Aspects of personality and peer relations of extremely talented adolescents

Abstract

Exceptionally gifted students may be at risk for problems in social and emotional development. To discover if peer relations are affected by type and/or amount of giftedness, extremely mathematically or ver-bally talented 13 year-olds (top 1 in 10,000) were compared to modestly gifted students (top 1 in 20) of similar age on measures of popularity and peer accep-tance, participation in group activities, and personality traits. The verbatly or mathematically talented students were also contrasted on the same measures. Virtually no differences in group activities or personality traits were found. In their ratings of peer perceptions, the modestly gifted group exceeded the extremely gifted, especially the verbally gifted, in being considered ath-letic and popular, and in social standing. The modestly gifted also rated themselves as more extroverted, socially adept, and uninhibited. Perceptions of peer rat-ings of importance and acceptance were higher for the mathematically than the verbally gifted. Thus, extremely precocious adolescents, especially the verbally preco-cious, may be at greater risk for developing problems in peer relations than modestly gifted youth. Previous studies of personality traits and emotional adjust-ment of gifted students have generally concluded that the gifted are at least as well adjusted emotionally as the averag