| Trait, Aptitude, or Behavior |
General Description |
How It May Look |
Motivation
Evidence of desire to learn. |
Internal drive or encouragement that initiates, directs, or sustains individual or group behavior in order to satisfy a need or attain a goal. |
Demonstrates persistence in pursuing or completing self-selected tasks (may be culturally influenced); evident in school or non-school activities. Enthusiastic learner; has aspirations to be somebody, to do something. |
Interests
Intense, sometimes unusual, interests. |
Activities, avocations, objects, etc. that have special worth or significance and are given special attention. |
Unusual or advanced interests, topic, or activity; self-starter; pursues and activity unceasingly beyond the group. |
Communication Skills
Highly expressive with words, numbers, or symbols. |
Transmission and reception of signals or meanings through a system of symbols (codes, gestures, language, and numbers). |
Unusual ability to communicate (verbally, nonverbally, physically, artistically, symbolically); uses particularly apt examples, illustrations, or elaborations. |
Problem-Solving Ability
Effective, often inventive, strategies for recognizing and solving problems. |
Process of determining a correct sequence of alternatives leading to a desired goal or to successful completion of a performance task. |
Unusual ability to devise or adopt a systematic strategy to solve problems and to change the strategy if it is not working; creates new designs; inventor. |
Memory
Large storehouse of information on school or non-school topics. |
Exceptional ability to retain and retrieve information. |
Already knows; needs only 1-2 repetitions for mastery; has a wealth of information about school and non-school topics; pays attention to details; manipulates information. |
Inquiry/Curiosity
Questions, experiments, explores. |
Method or process of seeking knowledge, understanding or information. |
Asks unusual questions for age; plays around with ideas; extensive exploratory behaviors directed toward eliciting information about materials, devices, or situations. |
Insight
Quickly grasps new concepts; sees connections; senses deeper meanings. |
Sudden discovery of correct solution following attempts based primarily on trial and error; putting disparate elements together in unexpected ways. |
Exceptional ability to draw inferences; appears to be a good guesser; is keenly observant; heightened capacity for seeing unusual and diverse relationships, integration of ideas and disciplines. |
Reasoning
Logical approaches to figuring out solutions. |
Highly conscious, directed, controlled, active, intentional forward-looking, and goal-oriented thought. |
Ability to make generalizations and use metaphors and analogies; can think things through in a logical manner; critical thinker; ability to think things through and come up with a plausible answer. |
Imagination/Creativity
Produces many ideas; highly original. |
Process of forming mental images of objects; qualities, situations, or relationships which aren't immediately apparent to the senses; problem solving through nontraditional patterns of thinking. |
Shows exceptional ingenuity in using everyday materials; is keenly observant; has wild, seemingly silly ideas; fluent, flexible producer of ideas; highly curious. |
Humor
Conveys and picks up on humor well. |
Ability to synthesize key ideas or problems in complex situations in a humorous way; exceptional sense of timing in words or gestures. |
Keen sense of humor that may be gentle or hostile; large accumulation of information about emotions; capacity for seeing unusual; uncommon emotional depth; openness to experiences; sensory awareness. |
Intensity ('Overexcitabilities' *)
Strength of reactions, responses, behaviors. (* Dabrowski) |
Very Strong, even extreme, responses to stimuli in five areas: emotional, intellectual, sensory, psychomotor, and imagination. |
Intense desire for experiences in the area(s) of overexcitability; powerful emotions; seeks intellectual stimulation; sensory experiences evoke strong responses; constant or repetitive movement or gesturing; intense fantasy life; may need creative outlets for intensity. |
Sensitivity
Strong reactions to emotional stimuli. |
Events and situations in the affective and social domains elicit a stronger response than usual. |
Strong sense of compassion; keen sense of justice; empathy; moral and ethical sensibilities; sense of being 'different' socially; existential worrying; often overly self-critical. |
| |
Signs of Giftedness in Adulthood by Elyse Killoran
The vast majority of adults who were labeled "gifted" in childhood are unaware that their advanced development would continue to have an impact throughout their lives. Contrary to popular belief, giftedness is not characterized by high intelligence alone. Rather, gifted individuals experience early & exceptional psychological, spiritual, and intellectual development. As a result, gifted adults exhibit common personality traits and face similar challenges on the road to self-actualization. Gifted adults demonstrate: - Qualitative differences in information processing -- characterized by: unique perception and awareness; a sense of humor and creativity outside the norm; questioning, searching for truth, intuitiveness; insightfulness; comfort with both divergent thinking (breaking things into components) and synergistic thinking (putting things together to form something new and different); relentless curiosity and heightened creative drive; more process-oriented than product-oriented; hold divergent values compared to mainstream culture.
- High sensitivity -- characterized by: sensitivity to others often combined with a sense of personal alienation and loneliness; acute awareness of complexities and consequences; heightened responsivity to expectations of others.
- Intensity -- characterized by: high excitability; high energy level; emotional reactivity; high arousal of central nervous system.
- Multipotentiality -- characterized by: having capabilities in many areas and domains of talent; can move fluidly from one pursuit or interest to the next; have the ability to juggle many things at once.
- Idealism -- characterized by: striving for moral integrity; interest in social reform & service; extraordinarily high standards; low tolerance for mediocrity and frustration.
- Perfectionism -- characterized by: self-criticism; labeling themselves as "scattered"; having a lowered sense of entitlement to make mistakes; identifying easily with failure; thinking they are more likely to blame than others; difficulty taking credit for achievement and abilities ("imposter" phenomena).
- Internal locus of control -- characterized by feelings of: being out of step and on a separate path; being "Other"; not fitting in; striving for Inner Authenticity may experience deep conflicts between needs for self-actualization and maintaining traditional relationships.
- Strong entelechy (from Greek for "having a goal") -- characterized by: the need for self-determination, for self-actualization; leadership qualities; achievement-oriented; interested in non-traditional careers and professions.
- Intense moral commitment -- characterized by: seeing injustice and doing something about it; willingness to stand up for one's beliefs; outrage at moral breaches that the rest of the world seems to take for granted.
- Global view -- characterized by respect for all human beings; a greater capacity for empathy; concern for others--especially children; sensitivity and warmth.
As a gifted individual, it is important that you recognize your precious creativity and acknowledge that the full expression of your gifts would be a tremendous contribution to the society at large. It is essential that you develop a plan to channel and focus your abundance of physical, sensual, intellectual and emotional energy. The above listing has been derived from the work of Douglas Eby, Mary Rocamora, Kathleen Noble and studies conducted by Linda Kreger Silverman of the Institute for the Study of Advanced Development. |