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Comments on an article by Albert Zieglera & Shane N. Phillipson (see record 2012-16824-002). Ziegler and Phillipson provide a timely, thought-provoking critique of traditional approaches to gifted education. For a long time, the field has searched in vain for the Holy Grail of giftedness. Alas, the essentialist assumption fails because giftedness does not have a single essence that holds its identity, unity, and continuity. Reification of the construct as an entity sitting in the head significantly narrows our vision of what constitutes human potential for excellence. To maximally realize human potential, it is important to reconceptualize giftedness as contextually and dynamically shaped through learning and development in a complex, reciprocal interaction of the person and the environment. Ziegler and Phillipson show us how it might be done. Although much is yet to be spelled out, some principles can be laid out. Too much time and resources are expended on futile attempts to figure out a gold standard or a litmus test for an unfailing determination of who are “gifted”. We should look at the current performance and proximal behavior of a child in deciding what kinds of education provisions are appropriate for the child instead of seeking the Holy Grail of giftedness and using the abstract notion of aptitude such as general intelligence or generic giftedness to guide policy and practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

The history of giftedness pertains to historical changes regarding how giftedness is conceptualized and defined, and how it serves the practical purpose of identifying gifted children and providing them an appropriate education. The past century has witnessed debates and controversies about what constitutes this elusive human quality we deem “gifted.” Overall, it has undergone significant changes from monolithic, static to more pluralistic, dynamic conceptions. The first part of this article delineates historical changes in the past 100 years in our understanding of the nature and development of giftedness, followed by the second part on the changing ways we define, assess, and identify gifted children or gifted potential for intervention purposes. The final part of this article depicts a broad trend toward expanding gifted education to a wider range of students, with the understanding that gifts and talents are widely distributed in student populations, and the deliberate cultivation of human potential should not be confined to a selected few. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: journal abstract)

In this article, I propose that various conceptions and theoretical models of giftedness can be understood along a continuum from the most reductionist to the most emergentist. Along with this continuum, I specify four levels of analysis based on the human functional hierarchy: the biological, operational (computational), intentional, and activity levels. I illustrate how reductionist and emergentist approaches provide contrasting views of intelligence and giftedness, with the former seeking basic elements and lower level explanations and the latter stressing complexity and higher level organization. I suggest that clearly articulating levels of analysis and principles for efforts of the reductionist or emergentist nature will enhance conceptual clarity and methodological rigor. Whether giftedness is understood in the reductionist or emergentist frameworks has many practical and policy implications for gifted education. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: journal abstract)

Comments on Sternberg's article on WICS as a model for giftedness (see record 2004-10570-002). The current author argues that the way Sternberg conceptualizes successful intelligence, creativity, and wisdom makes a compelling case that giftedness cannot be simply the genetic makeup of an individual. A valuable feature of the model is that it deviates from the traditional ability-centric conceptions of giftedness. As a point of disagreement, although Sternberg is correct in arguing that the distinction between natural ability and acquired expertise is a theoretical one, and that empirically teasing apart the two is extremely difficult, it seems safe to say that fluid ability tests rely much less on experience and prior knowledge than crystallized ability tests. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

This article presents a new theory of talent development, evolving complexity theory (ECT), in the context of the changing theoretical directions as well as the landscape of gifted education. I argue that gifted education needs a new foundation that provides a broad psychosocial basis than what the notion of giftedness can afford. A focus on talent development rather than giftedness should be based on a theory of talent development that is truly developmental, treating the developing person as an open, dynamic, and adaptive system, changing oneself adaptively while interacting with environmental opportunities and challenges. To introduce ECT, I first delineate the meaning and significance of four dimensions or “parameters” of talent development undergirding this new theory: domain, person, development, and culture. I then describe how ECT explicates the developmental processes and transitions as the result of human adaptations to environmental opportunities and challenges. More specifically, ECT uses the constructs of characteristic and maximal adaptation to elucidate how domain, person, development, and culture jointly shape a particular line of talent development, and how cognitive, affective, and social processes interact to push and sustain a critical transition from characteristic adaptation to maximal adaptation, eventually leading to high-caliber performance and creative productivity. I finally discuss the theoretical contributions and practical utilities of ECT for future research and practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: journal abstract)

The main argument of this article is that human living systems are open, dynamic, intentional systems and, therefore, are capable of building ever more complex behaviors through self-organization and self-direction. This principle underlying general human development is also applicable to the development of gifted and talented behaviors. These behaviors are dynamic because persons demonstrating such behaviors are forming dynamic, functional relations with a specific environment, with unique temporal trajectories capable of engendering emergent properties that feed into further development. This Contextual, Emergent, and Dynamic Model provides an alternative to traditional static, reductionistic, trait-based conceptions of giftedness. The article further elaborates on three dynamic facets of the making of gifted potential: selective affinity, maximal grip, and being at the edge of chaos. These facets allow for dealing with the genesis of talents, developing expertise over an extended period, and developing creative potential. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: journal abstract)

This study surveyed 1,234 empirical studies on giftedness, gifted education, and creativity during 1998–2010 (April), using PsycINFO database and targeted journals as main sources, with respect to main topics these studies focused on, methods they used for investigation, and the conceptual spaces they traversed. Four main research topics emerged from the survey: creativity/creatively gifted, achievement/underachievement, identification, and talent development. Rich and broad conceptual spaces linking these four categories to their psychological underpinnings and educational implications have been explored by this body of research, though the conceptual spaces are still too loosely organized to be seen as paradigmatic. Several prominent trends are identified, including the emergent qualitative studies (accounting for a quarter of the total studies) and the dominance of descriptive (comparative and correlational) research. Although most psychosocial studies are conducted in the context of gifted education, there still seems to be a gap between theory and practice, between psychological understanding of gifted development and promoting such development through education. More systematic, sustainable programs of research and more coordination among researchers are warranted to move the field forward. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: journal abstract)