Is there an ethical giftedness, and if so, what does it look like? In this article, I consider why ethical behavior is much harder to come by than one would expect. Ethically gifted individuals are able to complete a series of eight steps to action, the failure of any one of which may result in a person, even one who is ethically well trained, to…

Purpose is an internal compass that integrates engagement in activities that affect others, self-awareness of one's reasons, and the intention to continue these activities. We argue that purpose represents giftedness in intrapersonal intelligence, which processes information related to self, identity, self-regulation, and one's place in the world.…

This study examined the intercultural sensitivity of Finnish 12-16-year-old secondary school students (N=549) with a 23-item Intercultural Sensitivity Scale Questionnaire (ICSSQ). The ICSSQ is based on Bennett's (1993) Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS), which is a conceptual tool to situate certain reactions towards cultural…

A key concern in research on talented adolescents is what adult achievements they will have. This paper examines the intentions of two (n=2) talented college students before they transition into adulthood. One of these adolescents is pursuing a goal primarily in order to impact the world, while the other is pursuing his goal for self-oriented…

Critics of moral judgment measures question whether the obtained pattern of relationships between moral judgment scores and outcome variables might be better explained by verbal/general ability. To address this concern, we assess the degree to which moral judgment development reduces to verbal ability using the Defining Issues Test (DIT). Our…

Do gifted students adjust poorly to their social environment? There are currently two competing positions: one that sustains that giftedness is by itself a risk factor for social adaptation, and another that holds that high cognitive abilities involve distinctive features that are protective and hence increase individual resilience. Empirical…

In the development of performance excellence, the relative roles played by intellectual ability and motivation remain speculative. This study investigates the role played by general intelligence, school environment, self-efficacy, and aspects of personal identity in the formation of learning motivation in German students attending the Gymnasium…

The purpose of this study was to gain insight into the academic achievements of 200 talented athletes in 1992/1993 and 200 in 2006/2007, aged 14-16 years. When compared with the national average, the athletes in 2006/2007 attended pre-university classes more often (X[superscript 2] = 57.001, p less than 0.05). Of the 2006/2007 athletes, a higher…

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the dramatic consequences the application of cut-off points can have in the practice of identifying gifted individuals. The paradoxical attenuation effect describes the frequent situation in which measurements of the gifts and talents individuals possess are lower than their true values. However, in…

Experts acquire domain-specific skills as a result of the activities in which they participate throughout their development. We examine the domain-specific activities in which two groups of elite youth soccer players participated between six and 12 years of age. Our goal was to examine early participation differences between those who progressed…

The aim of this article is to empirically clarify factors and conditions of expertise. In addition to the core concept of expertise as excellence, a second factor needs to be taken into account: professionalism, or professional engagement. This hypothesis was tested and confirmed using data obtained from a survey on Swiss environmental…

In November 2005, the International Olympic Committee's Medical Commission issued a statement on "Training the elite child athlete" recommending that "more scientific research be done to better identify the parameters of training the elite child athlete". This paper focuses on a specific issue related to training the child athlete: early…

This study assessed 43 gifted adolescent females in the United States and Germany over a 4-year period. Initially the girls were assessed during their 7th or 8th grade and again for this current study during their 11th or 12th grade. Factors that were examined included the daughters' attachment to and psychological separation from their mothers,…

In recent years, there has been an increasing recognition that the educational needs of able students were not being adequately met in British schools resulting in a series of governmental educational initiatives aiming at improving the education of able students. The establishment of the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth (NAGTY) at…

Until recently, no self-report instruments have examined psychological skills use in both practice and competition. In light of the significant role of practice in sport performance outcomes, a need exists to measure these skills in both domains. This study was designed to investigate differences in performance strategies of US Olympians in both…