A Comparative Investigation of the Personality of Sixth-Grade Gifted Children and a Norm Group of Children

Abstract

COUNTRY'S number one asset in the curI rent race for world supremacy probably is the ability of its manpower to surpass that of others in creative thinking. Therefore, increasing em phasis has been placed on earlier recognition and development of the child who has the highest po tential for producing this creative thinking. Cre ativity is not limited to the gifted, but it is likely to be developed in those who are gifted. Some people still tend to think of the gifted child as an eccentric, bright little fellow with bulging forehead and large horn-rimmed glasses. Parents may even remark that they are glad their children are just average. When told they have a child of high intelligence, they sometimes be come concerned that the child will know than they. In fact many people, even teachers, seem unable to recognize superior mentality. The child who conforms best to the teacher's standards of behavior is sometimes rated as the most intelli gent of his group ; and the aggressive, pos sibly brighter child, who refuses to do more of the same problems, is labeled average in intelli gence and, besides that, troublesome. Psychologists, teachers, parents, and others recognize the importance of personality and its emotional components as they are related to maxi mum development of innate intelligence and they recognize also the difficulty of studying it. Terman reports a weakness in his monumental work on the gifted : A satisfactory evaluation of the unique character of genius as a whole can be attempted only when an x-dimensional method of psychological measurement has been devised and perfected.1 One of the major problems involved in making an adequate study of the personality of the gifted, or any group, has been the lack of a good measur ing instrument. Various techniques both projec tive and objective have been devised. Probably one of the most promising of the latter type results from research by R. B. Cattell2 and others using the factor analysis approach. The scale developed first was called the Sixteen Personality Factors test and was prepared for adults. Scales appropri ate for children have followed.