regulatory behavior can be learned even within school’s overall curricular philosophy is that students the confines of a single university course. Schools can learn various performance sequences (e.g., sight read- therefore consider professional development as well as ing, spelling, adding, solving mixture problems, cal- hiring policies that favor the use of instructional apculating the resistance in a circuit, or baking whole- proaches that honor the links between metacognition wheat bread), then it will have achieved what conven- and giftedness. tional schooling does well: “High performance in regular high school mathematics may better reflect the ability to execute the sequence of a solution than to select an appropriate strategy” (Kaizer & Shore, 1995, p. 178). If students are to learn to select appropriate strategies, they need time and supportive opportunities to select inappropriate ones, and they need to figure out for themselves how early in the solution process they can figure that out. This is a good group exercise, a different curriculum, and it will not normally happen in any one particular classroom if there is not explicit support for such approaches at the level of the school administration. This becomes a general curricular decision. Metacognition and giftedness point to this path. Inclusion is a challenge but not a barrier. Although, for example, students with and without learning disabilities differ in their motivation for engaging in self-regulated learning behavior (Ruban, McCoach, McGuire, & Reis, 2003), the challenge is to give all students, according to their needs, good reasons to do so. For some it will be the opportunity to choose, for some it will be the chance to tackle complex tasks, and for others it will be the chance to interact actively with peers. Others may need external rewards at least initially, but even classical learning theory teaches about gradual extinction of external reward dependency. Gifted students with learning disabilities, however, are more like gifted children in their metacognitive performance than they are like other children with learning disabilities (hannah & Shore, 1995) and should be so educated.
Conclusion Metacognition and giftedness have been shown to be closely linked. We still have a lot to learn about this relationship, but the path toward a stronger knowledge base is becoming clearer. There is still some interesting research to be done that will inform both constructs. Even at the present time, however, the existence of the connections between them suggests a pedagogy that has strong support from other educational and psychological research. It is itself a rich and complex terrain to explore, a worthy reflection for the fields of gifted education and cognitive psychology requiring collaboration between them. Are we making good progress toward a challenging goal?
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Part V
Personality of the Gifted, Individual Differences, and Gender-Related Issues
Chapter 19
Personality Qualities That Help or Hinder Gifted and Talented Individuals Reva Friedman-Nimz and Olha Skyba
Yes the answer lies within, so why not take a look now... (Cat Stevens, On the Road to Find Out, from Tea for the Tillerman, 1970)
Abstract It is well documented that non-intellective qualities play an important role in realizing extraordinary potential. However, there is considerable murkiness in identifying, operationalizing, and studying these variables in the context of giftedness. For instance, in some research personality variables are treated as stable traits; in other investigations, the same variables are explored as more fluid tendencies. We review research on key personality qualities such as self-perception, self-evaluation, motivation, attribution, and intrapersonal intelligence. Drawing on over 25 years of research, we review salient work at the University of Kansas and elsewhere. We explore issues related to modes of inquiry and suggest directions for research on personality variables as they are manifested in the context of development.
tano, 1998; Shurkin 1992; Subotnik & Arnold, 1994; Terman, 1959; Tomlinson-Keasey, 2002). From a measurement perspective, one might surmise that once we control for intellectual ability, other factors emerge to explain the unaccounted-for variance in later life performance. It is interesting to note that advances in understanding the development of the self, such as self-concept, self-esteem, motivation, and attribution, have all contributed to understanding the personality of an intellectually gifted youngster. As positive psychology has taken root and created a new framework for exploring the self, qualities such as resilience, optimism, personal navigation, well-being, and thriving have offered more opportunities to unpack the emerging identity dimensions of talent – and to create interventions that result in positive outcomes for more individuals “at risk/at promise.” In this chapter, we review research relating to two Keywords Personality · Self-concept · Self-esteem · core individual personality facets studied in the context Motivation · Self-efficacy · Attributions · Resiliency of talent development: self perceptions and motivation. In study after study, group of bright, intellectually We expand our focus to explorations that include key young people are identified, examined, and their life outcomes such as resilience and unresolved problems paths documented in an effort to understand more (such as perfectionism). Systems/models that feature fully how talent develops and to answer those haunting a multidimensional perspective on the psychology of questions about why only some extraordinarily capable talent are unpacked, and suggestions are offered for individuals achieve highly (Arnold, 1995; Arnold, Nothe next generation of investigations into the personal ble, & Subotnik, 1996; Bloom, 1985, Csikszentmihadimensions of giftedness. lyi, Rathunde, & Whalen, 1993; Feldman, 1982; Feldman & Goldsmith, 1991; Goertzel & Goertzel, 2004; Kerr, 1994; Kerr & Cohn, 2001; Kaufmann, 1981; Ki- Background: Why Focus on Personality? R. Friedman-Nimz (B) University of Kansas, Lawrence, KU, USA e-mail:
[email protected] In his classic longitudinal study of high-potential young people, Lewis M. Terman (1959) discovered
L.V. Shavinina (ed.), International Handbook on Giftedness, c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-6162-2 19,
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that although intellectual ability was relatively homogeneous among his subjects, life achievements were much more variable among the men in the study. He discovered key differences among his subjects in the affective domain, and concluded that “. . .personality factors are extremely important determiners of achievement. . .The four traits on which [the high and low achieving groups] differed were persistence in the accomplishment of ends, integration toward goals, self-confidence, and freedom from inferiority feelings. In the total picture the greatest contrast between the two groups was in all-round emotional and social adjustment, and in drive to achieve” (Terman, 1959, p. 148). Aspects of Terman’s findings are repeated in a variety of longitudinal and retrospective analyses of the lives of talented individuals. A notable example is Ruth Duskin Feldman’s popularized investigation, “Whatever Happened to the Quiz Kids?” Duskin Feldman (one of the four Quiz Kids whose measured I.Q. was over 200) concludes that one quality distinguished her sample, drawn from the group of several hundred youngsters who participated in the show during the 1940s: the will to succeed. This finding is amplified and dissected in more focused studies of gifted men and gifted women, using historical as well as contemporary samples. For example, Simonton (2003) employs a prediction approach to quantify the contributions key variables made to extraordinary achievement in historically significant individuals. Using as a working hypothesis that prodigies represent human development at its apex, Feldman & Goldsmith (1991) apply an ethnographic approach in detailed case studies of the lives of six boy prodigies, one of their goals being to uncover the conditions associated with the emergence of giftedness from a developmental perspective. Other researchers trace the young adult lives of individuals singled out as having extraordinary intellectual and leadership potential. Arnold et al. (1996) focus on high school valedictorians, and Kaufmann (1981) scrutinizes participants in the first 5 years of the Presidential Scholars Program. Bloom (1985) develops detailed case studies of 120 individuals, distributed across six fields, to uncover nodal points and key educational and environmental qualities that shaped and developed talent. Csikszentmihalyi et al. (1993) conduct an intensive study of the lives of talented teens in an effort to uncover qualities that differentiated relative
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high achievers from their lower achieving intellectual peers. In separate studies, Kerr and Cohn employ a developmental approach to examine the life trajectories of gifted girls (1994) and of gifted boys (2001) participating in a Sputnik-era special program started in the 1950s. Tomlinson-Keasey (2002) and others (e.g., Subotnik & Arnold, 1994) have continued to use data obtained from the Terman sample as a benchmark against which to assess the lives of contemporary gifted individuals. More recently, researchers have broadened the focus of these longitudinal explorations to include traditionally underrepresented populations. For example, Kitano (1998) applies Bloom’s approach to studying the lives of 15 high successful African American women. Weaving her subjects’ observations on the effects of culture and history on their achievement, she suggests that culturally derived strengths combined with high ability enabled these women to develop positive coping strategies for the adverse effects of racism, sexism, and other potentially handicapping conditions. Terman’s observations spawned a host of nowclassic investigations into the psychological dimensions of talent among noted adult achievers in a variety of fields (Barron, 1963; Helson, 1971; MacKinnon, 1965). Beginning with variables related to self-perceptions, in particular self-concept and its evaluative dimension, self-esteem, research has expanded to include pertinent aspects of motivation such as achievement motivation, locus of control, attributions, and self-efficacy. It is with the core personal qualities of self-concept and self-esteem that we begin our journey to find the answers that lie within the personality of gifted individuals.
Images of Self: Self-Concept and Self-Esteem A recurring focus of studies of self-perceptions is the degree to which intellectually gifted youngsters’ self-concept or self-esteem is significantly different from their non-gifted peers. However, research findings among school-aged gifted samples have been equivocal. Confusingly, gifted children have been reported to display more positive, comparable, or lower self-concepts than their average ability peers. A closer analysis of the research reveals that some of these
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Personality Qualities That Help or Hinder Gifted and Talented Individuals
apparent contradictions can be attributed to measurement issues, instrumentation, sampling, or research design. For example, in their exhaustive meta-analyses of published self-concept and self-esteem research involving gifted samples, Hoge & Renzulli (1993) point out that gifted children’s scores are not demonstrably different from non-gifted samples relative to social self-concept: that there is a small positive difference (favoring gifted children) in global/composite scores and a small negative effect for physical selfconcept. According to their meta-analyses, gifted children display more positive academic and behavioral self-concepts than non-gifted comparison groups. Instrumentation has also been an issue in selfconcept assessment. Olszewski-Kubilius, Kulieke, & Krasney (1988) assert that most of the pertinent studies are “. . .Instrument-driven – that is, they use a particular instrument and compare groups of students on them rather than being conceptualized around a particular construct” (p. 347). More pointedly, Hoge & Renzulli (1993) highlight their finding that scores tended to be higher in studies using some instruments, for instance the Piers–Harris Children’s Self-Concept Scale (Piers, 1986). In a series of factor and IRT analyses of the Piers–Harris (first edition), our results suggested noteworthy differences in the ways in which intellectually gifted children conceptualize and process their abilities and social relationships from their non-gifted age-mates (Jenkins-Friedman & Murphy, 1988). In particular, we found that gifted children appeared to perceive their social standing as related to intellectual status – the meaning of the self was viewed and understood through a screen of ability. In addition, we found the scale too sensitive to social desirability – the young respondents were easily able to “fake good” well. In a recent investigation of the Piers–Harris (second edition) with a gifted sample, Lewis & Knight (2000) write that few studies reported subscale scores. They hypothesize that differences by age or reporting only global scores could mask gender. Employing a sample of 368 intellectually gifted youngsters in grades 4–12, they found significant differences by gender on three subscales: Behavior and Intellectual and School Status (favoring females) and Anxiety (favoring males). They also report a U-shaped relationship by grade level, with junior high school age students’ displaying lower scores than the elementary or high school students.
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Concerns relative to instrument- or theory-driven research on the self-concept of gifted youngsters continues to surface in the research literature. For instance, Greenspon (2000) asserts that the bulk of investigations into aspects of the self (with gifted individuals) is either theory-free or a combination of theories and incompatible instrumentation. He argues in favor of a theory of self that is particular to youngsters with high ability. Others have suggested using theories such as symbolic interactionism as the conceptual framework for operationalizing self-concept. From this perspective, words and gestures, the symbols used to communicate, are acquired from the society in which a person lives. The development of the self is viewed as a continuous process that takes place in interaction with others and in self-reflection. Because all interaction requires a language, which is socially and culturally given, the society and the individual are inextricably intertwined (Falk & Miller, 1998). Thus, self-concept measures need to be either particular to or generalizable across cultural contexts and be sensitive to changes in the developing self. Marsh et al. (2001); Marsh & Craven (2002); Marsh, Ellis, Parada, Richards, and Heubeck (2003); Marsh and Hau (2004) and Marsh, Trautwein, Ldtke, Kller, and Baumert (2005) have amassed a complete body of research supporting a differentiated self that emerges over the course of childhood, supporting the need for applying a developmental framework to understanding self-perceptions of high potential youngsters. His Self-Description Questionnaire has been employed internationally with a variety of age groups and ability levels (Bain & McBell, 2004; Marsh et al. 2003; McCoach & Siegle, 2003b; Mui, Yeung, Low, & Jin, 2000; Plucker & Stocking, 2001). The Questionnaire has also been adapted for use with primary-age children. It appears to confirm and extend previous work on the academic/intellectual dimensions characteristic of gifted children and youth. Of particular interest are explorations of self -perceptions and academic achievement. In his Internal/External (I/E) frame of reference model Marsh posits that views of the self develop from these two sources: the first is external, developing from normative feedback such as comparisons of one’s work with other students’ work, scores on achievements tests and the like. The second, internal frame of reference operates differently in that it is the result of comparisons of one’s work in one school subject with one’s work in other school
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subjects. Marsh asserts that this internal frame is ipsative: that is if one self-labels as high competent in language-related activities, the individual will perceive math competence as lower, even if the evidence is contradictory. This hypothesis has been confirmed in a substantial body of research spanning over 30 countries, average and high intellectually able samples, and a range of age groups. The interplay between academic self-concept and academic achievement is thus shaped by a gifted student’s perception of ability in an area (internal) as well as (external) assessments of academic standing relative to a definable referent group (Hau, Kong, Marsh, & Cheng, 2000; McCoach & Siegle, 2003a, 2003b; Plucker & Stocking, 2001). Plucker and Stocking (2001) test the degree to which the I/E frame of reference model fits a high-performing sample (N = 131) adolescents participating in a summer program for academically talented youth. They conclude the model could be an appropriate framework for understanding self-concept development for adolescents identified using the same instruments and conditions (in contrast to more variable, subjective or ambiguous identification processes). Plucker and Stocking also suggest that self-concept assessments should be conducted across a variety of contexts for the same individual to explore fully the I/E model among extraordinarily bright youth. In a study comparing how the two variables operated for a gifted and an average ability high school sample, McCoach and Siegle (2003b) discover that the I/E frame of reference operated similarly regardless of intellectual potential, although academic self-perceptions were more positive for members of the gifted sample. They include in their discussion research confirming that the self-confidence students develop in their skills is reflected in the types of activities they choose, the level of challenge in those activities, and the persistence they demonstrate when involved in those activities. That the social context of giftedness is inextricably linked to the internal experience of talent is asserted in a variety of empirical investigations using other frames of reference and instrumentation (Coleman, 1995; Kunkel, Chapa, Patterson, & Walling, 1995; Reis, 1995; Swiatek, 2005). For example, Kunkel et al. (1995) use an open-ended, phenomenological probe (“What is it like to be gifted?”) to build a complex concept map describing relationships between and among eight clusters: intellectual superi-
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ority, social superiority, self-satisfaction, skillfulness, respect from others, social stress, conformity, and estrangement. Drawing on a body of prior research (Coleman & Cross, 1988; Cross, Coleman, & TerhaarYonkers, 1991), Coleman (1995) hypothesizes that the social context of specialized educational environments should form the frame within which to understand the development of giftedness. Kerr (1994), Reis (1995) and others extrapolate this assertion to an array of studies confirming the effects of social context on the development of gifted women, men, African Americans, and urban youth. Building on this theme, Wahlberg, Williams, and Zeiser (2003) incorporate “stimulating social environments” (p. 356) into their discussion of key traits common to accomplished adults. Several researchers urge assessing selfconcept/self-esteem only in contexts that lead to important outcomes for gifted learners, such as adjustment to labeling, social comparisons, and programming effects such as academic achievement and motivation to achieve (Feldhusen & Hoover 1986; Friedman, 1992; Hoge & Renzulli, 1993). There are promising developments in assessing gifted learners’ self perceptions, particularly relative to motivation, particularly achievement motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, locus of control, and self-efficacy. Linking self-perceptions to dimensions of the complex construct of motivation, especially connected to achievement, could lead to a deeper understanding of the link between these two important markers on the road to self-understanding.
Motivation: Who Drives the “Bus” on the Road to Actualizing High Potential? The role of motivation in the development of talent has been debated for several decades. Motivation can be referred to as persistence, task commitment, intrinsic or extrinsic interest, desire to learn, or drive to succeed. Regardless of the approach we take to define it, motivation serves an essential role in understanding the difference between potential and performance (McNabb, 2003). Terman’s longitudinal studies of high-potential youngsters (1959) mark the beginning of the systematic study of motivation in relation to high intelligence. In his early explorations, motivation was concep-
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tualized as an inherent drive in gifted individuals to persist and achieve. Terman’s observation that people who displayed persistence and drive to achieve were more successful in life informed subsequent investigations into the dimensions of achievement motivation as well as shaping future longitudinal studies of gifted/talented individuals. For example, when trying to predict academic, artistic, scientific, and social achievements based on the performance in college, Holland and Astin (1962) found that good grades in college have little connection with “more remote, and more socially relevant desirable forms of achievement” (p. 132). These findings and others (e.g., Albert, 1969) support a shift in the focus of research from qualities associated with cognitive functioning to non-intellective characteristics such as motivation that contribute to the development of talent. Over the decades of research pertaining to this construct, motivation has been conceptualized as a prerequisite for, component of, outcome, or a catalyst for talent manifestation and development. A high level of motivation appears to be so fundamental to eminent accomplishment that many investigations have included it in their conceptualizations of giftedness and talent (Feldhusen & Hoover, 1986; Gagne, 1985; Gottfried & Gottfried, 2004; Renzulli, 1978; Simonton, 2003). Renzulli (1978) coined the term “task commitment” as one of the criterial attributes of giftedness in his three ring conception of talent. Drawing from an extensive body of literature on psychological variables associated with high levels of adult accomplishment, he claims that motivation serves as the key activator for the development of talent. Gagne (1985, 2003) considers motivation and volition to be catalysts that can have either positive or negative impact on the process of talent development. Feldhusen & Hoover (1986) define giftedness as an interaction of intelligence, special abilities or talents, self-concept, and motivation to achieve. Tannenbaum (2003) builds key non-intellective qualities that “mesh into excellence” his multifaceted conception of giftedness; meta-learning, dedication to a chosen field, strong self-concept, willingness to sacrifice, and mental health (p. 53). Gottfried & Gottfried (2004, this volume) assert that academic intrinsic motivation is its own form of giftedness as well as a prerequisite to the manifestation of exceptional ability. In their paradigm, exceptional motivation would be considered as a type of giftedness (just as extremely high intelligence is labeled as giftedness). Thus, gifted individ-
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uals might be persons who are superior in their striving and determination pertaining to a task (Gottfried, 1985). Explorations of the connection between giftedness and motivation have generally been descriptive, focusing on the complex role various aspects of motivation play in the realization of talent. The most widely studied variables are locus of control, casual attributions, perceived competence, self-efficacy, intrinsic/extrinsic interests, and achievement motivation. Developments in motivation research among typical populations appear to inform our understanding of individuals with high potential, just as investigations into self-perceptions enhance our conceptualizations of talent. For instance, the research on locus of control in gifted students consistently supports the notion that highly able students display a more internal locus of control than more typical students. Studies with a variety of high-ability samples and under various conditions find repeatedly that an individual’s belief in the power to control his or her life is related to high achievement (Harty, Adkins, & Hungate, 1984; Herskovits & Gefferth, 1992; McLelland, Yewchuk, & Mulcahy, 1991; Karnes & McGinnis, 1995). Based on the investigation of over 1,000 gifted students, Herskovits and Gefferth (1992) conclude that internal locus of control serves as a mediating variable in the realization of potential. Harty et al. (1984) studied differences in 200 formally identified gifted students in self-contained and pullout programs and their non-gifted peers, using the Piers–Harris Children’s Self-Concept Scale (Piers, 1986) as the self-concept measure and Nowicki-Strickland Personal Reaction Survey (Nowicki & Strickland, 1973) as the locus of control indicator. Results of their study suggest that although self-concept scores were not significantly different in three groups, locus of control scores differed significantly, with a pattern of higher internal locus of control in self-contained classrooms for gifted students. Their results support previous findings that students with greater scholastic aptitude tend to demonstrate a higher internal locus of control. They propose employing self-concept and locus of control as discriminating variables in the process of identification of gifted students. Building on this foundational work in motivation, contemporary empirical research on motivational aspects of manifested talent continues to mirror developments in cognitive approaches to unraveling this
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multifaceted trait. In particular, research with gifted samples has adopted an attribution model of motivation. Weiner’s (1974) pioneering work in attribution theory provides key insights in our understanding of how individuals understand their experiences of success and failure. Surprisingly, there are just a few empirical studies that examine attribution patterns of gifted individuals (Assouline, Colangelo, Ihrig, & Forstadt, 2006; Chan, 1996; Dai, Moon, & Feldhusen, 1998; Heller & Ziegler, 1996; Knight, 1995; Laffoon, Jenkins-Friedman & Tollefson, 1989; McNabb, 2003). McNabb (2003) claims that strongly identifying with being talented exerts a powerful influence on one’s attitude toward academics and hypothesizes that smart individuals should be inclined to attribute their successes and failure to their ability. In contrast, Chan (1996) reports that gifted students tend to perceive themselves to be more cognitively competent and thus are less likely to attribute their failure to lack of ability. Similarly, Dai et al. (1998) report that there is a tendency among gifted students to attribute success to both ability and effort; however failure is attributed only to effort. Laffoon et al., (1989) study is one of a few comparing causal attributions of underachieving gifted students to their achieving gifted peers as well as to regular education peers. Interestingly, they found that underachieving gifted students scored significantly higher on ability attributions (stable, internal attributions) for success than regular students. In contrast, when attributing for failure, the underachieving and average ability student groups were found to be significantly higher on externality/luck. Similarly, Knight (1995) reported that gifted students who are proficient academically or in other areas believe they have an internal locus of control, while underachieving gifted students express an external locus of control. In the framework developed by Pintich and Schunk (1996), Weiner’s original attribution choices, grouped along two dimensions (stability and locus of control) were enriched by a third dimension, controllability. Their framework is employed in current studies of attribution choices of gifted individuals. Assouline et al. (2006) explore differences in key attributions of male and female gifted students in general academics, language arts, science, and mathematics. Results of the study suggest that gifted student tend to attribute failure to not working hard enough, rather than to
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not being smart. Interestingly, the researchers also found significant sex differences in the perception of successes and failures in different subjects. For example, most gifted boys attributed their success in math to their ability; in contrast, most gifted girls attributed their success in math to effort. Results of this study suggest that perceptions of success and failure by gifted individuals are multifaceted and that there are more complex relationships to be uncovered. The multidimensionality of the current Pintich and Schunk’s attribution model (1996) can offer a more promising framework for studying the motivation of gifted students. Another productive avenue used to explore the relationships between giftedness and motivation is the perceived competence and self-efficacy of gifted students. These variables can be easily confused, but they are not interchangeable. Perceived competence refers to personal views about one’s own capabilities in various skill domains (Harter, 1981). According to this view, perceived competence is influenced by students’ own perceptions of how their capabilities are judged by others; and it, in turn, influences the way students feel about their likelihood of success on a given task, and their preparedness to engage themselves in studies (Chan, 1988; Feldhusen & Nimlos-Hippen, 1992; Zimmerman & Martinez-Pons, 1990). The general conclusion of these studies is that gifted students perceive themselves as more competent and more intrinsically motivated to do well in school-related tasks than do average achieving students. Self-efficacy, in contrast, is defined as a personal belief about one’s own capabilities to perform academic tasks successfully. According to Bandura’s (1982) social-cognitive theory, selfefficacy beliefs are strong predictors of one’s capability to accomplish such tasks. Pajares (1996) asserts that “self-efficacy beliefs act as determinants of behavior by influencing the choices that individuals make, the effort they expend, the perseverance they exert in the face of difficulties, and the thought patterns and emotional reactions they experience” (p.325). As a consequence, academic performances are highly influenced and predicted by students’ perceptions of what they believe they can accomplish. It is expected that high self-efficacy is likely to promote stronger academic performances, whereas low self-efficacy is likely to undermine them. Some researchers have explored the relationship between self-efficacy beliefs and creativity
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Personality Qualities That Help or Hinder Gifted and Talented Individuals
(Beghetto, 2006; Schack, 1989, 1991). Others explore differences between and among gifted, regular education, and special education students in relation to their self-efficacy for self-regulated learning (Gresham, Evans, & Elliott, 1988; Zimmerman & MartinezPons, 1990). Still others investigate self-efficacy of gifted students in relation to their performance in math. Beghetto (2006) examined creative self-efficacy (self-judgments of creative ability) in 1,322 middle and secondary students. Results of this study indicate that students’ mastery- and performance-approach beliefs and also teacher feedback on creative ability were positively related to students’ creative selfefficacy. In addition, students displaying higher levels of creative self-efficacy had a greater likelihood of expressing more positive beliefs about their academic abilities in all subject areas than students demonstrating lower levels of creative self-efficacy. Junge and Dretzke (1995) studied the mathematics self-efficacy of gifted high school students. They found that gifted boys evidenced overconfidence on a greater number of items than gifted girls and that gifted girls scored overconfident only on items involving stereotypical female activity. Pajares (1996) used path analysis to test the predictive and mediational role that self-efficacy beliefs play in the mathematical problem solving of 66 middle school gifted students as compared to regular education students in algebra classes. The result of this study indicates that self-efficacy of gifted students made an independent contribution to the prediction of problem solving when controlled for the effects of math anxiety, cognitive ability, mathematics GPA, self-efficacy for self-regulated learning, and sex. A series of studies continue to probe qualities of the links between motivation and academic achievement. Traditionally, achievement motivation is defined as enjoyment of school learning characterized by an orientation toward mastery, curiosity, and persistence in learning of new, challenging, and difficult tasks (Gottfried & Gottfried, 2004). According to this view, academic intrinsic motivation is inherently tied to the development of giftedness. Using a shortened version of Harter’s (1982) measure of classroom motivation and academic performance, Goldberg & Cornell (1998) found a positive relationship between intrinsic motivation and academic achievement in a national sample of 949 academically gifted second and third graders. Using Gottfried’s (1986) Children’s Academic Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (CAIMI) rather than Harter’s (1982)
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motivational assessment to assess motivation, in a series of studies on elementary- and middle-school children, Gottfried (1985, 1990); Gottfried & Gottfried (1996) investigated the influence of academic intrinsic motivation on children’s school achievement. More specifically, young children with higher academic intrinsic motivation had significantly higher achievement and intellectual performance. Overall, the results of these studies confirmed that young children with higher academic intrinsic motivation functioned more effectively in school. Gottfried also found that early intrinsic motivation correlated with later motivation and achievement and that later motivation was predictable from early achievement. In contrast to the previous conceptions of giftedness, which conceptualized motivation as a factor supporting other forms of giftedness, Gottfried and Gottfried (2004) expand the definition of giftedness by including the construct of gifted motivation as a form of giftedness in its own right. A body of empirical studies supports the claim that gifted students have a significantly higher academic intrinsic motivation and that it is significantly, positively, and uniquely related to academic achievement above and beyond IQ. Gottfried and Gottfried claim that construct of gifted motivation is generalizable across different academic domains and different age groups of gifted students. Gottfried, Fleming, and Gottfried (1994) also conducted a series of studies examining parental influences on academic intrinsic motivation of gifted adolescents. Task-endogenous parental motivation practices (like encouraging curiosity) were found to be connected to development of academic intrinsic motivation. Once more, extrinsic rewards (like toys, money) have been shown to have adverse consequences for children’s intrinsic motivation. Along the same lines, Amabile’s Intrinsic Motivation Principle for creativity states that extrinsic rewards undermine creative production, while intrinsic motivational orientation is conductive to development of creativity. In her book, Growing Up Creative, Amabile (1989) asserts that parents can inadvertently undermine children’s creativity by restricting choices, imposing standards of evaluation, providing external rewards, and enhancing competition. She cites as a confirming example a study she conducted in which preschoolers were either given paints and paper with instructions that clearly imposed adult-imposed standards about neatness or simply provided with the materials and no instructions regarding neatness.
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Children in the first condition created a painting that was assessed as less creative. In addition, these children evidenced less intrinsic interest in painting at a subsequent time. Rea’s theory of optimal motivation for talent development takes an intriguing approach in an effort to explain the complex interaction between motivational variables and talent development. This model is consistent with current views in which motivation and talent are seen as entities that can be nurtured and developed rather than being unchallengeable, predetermined, and fixed. Rea (1997, 2000) describes his theory of gifted motivation as a dynamic, complex systems theory. He makes an effort to combine Csikszentmihalyi’s concepts of “state of flow” and “optimal challenge” (1975, 1982, 1990); Rathunde’s “undivided interest” (1992); and Apter’s (1982) and Rea’s (1993) “optimal arousal” to construct and operationalize the definition of optimal achievement motivation and its components. In short, optimal motivation is defined as a “flow” experience in which students become absorbed in a task so that they lose track of time and their efforts seem “effortless”. He claims that three ideal conditions under which students are most likely to experience flow are optimal challenge, undivided interest, and optimal arousal. Thus, optimal achievement motivation can be defined as the optimization of all three components of motivation. Each time there is a component deficit, students’ achievement motivation can become frustrating (cognitive deficit), unwilling (volitional deficit), or unpleasant (affective deficit). Students who are optimally motivated experience strong success, significant value, and gratifying pleasure when applying their talents. When the component conditions for optimal motivation are completely met, students are more likely to make significant efforts to develop their talent. They are eager (affective arousal), able (cognitive expectancy), and willing (volitional value) to make full use of their talents. A better understanding of the optimal forms of achievement motivation and its components has important implications for maximizing talent development. Optimal motivation theory has a strong implication that lack of motivation has a drastic impact on talent development. Although this motivational model is developed and supported by contemporary motivation research, it still needs to be confirmed with gifted samples. Combined with self-perceptions, results of
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“successful motivation” are clearly manifested in either positive or negative outcomes in school as well as in life contexts.
Resiliency: How Does Giftedness Contribute to or Reduce the Likelihood of Positive Outcomes? I am convinced that, except in a few extraordinary cases, one form or another of an unhappy childhood is essential to the formation of exceptional gifts. (Thornton Wilder)
Publications focusing on the social and emotional needs of gifted/talented children and youth continue to posit as a central issue that giftedness per se can either increase the likelihood of a successful life or increase vulnerability to dysfunction (Cross, 2004; Cross et al. 1991; Martin et al. 2001; Neihart, 1999; Schuler, 1999). In her review of the extant empirical literature, Neihart (1999) points out that gifted children experience depression, suicide, and anxiety at rates similar to their average ability peers and deviance (defined as delinquency) at lower rates. Gifted children and youth appear to be diverse relative to perceived social competence and in their use of coping strategies. Neihart suggests that questioning whether giftedness is an asset or a liability is too simplistic to capture the complex and dynamic relationships between and among personality qualities and outcomes such as successful adjustment. She also criticizes the syllogistic thinking that leads to viewing gifted children as more prone to psychological problems. She concludes that the relationship between psychological well-being and high potential is complex, shaped by the type of ability, goodness of fit between the individual’s needs and educational services provided, and personal characteristics such as self perceptions, temperament, and life circumstances. Whether or not one supports Neihart’s assertions, there seem to be conditions that might pre-dispose youngsters with high potential to experience adjustment problems: membership in an acknowledged underrepresented population, possessing in addition to high intellectual potential a disability such as learning problems, psychological difficulties, or difficult family circumstances. There is a comprehensive body of literature in which issues facing these individuals is revealed, discussed, and analyzed. Practices for identifying and providing per-
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tinent services to gifted “at risk” children abound. Of particular interest to this chapter are the gifted/talented young people who are successful despite adversity – the individuals who demonstrate resiliency, an ability to recover from setbacks, to overcome difficult life circumstances, who demonstrate a sense of purpose and agency, and who face challenges with optimism and hope. The unexpected successes of individuals at high risk due to a variety of adverse circumstances came to public notice in Werner’s (1989) groundbreaking study, Children of the Garden Island. In the ensuing years, researchers have enlarged the scope of her work to include other environmental stressors such as a parent’s mental illness and additional personal qualities such as temperament. Especially pertinent to this discussion are the explorations of resilience that explicate personal and behavioral cognitions associated with more or less resilient behavior as well as explanations for success and failure. The work of Carol Dweck and colleagues (Dweck & Bempechat, 1983; Dweck, 1986) focusing on children’s theories of intelligence is particularly germane. According to Dweck and her associates, resilient achievement behaviors (challengeseeking, persistence in the face of obstacles, learning from failures and recovering from setbacks) are more related to how children conceptualize their intelligence than their intellectual potential. Students who believe their ability is fixed (entity theory of intelligence) are more likely to adopt goals (performance goals) that showcase their talents rather than presenting a risk for lower than desired achievement, since failure would an indication of incompetence. In addition, these students perceive an inverse relationship between ability and effort attributions; i.e., success in activities requiring considerable effort carries an inherent message that one is not very able (imposter thinking). In contrast, students who ascribe to the belief that their intelligence is malleable (incremental theory of intelligence) and improves with effort are more likely to set goals that require effort (learning goals). These students connect success with effort and correlate positively the relationship between effort and ability. When faced with a failure, these students are more likely to pause, analyze the failure, regroup, and try again. Drawing from Werner’s studies and research focusing on motivational patterns associated with either more learned helplessness or a more mastery-oriented understanding of intelligence, we attempted to explore experimentally
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differences in the ability to recover from failure. In particular, we were interested in gifted students’ intelligence theories – entity or mastery – and their teachers’ observations of these youngsters as more vulnerable or resilient in the classroom environment. Given research that suggests girls are more apt to display an entity orientation, we also examined patterns by gender. The study was conducted in four heterogeneously grouped fourth grade classrooms. Adapting a protocol developed by Dweck and Bempechat (1983) students completed two types of intellectual tasks: mazes (non-verbal) and scrambled words (verbal) of increasingly difficulty, with the final task being unsolvable. Students were able to “opt out” at any time. At the point of stopping, participants completed a response designed to elicit their theory of intelligence. Teachers completed resiliency and ability ratings on their students during the data collection. Analyses revealed a moderate relationship between (teachers rated) student ability and students’ expressed theory of intelligence, slightly favoring an incremental orientation. No significant patterns were found by gender. A finding particularly germane to this conversation was that no children were identified by their teachers as displaying learned helplessness. In fact, all participating teachers rated the students they previously labeled as high ability as also displaying resilience. They were slightly more inclined to rate girls as resilient than boys. We concluded that teachers might be merging their conceptions of ability with beliefs about mastery-oriented, resilient learners (Friedman, Hendricks, Porter, & Thacker, 1996). If one compares qualities associated with resilience and characteristics of giftedness, one finds considerable overlap (Bland, Sowa & Callahan, 1994). For example, Bland et al. point out that studies of hardiness and successful coping yield several distinguishing features associated with positive functioning: resourcefulness, optimism, self-efficacy, and self-reliance. These interpersonal skills are also often attributed to gifted children. Environmentally, Bland et al. highlight studies identifying key experiences that lead to increased emotional strength: early socialization, emotional support during times of trauma, positive early peer relationships, and a “goodness of fit between the classroom and the child” (p. 77). The critical connection between resilience and giftedness might well be a function of gifted students’ analytic abilities. Cognitive appraisal, the ability to evaluate potential harm (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) has been studied in young gifted
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samples, although the paradigm is generally thought to be most appropriate for understanding late adolescent and adult behavior (Ryan-Wenger, 1992). Carter and Ormrod (1982) speculate that bright youngsters’ ability to use this cognitive process at an unexpectedly young age could be related to their early development of cognitive operations such as formal operations and abstract thinking. Bland et al. (1994) and Sowa and May (1997) confirm the use of cognitive appraisal strategies to promote positive coping in gifted youngsters. Resourcefulness as a quality associated with high intellectual potential is thus most productively understood as a dynamic, developmental process than as a stable personality trait. It is influenced by environmental conditions and mediated by support from significant others as well as internal cognitive processes. This finding has been confirmed repeatedly with a variety of “at risk” highly able samples. For instance, in separate studies focusing on diverse, bright adolescents in an urban high school (Hebert, 1996; Reis, Colbert, & Hebert, 2005), researchers found patterns that helped high achievers demonstrate their abilities: supportive adults, opportunities to participate in honors and advanced classes and extracurricular activities, friendships with other highly achieving students, a strong belief in oneself, and coping strategies that mitigated negative effects of school and the larger environment. Whether high intelligence promotes resilience is a matter of some dispute. In studies of inner city youth, Luthar (1991) uncovers high intelligence operating as a risk factor, while in contrast, Flydenberg (1997) finds gifted adolescents using positive cognitive strategies such as problem solving rather than strategies that undermine resilience such as wishful thinking. Kitano and Lewis (2005) suggest that findings differ depending on outcomes of interest, the ways in which resilience is assessed, and defining qualities of the gifted sample; however, they assert that giftedness is generally viewed as a protective factor. They delineate particular types of coping strategies in relation to cultural experiences and values: in a study involving White and African American college students (Plummer & Slane, 1996; Kitano & Lewis, 2005), the African Americans reported using a greater variety of coping strategies than their White classmates, especially problem-focused and emotion-focused strategies. In investigations comparing coping strategies reported by African American and White children categorized as stress affected or stress resilient, all resilient children
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exhibited self-perceptions and motivation associated with giftedness: a sense of competence, positive self views, and realistic control assessments (Magnus, Cowen, Wyman, Fagen, & Work, 1999). Interestingly, locus of control perceptions separated the stress affected from the stress resilient White children but not the African American children. The researchers suggest that the finding might reflect differing cultural values. Kitano and Lewis point out that there is no coherent theoretical framework for conceptualizing resilience and that measurement and definitional issues need to be resolved. They conclude that rather than emphasizing differences in types of coping strategies employed by various identifiable samples (by ability and age, gender, environmental conditions, ethnicity, or handicapping condition), “...effective coping is characterized by flexibility and change” (p.203). They add that problem solving and electing to participate in intrinsically engaging activities are related to resilience as well as overall adjustment. They conclude with six recommendations for promoting resilience in gifted students at risk: (1) enhance connectivity; (2) encourage a sense of self-efficacy and agency; (3) encourage optimism; (4) teach directly and indirectly a range of culturally consonant coping strategies and coach implementation; (5) validate (rather than ignore or minimize) children’s experiences with bias; and (6) support pride in heritage (pp. 204–205). Whether or not one considers high intellectual potential as a risk factor, it is evident that there is one identifiable group of children and youth “at promise” whose ability is likely to be compromised: youngsters who are twice exceptional. This term is generally used to describe individuals who are documented as manifesting high intellectual ability as well as risk-producing conditions such as learning disabilities including attentional issues (Dole, 2000; Gardynik & McDonald, 2005), Asperger’s Syndrome (Neihart, 2000), or psychologically based challenges (Dixon, Lapsley, & Hanchon, 2004; JenkinsFriedman & Murphy, 1988; Peterson & Ray, 2006; Schuler, 1999). Gender identification issues, while not a handicapping condition, can heighten vulnerability to bullying and other risk-related concerns (Cohn, 2003; Peterson & Rischar, 2000; Savin-Williams, 2005). Research has focused on the ways in which these additional factors affect the ways in which giftedness is manifested, particularly the individual’s response to adversity produced by these conditions. Internal qual-
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Personality Qualities That Help or Hinder Gifted and Talented Individuals
ities such as resiliency, self-awareness, and cognitive appraisal figure prominently in the individual’s ability to recognize and to cope with heightened risk, while positive role models, supportive school programs, and talent-enhancing activities create environments that increase the likelihood of positive outcomes for these individuals.
Frameworks for Conceptualizing, Understanding, and Studying the “Gifted” Personality In her article “ Personal Talent,” Moon (2003) makes a case for a theory that permits one to differentiate from related constructs such as social intelligence and wisdom. She asserts that such a theory should promote pertinent research and practice as well as “. . .enrich theories of giftedness, explain puzzling phenomena, and broaden the range of outcomes considered in the development of talented persons” (p. 68). We suggest that the ways in which we study personality variables in the context of giftedness have a profound effect on theory development, research, practice implications, and so on. In our exploration of the professional literature, we find three modes of inquiry, described by Coleman, Sanders, and Cross (1997) as empirical-analytic, interpretive, and transformative. Each offers a coherent body of thought with related assumptions and goals for research; each yields propositions and hypotheses about key phenomena (in this instance, personality variables related to giftedness). The empirical-analytic mode, most closely related to positivism, assumes that there are causal relationships and predictable outcomes to be uncovered through quasi-experimental designs. Coleman et al. (1997) claim that from this perspective, giftedness is viewed as a natural phenomenon, existing relatively independently of contextual influences. The extensive body of research on eminent adults that attempts to uncover invariant patterns of talent development and “predict backward” to the lives of young people with talent potential fits this mode of inquiry (e.g., Bloom, 1985). The interpretivist mode leads to a consideration of knowledge as more subjective, mediated by particular signs, symbols that enable individuals to make sense of their world. Particular talent domains, cultural contexts, and individual characteristics would profoundly
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affect the manifestation of giftedness. The transformative mode extends the interpretivist framework by considering issues related to values and power as playing key roles in all aspects of the field. From both of these perspectives, there would be no universal conceptualizations of giftedness, for example – all would be defined within the context of particular groups, domains, and developmental stages. Key personality variables would be examined with an awareness of values prized by individuals and groups in positions of power and influence (e.g., Savin-Williams, 2005). Coleman et al. (1997) claim that the field has been dominated by the empirical-analytic mode of inquiry. Certainly a quick review of the research included in this chapter supports their assertion. For example, “the gifted” is a term used repeatedly as though referring to a single, homogeneous group. While this permits clarity, failing to communicate how giftedness is operationalized in the context of particular studies compromises the power of particular findings (e.g., Goldring, 1990). Models that seek to identify universal personality dimensions generalizable across developmental levels, domains, and cultural contexts are relatively common. We hypothesize that trait approaches to studying gifted individuals’ personality variables, whose limits are dissected in detail by Shavinina (1995) fit this category as well. In contrast, models such as personal talent, coincidence theory (Feldman, 1994; Feldman & Goldsmith, 1991) and ethnographic inquiry methods (Coleman, 2001) are dynamic, sensitive to contextual variables and power issues – and yield multiple ways of knowing that enrich research and practice. Recast from this perspective, we should be asking questions about the intrapersonal qualities we identify as critical in the successful development of talented individuals. Why promote internal attributions? Resiliency? How is thriving operationalized? Whose agenda is satisfied? Threatened? If we seek to uncover practices that empower individuals whose talents are latent, what are the implications for gifted education policies? For example, in an update of Torrance’s classic Ideal Child Checklist studies, we found that teachers had changed considerably in their reported valuing of learner characteristics – from qualities associated with compliance to descriptors more closely aligned with creativity. We also found that classroom teachers expressed ideas more in accord with gifted education professionals
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(Murphy, Jenkins-Friedman, & Tollefson, 1984). The latter two modes of inquiry should have led us to consider the social forces that led to the changing patterns of results. If it is important for the journey to have a goal, in this instance, promoting successful lives for highpotential individuals, it is also crucial to bear in mind that one of the goals is the journey. As researchers build awareness of biases and assumptions associated with the familiar empirical analytic mode, the likelihood increases for including other modes for exploring personality variables, with the hope of improving the research enterprise as well as practice. So on and on you go The seconds tick the time out. There’s so much left to know And I’m on the road to find out (sic). (Cat Stevens, 1970)
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Reis, S. M., Colbert, R. D., & Hebert, T. P. (2005). Understanding resilience in diverse, talented students in an urban high school. Roeper Review, 27(2), 110. Renzulli, J. (1978). What makes giftedness? Re-examining a definition. Phi Delta Kappan (November), 60, 180–184, 261. Ryan-Wenger, N. M. (1992). A taxonomy of children’s coping strategies: A step toward theory development. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 62(2), 256–262. Savin-Williams, R. C. (2005). The new gay teenager. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Schack, G. D. (1989). Self-efficacy as a mediator in the creative productivity. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 12, 231–249. Schack, G. D. (1991). Self-efficacy and creative productivity: Three studies ability children. Journal of Research in Education, 1, 44–52. Schuler, P. A. (1999). Voices of perfectionism: Perfectionistic gifted adolescents in a rural middle school (RM99140). Storrs, CT: The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented, University of Connecticut. Shavinina, L. (1995). The personality trait approach in the psychology of giftedness. European Journal for High Ability, 6, 27–37. Shurkin, J. N. (1992). Terman’s kids: The groundbreaking study of how the gifted grow up. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. Simonton, D. K. (2003). When does giftedness become genius? And when not? In N. Colangelo, & G. A. Davis (Ed.), Handbook of Gifted Education (pp. 3–18). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Sowa, C. J., & May, K. M. (1997). Expanding Lazarus and Folkman’s paradigm to the social and emotional adjustment
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of gifted children and adolescents (SEAM). Gifted Child Quarterly, 41, 36–43. Subotnik, R. F., & Arnold, K. D. (1994 ). Beyond Terman: Contemporary longitudinal studies of giftedness and talent. Norwood, NJ Ablex Corp. Swiatek, M. A. (2005). Gifted students’ self-perceptions of ability in specific subject domains: Factor structure and relationship with above-level test scores. Roeper Review, 27(2), 104. Tannenbaum, A. J. (2003). Nature and nurture of giftedness. In N. Colangelo, & G. A. Davis (Ed.), Handbook of gifted education (3 ed., pp. 45–59). Terman, L. M. (1959). Genetic studies of genius (Vol. 5). Stanford: Stanford University Press. Tomlinson-Keasey, C. A. (2002). Tracing the lives of gifted women. In R. C. Friedman, & K. B. Rogers, (Eds.), Talent in context: Historical and social perspectives on giftedness. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Wahlberg, H. J., Williams, D. B., & Zeiser, S. (2003). Talent, accomplishment and eminence. In N. Colangelo, & G. A. Davis (Ed.), Handbook of gifted education (3 ed., pp. 350–357). Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Weiner, B. (1974). Achievement motivation and attribution theory. Morristown, NJ: General Learning Press. Werner, E. E. (1989). Children of the Garden Island. Scientific American, 260(4), 106–111. Zimmerman, B. J., & Martinez-Pons, M. (1990). Student differences in self-regulated learning: Relating grade, sex, and giftedness to self-efficacy and strategy use. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 51–59.
Chapter 20
Emotional Life and Psychotherapy of the Gifted in Light of Dabrowski’s Theory P. Susan Jackson, Vicky F. Moyle and Michael M. Piechowski
Abstract In this chapter we introduce the basic terms of Dabrowski’s theory, review the themes of emotional life of the gifted, including emotional and spiritual giftedness, discuss psychotherapy for the gifted, and present two cases illustrating development through positive disintegration in exceptionally gifted young persons. Keywords Developmental potential · Emotional intensity · Emotional sensitivity · Emotional giftedness · Psychotherapy · Multilevelness
Two Core Concepts: Developmental Potential and Multilevelness Dabrowski’s theory of positive disintegration was first introduced to the field of giftedness in 1979. Two chapters in New Voices in Counseling the Gifted presented the core concepts of the theory: developmental potential and multilevelness (Colangelo-Ogburn, 1979; Piechowski, 1979). By development Dabrowski meant personal growth much like scaling a mountain rather than the sequential unfolding of childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Imagining personal growth as ascent of a mountain, with all the peril, tests of courage and perseverance, suggests that not everyone has the strength, endurance, and determination to go far; few manage to reach the summit. Also not everyone is interested in M.M. Piechowski (B) Institute for Educational Advancement, South Pasadena, CA, USA e-mail:
[email protected] climbing and may prefer to remain in the valley. Some may not even be aware of the mountain. The endowment for how far in scaling the figurative mountain an individual can go constitutes developmental potential. An endowment for multilevel development signifies that a person starts already a significant distance up the slope. A person with limited potential starts in the valley and does not reach far. Multilevel development is a special kind of development involving introspection, self-evaluation and self-judgment, and significant inner conflict and suffering that constitute the work of inner transformation. Dabrowski’s theory introduced a concept of multilevelness, the idea that the extremes—for good and for bad—of human emotions, motivations, values, strivings, and behaviors will make more sense if looked at through a prism of levels. If, for instance, we take manifestations of joy we could see joy from winning a football game, feeling superior, defeating an opponent, succeeding by cunning, and feeling of power when cleverly manipulating others. But to many people such joys would be offensive because of complete lack of consideration for others. A different kind of joy is the joy that the name of a loved one brings, the joy of overcoming one’s bad habits, the joy of selfdiscovery, the joy of a creative moment and inspiration, and the joy of being able to help another. In the first case, the experiences of joy are egocentric, selfserving, self-protecting, and power-seeking. In the second case, they arise from love and empathy toward others, from positive changes in oneself, and from expansive feelings of a higher order. The first case represents joy on a low emotional level; the second case represents joy on a high emotional level. This comparison can be extended to all emotions and behaviors (Dabrowski, 1970). It is quite possible for a young
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person to operate on a higher emotional level than a so-called mature adult. The idea of levels comes from the experience of higher and lower in oneself. Failing a person in time of need is something lower, something we are ashamed of and feel guilty about. Helping a person without any expectation of reward or even token gratitude is something higher in ourselves, and all the purer if no one knows about it. The yardstick here is the nature of our intentions and motives. Dabrowski envisioned five levels, which create four intermediate levels, thus nine in all (Table 20.1). The whole levels form a hierarchy: I, Primary integration; II, Unilevel disintegration; III, Spontaneous Multilevel Disintegration; IV, Organized Multilevel Disintegration; and V, Secondary Integration. The levels can be identified by values, feelings toward self, and feelings toward others that Miller used for her coding system (Miller, 1985; Miller & Silverman, 1987). The five levels have been outlined numerous times (Dabrowski, 1970; Dabrowski & Piechowski, 1977; Miller & Silverman, 1987; Nelson, 1989; Piechowski, 1975, 1991, 2003; Silverman, 1993). The theory is very complex and no simplified version can give it justice. In Dabrowski’s clinical practice, artists, actors, writers, religious persons, and gifted children were prominent. He also studied the lives of eminent creators. Consequently the theory addresses the personal characteristics and the subjective experience of the gifted. It draws attention to the role of emotions, imagination, and intellect in multilevel development. Besides research instruments, the theory offers new tools for differentiating gifted and non-gifted students (Ackerman, 1997) and of identifying gifted African-American students (Breard, 1994). The theory Table 20.1 Miller’s criteria for assessment of levels of development Level
Values
Feelings Toward self
Toward others
I I–II II II–III III III–IV IV IV–V V
Self-serving
Egocentric
Superficial
Stereotypical Ambivalent
Adaptive
Individual
Inner conflict
Interdependent
Universal
Self-direction
Democratic
Transcendent Peace and harmony Communionistic (transpersonal) Adapted from Miller (1985)
also helps to understand the intensities and sensitivities driving creative people (Piirto, 2002; 2004; Piechowski, 1999). The components of developmental potential (DP) are germane because they overlap with characteristics recognized in many gifted children and adults. Talent, specific abilities, and g (intelligence) constitute the first and the most obvious component. Overexcitabilities constitute the second component. They were readily embraced by the field because heightened excitability is what’s noted about gifted children, their capacity to be intensely and greatly stimulated and stay stimulated for long. As far back as 1938, Dabrowski described five overexcitabilities and so far no additional ones have been suggested. Overexcitabilities may be viewed as the necessary—but not sufficient—raw material for multilevel development. Inner psychic transformation is the third component, and it encapsulates what multilevel development is about. Developmental potential for multilevel development takes this form: 1. Talents, special abilities, and g (intelligence). 2. Overexcitability: psychomotor, sensual, intellectual, imaginational, and emotional. 3. Capacity for inner transformation. Overexcitability means that reality is experienced in a qualitatively different manner. Not just more of curiosity, sensory enjoyment, imagination, and feeling but added dimensions of depth, texture, acuity, and perception. It implies an intense aliveness and a neural processing very different from the norm. The idea that high neural plasticity of the brain underlies giftedness may be relevant here (Kalbfleisch, this volume). Gifted children, endowed with the capacity for advanced development, tend to be more active than regular children and display higher energy level, whether physical, intellectual, or emotional. Prodigies are examples of an extraordinary concentration of mental energy. The energy of the electric current in the nerve tissue becomes interest, passion, sustained effort, perseverance, creative flow, ecstasy, caring, compassion, or spiritual experience. A greater than average intensity, sometimes very great and extreme, results in experiencing life intensely. For example, “I get filled with energy when I need that energy. And, of course, I release it by doing the thing that got me excited in the first place” (Piechowski, 2006, p. 40). This surplus of energy Dabrowski called psychomotor
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overexcitability because it has to be discharged in action. In three studies, psychomotor overexcitability differentiated between gifted and non-gifted students (Ackerman, 1997; Bouchard, 2004; Tieso, 2007). Sensory experience for gifted children tends to be of a much richer quality because so much more detail, texture, contrast, and distinction are coming into awareness. What is pleasant is liked with a passion, what is unpleasant is disliked intensely. Dabrowski called it sensual overexcitability. For example: “I seem to notice more smells than a lot of other people. I love dark, musty smells and earthy smells, herbs and things like that. I love the smell of clean air in spring and tree blossoms and things and the smell of clean bodies, esp. hair” (Piechowski, 2006, p. 48). Sensual overexcitability may join with emotional overexcitability, as it often does, thus making the experience all the richer and more meaningful. For example, “I like yellow for it seems warm and full of joy” (Piechowski, 2006, p. 43). In an intimate relationship sensual and emotional elements cannot be teased apart. Intellectual overexcitability is the characteristic by which gifted children are most often identified. In a happy turn of phrase, Frank (2006) said that intelligence is about the ability to solve problems, but overexcitability is about the passion for solving them. When the emotional and mental energies meet, the mind supplies the energy of sustained concentration while emotional energy drives interest (passion). Interest is one of the basic emotions (Izard, 1971). Gifted children tend to have excitable imagination, especially rich, abundant, and surprising in creative individuals. Imagination is a vast subject and yet not sufficiently studied in gifted children. Creativity depends on it. Imagination in combination with absorption enables construction of new realities (more about this later). Emotional overexcitability, manifested in the range of emotions and feelings, tends to be wide and multifaceted in gifted children, both in intensity and in sensitivity. Besides compassion, caring, and responsibility the significance of deep and perceptive feeling lies in empathy as a way of knowing, another unexplored ability of the gifted. Gifted children are often misunderstood exactly because they can be so greatly stimulated and because they perceive and process things differently. Their excitement is viewed as excessive, their high energy as hyperactivity, their persistence as nagging, their
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questioning as undermining authority, their imagination as not paying attention, their persistence as being disruptive, their strong emotions and sensitivity as immaturity, and their creativity and self-directedness as oppositional disorder. They are the wild tall poppies that many forces conspire to cut down to size (Gross, 1998).
Funneling of Emotional Tension The concept of overexcitability suggests that the overall picture of an individual’s personal energy is worth investigating. Certain situations impede the natural flow of this energy. For a naturally active person inactivity leads to a buildup of energy, which presses to be discharged. For a naturally active mind a boring day at school, or at a meeting, has to be worked off by engagement in an intensely absorbing mental task, otherwise sleep will not come (Tolan, 1994). Emotional tension also builds up energy which then seeks release in nervous habits, sensual easement of tension (e.g. drinking, eating, shopping, sex), or excessive worrying. Nervous habits and workaholism are a psychomotor way of funneling of emotional tension, oral compulsions are the sensual way (Piechowski, 2006).
Giftedness from Inside Out The varieties of expressions of each overexcitability have been collected from open-ended questionnaires (Piechowski, 2006). Quantitative studies are good for group comparisons and general trends in the data, but it is the content of responses that reveals the quality of experience and features of emotional life (Piirto, 2004). Three different studies provided 158 OEQs (open-ended questions) with a total of about 5,000 responses from 79 boys and 79 girls, aged 9–19 years; the majority were teens (Piechowski, 1979; Piechowski & Colangelo, 1984; Piechowski & Miller, 1995). The first study used an OEQ with 46 questions, subsequently replaced by a 21-item open-ended OEQ. The expressions by which a given overexcitability is identified in the scoring process have been listed in a number of sources (Cline &
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Schwartz, 1999; Piechowski, 1991; 2001; 2003; 2006; Silverman, 1993). The themes that emerged from review of the content of the responses give a fairly good picture of the many dimensions of inner life of gifted children and adolescents (Piechowski, 2006). A sampling of themes is presented in Table 20.2. Yoo and Moon (2006) developed a 47-item inventory of problems identified by parents of gifted children requiring counseling. Quite a few of the items in the inventory identify concerns similar to the themes listed in Table 20.2, for instance, hypersensitivity, anxiety and fearfulness, low self-esteem (self-doubt), pressure to meet expectations (burden of “the gift”), perfectionism, conflict with teachers or classmates, non-compliance (resistance to compulsion), depression, loss and grief (coping with death), and so on. Only a brief overview of selected topics can be presented here.
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is likely to question the foundations of their faith and often will find it wanting. To a highly gifted young person doubts about beliefs present themselves almost inevitably, consequently they may precipitate a crisis of worldview. The price of questioning can be twofold. One, in environments that do not value questioning one quickly meets with resistance and even rejection. Two, as selfquestioning it may create self-doubt and the fear of going crazy: “I probably spend too much time thinking about my own thinking, analyzing myself and analyzing the analysis. I sometimes psych myself into thinking I am going crazy” (Piechowski, 2006, p. 63). It may be interesting to note that the great Sir Francis Galton tried thinking paranoidally and was startled how quickly he became paranoid.
Imaginal Experience Intellectual Energy The process of solving problems or trying to grasp difficult concepts typically can take one of two directions: a step-by-step progression of breaking the concept down, or by flash of insight that follows many shifting points of seemingly fruitless attack. The sudden insight is typified by K´ekule’s discovery of the ring structure of the benzene molecule and by Einstein’s thought experiments. Today it comes under the rubric of spatial thinking or visual-spatial learning (Lubinski, 2003; Silverman, 2002). Spatial thinking, which is nothing short of amazing, depends on precise visualization, a link to imagination. Intellectual energy has other consequences: relentless questioning, critical thinking, and evaluation. For instance, gifted adolescents responded to the question, What gets your mind going?, by mentioning the irresistible attraction of brain teasers, logical puzzles, theories, and controversies. More significantly, some have mentioned “challenging anything accepted by society” (not all were this radical) by equating such acceptance with conformity: “One good thing [is that] I try to think about my beliefs—political and religious— so that I won’t believe things just because my parents do” (Piechowski, 2006, p. 64). This may lead to a crisis in families with rather strict and orthodox religious faith or political adherence. A gifted adolescent
Commanding energy, sensual delights, racing thoughts, and ideas are, for the most part, known territory. With imagination a whole universe of unlimited possibilities opens up to us. Imaginal experience can be real and remembered as such, “as if it really happened.” The subject of invisible friends (imaginary playmates) has not received much attention in gifted literature other than noting that gifted children tend to have many more such companions than other children (Terman, 1925; Hollingworth, 1942) and that creative adolescents often keep them from childhood (Davis, 2003; Piirto, 2004). That children distinguish pretend play from everyday reality has been long established (Singer, 1975; Singer & Singer, 1990). However, the role of invisible friends in social development, in gaining sense of competence and overcoming fears, though studied in regular children, has not received much attention in regard to gifted children (but see Root-Bernstein, this volume). Imaginary companions usually are not secret but they do belong to the child’s own world. Attempts on the part of adults to interact with them swiftly lead to their disappearance by natural or unnatural means (Taylor, 1999). Imaginary playmates are real to the child, and one may wonder whether the experience is accompanied by sensory feelings. The study of imaginary worlds answers this question.
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Table 20.2 Emotional life of the gifted: A sampling of themes Piechowski (2006)
Yoo & Moon (2006)
Intensity and sensitivity High personal energy—physical and mental Funneling of emotional tension: psychomotor: nervous habits sensual: eating, drinking, etc. intellectual: a mind that cannot slow down imaginal: doomsday scenarios emotional: excessive worrying, (expecting the worst) Sensual delights: appreciation increases with age Intellectual energy interest as a basic emotion the role of empathy in intellectual probing passion for finding and solving problems relentless questioning and its consequences: resistance in others, self-doubt in oneself testing assumptions and beliefs: adolescent crisis of worldview spatial thinking Imaginal experience is imagination valued or source of annoyance? imagistic thinking, e.g., metaphors precise visualization: spatial and vivid absorption: experiencing with full sensory engagement communication with nature invisible friends (aka imaginary companions) imaginary worlds how real is a self-created reality? Emotional experience emotional intensity as “too much” predominance of positive affect friendships transcend stereotypes affectional bonds with family, animals, and places the self in adolescence: elusive, fragmented, multiple, or confident sense of responsibility: the burden of “the gift” being different perfectionism entelechy empathy and a calling to action empathy as a way of knowing triggers of conflict
Hypersensitivity
resistance to compulsion anger, insecurity, and self-consciousness coping with depression coping with fears coping with death Typology of emotional growth rational altruistic (“judging” or J) emotional introspective (“perceptive” or P) Emotional giftedness the high end of emotional intelligence Spiritual giftedness facility for transpersonal experience Multilevel development unilevel vs. multilevel developmental process
low self-esteem
pressure to meet expectations sense of being different perfectionism
conflict with teachers, fighting with peers noncompliance anger/ frustration depression isolation, loneliness anxiety, fearfulness recent loss/ grief suicidal ideations
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Cohen and MacKeith (1991) examined 64 accounts of imaginary worlds. The degree of elaboration— creation of histories, languages, multiple characters (in one case as many as 282), and the early age when they are begun (6 or 7 or even younger)—indicates the young weavers of these worlds were highly gifted. The experience of being in an imaginary world can be “as real as real.” For example, “I also had a magic boat in my youth for a while. It had an outboard motor but I found that too noisy. I’ve never been clever with engines and there were always problems about petrol, so I discarded the idea” (Cohen & MacKeith, 1991, p. 57). “Imaginary” is usually taken to mean “not real.” But imaginary playmates and imaginary worlds are lived with the full range of sensory experience and memory. The brain appears to make little distinction between something that is vividly imagined from something that is experienced from an outside input to the senses (Damasio, 2003). Therefore, to allow for the “as real as real” quality of experience, a more fitting term is imaginal (Corbin, 1972; Singer, 1975; Watkins, 1990). A study of excellent hypnotic subjects showed that a significant proportion of the population, between 2 and 4%, is quite at home in imaginal scenarios of their own making (Wilson & Barber, 1983; Lynne & Rhue, 1988; Singer, 1975). For the experience to feel completely real, vividness of visualization has to be accompanied by the ability to be completely absorbed in the experience. For example, to enter into a painting, become one with music, become water, sky, or an animal with all the attendant sensations and perceptions is to be totally and realistically merged in the experience (Piechowski, 2006; Tellegen & Atkinson, 1974). Such depth of absorption is more than flow because it takes place in a self-created reality. We are faced with the intriguing question of how imagination constructs reality. Since the internal, self-created reality cannot be distinguished from the properties of external reality, one has to ask, which is the real “real”? (Piechowski, 2006). The discovery of mirror neurons opens new possibilities for exploring the exact nature of imaginal experience as these neurons have links to the motor and sensory systems (Azziz-Zadeh, Wislon, Rizzolatti, & Iacoboni, 2006; Sch¨utz-Bosbach, Mancini, Aglioti & Haggard, 2006; Turk, 2007).
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Emotional Life Emotional overexcitability is about what stimulates the person. It is further differentiated into emotional intensity and sensitivity. Emotional sensitivity represents the ability to perceive and respond to nuances of emotion and feeling in others, in oneself, and in group interactions. It may be so acute that it becomes hypersensitivity. Emotional intensity (passion) is about the amount of energy being expressed. With some people the intensity of their expression is so great that it can be felt like a pressure wave. Intensity of concentration and their passion for a subject or talent, distinguish gifted children; as one of them said: “A passion is something that rules your life. You want to know everything that there is to know and you want to be the best at it. An interest is something that is cool, and you would like to know more, but if you don’t that’s okay too” (Schultz & Delisle, 2006a, p. 90). Emotional life of the gifted encompasses so much that only a few selected themes can be discussed (Table 20.2). In the responses to the OEQ positive feelings predominate. The dominant affect tends to be love, compassion, caring, optimism, appreciation of beauty, and the like. Bonds of deep affection involve parents and siblings, pets and favorite places, whether it is grandma’s house, an orchard, a spot by the river, or backstage of the school theater. The role of contact with nature in our emotional well-being has received very little attention. With the worsening environmental condition of the planet and growing urbanization, the opportunity for children to spend time in nature and explore it has all but vanished (Louv, 2005). Preadolescent younger children have much empathy for the natural world (cf. the case of Kieran in the last part of this chapter). They empathize with a wilting plant, a tree whose limb is cut off, a crushed spider, and rise in indignation against maltreatment of living things. We belittle it by calling it animism because we do not see the moral imagination of the child who identifies with what is living and seems sentient. This feeling is extended to stuffed animals or any objects of which the child is especially fond. Adults do that, too, when they identify with their car or a piece of jewelry (Piechowski, 2006). Friendships are described in terms of intuitive connection and mutual understanding on a deep level.
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Friendships transcend gender stereotypes and are as easily formed between boys and girls as between boys only or girls only. Introverted and non-athletic gifted youngsters have a particularly difficult time finding friends—they are a minority (non-athletic) within a minority (gifted), which can be further compounded by any degree of “geekiness.” Being intense, which to most people means “too much,” also creates an obvious challenge of finding friends of similar level of intensity or passion. Being intense is an ineradicable part of the gifted self. When asked how they see their own self, some said that their self is unknown, elusive, or hidden; others described themselves in opposites. For example: “For every adjective I can think of there is one that contradicts it entirely: artistic but can’t write neatly (so you’ve seen), lovable, yet a bitch; shy but loud, mature but silly, calm but ‘spastic,’ together yet ready for a nervous breakdown” (Piechowski, 2006, p. 174). Struggles with selfdoubt, low self-concept, and lack of self-acceptance are common. In adolescence the self is often changing and awareness of having many selves, or even being split into a thousand fragments, is not unusual. It is part of emotional growing and seeking, which may be intensified in adolescence and adulthood in the process of multilevel development. Because of their awareness of a larger context, gifted adolescents may feel insignificant. But they can also feel predestined for their mission in life, an inner imperative called entelechy (Lovecky, 1990). In such cases the qualities of will and self-determination become prominent and clash with compulsory demands and authoritarian commands. For gifted young people it is often not easy to admit being talented. The expectations of others for gifted children “to fulfill their potential” (as if one could know what that is) create pressure that is an unwelcome burden because already one of the outstanding dominant traits of most gifted young people is a feeling of responsibility. Expectations and pressures from others rob them of their own initiative only to make the responsibility weigh all the more heavily on their shoulders. They are well aware of it. The question, who owns “the gift,” is rarely considered (Clark, 2005). The value of working for the common good is something gifted children understand readily. One teacher of the gifted said this about the difference in teaching gifted and regular students:
443 One thing I have not realized until I returned to the regular classroom was that gifted students’ heightened ability to perceive connections meant that I extensively used their empathy for others to teach broad concepts at a depth I find difficult to even start to address with my current classes. The empathy made the abstract very personal. Most of my current students cannot get beyond their own narrow world, and for some, not even beyond their skins. (Frank, 2006, p. 166)
Gifted children’s quick empathic response to the needs of others, their misfortunes, and tragedies has been well documented (Lewis, 1992; Lovecky, 1992; Piechowski, 2003; Roeper, 2007; Silverman, 1994; Waldman, 2001). The statement quoted above shows the gifted students’ capacity for empathy as a way of knowing. The capacity for empathy as part of gifted children’s intellectual makeup is something that deserves more attention. We have come late upon the knowledge that rational thought is ineffectual without feeling (Damasio, 1994). In fact, social interaction and empathy depend on the activity of the mirror neurons, which create a simulation of the actions and the emotions of others within ourselves. A feelingful response is fast and operates on a precognitive level (Gazzola, Aziz-Zadeh, & Keysers, 2006). Being gifted inevitably leads to conflict. Gifted adolescents described those who brag as insensitive and irresponsible. Clearly, these behaviors offend their empathy, caring, and sense of fairness. A frequently mentioned conflict arises with teachers who do not accept students’ views, their knowledge, and their questions, in short, teachers who do not show respect for their students (Piechowski, 2006; Schultz & Delisle, 2006a, 2006b). Being forced to act against one’s will raises resistance to compulsion, a much overlooked but very basic phenomenon (Seligman, 1975; Piechowski, 2006). Gifted students, and the creative ones especially, react very strongly and viscerally when they are denied choice and respect. Procrastination, refusal to work, as well as learning difficulties are born from this kind of resistance. Also being forced to adhere to a belief one has not chosen. The students then assert, by any means possible, their self, individual identity, right to be heard, respected, and given choice. Anger, insecurity, and self-consciousness were listed as unwelcome negative feelings. Depression was expressed through vivid imagery. Those who have experienced it recognized that there is a real
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danger when one disconnects and is no longer able to ask for help. Yet they endure and persist and in most cases work their way out of the dark pit (cf. the case of Lael later in the chapter). They realize that their depression is precipitated by isolation and lack of contact with those who can understand them. Their need for communion on a deep level is acute (Jackson, 1998). Depression may be precipitated also by the awareness of having much ability and energy but being too young, too “unplaced” to apply them meaningfully and effectively outside academics: able and willing but nowhere to go (Elkind, 1984). They have fears. Holding to a high standard for themselves they fear making a fool of themselves. Those who are introverted and emotionally sensitive tend to lack self-confidence and suffer agonies when having to speak in front of an audience. They fear not doing well, of not being the best (many are those who feel they have to be the best), they fear failing in their responsibilities, not fulfilling their goals. As one boy said, the list of possible failures is pretty frightening. They also think of death, a subject that has received too little attention in gifted literature and in school. As one boy said, “can’t ask questions related to life, only the textbook” (Schultz & Delisle, 2006a, p. 53). Grant (2002, p. 13) observed “the important topics in educating gifted children are self, meaning, sex, relationship, community, life, purpose, ethics, spirituality—the Most Important Things in Life,” subjects that are for the most part avoided. Thinking of death makes some gifted children delve into the meaning of their role in life. Encountering violent death of others—by accident and murder—forces such questions with even greater urgency. Not all are afraid of death. Some expressed curiosity about the process of dying and wished to be able, when the time comes, to be conscious of their own dying and making the transition into the great unknown. Others, however, feared the finality of death and especially of their parents and loved ones more than their own. As for explanation of what happens after death they are divided between those who accept standard explanations offered by religion and those who do not. It is not unusual for gifted children and adolescents to have precognitions, in dreams or wakefulness, of events that are yet to happen. These experiences are just too common to be discounted. They are intuitive—
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knowing something without having the information on which to base it. Precognitions of accidents and death that turn out true are too unsettling to be mentioned in the open. Often a young person has no one to consult with. It is therefore a burden for a child or a young person to have to keep it quiet and have no reassurance about the normality of it (Piechowski, 2006). As was mentioned earlier, gifted adolescents prefer to cope with their problems on their own. In a study of bullying, Peterson and Ray (2006) found that rather than report it and ask for help, gifted students chose to handle it themselves. Sometimes it meant to just grit their teeth, endure, and not complain. This may explain why despite their overexcitabilities, the suicide rate of gifted young people is not higher than their non-gifted counterparts (Cross, 1996; Cross, Cassady & Miller, 2006).
Psychological Types and Types of Emotional Growth C. G. Jung’s concept of psychological type identifies four continuous personality dimensions from extroversion to introversion (E-I), from sensation to intuition (S-N), and from thinking to feeling (T-F). One would expect these dimensions to correspond to the overexcitabilities, for instance, thinking to intellectual or feeling to emotional. However, there is very little correlation between overexcitabilities and these dimensions (low correlation for sensual and imaginational with F, and no correlation for psychomotor, intellectual, and emotional). The reason for it is this: the Jungian dimensions are different constructs from overexcitabilities. The Jungian dimensions refer to preferred and habitual modes of dealing with the data of experience; the overexcitabilities refer to the heightened capacities for both apprehending and generating the data of experience (Lysy & Piechowski, 1983). A further distinction into judging (J) and perceiving (P) was introduced by Meyers and Meyers (1995). There is a significant correlation (.37) between imaginational overexcitability and type P (Lysy & Piechowski, 1983). Among gifted children type P is more frequent than type J, the intuitive more frequent than the sensation type, and the thinking type more frequent than the feeling type; but the gifted consistently are evenly divided between extroverts and introverts (Hawkins, 1998; Cross, Cassady
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& Miller, 2006). The higher the level of giftedness, the frequency of both the N and the P type rises dramatically (Meckstroth, 2006). The highly gifted Rhodes scholars are more than ten to one intuitive, and type P is close to twice as frequent as type J. In the general population of high school students it is just the opposite: the intuitive type is about five times less frequent than the sensation type (Meyers and Meyers, 1995). This is one significant source for the gifted feeling “different,” consequently not fitting in school. The situation is one of opposites rather than a match with other students and with teachers (Cross et al., 2006). The prevalence of the intuitive type is consistent with higher frequency of multilevel developmental potential among the gifted. Meyers and Meyers (1995) describe the “judging” type as oriented toward action by personal executive power of will and choice, while the “perceiving” type as oriented toward embracing experience: “The judging types believe that life should be willed and decided, while the perceptive types regard life as something to be experienced and understood” (p. 69). From analysis of responses rated as emotional overexcitability two types of emotional growth have been identified in gifted adolescents: rational altruistic and introspective (Piechowski, 1989). They correspond exactly to the judging/perceiving distinction. Thus one validates the other as the two typologies were derived independently. The rational-altruistic type so far has not been analyzed into internal components. The introspective type has eight intrapersonal components. Although on the surface people of the J type fit society’s yardstick for defining a “good citizen” they are nevertheless capable of deep inner life (Lysy & Piechowski, 1983; Piechowski, 2006). Schools clearly prefer J type students because they tend toward achievement and tend not to buck the system unless their logical thinking and strong sense of fairness see a violation of basic principles and rights. Another type of gifted persons was described by Elaine Aron as the Highly Sensitive Person (Aron, 1997). Aron’s description of the HSP includes a tendency toward introversion, heightened emotional sensitivity, and a combination of intellectual and imaginational overexcitabilities (Piechowski, 2006). In a word, a complex but distinct profile of a person with a sensitive nervous system that is easily overwhelmed by overstimulation. Hence social discomfort and feeling of being a misfit.
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Research on Overexcitability While early studies relied on an open-ended instrument, the Overexcitability Questionnaire (OEQ), new and larger scale studies have been made possible with the advent of a 50-item inventory, the OEQII (Bouchet & Falk, 2001). Research findings on overexcitability have been reviewed by Mendaglio and Tillier (2006) with the general conclusion that gifted children tend to have higher overexcitability scores than regular children. The difference is particularly strong for creative children and adults. Among consistent findings is the higher emotional score for females than for males and higher psychomotor score for males than for females. The overexcitability profile for artists has received cross-cultural validation in a comparison study of American and Venezuelan artists (Falk, Manzanero, & Miller, 1997). An extensive cross-cultural study of gifted students in Mexico, Spain, Turkey, Taiwan, and the US found a similar overexcitability profile in these six different cultures (Falk, Balderas, Chang, Guzel, & Pardo, 2003). A study of OE profiles in gifted families found how parents describe their children’s OE profiles, the challenges each OE presents, and the strategies these parents use to cope with them (Daniels, 2006). For instance, in one family, in regard to psychomotor overexcitability, the parents saw its positive side in that the children stay physically fit and do not tire even in physically demanding activities, but it is a challenge for them to endure long car rides or family dinners. Also they do not regulate well their own energy and think they can go on when in fact they are tired and need the rest. They need periods of time to be in motion. So one of the strategies is to let them spend lots of time outdoors skating, biking, or playing ball.
Emotional Giftedness That some children are emotionally gifted was first suggested by Annemarie Roeper (1982). Emotionally gifted children have deep empathy and respond to the needs and hurts of others. Such children cannot rest until they have set things right for others. This is especially noteworthy when the other is a stranger or someone disliked, e.g., when a child makes a special effort
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to be friendly to the class bully as did one 10-year-old girl. Intimidating others, she explained, was his way of covering his own insecurity. To be emotionally gifted is to dare to act on one’s awareness. If there are hungry people one feeds them and makes sure they will not go hungry from now on. If one sees someone in distress, one offers relief. Unfairness and injustice call for defending people’s rights. There are many preteens and early teens who take up social action on behalf of others, actions that become large-scale operations extending over many states, or even many nations. For example, raising thousands of dollars for deaf and blind children, victims of abuse, sending over 100,000 books to African children, providing suitcases for children going into foster homes, providing kid packs for children victims of domestic violence whose parents are in jail are only a few of the ingenious, effective organizational efforts that are motivated by compassion in these very young people (Lewis, 1992; Piechowski, 2003; Silverman, 1994; Waldman, 2001). Emotional giftedness represents the high end of emotional intelligence. Mayer, Perkins, Caruso, and Salovey (2001) devised ways of measuring components of emotional intelligence. In one of their tests they asked teenagers how they handled emotionally difficult situations: “Think about last time you were out with some friends and they wanted to do something you were uncomfortable with.” Mayer et al. hypothesized that emotionally gifted adolescents will resist going along with unsavory intentions of their friends. The results confirmed the hypothesis. Consequently the concept of emotional giftedness was validated (see also Bar-On, this volume). Opportunities for research on the biological basis of emotional giftedness come from the study of mirror neurons. These neurons, which make possible empathy and understanding the moods and intentions of others, are more strongly activated in people who score higher on an empathy scale (Gazzola, Aziz-Zadeh, & Keysers, 2006). At the same time the mirror neurons appear to be defective in autistic individuals (Turk, 2007). Mayer et al. also realized that in response to their test situation taking a stand in opposition to peer pressure was what Dabrowski named positive maladjustment. It means not compromising one’s ideals and having the fortitude to stand alone (Dabrowski, 1970). When empathy and sense of justice inspire action to
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help and protect others then emotional giftedness and positive maladjustment overlap (Piechowski, 2006). Resisting peer pressure for drugs, sex, and subversive acts are examples of positive maladjustment in which emotional giftedness plays a lesser role. Emotional giftedness at a higher level of development is represented by Eleanor Roosevelt, Etty Hillesum, Peace Pilgrim, Paul Robeson, Bishop Tutu, all profoundly spiritual persons, and can be also found among case studies of self-actualizing people and gifted teachers (Brennan & Piechowski, 1991; Mr´oz, 2002; Payne, 1987; Piechowski, 1992; Frank, 2006). The first piece of research exploring the application of Dabrowski’s theory to the personality of a teacher of the gifted is Frank’s (2006) study of an inspirational teacher. The criteria of multilevelness applied by Frank revealed an authentic individual, thoughtfully and deliberately engaged in a teaching grounded in the moral foundation of his advanced level of development. The effectiveness of this teacher lay in his Socratic method as an empathic and moral education that can be called teaching for life in the truest sense.
Spiritual Giftedness From emotional giftedness it takes only one further step to spiritual giftedness (Piechowski, 2001, 2003, 2006). There has been some debate whether or not a case can be made for spiritual intelligence (Emmons, 2000; Gardner, 2000). The argument advanced by Emmons is that what motivates people often has its source in genuinely spiritual concerns. But if one could recognize spiritual giftedness then the case for spiritual intelligence would have been made. What defines spiritual giftedness is a predisposition toward deep states of consciousness and the facility for entering such states, in short an ease for transpersonal experience (Piechowski, 2006). Among people who take up meditation and various kinds of spiritual discipline many struggle to reach some modicum of calm and inner peace, while some reach it rather quickly and easily. No doubt the capacity for becoming absorbed in an experience when combined with the ability to focus one’s mind, relax, let go of pressing concerns and distracting thoughts, predisposes a person for meditation and thereby for developing a deeply spiritual life. One telling example came from
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a nun who said that her spiritual inclination dated from childhood. Contact with God was for her deeply emotional: “Sometimes I felt his presence and I remember that I did not need to be saying verbal prayers, they even tired me. . . . I was immediately in his presence. . . . So it was a gift, given freely, of ease of making contact” (Mr´oz, 2002; Piechowski, 2006, pp. 247–48). It is now known that facility for this kind of experience involves the ability to suppress the activity of an area in the left parietal lobe. That area is involved in self/other dichotomy and depends on input from the senses (Newberg & Newberg, 2006). In deep meditative states the input from the senses is diminished or even completely blocked so no sounds or other sensations reach the meditator. William James’s (1902) study of the varieties of religious experience was par excellence a study of spiritually gifted people. However, the exploration of the spiritual life of gifted children has barely begun (Lovecky, 1998; Piechowski, 2006). When conducting guided imagery exercises with gifted undergraduates and high school students it was found that scenarios designed for personal growth can, on occasion, evoke a genuine spiritual experience. For example, in an exercise called the Rose, one is guided to watch a rosebud slowly open, then the flower, and finally to look inside: “The rose was of magnificent beauty; it was red with violet tips. The rose then begun to open up more and I was able to smell a potent and refreshing scent. Then as the rose opened even more I was able to see and feel a mystical vibrant ball with an aura of its own. When I saw this ball I felt a feeling in my lower chest of glee and inner peace” (Piechowski, 2006, p. 253). Research on the spiritual life of children was initiated in England by Robinson (1977), and in the United States by Hoffman (1992) and Hart (2003). Children’s spirituality is now a research field in its own right. An International Journal of Children’s Spirituality was launched in 1995 and a comprehensive Handbook of Spiritual Development in Children and Adolescents came out in 2006 (Roehlkepartain, King, Wagener, & Benson, 2006).
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vate it. One way is to lead psychosynthesis exercises, or any other guided imagery designed with similar focus. Psychosynthesis techniques are designed for personal and spiritual growth (Ferrucci, 1982). One of us (M.M.P.) led these exercises for a number of years, first with undergraduate students, later with gifted children aged 10–17 years. Gifted children, with very few exceptions, have great capacity for detailed visualization and absorption in the imaginal experience. How this is done is described in detail elsewhere (Piechowski, 2006, Chapter 20). These techniques have also been adapted for elementary age children (Fugitt, 2001; Murdock, 1988). Another way of attending to emotional life is through group process devoted to emotionally charged issues. In a safe space, where no judgment or criticism is allowed to interfere with the process, teens discuss feelings, family, relationships, and the future (Peterson, 1995).
Multilevel Development
Since the emphasis of the theory is on multilevel development, it offers the means of identifying persons at advanced levels of development. The theory contributes constructs of transpersonal development that go beyond Kohlberg’s and Loevinger’s developmental schemes (Piechowski, 2003). Support for the theory was found not only in cross-cultural validation of overexcitability profiles but also through three empirical tests (Piechowski, 1975), a positive correlation (0.44) between the Jungian intuitive type (N) and the developmental level and that all five overexcitabilities correlated with developmental level: psychomotor 0.26, sensual 0.31, intellectual 0.57, imaginational 0.38, and emotional 0.59 (Lysy & Piechowski, 1983). Furthermore, on detailed scrutiny the construct of Level IV corresponds exactly to Maslow’s description of self-actualizing people (Piechowski, 1978). When two independent sets of observations and constructs converge, we can be confident that a real phenomenon has been identified. Fostering Emotional Growth For the understanding of emotional growth of gifted children, the distinction between a unilevel Examining emotional life leads to the question as to and a multilevel process of development is the most how can we give it proper attention and help culti- relevant. In unilevel process values are relative rather
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than universal, inner conflicts are recycled rather than resolved, relationships with others do not have a steady footing. Trying every new trend, following fads, being guided primarily by others’ opinions is an individual without a center. The shifting nature of the person’s identity depends on the circumstances and the people present. Such is often the self of an adolescent. When the process intensifies it becomes unilevel disintegration. A change comes when this state of affairs begins to tire with its meaningless emotional treading water and growing malaise. The search for a way out starts with the realization of the possibility of a more meaningful focus in life. A sense of higher and lower in oneself opens new horizons. Sensing the possibility of something higher in oneself engenders the feeling of inferiority, not to others but toward oneself. It is an inferiority before one’s unrealized better self. Soon this feeling of inferiority toward oneself is followed by an array of inner currents and rifts with descriptive names like disquietude with oneself, dissatisfaction with oneself, positive maladjustment, and so on. What they all have in common is the vertical axis of self-evaluation, that judges the distance from the higher in oneself, which attracts, and grows a stronger reaction against the lower in oneself, which repels. When in a young person we recognize an inner dialogue, self-judgment, distress over a moral conflict we have in front of us a multilevel process. The introspective emotional growth mentioned earlier, has eight components, which help recognize the specifics of the multilevel emotional development in adolescents. They are (1) awareness of growing and changing, (2) awareness of feelings, interest in others and empathy toward them, (3) occasional feelings of unreality, (4) inner dialogue, (5) self-examination, (6) self-judgment, (7) searching, problem-finding, asking existential questions, and (8) awareness of one’s real self (Piechowski, 1989; 2006). Looking back at Table 20.1, it becomes clear that the values in such a process can be both individual and universal, that the feelings toward oneself can be rife with inner conflict or they can be showing an emergent self-direction, and that feelings toward others will be sincerely democratic and displaying awareness of interdependence. In cases of intense inner conflict, suffering, inner seeking, and depression, the process becomes multilevel disintegration as illustrated in the cases of Lael and Kieran later in the chapter.
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Counseling and Psychotherapy for the Gifted Effective counseling for the gifted requires a therapeutic orientation that strives to help a client integrate all aspects of his being. This inclusive conceptualization gives influential roles to the intelligence and emotional complexity of the client—but not only those aspects. Perhaps more importantly, the wise therapist helps her client evolve and develop, and this requires adopting a multilevel perspective. The development of the personality—taking into account not only the natural endowment of the individual and his social milieu but also a will and motivation to transcend both nature and nurture—is the task of utmost importance for a client of high developmental potential. A personal process of manifesting authenticity and autonomy in his unique human life defines the growth trajectory for many gifted persons. Multilevel development is uncommon: accelerated, idiosyncratic, and often emphatic. It involves effort on the part of the individual; it is neither automatic nor inevitable. This virtual birthing process of the personality, innervating every aspect of one’s being, is felt as a compelling drive within the core of an individual with high developmental potential. A mental health professional should have sufficient awareness and understanding of, and appreciation for, the phenomenological experience of a gifted person. The lived experience of a child imbued with high developmental potential is organic, vibrant, and full of tension and overexcitability. Children who are attuned to and interested in various forms of reality, who are penetratingly aware and sensitive, present many different and rich psychological characteristics. Deep interests, deep probing intelligence, and deep emotional involvement in many and various issues, events, and imaginings, characterize such children. Great effort and deep perception is needed on the part of a professional to appreciate, understand, and respond to their core developmental needs and their unique person. The inner life of these potentiated children is filled with indeterminate fullness and burgeoning activity. Inherent in all of their experiencing is a strong sense of purpose and intention, or entelechy (Lovecky, 1993, 1998). This deeply ingrained intention is sometimes consciously known and at other times apparent in their action and movement in the world. The developmental template that is
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their birthright is both a rich resource and a call to become who they most deeply are. It is a truly heroic quest the gifted child undertakes as he strives toward full-spectrum living. He may experience annoyances and deep frustration, awe, inexorable perceptions and insights, complex original fantasy images, deep connections to others and ideals—and, for him, these are normal occurrences needing acknowledgment and healthy expression. There is an enlivening, animating quality to these experiences for the child, as he has the awareness that they carry the possibility of being transformative and creative. An often absolute and compelling character infuses this core generative quality—the gifted child can appear undeterred and, to the outside world, seemingly incomprehensible. Overall, this lived experience is—for many—an undeniable call toward self-realization and transcendence. Because of this palpable generative quality, a meaningful psychotherapeutic stance requires incorporating a notion of creativity as an essential factor in healthy development and therapy. Dabrowski (1964, 1970, 1972) asserted that the “creative instinct” was a fundamental determinant for advanced development. What did he mean by this? The idea of a creative “instinct” at work in human development might not be a concept strictly supportable by modern scientific research that focuses on behaviors and environments, but the notion of an inner drivenness toward new realization and improvement, a capacity for conceiving and creating novelty—whether inborn or teachable—seems to be an undeniable quality of many gifted individuals. Furthermore, the tacit infrastructure of existing knowledge—perhaps in any field—will be insufficient for conceptualizing the truly gifted mind and psyche. What does this mean for the counselor approaching work with such a client? Frequently, it means bringing creativity into the therapeutic relationship in challenging ways for a therapist. This includes accepting the often profound idiosyncratic nature of a client’s symbolism, language, behavior, and/or thought processes—to name a few—and refraining from therapeutic judgment in response. Such unique modes of expression and the potential for multidimensional experiencing in gifted persons spring from their inborn extraordinary intellects, the presence of super-ordinate talents, and the existence of will or “autonomous factors” (Dabrowski, 1964).
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Counselors must honor and be aware that this rich capacity is served by an animated and imbued way of knowing. Children with high developmental potential apprehend and experience their world through an enlivened sensual knowing; through image, symbol, and metaphor; and through emotionally nuanced and subtle compelling perceptions. Furthermore, this discernment is both a cognitive-intellectual and an intuitive awareness. Strong kinesthetic dimensions flavor the process as well. Such children can be physically stimulated by these uncommon capacities. Muscles, tendons, and joints may be affected by this perceptiveness, and bodily movements and tensions may actually stimulate the knowing itself. The characteristic of an effective therapist to suspend a tendency to diagnose mental illness or pathologize symptoms is crucial. This does not mean, however, that a therapist can ignore traditional knowledge of mental health issues, nor that she does not need a thorough grounding in a reputable counseling or psychology program. However, a mental health professional needs to keep a consistent consciousness on the possibility that supposed symptoms of mental illness might be mechanisms of growth for the gifted individual.
Insufficiency of Existing Psychotherapeutic Paradigms Most psychotherapeutic paradigms currently in vogue in the United States are not, in and of themselves, effective for helping a gifted client—especially the highly gifted in stages of advanced development. Commonly used orientations are rarely complex enough, and often pit the client’s mental aspects against each other, exacerbating inner polarization rather than relieving it. For instance, therapies of choice in many US training programs and established agency venues emphasize cognitive, cognitive-behavioral, solutionfocused, brief therapy, and group therapy techniques. Emphasis is on short-term relationships with the client, discrete problem-solving techniques, simple symptom-reduction behaviors, and/or optimization of interpersonal functioning. While these are valid and acceptable goals, such single points-of-focus therapeutic work is unsatisfactory for a gifted client. While perhaps helpful for the average therapist or typical patient, such gross simplification—more often
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than not—fails the gifted client. Dabrowski repeatedly asserted that the full spectrum of human behavior, especially for advanced development, could not be explained by cognitive or behavioral approaches (1964, 1970, 1972).
Emotional and Social Implications of Dabrowski’s Theory As already discussed, a gifted individual can be particularly sensitive to external stimuli, and he can have extraordinary processing capacities for cognition, emotional intensity and depth, and profound imaginal qualities. These potentials for unique internal experience, while capable of creating exquisite feelings and peak experiences, can cause difficulty for the person as well. Many gifted are acutely aware of the dangers and pitfalls of trying to communicate these intensities (more often than not unshared) with others. Incongruency of the private inner experience versus the external expression of it, which usually must be severely modulated if not curtailed, is often painful for the gifted client. This lack of flow between the inner and the outer worlds can be exacerbated by feelings of loneliness and doubts about one’s own sanity, in the absence of a satisfactory mirroring with another. Mirroring the client, unconditional positive regard, accurate understanding, and empathy take on new meaning with a client of great emotional, imaginational, and intellectual complexity, intensity, and depth.
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Most psychotherapies involve helping a client to adapt to existing norms because it is assumed that his quality of life (or the quality of life of others in the environment) is adversely affected by an inability or refusal to comply with social expectations. Orienting therapy with a consideration toward multilevel development is implied for the discerning therapist who works with gifted individuals capable of developing beyond commonly accepted cultural parameters or who disagrees with the prevailing moral valuation of his social milieu.
Counseling Using an Integral Approach
Supporting the developmental potential of a gifted child—while not removing the struggle for existence and expression—involves having a profound awareness of subtle cues, conveyed on a multitude of levels. Dabrowski asserted that emotional sensitivity was a key indicator of developmental potential, and he agreed with Dewey that emotions form the basis of ethical and moral valuation, so this characteristic is important to acknowledge in therapeutic planning. Because his intellect is constantly tempered with his emotional complexity, an emotionally charged individual, even with great intelligence, appears less likely to consider himself gifted. The opportunity to experience activation of self-growth through relationship is often problematic for the gifted (Jackson, 1998; Gross, 1993, 1998; Lovecky, 1993, 1998). Many have virtually no human context in which to develop naturally or environments in which to interface, since finding true peers is rare. Being a catalyst of Emotional Sensitivity and Moral development is a role of great responsibility that a Valuation therapist for the gifted must embrace consciously and with wisdom and integrity. Dabrowski was convinced that an adequate theory of Authentic development, for Dabrowski, meant gohuman mental development was not possible without ing beyond genetic endowment and environmental conan incorporation of ethical valuation and an acknowl- straints, and required an individual “making commitedgement of the complexity of the affective side of ment to his own particular developmental inner truth” mental life. “All that is truly human expresses a hierar- and harmonizing this personal vision with the needs chy of values,” he wrote in his unpublished manuscript and values, or “developmental inner truths” of others Authentic Education (Dabrowski, n.d.). He was (Dabrowski, n.d.). To this end, the child must be reared greatly influenced by John Dewey, who emphasized and educated in an environment of mutual compasthe role of intelligence and the capacity for careful sion, understanding, and positive adjustment—not simdiscrimination in making moral decisions (Moyle, ply adjustment to the changing material conditions of 2005). life.
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Implicit in the work of mental health professionals should be an emphatic concern for developing ‘giftedness’—not for the purpose of celebrating talent or potential eminence—but instead for helping the manifestation of the child’s talents in the service of his integrated development.
451 The operation of the dynamisms of multilevel disintegration transforms the intellectual function by liberating it from its subservient role to primitive drives, by increasing its objectivism, widening its horizons, increasing the power of imagination, replacing fallacious and rigid patterns by creative forms. . . and working towards an equilibrium of analytic and synthetic processes of thought and an intimate conjunction of thinking with higher emotions and personality. (Dabrowski, 1970, p. 136)
As indicated earlier, his position finds support in the fact that when the frontal lobe connection between emotion and reason is severed, reasoning remains intact but loses the capacity to choose between alternaDabrowski was clear that development is non- tives (since it no longer knows their different values, ontogenetic. His is not an age-based stage theory, and which are decided by feeling) and thus is hopelessly thus can be applied to individuals without regard to ineffectual (Damasio, 1994). previous stages or chronological age. Because gifted children often exhibit behaviors and understanding more typical to their elders than their peers, his theory helps to guide gifted education and counseling where Supporting the Developmental Inner other paradigms fall short. Truth of the Child with High An essential piece of the complex makeup of high DP individuals is their complex moral system. Developmental Potential The existence of such systems has been verified consistently in the first and second authors’ clinical Two case studies, a gifted child and an adolescent with practices, and has been mentioned by others, including elevated developmental potential, will illustrate this apGross (1993, 1998) and Lovecky (1993, 1998). The proach. Emphasis is placed on the need for a differenvalue systems clearly exhibit a hierarchy and include tiated understanding of the ways these children know, uncommon valuing, subtle and careful discernment, think, feel, imagine, express, and experience—given and a dynamic equilibrium—which filters through their complex and idiosyncratic makeup. Understandand infuses all aspects of perception, motivation, and ing of the child’s uniqueness and developmental potenjudging. However, when confronted with unsupportive tial from a positive point of view is essential for healthy environments, those children who express emotional, socialization. Education of these children must include intellectual, and imaginational overexcitabilities (OE) creative adaptation of standard methods of teaching can present with overly heightened and misunderstood and behavior. Counseling interventions must be inreactions, sometimes even psychoneuroses. An under- formed by an understanding and appreciation of their standing of the child’s uniqueness and developmental penetrating capacity for apprehension, their dynamic potential from a positive point of view is key for moment-to-moment experiencing, and their complex healthy socialization. Persons of high DP should be moral frameworks. Children must be encouraged to develop and realize encouraged in the therapeutic relationship to develop, realize, and take responsibility for their uniquely their uniquely crafted hierarchy of values. Adjustment crafted hierarchy of values. In this sense, concepts is directed by the child’s own potentials, values, and of adjustment are directed by the individual’s own aims. As mentioned previously, Dabrowski’s view on edpotentials, values, and aims. Dabrowski’s theory helps to see the gifted experi- ucation of those with high developmental potential inence in the new light of a potential for multilevel de- cludes an injunction for educators to orient their acvelopment. That emotional life leads development and tivities toward the “developmental inner truth” of the the intellect plays a subordinate role in advanced de- child. The multidimensionality of this developmenvelopment, Dabrowski stated in a form of a hypothesis tal inner truth is described in Dabrowski’s Authentic Education: to be tested empirically:
Dabrowski’s Theory Is Non-ontogenetic and Value Based
452 All that is truly human expresses a hierarchy of values— a clear indication that the teacher recognizes, in himself, and others, better and worse ways of educating, and that he consciously chooses the “better” . . . It is aimed at educating children in an environment of mutual compassion, understanding, and positive adjustment— adjustment not just to the changing material conditions of life, but commitment to individual positive developmental changes. “Authentic” for the child, then, is his commitment to his own particular “developmental inner truth” . . . harmonized with the needs and values, the “developmental inner truths” of others. (Dabrowski, n.d.)
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5. To learn to identify with and be sustained by in a core Self that directs and is responsive even in times of rapid change and growth. 6. To become aware of and trust developmental dynamisms: modalities and manner of development are idiosyncratic. 7. To trust, activate, and support creative impulses, drive, and insights.
The gifted child with high developmental potential is a profound meaning-maker: in the immediate physEach person is multidimensional, his psychic ical reality, in the realm of ideas, in relationships, and being functions in n-space or n-dimensions, and most in existence/being. The gifted child identifies patterns and inheres order in the phenomena he encounters. importantly He has innate drive for coherence in the disparate eleach individual has his own “unique n-dimensional inner ements of his experience and relation. For some gifted space.” It is this inner space that belongs to you and you children this understanding and coherence is experialone and the growth and development of this inner space enced most strongly through emotional channels—for is what personal freedom is all about and what education should be all about. (Yeudall, n.d.) some, the conduits may be intellectual, aesthetic, or kinesthetic. The degree and interactive effect of these channels varies from child to child. Table 20.3 outlines the broad categories of focus for developmental and Social and Emotional Development therapeutic work with these individuals. Included are from a Multilevel Multiple themes of developing awareness, and developing caPerspective pacities for personal agency and communion. The most important point is that there exists a How do we help our gifted children grow and crucial need to help gifted children understand that develop—through the inevitable dissolutions and these fundamental drives—while uncommon—are self-transcendence inherent in growth—in ways that normative for them. A guiding adult must help to do not involve unnecessary suffering, benign neglect, provide the right amount of complex stimulus and or an unhealthy hyper vigilance? We need to help our restorative periods for these children. Acceptance of gifted children: the child’s innate capacities for self-awareness and self-regulation is key! 1. To begin to develop an ongoing awareness of Self: emotions, cognitions, imaginative play, kinesthetic dimensions, sense of right and wrong, instincts and intuitions, and apprehension through intuition and Mental Health from a Multidimensional through an elevated sensorium. View of Personality Development: 2. To develop an awareness of the vastness of the The Case of Lael, an Exceptionally Gifted emotional landscape: identify multiple modes and kinds of feelings in self and others and expand 17-Year-Old their capacity to understand and express emotional The following case study is written by the first auknowing. 3. To be able to relate to others and establish hu- thor, a clinical counselor specializing in advanced man connections across many levels and lines of development of gifted individuals. The “initial impression” portion of this case study is written in expression. 4. To develop capacities to acknowledge, express and first-person narrative to give the reader an in situ perreciprocate with others in variant circumstances and spective of the subtle interplay between counselor and client. levels of energy interchange.
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Table 20.3 Components of focus for gifted social and emotional development: a multilevel perspective VALIDATE AND DEVELOP CAPACITIES FOR AWARENESS
VALIDATE AND DEVELOP CAPACITIES FOR AGENCY
DEVELOP CAPACITIES FOR COMMUNION
FOCUS
COMPONENTS OF FOCUS
Awareness of Self
Own self’s emotions, cognitions, To begin to understand and know that to be conscious of one’s imaginative imagery, own natural inclinations, values-sense of right and wrong, instincts, and inborn proclivities spontaneous ‘instincts’, is necessary in order to develop apprehensions-from intution, unconscious, and elevated sensorium
PURPOSE OF WORK
Awareness of Others
To begin to understand and know Others’ emotions, congitions, that others have comparable imaginative imagery, senses of self-both similar and values-sense of right and wrong, different, but nevertheless valid; spontaneous ’instincts’, to also begin to understand that apprehensions-from intuition, the collective environment unconscious, and possibly influences and shapes awareness elevated sensorium. Also, and development awareness of collective and cultural expectations, tacit infrastructure, etc.
Awareness of Emotions
Multiple modes and varieties of feeling in both self and others
To expand capacity to identify and understand one’s own and other’s emotional states; to develop capacity to accurately and appropriately express emotions
Awareness of Connections
Interconnectedness and interdependence of self and others
To begin to understand perspectives, subject-object in self and others, spheres of influence and boundaries of ego
Inner Experience
Qualities of motivation, resiliency, To begin to identity with and be inspiration, self as an enduring sustained by one core self; to pattern begin to modulate inner reality; to trust developmental instincts
Outer Expression
Sense of purpose, accurate and effective communication of ideas and knowledge, talent expression, creativity
To begin to develop capacities to be proactive, to fulfill creative calling; to activate and support creative impulses, drives, and insights; to effectively realize and produce creative ideas, to manifest unique and unrepeatable personality; to make a difference in the world
Integration of Both
Coherency, flow, congruency between inner & outer realities, self-regulation, equilibrium
To maintain sense of wholeness and effective expression in the face of environmental pressure
Marking Connections Between Self and World
To be able to relate to others and Effective and accurate establish human connections communication; capacity for across many levels and lines of participation, friendship, expressions; to effectively adapt bonding, intimacy; constructing to or accommodate others; to and maintaining relationship; acknowledge and reciprocate exchange with environment, with others; to develop including: sentient beings and capacities to react or non-sentient objects, spiritual synergistically co-create ideations; trusting developmental instincts
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Initial Impression and First Meeting. First Person Narrative She is remarkably beautiful with a presence and energy that pulsates in the room. Her countenance is mesmerizing in its stillness; there is a penetration of mind and spirit radiating from the stillness of her gaze and subtle movements. I find myself exceptionally attentive to the palpable subtleness of her being. I attempt to remove all expectations from my conscious mind and breathe deeply. Internally, I am disturbed by the apparent fragility she attempts to guard from me. I know, intuitively, that my deepest contemplative bearing is necessary to begin understanding and supporting this deeply troubled young woman. Her hair is platinum in color; shaved to pink scalp on one side balanced by a long-arced fringe. She shyly submits that she designed and sewed her outfit, which is a fusion of lines and cultural influences. Her gaze is concentrated and her conversational style punctuated by long silences with passionate outbursts and subtle riffs into related topics. Teachers report her to be “globally gifted”: excelling in the sciences, the humanities (particularly philosophy), and in visual art. Her artwork is groundbreaking, evocative, technically excellent, and sometimes shocking. She is the top student of the 11th grade class in a magnet school for exceptionally bright learners. The art specialist at the school is extremely concerned; Lael has been creatively unproductive for 3 months and is increasingly non-responsive. She is described as deeply introverted, reflective, and individualistic. She enjoys creative design, the fields of spirituality and philosophy, and long walks alone; she has several close friends, although she is detached from the general population. She loves music of all kinds. Lael has an exceptionally strong relationship with her father, who is seriously ill and unemployed. In conversation she reports intense internal strife, inexpressible longings, and dissatisfaction. She hints at immoderate emotional distress and alarming irrepressible moods. She is gentle, probing, and reflective. She asks if I will return.
Background In her grade 11 year Lael is referred for specialized assessment and counseling by her school-based team.
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Mental health support for Lael at the time included a psychiatrist, suicide prevention team, counselors at the school, and the gifted specialist. They reported extreme concern about her well-being; she was nonresponsive to their detailed care plan and daily ministrations. She had been diagnosed with major depression; antidepressant medications had been prescribed. Throughout her life Lael’s capacity and passion for visual art provided her with a discerning and redolent creative outlet. She supplemented her multimodal art expression with creative writing in all genres: poetry, journaling, myth making, and story. Lael had multiple ways of expressing herself and strong innate autonomous forces compelling this expression. Her home environment— while fraught with difficulty of underemployment and poverty—encouraged autonomous expression, introspection, and authenticity. Lael was exposed to classical music, philosophical texts, spiritual practice, and rich discussions. Despite daily practical challenges and frequent moves, Lael’s parents made every attempt to provide optimal experiences for her within the context of balance in the family and awareness of the needs of their other two children. Lael’s parents acknowledged and understood—at least in part—her complex developmental needs and unique ways. Although far from perfect, there was unconditional love, respect, and affirmation within the family dynamic. This dynamic thoroughly changed when Lael’s father became critically ill, in November of her grade 11 year. Lael’s brilliant and vibrant father clung to life by a small margin, no longer able to work and completely unable to communicate. Lael’s mother became wholly immobilized by the circumstances. Lael felt powerless to help her father or support her mother, intimidated by the medical system and entirely lacking in resources to sustain herself and her family. Her drawings (see Fig. 20.1) from that time included an unforgettable image of non-sustainability and persecution. These extreme external challenges were the catalysts for a complete breakdown in functioning for Lael. She withdrew from the world around her and found herself increasingly impotent in terms of thinking and creative capabilities. Her sleeping patterns were particularly disturbed and her desire for food diminished. A most frightening symptom for Lael was a radical narrowing of perception and incapacity for abstract
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Fig. 20.1
thought. Her expressive faculties became knotted in a progressively more sinister emotional subtext. While at first diminished in discernment and capacity, Lael was soon freighted with destructive impulses, negative thought patterns and a desire for self-harm. Suicidal thoughts emerged; the desire to cut into her own flesh became an ominous and compelling impulse (see Fig. 20.2). Over time her emotional experiencing became trapped in extreme shame and vulnerability. Lael described this state as: “complete darkness, despair, completely overwhelming... I couldn’t see out, I couldn’t make sense, there was no light.” In an extended essay written after she emerged from the major depressive state Lael described her experience with despair as being on “the underside of infinity”: It was characterized by emptiness, the diligent feeling of being so alone, and everything in the outer environment just affirmed this belief. It was a pit, and I tried very hard to fill that pit by pushing as much sadness and pain down into it, only to see it was bottomless. I could feel it was so. When I manipulated myself into a corner I’d engulf myself, I’d swallow down, and in a gasp of raw tears I’d look and see the ground open beneath me. I’d invert myself and be pushed under, reaching for a bottom I never found. It was the underside. It was the wrong side of infinite. It lasted a long time.
Differential Diagnoses According to the Theory of Positive Disintegration From a standardized mental health perspective Lael suffered from major depression. Symptoms of depression are described clinically as a profound mood of sadness or emptiness, an overriding sense of inadequacy, feelings of despondency, a decrease in activity and reactivity, and an emotional state marked by worthlessness, pessimism, and despair. Thinking capacity is often impaired with evidence of retardation of thought process, a sense of mental fuzziness, and lack of cohesion in thought patterns. The depressed person may become very lethargic or extremely agitated. Other physical signs include a poor appetite and weight loss or, in some cases, increased appetite and weight gain. Other characteristics of major depression include negative self-concept and self-blame and pervasive feelings of worthlessness and guilt. A seriously depressed person may have difficulty in concentrating and may show evidence of slowed thinking and indecisiveness. Those afflicted with major depression may report recurring thoughts and images of death and suicide (Jackson & Peterson, 2003).
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low mental tension, alternated with periods of high emotional tension. Clearly, in Lael’s case, external circumstance catalyzed this psychoneurotic depressive state. Lael’s inner dialogue, occasional feelings of unreality, and piercing self-examination were earmarks of a positive disintegrative experience. Dabrowski believed that when depression is a function of developmental potential it allows for the development of self-evaluation and profound awareness of the value of others. He believed that behind the facade of depression there may be hidden a developmentally necessary psychological withdraw serving the function of self-criticism, self-analysis, self-control, a justified dissatisfaction with oneself and feelings of inferiority with respect to one’s possibilities. If these processes can be found in depression they indicate a potential for positive growth. (Dabrowski, 1972, p. 255)
Fig. 20.2
Considered from a multilevel perspective of the Theory of Positive Disintegration, Lael’s situation— while grave—had many positive developmental signifiers. In Dabrowskian terms Lael experienced a positive disintegration that appeared to be both multilevel and global. Dabrowski describes multilevel transformation as that process wherein new and qualitatively different insights and qualities emerge—such that the person is capable of overcoming hereditary and social determination in a movement toward a self-controlled, creative, empathetic, and authentic being. Lael’s experience was global in that it involved all facets of her functioning. Due to strong internal conflicts and a difficult external environment, all aspects of Lael’s being were loosened and fragmented. This occurred through a decrease in psychical functioning and an extreme tendency for self-analysis, self-criticism, and feelings of inferiority and guilt (Dabrowski, 1972, p. 47). Extreme psychological tension, withdrawal, isolation, fear of activity, and
Lael presents with extraordinarily high developmental potential. Her history reveals that even as a young child she actively engaged all aspects of Self: a complex and probing intelligence, resonant imagination, nuanced emotional awareness, and suffused sensual experiencing. The awareness of higher and lower—the earmark of multilevelness—existed in Lael from earliest times. The realizations of transcendent values, of the interdependence of all creation, and of her own “real self” were inner templates in Lael—seeking emergence and coherence in the world around her. De Quincey (2002) describes this emergent human capacity: “Our living organism is a system tingling with purpose and evolved expectations: a system designed for self-preservation, for reproduction, and ultimately for self-transcendence.” Powerful forces of intuition, intellectual capacity, and imaginational acuity fed Lael’s intense self-awareness; these activated higher-level sensing perceptions. Lael’s inner world—an amalgam of emotional, imaginational and intellectual experiencing—was rarely reflected in the world around her, particularly in educational and social milieus. She reported extreme loneliness, estrangement, and feelings of unreality in her school settings. While she excelled in all school subjects and continued to perform at extraordinarily high levels, she was increasingly emotionally laden and at odds with the social and academic dynamic. Most painful for Lael were her experiences in gifted programming where she found no outlet for the totality of her understandings and apprehensions. Lael
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intuitively sought intellectual experiences that would serve her drive toward higher level experiencing and morality and the development of her personality. Lael was offered, instead, higher-level thinking opportunities, complex knowledge acquisition, and creative outlets independent of the very core of her being: her innervated emotional, intuitional, and instinctive elements. Dabrowski wrote that multidimensional development must be fully rounded and
her artwork in its myriad forms, and her writing and journaling illuminated and brought to her conscious mind the awareness that aspects of her being needed consideration and care. In a lengthy composition, linking will to intention and purpose Lael talked about how she has learned to pay attention to all aspects of her developing being and how she had learned to deeply trust the developmental process (cf. Table 20.3):
not restricted to the perfection of one or some capacities and skills but instead includes a transformation and refinement of all basic aspects of mental life including innate drive, emotions, intellect, volition, imagination, moral, social aesthetic and spiritual components. (Dabrowski, n.d., italics added)
I just made a fabulous connection to a very old dream. It’s quite perfect, because in that dream, hear the words that came to me, “for on his unsafe skin there was a tar with the safety of gasoline, and in him they will wreak of fear for his smell of potential burning.” I think it is amazing that it should make the most wonderful sense at this moment. This is how I (not one, this isn’t a silly English paper, it is I, as I Am) know that all things are working in purpose that is reality, and existence, and awareness, which is then all the outcome as well. That I should have a dream of two years ago, which I always kept so close with me, knowing it was important, suddenly turn into something new and different, though I knew it all along.
On the Development of the Personality Through Multilevel Disintegration According to Dabrowski, the development of personality—the highest level of human development—occurs through the disruption of the existing, originally integrated organization of a person’s being. This disintegration destroys the existent psychic unity of the individual. The cohesion—which has provided meaning and purpose—dislodges, and the individual is propelled toward a different unity, a higher level of reality. This birthing process of the personality involves effort and the innervation of every aspect of one’s being; this is what the deepest forces of self-expression compel. Lael is emphatic that her disintegrative experience was essential for her overall development. She alludes to her knowledge of a higher state of knowing—what Dabrowski termed the Personality Ideal: My “less than optimal” emotional state I have come to regard as an essential piece of my development. In its absence I cannot be certain what qualities I would have instead acquired, or what knowledge I would have failed to learn. I consider it to have happened for a specific reason, enmeshed in a much larger plan that I have now begun to understand.
Even during the most disturbing of times Lael’s creative capacity informed her and affirmed the developmental nature of her disturbing disintegrative experience. Her creativity was a critical determinant in her capacity to reintegrate and work through the intense depressive experience. Her night-time dreams,
Her drawing of “great turbines” and the accompanying text illustrates this deeper knowing that flowed from Lael’s immensely creative processes and heightened self-awareness (see Fig. 20.3). The text on this drawing reads: “The most powerful of heavy handed dreams. I turn my body at the center of great turbines; I spin through the grinder. I am deconstructed to be reconstructed at a later date.” Lael’s depressive state was emblematic of a multilevel disintegration in which the nucleus of the personality ideal was activated. This involved criticism of oneself, disquietude and dissatisfaction, feelings of inferiority toward oneself because of unfulfilled possibilities, guilt feelings, and an excessive tendency to self-observation and selfobjectivity. Dabrowski attested that this process allowed for a “clearing of the field” for a new creative force in the individual (Dabrowski, 1972). Lael’s description of this clearing is particularly erudite: The depressive state I experienced acted as a catalyst for personal growth; compression of thought or mood into a lower frequency that still at times occurs, has become part of a pattern I can respect for its ability to elicit specific responses from me. Often such a constriction will be followed shortly by its dissipation and a sense of self and awareness has been heightened. In those moments it may be unpleasant, but my major hurdle for the most part has been crossed. What I experience now is akin to the tightening of a spring before it is released; I must
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Fig. 20.3
be forced a few steps back in order to develop the tension and potential that will allow me to move even farther ahead. It is through this process that I am working through many levels, clearing away confusion, old tendencies, stale energy. . .
This immense inner conflict and anguishing depressive state birthed a young woman with articulated selfawareness and self-direction (characteristic of Level IV). Lael’s discerning nature allowed her to reflect on the nature of the disintegrative incident, bringing penetrating insight into the all-encompassing nature of such unfathomable experience: To get to this point I experienced a rather long and arduous journey. It is difficult to remember because I no longer resonate with the components of that former version of myself. I was the underside. That is what I will refer to it as, because it is part of the whole, but it is so focused and consumed with its negativity, its downward direction that it cannot conceive; it cannot know anything beyond itself.
At the beginning of the downward spiral into her extreme depressive experience Lael drew “Outsource” (see Fig. 20.4) which captures the wrenching and absolute experience of a multilevel global disintegration. It is clear from this drawing that every part of her is engaged in the deepest of processes. Lael was able to reflect on the origin and existence of the depressive state attesting that it had roots in her
Fig. 20.4
earliest childhood. The multilevel process of inner dialogue, self-judgment, and self-examination was evident early in her life. Her current capacity to transcend and take hold of her emotional processes independent
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of external demands and memories is especially evident in the following quote: I first experienced this concentrated sensation when I was ten or eleven, but I can trace the lines of those feelings even further back. The extent of it I think was somewhat severe, using my present state as a reference point. I have to admit I’m somewhat dampened now. It’s a fortunate thing this was the last question. I can turn it around now however, so I think I will.
At the center of Dabrowski’s ideas in the nexus of his theory was his understanding of the positive aspects of disintegrative experience. In this view, the psychoneurotic depressive state experienced by Lael represented a phase of accelerated authentic development. With astonishing insight Lael described her experience as a form of death that occurred as part of a series of smaller deaths that she believes will pave the way for an integrated transcendent consciousness: I experienced a little death, and I have even littler little deaths that allow for truer life. The smaller the death, the closer I can become to a self-actualized individual, until there is one smooth transition into full consciousness. The little deaths are needed if one wants to become closer to the higher self while they are living. Physical death is a symptom of duality, it ends the sojourn and returns us to full consciousness in one step, but it is these smaller acts of disintegration and reintegration that will allow for the flow of the physical into the psychical. I imagine that is how we will discover immortality.
The Role of the Counselor in Global Multilevel Disintegration in the Case of Lael At the time of this writing Lael had been in weekly psychotherapeutic support with the first author for 14 months. Lael’s initial presentation was exceptionally brittle; her mood state was volatile and she presented with strong suicidal ideation. Compounding this profile were the vestiges of a disordered eating pattern and anxiety symptoms. Lael needed informed, consistent, and highly nuanced psychotherapy. The first few sessions established a strong clinical rapport between client and counselor and provided insight into Lael’s multifaceted and dynamic inner world. Lael’s support team at school provided the family background, an academic and social summary, and the psychiatric profile. At the time Lael was working on a massive canvas depicting a very dark
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wood and a lost figure. As part of her International Baccalaureate Art Program, Lael had deadlines to meet; she reported acute frustration with that particular art piece. More generally she presented with unfathomable anguish and almost unspeakable helplessness. Lael was happy to share many aspects of her internal processing with the first author. She brought sketches, poetry, and journal entries to sessions. Her therapist worked in a deeply intuitive fashion—allowing Lael to discuss, present, and explore all aspects of her being. Over time, Lael began to express profound intuitions, and instinctive awareness—previously locked up in a complex emotional, moral, and intellectual matrix. She hinted at unsavory experiences in her past, stating that she wished to express them but feared they might harm the listener. In the end, she chose to work through those memories in a non-verbal fashion through her art. When offered the opportunity to put them in verbal form and share in a counseling session she declined, stating that she had already worked them through and was no longer beleaguered by them. She was encouraged to find her own pace, to stay involved with school activities and with family. She was strongly advised to continue to walk in nature, to eat nourishing foods, and to follow her creative and developmental instincts. She was also encouraged to continue to interact with two or three other exceptionally gifted students in her program (cf. Table 20.3). Over time, she developed a strong relationship with an exceptionally gifted and integrated younger boy. She also connected with a couple of young women—even though their intellectual appetites and capacities could not meet Lael’s widening intellectual and emotional range and her compelling need to know. The first author provided Lael access to resources of many kinds: philosophical and psychological texts, higher level art experiences, poetry, and exploration of various spiritual traditions. The impetus for these explorations was driven solely by Lael. She absorbed information and experience at an amazing rate, all the while maintaining her almost perfect academic record in the Internal Baccalaureate program. She worked through ongoing terror and grief about her father and began to assert herself—for the first time—at home and in school settings. Her art experiences continued to provide a context to integrate all aspects of her developing being. At the urging of the first author she destroyed the dark woods
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painting. She chose to use the salvaged strips of canvas from that painting to build a three-dimensional figure of a pregnant woman. Once the strips were incorporated in the life-sized sculpture, she entered a robust creative period where dream images, past memories, and current fantasies were crafted from various mediums and integrated into a stunning art piece. Lael was actively working through the relationship between her innate capacities (first factor), her environmental influences and experiences (second factor), and growing awareness and confidence in the third factor or personality ideal (Dabrowski, 1964, 1970, 1972). Further explanation of the intricacies and nature of the counseling intervention is well beyond the scope of this chapter and will be explored in a later text. An interesting synchronicity brings closure to this discussion. Midway through the first year Lael was pleased to provide a gift for her therapist. While exploring in a major city Lael entered a second-hand bookstore and found, among several other appealing books, what promised to be an interesting text. She bought it and presented it to the first author: Positive Disintegration by Kazimierz Dabrowski, the 1964 book that introduced Dabrowski to the West. Lael’s creative and developmental dynamisms were clearly at work in the world.
Case Study Number Two: Kieran The second case study describes an 8-year-old boy— Kieran—who attended school in a rural area in an undifferentiated school program, regular classroom. Kieran’s mother contacted the first author for help in determining the best response for Kieran’s complex and often conflict-filled behavior patterns. She felt strongly that school officials needed to understand his giftedness; she, too, needed guidance in understanding his complex emotional responses. At the time of the intervention, Kieran was placed in a Behaviorally Disordered program. Outbursts, violent encounters, and non-compliance in the classroom occurred daily. Teachers, counselors, and parents were at a loss as to how best meet his needs. They cautioned that he appeared to have no compassion for others and could be especially unpredictable, even dangerous. His psycho-educational report stated that he was quick to read social cues and excelled in higher-level problem
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solving and comprehension. It was reported that his IQ was high and that he had a writing disability (“writtenoutput disorder”). He showed extreme difficulty in using a pencil and paper, and no patience with rote tasks. He demonstrated a gift for all aspects of mathematics and was reported to have a love of animals. It was known, as well, that he had experienced a number of challenges in his family and that his father lived in another country, estranged from his family.
Initial Impression and First Meeting: First Person Narrative He is a stout, dark-eyed, dark-haired young boy. His gaze is direct and unflinching. It is clear that he does no wish to be in the room with me. He looks like an “old hand” at interview protocol. I sense a complex intellect, extreme sensitivity, and a highly defended way of operating in the world. I ask him a little about his day, comment on his school, and soon we are engaged in a conversation. Eventually I ask him if he would be willing to do some drawings for me. I assure him that I have no artistic talent and no urge to judge his. After some time he agrees to draw images of his family. He has an unyielding pencil grip and appears to be very conscientious. It takes an extremely long time for him to create even one figure; I find myself in a state of deep relaxation and repose. He looks up and asks me what I am thinking. I tell him “not very much; I am simply relaxing.” I comment that he seems to be so focused that I appreciate his attention to the task and that I am in no hurry for him to complete the exercise. I affirm that he controls the pace. He returns to his task and then gently touches my arm: “Would this be easier for you?” he asks. I watch as he turns the paper 180 degrees for my viewing ease and continues to laboriously draw figures from an upside-down vantage point. I am deeply moved by his awareness of my perspective; in the recess of my mind I contrast this action with the label of “non-compassion” and a pattern of social deviance on the report from school officials. The crude but meticulous drawings reveal many things: his isolation from all-male figures, his closeness to his mother, and his deep ambivalence about family life. I make no comment on the family dynamic, but I sense that I may have established a degree of trust with him. He appears relaxed, interested, and certainly less
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defended. When asked to demonstrate some of his ability in Math, I encounter the deep willfulness and intellectual surety at the core of his being. I find this surety mildly amusing and deem the strong will an important therapeutic ally for future development. We agree on a second meeting date and shake hands to bring closure to our meeting.
Background and Developmental Profile Kieran’s history revealed a little boy rife with developmental potential who was exposed to extremely trying life circumstances. It is clear that he possessed all of the overexcitabilities, an autonomous nature, exceptional cognitive ability, and a special talent (Mathematics). In particular, he exhibited extremely heightened sensual awareness, complex, and nuanced awareness of the needs and feelings of others, a love of intellectual “play”, and a deep curiosity about how things work. Kieran’s mother stated that he has always had remarkable insight, acute intelligence, and an extremely sensitive nature. She described his experience in formal schooling as disastrous; a review of the file makes it clear there had been no accommodation for his “written-output disorder” and only modest adaptations for his high cognitive ability. Kieran’s frustration with academic life was extremely high and his penetrating capacity to discern deeper patterns in all phenomena had gone unnoticed and unrewarded. Kieran’s mother also provided information about his social profile. She reported that he had always played well with his cousins—also identified as gifted children—but was often in conflict with other young boys. She acknowledged that she and Kieran had always been close; she and Kieran’s father had divorced several years previously. Kieran occasionally saw his father, in summer vacation and for week long holidays. He apparently returned from those vacations extremely agitated and unable to settle back into his life.
Counseling Intervention Kieran’s behavior in a one-on-one interview with most adults was excellent. In a classroom setting, however, Kieran quickly became agitated, distracted,
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and intractable. Kieran needed immediate intervention to deal with his learning and social needs. He needed an adapted curriculum to include higher-level mathematics and opportunities for in-depth study in areas of deep interest, an assessment to determine the extent and best response for his writing output challenges, and time with other gifted learners in academic and social settings. The first author additionally recommended that the behavioral team build in breaks throughout the day for one-on-one interaction, away from the classroom setting. A hot beverage and conversation with a caring adult, a walk in the treed and welcoming playground, or time on the swing were built into Kieran’s day. Kieran’s strong kinesthetic and sensual nature needed appropriate outlets; his impatience with the routine of classroom activities needed tempering. He was given control over when the breaks happened and quickly learned that he needed to use that responsibility wisely and appropriately. Emotigram cards were made for Kieran. His love of animals and deep emotional awareness was honored and given response. Each card was a specially chosen picture of animals, expressing a wide variety of subtle emotions and natural feelings: great anticipation, fierceness, sleepiness, and deep contentment—to name a few. Kieran chose all the pictures himself, the pictures were laminated and tags were place on them with the descriptors he wrote. He kept the cards in his desk and periodically reviewed them as a way of staying in touch with the feelings moving throughout his being. Kieran’s feelings were immensely nuanced and he often expressed them in inappropriate ways that negatively fed his psychomotor and sensual overexcitabilities. He needed to develop awareness of the multiple modes and kinds of feelings that inhered in his complex personal profile (cf. Table 20.3). The cards were used to communicate with the adults in his life as well, and Kieran became aware that his feelings were often hard for others less prepared to understand. He began to develop an ongoing awareness of his Self: his apprehension through intuition, imaginative play, strong instinct, and emotional complexity (cf. Table 20.3). In this way, he began to develop a verbal vocabulary and more appropriate ways of responding to his stratified inner world. Thus was enacted the recommendation that gifted children with high developmental potential learn to acknowledge, express, and reciprocate with others in situations holding disparate levels of emotional “charge”.
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Kieran also needed family counseling aimed at helping him explore his feelings about his father, his stepfather, and his current family situation. Kieran’s explosiveness in social situations needed to be dealt with; he expressed great hurt and unmet longings related to his relationship with male adults. Kieran’s mother needed to learn that although Kieran could discuss complex human interaction with great insight and awareness, he could not always integrate those insights, his multifaceted feelings, and the immediate sensual and kinesthetic expressions that inhered. With awareness of the many needs and the depth of Kieran’s awareness and negative feelings, Kieran began to slowly integrate aspects of his developing Self.
Conclusions Dabrowski’s theory has pioneered understanding of the emotional life of the gifted; it provided a basis for research on multilevel emotional development. The concept of developmental potential includes the characteristics of intensity and sensitivity (overexcitability) as a fundamental part of the theory. In addition to the intellect these constructs provide validation of the gifted experience encompassing personal energy level, sensual aliveness, imagination, and emotional life. Dabrowski’s delineation of the processes of unilevel and mutlilevel disintegration offers understanding of the profoundly gifted in existential crises. The case studies of Lael and Kieran illustrate how important it is to consider mental health issues from an alternative diagnostic perspective. Aspects of Dabrowski’s theory were used to shed light on the developmental inner truth of these two exceptionally gifted young people. An integral psychotherapy approach was utilized to attend to their serious and complex presentations of distress. The counselor was mindful and responsive to all aspects of these developmentally advanced young people and established a healing partnership based on this mutlidimensional and dynamic awareness. Finally, the theory provides a template for counseling and psychotherapy of the gifted in critical periods of emotional and personal growth. The necessary characteristics of a therapist approaching work with the gifted, and connections between the theory and counseling have been outlined. Overexcitabilities
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play a huge role in the dynamics of gifted development, consequently must be considered in the therapeutic relationship, and should not be viewed as symptoms of mental illness.
References Ackerman, C. (1997). Identifying gifted adolescents using personality characteristics: Dabrowski’s overexcitabilities. Roeper Review, 19, 229–236. Aron, E. N. (1997). The highly sensitive person. New York: Broadway Books. Azziz-Zadeh, L., Wislon, S. M., Rizzolatti, G., & Iacoboni, M. (2006). Congruent embodied representations for visually presented actions and linguistic phrases describing actions. Current Biology, 16, 1818–1823. Breard, N. S. (1994). Exploring a different way to identify African–American students. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Georgia, Athens, GA. Bouchard, L. L. (2004). An instrument for the measure of Dabrowskian overexcitabilities to identify gifted elementary students. Gifted Child Quarterly, 48, 339–350. Bouchet, N., & Falk, R. F. (2001). The relationship among giftedness, gender, and overexcitability. Gifted Child Quarterly, 45, 260–267. Brennan, T. P., & Piechowski, M. M. (1991). A developmental framework for self-actualization: Evidence from case studies. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 31, 43–64. Clark, C. (2005). Personal communication, 12 February 2005. Cline, S., & Schwartz, D. (1999). Diverse populations of gifted children. Merrill/Prentice-Hall. Cohen, D., & MacKeith, S. A. (1991). The development of imagination: The private worlds of childhood. London: Routledge. Colangelo-Ogburn, M. K. (1979). Giftedness as multilevel potential: A clinical example. In N. Colangelo & R. T. Zaffrann (Eds.). New voices in counseling the gifted (pp. 165–187). Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt. Corbin, H. (1972). Mundus Imaginalis or the imaginary and the imaginal. Spring, an Annual of Archetypal Psychology and Jungian Thought. 1–19. Cross, T. L. (1996). Examining claims about gifted children and suicide. Gifted Child Today, 19, 46–48. Cross, T. L., Cassady, J. C., & Miller, K. A. (2006). Suicide ideation and personality characteristics among gifted adolescents. Gifted Child Quarterly, 50, 295–306. Dabrowski, K. (n.d.). Authentic education. An unpublished manuscript. Dabrowski, K. (1938). Typy wzmozonej pobudliwosci psychicznej. Biuletyn Instytutu Higieny Psychicznej, 1 (3–4), 3–26. Dabrowski, K. (1964). Positive disintegration. Boston: Little, Brown. Dabrowski, K. (1970). Mental growth through positive disintegration. London: Gryf. Dabrowski, K. (1972). Psychoneurosis is not an illness: Neuroses and psychoneuroses from the perspective of positive disintegration. London: Gryf.
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Dabrowski, K., & Piechowski, M. M. (1977). Theory of levels of emotional development (2 Vols.). Oceanside, NY: Dabor. Damasio, A. (1994). Descartes’ error: Emotion, reason, and the human brain. New York: Putnam. Damasio, A. (2003). Looking for Spinoza: Joy, sorrow, and the feeling brain. Orlando, FL: Harcourt. Daniels, S. (2006 July 7). Understanding the dynamics of overexcitabilities in families. Paper presented at SENG (Supporting the Emotional Needs of the Gifted), Annual Conference. Irvine, CA, Davis, G. A. (2003). Identifying creative students, teaching for creative growth. In N. Colangelo & G. A. Davis (Eds.). Handbook of gifted education (3rd ed., pp. 311–324). Boston: Allyn and Bacon. De Quincey, C. (2002). Radical nature: Rediscovering the soul of matter. Montpelier, Vermont: Invisible Cities Press. Elkind, D. (1984). All grown up & no place to go: Teenagers in crisis. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Emmons, R. A (2000). Spirituality and intelligence: Problems and prospects. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 10(1), 57–64. Falk, R. F., Manzanero, J. B., & Miller, N. B. (1997). Developmental potential in Venezuelan and American artists: a cross-cultural validity study. Creativity Research Journal, 10, 201–206. Falk, R. F., Balderas, R. A., Chang, A., Guzel, B. Y., & Pardo, R. (2003 November 15). Cross-cultural assessment of overexcitabilities. Paper presented at the annual convention National Association for Gifted Children, Indianapolis, IN. Ferrucci, P. (1982). What we may be: Techniques for psychological and spiritual growth. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam. Frank, J. (2006). Portrait of an inspirational teacher of the gifted. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta. Fugitt, E. D. (2001). He hit me back first! Development of the will in children for making choices. Torrance, CA: Jalmar Press. Gardner, H. (2000). A Case against spiritual intelligence. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 10, 27–35. Gazzola, V., Aziz-Zadeh, L., & Keysers, C. (2006). Empathy and the somatotopic auditory mirror system in humans. Current Biology, 16, 1824–1829. Grant, B. (2002). Looking through the Glasses: J. D. Salinger’s wise children and gifted education. Gifted Child Quarterly, 46, 6–14. Gross, M. (1993). Exceptionally gifted children. New York: Routledge. Gross, M. (1998). The “me” behind the mask: Intellectually gifted students and the search for identity. Roeper Review, 20, 167–173. Hart, T. (2003). The secret spiritual world of children. Makawao, Maui, HI: Inner Ocean. Hawkins, J. (1998). Giftedness and psychological type. Journal for Secondary Gifted Education, 9, 57–67. Hoffman, E. (1992). Visions of innocence. Spiritual and inspirational experiences of childhood. Boston: Shambhala. Hollingworth, L. S. (1942/1977). Children above 180 IQ. New York: Octagon Books. Izard, C. E. (1971). The face of emotion. New York: AppleCentury-Croft.
463 Jackson, P. S. (1998). Bright star—black sky: A phenomenological study of depression as a window into the psyche of the gifted adolescent. Roeper Review, 20, 215–221. Jackson, P. S., & Peterson, J. (2003). Depressive disorder in highly gifted adolescents. Journal of Secondary Gifted Education, 14, 175–189. James, W. (1902/1936). The varieties of religious experience. New York: Modern Library. Lewis, B. (1992). Kids with courage. Minneapolis, MN: Free Spirit. Louv, R. (2005). Last child in the woods: Saving our children from nature-deficit disorder. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books Lovecky, D. V. (1990). Warts and rainbows: Issues in the psychotherapy of the gifted. Advanced Development, 2, 65–83 Lovecky, D. V. (1992). Exploring social and emotional aspects of giftedness in children. Roeper Review, 15, 18–25. Lovecky, D. V. (1993). The quest for meaning: Counseling issues with gifted children and adolescents. In L. K. Silverman (Ed.). Counseling the gifted and talented, (pp. 29–50). Denver: Love. Lovecky, D. V. (1998). Spiritual sensitivity in gifted children. Roper Review, 20, 178–183. Lubinski, D. (2003). Exceptional spatial abilities. In N. Colangelo & G. A. Davis (Eds.). Handbook of gifted education (3rd ed., pp. 521–532). Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Lynne, S. J., & Rhue, J. W. (1988). Fantasy proneness: Hypnosis, developmental antecedents, and psychopathology. American Psychologist, 43, 35–44. Lysy, K. Z., & Piechowski, M. M. (1983). Personal growth: An empirical study using Jungian and Dabrowskian measures. Genetic Psychology Monographs, 108, 267–320. Mayer, J. D., Perkins, D. M., Caruso, D. R., & Salovey, P. (2001). Emotional intelligence and giftedness. Roeper Review, 23, 131–137. Meckstroth, E. A. (2006). Personal communication, 3 August 2006. Mendaglio, S., & Tillier, W. (2006). Dabrowski’s theory of positive disintegration and giftedness: Overexcitability research findings. Journal of Secondary Gifted Education, 30, 68–87. Meyers, I. B., & Meyers, P. B. (1995). Gifts differing: Understanding personality type. Palo Alto, CA: Davies-Black. Miller, N. B. (1985). A content analysis coding system for assessing adult emotional development. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Denver, Denver, CO. Miller, N. B., & Siverman, L. K. (1987). Levels of personality development. Roeper Review, 9, 221–225. Moyle, V. F. (2005). Authentic character development: Beyond nature and nurture. In N. L. Hafenstein and B. Kutrumbo (Eds.) Perspectives in Gifted Education: Complexities of emotional development, spirituality and hope (pp. 33–59). Denver: Institute for the Development of Gifted Education, Ricks Center for Gifted Children, University of Denver. Mr´oz, A. (2002). Rozw´oj osoby wedlug teorii dezyntegracji pozytywnej Kazimierza Dabrowskiego (Individual development according to Dabrowski’s theory of positive disintegration). Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Catholic University of Lublin, Lublin, Poland.
464 Murdock, M. (1988). Spinning inward: Using guided imagery with children for learning, creativity & relaxation. Boston: Shambhala. Nelson, K. C. (1989). Dabrowski’s theory of positive disintegration. Advanced Development, 1, 1–14. Newberg, A. B., & Newberg, S. K. (2006). A neurospychological perspective on spiritual development. In E. C. Roehlkepartain, P. E. King, L. Wagener, & P. L. Benson (Eds.) (2006). Handbook of spiritual development in children and adolescents (pp. 183–196). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Payne, C. (1987). A psychobiographical study of the emotional development of a controversial protest leader. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. Peterson, J. S. (1995). Talk with teens about feelings, family, relationships, and the future. Minneapolis, MN: Free Spirit. Peterson, J. S., & Ray, K. E. (2006). Bullying among the gifted: The subjective experience. Gifted Child Quarterly, 50, 252–269. Piechowski, M. M. (1975). A theoretical and empirical approach to the study of development. Genetic Psychology Monographs, 92, 231–297. Piechowski, M. M. (1978). Self-actualization as a developmental structure: The profile of Antoine de Saint-Exup´ery. Genetic Psychology Monographs, 97, 181–242. Piechowski, M. M. (1979). Developmental potential. In N. Colangelo & R. T. Zaffrann (Eds.), New voices in counseling the gifted (pp. 25–57). Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt. Piechowski, M. M. (1989). Developmental potential and the growth of the self. In J. VanTassel-Baska & P. OlszewskiKubilius (Eds.). Patterns of influence on gifted learners: The home, the school, and the self (pp. 87–101). New York: Teachers College Press. Piechowski, M. M. (1991). Emotional development and emotional giftedness. In. N. Colangelo & G. Davis, (Eds.), Handbook of gifted education (pp. 285–306). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Piechowski, M. M. (1992). Giftedness for all seasons: Inner peace in time of war. In N. Colangelo, S. G. Assouline, & D. L. Ambroson. (Eds.). Talent development. Proceedings of the Henry B. and Jocelyn Wallace National Research Symposium on Talent Development. Unionville, NY: Trillium Press. Piechowski, M. M. (1997a). Emotional giftedness: The measure of intrapersonal intelligence. In N. Colangelo & G. A. Davis (Eds.), The handbook of gifted education (2nd ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Piechowski, M. M. (1997b). Emotional giftedness: An expanded view. Apex, A New Zealand Journal of Gifted Education, 10, 37–47. Piechowski, M. M. (1999). Overexcitabilities. In M. Runco & S. Pritzker (Eds.) Encyclopedia of Creativity. New York: Academic Press. Piechowski, M. M. (2001). Childhood spirituality. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 33, 1–15. Piechowski, M. M. (2003). From William James to Maslow and Dabrowski: Excitability of character and self-actualization. In D. Ambrose, L. Cohen, & A. J. Tannenbaum (Eds.), Creative intelligence: Toward a theoretic integration, (pp. 283–322). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Piechowski, M. M. (2006). “Mellow out,” they say. If I only could: Intensities and sensitivities of the young and bright. Madison, WI: Yunasa Books.
P.S. Jackson et al. Piechowski, M. M., & Colangelo, N. (1984). Developmental potential of the gifted. Gifted Child Quarterly, 28, 80–88. Piechowski, M. M., & Miller, N. B. (1995). Assessing developmental potential in gifted children: A comparison of methods. Roeper Review, 17, 176–180. Piirto, J. (2002). “My teeming brain”: Understanding creative writers. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Piirto, J. (2004). Understanding creativity. Scottsdale, AZ: Great Potential Press. Roeper, A. (1982). How gifted cope with their emotions. Roeper Review, 5, 21–24. Roeper, A. (2007). Global awareness and gifted children. Roeper Review, 30, 8–10. Robinson, E. (1977). The Original vision: A study of the religious experience of childhood. Oxford, UK: The Religious Experience Research Unit. (Reprinted 1983. New York: Seabury Press). Roehlkepartain, E. C., King, P. E., Wagener, L., & Benson, P. L. (Eds.) (2006). Handbook of spiritual development in children and adolescents. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Schultz, R. A., & Delisle, J. R. (2006a). Smart talk: What kids say about growing up gifted. Minneapolis, MN: Free Spirit. Schultz, R. A., & Delisle, J. R. (2006b). More than a test score: Teens talk about being gifted, talented, or otherwise extraordinary. Minneapolis, MN: Free Spirit. Sch¨utz-Bosbach, S., Mancini, B., Aglioti, S. M., & Haggard, P. (2006). Self and other in the human motor system. Current Biology, 16, 1830–1834. Seligman, M. E. P. (1975). Helplessness. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman Silverman, L. K. (Ed.). (1993). Counseling the gifted and talented. Denver: Love. Silverman, L. K. (1994). The moral sensitivity of gifted children and the evolution of society. Roeper Review, 17, 110–116. Silverman, L. K. (2002). Upside-down brilliance: The visualspatial learner. Denver, CO: DeLeon Publishing. Singer, J. L. (1975). The inner world of daydreaming. New York: Harper & Row. Singer D. G., & Singer, J. L. (1990). The house of make-believe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Taylor, M. (1999). Imaginary companions and the children who create them. New York: Oxford University Press. Tellegen, A., & Atkinson, G. (1974). Openness to absorbing and self-altering experiences (“Absorption”), a trait related to hypnotic susceptibility. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 83, 268–277. Terman, L. M. (1925). Mental and physical traits of a thousand gifted children. (Vol. 1). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Tieso, C. L. (2007). Patterns of overexcitability in identified gifted students and their parents: a hierarchical model. Gifted Child Quarterly, 51, 11–22. Tolan, S. S. (1994). Psychomotor overexcitability in the gifted: An expanded perspective. Advanced Development, 6, 77–86. Turk, V. (2007 January 15). How do mirror neurons work? Softpedia News. Retrieved from: http://news.softpedia.com/ news/How-Do-Mirror-Neurons-Work-39171.shtml. Waldman, J. (2001). Teens with the courage to give. Berkeley, CA: Conari Press.
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Watkins, M. (1990). Invisible guests: The development of imaginal dialogues. Boston: Sigo Press. Wilson, S. C., & Barber, T. X. (1983). The fantasy-prone personality: Implications for understanding imagery, hypnosis, and parapsychological phenomena. In A. A. Sheikh (Ed.). Imagery: Current theory, research, and applications, (pp. 340–387). New York: Wiley.
465 Yeudall, L. (n.d.). Introduction, in K. Dabrowski, Authentic Education. Yoo, J. E., & Moon, S. M. (2006). Counseling needs of gifted students: An analysis of intake forms at a universitybased counseling center. Gifted Child Quarterly, 50, 52–61.
Chapter 21
On Individual Differences in Giftedness Andrzej Sekowski, Malgorzata Siekanska and Waldemar Klinkosz
Abstract Psychologists have long attached great importance to the issue of individual differences, investigating, among others, abilities, intelligence, creativity, temperament, and personality. The present chapter is devoted to individual differences primarily as manifested in the effectiveness of performed actions, i.e., related to intelligence and abilities. The first part shows the positioning of the issue of giftedness in the psychology of individual differences. The second part is devoted to methodological issues and discusses the leading theories and research methods. The third part concerns the levels of individual differences, from the physiological mechanisms of the phenomenon (e.g., the use of mismatch negativity in the study of interindividual differences regarding intelligence) to manifestations of individual differences in particular fields of human activity (e.g., styles of learning or temperament). The fourth part presents an analysis of the social consequences of individual differences (i.e., identification, selection, and education). The concluding section presents trends in the development of research on individual differences in giftedness. Keywords Cognitive processes · Intelligence · Creativity · Temperament · Individual differences and education One of the most important ways in which psychology differs from the natural sciences arises from the existence of individual differences. Two liters of hydrogen that are treated identically respond identically, but any two human beings, even identical twins, may respond quite differently to the same stimulus. This is because people differ
A. Sekowski (B) John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Lublin, Poland e-mail:
[email protected] from one another not only in appearance (that is, physically) but also in their behavior (that is, psychologically). Hampson, S. E., Colman, A. M. (2000)
Positioning the Issue of Giftedness in the Psychology of Individual Differences Domain The issue of giftedness has often been an object of interest of specialists in the psychology of individual differences domain. This is visible in both the history of the discipline and its current state. The interest is already clear in the works of Francis Galton (1822– 1911), who in his Hereditary Genius (1892) tracked the lives of 977 gifted people from 300 families over several generations. Individual differences in giftedness constitute an inspiration for other outstanding past and present psychologists who take up the problem and for the field of study of the human mind in general. The various conceptions of giftedness point to the bi-directionality of the relationship between giftedness and the psychology of individual differences (Sternberg & Davidson, 2005). On one hand, giftedness is an important inspiration for studies in the area of psychology of individual differences in terms of intelligence, abilities, creativity, and other psychological dimensions. On the other hand, the area of psychology of individual differences is a source of knowledge and inspiration for researchers of giftedness. The relationship between individual differences and giftedness concerns different aspects of psychology. In the present chapter, at first, attention is drawn to common dependencies concerning theory, research methods, levels of individual differences, the physiological
L.V. Shavinina (ed.), International Handbook on Giftedness, c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-6162-2 21,
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mechanisms of the phenomenon of individual differences, cognitive processes, cognitive differences at the level of traits, and types of intelligence, creativity, and temperament. Next, theoretical and practical consequences of the relationship between giftedness and individual differences are presented in terms of identification, selection, and education.
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and the person-oriented approach (Magnusson & T¨orestad, 1993; Magnusson, 2003b). These approaches are not considered contradictory, but rather complementary. Thus, the discussion is not concerned with solving the question of which approach is better, but it is important to be aware of the differences between the two conceptions, the consequences they have for the choice of data and the statistics, and also their implications and ramifications. In the variable-oriented approach, the main object of Theories and Research Methods interest is the linear or non-linear correlation between variables, for example, between intelligence or creativThe study of individual differences concentrates on ity and giftedness. Within this approach, problems are those aspects of human psychology that determine the formulated by means of variable terms and the obtained uniqueness and individuality of a human being. Al- results refer to a group. The person-oriented approach is based on the holisthough individual differences occur across the range of tic view, according to which at each level of the organbehaviors and psychological characteristics, the psychology of individual differences takes as its subject ism an individual functions in an integrated manner and only those among them which are characterized by complies with the pattern of operating factors (Magrelative stability: intelligence, abilities, and personal- nusson & T¨orestad, 1993; Magnusson, 2003a). Within ity, including temperament, creativity, and an individ- this approach, empirical study of individual differences ual’s styles of functioning—mainly cognitive styles involves three stages: specification of the level of analysis (e.g., at the brain level, the cognitive processes and those of coping with stress (Strelau, 2002). In contemporary research on individual differences, level, and the behavioral level), indication of the possiapproaches can be distinguished that go beyond the ble factors acting at the specified level of analysis, and, basic categories used for the description of individual finally, application of statistical methods (cluster analdifferences like trait or type. They concentrate on ysis) and grouping individuals into specific categories. biological–cognitive (Baldeweg, Richardson, Watkins, In an approach like this, problems are defined for indiFoale, & Gruzelier, 1999; N¨aa¨ t¨anen, 2003; Stel- viduals and the formulated generalizations refer to inmack, 2003; Winkler et al., 1999), neuropsychological dividual persons. Although most traditional empirical studies use sta(Henderson & Ebner, 1997; O’Boyle & Gill, 1998; tistical models within the framework of the variableNilsson, 2003), or genetic (Thompson & Plomin, 1993, oriented approach (Harr´e, 2000; Magnusson, 2003b), 2000; Plomin, 1997) aspects instead. Development of from the point of view of the psychology of individnew directions in the research area of individual differual differences and the psychology of giftedness, the ences is possible due to the refinement of the existing and the introduction of new methods of diagnosis. One person-oriented approach seems particularly interestexample is the use of the methods of behavior genetics ing, especially in the case of studies focusing on the to look for the factors that condition relatively stable search for predictors and conditions of giftedness. individual differences in general cognitive abilities (Plomin & Spinath, 2002) or the use of mismatch negativity (MMN) in studies of phonological abilities Levels of Individual Differences (Baldeweg et al., 1999). No matter what aspects of individual differences researchers concentrate on and at what levels they The elementary categories used for the description of analyze them (the physiological mechanisms, the individual differences are type, trait, dimension, faccognitive processes, traits, styles, or spheres of tor – as a specific understanding of trait – and style functioning), it is worth paying attention to method- (Strelau, 2002). The basic tools for the study of these ological questions and the debate concerning the categories are psychological tests. Awareness of the distinction between the variable-oriented approach complexity of human nature and the dynamics of the
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On Individual Differences in Giftedness
developmental process induces researchers to look for and construct more and more precise research tools and to analyze and compare data coming from subsystems of different degrees of generality (e.g., Vernon, 1990; Eysenck & Barrett, 1993; Thompson & Plomin, 1993, 2000; Winkler et al., 1999; Burn & Nettelbeck, 2003; Stelmack, 2003; Amelang & Bartussek, 1994).
Physiological Mechanisms of Individual Differences A search for the mechanism explaining human behavior cannot ignore the fact that the latter is a product of both psychological traits and physiological properties of the human organism. Contemporary theories of individual differences often make reference to the physiological mechanisms underlying traits (N¨aa¨ t¨anen, Jacobsen, & Winkler, 2005; N¨aa¨ t¨anen, 2003; Stelmack, 2003; Gomes et al., 2000). In the last 10 to 15 years, the number of studies concerning the physiological mechanisms of individual differences has grown considerably. This is connected, among others, with the appearance of new possibilities of measurement and new research methods (Strelau, 2002; Eysenck, 2004). One of the newest methods is the analysis of mismatch negativity (MMN). MMN arises as a negative wave after deducting the shape of an ERP1 (eventrelated potentials) as a reaction to standard stimuli from the shape of an ERP wave appearing as a reaction to deviant stimuli. A clearly marked MMN testifies to discrimination between deviant and standard sounds. This phenomenon is, to a large degree, independent of attention, cognitive strategy, or the level of difficulty of the task (Stelmack, 2003). This electrophysiological mechanism is a source of data which seems immensely interesting as far as understanding and explication of general principles and individual differences in information processing are concerned. Analysis of mismatch negativity, which constitutes an automatic neurophysiological reaction to every perceptible change of sound, is used, among others, in study-
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ing the mechanisms of perception of speech sounds by the human brain (N¨aa¨ t¨anen, 2003). This method has also been used in studies of phonological abilities (Baldeweg et al., 1999) and in research concerning discrimination of speech sounds by newborn babies (Cheour-Luhtanem et al., 1995). Relations between weakened mismatch negativity and the risk of developing dyslexia have also been studied (Lepp¨anen & Lyytinen, 1997). From the point of view of the psychology of giftedness, especially interesting are studies of mechanisms of (native and foreign) language learning as well as development of memory traces (Cheour et al., 1998; Winkler et al., 1999) and the role of attention (N¨aa¨ t¨anen, Schr¨oger, Karakas, Tervaniemi, & Paavilainen, 1993). Mismatch negativity (MMN) is also used in the study of individual differences in intelligence (Stelmack, 2003). The method of event-related potentials, which is considered a reliable index of sensory differentiation (Baldeweg et al., 1999; Cheour-Luhtanem et al., 1995; Gomes et al., 2000; N¨aa¨ t¨anen et al., 1993) and the indexes used in it have been employed to explain the relationship between intellectual abilities and the speed of information processing in elementary cognitive tasks (Stelmack, 2003). Results of tests conducted by Stelmack (2003) show that, compared to persons with lower intellectual abilities,2 individuals of higher intellectual abilities scored higher and processed information faster in a task consisting of differentiating the frequency of sounds. In the researcher’s opinion, the results of his experiment prove the existence of a relation between intellectual abilities measured in psychometric tests and faster processing of information in simple sensory, motor, memory, or decision tasks (Vernon, 1990). The relationship between the speed of neurophysiological processes and intelligence has also been studied by Nicholas Burns, Ted Nettelbeck, and Christopher Cooper from Adelaide University. The results obtained by them have revealed the existence of a relationship between the latency times registered in the parietal and the occipital lobes and liquid and crystallized intelligence (Burns, Nettelbeck, & Cooper, 2000; Strelau, 2002). According to the mentioned authors, the studies presented in the literature so far are, for the majority, coherent and
1
Auditory ERPs are a record of the bioelectric activity of the brain and appear as a response to acoustic stimuli, information about which is sent through the auditory channel to cortical centers.
2 Intellectual abilities were measured with the Multiple Aptitude Battery, MAB (Jackson, 1984).
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confirm the view that the speed of neurophysiological processes is one of the components determining intelligence. Still unanswered, however, remains the question whether the speed of information processing is common to all cognitive abilities (Burns & Nettelbeck, 2003). The question of the degree to which individual differences in cognitive functioning are conditioned by childhood experiences is another challenge for future researchers (Nilsson, 2003). Nilsson (2003) believes that creating a coherent picture of individual differences in memory functions is only possible when interdisciplinary studies comprising, among others, of brain imaging and behavior genetics are conducted (Eysenck & Barrett, 1993; Thompson & Plomin, 1993). Studies of the relationship between genetic markers and intelligence conducted by Plomin (1997) show that inheritance of intelligence is connected with numerous genes of varying influence rather than a few genes of substantial influence. The author has put forward a hypothesis that environmental factors play an essential role in specifying which genetic markers are significant for the functioning of memory. At the same time, he states that a real challenge for researchers would be the specification of which genes are connected with which individual elements of memory functioning and which of the environmental factors play an important role in this relation (Thompson & Plomin, 2000).
Cognitive Processes and the Phenomenon of Individual Differences Until the mid-1970s, the study of intelligence had been dominated by so-called factor conceptions. With time, more and more popularity was gained by approaches focusing on cognitive processes which used the concept of information processing. Mainstream contemporary cognitive psychology is concerned with the characteristics of human information processing. It covers two aspects thereof: the general mechanisms and individual differences. In accordance with this view, then, the psychology of individual differences would deal with the characteristics of information processing in gifted persons (Necka, 1994a, 1994b).
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The cognitive approach either completely gives up the notion of trait—substituting it with the notion of information processing—or defines trait as a specific (i.e., characteristic for a given individual) manner of processing information (Necka, 1992b, 1994a, 1994b). The term information refers to the message content. Processing, on the other hand, consists of a series of operations, i.e., actions transposing input information into output information (Ledzinska, 1996). Most research on giftedness concerns general cognitive abilities, and the basic question is whether the differences between gifted individuals and not identified as gifted are quantitative or qualitative? Some researchers put particular emphasis on the basic properties and capabilities of the psyche and the nervous system (see Geake, this volume), in particular, the speed of information processing, the reliability of the process of neuronal transmissions, the capacity of working memory, the speed of access to the longterm memory store, or attention capacity. Others, on the other hand, claim that individual differences showing up in tasks determining human intelligence depend primarily on the choice of an appropriate strategy of information processing or the facility of changing the strategy depending on the situation (Necka, 1994b). The most characteristic traits of cognitively gifted persons concern their memory and the speed of learning (Necka, 2003). Studies of memory strategies have shown that people with a higher intelligence quotient (IQ=142.31) differ from people with a lower intelligence quotient (IQ=112.44) with respect to strategic stability, i.e., gifted people are characterized by lower strategic variability (Coyle & Read, 1998). According to Robert Sternberg (Sternberg & Davidson, 1986a, 1986b), who supports the approach which emphasizes the role of strategy in information processing, intelligence has a processal rather than a factorial character, and cognitive correlates of factor g do not exist. Sternberg also believes that intellectual differences depend on the configuration of the component parts of the process and not on the strength of the system that performs the process. A negative correlation of intelligence with reaction time is not explained by the speed of information processing but in terms of the phenomenon of automation. This means that intelligent people automate cognitive processes faster, thanks to which they perform many actions fluently, quickly, without effort, and without the need to consciously control them (Necka, 2003).
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Researchers trying to settle the argument concerning the conception of intelligence which makes reference to cognitive processes suggest taking into account the so-called levels of information processing, for example, at the nervous system level, the level of the formal properties of information processing, the level of strategies, and the level of the ability to assess (Necka, 1992b). This way, the notion of intelligence would have a meaning at each of the distinguished levels. At the nervous system level, intelligence would be defined as having the nervous system in working order. At the level of formal properties of information processing, intelligence would be identified with specific parameters of working memory, manners of attention functioning (capacity, selectivity, divisibility), and so-called mind mobility (Necka, 1992b, p.107). At the level of strategies of information processing, intelligence would be understood as the ability to choose appropriate components of a mental process and to put them in an order and hierarchy which fulfills the requirements of the task (Necka, 1992b, p. 109). Finally, at the highest level, connected with the ability to make assessments, intelligence would be characterized in terms of axiological criteria, including both the assessment of the importance of the undertaken problem and the evaluation of whether it is worth undertaking at all. This last level seems relatively poorly recognized and gives rise to the largest number of controversies. Intelligence defined in this way would correspond to the concept of wisdom understood as the ability to make the right decisions in difficult and vital situations. Contemporary psychological research devoted to the role of individual differences in cognitive functioning points to the necessity of describing the role of cognitive abilities and styles in the language of the information processing theory (Nosal & Piskorz, 1992). Nosal (1990) discusses abilities from the point of view of the areas of cognitive functioning of an individual and identifies them with cognitive predispositions. Studies of relationships between an individual’s intelligence and the strength of the personal experience of information stress take into account the role of the cognitive factor as one of the determinants of the power of info-stress (Ledzinska, 2005). The results point to the role of cognitive intelligence in the intensification of the subjective experience of stress.
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Individual Differences at the Level of Traits and Types Compared to the approach focusing on the physiological mechanisms or cognitive processes, the level of traits and types is more general. The area of research concerning giftedness covers, above all, such issues as intelligence, creativity, temperament, interests, or cognitive styles. According to Renzulli (2002), the population of gifted persons is greatly diversified, and so no single universal image of the gifted child can be created. The same is true of identification. Researchers use diverse and often complex criteria of giftedness; intelligence, and creativity, besides achievements, behavior-related criteria, and nominations, being among the most frequently used ones (Hoffman, 1995; Ziegler & Raul, 2000).
Intelligence The first psychological theories of intelligence arose in answer to the question of the character and sources of individual differences in the level of mental task performance (Necka, 2003). Intelligence researchers are far from being unanimous in understanding this concept. Taking into account the existence of interindividual variability and intraindividual stability of human intellectual abilities, psychologists have drawn a conclusion that there exists a hidden trait, called intelligence, which is responsible for it. However, defining the concept of intelligence as a trait turns out to be a difficult task (Strelau, 2002). General intelligence is often identified with general abilities, or factor g proposed by Spearman. It can be assumed after Strelau (1997) that “intelligence is a theoretical construct referring to the relatively stable internal conditions of a human being which determine the effectiveness of performing tasks or solving problems requiring typically human cognitive processes. Those conditions are shaped as a result of an individual-specific interaction between the genotype and the environment” (p. 19). Intelligence understood as a constant human property is characterized by so-called relative stability. This means that it undergoes very slow changes, which are imperceptible in everyday contacts with other people.
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Intelligence research follows two major directions: the cognitive approach (already mentioned in the previous section) and the psychometric trend (Strelau, 2002; Necka, 2003). The two approaches complement each other and contribute to a better understanding of the essence of intelligence. Studies within the framework of the cognitive approach focus on the regularities and mental processes determining intelligent behavior and problem solving. Within the psychometric approach, on the other hand, researchers concentrate on individual differences, and intelligence, as already mentioned, is ascribed the status of a trait. In this approach, attention is primarily paid to the measurement of intelligence, the underlying cognitive and biological mechanisms, and the adaptive functions of intelligence in everyday life (Strelau, 2002). Let us, then, take a look at those three aspects.
Measurement of Intelligence Intelligence researchers emphasize the necessity of taking into account individual differences as early as at the stage of diagnosis. Traditional tests of intelligence are criticized for a variety of reasons (Naglieri, 2001), among others, because they concentrate on what the child already knows instead of examining what and how readily he or she is able to learn. They do not take into consideration the influences of individual differences manifested in specific personality traits or learning styles on the test nor the manner in which instructions from the test administration manual are carried out. Bolig & Day (1993) propose Dynamic Assessment as an alternative to traditional tests of intelligence. This method allows a researcher to determine what the child has already learnt (i.e., pretest performance), how readily he or she learns (i.e., the number of hints needed, the number of explanations required, or the amount learned from an instructional session), and to what extent he or she is able to use the new knowledge and the acquired skills (Bolig & Day, 1993; Day & Cordon, 1993; Lidz & Elliott, 2006). Studies conducted by Furnham, Forde, and Cotter (1998) seem to confirm the accuracy of the approach according to which individual differences in personality or cognitive styles should be taken into consideration in diagnosing intelligence. The experiments have revealed, among others, that factors such
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as extraversion/introversion and stability/neuroticism together with the dimension described as personality test-taking style account for over 30% of score variance in a test measuring general intelligence (the Wonderlic test).
The Biological and Cognitive Mechanisms at the Basis of Intelligence The last 10 or 15 years have witnessed a very dynamic development of research on the biological mechanisms of intelligence, which is, among others, a result of growing possibilities in neuropsychological diagnosis and the related tendency to examine individual differences at a more specific level than the level of traits or types (N¨aa¨ t¨anen et al., 2005; N¨aa¨ t¨anen, 2003; Stelmack, 2003; Gomes et al., 2000; Strelau, 2002). Interesting examples are studies conducted by Jauˇsovec (2000) and Jauˇsovec and Jauˇsovec (2004) which have demonstrated that intelligence and creativity are two different abilities, and differences between them can be registered already at the level of neurological activity (Jauˇsovec, 2000). Further experiments concerned registering of changes in the activity of the brain during the solving of figural working memory tasks and figural learning tasks by persons of varied levels of intelligence (Jauˇsovec and Jauˇsovec, 2004). When we speak of typically human cognitive aspects, what we have in mind is reasoning, inference, abstract thinking, self-control, planning, and drawing on previous experiences. These mechanisms are activated depending on the performed task. People differ from one another with respect to the efficiency of thinking, reasoning, and problem solving, as well as the accuracy of decision taking and foreseeing events (Necka, 2003).
Adaptive Functions of Intelligence in Everyday Life A basic question that arises when we consider the role of intelligence in everyday life is the question of its relation with school-based learning, the professional career, and life achievements (Trost, 1993). Can a score on a test of intelligence be a good predictor of effectiveness? Opinions on this matter are divided. Support-
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ers (Strelau, 2002) believe that performing actions in everyday life and in work is cognitively complex. In the course of a lifetime, different situations demand abstracting, solving problems, drawing inferences, or passing judgments on the basis of ambiguous information. Functioning in society requires the employment of complicated cognitive processes. It seems, then, that no factor affects our life chances as much as factor g. The opponents of recognizing IQ as a significant predictor of success in everyday life (Sternberg, 1997a, 1997b, 1997c) point to the role of abilities beyond general intelligence; hence, probably, the popularity of notions such as social intelligence, emotional intelligence, practical intelligence, or success intelligence (see Bar-On et al., this volume; Heng et al., this volume).
Creativity The issue of creativity has always been part of the psychology of individual differences; it is, however, such a broad field that it could function as a separate branch of science. The problem of creativity can be analyzed not only at the individual level but also at the social or global level. At the individual level, creativity is understood as “the ability to generate one or more major ideas that are novel and of high quality” (Sternberg, 2000). Put differently, it is a human predisposition toward creative thinking and thus achieving creative products or effects. Creative abilities are a manifestation of the exceptionality of the human being, which consists in a free use of the possibilities and resources of their own mind and which is accompanied by a sense of responsibility for “making proper use of the extraordinary gift” (Gardner, 1998, p. 225). The terms creativity or creative abilities are used for a trait characterizing a person. A qualification like this is important since creativity can be attributed not only to persons but also to products, the processes of making the products, and the environment (Clark, 1997; Necka, 2001; Nettle, 2001). In creativity, as is the case with many other traits, there are individual differences. The basic problem connected with creativity is the question whether creativity is an elitist or an egalitarian trait (M¨onks, 1995; Necka, 2001; Sternberg, 2006). According to the former view,
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creativity is an attribute of outstanding minds. It is identified with giftedness (Tannenbaum, 1986). Supporters of the egalitarian view believe that every human being is creative, but not to an equal extent (Guilford, 1978; Csikszentmihalyi, 1996; Sternberg & Grigorenko, 2000, Necka, 2001). Creativity within this approach is construed as a trait, similarly to intelligence, extroversion, or one’s level of anxiety. It has a continuous character, that is, it can occur in degrees of intensity, from minimal to very high intensity, which for example, characterizes authors of works of genius. Arguments supporting such understanding of creativity are galore, and they vary in nature from humanist, to developmental, to pedagogical (Necka, 2001). From the perspective of the psychology of individual differences, particularly interesting seem arguments coming from studies conducted within the framework of cognitive psychology and cognitivism. They speak for unity of cognitive processes and so a lack of a qualitative difference between creative cognition and everyday cognition. The difference would concern the goal to which cognitive processes are subordinated or the specific course of those processes (Necka, 1992a, 2001). The above distinction between creativity as an elitist vs. an egalitarian trait corresponds to two major approaches in creativity studies, i.e., the nomothetic approach (as represented by Simonton) and the idiographic approach (as represented by Gruber) (M¨onks, 1995). Gardner, in his turn, takes the stand that is a combination of a universal and an individual approach (Gardner, 1998; M¨onks, 1995). In his opinion, creative achievements are, on the one hand, connected with a given individual and a given field, but, on the other hand, formulation of certain generalizations is possible on the basis of observed regularities. Another question that comes to mind in the context of deliberations on creativity as an individual predisposition is whether creativity is instrumental or motivational. The former would mean that creativity is an ability or a set of abilities. The latter would imply a rather certain style of functioning connected with personality-conditioned preferences (Matczak, Jaworowska, & Stanczak, 2000; Piirto, 2004). Creativity is often associated with abilities. The term creativity is used interchangeably with the concept of creative abilities, and creativity is considered one of the elements of the structure of giftedness (Sternberg & Davidson, 1986a, 1986b). Indubitably,
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creative problem solving—innovative and effective— requires the possession of certain particular special abilities which determine the effectiveness of functioning within a given field, e.g., literature, music, the fine arts (Matczak et al., 2000). A question arises, however, if there are any special abilities which are essentially independent of a field. It seems that a good example is the ability of divergent thinking—fluency, flexibility, and originality (Guilford, 1978; Runco, 1993). Research conducted by Hunsacker (1994) has revealed that teachers believe divergent thinking is one of the basic characteristics of able students. Apart from divergent thinking, certain nondivergent abilities are also listed among creative abilities. These include the ability to notice problems and the ability to re-define, i.e., to give new meanings to things (Guilford, 1978; Runco, 1993). According to the second view, predisposition to creativity is connected with a preference for a specific style of functioning. This style influences the way one deals with problem solving or task performance and is conditioned by personality. In other words, the creative predisposition would be a system of certain personality traits, such as high self-esteem, strong ego, small intensity of defensive attitudes, non-conformity, or inner containment (Matczak et al., 2000; Simonton, 2004). Within the area of interest of the researchers who treat creativity primarily as a preference are also problems concerning relationships between creativity and cognitive styles (Sternberg & Lubart, 1992; Matczak et al., 2000). The conducted studies show that the assumption of a simple relationship is unfounded in this case (Martinsen, 1997). Most convincing seems the hypothesis that creativity is benefited by cognitive flexibility, which is defined as an ability and tendency to use different styles in different stages of the problemsolving process (Necka, 2001). On the other hand, there is no doubt as to the positive relationship between creativity and cognitive openness, i.e., readiness to accept and assimilate that which is not in keeping with the previous experiences, expectations, or convictions (Matczak et al., 2000; Weisberg, 2006). As was noted in the introduction, individual differences occur in all kinds of behavior and psychological characteristics, but the psychology of individual differences deals with those among them which are relatively stable. So, analyzing the problem of creativity within the psychology of individual differences, we concentrate not only on the aspect of interindividual
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differences but also on the question of intraindividual stability. Creativity researchers emphasize that creative achievements of an adult often have their source in childhood, when interests crystallize and develop (Gardner, 1982, 1998; Zuk, 1986). For activity in a given field to give results in the form of creative achievements, it can take at least 10 years of persistent work and experience (M¨onks, 1995; Sternberg & Lubart, 1993).
Temperament The concept of temperament—as most terms used in psychology—is not unambiguous. Independent of the differences in the understanding of the term, one can distinguish a series of characteristics common for this psychological construct, which are included in the definition proposed by Strelau (2002). According to this definition, “temperament refers to relatively stable personality traits occurring in a human being from early childhood. Initially determined by inborn neurobiochemical mechanisms, temperament undergoes slow changes caused by the process of maturation and individually-specific interaction between the genotype and the environment” (p. 203). When analyzing the development of the conception of ability, it is worth paying attention to how the meaning of different concepts has been changing. At the end of the 19th century, it was believed that the decisive elements were sensitivity of the senses and the energy at one’s disposal. Galton and J. McKean Cattell studied sensory sensitivity. According to them—in contemporary parlance—greater sensitivity means a higher level of mental abilities. Nowadays, one rather talks about energetic parameters or sensory sensitivity in reference to temperament, but it seems that the problem is still open to interpretation. Psychologists dealing with temperament suggest that sensory sensitivity, as an element of the information processing system, is a property on the border between abilities and temperament (Strelau, 1992; 1998). Strelau (1992, p. 84) carried out an analysis of the relationship between temperament and abilities. On this basis, he formulated the following conclusions, which, at the present stage, have the status of hypotheses:
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– Children with high intellectual abilities are active, persistent, and energetic. – Temperament mobility correlates with openness to experiences. – Certain traits of temperament or their configurations (e.g., difficult vs. easy temperament) can serve as predictors of the development of the level of intelligence in preschool children; traits of temperament influence the type of interaction between the child and his or her social environment, and this interaction is significant for the development of abilities; traits of temperament, e.g., emotional reactivity or mobility of neural processes, correlate with school achievement. In comparison to intelligence, creativity, or cognitive styles, the issue of temperament belongs to those problems within the psychology of individual differences which are relatively rarely studied by giftedness researchers. Analyzing the significance of temperament studies in the context of supporting, nurturing, and educating able children and adolescents, Geiger (1995) pointed to the necessity of considering individual differences in temperament. According to the author, this is essential for providing optimal support and preventing problems frequently experienced by the very able, connected with feelings of being different from others, isolation, or self-doubt. Psychologists dealing with the issues of temperament and abilities are interested not only in the structure of temperamental traits but, above all, the functional significance of temperament in children (Martin, 1992) and adults (Siekanska & Sekowski, 2006). In the course of about 10 years, Martin and colleagues conducted a series of experiments in a group of preschoolers, which revealed that three from among the examined traits— high (motor) activity, absentmindedness, and low perseverance—form the so-called difficult temperament syndrome and correlate negatively with school achievements (Martin, 1992; Strelau, 1998, 2002). Among the traits which, in a large measure, characterize able students are temperamental properties connected with strong types of the nervous system and some types of behavior conditioned by those properties. These are, among others, the ability to work hard, the ease of focusing on a given problem
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for a longer time, relatively large emotional balance, and so-called fast style of work (Lewowicki, 1986). Temperament is connected with a dimension called “craving stimulation,” which is related to the efficiency of the nervous system. A study by Galas and Lewowicki (1991) shows that persons having a large craving for stimulation score higher on the aspiration scale more often. They aspire to achieve goals in life, the realization of which requires increased effort on the part of the nervous system and results in a stimulation overload (e.g., graduation, scientific work, gaining a difficult and responsible profession, achieving a high position in the workplace, social activity, and literary and artistic work). Temperament is also connected with the dimension of emotional resistance to stress as opposed to great emotional sensitivity (emotional reactivity) (Strelau, 1996). Reactivity can be an important factor of human behavior in a specific environment (school, family, work) and may influence both the level of task performance and the general adaptive abilities enabling adaptation to specific situational conditions. Studies of able adults allow one to speculate that temperament is directly related to job dissatisfaction and only indirectly to job satisfaction and that the influence of temperamental traits on job satisfaction should be considered by taking into account specific jobs and work places. This means that apart from the intensity of individual traits of temperament, their mutual fit and how they match the requirements of the environment should also be taken into consideration (Siekanska & Sekowski, 2006). Different work styles and the choice of a given work environment are manifestations of “intelligent” coping, as long as they protect a person against fatigue and excess tension emerging in difficult situations. A given style of action develops under the influence of the environment on the basis of the temperamental constitution. To sum up, it can be assumed that traits of temperament determine the manner of functioning of a human being in different spheres, for example, school or work. They specify the stimulation value of the activity preferred by an individual but do not entirely determine the choices and directions of action. In other words, temperament answers the question of how? and not the question of why?
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Individual Psychological Differences and Identification of the Gifted A review of psychological literature of the last century is a valuable source of multifarious information about the identification of gifts and talents of outstanding persons, especially children and adolescents, a great part of which concerns their education. Contemporary definitions of gifted students balance between earlier psychometric conceptions of giftedness, for example, Terman’s (1925) and Cox’s (1926), which recognize an above-average level of general intellectual abilities (IQ over 140) as a criterion of giftedness and more recent conceptualizations which associate intellectual abilities with learning abilities (Gagn´e, 1993; Sekowski, 2001, 2004a), environment adaptation abilities (Tannenbaum, 1986), speed of processing information (Deary, 2000), and metacognitive abilities (Sternberg, 1977). Beginning his studies of exceptionally gifted children in 1922, Terman posed questions about individual differences in three areas: intellectual traits, social traits, and self-traits and motivation (Terman & Oden, 1959). He offers a psychological characterization of gifted persons from the point of view of their cognitive characteristics, pointing to individual differences in thinking (Robinson & Clinkenbeard, 1998). Differences in cognitive abilities are found, for instance, by observing that, generally, gifted pupils, although they use the same cognitive skills as their average peers, solve problems decidedly better, faster, and more efficiently; they use the provided information with greater ease because they have unique thinking abilities (Rogers, 1998). A “Wechsler Intelligence Scale for ChildrenRevised” (WISC-R) analysis of intelligence profiles of 456 primary school students with an IQ of 120 or more on the general scale conducted by Wilkinson (1993; after Robinson & Clinkenbeard, 1998) shows a greater variability of the profile with reference to norms. Gifted children more often had extreme subtest scores and showed larger verbal performance discrepancies. The highest scores were obtained by gifted students on subscales reflecting more complex reasoning (for example, similarities and block design) and the lowest on subscales measuring lower-level thinking skills (coding, digit span) (Wilkinson, 1993; after Robinson & Clinkenbeard, 1998).
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In the metacognitive approach, or thinking about one’s thinking, authors concentrate on vital components of giftedness such as the actual knowledge about thinking strategies, the use of the strategies, and cognitive monitoring (Jackson & Butterfield, 1986; Borkowski & Peck, 1986). Gifted students make better use of only some aspects of metacognition than other students, and this advantage seems to persist in subsequent years (see Cheng, 1993; Carr, Alexander, & Schwanenflugel, 1996; Sternberg, 1997b). A freer conceptualization of giftedness as showing up in children “whose performance, in a potentially valuable line of human activity, is consistently remarkable” has been offered by Witty (1950; after Robinson & Clinkenbeard, 1998, p. 119). Sternberg & Davidson (1986a, 1986b), in their analysis of 17 different conceptions of giftedness, divide giftedness researchers into those who focus on the psychological aspect of giftedness and those who include the social context in their studies, seeing the development of abilities in certain areas as also supported by culture (Csikszentmihalyi & Robinson, 1986; Tannenbaum, 1986). An educational view of giftedness is connected not only with the problem of identification of gifts in able students but also with a description of their specific educational needs, which would enable teachers and caregivers to ensure the best possible development of their potential (Gallagher & Courtright, 1986). Marland’s (1972) legally binding definition, constructed as a report for the US Congress, remains a benchmark educational definition for other countries. It postulates the necessity of preparing differentiated educational programs and providing out-of-school services for gifted children in order that they can use their potential abilities. Feldhusen (1992), Amabile (1996), and Maslow (1970) analyzed achievements of highly gifted and eminent adults by studying their biographies and autobiographies. The results show that persons with outstanding achievements in fields as varied as arts, science, politics, or education showed special talents already in the early period of their lives. Still other conceptualizations of giftedness aim at giving a holistic view of the problem and combine numerous aspects of giftedness and their interrelations, for example, intelligence, motivation, creativity, and social factors. Renzulli’s three-ring model of giftedness (1986) shows that the more giftedness shows up in behavior and develops more fully, the stronger
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the interaction between the set of three traits: aboveaverage ability, creativity, and task commitment. A similar model has been created by M¨onks (see Van Boxtel & M¨onks, 1992), who, apart from motivation, outstanding ability, and creativity, noticed the role of the social environment, especially family, school, and peers, in the development of the intellectual potential of gifted persons. Furthermore, some researchers notice individual differences in gifted persons’ learning styles, for example, in the clear significance of a change between focused, intense activity and a lowering of the intensity (Gadzella, 2003; Busato, Prins, Elshout, & Hamak, 2000; Thornton, Haskell, & Libby, 2006); in thinking styles (Sternberg, 1997b); in cognitive styles, determining perception, categorization, and the preferred manner of thinking (Witkin, 1977; Sternberg, 1985; Messick, 1994); and in individual styles (Costa & McCrae, 1998), which combine four factors of the Big Five (Costa & McCrae, 1992) to yield the following five styles: Interests, Activity, Attitudes, Learning, and Character. Since cognitive and thinking styles are rather preferences than abilities, some of them, for instance, field independence, correlate strongly with general intelligence in gifted persons (Goldstein & Blackman, 1978; after Necka, 2003). The mechanisms of broadly understood styles remain to be investigated in order to obtain more specific knowledge with reference to academic achievements (Busato et al., 2000).
Selection Researchers undertaking the task of identifying aboveaverage abilities of a student need to specify, at the outset of their work, what definition or conception of giftedness their study will be based on. It is common practice to examine the intellectual abilities of a child at the basic level. Tests for the examination of individuals, such as the Stanford–Binet test or Wechsler’s scales, are good tools for proving a high level of abilities. Since testing requires experience in psychology and is time consuming, group studies use school abilities and academic achievement tests (see Stein, 1986). Depending on the needs, an examination can be conducted together with an IQ measurement or interchangeably with one of
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the many available methods of measuring academic achievement, as for example, the California Test of Mental Maturity, the Lorge–Thorndike Intelligence Test, the Henmon–Nelson Test of Mental Ability, the Otis–Lennon Mental Ability Test, the Pintner General Ability Tests, the Primary Mental Ability Test, the Concept Mastery Test, the California Test of Mental Maturity (short form), the College Qualification Test, the Kuhlmann–Anderson Test, the Raven’s Progressive Matrices, and the Scholastic Aptitude Test (see Stanley George, & Solano, 1977). The mere examination of general intellectual abilities is not sufficient to assess the kind of giftedness that a given student possesses. It is recommended that other personality variables which show up as predispositions in gifted children be determined. These include particular academic abilities, creative and productive thinking, leadership abilities, abilities in visual or performing arts, and psychomotor ability (Marland, 1972). Individual differences in gifted persons also concern the motivational sphere, which should be taken into account in the diagnosis of giftedness. Renzulli’s (1986) three-ring model and M¨onks’ (M¨onks & Mason , 1993, Heller, 1993) triadic model, both well known in psychological literature, point to a relationship between intellectual and extraintellectual traits in gifted persons. According to Renzulli, individual differences in the description of gifted persons show up in the description of the interaction between three basic bundles of traits: above-average ability, a high level of task commitment, and a high level of creativity. A similar triarchic model has been worked out by Renzulli and Reis (2000) in order to describe school “space” which would be as suitable as possible to the development of students’ gifts. M¨onks also describes personalities of gifted students in agreement with the conception of cognitive functioning in the context of the environment and emphasizes the role of their own activity. His model is based on co-occurrence of basic components of abilities (intellectual, motivational, and personality based) and the developmental environment (family, school, peers). Activity of a gifted person, who possesses potential intellectual abilities, with the simultaneous favorable influence of the developmental environment creates optimal psychological conditions for the development of abilities (Freeman, 2000). Amabile (1996), who focused her research on above-average abilities
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and creativity, emphasizes the role of intrinsic motivation, as well as the willingness to make effort and concentrate. Hayes (1985) sees substantial individual differences in motivation in creative persons. According to him, it is impossible to find any purely cognitive variables which could discriminate between creative and non-creative persons. Hence, differences between creative and non-creative individuals spring directly from differences in motivation as related to, for example, different intensity of assimilating knowledge and different extent of necessary knowledge as well as the ability to use the possessed knowledge. Necka (1994a, 1994b) assumes the existence of a changing and dynamic system of various motives which include the need for control, the sense of duty, or vocation, as well as motives of a more playful or instrumental nature. What matters for above-average achievements, therefore, is also the depth of motivation. Gifted persons not only excel in academic studies but also have numerous achievements in arts and science. Their personal engagement and high level of abilities are additionally connected with their achievement motivation (Schuler, Thornton, Frintrup, & Mueller-Hanson, 2004), expectancy value or outcome expectancies (Wigfield & Eccles, 2000), self-efficacy (Bandura, 1991), and positive reinforcement (reward, praise, money) from significant others or institutions (Zimmerman, 2000). In motivation studies of gifted persons, a lot of attention is devoted to conscious and unconscious tendencies, desires, and needs, that is, motives which create favorable conditions for hard work and high achievements and, at the same time, positively stimulate gifted persons to pursue these. As early as in 1940, D. Harris stated that the most essential factor in academic achievement, apart from intelligence, is the strength and the type of motivation. Nowadays, some researchers believe that the motives of human behaviors can be either positive (highly ambitions, with a need for development and achievements) or, conversely, negative (with anxiety or fear of failure or unfulfillment of other people’s or one’s own expectations) (De Raad & Schouwenburg, 1996; after: Busato et al., 2000). According to Murray (1938), the strongest need demonstrated by gifted people is the need for achievements, which is manifested in human aspiration for perfection and for accomplishment of difficult tasks, also in overcoming one’s own limitations and external obstacles to the
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realization of a goal. In activity, it manifests itself as competitiveness, surpassing others in abilities and achievements and in good use of talent, which allows one to increase self-respect. Gifted persons use this strategy to ensure maximum self-efficacy (Feldhusen, 1986). Research on motivation in education has also been conducted by Murphy and Alexander (2000), who systematized and analyzed the most important theoretical definitions of high achievements from the aspect of motives. Among the most important concepts connected with the achievements of the gifted, they counted aims and goals, interests, motivations, and self-schema. Gifted persons can be talked about in terms of goal orientedness (Wentzel, 1989) and efficacy in goal realization (Meece et al., 1988). Pintrich (2000) also writes about mutual interactions between mastery- or achievement-orientation and attitude, as in, for example, a person’s motivation to make or avoid effort. For Ryan & Deci (2000), the authors of the Self-Determination Theory, the criterion for distinguishing types of motivation has been based on the difference between the cause and the goals which give rise to the action. The most basic difference between motives consists in the fact that activity based on intrinsic motivation is connected with an inborn interest or pleasure, while extrinsic motivation yields actions leading to individual goals. That is why one can talk not only about the level of motivation (e.g., how strong the motives in gifted persons are) but also about the direction of motivation (e.g., the type of motivation). For example, students may be strongly motivated to learn at home because of their curiosity and interest in work, but also because of their wish to satisfy their parents and teachers. Students can be motivated to learn new skills because they understand the potential value and usefulness of having knowledge or because those qualifications entail good marks and the privileges that go with them. In all those cases, the motivation is not necessarily different, but its sense and direction are (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Gifted adolescents, according to Tyszkowa (1990), have a motivation structure which consists of 10 motives for learning. These are intrinsic incentives to act, which combined with a high level of abilities allows one to aspire to high achievements. For example, the most strongly surfacing motives in students in Polish schools were cognitive and interest based (from 15.6 to 26.0%).
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Education By analyzing study results regarding school achievements, the psychology of individual differences aims to determine the ways and conditions of optimal teaching of able children and to create didactic and educational care models adapted to the needs of very able students (Urban & Sekowski, 1993). In the past two decades, many programs for able students at different levels of education, starting from preschool age, have been created, as for example, the “Talent Recognition and Development Program” (TRAD) (Fulkerson, 1995; Delisle, 2003). Programs for gifted students have also been created at universities, to mention just two developed in 1982: “Social and Emotional Needs of Gifted (SENG)” by J. T. James at the Professional School of Psychology, Wright State University and “The Guidance Laboratory for Gifted and Talented” (Myers & Pace, 1986) established by B. Kerr at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Special programs offered counseling, training, scientific research, and organization of conferences for gifted students and adults. Apart from the general programs, individual teaching programs for gifted persons and additional classes, aimed at developing their giftedness, have been increasingly receiving recognition. Nevertheless, teachers, in whose opinion the achievements of gifted children are usually higher than average, are often convinced that the children’s achievements are not proportionate to their intellectual abilities. Researchers interested in this problem are looking for the causes of difficulties in the assessment of gifted students, which result in a failure to qualify them for special teaching programs for the gifted (Butler-Por, 1993). Among the available methods and diagnostic procedures for the recognition of general and specific giftedness, one worth mentioning is Jellen & Verduin’s (1986) method worked out in the form of a taxonomy for special education of gifted youth. The authors present a conceptualization of “Differential Education of the Gifted” (DEG) to be used by teachers and students. According to Ward (Jellen & Verduin, 1986) the conception consists of three significant attributes: “(a) An integrated conceptualization of DEG appropriate for the potentials of gifted persons [. . .]. (b) A conceptual economy for DEG based on a taxonomy of 32 generic concepts
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and terms [. . .]. (c) A concise, explanatory, and wellresearched interpretation for each DEG concept in order to facilitate applications to realities of research, training, programs, and instructional content as well as educational methodology” (p. IX). Another model designed to assess gifted students, which has proven particularly useful for assessing higher grade students, has been developed by Janas and Szczerbiak (Janas-Stawikowska, 2004), based on the giftedness models of Renzulli (1986) and M¨onks (1992). Cognitive (academic) gifts are assessed taking into account three spheres of abilities: 1) The area of high intelligence and special abilities. The diagnosis concerns fast learning pace, proper and logical reasoning, the ability to understand abstract concepts, relations, and implications, assessment of the richness of vocabulary and proper use of vocabulary, the level of performance of tasks which are ahead of age standards (designed for older children), and good time and work management. 2) The area of task commitment. The diagnosis concerns independence in initiating different kinds of activities, the ability to focus on a given task for a long time, passion with regard to the realization of one’s interests, devoting a lot more time to them than they require, undertaking difficult tasks, and a lot of independence with regard to the choice and realization of one’s interests. 3) The area of creativity. The diagnosis concerns imagination and fantasy, the ability to find numerous solutions to the same problem, originality of ideas, expression and solutions, and independence, non-conformity, and the ability to take risks. According to the authors of the program, individual differences in emerging giftedness are due to the overlapping of these three spheres and are also associated with the interaction of a gifted person with their family, peer, and school environment (JanasStawikowska, 2004). Bearing in mind the development of special school programs for gifted children and adolescents, it should be noted that the process of identifying giftedness should consist of numerous stages, including the assessment (opinions) of parents, teachers, and specialists. Then, the risk of taking a wrong decision further is that the time invested in specialized education is proportionally lower than
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the time and attention devoted to the identification procedure (Siekanska, 2004). Development of gifts not only depends on a person’s intellectual abilities but is also a product of his or her personality, interests, aspirations, and motivation (Tyszkowa, 1990). Of considerable significance for achievements are a person’s own activity, constancy and perseverance, resistance to long-lasting stress, critical attitude to one’s own abilities, cognitive preferences and interests, and an adequate level of psychological needs, especially the need for development. Contemporary interest in giftedness is focused on the search for both internal indicators in personality itself and external factors facilitating gift development. This refers mainly to the social functioning of gifted students, which in the literature is described together with their emotional functioning. According to research results, gifted persons are more likely to experience social problems. This concerns both children (Begin & Gagne, 1994; Winner, 1996) and college students (Robinson, 1997; Bain, Bourgeois, & Pappas, 2006). The difficulties in the assessment of school achievements of gifted students, apart from the interference from their social and emotional functioning, may be due to the teacher’s subjectivity of the assessment. Research shows that school performance is influenced by the situation at home and the family relations. It turns out that school performance of children who were not accepted by their family faced rejection, restrictions, and hostility, were given a hard time, and were much below their intellectual abilities. And conversely, children who were trusted, accepted, and engaged in family affairs achieved high school performance (TasselBaska, 1995). However, the situation may also be quite the opposite as gifted children and adolescents with high intellectual abilities and school performance may not be successful at work (Sternberg, 1996). It is quite difficult to check and assess student’s school performance since the grade on the school certificate is not a reflection of a student’s giftedness and interests. Additionally, the level of teaching might be different depending on the school and the teacher’s professional education. Researchers agree that the process of identification of gifted students must be adequate to the proposed curriculum or work program (Heller & Feldhusen, 1986). A grade or points as descriptors of ability have a selecting function since they influence the choices in further direction and level of giftedness development (at college, university); therefore,
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they should be objective and reliable and independent of the examiner (Sekowski, 2004b). Goldberg (1986) finds fault with teachers’ recommendations, which she finds to be a result of assessing strongly motivated, hard-working, and obedient children as gifted. Renzulli and Delcourt (1986) criticize recommendation of children for gifted programs only by teachers, since, in their opinion, the criteria for assessment of giftedness should be based on an IQ match and a simultaneous assessment of the child’s giftedness by the teacher. They suggest that researchers treat teachers’ assessment as a source of information for the difficult process of recognition of intellectual abilities in the course of a test assessment. Urban (1994) believes that only socialization and education can draw a clear division in the common line of development since in the course of this developmental process a specific type of intelligent behavior is favored and desired. Introducing order into “the child’s creative chaos” inhibits creative development. School education and instruction are still (or again) far from not disturbing or not inhibiting creative behavior, not to mention from providing conditions requiring creative behavior from students. Some interesting publications and school projects, such as the model Teacher Observational Items (TOI) list (see Yewchuk & Lupart, 1993), should not confuse researchers and persons responsible for the identification and education of gifted students as to the need to create and implement new concepts. This refers, in particular, to education and instruction at school, which must be unique, adapted to the type of children’s and adolescents’ giftedness, and the existing social conditions. It is important to include as many persons remaining in close relation, such as parents, teachers, and specialists, as possible in the process of the broadening intellectual abilities and the providing of support in the development of giftedness in gifted persons, though the educational programs designed for gifted persons will, by themselves, not replace their personal commitment and work.
Conclusions The presented summary of research on individual differences in giftedness points to important theoretical and practical consequences entailed by this approach.
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Individual differences concern so many psychological dimensions that it is impossible to discuss them all. With reference to giftedness, they mainly concern cognitive dimensions as well as other personality-based determiners of human functioning. There is a clear tendency to do research which combines levels of functioning (e.g., traits and physiological reactions). Also apparent is the need to combine various scientific disciplines in considering individual differences in giftedness. This concerns, among others, psychology, genetics, biology, and neurology. It is necessary to introduce new concepts referring to different kinds of abilities or intelligence. The diversity of conceptions of giftedness and the constant emergence of new ones is a manifestation of the need to take into account individual differences in giftedness research. This also refers to new research methods and tools of measurement.
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Chapter 22
A Theory of Talent Development in Women of Accomplishment Sally M. Reis and Erin E. Sullivan
Abstract Research on talented women who have achieved eminence in a variety of domains illustrates that no one formula leads to success. Some successful women marry and have children; some do not. Some work and live at high speed; others move more calmly through the world and achieve at similar or even higher levels. The current chapter draws from two decades of research pertaining to the lives of women who have successfully navigated the obstacles that often prevent high achievement in women, offering a new theory of female talent development. Issues explored include the spheres in which women express their talents, factors that may promote or inhibit the development of gifts, and gender differences in experiences that contribute to the unique nature of female achievement.
and carefully, living quieter lives while achieving similar or even higher levels of productivity. The processes of developing their talents also vary. Many of the gifted women described in this chapter evolved their talents over decades, drawing from a backdrop of earlier varied life experiences that helped them to prepare for their future life accomplishments. Only some of their experiences were academic, with most of the women indicating that their real preparation for lives of accomplishment emerged from life events that occurred after school ended. An award-winning children’s writer, for example, wove memories of her Hispanic heritage and parenting into her literary work, incorporating the insights and creative experiences she had gained as a mother and through reflections on her own childhood. Others made careful choices about the development of Keywords Theory of female talent development · gen- their talents, achieving at high levels through working der talent development · eminence · talent · creative de- steadily and slowly, while acknowledging and sometimes even celebrating the detours that occurred in their velopment · women and eminence lives, such as raising family, helping others, and working in service for the betterment of others at home or in the community. All felt a certain intensity in their lives, characterized by a need and sense of obligation to Introduction pursue their talents in an active way. Many compared their own lives to the lives of their contemporaries— Research on talented women who have achieved em- other equally talented women who did not attain the inence in various domains (Reis, 1987, 1995, 1998, same level of eminence, but who appeared to live much 2001) illustrates the complex and diverse paths they calmer, and in some cases, happier lives. Recently, a definition has been proposed that defines have chosen to follow. Some have partners and some the process of talent development in eminent women do not. Some have children and some do not. Some live fast-paced lives characterized by restless energy and a (Reis, 2005): constant need to work. Others work more peacefully S.M. Reis (B) University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA e-mail:
[email protected] Feminine talent development occurs when women with high intellectual, creative, artistic or leadership ability or potential achieve at high levels in an area they choose and when they make contributions that they consider meaningful to society; these contributions are enhanced when
L.V. Shavinina (ed.), International Handbook on Giftedness, c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-6162-2 22,
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488 the women develop personally satisfying relationships and pursue what they believe to be significant and consequential work.
Drawing upon research about this topic spanning two decades of work, a new theory of female talent development is proposed in this chapter, suggesting that the cumulative and contextual experiences of women of accomplishment differ from those of men in intellectual, moral, personal, and work perceptions. This chapter presents brief case studies of two eminent women who participated in this study, introduces the theory, and summarizes the research underlying the theory.
Traditional Theories of Talent Development People have long been fascinated with creative and high-achieving individuals. Researchers and theorists such as Tannenbaum (1983, 1991), Sternberg (1986, 1999), Renzulli (1978, 1986, 2003), Gruber (1996) and Arnold, Noble, & Subotnik (1996) are just a few who have contributed to the literature about talented people and their products. This section will briefly discuss three of these theories, focusing on how different theorists define successful expression of talent, factors that facilitate talent development, and characteristics of talented people.
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that enhances the moral, physical, emotional, social, intellectual, or aesthetic life of humanity” (p. 27). Factors that facilitate talent development. Tannenbaum (1983, 1991) proposes five factors that are essential to the fulfillment of gifted potential: superior general intellect, distinctive special aptitudes, a supportive array of nonintellectual traits, a challenging and facilitative environment, and “the smile of good fortune” at crucial periods of life. Interestingly, Tannenbaum’s theory suggests that these factors are multiplicative, rather than additive. That is, the absence of any one prevents development of potential, or, as Tannenbaum (1991) states, “No combination of four factors can compensate for serious deficiency in the fifth.” He does suggest, however, that depending on the talent expressed, the threshold level of each factor required will vary, e.g., a physicist needs lower levels of interpersonal ability than does someone working in a social service position. Characteristics of gifted producers and performers. Tannenbaum (1991) opines that attempting to attach personality characteristics to gifted behaviors is “a chicken and egg problem” (p. 35), troublesome in that no one knows whether these characteristics simply correlate with achievement, cause it, or are the consequences of it. However, he does cite motivation to achieve as consistently linked to achievement. While he sees internal motivation most often correlated to achievement in research studies, he notes that external motivation can add meaningfully to an individual’s drive to succeed.
Gifted Producers and Gifted Performers With numerous publications on the subject of giftedness and creativity, Tannenbaum (1983, 1986, 1991) has made one of the more robust contributions to the study of talent development. Regarding the question of who qualifies as gifted, Tannenbaum (1991) identifies two types of individuals: gifted producers and gifted performers. Producers create “thoughts and tangibles,” such as scientific theories, sculptures, philosophies, and musical compositions. Performers stage artistic demonstrations (e.g., theater or dance productions) or perform meaningful services that benefit humanity, such as teaching, leading political movements, or doing social work. According to Tannenbaum, giftedness pertains to work within “spheres of an activity
Successful Intelligence Sternberg’s (1999) theory defines intelligence as “the ability to achieve success in life, given one’s personal standards, within one’s sociocultural context” (p. 293). This is a slightly different standard of intelligence or giftedness than that applied by Tannenbaum, who argued that giftedness pertains to accomplishments that benefit and elevate humankind. By Sternberg’s theory, a famous actor or actress who performs entertaining but not particularly meaningful roles might be considered “successfully intelligent,” provided he or she is happy, as these individuals are highly valued and rewarded in the current culture. Such a person
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would not necessarily be seen as “gifted” according to Tannenbaum’s theory. Facilitating factors in successful intelligence. Unlike many theorists who study intelligence or giftedness, Sternberg does not posit any type of “general” ability (G), or group of abilities as necessary for successful intelligence. Nor does he specify particular environmental factors, although he does note that socioeconomic status, education, religion, etc., may play a role in one’s opportunity to develop intelligence. Instead, Sternberg sees the ability to maximize strengths and compensate for weaknesses as crucial to one’s ability to develop one’s skills and achieve (p. 297), and believes that individuals achieve success within a field or even within the same type of job in different ways. In other words, successful people make the most of what they have. Characteristics of people who achieve successful intelligence. According to Sternberg, intelligent individuals possess and leverage some combination of analytical, creative, and practical abilities. Analytical abilities are those traditionally measured by intelligence or aptitude tests; creative abilities are those that facilitate success with novel tasks; and practical abilities are those we use to solve problems in everyday life. Intelligent people use these abilities to adapt to environments, shape their environments, or move to new environments when a current situation is not fostering growth.
Theories of Female Talent Development While a significant number of articles exist regarding talent development in women, few researchers have proposed theories of female talent development that span various domains and that can be widely applied under a variety of circumstances. In this chapter, we will explore two such theories: Arnold, Noble, & Subotnik’s (1996) theory of “remarkable women” and Kerr’s (1985, 1994) work and themes about “smart girls and women.”
Remarkable Women Arnold, Noble, & Subotnik (1996) suggest that talent development in women may differ from that of
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men due to differences in psychological needs and drives, in issues faced at home and at work, and in access to resources that encourage the development of gifts. Thus it is fitting that their model of talent development defines gifted behavior differently than traditional models. Most striking is their inclusion of the personal sphere as an outlet for gifted behavior. They note, for example, that there is talent in nurturing children well, building strong primary relationships, and making a home—particularly for the many women worldwide whose pasts are marked by dysfunction, lack of health services, and other obstacles. In addition to the personal sphere, Arnold, Noble, & Subotnik (1996) recognize giftedness more traditionally, stating that “the widest sphere of influence lies in the creation of ideas or products that change the course of a domain or a social arena” (p. 435). In this way, their definition of gifted behavior is similar to that of Tannenbaum (1991). Success in the public sphere is characterized as “leadership” or “eminence” (p. 428). The model also heavily stresses context, however, suggesting that what qualifies as gifted behavior depends on a woman’s individual background. Women with many opportunities and fewer obstacles may be seen as gifted if they become eminent for outstanding contributions to a field, while an Indian woman of low caste may be seen as demonstrating gifted behavior if she overcomes obstacles to receive a degree or obtain a career. Factors that contribute to women’s achievement. An emphasis on context in women’s lives is seen throughout the talent-development model offered by Arnold, Noble, & Subotnik (1996). Central to the model is the idea that women’s relative position in relation to “the mainstream of their societies’ achievement centers” has a powerful effect on whether and to what degree they will develop their talents. Thus, demographic variables such as race, wealth, and geographic location are key facilitators/inhibitors of talent development. It is important to note that in this model, adversity may either help or hinder development of women’s gifts— depending on the woman and the circumstances. Other factors include desire to achieve (similar to Tannenbaum’s theory) and the support and validation of at least one other person. Characteristics of achieving women. As described by Arnold, Noble, and Subotnik the characteristics of achieving women are those that allow them to overcome cultural and gender discrimination in whatever form they take. Thus, “cognitive and emotional
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flexibility,” willingness to take risks and aim high, tolerance for making mistakes, persistence in the face of adversity, and the ability to resist the tendency to internalize limiting messages from the outside world may all play a role in female talent development. Talent is important, according to this model, but it certainly is not the only factor that influences female achievement. As noted by the authors, “A high level of innate ability is insufficient to withstand cultural pressures that have caused untold numbers of women to discount or deny their gifts” (p. 432).
Smart Girls and Women Kerr’s (1985, 1994) writings on eminent women differ from other works discussed in this chapter, in that Kerr conducted biographical research rather than case study or experimental research. Kerr studied the lives of 33 eminent women in various domains, including Margaret Meade, Eleanor Roosevelt, Marie Curie, Maya Angelou, Katherine Hepburn, and Rigoberta Menchu in an attempt to draw some conclusions about how female talent develops. In this review of the lives of successful actresses, scientists, activists, writers, and more, she found several themes, detailed in the following sections. Factors that facilitate development of talents. One of the most unique factors identified in Kerr’s (1985, 1994) analysis of female talent development is time alone during girlhood. For some of these girls who later became eminent women, time alone was a choice; for others, a state forced upon them by circumstance. Kerr (1994) suggests that, regardless of the cause of isolation, periods of aloneness provided these girls with time for reflection and an appreciation for individual work. Individualized instruction likewise was common across this group. Kerr (1994) notes that, for these girls, being able to move through material at their own pace probably prevented boredom and allowed advancement of skills in areas of particular talent. This individualized instruction was often provided within the larger environment of same-sex education, allowing for attention above and beyond that which might have been found within mixed-gender classrooms. Finally, not only did most of the women Kerr (1994) studied have mentors—but they had mentors who themselves had “access to the highest level of their
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profession[s]” (p. 85). She cautions that one should not draw the conclusion that these eminent women owed their success to their relationships with influential people but rather that their talent was significant enough to impress those at the peak of their individual fields. Characteristics of eminent women. In addition to the variety of external factors, Kerr (1985, 1994) found a number of internal characteristics common to eminent women. First, almost all of the women she studied were talented and insatiable readers as girls, which may have facilitated their learning and provided fodder for new ideas. Many also felt that they were “different” or “special” (Kerr, 1994, p. 81), from a young age, either due to their gifts or for other reasons, including the feeling that they were physically unattractive. All but one found adolescence painful and troublesome, increasing the time they spent alone and providing direct experience of the costs and benefits of standing apart. As they grew toward adulthood, each of the women Kerr (1985, 1994) studied formed identities relating to their ideas and work, rather than defining themselves primarily by relationships with others. Likewise, most of the women were able to avoid seeing oneself primarily in terms of their membership in a couple or group. Instead, Kerr’s eminent women were able to connect to others such as mentors or partners without losing their own identities or goals. Finally, in keeping with the idea that work was a huge part of the lives and relationships of these women, Kerr (1985, 1994) found that many joined work and love by marrying or partnering others who shared their passions. Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Steiglitz, Marie and Pierre Curie, and Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas are provided as examples of just a few such couples.
The Challenges of Talented Women Many talented women who have not achieved at high levels in their professional lives tell a similar story (Reis, 1995, 1996, 1998, 2002). They were extremely bright in school, but as they grew up, they began to feel ambivalent about their future and their responsibilities to loved ones. Their dreams for future high-profile careers and important work wavered and diminished and they began to doubt what they previously believed they could accomplish. Their beliefs about their abil-
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ities as well as their self-confidence may have been undermined during childhood or adolescence. Some acquired various levels of “feminine modesty,” leading to changes in self-perceptions of ability and talent, which subsequently affect others’ perceptions of their potential. Some fell in love in college and suddenly and unexpectedly, the dreams of the person they loved became more important to them than their own dreams and they lowered their aspirations to pursue the relationship. Some decided to become nurses instead of doctors, and some completed a bachelor’s degree instead of a Ph.D. Some accepted less challenging work that was different from what they had dreamed about doing a decade earlier, but that enabled them sufficient time to raise their families and support their partner’s work (Reis, 1987, 1995, 1998). Some talented women born after the women’s movement were surprised to find that they had to make choices that benefited those they loved, after being consistently told that they could “have and do it all.” They learned, often to their surprise, that they could not. The current study explored the lives of women who have successfully navigated the obstacles that prevent so many women from achieving at high levels. Particular attention is paid to how and where women exercise their talents, factors that facilitate and inhibit female talent development, and characteristics of achieving women.
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Instrumentation and Data Collection
Qualitative data collection procedures followed guidelines suggested by Strauss (1987), and Strauss & Corbin (2000). A preliminary questionnaire included 28 questions about personal lives (age, marital status, college or university attended, age of siblings and children, and information relating to the designation as having special talents or gifts); career (reasons a career was selected, other career interests, parental acceptance of career, future career plans); parental and partner encouragement of academic abilities; personal and professional achievements; the effects of marriage and children on career or personal choices, free time, and housework; and life satisfaction. In addition to the questionnaire, an interview protocol was developed based on Patton’s (1990) approach. The interview protocol involved follow-up items related to responses in the questionnaire and included 10–12 questions relating to the major areas described earlier. Field notes were taken during the interviews, which usually lasted between 2 and 3 h, and each was later transcribed and coded for major categories that emerged from the interviews. All participants participated in subsequent interviews, conducted regularly over a period of two decades, and in most cases a minimum of five interviews occurred over two decades of data collection. The use of questionnaires, multiple interviews, and document and accomplishment review provided triangulation of participants’ perceptions. The number and length of interviews were determined at the point at which data saturation occurred, meaning that the participants provided information that was Research Methods redundant and or repetitive of previously collected information. Follow-up interviews over time enabled To better understand the paths to talent realization further probing of their accomplishments, and attainin women, 22 American women who have gained ment of eminence over time, as well as current and eminence in diverse fields were studied during the retrospective perceptions about the nature of their last two decades (Reis, 1987, 1995, 1998). Qualitative personal and professional lives. case study methodology was used that included questionnaires, document review, and in-depth interviews to probe perceptions of both work and personal lives (Miles & Huberman, 1994; Yin, 1994). Primary Data Analysis source data used to document accomplishments included their books, plays, articles, diaries, envi- All data were analyzed following procedures, outlined ronmental successes, legislation, chapters, records, by Strauss & Corbin (1990), to generate an explanacompact discs, as well as articles, chapters, books, tory theory and to develop an “inductively derived dissertations, or other interviews with or about grounded theory” about the phenomenon of female talent development. The analysis procedures employed them.
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three hierarchical, yet interrelated and recurring types of coding: open coding, axial coding, and selective coding. Open coding compares and contrasts discrete parts of the data to formulate conceptual labels such as the common personality traits exhibited by the women in the study. These concepts are then compared for similarities and grouped together under categories. Axial coding focuses on identifying and linking subcategories by a set of relationships which denote causal conditions, intervening conditions, interaction strategies, the consequences of those strategies, and the context in which they occur. These concepts and relationships are verified with data in order to validate emerging theory. Finally, selective coding procedures guide the selection of a core category which relates all major categories to each other. In this study, the core category involved the characteristics of women of eminence and the unique paths followed to accomplish their work.
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Gall, 2002). To achieve cross-validation of the qualitative data, “between-methods” triangulation, two methods were used. The data were gathered by following the general interview method (Patton, 1990; Gall, Borg, & Gall, 2002) and by document review of the women’s productivity, documents, and records. Construct validity was achieved through the use of a sound interview protocol. An audit trail validated key decisions made during the research process. In addition, member checks were conducted in categories with participants to check that they agreed with findings related to their cases.
Case Studies of Eminent Women To provide examples of the core category, the characteristics of these women and the varied paths they pursued, case studies of two of the women are provided.
Participants Each eminent woman was recognized as a major contributor in her field, and several achieved the distinction of being the first or one of the first women in her respective field. Some, for example, were the first women to achieve specific milestones in theater, politics, academe, literature and poetry, science, musical composition, government, business, environmental sciences, art, education, and other fields. Initial selection was based on individual recognition in a self-selected area of work, productivity in that work, books or articles written about the participant, and receipt of awards or special honors in her field. Each woman was either (a) nominated by one or more persons in her field or (b) invited to participate because of stories or articles about her work in major publications such as The New York Times, weekly news magazines, or journal articles. Additionally, several of the women were identified as American pioneers, for example as the first American female forester or one of the first female Broadway theater directors and producers.
Congresswoman Nancy L. Johnson (1935–)
Congresswoman Johnson is an intensely energetic person who grew up in the Midwest, with one older sister and two younger siblings. Her father was a businessman. Her mother spent her childhood in a small mill town in North Carolina, graduated from Duke University, became a history teacher, and attended the University of Chicago in the summers to complete her master’s degree. Her mother also traveled to Europe, which was unusual for a single woman during that period of time. Congresswoman Johnson explained that her parents had always worked hard and expected that their four children would work as well. She believes that these values affected her life. Her mother used to tell her to work before she got married and reminded her often that she herself had not married until she was 30, and was established in her own line of work. Nancy’s mother did not work when Nancy was a child, instead devoting her energies to her children’s schoolwork and out-of-school interests. Although her Limitations of the Study father held stereotyped gender role expectations and provided more encouragement and opportunities for When using interviews in a qualitative study, validity her brother than Nancy, she nonetheless credits the and reliability standards are applicable (Gall, Borg, & support and encouragement he did provide with her
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success today. “He believed we could do anything we wanted if we were willing to work hard. He emphasized doing your best and told me that if I do my best, I can do whatever I want to do. My father was a real worker and we all learned to work in a way that most kids didn’t, and so we developed an ability to persevere.” Nancy always knew she would go to college, and after attending the University of Chicago Laboratory School for elementary school and a public secondary school, she graduated from Radcliffe College, marrying almost immediately thereafter. Her three daughters were born during the early years of her marriage. Before she ran for national office, she held a variety of volunteer and paid jobs in her community. For example, she was the director of her daughters’ religious education program, a volunteer for the schools, served on the United Ways Appropriation Committee, the library expansion fund drive, the charter revision committee, and other school and church committees. She believes that these experiences as well as subsequent political victories were the result of people she met who both “encouraged and helped” her. A young man who worked during her first campaign, for example, had many skills that she did not, He organized the campaign and provided both encouragement and support. She acknowledged that she had high energy and many ideas, but she also found someone at each step who saw “broader possibilities” and helped to set the next step in motion. Her career in politics began when she ran and was elected to the state senate in 1976 but she did not campaign at the national level until her youngest daughter was a senior in high school, explaining, “I would not have run for Congress if that opening had come up earlier. In fact, I was urged to run before the seat became available, and I wouldn’t do it because I still had two of my daughters at home.” Even for her first election to the city council she had to be encouraged to run for office by her husband, a physician in the city hospital. “He said, ‘Why don’t you do it ?’ and my children said, ‘Mom, you’re doing all of this community volunteer work, why don’t you get a paid job like an ordinary person?’ ” Congresswoman Nancy L. Johnson won her first election to the House of Representatives in 1982, and in 2002, the voters of the Fifth District overwhelmingly re-elected Johnson to serve an eleventh term. She is currently a member of several powerful committees in-
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cluding the Ways and Means and Ethics Committee. In prior terms, she was a member of the House Budget and Public Works Committees and the Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families. Johnson’s chief legislative priorities include strengthening Medicare with a prescription drug benefit, expanding coverage for the uninsured, ensuring long-term care insurance affordability, reducing taxes, and improving public education. She also works for environmental protection, affordable housing, and fair trade policy on behalf of her constituents. In 1988, Johnson became the first Republican woman ever named to the powerful Ways and Means Committee and is now the committee’s fourth-ranking Republican. In 1995, she became the first woman to chair a Ways and Means Subcommittee with her appointment as Chairwoman of the Oversight Subcommittee. During her tenure, Johnson steered the development and passage of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights II, which provided more than 30 new protections for taxpayers. She voted for a number of middle-class tax relief measures, including eliminating the earnings limit on working seniors; increasing the child care tax credit and expanding it to stay-at-home moms; and the development of pension reform to make it easier for small businesses to offer pensions and for people to enjoy retirement security. In January 1999, Johnson was appointed Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Human Resources, which oversees the nation’s welfare laws. Her bills to improve job placement in the new welfare system and to help children in foster care make a successful transition to adulthood were signed into law. In addition, she developed the first fatherhood initiative to help fathers of children on welfare get jobs and become more effective parents, and legislation to improve the child support system to make the transition from welfare to work more secure. Johnson was named Chairwoman of the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee in 2001. She is a nationally recognized leader in health care reform. She successfully sponsored legislation to guarantee health insurance to millions of American children and helped write the law that saved Medicare from bankruptcy. She has been an active co-author of reimbursement reforms to strengthen community hospitals, home health agencies, and other providers and to extend Medicare coverage to cancer clinical trials. She also has introduced legislation to assure universal access to affordable
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care and to address the looming long-term care crisis. Her insights about why she has been so successful reflect a keen knowledge of her surroundings as well as strategies she has learned about survival in politics. She believes that the men who are most successful in Washington are not those who “...know a whole lot about something. They are the guys who have kept track of the world around them and know what’s happening and who’s who and how it all fits. Women are now trying to integrate career and family but they are not focusing on themselves as citizens and as persons.” She believes that women need to take a more active role to learn how government and people work together to make things happen. “Men move up the ladder quickly and learn how to have support staff. Women do not learn to use support staff. When I first ran for office, I’d write my own newsletter, type it, run it off, and then sweep up the office after I’d finished stapling the newsletter.”
Mary Sherwood, Forester, Conservationist, and Ecologist (1906–2001) Mary Sherwood was a small, thin woman with sharp blue eyes and a firm handshake. She graduated from college in 1934 after a long and difficult struggle to receive her undergraduate degree in forestry. She spent time searching through many records and believed that she was this country’s first female forester. Mary was older than all of the other male foresters who were her classmates in college because she spent 6 years working in a typewriter factory after her father had decided that any further education would be a waste of time for his 16-year-old daughter. Her father, whom she describes as kind and quiet, was a mailman who descended from an old New England family and her mother was a housewife. Her father completed fourth grade and her mother, sixth grade. Her mother did not oppose her father’s wishes to discontinue her schooling even though Mary believed her mother knew how important an education was to her daughter. Mary also believes that her mother was troubled by the spirit her daughter displayed, especially when compared to her younger sister. She explained that she believed her mother “recognized me as rebellious and it was a relief for her to have me taken out of school and put to work. She was a real
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Victorian and I was not a lady.” Clothes were never important to Mary and her appearance was never a priority. When volunteers from the local YWCA came to the typewriter factory looking for motivated young women to attend evening classes, she quickly volunteered. They recognized her potential and arranged for her to live with a financially well-to-do family and return to high school to obtain her diploma. Mary was relieved to leave the factory because she “couldn’t stand putting ribbon spools together” and because she wasn’t interested in what the other girls talked about: “weddings and boyfriends and clothes and jewelry.” She completed her freshman year studies in two weeks and spent the next two years finishing her sophomore, junior, and senior year of high school while she worked as a mother’s helper for the family with whom she lived. Her parents never supported her in any way and were opposed to her returning to high school and later, attending college. She remembered her father as terribly domineering and she was determined never to live under her parents’ roof again. Mary received a scholarship from the YWCA for her first year of college and maintained a series of jobs to support herself for the rest of her undergraduate college years. The family she lived with encouraged her to apply to Wellesley and Vassar but she regarded those colleges as similar to finishing schools for females and instead, chose to attend a large state university. There she met and came under the tutelage of a male botany professor who encouraged her interests in forestry. There were no female professors in botany and she described her mentor as “an innocent” who could not predict the barriers she would subsequently face as a female forester. His experience with women working out of the home was limited to a wife and sister who were teachers. Mary believed that he never considered the problems she would eventually face finding work in her field. “Having acquired a forestry degree in 1934, I soon learned that men had no intention of permitting a woman into their all-male field, so from then on, for many years, I had to either settle for a permanent office job, which I didn’t do, or I had to stay with my own interests.” She graduated during the depression and the few jobs that did exist were reserved for men with families. Following her college graduation, she conducted field work for 6 months, living in a tent and collecting data on water temperature, rainfall, and other variables in local trout streams. Mary later moved to New York, attended Cornell University,
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and received a master’s degree in wildlife management but was not able to find work in her field “because no one would hire a woman.” For the next two decades, she continued to seek employment as a forester, surviving by taking odd jobs in different parts of the country that enabled her to work in her field, even on a voluntary basis. Only once during her working life was she able to obtain paid employment in her chosen field of forestry and that was during World War II when no male foresters were available to work in Wisconsin. She also fell in love for the first time during this period and a week after her only marriage, her husband was drafted for duty and was subsequently reported missing in action during the war. Retrospectively, she believed however, that they would have been divorced if he had returned because of her work. “I couldn’t stand the thought of cooking or cleaning or doing laundry for a man,” she insisted, “I was really more committed to the woods and that is all that ever mattered to me.” She moved to Wisconsin to begin her career and loved her work, but when the war ended, she had to relinquish her position to returning male veterans. She turned down the substitute position the state offered as an advisor to women who had volunteered to plant trees. Mary spent most of the rest of her life rejecting jobs and roles that were usually relegated to women. Mary explained that money never mattered to her, nor did possessions or her surroundings. She started a plant nursery and spent several years cultivating wildflowers, but left that business because she was tired of the “housekeeping and bookkeeping” and wanted to be back outside. In 1957 she accepted a research position at a university in Florida after searching for work in her own field for over two decades. During the years she spent in Florida, she conducted research and also worked as a nature guide at Everglades National Park and reread Henry David Thoreau’s works, particularly Walden. She said, “If I had read Walden sooner, my whole life might have taken a different turn.” She subsequently moved to Concord to be as close to Walden Pond as possible, and received a foundation grant that enabled her to concentrate on Thoreau. Mary lived in a converted chicken coop to save money, joined the Thoreau Society, and decided that Concord should have a permanent Thoreau Center, which she helped to create during the next 7 years.
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Mary later moved to Maine where she started another Thoreau Society. For the next 8 years, this 64year-old woman emulated Thoreau by living in a cabin, chopping her own wood, shoveling snow, planting, reading, and becoming intimately involved with the woods around her. She taught courses on Thoreau at the nearby University of Maine and enjoyed her solitary, productive life. It was during this time that she began a journal about Thoreau and wrote some of the articles and books that she would either publish or try to finish later in her life. At the conclusion of this time in the cabin, she spent a year camping in a van from Canada to Florida where she located various wildlife habitats and investigated native plant distribution. By the end of her life, Mary estimated that she had spent more than half of her life in a tent living outdoors and doing naturalist research. She gave up kayaking when she reached 80 but still hiked several hours each day until her health diminished. In l980 she founded a nationwide conservation group devoted to restoring Walden to the sanctuary Thoreau once knew. In her mid-eighties, Mary continued to plant and identify rare species of wildlife while she worked on her autobiography entitled Sister of the Old Wild Goose and three other books. She existed on a very limited income later in life but said she was content with her life and hoped to continue her efforts to preserve Walden. She expressed few regrets about her life except not writing more and being less goal oriented than she might have been. She described herself as feisty, independent, and rebellious against regulations, authority, and those who damage the environment. She won numerous environmental awards including a U.S. Department of Environmental Protection Merit Award, and many articles were published about her life and her work.
A Theory of Female Talent Development Using data from this and past research, a theory of talent development in women emerged that has continued to be refined (Reis, 1987, 1996, 1998, 2002; 2005) that includes abilities (intelligence and special talents), personality traits, environmental factors, and personal perceptions, such as the social importance of the use of one’s talents to make a positive difference in the world. Underlying this theory is the belief that talent can be developed in women of high potential
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through systematic work, active choices, and individual, sustained effort (Dweck, 1999; Moon, 2005; Renzulli, 1978, 1986).
Spheres of Influence: Where Do Gifted Women Exercise Their Talents? As in the Arnold, Noble, & Subotnik (1996) model of talent development, this theory proposes that women can apply their talents and gifts in many spheres, and to achievements often overlooked in literature on talent development, e.g., raising children, developing relationships, and making contributions in the community. Perhaps the most controversial issue related to women and eminence is the claim that women’s lives and personalities may prevent the single-minded devotion to work that is often hypothesized to drive production in talented men (Piirto, 1991; Subotnik & Arnold; 1995). In fact, many women, such as the composer Joan Tower, who has neither married nor had children, do indeed have the potential for single-minded devotion to their work. Many other talented women choose, however, to diversify their creative efforts, and yet still manage to produce meaningful, high-quality work. Congresswoman Nancy L. Johnson is a good example of a woman who applied herself deeply both to her family and to her career (Reis, 2002). Moreover, some eminent women believe that this diversification of talents actually has a positive impact on their work. Some female artists, for example, believe that the creative growth gained from both childbirth and parenting contributes to the creative growth of their art (Kirschenbaum & Reis, 1997). Recent research (Reis, 1987, 1995, 1996, 1998) has demonstrated that some women’s talents can be diversified across multiple areas in their lives, including relationships, work related to family and home, personal interests, aesthetic sensitivities, and appearances. This diversification of creative talents emerges in their work but also in other areas including relationships with family and friends, in the ways they decorate their homes, prepare meals, plan complicated schedules for their families, balance time between work and personal life, and stretch the family budget. Perhaps because talented women have had to struggle to find a place for themselves in work situations, they
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have not yet had the time or experience to be able to engage in the single-minded devotion to work. Perhaps the barriers that they have experienced over time have led to the need to diversify their talents (Kirschenbaum & Reis, 1997; List & Renzulli, 1991; Ochse, 1991; Piirto, 1991 Reis, 1987, 1995, 1996, 1998; Roscher; 1987), or it may be that they simply prefer the diverse expressions of their creativity and talent.
The Trajectory of Female Talent Development The finding that some women manage to have both successful home lives and exceptional success in the public sphere leads to another facet of the currently proposed theory—namely that women develop their talents in a multitude of ways and at different times in their lives. Many women in this study, however, developed their talents slowly and over time. Each woman displayed a careful patience about the development of her gifts, with some waiting years to have the opportunity to invest considerable blocks of time to their work, while others were able to work steadily over the years. Rather than early recognition, the women in this study demonstrated persistent production, evolving into higher forms of talent. The sheer volume of output, what appeared to be “learned creativity,” and intense love for work are what led the women in this study to exceptional achievement. In this way this theory supports the later work of Sternberg (1999) and Sternberg & Gregorenko (2002) regarding the development of successful intelligence, as these eminent women succeeded in life on their own terms by developing their strengths, compensating for their weaknesses, and shaping their home and work environment to develop their unique gifts. The theory also supports the later research of Renzulli (2003) as he identified optimism, courage, romance with a discipline, sensitivity to human concerns, vision and sense of destiny, physical and mental energy, as essential background components of what makes giftedness. While in many cases talents came to fruition in later years, each participant made early decisions about her development that prepared her for future accomplishments. Mary Sherwood, for example, volunteered as a
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girl to attend night courses to obtain a high-school education. This decision set her on the path to college and to the botany course that opened the door to her life’s work. The foundational experiences of women in this study, however, were not always those that came through formalized learning experiences, or those that might be viewed as particularly important by others. Nancy Johnson, for one, credited some of her political success at the national level to the organizational skills gathered in local community action groups such as the Parent Teacher Association (PTA), and to local political action, rather than to the degree she had received decades earlier from a prestigious women’s college (Reis, 1998).
Factors That Facilitate Talent Development As in other talent-development models, findings from the women in this research suggest that a combination of external and internal factors facilitated their success—although the factors are in some cases different from those cited in other models. For example, unlike Tannenbaum’s (1983, 1991) model, none of the women in this study reported that they exhibited superior intellect as children and many believed that they experienced “bad luck” at crucial periods in their lives. Instead, a key finding of this research was that all of the profiled women felt a need and sense of obligation to pursue their talents in an active way. In this regard, the current theory supports the work of Gruber (1996). The women in this study lived their lives to achieve the kind of giftedness in which Gruber was interested, “the kind that can be transformed by its possessor into effective creative work for the aesthetic enrichment of human experience, for the improvement of our understanding of the world, or for the betterment of the human condition and of our prospects for survival as a species” (1996, p. 248). The eminent women in this study pursued with intensity the social responsibilities related to their work, and carefully considered the impact of their work on the betterment of society. Importantly, although these women felt a drive to pursue their talents, not all were sure that doing so made them happier or more fulfilled. When questioned
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about their perceptions of their success and happiness, many chose to compare their own lives with the paths and life choices of equally talented contemporaries who did not achieve at similar levels. Most participants in this study perceived that their less successful, equally talented peers lived calmer, and in some cases, happier lives. They understood that the path to eminence involved sacrifices, and in some cases, harbored regrets about paths not taken and personal choices not made. Coexisting with these feelings, however, was pride in their accomplishments. This leads to another finding of this study, namely that most of these high-achieving women made difficult choices about their personal lives to enable their creative productivity to emerge (Reis, 1995, 1998). Their personal choices included decisions such as whether to divorce or refrain from marrying, to forgo having children or to have fewer children than they may otherwise have had, to live alone, or any combination of these. These decisions were usually consciously made to support a lifestyle conducive to the production of highly challenging work. Similar to the Arnold, Noble, & Subotnik (1996) model, this research has found that one of the factors that helped some women to pursue their work with intensity was the supportive presence of others (Reis, 1995, 1998). While this finding did not apply to all participants, Mary Sherwood is a good example of one who did find external support in the form of an interested (if na¨ıve) professor. Likewise, “Kristine,” a talented artist studied by Kirchenbaum & Reis (1997), was supported not only by an encouraging aunt and sister during childhood, but later by mentors in diverse fields, including a philosophy professor and fine-metal instructor. List & Renzulli (1991) also found that talented women who fulfilled their potential had generally supportive families. Likewise, Roscher (1987) studied successful scientists, many of whom attributed their success to a family member who provided encouragement, a role model at the high school or college level, or an individual professor who took an interest in them. The women in Roscher’s (1987) study who married also attributed their continued success to the encouragement of their spouses, many of whom were scientists themselves, who recognized the sacrifices necessary for success. Self-reports of talented women, such as author Shirley Jackson, who wrote “The Lottery,” and physicist Maria Mayer, support this finding. Each
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S.M. Reis and E.E. Sullivan Table 22.1 Factors that enable women to achieve
Preferences
Research
Importance of team building
Wasserman (2000); Linehan (2001); Omar & Davidson (2001); Knights & Richards (2003); Nelson & Burke (2002) and Arnold, Noble, & Subotnik (1996) Wasserman (2000); O’Connell & Russo (1983); O’DonovanPolter (2001); Arnold, Noble, & Subotnik (1996); Burke (2001a, 2001b); Linehan (2001); Omar & Davidson (2001); Knights & Richards (2003); Dash (1973); Reis (1998); Nelson & Burke (2002); Burton (2002); Reis (2001, 2002); Oppenheimer (1988); Bateson (1990) and Hardwick (1990) Wasserman (2000); O’Connell & Russo (1983); Arnold, Noble, & Subotnik (1996); Vance & Paik (2001); Burke (2001b); Linehan (2001); Omar & Davidson (2001); Knights & Richards (2003); Dash (1973); Reis (1998); Nelson & Burke (2002); Burton (2002); Bateson (1990); Hardwick (1990) and Ajzenberg-Selove (1994) Wasserman (2000); Varma & Stroh (2001); Linehan (2001); Reis (2002); Arnold, Noble, & Subotnik (1996); Kirschenbaum & Reis (1997)
Diverse methods of integrating relationships and careers
Perceptions of higher work loads and lower professional status of women
Awareness of perceived differences in process and effort between men and women Perception of the importance of social responsibility and importance of work Diversity of creative talent in work process and product
O’Donovan-Polter (2001); Arnold, Noble, & Subotnik (1996); Reis (1998) and Bateson (1990)
Reis (1998); Gabor (1995) and Bateson (1990)
has indicated that they were sometimes prodded to produce work that their husbands believed was noteworthy (Hardwick, 1990; Oppenheimer, 1988). Additional factors facilitating women’s talent development can be found in Table 22.1.
Personality Attributes Studies of talented women provide a fascinating opportunity to explore key characteristics that may pro-
mote female talent development. Research in this area is generally historical in nature, relying on retrospective analyses. In these instances, biographical works are often used to identify common personality factors of famous women who were writers, scientists, and artists (e.g. Antler, 1987; Dash, 1988; Gabor, 1995). Both retrospective and contemporary analyses have generally identified personality factors such as persistence to overcome challenges or problems, independence, and a willingness to live a life that is different from their peers or counterparts as key to female talent development. Other findings include Wallace & Walberg (1995) work, which found that as girls, notable women were intelligent, hard working, imaginative, and strong willed. Interestingly, girls who became famous writers were more apt to question assumptions and conventions than were those who became notable artists, scientists, lawyers, and politicians. Subotnik & Arnold (1995) investigated women in science, generally finding that creative female scientists appear to be motivated largely by deep intellectual engagement and the recognition associated with influential discoveries. They also found a potential mismatch between the single-minded devotion to science characteristic of eminent researchers and desire to balance family and career that appears so prevalently in reports of professional women. Helson (1996) compared a sample of highly creative women mathematicians with a control group and found differences between creative and comparison subjects in background and personality that suggest that personality characteristics may be powerful determinants of creativity in female mathematicians. The traits most characteristic of the creative women were rebellious independence, introversion, and a rejection of outside influence, strong interests, a marked ability to find self-expression and self-gratification in directed research activity, flexibility or lack of constriction, both in general attitudes and in mathematical work. Despite these traits, when compared to creative male mathematicians, creative female mathematicians in Helson’s study had less selfassurance, published less, and occupied less prestigious positions. The personality traits identified in this theory and exhibited most often by the eminent women in this study are supported by the other research summarized in Table 22.2. They include determination, motivation, creativity, patience, and the ability to take, and in some cases, thrive on, risks. Each woman exhibited deter-
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Another personality trait displayed by the eminent women in this study was intensity about work characterized by energy, passionate interest, and enjoyWasserman (2000); Kennedy & McConnell (2001); Arnold, Noble, & ment. Some were outwardly enthusiastic, while othSubotnik (1996); Linehan (2001); ers were deeply quiet. Some laughed frequently and Omar & Davidson (2001); moved constantly, while others were still, calm, shy, Dash (1973); Reis (1998); and almost reserved. However, each woman exuded Burton (2002); Bateson (1990); Wallace & Walberg (1995) and an intense concentration, focus, and passion about her Ajzenberg-Selove (1994) work. Several indicated that they would rather be doing Wasserman (2000); Linehan (2001); their work than anything else, a sentiment also echoed Arnold, Noble, & Subotnik (1996); Dash (1973); Reis (1998); Reis (2001, by male scientists studied by Roe (1952). The eminent 2002); Oppenheimer (1988); women in this study, however, reported experiencing Bateson (1990); Winstone (1978) and guilt when they felt this way, and making an attempt to Ajzenberg-Selove (1994) do more for their partners or children to assuage their Wasserman (2000); Kennedy & guilt at having these feelings, sentiments also echoed McConnell (2001); Linehan (2001); Arnold, Noble, & Subotnik (1996); by other eminent women (Antler, 1987; Dash, 1988; Reis (1998, 2002); Bateson (1990) and Gabor, 1995; Winstone, 1978).
Table 22.2 Characteristics of gifted women Characteristics Task commitment, resilience, determination
Individualism
Openness to exploration of wide range of interests Creativity and risk taking
Ability to maintain focus despite diversity of interests Energy and excitement about work
Research
Winstone (1978) Wasserman (2000); Kennedy & McConnell (2001); Reis (1998); Oppenheimer (1988); Bateson (1990); Barriers That Impede the Development Arnold, Noble, & Subotnik (1996); Wallace & Walberg (1995) and of Female Talents Ajzenberg-Selove (1994) Wasserman (2000); Linehan (2001); Reis (1998, 2002); Bateson (1990) and This theory also identified the importance of the resWinstone (1978)
olution of internal personal barriers and external barriers that might have hindered the completion of highlevel work (Arnold, 1995; Callahan, 1979; Hollinger & Fleming, 1988; Kerr, 1985; Ochse, 1991; Piirto, 1991; Reis, 1987, 1998; Subotnik & Arnold, 1995). ExterDiversity of interests nal barriers included the way women were raised as within field of study children and the cultural messages they encountered in life, and these external barriers contribute to and inOpenness to teract with internal barriers. These internal barriers are influence of often deeply personal and unique to each woman. important mentors and role models Supporting historical or contemporary research (see Table 22.3) about these external barriers suggests that women were often underrated or ignored in history, perhaps because many girls were not encouraged or allowed to engage in intellectual pursuits. They usumination, reflected by an ability to strive for success ally received less education than boys and were often and to continue to persevere, often under adverse con- denied access to teachers and opportunities to develop ditions and sometimes without the love and support of their potential. In the past, women, and especially one’s family and/or partner. Each displayed a type of culturally diverse women, undoubtedly received little creativity rooted in the love of work, interests, and the encouragement, stimulation, and access to tools necesway time was found for other essential aspects of life, sary for building intellectual skills and developing the such as family and relationships. In addition, each dis- ability to create something of cultural value. Women played a willingness to attempt tasks that they believed were regarded as less able than males to creatively use that others would not have the courage or the interest their intellectual skills, and if they attempted to do so, to pursue. they often expressed constraints in their personal lives Wasserman (2000); Reis (1998, 2002); Kennedy & McConnell (2001); Oppenheimer (1988); Burton (2002) and Bateson (1990) Wasserman (2000); Linehan (2001); Reis (1998, 2002); Oppenheimer (1988); Bateson (1990) and Winstone (1978) Wasserman (2000); Kennedy & McConnell (2001); O’Connell & Russo (1983); Varma & Stroh (2001); Linehan (2001); Arnold, Noble, & Subotnik (1996); Reis (1998); Burton (2002) and Winstone (1978)
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(Reis, 1998). Contemporary explanations raise questions about why women do not follow their interests into career preparation, or place more importance on the works they produce (Arnold, 1995; Callahan, 1979; Kerr, 1985; Reis, 1987, 1998). The problem may be further exacerbated when women produce original, creative work, and become more conscious of criticism than men, finding it difficult to address negative perceptions of their work (Baer, 1997; Roberts, 1991; Roberts & Nelson-Hoeksema, 1994; Reis, 1998). The importance of relationships and guilt about putting work ahead of personal relationships appears to be the most compelling and frequently mentioned internal barrier to the attainment of high levels of creative productive work (Arnold, 1995; Reis, 1998). Other external barriers identified in this research and supported by other research include multiple demands on time, feelings of guilt when talented women attempt to complete work in time that others (mothers, sisters, friends) tell them should be spent with their family, or, in some cases, lack of support, negative perceptions of others, difficulty in work environments, lack of interest in working alone for the periods of time necessary for creative accomplishment (Callahan, 1979; Kerr, 1985; Ochse, 1991; Piirto, 1991; Reis, 1987, 1998). A summary of this supporting research on internal and external barriers is included in Table 22.3. The internal and external barriers encountered by these women are also similar to those identified in both historical and other contemporary research. In the research that led to the development of this theory, some of the barriers were non-supportive families, and two of the women came from abusive or distant families. Almost all had siblings, and those who had brothers usually believed that their parents paid more attention to career hopes and gave more encouragement to their brothers. Relationships proved to be the greatest barriers to their work. Most married or had long-term relationships, and all but two who married had children. Two decided not to have children so that they could pursue their talents without diversifying their lives. Two had husbands who died young and while they acknowledged their grief about these tragedies in their lives, these women also believed that their husband’s early deaths enabled them to more fully develop their own potential. Environmental barriers were encountered at work and some of the women found creative options through working at home, while others fought against negative
S.M. Reis and E.E. Sullivan Table 22.3 Internal and external barriers to success Characteristics Internal “Ethic of caring” and focus on the importance of relationships over achievement Internalization of external values and gender roles definitions
Loneliness, feelings of isolation, and lack of support
Use of barriers as stepping stones Devaluing of one’s own abilities/selfsabotage Unrealistic expectations Imposter phenomenon External Nature of choices between work and family
Lack of support for achievement and ambition from family and friends Absence or negative influence of other women in workplace
Colleagues’ negative perception of women in professional setting
Research Reis (2002); Burton (2002); Wasserman (2000); Arnold, Noble, & Subotnik (1996); Reis (1998) and Bateson (1990)
O’Donovan-Polter (2001); Arnold, Noble, & Subotnik (1996); Omar & Davidson (2001); Knights & Richards (2003); Reis (1998, 2002); Burton (2002); Oppenheimer (1988) and Bateson (1990) Linehan (2001); Omar & Davidson (2001); Arnold, Noble, & Subotnik (1996); Reis (1998, 2002); Nelson & Burke (2002); Burton (2002); Oppenheimer (1988); and Ajzenberg-Selove (1994) Wasserman (2000); Kennedy & McConnell (2001); Dash (1973); Reis (2002) and Bateson (1990) Reis (2002); Dash (1973); Arnold, Noble, & Subotnik (1996); Reis (1998) and Bateson (1990) Reis (1998, 2002); Dash (1973) and Arnold, Noble, & Subotnik (1996) Arnold, Noble, & Subotnik (1996) and Reis (1998, 2002) Wasserman (2000); Kennedy & McConnell (2001); O’Donovan-Polter (2001); Burke (2001a); Linehan (2001); Omar & Davidson (2001); Knights & Richards (2003); Arnold, Noble, & Subotnik (1996); Dash (1973); Reis (1998, 2001, 2002); Nelson & Burke (2002); Burton (2002); Oppenheimer (1988); Bateson (1990) and Hardwick (1990) Reis (1998, 2002); Oppenheimer (1988); Bateson (1989); Arnold, Noble, & Subotnik (1996); Hardwick (1990) and Ajzenberg-Selove (1994) Wasserman (2000); Varma & Stroh (2001); Linehan (2001); Knights & Richards (2003); Arnold, Noble, & Subotnik (1996); Reis (1998, 2001); Nelson & Burke (2002); Burton (2002) and Bateson (1990) Wasserman (2000); O’Connell & Russo (1983); Kennedy & McConnell (2001); O’Donovan-Polter (2001); Burke (2001a); Varma & Stroh (2001); Vance & Paik (2001); Linehan (2001); Omar & Davidson (2001); Knights & Richards (2003); Arnold, Noble, & Subotnik (1996); Dash (1973); Reis (1998, 2001); Nelson & Burke (2002); Burton (2002); Bateson (1990) and Winstone (1978)
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A Theory of Talent Development in Women of Accomplishment Table 22.3 (continued)
Characteristics
Research
Negative effects of general social perception of women’s abilities and roles
Arnold, Noble, & Subotnik (1996); Kennedy & McConnell (2001); Burke (2001a); Linehan (2001); Omar & Davidson (2001); Knights & Richards (2003); Dash (1973); Reis (1998, 2001, 2002); Nelson & Burke (2002); Burton (2002); Oppenheimer (1988); Bateson (1990); Hardwick (1990) and Winstone (1978) Wasserman (2000); Kennedy & McConnell (2001); O’Donovan-Polter (2001); Linehan (2001) and Arnold, Noble, & Subotnik (1996)
Workplace sexual dynamics
work environments, eventually changing them. Some worked alone with singular concentration while others needed the interaction of a group of colleagues, requiring less time for solitary work. All traveled a unique path to eminence, actively sought support for the development of their talents, and continued to learn with formal or more personalized education and knowledge. The women also increased their levels of sophistication of knowledge about their need for satisfaction in both their work and personal lives. Some enjoyed their personal lives, while others acknowledged that they experienced frequent periods of unhappiness, characterized by some loneliness, selfsacrifice, and a conscious decision to avoid what they considered a more conventional life. Some actively strived to separate their personal life and relationships from their work life and professional relationships, indicating that they needed that distance to achieve balance. Others combined work and personal lives, drawing no line whatsoever between the two, and were happy with this combination of activity in their lives.
Differences in Male and Female Talent Development Gender differences were perceived by talented women to exist in work products and creative work processes. Changes may be necessary in the paradigm of how we view women and talent development, and a need exists for changes in society that will facilitate the development of high potential in women (Bateson, 1990;
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Kirschenbaum & Reis, 1997; Reis, 1998). Women have made, and continue to make, many creative contributions that are different from the accomplishments made by men. Men’s creative accomplishments, however, continue to be valued more by society (Reis, 1987, 1995, 1996, 1998). Since women’s life experiences in society may be vastly different from men’s (Gilligan, 1982; Miller, 1976), it seems logical that differences in process and productivity also exist. For example, as noted, some female artists have folded the experiences of childbirth and parenting into their creative lives, using the insights gained in each to fuel their art (Kirschenbaum & Reis, 1997). Then there is the issue of a potential mismatch between the singleminded devotion necessary for creative accomplishment and either their personalities or their needs of women (Piirto, 1991; Subotnik & Arnold, 1995). As discussed, some women do demonstrate single-minded devotion to their work. Others, however, choose to express their creativity in many aspects of their lives— without necessarily feeling that doing so is incompatible with the production of worthwhile work (Reis, 2002). The women in this study believe that their creative processes emerge differently from men and that their creative work products may also differ from those produced by men. As noted in Table 22.1, research supporting this theory suggests that the work process of talented women focuses more on team building, integrating personal relationships with their careers and understanding, without accepting as right, the reality of higher work loads, accompanied by lower status in their work environment. Female writers, artists, scientists, and creators in all domains interact primarily with male standards of productivity that have been accepted as the standard within a domain, but may actually only be the standard for male creators (Reis, 1998). Therefore, until more women are able to produce in more areas, their productivity may be lower.
Conclusion The reasons for the successful accomplishments of some highly talented girls and women and the failure of others to realize their high potential in meaningful work are complex and depend on many factors,
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including values, personal choices, and social–cultural forces. The women who participated in this study had a sense of destiny about their own potential to produce meaningful work that makes a difference. The theory that emerged from this research and from a comprehensive review of related research suggests that these women made active choices to pursue their talents because they had a sense of destiny about the importance of their work. Many personal choices and barriers faced this diverse group and it was in overcoming and successfully negotiating these obstacles that some of their motivation and determination emerged. The development of a creatively productive life and the attainment of eminence is complex and decidedly personal. What one participant regarded as an obstacle, another perceived as an intriguing challenge. While some were negatively influenced by their parents’ lack of support and withdrew from relationships, others used this anger and rebelled, and eventually became eminent in their selected area of endeavor. The ways in which the same barriers differentially affect talented women provide the fascination about conducting research on the individual paths they follow to achieve high levels of accomplishment. Not all gifted females experience the same barriers, but research summarized in this article suggests a combination of the following that occur across the lifespan and differentially affect productivity at different ages and stages: personality characteristics such as modesty, dilemmas about abilities and talents, personal decisions about family, decisions about duty and caring (putting the needs of others first) as opposed to nurturing personal needs, religious beliefs, and social issues. Some of these dilemmas cannot be resolved to the satisfaction of everyone involved. Rather, they shift or are eliminated when changes occur in a woman’s life, such as when her children grow up, her marriage ends, a new relationship starts, or she changes a home or work environment. If our society is to more actively help talented girls and adult women to realize their abilities and potential, expectations about women’s personal choices and work process and environments must be altered, and our society must support diversity of life choices. All of the eminent women in this study were able to combine meaningful work with what they considered to be a contented personal life, but for these women, it was that personal life that enabled
S.M. Reis and E.E. Sullivan
them to pursue and develop their talents, with passion and creativity, and to achieve eminence in diverse fields.
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S.M. Reis and E.E. Sullivan Wasserman, E. (2000). The door in the dream: Conversations with eminent women in science. Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press. Winstone, H. V. F. (1978). Gertrude Bell. New York: Quartet Press. Yin, R. K. (1994). Case study research: Design and methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Part VI
Twice-Exceptional Gifted Individuals and Suicide-Related Issues
Chapter 23
Twice Exceptional: Multiple Pathways to Success Judy L. Lupart and Royal E. Toy
Abstract This chapter addresses the interplay of exceptionality relating to students who are gifted and talented as well as disabled (twice-exceptional). Following a brief introduction, information relevant to primary twice-exceptional subgroups including gifted students with learning disability, intellectual disability and/or autism, Asperger’s Syndrome, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and sensory impairment is presented. Key areas relating to meeting the full range of needs for students who are twice exceptional in the school including identification, curriculum and instruction, and teacher preparation are discussed. The chapter concludes that even though our knowledge base and classroom practices regarding the twice-exceptional remain a “desultory duality” the future holds greatest promise for these students in inclusive schools.
period, there have also been tremendous gains in the relatively late-developing area of gifted education (Davis & Rimm, 2004: Matthews & Foster, 2006). Unfortunately, the educational needs of certain subgroups of this population of children, gifted students with disabilities, have been slow to receive recognition (Johnson, Karnes, & Carr, 1997; Newman & Sternberg, 2004). Interest in individuals with high potential and disability is not just a contemporary phenomenon. There are many historical examples of gifted men and women with handicapping conditions who have made significant contributions to society, for example, Thomas Edison, Helen Keller, and Franklin Roosevelt (Goertzel & Goertzel, 1962). Other notable persons, such Albert Einstein, Woodrow Wilson, and Auguste Rodin, had learning difficulties in reading, writing, and spelling Keywords Twice-exceptional · Gifted/learning dis- (Thompson, 1971). Despite the widespread recognition abled · Gifted with autism · Gifted with intellectual of a few such individuals, we have no way of knowing how many more handicapped individuals failed to disabilities develop areas of potential giftedness because of lack of recognition and support or inappropriate schooling. In the past, gifted children with handicaps were genIntroduction erally underserved. Where they received special educational services, it was in the area of handicap withAs the inclusion movement in education has gained out provision for extension of gifts and talents. Only momentum over the last two or three decades, those few individuals who had the support of informed, there has been increasing concern with providing concerned families and/or visionary, innovative educaappropriate education for all children, including tors were enabled to develop their potential giftedness those with exceptional learning needs (Andrews & (Johnsen & Corn, 1989). Lupart, 2000; Booth & Ainscow, 1998; Timmons, Since the 1970s there has been increased proLupart, & McKeough, 2002). During this same time fessional awareness of the gifted handicapped as an underserved subpopulation of students (Newman & Sternberg, 2004; Whitmore, 1986). In the United J.L. Lupart (B) States, the Association for the Gifted, a division of University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada e-mail:
[email protected] the Council for Exceptional Children, established a L.V. Shavinina (ed.), International Handbook on Giftedness, c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-6162-2 23,
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subcommittee of educators of gifted handicapped children. The first national conference on handicapped gifted and talented students was held in 1976 and the term “gifted handicapped” was added to the ERIC indices in 1977 (Porter, 1982). By the mid-1970s, in the United States, at least eight special programs for gifted handicapped children had been developed (Maker, 1977), and special interest groups advocating on behalf of the gifted handicapped had been created (Johnsen & Corn, 1989). By the early 1980s, education of gifted handicapped children was being hailed as a “new frontier” (Whitmore, 1981), and ever since that time educators and researchers have been challenged to develop procedures for identifying creative potential in handicapped children (Ford & Ford, 1981), placing more attention on assessment as opposed to identification (Lupart, 2004), making appropriate use of new technology in the classroom (Bowerman & Duncan, 2005), addressing the social and emotional needs of the twice-exceptional child (Moon, Zentall, Grskovic, Hall, & Stormont, 2001; Rizza & Morrison, 2002), and providing appropriate educational programs which encouraged development of potential while attending to areas of deficit (Newman, 2004). With these challenges in mind, we present a general overview of the contemporary field of gifted students with disabilities, followed by specific information relevant to general classroom teachers by primary subgroups of gifted students with disabilities.
Definitions of giftedness that acknowledge multifaceted manifestations of high potential are more amenable to the conceptualization of gifted disability than more traditional definitions based only on extremely high intelligence. In particular, the definition proposed by Marland (1972) and subsequent amendments by the U. S. Congress (1978; 1988) that included not only high intellectual ability but also high-performance capability in specific academic areas, the arts, leadership, and creativity have been very influential in broadening the concept of giftedness to include children with disabilities. A student with disabilities, like any other student, can meet the criteria for giftedness by showing high potential and/or performance in at least one of the specified areas, irrespective of average or even deficient performance in other areas. The characteristics of giftedness which students with disabilities exhibit (Baum & Owen, 2004; Eisner & Altman, 2005; Newman & Sternberg, 2004; Whitmore & Maker, 1985) are similar to those reported for non-disabled students (Nielsen & Higgins, 2005), such as
Gifted Students with Disabilities
r
Gifted students with disabilities require special education services for one or more areas of potential giftedness, and one or more types of disability. These students form an extremely heterogeneous group, with great variability in individual profiles of strengths and weaknesses. Students with disabilities include those who require special education services for mental retardation, hearing impairment, speech impairment, visual impairment, serious emotional disturbance, specific learning disability, or orthopedic or other health impairment, either singly or in combination (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 1997). Special education services are indicated if the disability prevents children from performing appropriately in regular school programs.
r r r r r r r
Superior memory and general knowledge Superior analytical and creative problem-solving skills Notable drive to know, or master Superior use of language, oral or written Exceptional comprehension Keen sense of humor Persistence in pursuit of academic or intellectual tasks Awareness and/or ability to capitalize on personal strengths
Some of the positive qualities of gifted students with disabilities, however, may not appear praiseworthy to adults around them. Nielsen snf Higgins (2005) described how teachers may view their students who are gifted and have learning disabilities: “Teachers initially view the high creativity, critical thinking, curiosity, and problem-solving ability of twice-exceptional learners as exciting, challenging, and positive. But teachers’ enthusiasm for these positive characteristics soon becomes overshadowed by their frustration with these students’ inability to demonstrate academic skills and with their often extreme behavioral difficulties.” (p. 8). This dual exceptionality is a novel and exciting opportunity, but with time becomes more of a challenge
23
Twice Exceptional
for the teacher and can lead to negative interaction. Seeley (1998) notes “The concept of disabled gifted may appear to be an oxymoron. Educators tend to view these two types of children as being at opposite ends of the educational spectrum. That the characteristics of each type could reside in one child seems incongruous” (p.90). The very abilities that make up the students exceptionalities may become a greater risk factor for emotional health (Stormont, Stebbins, & Holliday, 2001). Risk factors are biological, psychological, cognitive, or environmental factors that hinder normal development and can make an individual more vulnerable to negative life outcomes (Dole, 2000). Some of the negative characteristics exhibited by twice-exceptional students include
r r r
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with the discrepancy between expectations based on self-perception of high abilities and low achievement resulting from the disabilities (Stormont, Stebbins, & Holliday, 2001; Reis & McCoach, 2002). Because disabilities can mask intellectual ability, talent, and creativity (Nielsen & Higgins, 2005), gifted students with disabilities are not as likely as nondisabled gifted students to be identified as gifted for special school programming (Davis & Rimm, 1998). Disabilities can disguise a child’s true potential and abilities and impede the expression of characteristics revealing giftedness (Reis & McCoach, 2002). Identifying the true ability of a child with handicaps who cannot speak or hold a pencil, for example, presents a unique challenge to educators.
Struggles with self-acceptance Fragile self-concept Primary Subgroups of Gifted Students Feelings of social discomfort, embarrassment, and with Disabilities shame r Intense frustration and anger r A need to release or vent pent-up energies r Interpersonal difficulties with peers, teachers, and Gifted Students with Learning Disabilities family Unlike other groups of twice exceptional students, who r Academic difficulties in selected skill areas can be identified by some type of discrete loss such as One particular characteristic that can be extremely visual impairment, children with learning disabilities damaging to students who are twice-exceptional is that do not constitute an easily identifiable group (Brody of perfectionism. Perfectionists who have disabilities & Mills, 1997; Matthews, this volume). Learning disoften try to hide their disability and often work very abilities may take many forms and involve some or hard to show their best sides. When the task moves be- all of the abilities inherent in using spoken or writyond their ability to mask it, they may withdraw com- ten language and mathematics. Disorders in basic psypletely so that their behavior of not doing continues to chological processes underlying oral expression, lishide their disability. Over time students who are perfec- tening comprehension, written expression, basic readtionists may become more depressed and vulnerable to ing skills, reading comprehension, mathematics calanxiety as they increase in age. culation, and mathematics reasoning are presumed to For some gifted students with disabilities, the in- arise from central nervous system dysfunction (Inditeraction between positive and negative characteris- viduals with Disabilities Education Act, 1997). tics may develop into emotional/behavioral difficulties Many of these gifted students with learning dis(Nielsen & Higgins, 2005). Where gifted students with abilities appear intelligent and excel in one or more disabilities are treated as handicapped to the neglect areas, but they have major difficulties in other areas. of their intellectual ability, a “handicapped” or depen- There may even be great variability in performance dent pattern of behavior is likely to emerge, but a sup- within a subject area such as reading or mathematics portive, facilitative environment can foster the emer- (McGuire & Yewchuk, 1995, 1996; Montague & van gence of a “gifted” pattern geared toward success in Garderen, 2003). These students are often identiacademic endeavors and social interactions with peers fied incidentally as a result of assessment for other (Ellis, Farmer, and Newman, 2005). Special educa- purposes(Brody & Mills, 1997). Utilizing advanced tional interventions in supportive settings are crucial if abilities to compensate for the learning difficulties gifted students with disabilities are to come to terms (Weill, 1987), they may function at or near grade level,
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and the teacher may not be aware of their gifted potential (Davis & Rimm, 2004). Some are initially referred for assessment of learning difficulties and found to have IQs in the gifted range. Still others are referred for psychological assessment because of personal and social problems and only subsequently found to be gifted (Schiff, Kaufman, & Kaufman, 1981). Others may be at risk for school drop out (Matthews, this volume). Shevitz, Weinfeld, Jeweler, & Barnes-Robinson (2003) found some of the predominant commonalities for GLD students are that they are bright, underachieving, and they often have negative self-images. Many of the GLD students suffer from underachievement due to their exceptionality. A student may have superior intelligence and oral ability, but lack the fine motor control necessary to write legibly or too slowly to keep up with their rapid intellect. This discrepancy may lead to frustration, self-doubt, and self-destructive behaviors associated with decreased levels of selfesteem. Because twice-exceptional students possess characteristics of both LD and gifted, they will often struggle with their perceptions of their differences and their feelings of isolation (King, 2005). Moreover students who are twice exceptional may experience failure much more often than expected, which may result in an increased fear of failure with future tasks and greater risk for school drop out (Matthews, this volume). Ellis, Farmer, and Newman (2005) provided an overview of the covert symptoms that may keep students exceptionalities underground. Examples included the inability to paraphrase, summarize, form predictions, use imagery, generate questions, and connect ideas to background knowledge. Thus when exposed to new information, the student may not be able to connect their learning to prior knowledge and cement the new learning into meaningful information. In a similar vein, Montgomery (2004) states that the underlying theme in the profiles of underachieving gifted students is an inability to produce written work of a suitable quality to match any perceived potential. In addition she defined three areas common to this subgroup including: (a) the discrepant double exceptionality, which is a large discrepancy between perceived ability and product, (b) the deficit double exceptionality, where the disability hides the ability, and (c) the deceptive double exceptionality where the ability and disability hide each other to keep the
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student from being identified for any services. In all three areas there may be no indication of exceptional ability aside from than good oral ability and advanced problem-solving abilities. Nielsen (2002) found that twice-exceptional students may resemble their gifted peers in intellectual ability; however, they will perform poorly in academic areas, much like students that have a learning disability. Baum & Owen (2004) noted that when teachers use comprehensive programming to identify and nurture gifts and talents, GLD students begin to act more like gifted students without any disability than like their LD peers. There is even research that suggests that students who are LD might have gifted as an additional risk factor for social–emotional problems (Vespi & Yewchuck 1992; Stormont, Stebbins, & Holliday, 2001). Reis, Neu, & McGuire (1995) compared the positive and negative characteristics of GLD students that may keep them from identification for services. Behaviors such as failure to complete assignments, poor organizational skills, difficulty paying attention, and super sensitivity tend to mask the GLD students with more positive characteristics of advanced vocabulary, creativity, excellent analytical capacity, strong reasoning skills, and critical thinking ability. In a study focused on GLD students Wiener & Tardif (2004) found that elementary students with LD had fewer friends, lower quality friendships, lower social acceptance, lower academic self-concept, poorer social skills, and higher levels of loneliness, depression, and problem behaviors than children without LD. It is interesting to note that many of these problems are also associated with the negative characteristics of giftedness for some individuals due to their uniquely different personalities. Some additional school problems that twice-exceptional students may exhibit include poor handwriting, difficulty with organization, sequencing, focus, attention, eye movement, memory, comprehension of time, special perception, and visual and auditory processing (Seay, 2005). Given the multiplicity of possible combinations of areas of giftedness and learning disability, comprehensive assessment aimed at developing an individual program plan should follow initial screening. The assessment should include both a summary profile of the student’s intelligence, achievement, creativity, selfconcept, teacher evaluation, and family support, derived from interviews with teachers, parents, and coun-
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selors, the student’s cumulative record, and additional testing as required; and a structured individual interview focusing on the student’s self-perception as a learner, approach to academic tasks, organization of work, and work habits (Lupart, 2004). The individual program plan derived from the assessment should include strategies for enrichment of gifts and talents, strategies for remediation of and compensation for deficits, and strategies for enhancing personal development (Nielsen, 2002). Individualized programs developed in accordance with Kaplan’s (1986) Differentiated Curriculum Model (Clements, Lundell, & Hishinuma, 1994; Hishinuma, 1991) and Renzulli’s (1977) Enrichment Triad Model (Baum, 1994; Baum, Emerick, Herman, & Dixon, 1989; Olenchak, 1995) extend, challenge, and stimulate creative productivity in areas of strength, encourage development and use of alternate modes of thinking and communicating, and foster critical thinking and research skills in independent project activities. Remedial activities directed at areas of deficiency are addressed in the context of the enrichment activities, and compensatory techniques for bypassing areas of difficulty are encouraged as described the “dual-differentiation” approach utilized in Project HIGH HOPES (Baum, Cooper, & Neu, 2001). Involvement of parents in monitoring and reinforcing homework and after-school activities can result in improved academic performance and classroom behaviors (Sah & Borland, 1989). Programs for gifted students with learning disabilities should also make provisions for individual or group counseling of social and emotional needs (Matthews, this volume; Olenchak, 1994; Vespi & Yewchuck, 1992).
Gifted Students with Autism and Intellectual Disabilities How can an individual be unable to manage independent living, while simultaneously being capable of remarkable mental feats in other areas of endeavor? Such is the puzzle of the individuals referred to as “savants.” Savants constitute an estimated 0.06% of all institutionalized retarded individuals (Hill, 1977) and 9.8% of institutionalized patients with early infantile autism (Rimland, 1978). The extraordinary abilities of idiot savants are manifested in a number of discrete ways
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categorized by Hill (1974) and Rimland (1978). Bestknown categories include calendar calculating, artistic ability, musical ability, memorization of obscure facts, mathematical abilities, mechanical ability, and pseudoverbal ability. Savants may excel in more than one area. Students who are autistic and have only one area of giftedness are typically referred to as autistic savants (Little, 2001). Males are most often identified as autistic savant and the “special” areas where the giftedness is manifested include calendar calculating, lightening calculating, visual arts, music, mechanical abilities, and spatial skills (Little, 2001), and the fact that these students have such an overwhelming disability and gifted ability seems to continue to baffle researchers and educators alike. Students with autism often have heightened sensory awareness, excellent visual acuity, can visualize things as a whole (McMullen, 2000). Visual thinking has great advantages in certain situations; however, in most classrooms students are expected to think verbally (Neihart, 2000). These exceptionalities can be of great benefit if educators can access them in addition to the remediation of their disabilities. These incredible abilities can also be a debilitating condition. Imagine a heightened sensitivity to the sounds of the florescent lights in the school building, or the smell of the lunchroom as they begin to prepare food and lunch is more than an hour away. An additional problem could be the ability to see the whole from its parts, but not to break it down into the components. Cash (1999) has noted that several of the negative characteristics relating to students who are gifted are also found in populations of students who are autistic. These may include the ability to be rude, discourteous, argumentative, stubborn, uncooperative, egocentric, indifferent to conventions of socialization and dress, and resistant to teacher domination, a perfectionist, rigid in a fascination with an interest. They may also have a compulsive preoccupation with words, ideas, numbers, and foods; a need for precision; intellectual rigidity; lack of social skills; the need to monopolize conversations and situations; the ability to concretely visualize models and systems; an intense need for stimulation; difficulties conforming to the thinking of others; and a tendency toward introversion. In most cases, the specialized skills of savants develop in unsupportive environments without specific training (Yewchuk, 1999). In some instances, systematic interventions combining opportunities for developing specific areas of talent with counseling and individ-
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ualized programming to develop social and life skills (Donnelly & Altman, 1994) have produced dramatic results. Given the basic tenets of inclusive education, it is highly probable that savants will be more readily identified and given greater opportunity to develop talent areas.
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abnormally intrusive as well (Little, 2002). One of the major differences between students with AS and students who are gifted with AS is that the student who is twice exceptional may be intimately aware of how their behavior affects others (Little, 2002). Students with AS are also prone to distraction, as many gifted children are. The difference is that students with AS are distracted within themselves, where gifted students usually rely on an external source (Neihart, 2000). Gifted Students with Asperger’s Syndrome Henderson (2001) outlines characteristics typical for students with Asberger’s Syndrome in the three Asperger Syndrome (AS) is typically described as deficit areas: a “pervasive developmental disorder on the autism Environmental processing spectrum characterized by social deficits, relatively normal language and cognitive development, and the r Inefficient sensory system presence of idiosyncratic interests” (Henderson, 2001, r Amorphous sense of time p.28). Neihart (2000) points out that gifted students r Difficulty with social/emotional cues with Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) are often misdiagnosed as their behaviors may be attributed to LD or Cognitive processing their giftedness. Moreover children with AS are often r Cognitive inflexibility overlooked for special services as they seem to be very r Attention problems similar to their non-disabled peers (Little, 2002). r Perspective taking A typical characteristic of students who are gifted is an extensive vocabulary as well as insurmountable Communication stores of knowledge in a passion area, but their information tends to be from the memorization of r High-level pragmatic communication everything there is to know about a topic (Little, 2002) r Sense making instead of the discovery and personal experience that r Problems with socially expected communicamany GT students display. Students with Asperger’s tion behaviors syndrome tend to be more literal in their speech than typical GT students and their images are more Collectively the descriptions can provide a solid concrete. They will also have difficulties in their understanding of the unique characteristics of this social communication and interpersonal interactions. Students with Asperger’s syndrome also lack the subpopulation of twice-exceptional students. Teachers ability to move from the concrete to abstract. Their armed with this knowledge can undertake differentipresentation of information may seem like they are ated instructional approaches to accommodating their reading out of a book as opposed to relaying their unique learning needs. own information. Drawing heavily on their impressive vocabulary (Little, 2002) AS students will often annoy anyone who will listen to them about their passions Gifted Students with Attention-Deficit and may give such lengthy and/or elaborate accounts of their knowledge that it will seem that they are Hyperactivity Disorder unable to stop (Neihart, 2000). Students with AS are often perceived as egocentric, they lack the ability to Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorders (ADHD) are see others’ point of view and this is often why interac- characterized by symptoms of inattention, hyperactivtions with others often fail. Individuals with AS may ity, and/or impulsivity that are developmentally inapbecome very successful adults, but they will choose propriate and not the result of other conditions (Turncareers that will isolate them from uncomfortable bull, Turnbull, Shank, & Leal, 1999). These disorders social situations. Students with AS may be shy, but fall into three subtypes.
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The inattentive type is characterized by daydreaming, distractibility, forgetfulness, apathy, underachievement, social withdrawal, and/or difficulty paying attention in class. In contrast, the hyperactiveimpulsive type includes students who are restless, talkative, fidgety, rebellious, and/or impulsive. In the third, combined type, students manifest characteristics of both inattention and hyperactivity impulsivity (Turnbull et al., 1999). Many gifted students are mistakenly diagnosed as having ADHD, while others are not appropriately identified (Delisle, 1995; Silverman, 1998). Since many of the behaviors associated with ADHD may be exhibited by high-energy, high-intensity gifted students and highly creative students without actually having the disorder, distinguishing between the two conditions is not easy. Close examination of the environmental, curricular, and contextual factors associated with the problematic behaviors is required (Delisle, 1995; Lind & Silverman, 1994; Reid & McGuire, 1995; Webb & Latimer, 1993). It is important to distinguish between the two conditions because the recommended educational treatment is different (Lind & Silverman, 1994). Children with ADHD exhibit the behaviors in all settings, to a greater or lesser degree, whereas for gifted children problem behaviors are situation specific, e.g., lack of challenge. With the possible exception of television and computer games, children with ADHD have short attention spans, in contrast to gifted students who can focus on tasks of interest for long periods of time. In general, children with ADHD are inconsistent in the quality of their performance, unlike gifted students who, providing they are intellectually challenged, maintain consistent efforts and high standards. One of the many characteristics of gifted children is the ability to learn things more rapidly than their age peers. Gifted children with ADHD (GADHD) follow this trend and are more typically proficient at learning things quickly than their age peers (Lovecky, 1999). Asynchrony is another attribute of giftedness. Typically gifted students will seem to be out of sync with their abilities. GADHD students will show a much greater amount of asynchrony among their cognitive, social, and emotional areas of development. They will also have considerable variability in their levels of maturity (Lovecky, 2004). In a study by Moon, boys with giftedness and ADHD were found to have emotional and social immaturity disynchronous with their intelligence, where
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those who only had ADHD or giftedness seemed mature and emotionally adjusted (Moon et al., 2001). In the same study they found that the twice-exceptional boys exhibited characteristics that contributed to their social rejection where the boys who were gifted or ADHD did not have those problems. Certainly the idea that the two classifications seemed to work together in this study causing the students who were twiceexceptional personal and school problems, where those with only one or the other label were not similarly affected. According to the American Psychiatric Association (2000) children with ADHD have difficulty sustaining attention in most tasks or play activities, and he or she struggles to persist in tasks to completion. This pattern must be apparent in at least two environments (such as home and school). The GADHD student may have the ability to concentrate for a longer period of time, but typically the ability to attend is only in an area that they are passionate about. Kaufmann, Kaibfleisch, & Castellanos, 2000 point out that ADHD is not characterized by the inability to sustain attention, but by the inability to find the appropriate amount of attention to the task at hand and to manage tasks that are not sufficiently rewarding intrinsically and/or that require sustained effort. Thus students may choose not to attend to a boring and repetitive task and seek one that provides a more agreeable amount of stimulation or interest. As Rice (2004) describes it students who are twice exceptional are not able to take in enough information to remain alert and aroused. The result of this problem is restlessness and boredom, which will lead to many of the behavior problems common in students who are twice exceptional. For many students who are GADHD the intrinsic reward for task completion will not be sufficiently satisfying to keep them motivated (Lovecky, 1999). Moreover girls who are ADHD may fall behind academically and may come to think of themselves as “quitters” with few talents or abilities (Nadeau, 2004). They may deny that they are capable, especially if they are highly intelligent. They want a curtain to hide their differences behind, and this process may lead to a downward spiral into underachievement and possible school drop out (Matthews, this volume).
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Gifted students with ADHD are characterized by asynchrony between advanced intellectual/academic abilities and immature social skills or emotional reactions, which may be poorly tolerated, even by gifted peers. They may have increased intensity and emotional reactivity to environmental stimuli, and heightened intellectual and imaginative excitation (Lovecky, 1994). Strengths of gifted students with ADHD include ability to work quickly and produce work of significant quality, a spontaneous and joyful approach to life, and a sweet temperament and trust of people (Lovecky, 1994). Successful educational interventions for gifted students with ADHD address both conditions on an individualized basis (Hartley, 1993; Lind & Silverman, 1994; Ramirez-Smith, 1997; Reid & McGuire, 1995; Wolfle & French, 1990). Suggestions for changing disruptive classroom behaviors include use of behavior management techniques, social modeling and self-monitoring techniques, and providing a structured environment. The curriculum must be differentiated to challenge and stimulate. An area of controversy in the treatment of ADHD concerns the prescription of stimulant drugs such as Ritalin, which, in children, can produce a calming effect and a focusing of attention. Between 70 and 80% of children with ADHD respond positively to Ritalen (Pancheri & Prater, 1999). But it also has numerous possible side effect such as loss of appetite, insomnia, tics, headaches, and stomach aches (Pancheri & Prater, 1999). Medication should be used as a last resort, only after behavior management and instructional interventions have proved ineffective (Howell, Evans, & Gardiner, 1997). Rice (2004) explains that many students who are twice exceptional need to use a great amount of cognitive energy to remain on task. When the student’s allotment of mental energy is gone, the student may dip into their energy reserves and continue in a project becoming hyper-vigilant. If the student runs out of material to engage in he or she is left in an agitated state and will react in a negative way due to the amount of adrenalin in their bloodstream that is not easily dispelled. When a student is in this mode their regular patterns of resting, eating, and sleeping are affected which will cause a negative spiraling effect thus causing the student to dip into their energy reserves earlier and earlier as this process continues. The answer to this problem can be found in accommodations and therapies for input, ap-
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propriate cognitive stimulation (from the classroom), modifications for output, and sensory awareness training (Rice, 2004).
Gifted Students with Sensory Disabilities Gifted Students with Hearing Disabilities The historical pattern for educating students with hearing impairment has involved placement in special programs based on disability rather than giftedness. In segregated settings such as schools for the deaf or special classes for hearing impairment, emphasis has been placed on “normalizing” development of language and speech. Students with hearing impairment have been less likely to be identified as gifted than their hearing counterparts (Vialle & Paterson, 1996; Yewchuk & Bibby, 1989a; 1989b). Most students who are gifted with hearing disabilities act very similar to their peers who are gifted and hearing. They have just as much intellectual preciosity, superior reasoning and other traits; however, their academic achievement may be delayed up to 4 or 5 years (Reis & McCoach, 2002). The basic referral, assessment, and selection procedures used with gifted children may be applied to hearing-impaired populations (Whitmore & Maker, 1985), with appropriate concessions to handicapping effects of hearing impairment (Pendarvis & Grossi, 1980), and the pervasive influence of deafness as a cultural difference (Vialle & Paterson, 1996). Verbal test scores should be given less prominence than nonverbal and performance scores (Rittenhouse & Blough, 1995). Intelligence tests should be individually administered and nonverbal in nature (Sattler, 1992). Functioning at or somewhat above grade level on standardized achievement tests may be indicative of giftedness (Yewchuk, Bibby, & Fraser, 1989). Referrals by both teachers and parents should be part of the identification process (Yewchuk & Bibby, 1989a). Suggestions for designing and implementing programming to meet the learning needs of gifted students with hearing impairment include the following (MacDonald & Yewchuk, 1994; Maker, 1981; Pollard & Howze, 1981; Rittenhouse & Blough, 1995):
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Programs should be flexible in both design and use to allow latitude in investigation of complex issues. Programs should encourage use of advance reasoning and analytical skills rather than memorization. Programs should be individualized to match student interests, learning styles, and exceptional skills. Programs should include thematic units with alternatives for stretching and extending exceptional gifts and talents of students. Programming should include special education services for areas of weakness.
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cialization skills, and independent living must continue as part of the individual program plan (Corn, 1986, 1992; Hackney, 1986). Successful placement in inclusive classrooms involves collaboration between regular classroom teachers, special educators, specialists in visual impairment, professional support personnel, parents, and the students themselves (Ingraham & Daugherty, 1995; Lichtenstein, 1997).
Accommodating the Learning Needs of Twice Exceptional Students in School Gifted Students with Visual Impairments Like students with hearing impairment, students with visual impairment have been educated historically in residential schools with other similarly affected students. Accompanying the trend toward placement of students into regular classrooms is an increasing awareness of the unique needs of these students who also have special gifts and talents (Ferrell, 1994). The diagnosis of visual impairment includes low vision (ability to read large print, with or without magnification), functional blindness (sufficient vision to move through environment, but braille required for reading and writing), and total blindness (Turnbull et al., 1999). Approximately one out of every thousand children of school age have a visual impairment, and of these 2–5% are gifted (Ferrell, 1994). Giftedness is not as readily apparent in students with visual impairment as in the normal population because of the barriers to assessing true potential (Corn, 1986, 1992; Hackney, 1986). Little (2001) indicates that creative production and cognitive development tend to progress more slowly than for sighted peers. Nevertheless the excellent verbal skills, persistence, motivation, high concentration, and superior memory ability typical of students who are gifted and visually impaired contributes significantly to learning progress and general achievement. Special problems arise when a student with visual impairment is placed with sighted students without adequate learning supports. Paskewicz (1986) found the major stumbling block to be the lack of adequate brailled materials and the waiting time for brailling of additional materials, which severely limits the depth and spontaneity of exploration of subject matter. Instruction in braille usage, orientation and mobility, so-
Identification Twice exceptional students are extremely heterogeneous and dispersed broadly across educational systems. When it comes to identification of twiceexceptional students, both teachers and parents may find it difficult associating failing grades and incomplete assignments with giftedness (Matthews, this volume; Swesson, 1994). Karnes, Shaunessy, & Bisland (2004) reported that gifted students are under-identified among the various populations of students with disabilities, although generally there are no accurate numbers available as to the actual numbers to students who are twice exceptional. As Eisner & Sornik (2005) accurately point out “because twice exceptionality is not a diagnostic classification, there is no established set of criteria for identifying twice exceptional students” (p. 17). Indeed it seems apparent that the complexity and interaction of the strengths and weaknesses a student may possess make any attempt at assessment and/or remediation difficult to achieve (Kesner, 2002). In agreement, Reis, McGuire, & Neu (2000) have argued that most schools, regardless of the identification program that is pursued, will not have adequate flexibility to ensure identification of both gifts and learning disabilities. Clearly a more flexible or comprehensive identification and/or assessment is needed to enable more twice-exceptional students to be identified for appropriate services (Ruban & Reis, 2005). Nevertheless, as Karnes & Shaunessy (2004) note in the United States educators are required by law to identify children with disabilities. This has not always been to the benefit of individuals who are twice exceptional
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in that the identification is driven by a deficit model that typically results in separate educational placements or creates an undue focus on the disability and not the giftedness. Bianco (2005) indicates that the two primary barriers to effective identification of students with disabilities for gifted programs are teacher’s stereotypic beliefs and inadequate teacher training. Misconceptions about how giftedness is manifested and low expectations associated with anyone having a disability can be a substantial deterrent for effective identification practice in the schools. In a similar vein, Cline & Hegerman (2001) proposed that some of the challenges that proper identification of students who are twice exceptional include a focus on the assessment of a disability, stereotypical expectations [for either ability or disability], experiential deficits, narrow views [or conceptions] of giftedness, and disability-specific concerns. An additional problem with identification is the accurate definition of each area of exceptionality and then the consistent application of the definition. It is often the case that students who are identified for gifted programming and who continue to struggle in certain academic endeavors are mistakenly considered lazy or underachievers (Bianco, 2005; Matthews, this volume). Essentially the one-label-fits-all approach that is typical of most school identification programs will not work with these students. Little (2001) has suggested that individuals, who have physical or outwardly visible disabilities as well as exceptional abilities, are often hindered in receiving recognition for their superior intelligence. Unfortunately, it is easier to focus on something that is tangible and can be detected by a mere glance rather than something that must be discovered. Unfortunately this problem exists not only with outwardly visible conditions but ones that are also displayed through academia. Finally, some students will test poorly for gifted programming for a variety of reasons. Dorry (2004) has provided a number of insights for why this can occur. They may be slow due to Oppositional-Defiant disorder. They are so involved in self or self-choice that they would not perform until they choose to. Emotional pressures or anxieties may affect their ability to perform. Time pressure can leave a student feeling hurried and the more they worry about the time the less well they achieve. Visual or auditory processing disorders can interfere as a student has to use more mental energy
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to understand the information before solving the problem. At times the mind works too quickly for the hands to write or mouth to speak, consequently the ideas just get lost in the execution of a task. Medicine/medical problems can interfere with processing speed. It is possible for a stimulant to fast forward functioning where a common cold can really slow a person down. Learning disorders where a student is forced to use an area of the brain that may be weak can affect their ability to perform well on tests. Cerebral functioning may affect speed if a student is asked to complete tasks that are unfamiliar and have not been learned previously, or if there is a disorder that keeps this autonomy from being created from previous experience. Gestalt or problems with whole-to-part relationships can affect speed. ADHD may be another cause with the student having difficulty with internal time monitoring. They may be so distracted that their speeds dramatically decrease as they recognize their errors. The key to recognition of giftedness in students with disabilities lies in adequately trained special educators, gifted educators, and mainstream educators (Johnson, Karnes, & Carr, 1997; Davis & Rimm, 2004). The following practices are conducive to identification of gifts and talents in students with disabilities:
r
r
r
Be familiar with the characteristics of giftedness and talent, and how they can be manifested by students with handicapping conditions. Create situations where students with handicaps have the opportunity to display gifted and talented behavior. Lupart (2004) proposes that teachers can assume a primary role in the assessment process through “learner-in-context” observation and metacognitive-based semi-structured interviews. The norm group for a student with disabilities should be the subgroup of peers with similar disabilities who have experienced a similar degree of developmental delay in language development and intellectual functioning through lack of access to information, opportunity, and resources (Maker, 1977). Standardized tests of intelligence and achievement developed specifically for subpopulations of students with handicaps, such as the Hiskey Nebraska Test of Learning Aptitude (Hiskey, 1966) for deaf children or the Perkins–Binet for blind children (Warren, 1984) should be used. Where such instruments are not available, checklists and tests should
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be examined and assessed for appropriateness of use, bearing in mind the unique characteristics of the particular subgroup (Nielsen, 2002), and the need to lower IQ criteria for giftedness if the condition affects test performance, for example, 120 and 125 on any one of the Verbal, Performance or Full Scales of the Wechsler instead of the more conventional 130 and over for gifted students with learning disabilities (Lupart & Pyryt, 1996; Yewchuk, 1986). Many students may be penalized on standardized intelligence tests because they will not or cannot perform quickly (Dorry, 2004). Tests should be modified only if the examiner is thoroughly familiar with the limitations imposed by specific types of disability and the special concessions appropriate for that type of disability (Pendarvis & Grossi, 1980). Ways in which students compensate for a disabling condition and characteristics instrumental in successful adaptation should be given special emphasis. If normal channels of expression are inaccessible, tasks requiring problem solving, memory, critical thinking, and creativity might be appropriate (LaFrance, 1995; Whitmore, 1981). It is recommended that a multidimensional approach be used in the identification of students who are twice exceptional and should include a large battery of assessments including, but not limited to intelligence tests (Fetzer, 2000). Multiple sources of information, including standardized tests (achievement, ability, aptitude), teacher and parent referral, and student observation, maximize the likelihood of identification and facilitate a balanced, holistic view of the child’s abilities (Lupart, 2004; Grimm, 1998). Assessment should also be an ongoing process not a one-time event. Certain disabilities are not always diagnosable in a single shot and gifted behaviors may manifest themselves at different times. Multiple sources and assessment tools will allow students to exhibit their exceptionalities over time and will assist in the vision that each background is unique (Colorado Department of Education, n.d.). It is critical that parents be involved in the identification process to offer their insight into their child’s abilities and activities outside of school (Rivera, Murdock, & Sexton, 1995). Parents are often the best predictors of student ability. They have known their children from birth, and although they may not
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always be aware of the exceptionality of their child they will provide insights that trained professionals may not have the opportunity to witness or evaluate. Special educators should have course work in gifted education; gifted educators should have course work addressing disability issues; and classroom teachers need familiarity with both fields to recognize the needs of gifted students with disabilities in inclusionary settings (Johnson, Karnes, & Carr, 1997; Lupart, 2004). Provision of appropriate educational programming for gifted students with disabilities is facilitated when teachers, psychologists, counsellors, parents, and others can work together to provide service for children with special needs in the inclusive classroom.
Curriculum and Instruction It has been estimated that between 2 and 20% of our population belong to programs for gifted and talented (Davis & Rimm, 2004; Renzulli & Reis, 1997). Matthews & Foster (2006) note that a child is considered gifted only when the learning needs in any given subject area are so advanced relative to same age-peers that special adaptive programming is required for continued challenge and academic development. Moreover, they point out that some children have exceptionally advanced learning needs that require more flexibly responsive educational attention. In thinking about the education of students who are gifted and talented and disabled, it is important to recognize that many students do not qualify for programming and/or services. Unfortunately as Newman (2004) attests although some of these students are served based on either their ability or their disability, very few will receive both types of services. One of the long-standing goals in special education has been early intervention. The sooner the diagnosis is made the earlier the school, parents, and other involved parties can assist the maturation of the student. If a suitable diagnosis is made that allows for educational, social, and emotional interventions that will meet a child’s needs, parents can be relieved of the guilt and frustration that may come with the child’s disability (Benito, 2003). The underlying rationale for early intervention is that if a student’s exceptionality can be detected early it can be corrected.
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In support of this notion Morelock, Brown, & Morrissey (2003) found that children who scored above 130 IQ at four years of age, as toddlers, demonstrated significantly advanced pretend play. In addition, the mothers of the high-IQ children engaged in scaffolding behaviors involving higher stages of pretend transformations, verbal analogies, and world links. In this example the parents responded to the advanced needs of their children by providing them with opportunities for advanced growth and furthering their development. Parents are often the best service providers for their children. Parents observe their children, divine their needs, and then provide the appropriate support to their child. Parents who are caring and respect their children will allow themselves to be lead in the timing and content that the student is ready for. Morelock et al. (2003) concluded that the pretend play of toddlers is a hallmark of intellectual advancement. Further they suggest that the quality of supports or interventions for a child may have significant effect on their intellectual development. Early intervention needs to include communication with the student who is twice exceptional. There needs to be a clear line of discussion about problems and expectations. An environment of trust must also be developed in which the very young twice-disabled child can freely express opinions that are valued and not censured by adults. For twice-exceptional students within the K-12 school system, the gold standard is strength-based instruction, accommodations, and compensation (Eisner & Altman, 2005). This standard cannot be met if adequate communication is not a significant part of the development of curriculum and instruction for students who are twice exceptional. The collaborative process needs to include stakeholders such as the principal, student, parent, classroom teacher, educator of the gifted and of special education. Meetings need to take place between current teachers and prior teachers to inform specific interventions and adaptations as well as the success of prior programming for the individual student. It is important for the specialists in special education and gifted education work closely with the classroom teachers to make sure appropriate programming is taking place. Classroom observations can be valuable in training teachers and parents the appropriate interventions and techniques for working with the student. Finally, it is ideal for any program or process to have some type of evaluation to measure
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success by any and all stakeholders. By evaluating the collaborative process individual learning plans can be monitored and adjusted provides the means for gathering data on specific students. One of the largest problems facing schools today relates to the way services are provided or mandated for students. Many twice-exceptional students have individual education programs that require adaptations or accommodations which are inappropriate or do not meet the spectrum of needs of the students. This may make access to the gifted and talented instruction improbable, if not impossible (Weinfeld et al., 2005). This is especially true when curriculum utilized in schools require students to depend on various basic academic skills, such as reading, writing, and math. As King (2005) points out these subjects are often areas of difficulty for students who are twice exceptional. It is often proposed that the complexity of the interaction between their strengths and their weaknesses can make assessment and remediation virtually impossible (Mills & Brody, 2002). Curriculum should be flexible and adapt to the needs of the students, it should also be taught in concepts instead of rote-learning facts, unless the student is autistic or has AS, then this practice may be warranted. There should be opportunities for the students to learn using their strengths as well as opportunities to develop and strengthen their weaknesses. One of the popular approaches to “fix” a twice-exceptional student is to take instructional and/or work time away from the student’s area(s) of strength to remediate their weaknesses. This practice is severely detrimental to the twice-exceptional child, as the focus of their schooling is driven to strengthen their areas of weakness and ignore their strengths. A better model is one where they are allowed to excel in their area(s) of strength and remediate their weaknesses. Students who are gifted and have learning disabilities require instruction in strategies that relate to all of their academic areas. This is especially true for their area of disability. The specific strategies should come in response to the instructional goals that are shared by the student and teacher (Bisland, 2004). Gifted students with learning disabilities have exceptional cognitive abilities and talents that should be nurtured as they learn how to effectively compensate for their disabilities (Baum et al., 1989; Baum & Owen, 2004; Matthews, this volume; McCoach et al., 2001).
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McCoach et al. (2001) assert that twice-exceptional students should have appropriate challenge in each subject, even if this causes asynchronies within the student’s school programming. In many cases the instruction that is available to students who are twice exceptional is mismatched. The curriculum that is used in the regular classroom may also be problematic. Often school-wide curriculum is aligned with minimum competency standards and state assessments which provide no flexibility and lack sufficient challenge (Johnsen, 2006). It is imperative that the opportunities for work in a student’s area of strength be included in their individualized education program (IEP), and in this way the students will be guaranteed these critical services and opportunities (Reis & Ruban, 2005). These services could come from any facet of programming (e.g., push-in, pull-out models) such that a continuum of services can be provided. It is equally important that opportunities for skill development and content instruction be provided in the inclusive classroom. This is so that twice-exceptional students will find success at employing their advanced learning strategies and will serve to bolster their self-esteem and provide them the opportunity to try more challenging work in the classroom. It should be obvious to all stakeholders that students need opportunity to participate and be engaged in enrichment and acceleration programs to be able to demonstrate their gifts and talents; however, it is equally important to address their disabilities (Bisland, 2004). In addition to provisions outlined in the student’s IEP, Coleman (2005) notes there are three areas in which students need support: emotional support, external scaffolding, and advocacy. Emotional support refers to the atmosphere that we create for our students. External scaffolding refers to the amount of additional help that a student needs. The help can come in many forms such as modification of assignments or products, targeted remediation, direct instruction, and specific accommodations. Advocacy is initially the role that the parent or teacher shoulders. It is the need to speak out to obtain appropriate services for the student. Ideally this role is transferred to the student. In order for this to transfer, the student must understand his or her abilities and challenges. Then the student must come to understand the way in which they can appropriately ask for services. The
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ultimate goal of all areas of support is to help the student become an autonomous learner(Coleman, 2005). The self-concept of students who are twice exceptional is highly influenced by their peers as well as the expectations placed upon them by their schools and parents (Fetzer, 2000). The mixed messages that these students receive are problematic in relation to their capabilities in the classroom and the expectations of their performance (Waldron, Saphire, & Rosenblum, 1987). Often the conflicting messages that students who are twice exceptional receive can be damaging to their achievement as well. Parents and teachers hold high expectations due to the students’ gifted behavior, but they are held to a lesser standard due to their disability (Swesson, 1994). It is important to teach students who are twice exceptional that the words they may define themselves by can be turned into a positive light. For example, stubborn could become tenacious and so forth (Fox, 1999). Reis, McGuire, & Neu, 2000 found two distinct advantages that successful twice-exceptional students had in postsecondary school. They included high reliance on compensation strategies such as study and note-taking strategies, technology, goal setting, and self-advocacy or ways to request appropriate accommodations or interventions that will enable the student to be successful. Students who lack the self-efficacy to advocate or lack confidence in their abilities to produce quality work will often hide their weaknesses and are ashamed to ask for help. In order to self-advocate students must be taught their areas of strength and weakness. They must also receive direct and explicit instruction in the communication of those abilities to others. Not only should students be taught to be self-aware, they need to learn the proper “social norms” that will assist them in their communication with service providers, parents, and other concerned parties. A final area of instruction that seems to be lacking is providing career and transition services for students who are twice exceptional (Hua, 2002). Rosenberg (2005) mentions three important points relating to college entrance for students who are twice exceptional. They include having a psycho-educational assessment in place so that there is official documentation for the university to provide services. Second, applying to take college entrance exams in advance to make
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sure that proper accommodations can be available for Another problem when it comes to teacher training the student to minimize disabilities, and finally select- is the long-held stereotypes that teachers hold for gifted ing the appropriate college that will accommodate the students. Not only is it often difficult to obtain accurate student (Rosenberg, 2005). nominations from teachers, they find it difficult to understand that a student with disabilities could also be referred for high ability. They tend to view the atypical behaviors among students who are twice exceptional as indicative of weaknesses and problems rather than the Teacher Education symbolic strengths and gifts of the students (Baum & Olenchak, 2002). In the future teachers, special educators, and other One of the major problems facing institutions of higher service providers will require more training in the ideneducation is fitting in all the information and expertification and recommendation of students for testing. tise deemed relevant for contemporary teachers into Sullivan (2001), for example, recommends that teachexisting programs. Fierce debates about the depth and ers use portfolios to serve as another form of identifibreadth of content and practicum experience are comcation and service for students who are twice excepmonplace in many faculties of education. This partional. All educators require training in traits and charticular problem forces universities to streamline their graduation requirements so that new teachers have lit- acteristics of giftedness and disability. With this traintle training in working with students who are excep- ing they will be enabled to refer students with disabiltional. It is often the case that pre-service teachers will ities for programming into a gifted and talented prohave only one course in exceptionalities that merely gram. They will also need to be aware that many twicetouches the surface. The situation is exacerbated by exceptional students are effectively masking their abilithe fact that general education teachers, who may be ties and disabilities to look average. When teachers are tenured in their school district, rarely have any train- trained to identify typical strengths or weaknesses of ing to work with students who have exceptionalities students who are twice exceptional immediate opportu(Kennedy, Higgins, & Pierce, 2002). It is worse yet nities for accommodation/services are imminent. Conwhen there are students with multiple exceptionalities sequently, teachers who serve twice-exceptional stuin the general education classroom. In addition, teach- dents need to be prepared in decision making and emers of special education are often not trained to work ployment of appropriate methods of instruction so that with gifted and talented students (Kennedy, Higgins, the students do not end up with a deficiency related to the form of instruction used by their teacher. Program& Pierce, 2002). Because of the multiple demands on any individual ming that allows for multiple pathways to learning and teacher or teacher in training, it is unlikely that the ma- providing numerous opportunities to demonstrate that jority of educators will have enough training to make learning will assist twice-exceptional students in selfdifferentiation work for every student in every situa- efficacy and mastery of concepts. The avenues that tion. Clearly the ultimate success of any program, re- can lead to these competencies may include problem gardless of its location, depends on the training and solving, critical thinking, extension of traditional curquality of that training, of those who work with and for riculum, peer interaction, cooperative and collaborathe students (Weinfeld et al., 2005). Special education tive learning, and an environment that is fluid and teachers may have the ability to provide programming flexible to allow appropriate movement throughout the for students with disabilities; however, they often lack classroom. Finally, future teacher preparation and professional the training necessary to identify potential giftedness development opportunities for teachers should foand to provide accurate recommendations for services cus on individual programming. The programming in a gifted program (Bianco, 2005). It is also imperative that specialists, classroom teachers, and other ser- needs to include flexible instructional approaches vice providers establish an open line of communication and adaptations (Coleman, 2001). The programming with the parents and the student to ensure that any ser- should include individual assessments that are conducted at frequent intervals to monitor the change vices that are employed are appropriate and working.
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and progress of the individual learner. The assessments will allow service providers to adapt/change the programming to meet the current needs of the learner.
Conclusion Important changes have been taking place over the past decade in regular education, gifted education, and special education that will eventually have a significant positive effect on the education and full development of the learning potential of gifted students with disabilities (Lupart, 2006). The adoption of a simultaneous commitment toward excellence and equity in our schools holds promise for all participants within the learning community (Ford & Harmon, 2001). Inclusive education offers the context for this to happen in general classrooms throughout the world, and eventually should figure strongly in helping to eliminate many of the limitations and barriers faced by students who are twice exceptional (Andrews & Lupart, 2000). Even though much of our current knowledge base and classroom practice in educating gifted students with disabilities is still best depicted as a “desultory duality” (Yewchuk & Lupart, 2000), the future is decidedly brighter with a growing confluence of interests, practices, and visions in the education of all students from regular and special education. Though the review of the literature continues to reveal the reality of a somewhat disconnected and unmethodical knowledge base, progress in understanding the challenges and benefits associated with the blending of programs and services to best meet the unique needs of those identified is becoming more apparent. Certainly there have been impressive gains in both research and educational practice, unfortunately there are still only small pockets of this exemplary work being carried out. The ultimate merging of general and special education into a unified educational system will hopefully generate schools that can provide an appropriate education for all students, even gifted students with disabilities. Indeed, successful efforts in this area might contribute significantly to the general reform, if not transformation of education in the future.
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524 95114). Storrs: The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented, University of Connecticut. Reis, S. M., & Ruban, L. M. (2005). Services and programs for academically talented students with learning disabilities. Theory Into Practice, 44(2), 148–159. Renzulli, J. S. (1977). The enrichment triad model: A guide for developing defensible programs for the gifted and talented. Mansfield Centre, CT: Creative Learning Press. Renzulli, J. S., & Reis, S. M. (1997). The schoolwide enrichment model: A how-to guide for educational excellence (2nd ed.). Mansfield Center, CT: Creative Learning Press. Rice, M. P. (2004). Twice-exceptional and attention deficit disordered. Twice-Exceptional Newsletter, (4), 6–7. Rimland, B. (1978). Inside the mind of the autistic savant. Psychology Today, 12(3), 69–80. Rittenhouse, R., & Blough, L. (1995). Gifted students with hearing impairments: Suggestions for teachers. Teaching Exceptional Children, 27(4), 51–53. Rivera, D. B., Murdock, J., & Sexton, D. (1995). Serving the gifted/learning disabled. Gifted Child Today, 18(6), 34–37. Rizza, M. G., & Morrison, W. F. (2002). Uncovering stereotypes and identifying characteristics of gifted students and students with emotional/behavioral disorders. Roeper Review, 25(2), 73–77. Rosenberg, N. (2005). The college search process for GT/ld students. Twice-Exceptional Newsletter, (17), 3–5. Ruban, L. M., & Reis, S. M. (2005). Identification and assessment of gifted students with learning disabilities. Theory Into Practice, 44(2), 115–124. Sah, A., & Borland, J. H. (1989). The effects of a structured home plan on the home and school behaviors of gifted learning-disabled students with deficits in organizational skills . Roeper Review, 12(1), 54–57. Sattler, J. M. (1992 ). Assessment of children. Rev. and updated 3rd ed. San Diego: J. M. Sattler Publisher, Inc.. Schiff, M., Kaufman, A., & Kaufman, N. (1981). Scatter analysis of WISC-R profiles for learning disabled children with superior intelligence. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 14, 400–404. Seay, M. (2005). Identifying 2e students in the classroom. TwiceExceptional Newsletter, (12), 18. Seeley, K. R. (1998). Underachieving and talented learners with disabilities. In V. Tassel-Baska (Ed.), Excellence in educating gifted and talented learners (pp. 83–93). Denver, CO: Love. Shevitz, B., Weinfeld, R., Jeweler, S., & Barnes-Robinson, L. (2003). Mentoring empowers gifted/learning disabled students to soar! Roeper Review, 26(1), 37–40. Silverman, L. K. (1998). Through the lens of giftedness. Roeper Review, 20(3), 204–210. Stormont, M., Stebbins, M., S., & Holliday, G. (2001). Characteristics and educational support needs of underrepresented gifted adolescents. Psychology in the Schools, 38(5), 413–423. Sullivan, D. (2001). The school as a community of learners: Meeting the needs of all in the inclusion classroom – an interview with John Sullivan. Contemporary Justice review, 4(2), 219–231. Swesson, K. (1994). Helping the gifted/learning disabled: Understanding the special needs of the “twice-exceptional”. Gifted Child Today, 16(1), 55–72.
J.L. Lupart and R.E. Toy Thompson, L. J. (1971). Language disabilities in men of eminence. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 4(1), 34–45. Timmons, V., Lupart, J. L., & McKeough, A. (2002). Schools in transition: International perspectives on inclusion. Exceptionality Education Canada, 12(2&3), 3–6. Turnbull, A., Turnbull, R., Shank, M., & Leal, D. (1999). Exceptional lives: Special education in today’s schools (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill. U. S. Congress (1978). Gifted and talented children’s act of 1978 (P. L. 95-561). Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. U. S. Congress (1988). Jacob K. Javits gifted and talented students education act of 1988 (Title IV-H. R. 5). Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. Vespi, L., & Yewchuck, C. (1992). A phenomenological study of the social/emotional characteristics of gifted learning disabled children. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 1, 55–72. Vialle, W., & Paterson, J. (1996). Constructing a culturally sensitive education for gifted deaf students. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 419 336). Waldron, K. A., Saphire, D. G., & Rosenblum, S. A. (1987). Learning disabilities and giftedness: Identification based on self-concept, behavior, and academic patterns. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 20(7), 422–432. Warren, D. (1984). Blindness and early child development. New York: American Foundation for the Blind. Webb, J., & Latimer, D. (1993). ADHD and the children who are gifted. Exceptional Children, 60(2), 183–184. Weill, M. P. (1987). Gifted/learning disabled students. The Clearing House, 60, 341–343. Weinfeld, R., Barnes-Robinson, L., Jeweler, S., & Shevitz, B. (2005). What we have learned: Experiences in providing adaptations and accommodations for gifted and talented students with learning disabilities. Teaching Exceptional Children, 38(1), 48–54. Whitmore, J. R. (1981). Gifted children with handicapping conditions: A new frontier. Exceptional Children, 48(2), 106–113. Whitmore, J. R. (1986). Conceptualizing the issue of underserved populations of gifted students. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 10(3), 141–153. Whitmore, J. R., & Maker, C. J. (1985). Intellectual giftedness in disabled persons. Rockville, MD: Aspen. Wiener, J., & Tardif, C. Y. (2004). Social and emotional functioning of children with learning disabilities: Does special education placement make a difference? Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 19(1), 20–32. Wolfle, J., & French, M. (1990, October). Surviving gifted attention deficit disorder children in the classroom. Paper presented at the annual conference of the National Association for Gifted Children. Little Rock. (ED374630). Yewchuk, C. R. (1986). Gifted/learning disabled children: Problems of assessment. In A. J. Cropley, K. K. Urban, J. Wagner, & W. Wieczerkowski (Eds.), Giftedness : A continuing worldwide challenge (pp. 40–48). New York: Trillium Press. Yewchuk, C. (1999). Savant syndrome: Intuitive excellence amidst general deficit. Developmental Disabilities Bulletin, 27(1), 58–76. Yewchuk, C. R., & Bibby, M. A. (1989a). Identification of giftedness in severely and profoundly hearing impaired students. Roeper Review, 12(1), 42–48.
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Yewchuk, C. R., & Bibby, M. A. (1989b). The handicapped gifted child: Problems of identification and programming. Canadian Journal of Education, 14(1), 102–108. Yewchuk, C., Bibby, M. A., & Fraser, B. (1989). Identifying giftedness in the hearing impaired: The effectiveness of four nomination forms. Gifted Education International, 6(2), 87–97.
525 Yewchuk, C., & Lupart, J.L. (2000). Inclusive education for gifted students with disabilities. In K. Heller, F. Monks, R. Sternberg, & R. Subotnik (Eds.) International handbook of giftedness and talent. (2nd ed.) (pp. 659–670). Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Ltd.
Chapter 24
Gifted Learners Who Drop Out: Prevalence and Prevention Michael S. Matthews
Abstract Gifted dropout rates vary depending on how one defines both “giftedness” and “dropping out.” Recent empirical studies seem to agree that in contrast to allegorical estimates of 20% or higher, relatively few academically gifted learners actually leave high school without a diploma. However, dropping out clearly can be a serious problem for some gifted individuals. This chapter situates dropping out of school as an extreme manifestation of academic underachievement. Reviews of recent and emerging scholarship are considered to estimate the magnitude of this problem and to suggest possible interventions that may minimize the likelihood of the academically able learner dropping out.
& Abbott, 2000). Ability in mathematics may be particularly salient (Matthews, 2006a). One might suspect based on these findings that academically gifted students would rarely if ever drop out of school. Popular wisdom also would suggest that highly able students face few academic difficulties in public school settings. Research shows, however, that this rosy outlook is likely inaccurate. Numerous studies have documented the presence of academic underachievement among academically gifted student populations (Colangelo, Kerr, Christensen, & Maxey, 1993; Moore, Ford, & Milner, 2005; Spiers Neumeister and H´ebert, 2003; Ziegler & Stoeger, 2003). Because academic underachieveKeywords Dropout · Underachievement · Diversity · ment is a continuum of behaviors (McCoach and Siegle, 2003; Reis & McCoach, 2000) that ranges Gifted · Prevalence · Latino up to and includes leaving school entirely, it seems reasonable to view dropping out as an end point in this continuum (Matthews, 2006a). Introduction Despite widespread interest in gifted education regarding socio-emotional issues and underachieveA relatively large body of research has examined gen- ment, there have been relatively few empirical eral education students who drop out of school, and investigations of gifted dropouts. This state of affairs there appears to be general agreement about the fac- may be due in part to the difficulty of locating such tors that place students at risk of dropping out. Drop- individuals, who appear to be scarcer than is popuping out can have lifelong consequences for students larly believed (Matthews, 2006a). However, even if across a variety of indicators, with an especially high relatively few highly able students drop out, the loss impact in students’ lifelong earning power and related of potential that these students represent may have outcomes (e.g., Feller, 2006). consequences beyond what their numbers alone would High academic ability and/or high academic suggest. achievement appear to offer a strong protective effect Below I describe some of the salient measurement against dropping out (Battin-Pearson, Newcomb, issues related to giftedness and dropping out. Then, I briefly discuss a poorly supported estimate of dropout prevalence that has become widespread in gifted eduM.S. Matthews (B) The University of North Carolina at Charlatte, Raleigh, cation circles, before reviewing three recent empirical NC, USA studies on this issue. I conclude by presenting some e-mail:
[email protected] L.V. Shavinina (ed.), International Handbook on Giftedness, c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-6162-2 24,
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ongoing studies and emerging research questions regarding gifted students who drop out.
Completing Secondary School in the United States In the United States, there are a handful of options for completing public school. Traditionally, students who have satisfied all the relevant requirements are awarded a high school diploma. Requirements for receiving a diploma generally include some measure of satisfactory academic performance, which is customarily assessed in the form of passing grades received for academic and non-academic coursework. There also may be more than one diploma option offered within a single school, as (for example) general versus college preparatory, which reflect the curriculum and level of courses taken. Some amount of mandatory attendance may also be required, such as having fewer than 10 unexcused absences during a 180-day attendance year. In practice, students who have met attendance requirements but not academic ones are sometimes allowed to participate in graduation ceremonies, but these students receive a certificate of attendance rather than a diploma. In recent years, US schools have increasingly come to rely upon standardized criterion-referenced tests as an additional graduation requirement. Generally, students are afforded multiple opportunities—five, for example—to obtain a passing score on these examinations. Students who have satisfactory grades and attendance without passing scores on the high school graduation exam are not awarded a diploma. Students meeting grade and test performance criteria but not attendance requirements may not be allowed to graduate, although attendance requirements and practices vary somewhat across states as well as within them. A handful of US schools now offer the International Baccalaureate diploma, which is recognized in many countries outside the United States. This option is often considered suitable for gifted learners (Shaunessy, Suldo, Hardesty, & Shaffer, 2006; see also the IB Diploma Programme web site at http://www.ibo.org/diploma/). Students who do not receive a high school diploma through any of the options described
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above, for whatever reason, have an option commonly known as the GED (see, for example, http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov/cic text/education/ged/ged. htm). The Tests of General Educational Development (GED Tests) are a 7 12 -hour battery that includes subject area tests in language arts (both reading and writing), social studies, science, and mathematics. The GED Tests are offered in English, Spanish, and French editions. Test questions are primarily multiple-choice format, but some subject areas of the test also include constructed-response or essay questions. On passing these tests, the individual is awarded a GED credential certifying that he or she has attained the subject matter knowledge and skills associated with high school completion. Many employers and higher education institutions in the Unites States recognize the GED credential as the equivalent of a traditional high school diploma.
Descriptive Considerations Dropouts There are a variety of ways that dropout rates may be calculated. Woods (1995) describes four common methods. Event rates count students who leave high school each year, and may count the same student multiple times over different years. The status rate is a cumulative rate that is higher than the event rate, as it gives the proportion of all individuals in the population who have not completed school (or were not enrolled) at a given point in time. Status rates might count as dropouts some adults who never attended high school, or who immigrated to the United States as adults, as well as counting students who dropped out of private schools; these individuals would not be included in other types of commonly reported estimates. Cohort rates describe the number of dropouts from a cohort (a group made up of a single age or grade of students) over a set period of time, and may be thought of as event rates collected across two or more years. Finally, the high school completion rate indicates the percentage of all individuals of a particular age who have received a high school diploma or equivalency certificate. In such completion rates (also called graduation rates), those students who have successfully ob-
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tained the GED credential after leaving school would no longer be counted as dropouts. As should be apparent, each of these four methods is likely to produce a unique estimate of the dropout rate. While some authors have recommended the use of cohort rates as being the most readily interpretable alternative (Hall, 2005), other writers suggest that the various methods of estimating graduation rates may be equally valid, depending on the research question (Miao & Haney, 2004). The desire of schools, districts, and states to minimize their reported dropout rates adds an additional layer of complexity to researchers’ efforts to understand this phenomenon. Official dropout rates are widely believed to be under-reported, at times severely so (Hall, 2005; Paulson, 2006). For example, students who enroll in a GED study program commonly are no longer counted as dropouts, even if they later fail to obtain the GED credential. Hall’s report on statereported graduation rates finds that “reported rates are misleading in some places and missing altogether in others” (p. 2), and the report supports this contention with comparisons between official reported rates and those obtained from a variety of other sources.
four students were considered gifted, than if fewer than one in one hundred were so classified. Intelligence Quotient (IQ) scores are not always available to researchers. Nevertheless, it seems reasonable to use an IQ score of two standard deviations above the mean (i.e., 130 or above on the Wechsler test series or a comparable measure) as evidence of giftedness if such scores are available. This is a relatively restrictive definition, which theoretically would encompass between 2 and 3% of the population. Operationally defining giftedness in this manner clearly might not include all students actually enrolled in gifted programs, but all students achieving scores in this range likely would be found eligible for most gifted programs. Rising IQ scores over time (the Flynn effect) also may complicate efforts to compare IQs collected during different decades. If IQ scores are not available, it is also possible to use other types of information to provide evidence of giftedness (Flint, 2002; Frasier, 1997; Krisel & Cowan, 1997; Renzulli & Park, 2000; 2002). Regardless of how giftedness is defined in a given setting, it is vital that researchers present a clear description of the criteria that were applied; otherwise, the reader is unable to judge the worth of the remainder of the study.
The Gifted
Diversity and Dropping Out
There is broad agreement among experts that some learners exhibit advanced educational needs that require additional educational services, yet there is much ongoing dialogue about precisely how this should be accomplished (e.g., Dai, 2005; Gagn´e, 2004; Matthews & Foster, 2006; Shavinina & Ferrari, 2004; Vald´es, 2003). Gifted identification mandates, funding, and practices vary widely across states and even within them in the United States (Council of State Directors, 2003). The percentage of students identified for gifted education services varies widely; although most US states having such programs identify between 2 and 9% of students as academically gifted, states’ percentages in 2001–2002 ranged from as low as 0.75 to over 27% of the overall school population (based on data from the Council of State Directors, 2003, and from the [US] National Center for Education Statistics, 2003). It clearly is to be expected that more dropouts would be found gifted if more than one in
Dropout statistics consistently demonstrate that learners from cultural or linguistic minority groups are at greater risk of dropping out. In the United States, this applies in particular to students who are African American (Paulson, 2006), Latino (Tan, 2001; Vizcain, 2005), or Native American (Brandt, 1992), as well as to those who are from low socioeconomic status households or whose first language is not English (Artiles, Rueda, Salazar, & Higareda, 2005). Because these diverse learners are in most US locations severely underrepresented in programs for the academically gifted (Booth, & Stanley, 2004; Elhoweris, Mutua, Alsheikh, & Holloway, 2005; Shaunessy, Matthews, & Smith, 2006), it can be difficult to access sufficient populations of diverse gifted students when planning research studies. Despite such difficulty, these learners are vital to developing our knowledge of the relationship between gifted program participation and other academic outcomes and the ways in which
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this interrelationship develops within specific populations of diverse learners. Likewise, examples drawn from educational systems in other countries (Lau & Chan, 2001; McCall & Beach, 2000; Peters & van Boxtel, 1999) can add greatly to our understanding of why students who share similar abilities may achieve very different academic outcomes. Latino students in particular may simultaneously face more than one of these risk factors. In the United States, these students have a reported dropout rate that is as high as or higher than that of any other group. This suggests perhaps that the present schooling system is not effectively meeting the educational needs of these learners (G´andara, 2005; Tan, 2001; Vizcain, 2005). Those students who are English language learners constitute a rapidly growing group within the US school population (Castellano & D´ıaz, 2002). Because the majority of these individuals are Latinos, schools’ understanding of the needs of these learners will become increasingly important in the years to come (Artiles et al., 2005; Matthews, 2006b).
Why Would a Gifted Student Leave School? Outside of gifted education circles, academically gifted learners often are stereotyped as teacherpleasers who dutifully will do whatever schools, teachers, or parents ask of them. These and other unsupported attitudes persist—even among teachers themselves (Cramond & Martin, 1987; McCoach & Siegle, 2005; Siegle, 2001)—despite ample evidence that many gifted learners actually do not find their varied needs met in public school settings in the United States (Colangelo, Assouline, & Gross, 2004; Cramond, 1994; Peterson & Ray, 2006). General education students in the United States drop out for a variety of reasons that likely include family, school, and social (peer) factors (Garnier, Stein, & Jacobs, 1997; Kaskaloglu, 2003). Of the risk factors in school, low academic achievement appears to be the strongest contributor toward dropping out among students in general, although poor attendance and disciplinary issues also are salient. Salient family and peer influences include parental education levels, family size and composition, socioeconomic status, drug or alcohol abuse, and affiliation with “antisocial” peers
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(Battin-Pearson et al., 2000). From an educational perspective, the school-level influences are the most readily addressed of these factors. Among academically gifted learners, difficulties due to academic ability are likely to exist primarily in cases involving specific learning disabilities. Particularly if undiagnosed, these may be responsible for poor academic performance that is mistakenly blamed on underachievement (Reis & McCoach, 2002). Although the incidence of such dual diagnoses has not been established (Farmer, 2006), these cases appear to be relatively uncommon. Rather, poor academic achievement among highly able learners often is situational in nature and appears to be more dependent on motivation and attitude than on ability. This is consistent with the definition of underachievement proposed by Reis and McCoach (2000), which involves a discrepancy between actual and expected achievement that is not the result of a diagnosed learning disability. This definition estimates expected achievement using performance on standardized tests of achievement or ability (IQ), while actual achievement is measured by class grades and evaluations by the classroom teacher. Spiers Neumeister and H´ebert (2003) conducted a case study of a gifted underachieving university student and found that the student’s metacognitive processes were consistent with giftedness despite the student’s demonstrated underachievement in some areas. Kanevsky and Keighley (2003) conducted case studies of three gifted underachieving high school students, who characterized their academic disengagement as an “honorable” response based on moral indignation toward what they believed to be an inappropriate curriculum. Around the same time as these qualitative studies, McCoach and Siegle (2003) conducted a quantitative investigation to examine the differences between achieving and underachieving gifted high school students. These authors found differences in five areas that included academic self-perceptions, attitudes toward school, attitudes toward teachers and classes, motivation and self-regulation, and goal valuation. Stated briefly, academic self-perceptions arise out of a descriptive and evaluative summary of one’s academic competence relative to other learners; attitudes toward teachers and classes may include a degree of hostility toward authority, as well as interest in specific subject areas; attitudes toward school are similar, yet are more broadly focused on affect toward learning in gen-
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eral; motivation and self-regulation are intertwined domains that reflect one’s beliefs about the relationship between effort and outcomes; and goal valuation reflects a learner’s engagement in academic tasks and the ability to relate current tasks to future goals. Although none of these studies was focused specifically on gifted students who dropped out, the continuum on which these behaviors occur suggests that similar motivational and attitudinal aspects would likely characterize gifted learners who drop out. It seems probable that for many learners, a period of academic underachievement precedes their decision to drop out.
est of these three citations is a conference paper dating to just 1 year after the Marland Report’s publication. None of the estimates presented in this section appear to be based on direct counts of gifted students leaving school. In a second example, Robertson (1991) states that “between 18 and 25 percent of gifted and talented students drop out” (p. 62), in this case including no more than 10% of the student population as gifted. No sources are cited in support of this estimate, and this author characterizes a latter portion of her article as “armchair speculation” (p. 62). The Robertson paper has since been cited numerous times in other discussions of gifted dropouts, but the speculative nature of this estimate often is not noted in such citations. Estimating Dropout Rates Among Another expert, Silverman (1993, p. 264), cites a study of 2,000 middle school students that found that the Gifted 37% maintained a “C” or lower grade point average despite being from the upper intellectual quartile; over Misinterpreting Marland 18% of this upper quartile population are characterized as being at risk for dropping out of school. This finding A frequently cited figure for the dropout rate among certainly is suggestive, but the degree to which midgifted students is attributed to the Marland Re- dle school achievement predicts high school success port (1972), which often is cited as saying that 17.6% among highly able learners remains unclear. of dropouts are gifted. However, Irvine (1987) has Although its origins are uncertain, the idea that demonstrated that the actual figure cited is just 3.4%. 20% or more of dropouts are gifted is now widely The oft-misquoted 17.6% figure actually refers to the disseminated without any indication of its origins percentage of gifted students who dropped out in one (e.g., California Dropout Prevention Network, 2003; statewide study, not to the percentage of all dropouts Chang, 2005, para. 7; Harsin, 2006, p. 6). It is unclear who were gifted. Because there are generally many whether these sources are using a rounded-off version more dropouts than gifted learners, this distinction of the misquoted 17.6% figure from the Marland is important. The Marland figure was based on 165 Report, or if there is some other origin for this figure. students (of a total of 1652) who were identified as Advocates for the gifted should be careful to utilize “talented” (in this case, defined as an IQ of 120 or such statistics only when these clearly can be ascribed higher) in a study originally conducted in Iowa in the to empirical sources. 1950s. The term “gifted” was added later when the Marland Report cited this study.
Recent Empirical Findings The Ubiquitous Twenty Percent
A two-part study conducted by Renzulli and Park (2000; 2002) used the 1988 National EduSeveral authorities since have stated that 10–20% or cation Longitudinal Study (NELS:88) data from US more of high school dropouts test in the gifted range. schools to investigate academically able dropouts. Rimm (1995) cites three sources in support of this es- Because this data set did not identify students as timate, although she does not specify how this “gifted academically gifted, these authors defined giftedness range” was defined in these sources. It seems plausible as enrollment in three or more “advanced, enriched, that the papers she cites may be traced to the misinter- or accelerated” core academic courses at the high pretation described by Irvine (1987) because the earli- school level (2002, p. viii). This definition classified
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more than 25% of students as gifted in both parts of this study, representing a very broad and inclusive conceptualization of giftedness. In the first portion of their study, which evaluated giftedness within the NELS:88 dropout population, Renzulli and Park identified 334 of 1,285 student dropouts (26.0%) as gifted. This rate may be biased in the positive direction because this data set is based on only those individuals who completed multiple follow-up questionnaires after dropping out; it seems plausible that gifted learners might be more likely than other dropouts to persist in this effort, which would have the effect of biasing the sample in their favor. In the second part of their study, which relied on a larger sample of students who did not enter the sample as dropouts, Renzulli and Park identified 3,520 students (27.9%) as gifted from an overall population of 12,625 students. In this sample, there were 177 individuals who later dropped out of school. Gifted dropouts therefore made up 5% (that is, 177 of 3,520) of the gifted students in this group, and 1.4% of all students (177 of 12,625) were both gifted and dropouts in this second NELS:88 sample. Renzulli and Park (2000, 2002) observed a dropout rate that was approximately three times higher among gifted males than among gifted female students and was significantly lower among White students than for gifted students of other ethnicities. Socioeconomic status was also an important predictor; nearly half of gifted dropouts were from the lowest SES quartile, while only 3.6% came from the highest quartile. In contrast, among gifted students who completed high school, 20% were from the lowest quartile and 33.8% from the highest SES quartile. These findings are consistent with the general dropout literature. A study by Matthews (2006a) followed two cohorts of students from the southeastern US state of North Carolina who participated in a talent search program (see Lee, Matthews, & Olszewski-Kubilius, 2008, and Matthews, 2007, for more about talent search programs). Students all had obtained test scores at or above the 95th percentile on grade-level standardized tests prior to the seventh grade. In the talent search program, these seventh graders took either the SAT (see http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/sat/ about.html) or the ACT (http://www.act.org/aap/) as an above-level test. Although school classifications of giftedness were not available, all of these students likely would have met this state’s definition of gift-
M.S. Matthews
edness; the sample included an estimated half of all gifted seventh graders in North Carolina during 1996 and 1997. State records for these students were followed through their expected high school graduation date, and 1 year beyond in the case of the 1996 cohort. According to the matched records, 38 dropout events (37 students) from the initial group of 7,916 were recorded by the close of the 2001–2002 academic year, yielding an overall dropout rate of just 0.48%. To account for the possibility that some students in the 1997 cohort may have been retained at some point and gone on to drop out after 2001–2002, the 3,196 matched student records from the 1996 cohort were considered on their own. This comparison yielded a slightly higher estimated gifted dropout rate of 0.75% within this cohort. Among the gifted dropouts from both cohorts in the Matthews study (2006a), more than half (54.1%) dropped out during the eleventh grade. It appears that gifted dropouts persisted in school longer than did this state’s non-gifted dropouts, most of whom left school during their ninth grade year. Gifted dropouts had significantly lower SAT scores (taken during talent search testing as seventh graders) than their peers who did not drop out; Cohen’s d effect sizes were 0.387 for SAT Math scores and 0.449 for SAT Verbal scores. Interestingly, dropouts who indicated their intent to attend community college (or a GED preparation program housed at a community college) had equivalent seventh grade SAT Verbal scores to gifted learners who did not drop out—yet these students had achieved correspondingly lower SAT Math scores, comparable to those of gifted dropouts not planning to attend such programs. Approximately 20,000 dropout events were reported in North Carolina during each of the years of this study. Event counts may report multiple dropout incidents for a single individual, so it is only possible to approximate individual counts from this information. Since these two talent search cohorts showed a combined total of 38 dropout events, it appears that less than 1% of dropouts statewide met the gifted criteria used in this study. Although it is possible that the talent search process selects for students with higher than average motivation, which would limit the generalizability of these results to other populations of gifted learners, these results also suggest that the number of gifted dropouts may be substantially lower than has been reported elsewhere.
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Gifted Learners Who Drop Out
Although the population in the Matthews study (2006a) was less than 5% Black, these students made up 10% of the gifted dropout population. Caution is advised in interpreting this result because it is based on a total of just three individuals. The talent search cohorts in the Matthews study were predominantly White and middle to upper class, so this study’s findings may not apply to other minority groups or to low-income dropouts. Another recent study (Matthews & McBee, 2006) used a statewide data set from the large southeastern US state of Georgia (see also McBee, 2006) to investigate the rate at which academically gifted students dropped out of high school. These authors found that approximately 0.68% of academically gifted students dropped out, while 1.24% of dropouts could be classified as academically gifted. Dropout rates among identified gifted Black and Hispanic students were lower than expected based on the proportions of these students within the overall dropout population in this state, suggesting that additional, as-yet unexplained factors may influence dropout decisions among members of these groups who have been identified as academically gifted.
Current Research There is clearly room for additional quantitative study of gifted students who drop out of school. More qualitative studies also are needed to build a comprehensive research-based understanding of this unique and relatively uncommon population of individuals. Additional studies from settings outside the United States are also needed as researchers seek to develop a more comprehensive understanding of this phenomenon. One study now being undertaken by the author seeks to interview gifted dropouts from diverse backgrounds to understand their experiences and how these may differ with respect to the experiences of similar students from mainstream backgrounds. For the academically gifted student, a simple lack of ability in most cases is not a reasonable explanation for dropping out. Rather, factors such as a mismatch between the student’s expectations and those of the school setting, or perhaps difficulties in the home environment, may be more salient.
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Cramond and her colleagues are beginning another study of gifted dropouts (B. Cramond, personal communication, November 2006). This study seeks to examine creatively divergent thinking and related traits to understand how these may influence gifted learners’ dissatisfaction with school. Preliminary results from these studies are reported by Matthews, Cramond, Landis, Lee, and Kim (2008).
Conclusions Measuring Gifted Dropouts Giftedness is difficult to define and criteria for establishing it often vary widely from one school or school district to the next. The lack of a clear definition of giftedness is evident as well in many research studies. Researchers should strive to offer complete descriptions of how giftedness has been defined in each study they report, and they should include detailed descriptive information about the population of learners who participated. School records are not always available, or in some locales the schools may not formally identify gifted learners. One possible approach that has proven successful in these situations uses a list of criteria, from which participants select those items or aspects that characterize their school experience. Any individual meeting a selected minimum number of these criteria is then considered gifted (Flint, 2002). Estimates of the prevalence of dropouts among the gifted population appear to be converging on a rate that is somewhat to dramatically lower than previously thought, ranging from a high of approximately 5% to as low as one half of 1% of the gifted population. Conclusions from the three quantitative studies summarized above are in approximate agreement in that somewhere around 1% of all dropouts can be considered gifted. These estimates are based on a small number of studies, and it is possible that data from large and diverse states such as Florida, Texas, or California may yet emerge to challenge these generalizations. States should strive to make such data available to researchers, as exemplified in McBee’s work (2006; Matthews & McBee, 2006).
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In light of the apparently widespread underreporting of dropout data in official estimates, triangulation of centralized information with locally collected data would be desirable to allow researchers to reach stronger conclusions about the prevalence of gifted dropouts. In the interim, gifted education advocates should cease the uncritical repetition of the claim that 20% of dropouts are gifted.
Further Questions A relationship between the degree of giftedness and the likelihood of dropping out has yet to be established. Are dropouts proportionally distributed within the range of ability levels classified as gifted, or are some gifted learners more likely to leave school than others? It seems plausible that all gifted learners might be likely to experience socio-emotional stresses that could contribute to the decision to leave school (e.g., Jackson & Peterson, 2003). Conversely, having high ability implies that these students need to expend relatively little effort to successfully complete public school. The limited data presently available would suggest that formally identified or highly gifted learners (as in the Georgia and North Carolina studies reported above) appear to have a lower dropout incidence than that found among a more broadly construed gifted group (as defined in the work of Renzulli & Park). Although it is certainly plausible that profoundly gifted learners may be more at risk of problems in school settings than highly or moderately gifted students are, as yet there has been little empirical study that would inform this question. The interaction between aspects of diversity and student decisions to drop out needs to be examined among academically gifted learners. Cross-cultural comparative studies (Lau & Chan, 2001; Lupart, & Pyryt, 1996; Peters & van Boxtel, 1999) also have the potential to inform our overall understanding of underachievement and dropping out among gifted learners. It also seems plausible that many of the factors that influence dropout decisions among youth in general education settings would apply to academically gifted learners as well, but the difference in dropout rates observed across the general and gifted populations suggests that there also may be important differences within specific populations of diverse gifted learners.
M.S. Matthews
The potential role of undiagnosed learning disabilities, particularly in mathematics, merits further investigation among academically underachieving gifted learners. Although not clearly an academically gifted group, Rumbaut (1995) has reported a lower dropout rate for highly bilingual students (that is, those with advanced proficiency in at least 2 languages). This and other recent work involving gifted bilingual youth (e.g., Vald´es, 2003), considered in concert with the high overall dropout rate among Latino students in general education settings, suggests that much more information is needed about the educational experiences of these students in order to guide the development of effective educational programming. Finally, the nature of successful interventions for gifted learners who drop out remains largely unknown. It certainly is possible to envision situations in which dropping out may be the wisest path available to a particular student. I recently heard from a parent who related that her daughter’s high school guidance counselor advised the girl to drop out because a GED program would offer a faster path into higher education than remaining in public school would. The extent to which similar advice is given in everyday practice is unknown, but this example reinforces the possibility that schools may not be doing everything in their power to retain their gifted learners. I also know personally a handful of individuals who dropped out of school but today hold doctoral degrees, so dropping out is not automatically the end of the educational road (cf. Flint, 2002; Peterson, 2001). Despite the occasional success stories, dropping out can make one’s path more difficult than it would be otherwise, so for this reason alone we should help our students to avoid it if possible. Extrapolating from the related literature, it seems likely that some form of counseling might be effective if it addressed affective as well as career-related issues. Modifications to schools’ curricular and instructional practices may also be effective, especially if these support flexible, individualized pacing that incorporates opportunities for academic acceleration when these are warranted. Supports designed to keep students in school (enforcing truancy policies, for example, as well as not penalizing able students for absences arising from their extracurricular interests) would help to reduce one major contributor to dropping out. Teachers should strive to convey the relevance of the curric-
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ula to students’ lives and goals. Ultimately, showing care for students as unique individuals may have the greatest influence on the educational outcomes these learners ultimately achieve.
References Artiles, A. J., Rueda, R., Salazar, J. J., & Higareda, I. (2005). Within-group diversity in minority disproportionate representation: English language learners in urban school districts. Exceptional Children, 71, 283–300. Battin-Pearson, S., Newcomb, M. D., & Abbott, R. D. (2000). Predictors of early high school dropout: a test of five theories. Journal of Educational Psychology, 92, 568–582. Booth, D., & Stanley, J. C. (Eds.). (2004). In the eyes of the beholder: Critical issues for diversity in gifted education. Waco, TX: Prufrock Press. Brandt, E. A. (1992). The navajo area student dropout study: Findings and implications. Journal of American Indian Education, 31(2), 48–63. Castellano, J. A., & D´ıaz, E. I. (Eds.). (2002). Reaching new horizons: Gifted and talented education for culturally and linguistically diverse students. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. California Dropout Prevention Network. (2003, October 28). CDPN beliefs. Retrieved December 22, 2006, from http://www.edualliance.org/cdpn/beliefs/ Chang, A. L. (2005, October 29). Is district deficient in programs for gifted? School officials fear smart kids aren’t served. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel [online edition]. Retrieved December 21, 2006 from http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=366409 Colangelo, N., Assouline, S. G., & Gross, M. U. M. (2004). A nation deceived: How schools hold back america’s brightest students. Iowa City: The University of Iowa. Colangelo, N., Kerr, B., Christensen, P., & Maxey, J. (1993). A comparison of gifted underachievers and gifted high achievers. Gifted Child Quarterly, 37, 155–160. Council of State Directors of Programs for the Gifted & the National Association for Gifted Children. (2003). State of the States Gifted and Talented Education Report 2001–2002. Washington, DC: National Association for Gifted Children. Cramond, B. (1994). Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and creativity: What is the connection? Journal of Creative Behavior, 28, 193–210. Cramond, B., & Martin, C. E. (1987). Inservice and preservice teachers’ attitudes toward the academically brilliant. Gifted Child Quarterly, 31, 15–19. Dai, D. Y. (2005). Reductionism versus emergentism: A framework for understanding conceptions of giftedness. Roeper Review, 27, 144–151. Elhoweris, H., Mutua, K., Alsheikh, N., & Holloway, P. (2005). Effect of children’s ethnicity on teachers’ referral and recommendation decisions in gifted and talented programs. Remedial and Special Education, 26(1), 25–31. Farmer, J. (2006, November). A Decade of Discussion: The Literature on Gifted Students with Learning Disabilities. Graduate student poster session presented at the annual meeting of the National Association for Gifted Children, Charlotte, NC.
535 Feller, B. (2006, Sunday, September 17). U.S. high school dropouts take hard hit in paycheck; they earn 65% of what grads make. The Tampa Tribune [Nation/World section], p. 20. Flint, L. J. (2002). Stories of success: Self-interventions of gifted underachievers. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The University of Georgia, Athens. Frasier, M. M. (1997). Multiple criteria: the mandate and the challenge. Roeper Review, 20, A4–A6. Gagn´e, F. (2004). An imperative, but, alas, improbable consensus. Roeper Review, 27, 12–14. G´andara, P. (2005). Fragile futures: Risk and vulnerability among Latino high achievers. Princeton, NJ: Policy Information Center, Educational Testing Service. Garnier, H. E., Stein, J. A., & Jacobs, J. K. (1997). The process of dropping out of high school: a 19-year perspective. American Educational Research Journal, 34, 395–419. Hall, D. (2005, June). Getting honest about grad rates: How states play the numbers and students lose. Washington, DC: The Education Trust. Accessed June 29, 2005 at http://www2.edtrust.org/NR/rdonlyres/C5A6974D-6C044FB1-A9FC-05938CB0744D/0/GettingHonest.pdf Harsin, C. (2006, April 4). Helping gifted students soar in the era of “No Child Left Behind” [Power Point presentation]. Retrieved December 21, 2006, from http://print.ditd.org/GD/Arizona 2 9 2006 ch.pdf Irvine, D. J. (1987). What research doesn’t show about gifted dropouts. Educational Leadership, 44(6), 79–80. Jackson, P. S., & Peterson, J. S. (2003). Depressive disorder in highly gifted adolescents. Journal of Secondary Gifted Education, 14, 175–186. Kanevsky, L., & Keighley, T. (2003). To produce or not to produce? Understanding boredom and the honor in underachievement. Roeper Review, 26, 20–28. Kaskaloglu, E. (2003, January 7–10). Gifted students who drop out—who and why: A meta-analytical review of the literature. Paper presented at the Hawaii International Conference on Education, Honolulu. Retrieved January 16, 2007 from http://www.hiceducation.org/Edu Proceedings/Esra%20Ayse %20Kaskaloglu.pdf Krisel, S., & Cowan, R. (1997). Georgia’s journey toward multiple-criteria identification of gifted students. Roeper Review, 20, A1–A3. Lau, K.-L., & Chan, D. W. (2001). Motivational characteristics of under-achievers in Hong Kong. Educational Psychology, 21, 417–430. Lee, S.-Y., Matthews, M. S., & Olszewski-Kubilius, P. (2008). A national picture of talent search and talent search educational programs. Gifted Child Quarterly, 52(1), 55–69. Lupart, J. L., & Pyryt, M. C. (1996). “Hidden gifted” students: Underachiever prevalence and profile. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 20, 36–53. Marland, S. P. (1972). Education of the gifted and talented, Volume 1: Report to the Congress of the United States by the U.S. Commissioner of Education. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Matthews, D. J., & Foster, J. F. (2006). Mystery to mastery: Shifting paradigms in gifted education. Roeper Review, 28, 64–69. Matthews, M. S. (2006a). Gifted students dropping out: Recent findings from a Southeastern state. Roeper Review, 28, 216– 223.
536 Matthews, M. S. (2006b). Working with gifted English language learners. Waco, TX: Prufrock Press. Matthews, M. S. (2007). Talent search programs. In J. A. Plucker & C. M. Callahan (Eds.), Critical issues and practices in gifted education: What the research says. (pp. 641–653). Matthews, M. S., Cramond, B., Landis, R. N., Lee, S., & Kim, K. H. (2008, October). Are high schools meeting the needs of our highly creative students? A research panel on reasons why high ability students drop out of school. Presented at the Annual Convention of the National Association for Gifted Children, Tampa. Matthews, M. S. & McBee, M. T. (2006, May). Quantitative examination of gifted high school dropouts. Paper presented at the Eighth Biennial Henry B. & Jocelyn Wallace National Research Symposium on Talent Development, The University of Iowa, Iowa City. McBee, M. T. (2006). A descriptive analysis of referral sources for gifted identification screening by race and socioeconomic status. Journal of Secondary Gifted Education, 17, 103–111. McCall, R. B., & Beach, S. R. (2000). The nature and correlates of underachievement among elementary schoolchildren in Hong Kong. Child Development, 71, 785–802. McCoach, D. B., & Siegle, D. (2003). Factors that differentiate underachieving gifted students from high-achieving gifted students. Gifted Child Quarterly, 47, 144–154. McCoach, D. B., & Siegle, D. (2005, April). What predicts teachers’ attitudes toward the gifted? Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Montreal, Canada. Miao, J., & Haney, W. (2004, October 15). High school graduation rates: Alternative methods and implications. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 12(55), Retrieved October 25, 2004 from http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v2012n2055/ Moore, J. L., III, Ford, D. Y., & Milner, H. R. (2005). Underachievement among gifted students of color: Implications for educators. Theory Into Practice, 44, 167–177. National Center for Education Statistics. (2003). Public school student, staff, and graduate counts by state: School year 2001–2002. Retrieved December 21, 2006, from http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2003/snf report03/table 01 1.asp Paulson, A. (2006, March 3). Dropout rates high, but fixes underway. The Christian Science Monitor [online edition]. Retrieved March 4, 2006 from http:// www.csmonitor.com/2006/0303/p2001s2002-legn.html. Peters, W. A. M., & van Boxtel, H. W. (1999). Irregular error patterns in Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices: A sign of underachievement in testing situations? High Ability Studies, 10, 213–232. Peterson, J. S. (2001). Successful adults who were once adolescent underachievers. Gifted Child Quarterly, 45, 236–249. Peterson, J. S., & Ray, K. E. (2006). Bullying and the gifted: Victims, perpetrators, prevalence, and effects. Gifted Child Quarterly, 50, 148–168. Reis, S. M., & McCoach, D. B. (2000). The underachievement of gifted students: What do we know and where do we go? Gifted Child Quarterly, 44, 152–171. Reis, S. M., & McCoach, D. B. (2002). Underachievement in gifted and talented students with special needs. Exceptionality, 10, 113–125. Renzulli, J. S., & Park, S. (2000). Gifted dropouts: The who and the why. Gifted Child Quarterly, 44, 261–271.
M.S. Matthews Renzulli, J. S., & Park, S. (2002). Giftedness and high school dropouts: Personal, family, and school-related factors (No. RM02168). Storrs, CT: The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented, University of Connecticut. Rimm, S. B. (1995). Why bright kids get poor grades and what you can do about it. New York: Crown Publishers, Inc. Robertson, E. (1991). Neglected dropouts: the gifted and talented. Equity & Excellence, 25, 62-74. Rumbaut, R. G. (1995). The new Californians: Comparative research findings on the educational progress of immigrant children. In R. G. Rumbaut, & W. A. Cornelius (Eds.), California’s immigrant children: Theory, research and implications for educational policy. San Diego: University of California, Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies. Shaunessy, E., Matthews, M. S., & Smith, D. (2006, November). District Practices in the Identification of Underrepresented Populations in Gifted Education. Poster session presented at the annual meeting of the National Association for Gifted Children, Charlotte, NC. Shaunessy, E., Suldo, S. M., Hardesty, R. B., & Shaffer, E. J. (2006). School functioning and psychological well-being of International Baccalaureate and general education students: A preliminary examination. Journal of Secondary Gifted Education, 17, 76–89. Shavinina, L. V., & Ferrari, M. (Eds.). (2004). Beyond knowledge: Extracognitive aspects of developing high ability. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Siegle, D. (2001, April). Teacher bias in identifying gifted and talented students. Paper presented at the 80th Annual Meeting of the Council for Exceptional Children, Kansas City, MO [ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 454664]. Silverman, L. K. (Ed.). (1993). Counseling the Gifted and Talented. Denver, CO: Love Publishing Company. Spiers Neumeister, K. L., & H´ebert, T. P. (2003). Underachievement versus selective achievement: Delving deeper and discovering the difference. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 26, 221–238. Tan, G. (2001). “I want my teachers to like me”: Multiculturalism and school dropout rates among Mexican Americans. Equity & Excellence in Education, 34(2), 35–42. Vald´es, G. (Ed.). (2003). Expanding definitions of giftedness: The case of young interpreters from immigrant communities. Mahweh, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Vizcain, D. C. (2005, November). Hispanic/Latino male student dropout: Age, retention, behavior, program of study, and state GPA are useful predictors. Paper presented at the 50th anniversary meeting of the Florida Educational Research Association, Miami, FL. Woods, E. G. (1995). Reducing the dropout rate. School Improvement Research Series (SIRS) CloseUp #17. Portland, OR: Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. Retrieved November 24, 2004, from http://www.nwrel.org/scpd/sirs/9/c017.html Ziegler, A., & Stoeger, H. (2003). Identification of underachievement: An empirical study on the agreement among various diagnostic sources. Gifted and Talented International, 18(2), 87–94.
Chapter 25
Understanding Suicidal Behavior of Gifted Students: Theory, Factors, and Cultural Expectations Laurie A. Hyatt and Tracy L. Cross
Abstract The dramatic increase in the rate of youth suicide in the United States, including suicide among gifted adolescents, emphasizes the need for more research in this area. The literature on suicide among gifted adolescents is examined following a review of the literature on the incidence and causes of suicide in the general population. The literature on the possible vulnerability to suicide among gifted adolescents is explored through a focus on the social and emotional issues faced by gifted adolescent males and females. An examination of the literature on the proneness of gifted adolescents to suicide highlights the difficulties in obtaining conclusive results. More research on the possible correlations between the unique difficulties experienced by gifted youth and a propensity for suicide is needed. Keywords Suicide · Suicide rates · Gifted · Gifted adolescents · Proneness to suicide · Vulnerability to suicide · Theories of suicide
Introduction Suicide has been a focus of research for sociologists, psychologists, educators, and others who have been interested in the incidence and etiology of this self-destructive act. The French sociologist, Emile Durkheim, drew attention to suicide when he quantified demographic data among populations in his book, Le Suicide (1897, 1951). Quantitative research L.A. Hyatt (B) University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA e-mail:
[email protected] on suicide has included statistics on the incidence of suicide completions, including the numbers of suicide completions in the United States by age group per year (National Center for Health Statistics, 2006). Specific demographic data concerning methods, seasonal occurrence, and the most frequent time of day that suicide has occurred in the United States have been documented (Berman & Jobes, 1991). The dramatically increasing suicide rate among the young in the United States, as noted by some researchers (Cross, Gust-Brey, & Ball, 2002; Delisle, 1986), has brought the topic to the forefront of the American public’s awareness again. In addition to interest in demographic and statistical data, the search for causes of suicide has led some researchers to develop multicausal theories (Shneidman, 1985: Stillion & McDowell, 1996). Individual factors such as anger (Dixon & Scheckel, 1996), perfectionism (Delisle, 1986), and social isolation (Kaiser & Berndt, 1985) have been noted. Other possible influences on the increasing rate of suicide among the young include negative effects of media such as television and video games (Irwin & Gross, 1995; Mishara, 1999). Noting that exceptionally talented young people seem to have unique social and emotional issues and needs, some researchers have analyzed surveys and interview data in order to understand the particular challenges of gifted adolescents (Kerr, 1994; Lovecky, 1993; Roeper, 1995). Whether or not gifted individuals are more prone to complete suicide than those of average abilities has been another area of interest (Delisle, 1986; Kerr, 1991; Neihart, 1998). Research studies have not resulted in a deep understanding of the motivating factors in suicide among gifted adolescents (Gust-Brey & Cross, 1998).
L.V. Shavinina (ed.), International Handbook on Giftedness, c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-6162-2 25,
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We begin this chapter with a review of the literature on suicide in the general population, including statistical data on rates of suicide and literature concerning the causes of suicide, including two currently recognized multicausal theories. Next, an overview of the research concerning the social and emotional challenges faced by gifted adolescents is included because it seems that an inability to meet those challenges has, in some cases, led to suicide. Finally, literature addressing the question of proneness to suicide among gifted young people will be reviewed as few studies have addressed these particular vulnerabilities of gifted adolescents.
Suicide in the General Population Demographic and Statistical Data Most of the research that has been conducted on suicide in the United States has dealt with generalized concerns about suicide. Journals such as Suicide and Life Threatening Behavior and associations such asThe American Association of Suicidology have been created in response to a concern about the incidence of suicide. Suicide among adolescents has been a rather recent concern. Much research has addressed the dramatically increasing suicide rate among the young, but few have focused their research on the possible reasons that might explain why young people take their lives. No studies were found that could give conclusive evidence that would lead to prediction and prevention. In 2004, the most recent year for which final data were available, suicide was the third leading cause of death for those aged 15–24 years (following unintentional injuries and homicide), and the sixth leading cause of death for those aged 5–14 years (National Center for Health Statistics, 2006). Although the average rate of suicide has remained fairly stable since 1955 (10–12/100,000), the suicide rate in the younger age groups has tripled (Dixon & Scheckel, 1996; Jamison, 1999). Even more alarming is the possibility that many reported “accidents” might have, in fact, been suicides that were not reported as such for personal or insurance reasons (Dixon & Scheckel, 1996; Pfeffer, 1986). At least 10% of young people attempt sui-
L.A. Hyatt and T.L. Cross
cide (Dixon & Scheckel, 1996; National Center for Health Statistics, 2006). Teens attempt suicide 10 times more frequently than adults (Maine, Shute, & Martin, 2001). There were 31,484 deaths by suicide in 2003 and 32,439 deaths by suicide in 2004 in the United States for all age groups combined (National Center for Health Statistics, 2006). The statistical data that are available through the national records on vital statistics validate the concern about suicide rates among the young. For example, of the 32,439 completed suicides in the United States in 2004, those among young people aged 5–14 years numbered 285 and completed suicides among young people aged 15–24 years numbered 4,319 (National Center for Health Statistics, 2006). Obtaining statistics on adolescent suicide was more difficult prior to 1995 because the records were compiled in the age ranges of 5–14 and 15–24 years rather than by specific chronological ages by year or even in 10-year increments. New tables are beginning to list the age ranges 15–19 and 20–24 years as well as the previous 15–24 years. This change will make it easier to figure suicide rates during adolescence, a period which is usually thought to include ages 10–19 years. When completed suicides were viewed along a distribution of school levels at the time of the completion of suicide, 3% occurred while in elementary school, 11% while in secondary school, and 17% while in college (Maine, Shute, & Martin, 2001). Ten percent of “normal” children, or children with no psychiatric diagnosis such as major depression, report suicidal ideation, according to Pfeffer (1986). Two studies of American high school students confirmed that suicidal ideation was not uncommon. More than 15% of New York high school students reported that they had “thought about killing themselves” and 20% of Oregon high school students also described suicidal ideation (Jamison, 1999). Looking at US statistics, we can examine the suicide rate by race and gender in addition to age. In 2004, White males had the highest suicide rate (19.6/100,000), followed by American Indians and Alaskan natives (12.9/100,000), Black males (9.0/100,000), Asian/Pacific islanders (5.6/100,000), and Hispanics (5.3/100,000) (National Center for Health Statistics, 2006). There was an increase in the rate of suicide among Black males aged 15–24 years from 4.9/100,000 in 1950 to 14.2/100,000 in 2000 (Maris, Berman, & Silverman, 2000; National
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Center for Health Statistics, 2004). American males exceed females by four to one in suicide completions, although females make more nonlethal attempts, often by taking an overdose of barbiturates (Maris, Berman, & Silverman, 2000). More males complete suicide largely because they use more lethal means, such as firearms. Guns were used in 51.6% of completed suicides in the United States in 2004, followed by 22.6% by suffocation/hanging, 17% by poisoning, 1.8% by cutting, and 11.1% by drowning (National Center for Health Statistics, 2006). There was a 240% increase in the rate of suicide among young people from 1955 to 1995 (see Table 25.1). This table is a compilation that we made from many lists of mortality statistics available online from the National Center for Health Statistics. After a slight decline in 1999, suicide rates among the young have oscillated between 0.6 and 0.7 per 100,000 population. The rate among ages 5–14, 15–24, 25–34 years, and, to a degree, 35–44 years rose through 1995, while the rates for those over age 45 years decreased. Younger children are completing suicide at unacceptably high rates. Many have noted the increased rate of suicide among adolescents (Dixon & Scheckel, 1996; Jamison, 1999; Gust-Bey & Cross, 1998; Maris, Berman, & Silverman, 2000). The reasons for the changes and the effectiveness of prevention strategies were unclear (National Center for Health Statistics, 2004).
Suicides in the United States have occurred most often in the spring in the months of March, April, May, and June. Suicides were usually completed on Mondays and least often on the weekends (Berman & Jobes, 1991). They have usually occurred in the late afternoon or evening. The home has been the site of most suicides (National Center for Health Statistics, 2006; Berman & Jobes, 1991).
Literature on the Causes and Warning Signs of Suicide Emile Durkheim, a French sociologist, pointed out that suicide must be considered in cultural and historical contexts (Durkheim, 1897/1951). Rather than viewing suicide as a sin or as something either to be revered or judged, Durkheim noted the differences in rates of suicides in many cultures and countries and attempted to provide explanations for those differences. His conclusion was that suicide occurs more frequently in societies where people feel isolated, alone, and with no sense of community. Others have posited alternative reasons for the increase in suicide rates among the young. Lester (1999) stated that adolescents have “no meaningful rites of passage and few wise elders or mentors to shepherd them” (p. 587). Hopelessness, sadness, and anger might be felt by many due to family conflicts and a
Table 25.1 Rates of suicide in the United States per 100,000 population Age range Year
5–14
15–24
25–34
35–44
45–54
55–64
65–74
75–84
85+
All ages
1955 1965 1975 1985 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
0.1 0.3 0.4 0.8 0.9 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.6 0.7 0.7 0.6 0.6 0.7
4.1 6.2 11.7 12.8 13.3 12.0 11.4 11.1 10.3 10.2 9.9 9.9 9.7 10.4
8.4 12.2 16.1 15.3 15.4 14.5 14.3 13.8 13.5 13.4 12.8 12.6 12.7 12.7
12.3 16.7 17.4 14.6 15.2 15.5 15.3 15.4 14.4 14.5 14.7 15.3 14.9 15.1
19.6 20.9 20.1 15.7 14.6 14.9 14.7 14.8 14.2 14.4 15.2 15.7 15.9 16.6
24.8 23.7 19.8 16.8 13.3 13.7 13.5 13.1 12.4 12.1 13.1 13.6 13.8 13.8
25.0 21.2 19.6 18.7 15.8 15.0 14.4 14.1 13.6 12.5 13.3 13.5 12.7 12.3
27.5 24.7 19.7 23.9 20.7 20.0 19.3 19.7 18.3 17.6 17.4 17.7 16.4 16.3
27.9 24.2 18.6 19.4 21.6 20.2 20.8 21.0 19.2 19.6 17.5 18.0 16.9 16.4
10.2 11.1 12.6 12.4 11.9 11.6 11.4 11.3 10.7 10.7 10.8 11.0 10.8 11.1
We created this table based on an analysis of the material in the Mortality Database of the National Center for Health Statistics (2004).
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higher rate of divorce with its loyalty issues (Dixon & Scheckel, 1996). Increasing external or self-imposed pressure to perform well may create perfectionism, which sometimes results in a fear of failure and a sense of guilt (Lester, 1999). Some young people feel socially isolated, partly because they prefer solitary or single-friend activities to group activities and partly because no one seems to understand their concerns and values in a world that is increasingly materialistic and violent (Lester, 1999; Torrance & Sisk, 1997). Bullying has become recognized as a contributing factor in some suicides (Hazler & Denham, 2002; Ross, 1996). The bullying issue came to the attention of the American public after the 1999 school shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. The two young males who murdered classmates and killed themselves complained of being bullied and feeling alienated from others. As Hazler and Denham (2002) noted, “Peer-on-peer abuse has been recognized as a precursor to potential youth suicides. . .” (p. 403). Exposure to the violence seen on television, even during the earlier hours when children are usually watching, has been a concern for years. A study by Mishara (1999), however, focused on how young children learn about suicide. Interviews with children in grades 1–5 were conducted. The responses showed that by the third grade, most of the 65 children in the study had “an elaborate understanding of suicide” (p. 105). Mishara stated, “Children learn about suicide from television and discussions with other children, but they rarely discuss suicide with adults” (1999, p. 105). Some young males who have completed suicide have been interested in music, books, movies, or video games with “dark themes” or asocial characters (Cross, Cook, & Dixon, 1996; Delisle, 1986). Recently, more research has been focused on violent video games (Irwin & Gross, 1995; Griffiths & Hunt, 1998). Video games came on the market around 1972 and have become a multibillion dollar industry. On March 21, 2000, the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation conducted a “Hearing on the Impact of Interactive Violence on Children.” At the hearings, David Walsh, Ph.D., the President of the National Institute on Media and the Family, gave testimony entitled “Interactive Violence and Children” (Walsh, 2001). Lt. Colonel Dave Grossman, a former professor of psychology at the University of Arkansas, a professor at West Point, a former
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Army Ranger and the author of On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society (Grossman, 1996) testified that video games such as Doom, a favorite of the two young men who killed others and themselves at Columbine High School, are similar to simulators used by the military to condition soldiers to kill. Factors that seem to correlate with or be associated with suicide may, according to some, serve as warning signs. A family history of suicide, an experience of loss, and a family environment marked by conflictual relationships or poor communication also seem to contribute to a higher risk (Ayyash-Abdo, 2002). Another correlate may be extreme introversion that leads to social isolation (Kaiser & Berndt, 1985). A sudden decrease in academic performance or sudden mood or behavioral changes may be warnings of potential suicide (Lajoie & Shore, 1981).
Two Recent Theories of Suicide The Suicide Trajectory Model The complexity and multicausal nature of suicide was emphasized in the suicide trajectory model, which first appeared in the book, Suicide Across the Life Span (Stillion, McDowell, & May, 1989). Graphic representations of the model depict the four major sources of risk factors (biological, psychological, cognitive, and environmental) as contributors to suicidal ideation (see Table 25.2). Table 25.2 is the authors’ graphic representation of the ideas in Stillion and McDowell, not an actual table in the book. The researchers looked at the cultural and historical influences on human behavior as well, noting that today’s young people have been exposed to violence and to suicide through the media to a far greater extent than the Boomer generation, for example. In addition, they looked at oscillating cultural and religious views across generations. An important observation was that some factors interact with each other which increases the risk. For example, when an individual is biologically predisposed for depression and is in an environment with a great deal of relationship conflict, loyalty issues, and discord, the interaction of those factors is more powerful than one factor alone.
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Table 25.2 The suicide trajectory model risk factors Biological
Psychological
Cognitive
Environmental
Genetic bases Brain functioning
Depressed mood Poor self-concept, poor self-esteem Lack of coping strategies Existential questions
Level of cognition Negative self-talk
Family discord Negative life events, especially loss Availability of firearms
Gender–male
Rigidity of thought
We prepared this table as a graphic representation of the ideas of Stillion and McDowell (1996) to clarify the specific risk factors under each of the four main areas of influence.
Biological risk factors include genetic predisposition and the decreased flow of the neurotransmitter, serotonin, which elevates mood. Also, the fact that in most countries males complete suicide three to four times more frequently than females puts males at a higher risk. In addition to being more aggressive, in general, than females, males are expected in our society to meet certain stereotypical expectations through their behavior, such as playing sports and achieving material success. Psychologically, the most important risk factor, according to the authors, is a feeling of hopelessness which, when combined with feelings of helplessness, increases the suicide risk. Those who admit to suicidal ideation also seemed to judge themselves harshly and often labeled themselves negatively with words such as “failure.” A lack of effective coping strategies put an individual at great risk for developing symptoms of depression, which has often been associated with suicide. Another apparent commonality of those who develop suicidal ideation is existential angst, according to this theory. All humans are influenced by their environment, which can be looked at in various levels of systems, from the family of origin to the neighborhood to the region of the country to the country in which one lives. A family environment that is marked by negativity, loyalty issues, and poor communication is not fertile ground for a healthy developing mind. Negative life events, such as the loss of a loved one through death or rejection, can add to the stresses that affect a person’s well-being. Also, since firearms are used in most suicides in the United States, the availability of these potentially lethal weapons has contributed to the risk of suicide. Stillion and McDowell followed up with a second edition of their book, Suicide Across the Life Span, in 1996 in order to expand on the applicability of the suicide trajectory model. In summation, the suicide trajectory model is an inclusive paradigm which
considers the biological, psychological, cognitive, and environmental factors, the possible interactions of these factors, and the cultural and historical context in which an individual has lived.
Shneidman’s Theory In his book, Definition of Suicide (Shneidman, 1985), Shneidman discussed ten characteristics of suicide, which he divided into six categories: Situational aspects 1. The common stimulus in suicide is unendurable psychological pain. 2. The common stressor in suicide is frustrated psychological needs. Willing and striving (conation) 3. The common purpose of suicide is to seek a solution. 4. The common goal of suicide is cessation of consciousness. Affective aspects 5. The common emotion in suicide is hopelessness– helplessness. 6. The common internal attitude toward suicide is ambivalence. Cognitive aspects 7. The common cognitive state in suicide is constriction. Relational aspects 8. The common interpersonal act in suicide is communication of intention. 9. The common action in suicide is egression.
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Serial aspects 10. The common consistency in suicide is with lifelong coping patterns. Situational aspects include the desire to escape a situation in which unbearable psychological pain is being experienced and in which basic psychological needs are not being met. Shneidman (1993) noted that the term unendurable is an evaluation of a situation. In other words, what one person considers “unendurable” might be considered relatively unimportant or certainly bearable by another. Some examples of psychological needs would include the need not to be humiliated, shamed, blamed, or criticized and the need to feel a sense of accomplishment and a sense of connectedness or relatedness. The conative aspects of suicide, according to Shneidman (1993), include the purpose of suicide and the achievement of cessation of consciousness. As Shneidman pointed out, suicide is purposeful. It serves as the solution to a perceived problem or problems or as a resolution to an issue or an answer to a question. Also, suicide serves as an escape from unbearable stress. Feelings of hopelessness and helplessness and an attitude of ambivalence comprise the affective dimension of suicide. When one feels as if there is no hope that life circumstances will improve and that one is helpless to effect a change, the risk of suicide is greatly magnified. Shneidman thought that those who take their lives want to die on the one hand and want to be rescued on the other. He referred to Freud’s ideas concerning the life instinct and the death wish and the struggle between the id and the superego. Both can be experienced at once. Constriction, or narrowed thinking, is the primary factor operating in the thinking processes of someone who is suicidal, according to Shneidman (1993). The inability to perceive many options to solve problems, for example, might result in thinking that taking one’s life is the only solution. Relational factors of suicide include intentions to communicate by actions, including the suicide itself, and in a relatively small percentage of cases, also through a suicide note. Many times a person who is contemplating suicide gives cues or warnings in an attempt to relate the intention to complete suicide. The action of leaving, departing, or escaping relationships, whether with family members,
L.A. Hyatt and T.L. Cross
friends, or coworkers, communicates something about the person. Shneidman (1985) also concluded that suicide is the culmination of a lifelong pattern of coping strategies, albeit ineffective, for survival. When Shneidman accurately guessed 5of the first 6 of 30 suicides among the “Terman Kids” (Terman, 1925) he said that the clues that he examined which helped him to guess those who eventually completed suicide were largely connected to patterns of reacting to perceived threats, losses, and failures (Shneidman, 1996). Shneidman’s theory is also a multifaceted approach to delineating risk factors for suicide with the aim of prediction and prevention. Similar to the suicide trajectory model, many factors were considered and also lifelong patterns were studied. This is also a rather comprehensive paradigm for theorizing about the etiology of suicide. A person’s level of perturbation and lethality must also be considered when assessing suicide risk, according to Shneidman (1996). How perturbed one gets in response to life events and how dangerous a person is to himself or herself must also be taken into account. In terms of explaining the factors that contribute to suicide, both theories’ broad approaches make them powerful paradigms. They both look at developmental patterns. Shneidman’s theory seemed to focus more on the role of motivational factors and temperament when he discussed the need to escape pain, for example, and the degree to which an individual can become perturbed about a certain situation. He made it clear that different people respond to the same situation in different ways. This certainly adds to the explanatory power of the theory. Stillion and McDowell (1996) also emphasized that a person’s responses to life events, be it stoicism or rage, depend, to a degree, on the political and economic climate in which they were raised. Complementing these two broad theories with more in-depth case studies would add much to the body of knowledge about suicide and to the ability to be able to predict and to prevent suicide. Shneidman (1996) mentioned this need as he alluded to cases in which people who attempted suicide but did not complete and lived to be interviewed later recounted what they were thinking and what goals they were attempting to accomplish. Also, emphasis on possible systemic as well as individual changes would be powerful additions to the research. The explanatory power of a theory or
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model of suicide is determined by its catalyzing effect on individual and systemic changes that promote well-being and resilience. For example, Freud’s theory that talking with people about their problems could help alleviate symptoms such as depression or hysteria served as a catalyst for the popularity and success of “talk therapy.”
Proneness to Suicide Among Gifted Youth Social and Emotional Issues and Challenges of Gifted Adolescents Being different is painful. (Balto, character in the movie, Balto II, Ross, 2002)
An area of research that is related to suicide among gifted adolescents centered on the social and emotional issues and challenges faced by gifted children and adolescents (Coleman & Cross, 2005; Cross, 1996). Gifted adolescents seem to have some unique emotional needs and issues due to the fact that they are different. In this section, the literature concerning some of the issues and challenges of being gifted and adolescent will be reviewed. After reviewing the literature pertaining to the social and emotional issues which seem to be faced by gifted adolescents regardless of gender, the needs and challenges associated with being adolescent, gifted, and male will be discussed, followed by a discussion of the needs and challenges associated with being adolescent, gifted, and female. Many researchers have stated that being both adolescent and gifted has often resulted in a unique set of problems and that the social and emotional issues and challenges are in some ways quite difficult (Buescher, 1985; Delisle, 1992; Hollingworth, 1931; Roeper, 1995). For example, Buescher (1985) commented, “In many ways, though, being both gifted and adolescent means learning to understand and cope with a unique set of developmental circumstances that can reach beyond the normal dimensions of adolescence” (p. 11). He went on to add that adolescents between the ages of 11 and 15 years “seem to be particularly vulnerable to the confusion and misinterpretation precipitated by their outstanding abilities” (p. 11).
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Gifted adolescents may be more vulnerable to the pressures of establishing a sense of identity and establishing meaningful relationships (Hollingworth, 1942; Torrance, 1962). Hollingworth addressed the social and emotional issues of being gifted when she noted that gifted adolescents may have “the intelligence of an adult and the emotions of a child” (Hollingworth, 1942, p. 282). Difficulties can result from the unique perceptions and experiences of being gifted. The theme of Annemarie Roeper’s paper about The Emotional World of Gifted Children presented at the National Association of Gifted Children annual conference in 2003 was that there were unique social and emotional difficulties faced by the gifted child. She expanded on some of the points that she had addressed in 1995 which included, “Gifted children’s thoughts and emotions differ from those of other children and, as a result, they perceive and react to their world differently” (Roeper, 1995, p. 74). When identifying some of the critical dynamics of being adolescent and gifted, it becomes important to realize that the social and emotional issues and challenges are related to cultural values and to historical context (Buescher, 1985; Cross, 2004). In many cases, a young person’s experiences in today’s schools are painful. Addressing the dynamics involved in the school shootings at Columbine High School in 1999, Cross noted, “The lessons we should have learned were that our children’s experiences in high school (middle and elementary school) cause them to suffer” (Cross, 2004, p. 111). Many of the issues that affect both males and females include establishing a sense of identity and forming supportive and meaningful relationships. When you are adolescent and gifted, however, these are very difficult social and emotional challenges. As the movie character, Balto, sorrowfully stated in reference to his daughter, who was a gifted leader, “Being different is painful” (Ross, 2002). Some of the social and emotional issues and challenges associated with being adolescent and gifted include boredom (Gross, 2004; H´ebert & Speirs Neumeister, 2002; Kerr & Cohn, 2001), establishing a sense of identity and a positive selfconcept (Dixon, 1998; Gross, 1998; H´ebert, 2000a; Kline & Short, 1991), perfectionistic tendencies (Buescher, 1985; Delisle, 1986; Spiers Neumeister, 2004), heightened sensitivity and intensity (Dabrowski, 1976; Silverman, 1994; Lovecky, 1993),
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and advanced moral development and global concerns (Roeper, 1995; Cross, 2004; H´ebert & Speirs Neumeister, 2002). Many gifted adolescents experience discouragement, hopelessness, insecurity, a sense of meaninglessness, and eventual suppressed feelings (Kerr & Cohn, 2001; Kline & Short, 1991; Roeper, 1995).
Social and Emotional Issues Common to Both Genders Boredom and Frustration In 1942, Hollingworth remarked, “In the ordinary elementary school situation, children with an IQ of 140 waste half their time. Those with an IQ above 170 waste practically all their time. With little to do, how can these children develop power of sustained effort, respect for the task, or habits of steady work?” (p. 299). Young people report being bored and frustrated in school with content that is not challenging or relevant (Egan, 1998). Discussing the plight of a gifted male who was in a heterogeneous classroom, Gross (2004) remarked, “Requiring Ian to undertake all his school work with age peers of average ability was rather like requiring a child of average intelligence to spend six hours a day, five days a week, interacting solely with children who were profoundly intellectually disabled” (p. 4). When Kerr was an adolescent, the Russians sent Sputnik into space, and, as a result, the United States began to single out gifted young people for advanced educational opportunities. Kerr was in a gifted cohort which included 17 males. She and Tom Anderson, a graduate student in counseling psychology, interviewed most of the group members as adults to collect data about their school experiences. They were able to directly interview 13 of the original 17, obtained secondhand information about three, and were not able to locate a young man who was a creative artist while in school. At the time of the follow-up, participants were about 50 years of age. All responded to interview questions by stating that they had been bored in school and that relationships were awkward or painful (and still were, in many cases). One man would have liked to have had exposure to subjects other than English, French,
L.A. Hyatt and T.L. Cross
math, and the other academic subjects included for the cohort. He asked, “Why didn’t we get any shop classes?” Curriculum was determined by the school system, with little or no input from the students concerning their individual interests. Kerr and Cohn noted that the gifted males were “bored in school, socially awkward, and somehow disconnected from others at a young age” (Kerr & Cohn, 2001). Gifted adolescents are intensely fascinated with learning (Lovecky, 1993). In their 2002 article, H´ebert and Speirs Neumeister noted the frustration and boredom experienced by bright young students. They suggested that gifted students could relate to the characters in films such as October Sky, and their feelings of frustration could be validated as they relate to the boys in the movie. Utilizing guided reading can also facilitate a validation of thoughts and feelings that the gifted adolescent feels are experienced by no one but himself or herself (Halstead, 2002; H´ebert, 1991). For some gifted adolescents, it is only in books that they find like-minded characters (Halstead, 2002). Julian Stanley was successful in being a catalyst for grade-skipping for many young gifted students (Stanley, 2000). He helped seventh graders, for example, go directly into college. Since Stanley passed away, programs that he began, such as the Talent Identification Program, continue to accelerate the pace and enrich the curriculum of learning for bright young minds. One of his favorite stories involved a middle school male who was not allowed into an algebra I class due to his age. Stanley encouraged the teacher to at least let the boy take a test to see if he could solve the problems. When the boy made 100% on the test, the teacher invited the student into the class, at which point the student declined, asking why he would want to take a class on material that he already knew (Stanley, 2004).
Perfectionism Many researchers have studied the negative effects of perfectionism (Hill, 1995; Kerr & Cohn, 2001; Roeper, 1995; Silverman, 1993; Spiers Neumeister, 2004).While striving for perfection would seem an admirable trait, for gifted adolescents perceived failure can lead to guilt, depression, anxiety, and even suicide (Hayes & Sloat, 1990). Many gifted adolescents do
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not give themselves permission to be less than perfect (Alvino, 1991). Roeper said, “These children carry an enormous burden of imagined responsibility way beyond their years” (1995, p. 73). Their emotional need to be perfect is, of course, unrealistic, she added. When the prodigy Brandenn Bremmer was asked about his giftedness in an interview in 2004, less than a year before taking his life at age 14, he responded, “America is a society that demands perfection.” The interviewer noted that “it was interesting that I had asked him about giftedness, but the word perfection was foremost in his mind” (Quart, 2006, p. 142). Spiers Neumeister (2002) categorized perfectionism into two categories: socially prescribed and self-oriented. Those with socially prescribed perfectionism are concerned with the expectations of others. They evaluate their self-worth according to perceived external standards which they are expected to meet. Those with self-oriented perfectionism are motivated from within to reach self-imposed high standards. She explored the anxiety and learned helplessness associated with expecting more of yourself than is humanly possible. She interviewed extensively and also did her own soul-searching concerning the roots of perfectionism. Her findings included many factors that seemed to contribute to the participants’ socially prescribed perfectionistic tendencies including early awareness of intelligence and ability to meet high achievement standards of perfectionistic parents. Neumeister noted that students with socially prescribed perfectionistic tendencies feared failure and the disappointment of others. The perfectionistic tendencies of those, like herself, with self-oriented perfectionism, seemed to be linked to individual personality traits and intrinsic motivation. As Spiers Neumeister (2002) concluded, perfectionism can be developed from the messages of others or it can come from an inner-driven, extreme sense of responsibility to self and/or others. Delisle (1986) observed that “a number of gifted students with records of impeccable academic performance have been preoccupied with suicidal thoughts. . .” (p. 64). When singer Judy Collins was 15 years old, she attempted suicide because of her fear of not being good enough, of not pleasing her father. Her father asked her to play the piano at an organized event in Denver. She related being so terrified that her performance would
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not be good enough, that, rather than sharing her fears with him, she took an overdose of aspirin in a suicide attempt. He later apologized for being a perfectionist himself and putting so much pressure on her. However, she noted that most of her pressure was self-imposed (Collins, 2003).
Sensitivity and Intensity Researchers have addressed the apparent heightened emotional and moral sensitivity experienced by gifted youth (Cross, Cook, & Dixon, 1996; Dabrowski, 1964; H´ebert, 2002; Nelson, 1989; Runco, 1998; Silverman, 1994; Tucker & Hafenstein, 1997). These characteristics seem to often result in self-criticism and cynicism (Dabrowski, 1976; Nelson, 1989). A challenge for sensitive gifted adolescents who experience life intensely is to find avenues for emotional expression (H´ebert, 2000a). The gifted males in H´ebert’s urban high school study embraced their sensitivity, which seemed to contribute to the belief in self. The sensitivities would fit with the emotional over-excitability in Dabrowski’s theory of positive disintegration (Dabrowski, 1964). Dabrowski’s overexcitabilities, explained in his theory of positive disintegration, have been mentioned by some researchers as being associated with risk of suicide (Cross, Cook, & Dixon, 1996; Dabrowski, 1964; Delisle, 1992; Nelson, 1989). As young people evolve from Level II, in which they look to those outside of themselves for answers and validation, to Level III, in which they become more introspective, self-blame and self-criticism sometimes occur. This may be a time of increased risk of suicide. Often gifted children and adolescents feel as if they are too much. They think too much, talk too much, and feel too much. Something must be wrong with me, they may conclude (Roeper, 1995). Life was not easy for the gifted male described by Lovecky (1993) who “took every fallen bird into his heart” (p. 37).
Morality, Justice, and Global Concerns Gifted youth worry about global concerns and experience existential dread (Ellsworth, 2003; Kerr, 1991; Nelson, 1989). Issues of social justice and being treated fairly are important to many gifted adolescents. “Re-
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searchers studying the highly and exceptionally gifted have noted that these children are frequently found to have unusually accelerated levels of moral development” (Gross, 2004). Gifted children are often worried about problems in the world such as hunger or war that other children do not think about (Roeper, 2003). At the same time, young people feel helpless to effect change in the world (Hollingworth, 1942). While they are aware of the devastation of war or hunger, they are not able to solve global situations. A heightened sense of responsibility coupled with a heightened awareness of the troubles in the world produces guilt and depression. Similarly, gifted children and adolescents have a deep sense of justice. Being treated unfairly or with insensitivity or witnessing the unfair treatment of others, while upsetting to most, can be devastating to a gifted child (Roeper, 2003).
Social Isolation and Being Bullied Social isolation and feelings of alienation have been addressed by many researchers (Hazler & Denham, 2002; Hollingworth, 1942; Torrance, 1962). The tragic results of being different, not fitting in, having different interests, concerns, and values, dressing differently, and not meeting the cultural expectations for normality often include social isolation and being bullied. Torrance (1962) wrote that “in most classrooms the child runs a calculated risk every time he asks an unusual question or advances a new idea for fear of the ridicule by his classmates and perhaps his teacher” (p. 74). Being bullied and harassed is a frequent occurrence for gifted adolescents (Cross, 2001; Graham, 2003; Gross, 1998; Kerr & Cohn, 2001). Today, in addition to being bullied at school, adolescents are bullied online and by cell phone text messaging, a problem termed cyberbullying (Belsey, 2005; Willard, 2006). Paul Graham (2003), author of Why Nerds are Unpopular, talked of his own experiences with bullying and harassment as well as his observations about them. He stated, “For me, the worst stretch was junior high. . ..Nearly everyone I’ve talked to agrees” (p. 5). “In our school it was eighth grade,” he added. “The difficulty of the gifted child forming friendships is largely a result of the infrequency of persons who are like minded.” (Hollingworth, 1942, p. 262).
L.A. Hyatt and T.L. Cross
In addition, Hollingworth noted that it is not easy for a gifted student to “suffer fools gladly.” In an interview study by Gross (1998), many gifted males responded that they had difficulty being accepted in school. One young man stated, “You’ve got to have mates and there’s nobody round here who’s anything like me, so they’re all I’ve got. But I don’t know how long I’m going to be able to keep going” (p. 7). She added that “the need to escape from such bewilderment, frustration, and loneliness may become a compelling force” (p. 7). The more highly gifted the child, the more likely the child will experience social isolation. Graham (2003) noted that “Nerds are unpopular because they’re distracted. There are other kids who deliberately opt out because they’re so disgusted with the whole process” (p. 11). Being smart does not make you an outcast in elementary school, but it can in middle school and high school. He began his article by stating that, “in a typical American secondary school, being smart is likely to make your life difficult” (p. 1).
Being Brilliant, Studious, and Nonathletic Attitudes toward academically brilliant students have been the focus of some interesting studies (Cramond & Martin, 1987; Drews, 1972; Lee, Cramond, & Lee, 2004; Tannenbaum, 1962). Tannenbaum’s (1962) classic study asked high school students to rate the likeability of hypothetical students according to academic brilliance, studiousness, and athleticism. His finding was that the students least liked by other students were academically brilliant, studious, and nonathletic. Cramond & Martin (1987) expanded Tannenbaum’s research to include teachers’ attitudes concerning the same three characteristics. “The brilliant–studious–nonathletic character, often the stereotype of the gifted student, was rated the lowest” (p. 17) they concluded. In 2004, Lee, Cramond, and Lee conducted a study in Korea which replicated the Tannenbaum study and repeated the Cramond and Martin study. The fact that the results were similar was even more surprising in a country known for its emphasis on the value of education and effort. In this study, again, as in the two previous studies, the lowest rating was given to the academically brilliant, studious, nonathletic student. Another interesting finding was that the hypothetical students that fit
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with that description were considered to be girls. Girls who were academically brilliant were the least popular. The authors concluded, “Psychologically safe environments are necessary for all children to thrive, and the more different a child is from his or her peers, the more vulnerable he or she is to peer sanctions” (Lee, Cramond, & Lee, 2004, p. 52).
Creativity Misunderstood and Unappreciated In a similar study of gifted high school students which began in the 1950s, Drews (1972) categorized students as creative intellectual, studious, and social leader. She noted that creative intellectuals “were rated by their teachers as less creative than their social leader classmates whose attitudes and interests resembled those of bankers or undertakers” (p. 36). Of the creative intellectuals, the social reformers and altruists were “most often condemned” (Drews, 1972, p. 37). She concluded that perhaps the low ratings could “best be explained by the fact that so many of these young people resist the usual school routines” (p. 36). Much has been written about a possible correlation between creativity and propensity for suicide (Jamison, 1999; Piirto, 2004; Rothenberg, 1990; Runco, 1998; Slaby, 1992). Some have cited the high incidence of suicide among artists and writers, especially poets (Jamison, 1993; Ludwig, 1995; Richards & Kinney, 1990). A seeming correlation between “bipolar disorder” and the oscillation experienced by creative artists between the intense passion and enthusiasm of periods of creative expansion and the depths of darkness and tendencies toward unsociability and feelings of emptiness at the other end of the pendulum has been discussed (Jamison, 1993; Richards & Kinney, 1990; Slaby, 1992; Piirto, 2004). Briggs (1990) noted that “the excited and quiescent states that are a normal part of creative process” are often considered pathological (p. 247). Creative artists often despise authoritarianism (Drews, 1972). Creative writers, for example, often attack society in their writings. This aspect of creativity may contribute to difficulties with life. Rothenberg (1990) stated, “Society and creative people are often antagonistic toward each other” (p. 158). Sylvia Plath, the writer of poetry and prose who took her life at the age of 31, described how she some-
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times felt enthusiastic about writing and wrote prolifically and at other times experienced life as if she were in a bell jar, with its distortions and limitations (Plath, 1971). Rothenberg (1990) and Runco (1998) both discussed the creative artist’s drive for destructiveness and creation that exemplify the Janusian paradox. Both researchers also noted the apparent inability of some writers to free themselves cathartically from their concerns and stressors through their writing (Rothenberg, 1990; Runco, 1998). Torrance (1962) was concerned about what he called “the psychological estrangement of creative children” (p. 121). Giftedness is often manifested in creative pursuits because gifted children often think “outside the box.” Torrance realized that and incorporated opportunities for creative expression in his Torrance Test of Creative Thinking. Those with the most imagination make the highest scores. The point that Torrance was making was that in our society those who think differently are often ostracized. Briggs, also, referred to “our ancient aversion to things that are different” (1990, p. 247). Yet one of the traits that seem common to highly gifted, highly creative youth includes unconventionality (H´ebert, 2002; Torrance, 1962). An example would be a fascination with dark themes (Cross, 2004; Cross, Gust-Brey, & Ball, 2002) and an identification with negative or asocial characters (Delisle, 2000). Kerr and Cohn (2001) stated that “there are particular subgroups within the population of gifted boys whose members are indeed at much higher risk for various self-destructive behaviors, including suicide” (p. 144). Kerr and Cohn and others have concluded that highly gifted, highly creative boys are at a higher risk of suicide (Delisle, 1986; Kerr & Cohn, 2001; Lester, 1999). Highly gifted, highly creative young people are often thinking of new ideas. According to Torrance (1961) this has often resulted in a young person’s perception of self as “a minority of one” (p. 31). They have difficulties finding common ground for establishing relationships. Their activities are not the same as those of the average adolescent. While most adolescent boys are interested in sports, cars, and girls and most adolescent girls are interested in conforming behaviors that lead to popularity during the adolescent years, the highly gifted, highly creative adolescent may be drawing or writing in a journal or composing song lyrics.
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To summarize, there are many social and emotional challenges facing adolescents who are gifted. Finding meaningful relationships with adolescents and adults who seem to understand, appreciate, and accept them and finding safe environments in which they can be their creative selves is a challenge. Reaching self-understanding and developing a sense of identity in a milieu of age peers who do not experience the world as intensely and deeply and who do not have the global concerns and ethical values of the gifted adolescent is difficult.
Being Adolescent, Gifted, and Male Establishing a Sense of Identity Developing a sense of identity, including selfunderstanding and a strong belief in self, is necessary for personal and professional success (H´ebert, 2000a). Following his study of six high-ability urban males, H´ebert concluded that a strong belief in self “was identified as the single important factor influencing the success of the urban males in this study” (H´ebert, 2000a, p. 106). A sense of self-identity may include acceptance of self as an individual, establishing autonomy, forming relationships based on trust, openness, and a similarity of values, and fulfilling the need to achieve according to Gross (1998). One of the struggles for gifted male adolescents is reaching selfunderstanding (H´ebert & Speirs Neumeister, 2002). Being different from the majority at school complicates identity formulation. “The process of identity development in intellectually gifted children and adolescents is complicated by their innate and acquired differences from age peers” (Gross, 1998, p. 1). Often, gifted boys experience loneliness and feelings of isolation when they perceive just how different they are from the majority (Kerr & Cohn, 2001). Delisle (1986) noted that gifted boys are often more popular in elementary school but that this changes in middle school. He discussed the fact that gifted boys are often in accelerated or “gifted” classes which set them apart from most of their classmates. In addition, the focus of most adolescents’ attention changes in the middle school years to what many gifted males would consider unimportant, superficial, absurd interests. Combine this difference with a gifted youngster’s
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heightened concerns for global problems and the differences magnify. Frustration experienced by highly gifted adolescents who are bored and alienated can turn to anger (Dixon and Scheckel, 1996; Cross, 2001).
Cultural Expectations to be the Macho Male Males in the United States are expected to pursue stereotypically masculine interests. The plight of the young, gifted male is difficult, noted H´ebert (2002), who referred to the blend of masculine and feminine interests that is often a characteristic of gifted boys. When a gifted adolescent male is not athletically inclined, he has a difficult time fitting in (Alvino, 1991; H´ebert, 1995; H´ebert, 2000b). Not only does being different from the majority at school make the process of identity development more complicated, but being popular is valued, especially between the ages of 11 and 17 years (Graham, 2003). Gifted males walk a tight rope, according to Dixon (1998), often projecting several images to the world. Some do not try to put on a mask and are labeled “nerd” or “geek” while others try desperately to fit in. Social acceptance is highly valued in middle school and high school, and not fitting in can be particularly painful. Alvino (1991) added that self-concept problems are exacerbated by the “traditional male ideal, on the one hand” (p. 177) and the need to be themselves on the other. Being true to oneself in an anti-intellectual society is particularly tough for gifted boys (Cross, 2004). “Receiving so little validation for the self fosters a corresponding internal negative self-image,” according to Silverman (1993, p. 33). Adolescents search for who they are, but the life experiences and issues faced by gifted students are different, stated Cross (2004). Young adolescents are very exclusionary, forming cliques, deciding who is popular, and emphasizing participation in athletics as something to be admired for males. Finding a safe environment in which to be creative, to be different, is a challenge (Torrance & Sisk, 1997). Parents’ expectations for their sons combined with the greater sensitivity and perceptiveness of gifted adolescents make the sense of self, the ego, more vulnerable (Roeper, 2003). In the United States, very few young men teach elementary school because it is thought to be a feminine profession, with values such as nurturance emphasized. In a study of young gifted men who become elemen-
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tary school teachers, H´ebert (2000b) discovered that a combination of a firm belief in self, appreciation for androgyny in terms of interests, and empathy gave these young men the self-confidence to break with tradition. Gifted young males are often less satisfied with themselves because of the pressures and expectations of society (Kline & Short, 1991). Kerr and Cohn (2001) pointed out that there were few initiations into manhood in our society. “Without these meaningful, symbolic ceremonies, today’s young men are bereft of appropriate ways of establishing their identity as men,” they added (p. 127). In the book chapter entitled “Gifted Males,” H´ebert (2002) remarked that it is a difficult time to be a boy in this country. Gifted young males often struggle to see themselves in a positive light, especially because others criticize them if they do not meet the American cultural expectations of the masculine image (H´ebert, 1995). The macho man is expected to be “tough, competitive, independent, aggressive, self-reliant, logical, non-emotional, and lacking in sensitivity” (Alvino, 1991, p. 175). American society has not changed its traditional expectations for males (Kline & Short, 1991), which include playing sports and being strong, silent, and stoic (Kerr & Cohn, 2001). Kerr and Cohn began their book, Smart Boys, by stating that “many gifted boys and men struggle throughout their lives to ignore the urgings of their intellectual and creative selves in order to fulfill socially ordained masculine roles” (p. 3). They added that it is particularly tragic for the gifted male who sees the superficiality and transitory nature of the masculine ideal but feels that he must adhere to it in order to be accepted, to fit in. A boy who plays sports can get away with reading books or even asking an unusual question in class. But a gifted male who is not involved in athletic pursuits and has unusual pastimes or challenges the teacher may not be accepted by most of his schoolmates and even some of his teachers (Kerr & Cohn, 2001). Messages come from the culture, the media, and schools about what is acceptable behavior and dress for a male (H´ebert & Speirs Neumeister, 2002). The challenges to gifted adolescents to be independent, strong, and competitive and to be able to prove their masculinity when their interests, ethical values, and dress differ markedly from the mainstream are sometimes insurmountable (Kerr & Cohn, 2001). Being highly intelligent is even seen as a threat in a dominator society that
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values power, violence, and exploitation (Silverman, 1994).
Being Adolescent, Gifted, and Female Establishing a Sense of Identity Rather than being able to focus on the adolescent identity questions of “Who am I” and “Where am I going?” as teens always have, girls today are more worried about “Who am I supposed to be?” and in the process can disappear as the person they are. (Machoian, 2005, p. 8)
To understand the social and emotional issues and challenges faced by adolescents who are gifted and female, it is necessary, as it was for males, to examine the social context of our American culture (Cross, 2004, Kerr, 1994; Machoian, 2005). Gifted adolescent females struggle to be accepted in a society that values their physical appearance more than their intellectual ability (Gross, 1998; Kerr, 1994; Machoian, 2005). They are bored and frustrated in school but often do not speak up or challenge the system (Callahan, Cunningham, & Plucker, 1994). They are expected to be the superwomen who are all things to all people and to be caring and nurturing (Callahan, Cunningham, & Plucker, 1994; Roeper, 1995;). In general, they do not aspire to the professional success of men and often do not take the rigorous courses in school (Kerr, 1994). A conflict between their tendencies to be perfectionistic and the lower cultural expectations of achievement for females (Reis & Callahan, 1989) leaves them with a confused sense of identity and unfulfilled dreams (Hollinger, 1991; Tomchin, Callahan, Sowa, & May, 1996). In a 12-month study of sixth, seventh, and eighth grade gifted females, which included interviews and an analysis of school records, grades, and test scores, Callahan, Cunningham, and Plucker (1994), observed many of the characteristics that seem to prevent gifted females from attaining success commensurate with their intellectual ability. Though they were bored, they did not complain or challenge the teacher, preferring just to get the high grades with less effort or “play the game” (Rizza, 1999). Cultural Expectations and Stereotypes Roeper (1995) noted that “the manner in which the gifted girl is seen by society and how she herself re-
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acts to this perception” (p. 58) determines her sense of self-esteem. “When I got to middle school, it changed. Everyone started to care about being popular, and I was into reading and stuff. It just hit me, ‘Wow, everybody’s changed,’ and it really made me self-conscious to speak up in class to say what I thought” (Machoian, 2005, p. 43). At a high school reunion, Kerr (1994) was asked by her gifted female classmates to determine the reasons that they, as a group, did not aspire to professional positions equivalent to the males. Out of 24 women, 6 attained no college degree, 12 attained bachelor’s degrees, 3 attained master’s degrees, 1 attained a medical degree, and 1 received a law degree. Years later, Kerr (1994) reassessed the women and found that many of them had gone on to higher educational and professional achievements while others were homemakers and mothers who had set aside their professional pursuits. But why did not more of the gifted women in the group achieve to their potential? Why had so many chosen vocations in education and nursing, rather than the hard sciences? The conflict between career goals and the expectations of others partially explained the disparity (Horner, 1972). Hollinger (1991) stated, “Of all the existing barriers, sex-role socialization’s impact on the child’s developing self-belief system is the most pervasive and limiting” (p. 136). A decline in self-esteem related to not giving themselves credit seemed to begin frequently somewhere in middle school or high school (Kerr, 1994). In 1992, Hollinger and Fleming conducted a study of the educational and career attainment of gifted young women. She stated that a “recurring theme of concern has been the degree to which gifted women have or have not realized their potential over the course of the lifespan” (p. 207). Dividing achievement responses into three categories, traditional, personal, and relational, Hollinger found that many gifted females responded that relational achievement was most important. Also, many females chose traditionally female occupations. She concluded that by adolescence, the young gifted female had already been exposed to years of sex role socialization and societal stereotypes. Horner (1970) framed this issue regarding females and achievement as a fear of success when she concluded that females anticipate social rejection if they are successful. Thirty years later, Engle (2003) repli-
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cated Horner’s study and found that the students in her study were concerned about the “psychological and social” barriers faced by females in non-traditional fields (p. 2). Reis and Callahan (1989) analyzed data on female performance in professions, business, and financial status. After pointing out that less then 2% of American inventions were patented by females, for example, and that females were underrepresented in high government positions, they concluded, “It is clear from the above statistics that bright women are clearly adult underachievers (p. 102). The challenge, then, is to encourage gifted adolescent females to achieve according to their potential (Rizza, 1999). Also, Torrance (1961) found that the females in his longitudinal study were not as likely as the males to hold on to their childhood creativity and express it in adult creative products. Several researchers have noted the expectation to be caring that is directed to females (Callahan, Cunningham, & Plucker, 1994; Reis & Callahan, 1989; Roeper, 1995). Adolescent females make decisions more from an ethic of caring” than from a sense of what is best for them (Callahan, Cunningham, & Plucker, 1994). Reis and Callahan (1989) posed the question of whether this difference in moral psychology in females should be addressed with some differences in curriculum. Smutney (1999) noted that gifted girls often face a range of social pressures in schools, causing them to shift priorities. Smart girls may fear being shunned by other girls who may view them as showoffs or as too academically competitive (Dixon, 1998). Girls are likely to be rejected by peers for being smart (Machoian, 2005). As one gifted adolescent female replied in an interview, “I didn’t want to be too much of a brain because I wanted guys to be attracted to me. If you’re too smart or too successful, girls won’t like you, either” (p. 23). Machoian (2005) stated in her book, The Disappearing Girl, that high intelligence becomes a depression risk factor for girls during adolescence. Relationships with others are defined by the gifted adolescent female as a source of personal satisfaction and a necessary contributor to happiness (Hollinger, 1991). If you are not accepted, you are alone (Machoian, 2005). As a result, many gifted females hide their intelligence for fear of losing relationships (Kerr, 1994).
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To summarize, some of the challenges facing adolescents who are gifted and female include sex role stereotyping, harassment, lowered expectations, and loss of self-esteem (Rizza, 1999). Developing confidence in herself and trusting her own internal voice was considered important for personal and professional success (Hollinger, 1991).
Are Gifted Adolescents Especially Vulnerable to Suicide? Addressing claims that gifted adolescents are more prone to suicide is particularly difficult because death certificates, which have a category for cause of death by suicide, do not contain information on whether the young person who completed suicide was gifted, in gifted classes, or had a high IQ. It is, therefore, impossible at this time to compare national statistics for suicides among gifted adolescents with statistics for suicides among adolescents in general. Consequently, research on suicide among gifted adolescents is limited (Gust-Brey & Cross, 1998). However, some researchers have been interested in what they think may be a vulnerability for suicide by gifted young people. Terman’s conclusion following his well-known longitudinal study of 1,528 young boys and girls (857 males, 671 females) with IQ’s of at least 140 was that gifted children become professionally successful and personally and mentally healthy adults (Terman and Oden, 1959; Oden, 1968). By 1960, when the median age of the participants was 49.6 years, there were 146 known deaths, of which 110 were by natural causes, 24 related to accidents, and 22 by suicide (14 males, 8 females). By 1970, there had been a total of 28 suicides. This rate of 28/1,528 or 1/55 greatly exceeded the usual suicide rate of 12/100,000 or 1/8,333. Two of the participants completed suicide at ages 18 and 19 years (Shneidman, 1996). Terman’s study was unusual in that data were collected frequently over many years. However, one of the drawbacks of the study was that giftedness was determined by IQ TESTS alone. In longitudinal studies of individuals with high IQ’s (Subotnik, Karp, & Morgan 1989; Subotnik, Kasson, Summers, & Wasser, 1993), students with a mean IQ of
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159 who had graduated from Hunter College Elementary School between 1948 and 1960 were followed. The purpose was to compare the results with those obtained from the Terman and Oden (1959) group. The results were comparable. Subjects achieved success professionally, had stable interpersonal relationships, and good mental and physical health. Whereas in the Terman study, males far exceeded females in professional achievement, the difference was not as great between the Hunter boys and girls. The Hunter girls, however, lived in an era in which females and males achieved higher levels of education and worked outside the home. In 1926, Catharine Cox published a work titled The Early Mental Traits of Three Hundred Geniuses. This was a retrospective study of men born after 1450 who had achieved historical eminence. Of the 301 studied, only 1, Thomas Chatterton, took his life, at age 17 years. Variables not considered in this study were other gifted men who did not achieve eminence, perhaps because of illness or suicide. Several studies have purposively studied suicide among gifted adolescents. Seiden (1966) studied completed suicides at the University of California, Berkeley. His findings indicated that 67% of the students who completed suicide had above-average grades. Of undergraduates, 91% who completed suicide had grades that were above average. These data are valuable, but the criteria of “above-average grades” at Berkeley is difficult to compare with other studies about suicide in gifted adolescents. Sargent (1984), after analyzing 1,500 suicide completions, suggested that adolescents who completed suicide were more intelligent than adolescents who attempted suicide. He stated that “better students made the most severe attempts” (Sargent, 1984, p. 50), adding that they used more lethal means such as guns. The problem in applying or generalizing these data, also, is the lack of a definition of intelligence or “better student” that allows you to compare these results with studies about suicide in gifted adolescents. Some studies have considered whether students who completed suicide attended more selective schools or schools for the highly talented. For example, several studies analyzing suicide rates at various educational institutions have concluded that suicide rates were higher at more competitive schools (Lester & Lester, 1971; Ross, 1969; Seiden, 1966). This may be due in part to the pressure at the selective schools.
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This would seem to indicate a higher prevalence of suicide among gifted young people. However, Harvard University reported a 50% decrease in suicide incidence between 1949 and 1965 (Farnsworth, 1972). Many variables could account for the drop in suicide rates in these studies. Whether or not the young person was gifted may or may not have been a contributing factor. Following a discussion of the representation of the gifted among dropouts, delinquents, and those who complete suicide, Lajoie and Shore (1981) stated, “Suicide statistics and theories about the causes of suicide are the most accommodating to the idea of overrepresentation of the gifted, especially at college age. No major theory of suicide includes high ability as a contributor. . .” (p. 141). Giftedness was not cited as an influence in any major theory of the contributors to suicide, including those of Stillion, McDowell, & May (1989) and Shneidman (1985). In response to a “marked increase in youth suicide rates over the last thirty years in a number of countries, including the United States, Great Britain, and Australia” (p. 23), Fergusson, Woodward, and Horwood (2000) conducted a longitudinal study concerning risk factors for suicide in adolescents living in New Zealand. Even though the results may not be generalizable to the population of adolescents in the United States or elsewhere, it could be useful because it is a longitudinal study conducted over a period of 21 years with frequent data collections. A sample of 1,265 children (635 males, 630 females) born in New Zealand in a 4-month period in 1977 were evaluated at birth, at 4 months of age, 1 year, and then annually up to age 16 years, again at age 18 years, and finally at age 21 years. Data consisted of parent interviews, teacher assessments, child interviews, psychometric tests, and medical records. Results indicated that by the age of 21 years, 28.8% of the sample participants reported having suicidal ideation and 7.5% of the total had made an attempt. Participants took the WISC-R and the report concluded that no correlation between intelligence level and suicide was found. Variables studied for possible correlations to suicide were family background, SES, substance abuse, and parent–child attachment. This seemed to be an example of the common lack of particular attention to the variable of intelligence or attributes of the highly intelligent as an independent variable(s) which might affect the decision to complete suicide.
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In 1999, Lester commented, “The academically gifted have been thought to be more susceptible to depression and suicide, not only because of the typical suicidogenic risk factors (such as psychiatric disturbance, drug and alcohol abuse, and dysfunctional family backgrounds), but also because of factors associated with their giftedness” (p. 587). He continued by listing specific factors that might contribute to this vulnerability, including perfectionism, sensitivity, boredom and alienation, frustration that they cannot achieve change in the world, and social isolation. He noted that gifted adolescents often prefer to be alone or engage in activities with one friend. In an article titled “The Impact of Giftedness on Psychological Well-Being: What Does the Empirical Literature Say?”, Neihart (1998) noted that there seemed to be evidence from previous studies that giftedness enhanced resiliency, on the one hand, and also evidence that giftedness increased vulnerability. Neihart pointed out that though views concerning whether giftedness increased vulnerability have oscillated over the years “they are not immune to problems” (Neihart, 1998, p. 10). Nail and Evans (1997) reported that they compared results on the Self-Report of Personality of the Behavioral Assessment System for Children between 115 gifted adolescents and 97 nongifted students from high schools in Atlanta, Georgia. The gifted students were volunteers from the gifted programs. The nongifted students were randomly chosen from English classes. Results indicated that the gifted showed fewer indicators of maladjustment, even though both groups scored generally within normal limits. Neihart (1998) noted that the gifted participants may not have been representative of the population of identified gifted students. Also, even though the gifted students volunteered to participate, they may not have been truthful in their responses. In-depth interviews following the scoring of the instrument might have added to the strength of the findings. Also, many gifted students who exhibit symptoms of emotional problems may not be in gifted programs in high school. The weakness of standardized measures of depression was also evidenced in the results of Neihart’s (1998) study in which she compared gifted middle school students with students of average ability on “standardized, objective measures of depression” (p. 12). Three groups of 30 adolescents responded to the Multiscore Depression Inventory (MDI). The
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Understanding Suicidal Behavior of Gifted Students
groups were high-ability students who were in gifted classes, high-ability students who were not in gifted classes, and students of average ability. Neihart reported that the gifted students did not have more adjustment problems than the nongifted students and differences in the groups’ responses seemed to indicate more positive mental health for the high-ability individuals. She concluded, however, that factors such as type and degree of giftedness, educational fit, and individual characteristics interact to affect psychological well-being. The results were questionable because they were dependent on the honesty of the participants and because of the small sample size. Hayes and Sloat (1990) gathered data from 69 schools and noted that 8 of 42 suicide attempts involved academically gifted students. In a recent study looking into the factor structure of gifted adolescents’ responses on the Suicide Ideation Questionnaire, Cassady and Cross (2006) concluded that a difference existed between the gifted sample and the nongifted group. They went on to note that the difference suggests that gifted adolescents have a more multifaceted conception of suicidal ideation.
Summary None of the studies that have been reviewed have yielded firm evidence for a claim that gifted adolescents are more prone to suicide than other adolescents. Some of the factors that increase the difficulties with making conclusions based on research to this point include varied definitions of “gifted” or “academically talented.” In some studies, IQ scores determined giftedness and in others GPAs or participation in gifted classes were the determinants. Also, national data do not report on level of intelligence since it is not included on death certificates. Another problem is that studies which focus on suicide attempts have sometimes been compared with studies that involve suicide completion. An additional factor that affects the applicability of findings is the possibility that responses on psychometric inventories of suicide risk or depression may not be honest. Considering more than one type of data collection might increase the usefulness of findings. Perhaps, rather than asking whether gifted students are more prone to suicide than other adolescents, we could pursue
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the question, “Which, if any, attributes of giftedness seem to increase a young person’s vulnerability to suicide?”
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L.A. Hyatt and T.L. Cross H´ebert, T. P. (1991). Meeting the affective needs of bright boys through bibliotherapy. Roeper Review, 13(4), 207–212. H´ebert, T. P. (1995). Using biography to counsel gifted young men. Journal for Secondary Gifted Education, 6, 208–219. H´ebert, T. P. (2000a). Defining belief in self: Intelligent young men in an urban high school. Gifted Child Quarterly, 44(2), 91–114. H´ebert, T. P. (2000b). Gifted males pursuing careers in elementary education: Factors that influence a belief in self. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 24(1), 7–45. H´ebert, T. P. (2002). Gifted males. In M. Neihart, S. M.Reis, N. M. Robinson, & S. M. Moon (Eds.) The social and emotional development of gifted children: What do we know? Waco, TX: Prufrock Press, Inc. H´ebert, T. P., & Speirs Neumeister, K. L. (2002). Fostering the social and emotional development of gifted children through guided viewing of film. Roeper Review, 25(1), 17–21. Hill, K. (1995). The long sleep: Young people and suicide. London: Virago Press Ltd. Hollinger, C. L. (1991). Facilitating the career development of gifted young women. Roeper Review, 13(3), 135–139. Hollinger, C. L., & Fleming, E. S. (1992). A longitudinal examination of life choices of gifted and talented young women. Gifted Child Quarterly, 36(4), 207–212. Hollingworth, L. (1931). The child of very superior intelligence as a special problem in social adjustment. Mental Hygiene, 15(1), 1–16. Hollingworth, L. (1942). Children Above 180 IQ. New York: Octagon Books. Horner, M. (1970). Femininity and successful achievement: A basic inconsistency. In J. M. Bardwick, E. Douvan, M. S. Horner, & D. Gutmann (Eds.), Feminine personality and conflict. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company. Horner, M. (1972). Toward an understanding of achievement related conflicts in women. Journal of Social Issues, 28(2), 157–175. Irwin, A. R., & Gross, A. M. (1995). Cognitive tempo, violent video games, and aggressive behavior in young boys. Journal of Family Violence, 10(3), 337–350. Jamison, K. R. (1999). Night falls fast: Understanding suicide. New York: Vintage Books. Jamison, K. R. (1993). Touched with fire: Manic-depressive illness and the artistic temperament. New York: The Free Press. Kaiser, C. F., & Berndt, D. J. (1985). Predictors of loneliness in the gifted adolescent. Gifted Child Quarterly, 29, 74–77. Kerr, B. A. (1991). Handbook for counseling the gifted and talented. Alexandria, VA: American Association for Counseling and Development. Kerr, B. A. (1994). Smart girls: A new psychology of girls, women, and giftedness. Scottsdale, AZ: Great Potential Press. Kerr, B. A., & Cohn, S. J. (2001). Smart boys: talent, manhood, and the search for meaning . Scottsdale, AZ: Great Potential Press. Kline, B. E., & Short, E. B. (1991). Changes in emotional resilience: Gifted adolescent boys. Roeper Review, 13(4), 184–187.
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Lajoie, S. P., & Shore, B. M. (1981). Three myths? The overrepresentation of the gifted among dropouts, delinquents, and suicides. Gifted Child Quarterly, 25(3), 138–143. Lee, S., Cramond, B., & Lee, J. (2004, winter). Korean teachers’ attitudes toward academic brilliance. Gifted Child Quarterly, 48(1), 42–53. Lester, D. (1999). Suicide. Encyclopedia of Creativity, 2, 585–589. Lester, G. L., & Lester, J. L. (1971). The gamble with death. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc. Lovecky, D. V. (1993). The quest for meaning: Counseling issues with gifted children and adolescents. In L. K. Silverman (Ed.), Counseling the Gifted and Talented. Denver, CO: Love Publishing Company. Ludwig, A. (1995). The price of greatness. New York: Guilford. Machoian, L. (2005). The disappearing girl: Learning the language of teenage depression. New York: Penguin Group, Inc. Maine, S., Shute, R., & Martin, G. (2001). Educating parents about youth suicide. Suicide and Life Threatening Behavior, 3(3), 320–332. Maris, R. W., Berman, A. L., & Silverman, M. M. (2000). Comprehensive textbook of suicidology. New York: The Guilford Press. Maris, R. W., Canetto, S. S., & McIntosh, J. L., & Silverman, M. M. (2000). Review of suicidology. New York: The Guilford Press. Mishara, B. L. (1999). Conceptions of death and suicide in children ages 6–12 and their implications for suicide prevention. Suicide and life threatening behavior, 29(2), 105–118. Nail, J. M., & Evans, J. G. (1997). The emotional adjustment of gifted adolescents: A view of global functioning. Roeper Review, 20, 18–22. National Center for Health Statistics (2006). Causes of death report. Retrieved December 20, 2006, from http://www.cdc. gov/ncipc/wisqars. National Center for Health Statistics (2004). Advanced report of final mortality. Retrieved June 10, 2005, from http:// www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/suicide.htm. Neihart, M. (1998). The impact of giftedness on psychological well-being: What does the empirical literature say? Roeper Review, 22(1), 10–17. Nelson, K. C. (1989). Dabrowski’s theory of positive disintegration. Advanced Development Journal, 1, 1–13. Oden, M. (1968). The fulfillment of promise: 40-year followup of the Terman gifted group. Genetic Psychology Monographs, 77, 3–93. Pfeffer, C. R. (1986). The suicidal child. New York: The Guilford Press. Piirto, J. (2004). Understanding creativity. Scottsdale, AZ: Great Potential Press. Plath, S. (1971). The Bell Jar. Evanston: New York: Harper and Row. Quart, A. (2006). Hothouse kids: The dilemma of the gifted child. New York: The Penguin Press. Reis, S. M., & Callahan, C. M. (1989). Gifted females: they’ve come a long way—or have they? Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 12(2), 99–117. Report (2000). Hearing on the impact of interactive violence on children (Report, 2000). March 21, 2000. United States Senate Committee on commerce, science, and transportation.
555 Richards, R., & Kinney, D. K. (1990). Mood swings and creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 3(3), 202–217. Rizza, M. G. (1999). Learning to play the game: Female students discuss their success in high school. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 22(3), 243–265. Roeper, A. (1995). Annemarie Roeper: Selected writings and speeches. Minneapolis, MN: Free Spirit Press, Inc. Roeper, A. (2003, November 14). The emotional world of gifted children. Paper presented at the annual conference of the National Association for Gifted Children, Indianapolis, IN. Ross, D. (1996). Childhood bullying and teasing. Alexandria, VA: ACA Press. Ross, D. (Writer), & Weinstein, P. (Director) (2002). Balto II [animated film]: Universal Studios. Ross, M. (1969). Suicide among college students. American Journal of Psychiatry, 126, 220–225. Rothenberg, A. (1990). Creativity and Madness. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Runco, M. A. (1998). Suicide and creativity: The case of Sylvia Plath. Death Studies, 22(7), 637–654. Sargent, M. (1984). Adolescent suicide: studies reported. Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy, 1(2), 49–50. Shneidman, E. S. (1985). Definition of suicide. New York: Wiley. Shneidman, E. S. (1993). Suicide as psychache: A clinical approach to self-destructive behavior. Northvale, JJ: Jason Aronson, Inc. Shneidman, E. S. (1996). The suicidal mind. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. Seiden, R. (1966). Campus tragedy. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 71, 389–399. Silverman, L. K. (Ed.). (1993). Counseling the gifted and talented. Denver, CO: Love Publishing Company. Silverman, L. K. (1994). The moral sensitivity of gifted children and the evolution of society. Roeper Review, 17(2), 110–115. Slaby, A. E. (1992). Creativity, depression, and suicide. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 22(2), 157–166. Smutney, J. (1999). Gifted girls. Understanding our Gifted, 11(2), 9–13. Spiers Neumeister, K. L. (2002). Perfectionism in gifted college students: Family influences and implications for achievement. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Georgia, Athens, GA. Spiers Neumeister, K. L. (2004). Understanding the relationship between perfectionism and achievement motivation in gifted college students. Gifted Child Quarterly, 48(3), 219–231. Stanley, J. C. (2000). Helping students learn only what they don’t already know. Psychology, Public policy, and Law, 6(1), 216–222. Stanley, J. C. (2004). Don’t teach kids what they already know. Paper presented at the University of Georgia, Athens, GA. Stillion, J. M., McDowell, E. E., & May, J. H. (1989). Suicide Across the Life span- Premature Exits. New York: Hemisphere Publishing Corporation. Stillion, J. M., & McDowell, E. E. (1996). Suicide across the life span-premature exits. (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: Taylor & Francis. Subotnik, R. F., Karp, D. E., & Morgan, E. R. (1989). High IQ children at mid-life: An investigation into the generalizabil-
556 ity of Terman’s “Genetic studies of genius,” Roeper Review, 11(3), 139–144. Subotnik, R. F., Kasson, L., Summers, E., & Wasser, A. (1993). Genius revisited: High I.Q. children grown up. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Tannenbaum, A. (1962). Adolescent attitudes toward academic brilliance. New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University. Terman, L. M. (1925). Mental and physical traits of a thousand gifted children. Genetic Studies of Genius (Vol. I). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Terman, L. M., & Oden, M. H. (1959). The gifted group at midlife: 35 years’ follow-up of the superior child. Genetic Studies of Genius (Vol. V). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Tomchin, E. M., Callahan, C. M., Sowa, C. J., & May, K. M. (1996). Coping and self-concept. Journal for Secondary Gifted Education, 8(1), 16–27.
L.A. Hyatt and T.L. Cross Torrance, E. P. (1961). Problems of highly creative children. Gifted Child Quarterly, 5, 31–34. Torrance, E. P. (1962). Guiding creative talent. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc. Torrance, E. P., & Sisk, D. A. (1997). Gifted and talented children in the regular classroom. Buffalo, New York: Creative Education Foundation Press. Tucker, B., & Hafenstein, N. L. (1997). Psychological intensities in young gifted children. Gifted Child Quarterly, 41(3), 66–75. Walsh, D. (2001). Video game violence and public policy. Chicago: National Institute on Media and the Family. Willard, N. E. (2006). Cyberbullying and cyberthreats: Responding to the challenge of online social cruelty, threats, and distress. Champagne, Il: Research Press.
Part VII
Types of Giftedness
Chapter 26
In Search of Emotional–Social Giftedness: A Potentially Viable and Valuable Concept Reuven Bar-On and Jacobus G. (Kobus) Maree
Abstract This chapter explores “emotional–social giftedness” as a potentially viable and valuable concept. This inquiry will be based on examining the relationship between emotional intelligence and giftedness in order to facilitate a deeper understanding of giftedness and the way we have traditionally viewed it. This will eventually lead to the development of a scientific approach to better identify emotionally and socially gifted children who need to be channeled into special education programs designed to actualize their potential. The key premise to be examined is that emotional intelligence (measured by EQ), in addition to and together with cognitive intelligence (measured by IQ), contributes to the development of giftedness when both aspects of human intelligence radically exceed their normative value.
ing an incalculable loss to society in general for failing to channel the most brilliant minds among us into the arts, sciences, and leadership. A growing number of research findings strongly indicates that emotional intelligence (EI) has a significant impact on achievement in various areas of life (e.g., Bar-On & Parker, 2000; Ciarrochi, Forgas, & Mayer, 2001; Druskat, Sala, & Mount, 2005; Geher, 2004). It is assumed, moreover, that some of the basic emotional and social components of emotional intelligence can lead to innovative and creative problem solving, which is thought to significantly contribute to giftedness in general as well as to the achievement of outstanding accomplishments made by many gifted individuals (Bar-On, 2007). The specific EI competencies and skills contributing to this type of problem solving represent the major components of Keywords Emotional-social giftedness · Emotional- emotional–social giftedness in our opinion and based social intelligence · Emotional intelligence · Gifted- on findings to date. Working in tandem at significantly ness · Cognitive giftedness · Cognitive intelligence · elevated levels, these emotional–social competencies and skills are expected to have the potential to produce Problem solving · Creative problem-solving some novel by-product that is often valued by society such as a major break-through in science, the creation of a classic piece of literature, art or music, or a differIntroduction ent style of leadership that proves to be exceptionally important and successful. However, something else Although the gifted represent an enormous asset to so- is obviously needed to realize the creation of such a ciety, most countries neglect this very important seg- valued by-product, such as supportive environmental ment of the population and their potential contribution, conditions, curiosity, intuitiveness, creativity as well relegating it to a poorly tapped national resource (Bar- as additional personal characteristics. All of these On, 2007). The result of this neglect often has a very and undoubtedly other potential components of the negative effect on the gifted themselves as well as caus- giftedness equation are thought to help us thrive in addition to survive in an increasingly challenging world. R. Bar-On (B) We hope that this chapter will help generate addiUniversity of Texas, Austin, TX, USA tional ideas, contribute to the continued development e-mail:
[email protected] L.V. Shavinina (ed.), International Handbook on Giftedness, c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-6162-2 26,
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of comprehensive and applicable theory, a set of practical guidelines for future researchers to help us better understand giftedness, as well as to provide us with a valid method of measuring giftedness and a scientific approach to more accurately and effectively identifying these individuals early on and encouraging them to develop their potential to fruition. It is our hope that others will understand the importance of the content of this chapter, and a few among them will continue to put the various pieces of this puzzle together. A rigorous search of the literature has confirmed our initial thinking that “emotional–social giftedness” as a concept is absent in the literature with very few exceptions (Piechowski, 1991; Piechowski et al., this volume). Although references to publications related the emotional and social side of the gifted do indeed exist, they appear first and foremost in the context of characteristics of their development and special needs that should be dealt with at home and at school (e.g., Delisle, 1992; Janos & Robinson, 1985; Lovecky, 1992; Silverman, 1993, 1998), as well as an approach to promote social–emotional learning (SEL) in order to bridge the gap between their emotions, feelings, and thoughts. Moreover, the literature deals rather extensively with the possible link between gifted learners, academic achievement, and SEL, as well as possible ways in which to facilitate improved student behavior at school by means of effective SEL programs (e.g., Elias et al., 1997; M¨onks & Pfl¨uger, 2005). We therefore feel that the puzzling and almost complete absence of references to emotional–social giftedness as a potentially pivotal facet of giftedness is a hiatus in educational systems globally, an idea whose time has come. We will focus primarily on (a) the need for a more comprehensive definition of giftedness, (b) the basic characteristics of giftedness, (c) the way giftedness and emotional intelligence are defined here, (d) the method used to examine the relationship between these constructs, (e) the results that surface, and (f) a summary of the major findings with a (g) discussion of their possible implications, applications and the need for further research in the area of emotional–social giftedness.
The Need for a More Comprehensive Definition of Giftedness As early as in 1979, Madge (p. 55) was at pains to point out that:
R. Bar-On and J.G. (Kobus) Maree No one has ever suggested that a measurement of intelligence or IQ can estimate an individual’s chance of becoming an active, responsible member of society, his role as a community leader, his contributions to mankind, or his ability to get along with people. There are many human qualities such as warmheartedness, cheerfulness, unpretentiousness, courage and empathy, which have no relationship whatsoever with IQ. . . [and which is] certainly not intended to tell everything about a child.
Clearly, she was referring intuitively to factors that are currently assessed by measures of emotional intelligence. A few years before the term “emotional intelligence” became popular, Hoffman, Wasson and Christianson (in Newell, 1989, p. 98) suggested the following yardstick to identify gifted underachievers: “A typical [gifted] underachiever has a high IQ, but shows a discrepancy between expected and actual performance, is inconsistent in accomplishing goals, displays impaired levels of self-confidence, reveals feelings of inferiority, blames others for his or her own troubles, and provides evidence of withdrawal.” This implies moreover, that a significantly high IQ alone does not guarantee even satisfactory achievement, and other factors need to be considered when attempting to explain the variance in achievement among gifted individuals. Building on a paradigm shift that has progressed over more than 50 years (Wechsler, 1940; Gardner, 1983; Sternberg, 1985), Salovey & Mayer (1990, p. 189) argued that human intelligence should be redefined in order to include “the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions,” which was almost exactly the way Thorndike defined “social intelligence” in 1920. According to Brady (1998), this move toward a more inclusive and comprehensive definition of intelligence, intellectual capacity, and intelligent behavior has been fueled by the very limited predictability of cognitive intelligence (IQ) in determining success in life (Wagner, 1997). Brady contends (1998, p. 19), moreover, that this movement to comprehensively redefine human intelligence gave rise to the conceptualization of emotional intelligence, which has been lead by Salovey & Mayer (1990), Goleman (1995), Bar-On (1997b) and others for several years. Brady aptly affirms that the concept of emotional intelligence represents a move away from exclusively focusing on cognitive intelligence in examining our ability to navigate life purposefully and successfully through
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life. Bar-On (in Van Rooyen, 2002, p.19) elaborates on students tend to learn more quickly, profoundly, and these views: broadly (see Gross, this volume; Perleth et al., this volume). They are typically ahead of most of their peers The concept of emotional intelligence adds depth to the in at least one major academic area such as science, art understanding of what intelligence or intelligent behavior is. Broadly speaking, emotional intelligence addresses or literature, and many of them possess the potential the emotional, personal, social and survival dimensions of for outstanding leadership performance after completintelligence, vitally important in daily functioning. This ing their formal education (Johnsen, 2004). less cognitive part of intelligence is concerned with unAn additional key characteristic of the gifted is derstanding oneself and others, relating to people, and adapting to and coping with our immediate surroundings. that they are better problem solvers than their peers. These factors increase our ability to be more successful Moreover, they appear to have an enhanced ability in dealing with environmental demands. Emotional inteland keen desire to solve problems (Thompson & ligence is tactical and immediate, and as such reflects a Rudolph, 1992), which they do more quickly and person’s ‘common sense’ and ability to get along with the world. effectively than others. They also tend to see familiar It will be shown that the components of emotional things in different ways. They tend to be individintelligence, as described here, are related to giftedness ualistic and typically try to find solutions in their in such a way that justifies the creation of a concept of own way, which often appear to be unconventional (Parker, 1997). Additionally, gifted individuals use emotional–social giftedness. In the next section we will summarize a number of more innovative and creative methods in attempting to key characteristics attributed to gifted individuals to il- find solutions to problems. It is assumed that creativity lustrate how the specific definition of giftedness used plays a very important role in giftedness which is directly associated with the problem-solving process in this chapter was created. itself. Being creative in problem solving represents a specific way of looking for solutions and “bringing something into being that has newness” (Maker, 1993, Characteristics of Giftedness p. 69). The gifted also tend to be extremely flexible intellectually as well as possess an exceptionally One of the fundamental characteristics of gifted in- enhanced ability to look at things in novel ways dividuals is that they are thought to possess signifi- (Thompson & Rudolph, 1992). They have a greater cantly higher cognitive intelligence than their peers. capacity for creatively expressing themselves as well. The cutoff point on cognitive intelligence tests used to Maree (2006) suggests, moreover, that creativity identify the gifted has typically been set at two stan- plays an important role in survival, arguing that being dard deviations above the mean, which is equivalent individualistic, resilient, and creative increases their to an IQ of 130 representing approximately 2% of the ability to survive and possibly thrive (see Sayler, this population (see Silverman, this volume). Additionally, volume). From what has been described here, it is clear that Parker (1997) points out that gifted children appear more intellectually mature than children their own age. giftedness cannot be defined in terms of a single entity They tend to enjoy challenging intellectual tasks, are alone, and not even within a purely cognitive framecurious and prefer complexity to simplicity. As an in- work. This misconception has been fundamentally retegral part of their curiosity, they are also keenly obser- futed by Howard Gardner’s (1983) pioneering work vant, ask questions as well as tend to make inferences on “multiple intelligences,” highlighting the need and and draw conclusions about the way they view things. importance of redefining human intelligence. RegardAlthough cognitive intelligence is clearly part of less of what one’s view of intelligence includes, “IQ” giftedness, Peterson (1997) cautions against confus- alone certainly does not overwhelmingly account for ing giftedness with simply possessing a significantly the variance in achievement among the gifted. Rehigh IQ and an enhanced potential for academic perfor- searchers have long been interested in identifying admance. In this regard, it is important to point out that ditional contributing factors to success in life instead many gifted students are not high academic achievers, of focussing solely on cognitive intelligence. Howard and many high performers at school are not necessar- Gardner’s research on multiple intelligences, and inily gifted. In contrast to others, however, truly gifted deed the research of many others including Robert
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Sternberg, have contributed significantly to expanding our view of intelligence, performance, achievement, and giftedness as well (for a detailed account of the personality-related characteristics of the gifted see Friedman et al. chapter, this volume).
Defining Giftedness In creating the definition used in this chapter to describe giftedness, we rely primarily on the abovementioned characteristics of gifted individuals. In reviewing existing definitions of giftedness, perhaps one of the most compelling ones to date is the following: Giftedness is “the ability to solve the most complex problems in the most efficient, effective, or economical ways” (Maker, 1993, p. 71). Although this definition rightfully emphasizes the importance of problem solving for giftedness, the problems that the gifted attempt to solve are not always the most complex, and their solutions are not always the most efficient or economical. With respect to problem solving as such however, it is possibly better to describe giftedness as the ability to look at problems in different ways and to apply innovative and creative solutions to solving them (Bar-On, 2007). Based on this important characteristic of the gifted, giftedness clearly involves a well-developed and unique problem-solving ability. Additionally, creativity appears to be integrally related to this specific approach to problem solving. As was previously suggested, gifted behavior is most likely based on more than the above-mentioned characteristics. Individuals who possess all these characteristics in great abundance also need to be sufficiently self-motivated and need a supportive environment that encourages them to realize their potential. Based on the above-mentioned descriptions of gifted individuals, the definition of giftedness used in this chapter is as follows: Giftedness implies possessing exceptionally high cognitive intelligence, potential for superior academic and professional performance, enhanced capability and drive to do one’s best and realize one’s potential, as well as an advanced ability to apply a variety of different approaches to solve problems in more innovative and creative ways when compared with others (Bar-On, 2007).
R. Bar-On and J.G. (Kobus) Maree
The aforementioned definition also underscores the fact that an intricate configuration of interrelated factors plays a role in determining giftedness and success in life (Maree & Ebers¨ohn, 2002). In our opinion, the concept of emotional intelligence provides a useful conceptual framework to describe this configuration of factors. In order to understand this concept, we will attempt to define emotional intelligence in the next section.
Defining Emotional Intelligence The notion of emotional intelligence is not at all a new one. Whereas the term “emotional intelligence” was coined by Leuner in 1966, the construct itself was studied by Charles Darwin as early as 1837 and first described in 1872 (Darwin, 1872/1965); and it continued to be an object of scientific inquiry during much of the twentieth century. Mehrabian (2000, p. 134) states that emotional intelligence is widely used today to explain individual differences associated with life success that are not specifically measured with traditional intelligence measures. There are currently a number of competing definitions of this construct to choose from (Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2000). In an effort to better understand and simplify the basic differences between existing definitions, the Encyclopedia of Applied Psychology (Spielberger, 2004) suggests that there are three major conceptual models of emotional intelligence: (a) the Mayer-Salovey model (Mayer & Salovey, 1997); (b) the Goleman model (1998); and the Bar-On model (1997b). Irrespective of which model one pays allegiance to, Bar-On (2006) has argued that most definitions comprise at least one of the following five clusters of emotional and social competencies (all of which are included in the Bar-On model): 1. The ability to understand one’s emotions and express feelings. 2. The ability to understand how others feel and to relate with them. 3. The ability to manage and control emotions. 4. The ability to manage change and solve problems of a personal and interpersonal nature. 5. The ability to generate positive mood and be selfmotivated.
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In Search of Emotional–Social Giftedness
We have decided to use the Bar-On model of emotional intelligence in this chapter in that it has proven to be a valid and comprehensive approach to describing this construct based on more than 60 validity studies conducted on the Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQi), which represents an adequate operationalization of this model (Bar-On, 1997b, 2000, 2004, 2006; Plake & Impara, 1999). The Bar-On model asserts that emotional–social intelligence is a cross-section of interrelated emotional and social competencies, skills and facilitators that determine how effectively we understand and express ourselves, understand others and relate with them, and cope with daily demands and challenges. The emotional and social competencies, skills, and facilitators included in this conceptualization include the abovementioned five meta-factors: (1) the ability to be aware of and understand emotions and to express feelings; (2) the ability to understand how others feel and relate with them; (3) the ability to manage and control emotions; (4) the ability to manage change, adapt, and solve problems of a personal and interpersonal nature; and (5) the ability to generate positive affect in order to be sufficiently self-motivated to accomplish personal goals and actualize one’s potential. Each of these five metafactors comprises a number of closely related subfactors that are briefly described in the Appendix. In light of the fact that most of the findings related to emotional intelligence presented in this chapter were generated by the EQ-i, it is important to briefly describe this instrument (Bar-On, 1997a). The EQ-i is a self-report measure of emotionally and socially intelligent behavior that provides an estimate of one’s emotional–social intelligence. The EQ-i was the first measure of its kind to be peer reviewed in the Buros Mental Measurement Yearbook (Plake & Impara, 1999), and it is the most widely used measure of emotional intelligence to date (Bar-On, 2004). A detailed description of the psychometric properties of this measure and how it was developed is found in the Bar-On EQ-i Technical Manual (Bar-On, 1997b) and in Glenn Geher’s book titled Measuring Emotional Intelligence: Common Ground and Controversy (2004). In brief, the EQ-i contains 133 items in the form of short sentences and employs a 5-point response scale with a textual format ranging from “very seldom or not true of me” (1) to “very often true of me or true of me” (5). A list of the inventory’s items is found in the instrument’s technical manual (Bar-On, 1997b).
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The individual’s responses render a total EQ score as well as scores on the scales listed in the Appendix. Raw scores are computer-generated, tabulated, and converted into standard scores based on a mean of 100 and standard deviations of 15. The EQ-i has a built-in correction factor that automatically adjusts the scale scores based on scores obtained from two of the instrument’s validity indices, which is an important feature for self-report measures in that it significantly reduces response bias.
Examining the Relationship Between Emotional Intelligence (EI) and Giftedness In order to determine the nature of emotional–social giftedness as well as its viability and validity as a concept, Bar-On (2007) studied the relationship between emotional intelligence and giftedness, based on the way both concepts are defined in the present chapter, by examining the correlation between EI and (a) cognitive intelligence; (b) academic performance; (c) striving to do one’s best and to realize one’s potential; (d) problem solving; (e) creativity; and (f) resiliency.
Results that Surface from Examining the Relationship Between EI and Giftedness The relationship between emotional intelligence and cognitive intelligence. Based on an examination of a large data set (n=3,086) using multiple regression analysis, Bar-On found that the multivariate correlation between the EQ-i and the Standard Progressive Matrices was .44 (Bar-On, 2004, 2007). The statistical procedure applied revealed that the following emotional– social competencies and skills have the highest impact on cognitive intelligence, listed in the order of their predictive strength (i.e. their ability to predict cognitive performance):
r r
Stress Tolerance (effectively and constructively managing emotions) Self-actualization (striving to achieve goals and actualize one’s potential)
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r r r r r
Assertiveness (effectively and constructively expressing one’s feelings) Empathy (being aware of and understanding how others feel) Problem Solving (effectively solving personal and interpersonal problems) Optimism (being positive and looking at the brighter side of life) Reality Testing (objectively validating one’s feelings and thinking)
It is interesting to note that the emotional intelligence factor that impacts cognitive intelligence the most is Stress Tolerance, which suggests that cognitive functioning is strongly influenced by the ability to manage one’s emotions. The relationship between emotional intelligence and academic performance. In another publication (2006), Bar-On has summarized the research of four studies demonstrating the relationship between emotional intelligence and academic performance; the multivariate correlations ranged from .41 to .45, and the major emotional intelligence factors that appear to impact academic performance the most are the following:
r
R. Bar-On and J.G. (Kobus) Maree
findings strongly indicate that emotional intelligence impacts the ability to do one’s best in order to realize one’s potential. Based on these three studies, those EI factors that impact this ability the most are the following based on a near 100% overlap of the findings:
r r r r r r r r r
Optimism (being positive and looking at the brighter side of life) Happiness (feeling content with oneself, others and life in general) Self-regard (accurately perceiving, understanding and accepting oneself) Independence (being self-reliant and free of emotional dependency on others) Problem Solving (effectively solving personal and interpersonal problems) Flexibility (adapting and adjusting one’s feelings and thinking to new situations) Social Responsibility (identifying with one’s social group and cooperating with others) Assertiveness (effectively and constructively expressing one’s feelings) Emotional Self-awareness (being aware of and understanding one’s emotions)
In order to strive to achieve personal goals and realize one’s potential, the findings presented here suggest that r one must first and foremost be strongly self-motivated. The individual also needs to know who he/she is. It r also makes sense that the self-actualization process is supported by the ability to rely on oneself to make the r right decisions and confidently come up with the best solutions once one knows what he/she wants to accomr plish; and this whole process requires flexibility. The individual also needs to be committed to do something meaningful in life and to contribute something of value The findings make sense, in that one apparently needs that benefits others as well. Last, self-actualization is to adequately handle emotions, validate one’s feelings the ultimate act of self-expression, which strongly deand keep things in correct perspective, solve problems, pends on a deep awareness of oneself in general as well and be self-motivated in order to achieve academically. as one’s feelings. The relationship between emotional intelligence The relationship between emotional intelligence and striving to do one’s best (self-actualization). In an and problem solving. To study the relationship between earlier study (2001), Bar-On examined the relationship emotional intelligence and problem solving, Bar-On between self-actualization and emotional intelligence. applied multiple regression analysis to examine This relationship was examined by applying multiple the relationship between the EQ-i Problem-Solving regression analysis to large normative samples in subscale (the dependent variable) and the remaining North America (n=3,831), Israel (n=2,702), and the EQ-i subscales (after removing the Problem Solving Netherlands (n=1,639); the degree of correlation was subscale from the analysis as an independent varifound to be 0.80, 0.75, and 0.78, respectively. These able) on a very large sample of 51,623 individuals Stress Tolerance (effectively and constructively managing emotions) Reality Testing (objectively validating one’s feelings and thinking) Problem Solving (effectively solving personal and interpersonal problems) Self-actualization (striving to achieve goals and actualize one’s potential) Optimism (being positive and looking at the brighter side of life)
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In Search of Emotional–Social Giftedness
(Bar-On, 2007). The results suggest that the following emotional–social competencies and skills that have the strongest impact on problem solving (R=.74) are the following, listed in the order of their predictive strength (i.e., their ability to predict problem solving):
r r r r r r r r
Self-actualization (striving to achieve goals and actualize one’s potential) Optimism (being positive and looking at the brighter side of life) Stress Tolerance (effectively and constructively managing emotions) Impulse Control (effectively and constructively controlling emotions) Reality Testing (objectively validating one’s feelings and thinking) Assertiveness (effectively and constructively expressing one’s feelings) Social Responsibility (identifying with one’s social group and cooperating with others) Empathy (being aware of and understanding how others feel)
The results, once again, make sense. It appears that one needs to be sufficiently motivated to attempt to solve problems, effectively manage and control emotions, validate one’s feelings and keep things in proper perspective, and constructively express oneself after coming up with the best solution. Coming up with the best solution appears to rely on one’s ability to understand others and responsibly consider their feelings, needs, and concerns. In an effort to determine which of the eight items in the EQ-i’s Problem Solving subscale are the most important for the problem-solving process, Bar-On conducted an item analysis of the EQi Problem-Solving items using the above-mentioned data set (Bar-On, 2007). It revealed that the item with the highest item-scale correlation (R=0.66) was the following: “In handling situations that arise, I try to think of as many approaches as I can.” This suggests that the most important component of the problem-solving process, as defined and measured by the EQ-i, is the ability to use as many approaches as possible in solving problems; and this closely follows the description of the problem-solving component of the definition of giftedness used in this chapter (. . . an advanced ability to apply a variety of different approaches to solve problems. . .). To examine the impact of EI on this specific aspect of problem solving, the above-mentioned Problem-Solving item was factored into the analysis as
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the dependent variable, and multiple regression analysis was applied to the previously mentioned sample (Bar-On, 2007). This rendered a fairly high multivariate correlation (R=0.58) indicating that EI significantly impacts this important component of problem solving. The emotional–social competencies and skills that surfaced in this specific regression model are as follows, listed in the order of their predictive strength (i.e. their ability to predict this important aspect of problem solving):
r r r r r r r r r r
Optimism (being positive and looking at the brighter side of life) Empathy (being aware of and understanding how others feel) Social Responsibility (identifying with one’s social group and cooperating with others) Self-actualization (striving to achieve goals and actualize one’s potential) Reality Testing (objectively validating one’s feelings and thinking) Assertiveness (effectively and constructively expressing one’s feelings) Stress Tolerance (effectively and constructively managing emotions) Impulse Control (effectively and constructively controlling emotions) Flexibility (adapting and adjusting one’s feelings and thinking to new situations) Interpersonal Relationship (establishing mutually satisfying relationships)
It is interesting to note that the emotional intelligence factor that impacts this aspect of problem solving the most is optimism, meaning that one needs to be sufficiently optimistic and self-motivated in order to apply as many approaches as possible in solving problems. The relationship between emotional intelligence and creativity. In order to study the relationship between EI and creativity, which is thought to play an integral role in the problem-solving process of gifted individuals, a researcher at York University in Canada (Koifman, 1999) administered the EQ-i together with the Jackson Personality Inventory (Jackson, 1994) to 60 second-year psychology students. The bivariate correlation between the EQ-i and the Jackson’s Innovation scale was found to be significant (R=.41, p
