Prueba de hipótesis general

Learning objectives

• Be able to define giftedness in terms of Renzulli’s three-ring model of giftedness and Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligence.

• Be able to describe the main research findings on gifted children concerning genetic and environmental factors in the genesis of giftedness, family backgrounds of gifted children and their psychological adjustment, and neurobiological aspects of giftedness.

• Understand Sternberg and Lubart’s investment theory of creativity.

• Give an account of the main research findings on the stages of creativity, individual differences in creativity and the links between creativity and intelligence, personality, motivation and brain processes.

• Understand different conceptual models for explaining wisdom, including wisdom as the final stage of personality and cognitive development and balance theory of wisdom.

• Understand the clinical implications of research on giftedness, creativity and wisdom for facilitating happiness.

• Be able to identify research questions that need to be addressed to advance our understanding of giftedness, creativity and wisdom on the one hand and happiness on the other.

Giftedness in childhood, creativity in adulthood and wisdom in later life are the rubrics under which psychologists have studied a variety of types of outstanding achievements across the lifespan. Giftedness, creativity and wisdom all involve more than just a high level of analytic intelligence as assessed by traditional IQ tests. Gifted children are not just very bright. They have outstanding talent and may, for example, play musical instruments exceptionally well or perform complex mathematics from their pre-school years with minimal training (Callahan, 2000; Winner, 2000). Creative adults, too, are more than just intelligent (Sternberg, 1999). They break new ground and defy the conventions of their discipline through scientific discovery or producing outstanding works of art. Wise people, like Solomon in the Bible, make exceptionally sound judgements in a calm manner about highly complex social dilemmas using deep understanding, broad experience and profound compassion (Baltes and Staudinger, 2000). Giftedness, creativity and wisdom are all personal strengths which have the potential to lead to positive outcomes for ourselves and others. Research findings in these three domains and their implications will be considered in this chapter.

GIFTEDNESS

The earliest scientific studies of giftedness were Sir Francis Galton’s (1869) retrospective investigation of the families of eminent people, Hereditary Genius, and Terman’s 35-year longitudinal study of gifted children (Terman and Ogden, 1959). Galton found that eminence ran in families and concluded that giftedness was predominantly hereditary.

Whether giftedness is innate or environmental continues to be a controversial issue. Some argue that the talents of gifted children are the product of intensive deliberate practice (Howe, 1999) while others argue that such talents are innate (Winner, 2000). Available evidence suggests that gifted children show outstanding innate talent before practice, but then are motivated to practise a great deal to master their talent and so environmental factors also contribute to the growth of their giftedness.

In the second major early study of giftedness, Terman used the Stanford-Binet intelligence test to screen more than 1000 children with IQs above 140 and followed them up over 35 years (Terman and Ogden, 1959). Terman found that this group of children with high IQs also showed exceptional physical health, behavioural adjustment and moral development. The idea that giftedness is associated with good overall adjustment has not been supported by recent studies in which a more stringent definition of giftedness has been used. For example, Morelock and Feldman (1997) found that children with IQs over 150 showed difficulties in developing good work habits at school and maintaining good peer relationships, and also showed emotional distress due to reaching an early understanding of major moral and existential problems before having the emotional maturity to cope with them.

Definitions of giftedness

Giftedness has been defined, following Terman’s lead, as an IQ score above a particular level, but dissatisfaction with this, and a recognition that visual artists, musicians and others can show high levels of giftedness despite having IQs in the average range, has led to broader definitions of giftedness. Such broader definitions of giftedness have been developed by Renzulli (1986) in his three-ring model of giftedness and Gardner (1983/1993) with reference to his multiple intelligence model.

Renzulli three-ring model of giftedness Renzulli (1986) defined giftedness in his three-ring model as involving:

1. outstanding general ability as measured by IQ tests or specific aptitude tests for domains such as mathematical ability, musical talent or sculpture;

2. creativity in the domain of high ability; and

3. commitment and a high level of motivation to develop skills in the domain of high ability.

Renzulli’s (1986) definition of giftedness is partially based on a hierarchical model of intelligence. This model has its roots in the work of Spearman (1927) and Thurstone

(1938). Using factor analysis, Spearman examined the pattern of correlations among a large number of different types of ability tests given to a large sample of people. He found a single underlying factor of general intelligence which he called ‘g’. Shortly after this, Thurstone (1938), using a wider range of tests and a slightly different method of factor analysis, failed to find ‘g’ and instead found a set of seven independent factors which he called primary mental abilities. These were: verbal comprehension; word fluency; number facility; spatial ability; perceptual speed; induction; and memory. Since the early work of Spearman and Thurstone, attempts to reconcile these two different models of the structure of intelligence have led to the development of various hierarchical models of intelligence with ‘g’ or aspects of ‘g’ at the top of the hierarchy and a greater number of factors representing specific abilities below this, the apex of the hierarchy (Cooper, 1999; Davidson and Downing, 2000).

Renzulli’s (1986) definition of giftedness entails the view that gifted children may have high scores on ‘g’ or general intellectual ability or a high score on a factor lower in the hierarchy of abilities or both, along with creativity and task commitment.

Giftedness and multiple intelligence

Professor Howard Gardner (1983/1993, 1998) of Harvard University, following in the tradition of Thurstone (1938), has proposed that intelligence is not a unitary construct.

Rather there are multiple intelligences and giftedness entails not high overall ability but outstanding ability in one of these multiple intelligences.

Gardner has identified eight types of intelligence: linguistic; logical-mathematical;

spatial; musical; bodily kinesthetic; interpersonal, intrapersonal; and naturalist. Linguistic intelligence refers to the production and comprehension of spoken and written language, the capacity to clarify, convince and explain, and a sensitivity to subtle nuances of meaning in language. Having a facility with numbers, a capacity to operate abstract symbol systems, and the ability to explore logical relationships between hypothetical statements are the central elements of logical-mathematical intelligence, which is important for mathematics, logic and science. Spatial intelligence refers to skills for perceiving and transforming visual-spatial relationships, and is important for architecture or visual art. Sensitivity to rhythm, pitch and timbre are the key components of musical intelligence. Bodily kinesthetic intelligence refers to sensitivity and control over body-movements, and is important for athletics and dance. A sensitivity to intentions and wishes of others and a capacity to influence others in desired ways are the main elements of interpersonal intelligence. Intrapersonal intelligence refers to understanding one’s own psychological strengths and weaknesses and is important for making informed personal decisions. Naturalist intelligence involves understanding the patterns found in natural environments.

According to Gardner, each of the multiple intelligences follows a distinctive developmental course both ontogenetically and phylogenetically. Information relevant to each form of intelligence is encoded in a unique symbol system, e.g. letter, numbers, musical notation. Each form of intelligence is associated with unique core operations which can be analysed with experimental tasks and individual differences in these core operations can be evaluated with psychometric tests. Each form of intelligence can be isolated by brain damage, for example the case of Phineas Gage who had an iron bar pass

through his pre-frontal lobes (Macmillan, 1986) showed that damage to the pre-frontal lobes of the cortex can lead to impaired interpersonal intelligence but leave other intelligences intact. Each form of intelligence can also be validated by the identification of exceptional cases, e.g. Freud was a prodigy in the field of intrapersonal intelligence, Gandhi in the field of interpersonal intelligence and Darwin in the field of natural intelligence. Giftedness, according to Gardner, represents the presence of outstanding ability in one domain of intelligence.

Research findings on gifted children

Reviews of the literature on giftedness allow a number of broad conclusions to be drawn about early gifted performance; genetic and environmental determinants of giftedness;

families of gifted children; psychological adjustment of gifted children; brain processes related to giftedness; and adult creativity of gifted children (Howe, 1999; Miller et al., 1999; Sternberg and Davidson, 1986; Subotnik and Arnold, 1994; Winner, 1996, 2000).

Early gifted performance

Gifted children, prodigies and savants (who excel in one area of talent but have IQs below the normal range) show extremely advanced skills in circumscribed areas very early in their lives. For example, before the age of 4 years gifted children may read fluently without instruction, or excel at playing a musical instrument, or solve complex mathematical problems for amusement. Gifted children defined in this way are different from children with fairly high IQs (of about 130–40) who show very good (but not outstanding) performance of a wide range of academic and non-academic pursuits.

Genetic and environmental factors of giftedness

An important question concerns the role of hereditary or constitutional factors on the one hand and environment or training factors on the other in the development of giftedness.

The repeated observation that high ability runs in families supports the view that giftedness is partially hereditary. All gifted children exercise their talents a great deal and this has led to the view that giftedness may be partially environmentally determined.

However, the high rates of practice shown by gifted children may be the result of having great talent rather than the cause of such precocity. That is, gifted children may be highly motivated to master their inherited talents and so practise a great deal.

Family backgrounds of gifted children

The family backgrounds of gifted children are typically benign. The idea that gifted children are driven to high levels of performance by their overambitious parents and become estranged, embittered and depressed as a result of this is not born out by empirical studies of gifted children. Gifted children, for the most part, report positive relationships with their parents. Gifted children typically grow up in child-centred families where parents model hard work and high achievement, provide an intellectually and artistically stimulating environment, offer their children a high level of autonomy,

but expect a high level of excellence from them. Whether these parental behaviours are elicited by gifted children from otherwise normal parents or whether this type of parenting fosters giftedness we do not know. Gifted children from families in which there is a high level of nurturance and stimulation show better overall adjustment and more consistent use of their talents than other gifted children who have less supportive families.

Psychological adjustment of gifted children

There is some tentative support for the popular conception of a link between ‘madness and genius’. Gifted children show double the rate of behavioural adjustment problems of non-gifted children. This may be due to the fact that their high performance can lead to them becoming bored with routine school work and socially isolated from their peers.

Gifted children crave time alone to practise their talent but they also crave the company of likeminded peers (who are hard to find). They may also hide their talent to gain acceptance from non-gifted peers.

Brain processes and giftedness

Studies of neuropsychological and psychophysiological processes of gifted children show that some of these youngsters are biologically different from their normal counterparts.

For example, a subgroup of gifted children with talents for art, music, maths and other non-language-based domains have atypical brain organisation which underpins their unusual talents. Specifically they have enhanced right hemisphere development.

However, such constitutional advantage often entails a cost and such children typically have more language-related difficulties, such as dyslexia, auto-immune disorders and behavioural adjustment problems than non-gifted children. Studies of the neuropsychological and psychophysiological correlates of overall intelligence also deserve mention here (Vernon et al., 2000). IQ is positively correlated with head circumference (r=0.2) and brain volume (r=0.4), suggesting that greater intelligence is subserved by greater brain mass.

IQ is negatively correlated with the latency of the P300 component of the event-related potential (ERP) waveform. The latency of the P300 waveform has been shown to be a reliable index of speed of information processing in the cortex associated with detection, recognition and classification of target stimuli. Thus, highly intelligent people have short P300 latencies and this is reflected in the fact that they make decisions quickly. (An event-related potential (ERP) is the averaged electroencephalographic activity (waveforms representing bioelectric brain activity) following the presentation of a stimulus. The latency of the P300 component of the waveform is the time taken for the component that appears at about 300 milliseconds after the stimulus to peak.)

IQ is also correlated with cerebral glucose metabolism, an index of the degree to which the brain is using glucose to compensate for expending energy involved in processing information. Glucose metabolism is assessed by positron emission topography (PET). IQ is positively correlated with cerebral glucose metabolism when participants are resting and free to engage in any mental activity they choose, but negatively correlated with cerebral glucose metabolism when participants are asked to solve a specific

problem. Thus, when very intelligent people are free to engage in a mental activity of their choosing, they think a lot. However, when given a problem to solve they use their brains efficiently using a minimum of energy.

Childhood giftedness and adult creativity

The idea that child prodigies grow up to become highly creative adults has not been borne out by research. Most gifted children grow up to become well-adjusted successful experts in their fields. Only a minority of gifted children go on to become creative adults who make major innovative contributions to their field. This is not surprising, because showing creativity in adulthood would involve making the difficult transition from effortlessly achieving a high standard by conforming with the rules and practices of an established domain in childhood, to effortful disruption and transformation of the rules and practices of an established domain in adulthood. This type of transition would involve switching from predominantly using convergent thinking to predominantly using divergent thinking (Feist, 1999). Another possible reason why gifted children do not typically grow up to become creative adults is that the personality traits required to be a creative adult are quite different from those shown by gifted children. Gifted children are typically conforming and come from supportive stable families. Creative adults, in contrast, are typically rebellious and have a history of childhood stress and hardship which predisposes them to challenging the conventional rules and practices within their field (Simonton, 2000). There is also a disproportionately higher rate of bipolar affective disorder (manic depression) among creative adults.

CREATIVITY

Creativity is the capacity to produce work that is both novel and useful (Sternberg and Lubart, 1999). Early major contributions to the study of creativity were made in psychoanalysis, gestalt psychology and psychometrics. Freud (1908) underlined the importance of non-rational primary process thinking in creativity and saw creative output as a socially acceptable way of expressing unacceptable unconscious aggressive and sexual drives for power or love. Gestalt psychologists, notably Wertheimer (1945), focused on processes involved in insight learning such as transformation, figure-ground reversal and closure. In the psychometric tradition Guilford (1950, 1967) conceptualised creativity as a set of divergent thinking skills within his Structure of the Intellect Model which incorporated both convergent thinking skills evaluated by traditional IQ tests and divergent thinking skills. Modern studies of creativity have been conducted to throw light on cognitive processes, personal characteristics, psychophysiological processes, lifespan development and social contexts associated with creativity (Simonton, 2000). A number of fairly comprehensive theories of creativity have been developed, two of which deserve particular mention: Csikszentmihalyi’s (1996, 1999) systems model of creativity and Sternberg and Lubart’s (1999) investment theory of creativity.

Csikszentmihalyi’s systems model of creativity

Csikszentmihalyi (1999, 1996) has argued that creativity is most usefully conceptualised as a systemic rather than an individualistic process which involves the dynamic interaction of three distinct systems:

1. the person with his or her talents, personality traits and motivations;

2. the domain which consists of the symbol-system, rules, techniques, practices and guiding paradigm; and

3. the field which consists of people working within the same domain (artists, scientists, critics, journal editors) whose activity is governed by the same domain-specific rules and practices.

Thus, the creativity process is an interaction between a creative individual who has become immersed in a field and come up with an original idea and an audience who may be ambivalent about accepting the idea. From Figure 5.1 it may be seen that for creativity to occur, a set of rules and practices must be transmitted from the domain to the individual. The individual must then produce a novel variation in the content of the domain. Motivation to produce this creative variation occurs when an appropriately talented individual responds to a tension between competing colleagues or critics within a field, or where there is a pronounced gap between the low demands of routine work within a field and the high ability of the person entering the field. The variation must then be selected by the field for inclusion in the domain and must also be transmitted through time if it is to be accepted by the community who make up the field. This is analogous to evolution. To be creative, an idea has to be adapted to its social environment and transmitted through time.

The individual’s creative work, the domain and the field are each parts of three wider systems. First, the creative individual’s work arises within the context of that person’s historical background and personal attributes. Second, the domain in which the work occurs (for example in a branch of science or art) is embedded within a wider culture.

Third, the members of the field in which the creativity occurs are also members of a wider society. According to Csikszentmihalyi’s theory, certain cultures, domains, fields, societies and personal attributes probably favour creativity.

Figure 5.1 Csikszentmihalyi’s systems