Joseph S Renzulli

Sally M Reis

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Gifted Child Quarterly 
DOI: 10.1177/0016986209346824 
 2009; 53; 233 Gifted Child Quarterly
Sally M. Reis and Joseph S. Renzulli 
 Being That Stays in the Person Over Time and Experiences
Myth 1: The Gifted and Talented Constitute One Single Homogeneous Group and Giftedness Is a Way of
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233
Gifted Child Quarterly
Volume 53 Number 4
Fall 2009  233-235
© 2009 National Association for 
Gifted Children
10.1177/0016986209346824
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Myth 1: The Gifted and Talented Constitute  
One Single Homogeneous Group and  
Giftedness Is a Way of Being That Stays in  
the Person Over Time and Experiences
Sally M. Reis
University of Connecticut
Joseph S. Renzulli
University of Connecticut
It is better to have imprecise answers to the right ques-
tions than precise answers to the wrong questions.
—Donald Campbell
Can a field that prides itself on promoting creativ-
ity and innovation in young people handle these pro-
cesses itself? Deep-seated values, attitudes, and 
beliefs about the meaning of giftedness and how we 
should identify students for gifted programs have 
been slow to change because the evidence leading to 
this change conflicts with long-standing attitudes 
from outdated research, personal beliefs, and an edu-
cation system that places more emphasis on adminis-
trative expediency than recent evidence about human 
potential. Tidiness and efficiency are important to 
the operation of any enterprise but should never take 
the place of responsibility to do the right thing for the 
young people we serve. Einstein, the personification 
of scientific giftedness across ages and cultures, said, 
“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not 
everything that counts can be counted.”
After having spent more than seven decades of our 
collective lives in the field of gifted education as 
teachers, school psychologist, coordinator, research-
ers, and university professors interested in the nurtur-
ance of gifts and talents, we believe there is no more 
potentially dangerous and false myth than the one 
above. Let us, therefore, begin this response with 
the following resounding statement: There is no single 
homogeneous group of gifted children and adults, 
and giftedness is developmental, not fixed at birth. 
Our work (Reis, 2005; Renzulli, 1978, 2005), as well 
as the collective work of others, some of whom we 
briefly mention, has contributed unequivocally to a 
robust research base that enables us to point convinc-
ingly to the heterogeneity of the group labeled 
“gifted” and the certainty we hold about giftedness as 
a developmental concept.
More than a decade ago, a task force of psycholo-
gists and educators spent 2 years reviewing all the 
extant research on the social and emotional character-
istics and needs of gifted and talented children and 
young adults resulting in an edited volume (Neihart, 
Reis, Robinson, & Moon, 2002). While completing 
that summary, we read hundreds of articles about 
gifted and talented children and adolescents, and in 
our executive summary, we stated,
There is no more varied group of young people than 
the diverse group known as gifted children and ado-
lescents. Not only do they come from every walk of 
life, every ethnic and socioeconomic group, and 
every nation, but also they exhibit an almost unlim-
ited range of personal characteristics in tempera-
ment, risk-taking and conservatism, introversion 
and extraversion, reticence and flamboyance, and 
effort invested in reaching goals. No standard pat-
tern of talent exists among gifted individuals. 
(Neihart et al., 2002, p. 1)
Our current federal definition suggests that gifted 
and talented students are indeed a diverse group of 
individuals as discussed above, students with varying 
Authors’ Note: Please address correspondence to Sally M. Reis, 
Department of  Educational Psychology, University of Connecti-
cut, 2131 Hillside Road Unit 3007, Storrs, CT 06269-3007; 
e-mail: Joseph.renzulli@uconn.edu
Myths
 at PAUL D WEST PROF on May 10, 2010 http://gcq.sagepub.comDownloaded from 
234   Gifted Child Quarterly, Vol. 53, No. 4
abilities and potentials in one or many domains. This 
widely accepted federal definition of giftedness 
(Ross, 1993) highlights students’ intellectual, creative, 
and/or artistic areas; unusual capacity for leadership; 
or excellence in specific academic fields. This defini-
tion discusses outstanding talents present in children 
and youth from all cultural groups, across all economic 
strata, in all areas of human endeavor. In this defini-
tion, as well as other well-researched conception of 
giftedness including our own, the notion that gifted-
ness is a developmental construct is widely supported 
(Bloom, 1985; Gardner, 1983; Renzulli, 1978, 1986, 
2005; Sternberg & Davidson, 1986, 2005).
Diverse Characteristics
In research about gifted students from diverse 
backgrounds, Frasier and Passow (1994) referred to 
“general/common attributes of giftedness”—traits, 
aptitudes, and behaviors consistently identified by 
researchers as common to all gifted students. Although 
they identified common elements of giftedness (moti-
vation, advanced interests, communication skills, 
problem-solving ability, well-developed memory, 
inquiry, insight, reasoning, imagination/creativity, 
sense of humor, and advanced ability to deal with 
symbol system), they also explained that students do 
not display each trait, cautioning that characteristics 
are manifested differently in different students.
Research in the past few decades has pointed to the 
ways in which gifts and talents vary, including in 
the following general categories of developmental 
characteristics:
·	 Abilities and aptitudes vary in both verbal and 
nonverbal areas across age, population, sex, 
disability level, and ethnic group. Simply put, 
high aptitude manifests itself in vastly differ-
ent ways depending on what assessment has 
been used, students’ family and cultural back-
ground, and other areas of talent potential, 
including the absence or presence of motiva-
tion, creativity, and disabilities.
·	 Achievement is usually associated with high 
achievement, but achievement can and does 
vary across high-potential children and over 
time (Reis & McCoach, 2000). High-ability 
children underachieve because of decreased 
motivation, social and emotional affect, effort, 
interest, and absence of challenge, engagement, 
and support. Children with high aptitudes but 
with learning disabilities, for example, may 
increasingly demonstrate low motivation in 
school as they become older, and subsequently, 
they have lowered achievement.
·	 Academic background, because of different 
experiences, results in poor preparation for 
many young people and adults with high apti-
tudes. Continuous academic progress depends 
on strong academic preparation, especially at 
early ages when brain development progresses 
at a rapid pace.
·	 Culture and identity are important because 
children from diverse backgrounds and racial 
and socioeconomic groups interact with 
achievement in rich and diverse ways, and we 
sometimes fail to take their unique identities 
into account (Ford & Harris, 1999).
·	 Effort and motivation matter! No single non-
cognitive trait is more influential on high lev-
els of performance than effort or motivation, 
and in addition to factors mentioned above, 
young people and adults with high potential 
are most hampered by underchallenging learn-
ing or work experiences. High-aptitude stu-
dents often “coast” through school without 
having to expend effort, and when they finally 
do encounter a challenge, some experience a 
loss of confidence in their abilities resulting in 
diminished achievement levels (Reis & 
McCoach, 2000).
·	 Interests, learning styles, and creative oppor-
tunities are intimately associated with high 
performance. All persons recognized in history 
as gifted contributors in the arts, sciences, 
humanities, and other areas of human perfor-
mance have had interest bordering on passion 
for their work, opportunities to pursue this 
work in a manner compatible with their pre-
ferred ways of learning, and environments that 
provided opportunities for creative expression. 
Without these factors and environmental con-
ditions, even persons with exceptional cogni-
tive potential do not maximize their potential.
In addition to these important contributors to the devel-
opment of high performance, a number of other factors 
that we sometimes refer to as “intelligences outside the 
normal curve” (Renzulli & Reis, 2003) play a role in 
the high-level accomplishments. Courage, optimism, 
sense of power to change things, empathy, and physi-
cal and mental energy are factors we respect in the 
work of people such as Rachel Carson, Nelson 
Reis, Renzulli / Myth 1   235 
Mandela, Mother Theresa, and Martin Luther King. 
Combined with other noncognitive skills such as col-
laboration, leadership, organization, and self-efficacy, 
a picture of giftedness that extends far beyond the 
“golden chromosome” theory has led too many in our 
field to believe that some people are preordained to 
be “gifted.”
If the diversity and heterogeneity of this popula-
tion is so clear, why then does this myth continue to 
exist? Some educators and parents may hold outdated 
notions about the fixed conceptions of aptitude. For 
others, the myth may continue to exist because it is 
easier to identify “the gifted” by a score, despite pro-
testations of multiple criteria. For others, the myth 
means that they have not taken the time to consider 
the effects of poverty, hunger, poor schooling, or lack 
of stimulation on some children who had high poten-
tial but failed to develop it over time. And still others 
hold on to this myth because they have not kept 
abreast with the current research and information that 
has informed our field as well as the recognized 
accomplishments of untold numbers of people who 
had high scores but never did anything with them! 
Giftedness is not a state of being, it is not fixed, and 
it does not reside in a chosen few over their lifetimes 
as a fixed entity. It is, rather, developmental—in some 
children and adults with high potential, at certain 
times, under certain circumstances, and with appro-
priate levels of support, time, effort, and personal 
investments and choices.
References
Bloom, B. S. (Ed.). (1985). Developing talent in young people. 
New York: Ballantine.
Ford, D. Y., & Harris, J. J. (1999). Multicultural gifted education. 
New York: Teachers College Press.
Frasier, M. M., & Passow, A. H. (1994). Toward a new paradigm 
for identifying talent potential. Storrs, CT: The National 
Research Center on the Gifted and Talented, University of 
Connecticut.
Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intel-
ligences. Needham Height, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Neihart, M., Reis, S. M., Robinson, N. M., & Moon, S. M. (Eds.). 
(2002). The social and emotional development of gifted chil-
dren: What do we know? Waco, TX: Prufrock Press.
Reis, S. M. (2005). Feminist perspectives on talent development: 
A research based conception of giftedness in women. In 
R. J. Sternberg & J. Davidson (Eds.). Conceptions of gifted-
ness (2nd ed.). Boston, MA:  Cambridge University Press, 
pp. 217-245.
Reis, S. M., & McCoach, D. B. (2000). The underachievement of 
gifted students: What do we know and where do we go? 
Gifted Child Quarterly, 44, 152-170.
Renzulli, J. S. (1978). What makes giftedness: Reexamining a 
definition. Phi Delta Kappan, 60, 180-184.
Renzulli, J. S. (1986). The three-ring conception of giftedness: 
A developmental model for creative productivity. In R. J. 
Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of gifted-
ness (pp. 53-92). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University 
Press.
Renzulli, J. S. (2005). The three-ring conception of giftedness: A 
developmental model for promoting creative productivity. In 
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ness (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Cambridge University Press, 
pp. 217-245.
Renzulli, J. S., & Reis, S. M. (2003). Conception of giftedness 
and its relation to the development of social capital. In 
N. Colangelo & G. A. Davis (Eds.), Handbook of gifted edu-
cation (pp. 75-87). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. 
Ross, P. O. (1993). National excellence: A case for developing 
America’s talent. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of 
Education.
Sternberg, R. J., & Davidson, J. (Eds.). (1986). Conceptions 
of giftedness. Boston: Cambridge University Press.
Sternberg, R. J., & Davidson, J. (Eds.). (2005). Conceptions of 
giftedness (2nd ed.). Boston: Cambridge University Press.
Sally M. Reis is a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor and 
a teaching fellow in the Educational Psychology Department at 
the University of Connecticut where she also serves as principal 
investigator for the National Research Center on the Gifted and 
Talented. She was a teacher for 15 years, 11 of which were spent 
working with students on the elementary, junior high, and high 
school levels. She has authored more than 250 articles, books, 
book chapters, and monographs and technical reports. Her 
research interests are related to enrichment and differentiation of 
instruction, as well as underachievement. She is also interested in 
special populations of gifted and talented students, including 
students with learning disabilities, gifted females, and diverse 
groups of talented students. She has spent most of her career 
helping implement Schoolwide Enrichment Model programs for 
both gifted and talented students and as a way to expand offer-
ings and provide general enrichment to identify talents and 
potentials in students who have not been previously identified as 
gifted. She is a past president of the National Association for 
Gifted Children and a fellow of the American Psychological 
Association.
Joseph S. Renzulli is a professor of educational psychology at 
the University of Connecticut, where he also serves as director of 
the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented. His 
research has focused on the identification and development of 
creativity and giftedness in young people, and on organizational 
models and curricular strategies for differentiated learning envi-
ronments that contribute to total school improvement. A focus of 
his work has been on applying the pedagogy of gifted education 
to the improvement of learning for all students. Dr. Renzulli is the 
author of numerous books and articles, and he has been awarded 
more than $35 million in research grants. He is Fellow in the 
American Psychological Association and was designated a Board 
of Trustees Distinguished Professor at the University of 
Connecticut in 2000. 
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