Social, Emotional, and Psychosocial Development of Gifted and Talented Individuals

By Anne N. Rinn

Social, Emotional, and Psychosocial Development of Gifted and Talented Individuals:

• Merges the fields of individual differences, developmental psychology, and educational psychology with the field of gifted education.
• Provides a complete overview of the social, emotional, and psychosocial development of gifted and talented individuals.
• Explores multiple paradigmatic lenses and varying conceptions of giftedness.
• Serves as a comprehensive resource for graduate students, early career scholars, and teachers.
• Addresses implications for the field of gifted education and future research.

This book is framed around four broad questions: (a) What is development?, (b) Are gifted individuals qualitatively different from others?, (c) Which psychosocial skills are necessary in the development of talent?, and (d) What effect does the environment have on the development of talent? Topics covered include developmental trajectories, personality development, social and emotional development, perfectionism, sensory sensitivity, emotional intensity, self-beliefs, motivation, systems perspective, psychosocial interventions, and counseling and mental health.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sourcebooks
• Release date: Aug 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781646320066

Anne N. Rinn

Anne N. Rinn, Ph.D., is Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of North Texas, where she also serves as Director of the Office for Giftedness, Talent Development, and Creativity. She has published extensively on topics related to the social, emotional, and psychosocial development of high-ability individuals.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Rinn, Anne N., 1978- author.

Title: Social, emotional, and psychosocial development of gifted and talented individuals / Anne N. Rinn.

Description: Waco, TX : Prufrock Press Inc., 2020. | Includes bibliographical references. | Summary: This book merges the fields of individual differences, developmental psychology, and educational psychology with the field of gifted education for a complete overview of the social, emotional, and psychosocial development of gifted and talented individuals-- Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020014709 (print) | LCCN 2020014710 (ebook) | ISBN 9781646320042 (paperback) | ISBN 9781646320059 (ebook) | ISBN 9781646320066 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Gifted persons--Psychology. | Creative ability--Psychological aspects. | Developmental psychology. | Educational psychology.

Classification: LCC BF412 .R43 2020 (print) | LCC BF412 (ebook) | DDC 155.45/5--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020014709

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020014710

Copyright ©2020, Prufrock Press Inc.

Edited by Stephanie McCauley

Cover design by Micah Benson and layout design by Shelby Charette

ISBN-13: 978-1-64632-006-6

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Dedication

For Dr. Sidney Moon.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1: Background

Section I: What Is Development?

Chapter 2: Cognitive Development, Intelligence, and Developmental Trajectories

Chapter 3: Personality Development

Chapter 4: Social and Emotional Development

Section II: Are Gifted Individuals Qualitatively Different From Nongifted Individuals?

Chapter 5: Perfectionism

Chapter 6: Sensory Sensitivity and Emotional Intensity

Section III: Which Psychosocial Skills Are Necessary in the Development of Talent?

Chapter 7: Self-Beliefs

Chapter 8: Motivation

Section IV: What Effect Does the Environment Have on the Development of Psychosocial Skills Conducive to the Development of Talent?

Chapter 9: Systems Perspective

Chapter 10: Psychosocial Interventions

Chapter 11: Counseling and Mental Health

Concluding Thoughts and Future Directions

References

About the Author

Acknowledgments

Early in my career, in the years just following the completion of my doctorate, I met up with Dr. Sidney Moon after a conference presentation that had just ended at the National Association for Gifted Children annual conference. I had adopted her as one of my mentors a few years prior, and in that meeting we were talking about my future in the field of gifted education. Among many other things, she told me I should write a social and emotional textbook for the field. I laughed and told her I did not think I had anything to say. Her expression never wavered as she looked straight at me and said, One day you will. Well, she was right. Thank you, Dr. Moon, for believing in me.

In the Spring 2018 semester, I had the opportunity to teach a new doctoral seminar on the social, emotional, and psychosocial development of gifted and talented individuals. Knowing I would also be writing this book, the syllabus for that class served as the first draft of the table of contents. I was fortunate to spend an entire semester in deep discussion with my insightful doctoral students on a topic with which I had been absorbed since I was an undergraduate. As a sophomore in college, my first paper in my Honors Introduction to Psychology class was on how self-concept differed between gifted and average-ability individuals. I have learned quite a lot since then, and I learned even more in leading the doctoral seminar in 2018. So, to that end, thank you to the brilliant students in that class: Sam Earls, Kacey Crutchfield, Melanie Meyer, Jessica Ottwein, Noel Jett, Kris Majority, Kay Shurtleff, Mattie Oveross, Kathy Soles, Lindsay Lee, and Sarah Roberts.

Thank you to Dr. Tracy Cross and Dr. Paula Olszewski-Kubilius for reviewing and providing feedback on drafts of a proposal for this book. And, thank you to Dr. Don Ambrose, Dr. David Dai, and Dr. Rena Subotnik for reviewing and providing feedback on drafts of this book. I am so thankful for your time, thoughtfulness, and kindness.

Introduction

Anyone whose chosen field is meant to support the development of unusually intelligent humans needs to begin with an understanding of who he or she is. (Tolan & Piechowski, 2013, p. 8)

Consider for a moment the following scenarios:

A professional musician is feeling performance anxiety, which is affecting his ability to perform.

A new graduate student feels like she does not belong in her graduate program because everyone else seems so much more accomplished and talented.

A young gymnast struggles with trading high school social experiences for training for the Olympics.

A seventh-grade honors student has seemingly lost all motivation for his schoolwork.

A second grader newly identified for gifted programming realizes that she is different from her same-age peers but does not understand how or why.

What do these individuals have in common? They all exhibit talent within their respective domains (i.e., academics, sport, music). Each of their talents has been recognized by others (e.g., experts in their field, educators). They have each experienced varying degrees of success (this is not to say the second grader is successful because she was identified for a gifted program, but she has done well academically for a couple of years). Yet, they are all experiencing something affecting their ability to reach their potential in their domains of talent that is seemingly unrelated to their actual talents. Reaching one’s potential does not just depend on one’s abilities, skills, or knowledge within a particular domain; just because a person has the requisite specific abilities and talents to succeed in a domain does not guarantee that they will be successful.

For many years, researchers have examined noncognitive skills and affective factors that contribute to achievement in grades K–12, experiences in higher education, and production and performance in the workforce. Researchers have termed these noncognitive skills or affective factors differently over time: work ethic, leadership, emotional intelligence, interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence, character traits, personality, drive, and psychosocial skills, to name a few (see Kyllonen et al., 2014). When looking at achievement, performance, or success in a domain of talent, noncognitive skills are just as important as domain-specific abilities along the talent development continuum (along with a host of environmental factors). Some even argue that noncognitive skills are more important than domain-specific abilities in the development of talent (e.g., Duckworth, 2016; Goleman, 1995).

In the field of gifted education, researchers have also used a variety of terms to describe the noncognitive skills and affective factors that impact gifted and talented individuals. Most notably, researchers in gifted education have used the term social and emotional development to discuss affective factors that aid or inhibit the process of personal growth and reaching one’s potential, and psychosocial skill development to discuss noncognitive or affective skills that aid in the development of talent; both terms have corresponding implications for gifted education. This book will explore these terms and their implications.

This book will also explore the jingle-jangle fallacy, a phrase first coined by Kelley (1927) in reference to construct measurement issues. When two scales with similar names measure different constructs, this is a jingle fallacy. When two scales with dissimilar names measure similar constructs, this is a jangle fallacy. Evidence of the jangle fallacy, in particular, can be seen in the field of gifted education. Plucker, Rinn, et al. (2017) noted that the jangle fallacy is even seen in the various definitions of giftedness that are pervasive in the field and suggested that individuals should not necessarily believe that two very similar things are distinct merely because they have different names. They asked, To what extent are various conceptions of giftedness separated by the same language? and Does the diversity of language . . . inhibit the field? (p. xv). In the context of the social, emotional, and psychosocial development of gifted and talented individuals, there is similar semantic overlap in terminology used to describe constructs of relevance (e.g., perseverance vs. grit) as well as in paradigmatic differences in the way the social, emotional, and psychosocial experiences of gifted and talented individuals are described.

Regardless of the semantic overlap, a focus on the social and emotional development of gifted and talented individuals, and a focus on the development of psychosocial skills needed across all domains of talent, is, without question, necessary in understanding the experiences of gifted and talented individuals in order to best serve them. Cognitive, intellectual, and academic abilities and domain-specific talents develop alongside social and emotional developmental milestones and abilities. Cognitive, intellectual, social, and emotional development impact and are impacted by the development of psychosocial skills. Further, all aspects of development are dependent upon the environment in which one lives. High ability and talent within a domain are not enough; social and emotional growth is an important factor in transforming childhood potential and ability into success or eminence in adulthood (Olszewski-Kubilius et al., 2015a).

The purpose of this book is to explore what is known about social and emotional development with a particular emphasis on how it relates to gifted and talented individuals, using existing theory and research as a basis. The book then moves into an examination of specific psychosocial skills shown by research to enhance the development of talent. By providing both a background on the social and emotional development of gifted individuals and a discussion of specific psychosocial skills that are necessary for talent development, this book provides a thorough look at all components of affective development and growth.

Chapter 1 begins with some background information to set the stage for the rest of the book. Section I starts with the question, What is development? The chapters in Section I cover major components of human development and developmental theory, including topics related to the various impacts of genetics and the environment on typical developmental patterns, cognitive development and developmental trajectories (Chapter 2), personality development (Chapter 3), and social and emotional development (Chapter 4).

Section II asks, Are gifted individuals qualitatively different from nongifted individuals? The chapters in Section II cover three main areas often associated with the belief that the gifted are qualitatively different from the nongifted, namely perfectionism (Chapter 5), sensory sensitivity (Chapter 6), and emotional intensity (Chapter 6).

Section III asks, Which psychosocial skills are necessary in the development of talent? The chapters in this section cover a multitude of psychosocial skills broadly labeled self-beliefs (Chapter 7) and motivation (Chapter 8).

In Section IV, the focus moves to the question, What effect does the environment have on the development of psychosocial skills conducive to the development of talent? The chapters in this section cover the environmental impact on social, emotional, and psychosocial development from a systems perspective (Chapter 9), from a psychosocial intervention perspective (Chapter 10), and from a counseling and mental health perspective (Chapter 11).

Finally, Concluding Thoughts and Future Directions discusses the implications for moving forward in the field of gifted education and talent development.

CHAPTER 1

Background

Do gifted individuals have unique characteristics that render them particularly vulnerable to an array of social and emotional difficulties? Do the characteristics associated with giftedness . . . make the subjective experience of meeting normal challenges qualitatively different from others’ experience (Peterson, 2009, p. 281)? Or, are gifted individuals socially and emotionally similar to average-ability individuals? Are the social and emotional difficulties some gifted individuals face due to interaction with an environment that does not facilitate the development of their talents? Does one’s definition of giftedness impact how one answers these questions?

For hundreds of years, the general belief among most people was that highly intelligent individuals were doomed to lives of social isolation, emotional instability, and psychopathology (Lombroso, 1891). However, with the Scientific Revolution, a paradigm of demystification of giftedness emerged, in which scientists and scholars strived to unpack individual differences through systematic investigation and measurement (Lo & Porath, 2017, p. 345). Simultaneous attempts at defining intelligence and measuring intelligence resulted in the first iteration of the modern-day IQ test in the early 1900s (Binet & Simon, 1904), as well as the notions of intelligence and human ability as IQ-based, an approach that has prevailed for more than a century. The IQ test allowed Terman (1925), the father of gifted education, a way to identify and label a group of high-ability children for his longitudinal study, resulting in the operationalization of giftedness as a high IQ.

Terman (1925) was the first to challenge beliefs from the late 1800s regarding highly intelligent individuals having social and emotional difficulties in his longitudinal study of 1,528 children with IQs above 140. Terman and his colleagues found that gifted children were average in many respects, including social adjustment and emotional stability. He concluded that gifted individuals were not doomed to poor social and emotional experiences throughout life, but that gifted individuals led satisfying and fulfilling lives. Critics of Terman’s work pointed out that the children in his study were all identified as intellectually gifted by their teachers, and there was very little ethnic, racial, or economic diversity in his sample. The generally positive adjustment found among these gifted children may not have been found among similarly able children who were not selected for Terman’s study, as the selected children were perhaps already well-adjusted because of the economic resources and stability of their families (Gross, 2004; Vialle, 1994). Other criticisms surrounding Terman’s work include an overemphasis on IQ, support for the meritocracy, and emphasizing genetic explanations for the origin of intelligence differences over environmental ones, as well as his willingness to form a strong opinion based on weak data (Warne, 2019, p. 3). Despite these criticisms, Terman’s work was influential and changed the way highly intelligent individuals are viewed, particularly with regard to their social and emotional development.

Hollingworth (1926, 1942) also made significant contributions to the understanding of the social and emotional development of gifted individuals. Hollingworth examined the peer relationships of children at differing ranges of intellectual giftedness, also using the newly developed IQ test to operationalize giftedness. She conducted her research in public school classrooms and discovered differences in the cognitive and affective development of moderately (IQ = 125–155) and highly (IQ > 160) gifted children. Moderately gifted children were found to be socially well-adjusted and self-confident, but the highly gifted children struggled with social isolation because of difficulties finding intellectual peers (Hollingworth, 1926). Yet, when these highly gifted children were permitted to work and play with their intellectual peers, regardless of chronological age, their social isolation largely disappeared (Gross, 2004).

Both Terman (1925) and Hollingworth (1926) set the stage for the study of the social and emotional development of gifted individuals, which continues today. Contemporary approaches to studying the social and emotional development of gifted children and adolescents are varied; most research focuses either on factors that might place gifted students uniquely at risk for social and emotional difficulties (Neihart et al., 2015) or on those psychosocial factors that might enhance the development of talent (Rinn, 2012). These two approaches to studying the social, emotional, and psychosocial development of the gifted can be somewhat aligned with the paradigmatic approach to giftedness that a researcher takes.

On the one hand, when approaching the notion of giftedness as that of a high IQ (e.g., IQ > 130), per Terman (1925) and Hollingworth (1926), asynchronous development among gifted individuals is observed, whereby the advanced intellectual capabilities of a child—as compared to the typical developmental trajectories related to physical, social, and emotional milestones—result in social and emotional issues unique to the gifted population (The Columbus Group, 1991). In other words, social and emotional issues and vulnerabilities arise because of this asynchronous developmental pattern between intellectual or cognitive abilities and social, emotional, and physical development. As with typically developing populations, intellectual/cognitive development and social, emotional, and physical development are intertwined among the gifted, and uneven rates of development may be impactful:

Emotions cannot be treated separately from intellectual awareness or physical development. All three intertwine and influence each other. A gifted 5-year-old does not function or think like an average 10-year-old. He does not feel like an average 10-year-old, nor does he feel like an average 4- or 5- year old. 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)

Researchers and practitioners who explicitly focus on the whole child (meaning the cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development) and who believe gifted children are cognitively, socially, and emotionally different from average-ability children have paradigmatic beliefs that align with the gifted child paradigm (Dai & Chen, 2014). The major tenets of the gifted child paradigm are that giftedness is based on IQ or ability level, that ability level can be measured and quantified (via IQ tests or ability measures), that gifted children are a distinct category with unique social and emotional needs, that gifted children should be educated differently than average-ability children, and that once gifted, always gifted (p. 48). Evidence of the impact of these unique paradigmatic beliefs will be shown throughout this book, despite the shifts in the operationalization of giftedness that began in the mid-1900s.

In the mid-1900s, the notion of giftedness expanded to include more than just IQ or general ability. For example, Witty (1958) distinguished between general intellectual abilities and specific talents, and Guilford (1950) drew attention to the construct of creativity. In 1972, the federal definition of giftedness comprised multiple categories, only two of which included intellectual or academic ability:

Children capable of high performance include those with demonstrated achievement and/or potential ability in any of the following areas, singly or in combination:

1. General intellectual ability

2. Specific academic aptitude

3. Creative or productive thinking

4. Leadership ability

5. Visual and performing arts

6. Psychomotor ability (Marland, 1972, p. 2)

The 1980s and 1990s saw numerous definitions of intelligence that emerged in the research literature and in popular psychology that included multiple categories and ways to be intelligent (Gardner, 1983/2011; Sternberg, 1985, 1986), and a new type of intelligence called emotional intelligence (Goleman, 1995; Salovey & Mayer, 1990). A new paradigmatic approach to understanding the notion of high ability had emerged.

If giftedness is viewed as something broader than just high IQ (e.g., as advanced academic abilities or domain-specific talents), a focus on unique social and emotional issues among the gifted becomes somewhat irrelevant because the group included as gifted is much larger in this operationalization of giftedness. Giftedness based only on a high IQ includes less than 3% of the population, who may have unique social and emotional experiences, as later chapters of this book will explore. But giftedness based on domain-specific abilities comprises a much larger group of people that is even less homogenous than those in the top 3% of the normal distribution, and it becomes more difficult to pinpoint unique social and emotional experiences with such a diverse group of people. Instead, when focusing on domain-specific talents, there is a tendency to focus on the development of an individual’s psychosocial skills that could impact the pursuit of expertise or eminence in that domain, such as persistence, goal-directed behavior, and self-beliefs.

Researchers and practitioners who focus on the circumstances in which talent develops within an individual have paradigmatic beliefs that align with the talent development paradigm (Dai & Chen, 2014). With regard to the affective component of the talent development model, in particular, there is a focus on the deliberate cultivation of psychosocial skills rather than simply identification of traits within individuals (Olszewski-Kubilius et al., 2015b, p. 196), meaning a focus on psychosocial skills such as goal-directed behavior will be more beneficial for developing talent than a focus on social and emotional traits like sensory sensitivity or emotional intensity. Depending on the researcher’s paradigmatic perspective, then, there are implications regarding the definitions of giftedness and talent, gifted education, and social, emotional, and psychosocial development. Dai and Chen (2014) explained,

Practical concerns and theory-driven research regarding the role of affect in talent development are quite different from those researchers whose focus is on social-emotional issues as an inherent part of being gifted; the latter has been a more dominant theme in research . . . Although being gifted and talented can correlate with particular social and emotional problems . . . affect in the context of talent development is more of a developmental issue: how certain affective experiences facilitate versus inhibit personal agency and initiative and foster versus impede a particular developmental path. (p. 165)

The shift from the gifted child paradigm to the talent development paradigm has caused disagreement among those in the field of gifted education for decades. This paradigmatic competition can be viewed from a timeline perspective. Following the publication of the federal definition of giftedness (Marland, 1972), Renzulli (1978) outlined his Three-Ring Conception of Giftedness (see Figure 1), which identified three interacting clusters of traits that also interact with personality and the environment to result in gifted behaviors. The three traits are: (a) above-average ability, but not necessarily superior ability (as measured by a cognitive ability or achievement test); (b) task commitment, which is a form of motivation; and (c) creativity, or curiosity and imagination.

Figure 1

Renzulli’s Three-Ring Conception of Giftedness

Note. The houndstooth background represents personality and environment, factors that give rise to the three clusters of traits. This background was not in the 1978 visual depiction of the Three-Ring Conception of Giftedness and was added later. From Schools Are Places for Talent Development: Promoting Creative Productive Giftedness, by J. S. Renzulli and S. M. Reis, in J. A. Plucker, A. N. Rinn, and M. C. Makel (Eds.), From Giftedness to Gifted Education: Reflecting Theory in Practice (p. 22), 2017, Prufrock Press. Copyright 2017 by Prufrock Press. Reprinted with permission.

The Columbus Group (1991) drafted its definition of giftedness as asynchronous development in direct response to Renzulli’s (1978) focus on gifted behaviors rather than the gifted child (discussed in detail in Chapter 2). Betts (1986) developed his Autonomous Learner Model, which is programming designed to focus on the whole gifted child, including the physical (health) domain, the intellectual/cognitive domain, the social domain, and the emotional domain (discussed in detail in Chapter 10). The Columbus Group’s (1991) definition of giftedness as asynchronous development and Betts’s Autonomous Learner Model (1986), both decidedly in the gifted child paradigm, were followed by a wave of talent development models: Tannenbaum’s (1983) talent development model consists of five components, all of which must be in place in order for giftedness to develop into performance or production during adulthood. The components are general ability (g), special or domain-specific ability, psychosocial abilities, external support, and chance. Other models of talent development by Coleman (1985), Bloom (1985), and Piirto (2007) followed.

Gagné’s (1985, 2017) Differentiated (now called Differentiating) Model of Giftedness and Talent attempted to distinguish between giftedness and talent in order to reconcile some of the confusion in the field. Gagné (2017) defined giftedness and talent as the following:

Giftedness designates the possession and use of biologically anchored and informally developed outstanding natural abilities or aptitudes (called gifts), in at least one ability domain, to a degree that places an individual at least among the top 10% of age peers.

Talent designates the outstanding mastery of systematically developed competencies (knowledge and skills) in at least one field of human activity to a degree that places an individual at least among the top 10% of learning peers (those having accumulated a similar amount of learning time from either current or past training). (p. 152)

Gagné merged this model with another of his models to form the Integrative Model of Talent Development (see Chapter 9), but he still differentiated between giftedness and talent, and confusion still exists in the field as it did a couple of decades ago. In 1997, Silverman wrote,

The field has lost its psychological roots and is currently adrift in a sea of confusion. Is giftedness simply a social construction? Is it adult achievement? Can one only be potentially gifted in childhood? Should we forget about giftedness and try to develop talents in all children? From the perspective of asynchronous development, the answers to all of these questions is a resounding No. These children are at serious risk for alienation if we do not begin to recognize their unique needs in early childhood and support their developmental