The Gifted Child: Perceived Competence, Prosocial Moral Reasoning, and Charitable Donations

Abstract

Abstract Higher levels of cognitive functioning in intellectually gifted children suggest a potential for higher functioning in other domains as well. Thirty-eight children ages 4 to 7 years were administered a perceived competence scale, prosocial moral reasoning stories, and a measure of charitable donation behavior. The results indicated that gifted children perceived themselves as more competent than their agemates in the cognitive domain, although perceived social competence results were equivocal. Gifted 4- and 5-year-old children used significantly less hedonistic reasoning and significantly more mutual needs reasoning than did their age-mates; gifted 6- and 7-year-old children showed less frequent use of direct reciprocity and stereotypic reasoning and greater use of abstract internalized reasoning than did their age-mates. Charitable donation behavior occured at a high frequency, with both age and sex affecting the apparent motivations for donation behavior. The lack of a contingent relationship ...