Peer Acceptance of Highly Gifted Children in Elementary School

Abstract

The variables associated with peer acceptance and rejection have been the subject of considerable investigation over the past few years. In a recent review of the literature, Lindzey and Borgatta (5) concluded that intelligence is positively related to social acceptance along with such variables as proximity in the classroom, socioeconomic status, and membership in religious and ethnic groups. But do these findings hold for all levels of intellectual ability? Is there possibly a point high on the intellectual scale where the difference between the gifted and the average child becomes too great for peer acceptance or social interaction? Terman's studies of gifted children (9) indicated that as a group they are socially accepted by their peers. Self-ratings as well as teacher-ratings supported this finding. However, the more highly gifted children had more problems of social adjustment than the less highly gifted. Hollingworth (3) supported this conclusion and suggested that gifted children whose intelligence quotients range from 125 to 155 showed the best peer adjustment. She felt that children who score higher have social difficulty because the complexity of their play behavior and the high level of their interests may alienate their peer group. Kerstetter (4) studied twenty-five children whose intelligence quotients on the Stanford-Binet Scale ranged from 160 to 202. These boys and girls, who were in Grades II through VIII, had been placed in classes for gifted children in New York City. In these classes the highly gifted children were, on the whole, socially well adjusted, and there seemed to be no relation between increased intelligence and social adjustment. Mann (6) investigated the social adjustment of 67 gifted children whose intelligence quotient on the Stanford-Binet Scale was 130 or above. These gifted pupils attended a workshop for a half-day and remained in the regular classroom for the other half-day. Mann found that the gifted children in Grades IV, V, and VI chose one another for friends more frequently than they chose from the 214 children of typical intelligence. Similarly, the children of typical intelligence tended to choose among themselves, generally ignoring the gifted children. It should be noted, however, that the children were asked to make their choice of friends while in their separate half-day programs. This may account in part for the few choices between the two groups. Miller (7) compared the social status and the socioempathic differences between 40 mentally superior (intelligence quotient 190-140), 40 retarded children (intelligence quotient 60-80,) and 40 randomly selected students in Grades IV and VI. He found that the gifted children in both grades were significantly the most popular of the three groups. The gifted children were also able to predict the social status of other children more successfully than could the children in the other two groups.