Science & Self-improvement

At school, there are many possibilities for the gifted child to have feelings of strangeness and loneliness. If he does not know that he is gifted, he will not understand why he has to do things that are boring, or why other children find that are fun activities that he does not find so. He will not understand that the way he is treated by peers is due to a difference in intelligence, and will feel that he is not liked by them because there is something wrong with him. He may even think that other children are cleverer because they see complexities that he does not perceive.

In reality, there is not much that the gifted child can do if he has to attend a normal school. Knowing that he has an increased intelligence, he will still have to learn that he does not fit in, that he has interests that do not match up with those of anyone else. Additionally, many gifted children do no understand social issues (such as dressing choices) and, in a normal school environment, will be considered weird because they are shy, use glasses, read more than others (or just read), or have a “bad” personality.

All these troubles are the product of an education that does not acknowledge gifts and a society that does not invite gifted individuals to fulfill their potential. Long lasting damage can be the effect of such an education. For example, when confronted with teachers that he finds illogical, unjust, or simply wrong, a gifted child may develop a resistance to authority that may obstruct his way to success.

The family of a gifted person can influence his life at least in two ways: during his childhood, by setting a friendly or hostile environment for the development of the gift; after childhood, by setting the goals that the person will pursue in his adult life.

Many people have sons when they do not want to. Gifted children may be born to non-gifted parents. Even if the parents are gifted, they may not know how to handle a gifted son. If the parents are not gifted, and they do not love the child, they may consider him a nuisance, yell, and use physical punishment. He will be imposed perfect obedience: any manifestation of his intelligence will be considered a challenge to the parent’s authority and any objection will be dismissed.

Some parents will consider precocity as a behavioral problem and will try to bring the child to ‘normality,’ imposing him a behavior that conflict with his need to actualize his potential. Other parents, who recognize the special condition of their child, may nevertheless prefer it to be concealed so that other people do not see the child as weird. If the gifted child has non-gifted siblings, his parents may choose to praise the other children’s achievements instead of his on the grounds that they must be impartial. In both cases the result is that the gifted child becomes ashamed of what he is.

On the other hand, parents may misunderstand the nature of the gifted child and place on him excessive expectations or demands for an adult-like behavior. They may forget that besides being gifted he is a child and will display a childish behavior in matters not connected with his gift such as, for example, tidying his room.

Excessive expectations may reinforce the tendency to perfectionism and make that the child feels obliged to replace his own goals for his parents’. Parents who expect too much from their gifted child will usually not admit his need for counseling.

Unlike the children of Terman’s study, Hollingworth’s subjects had no notice of their special characteristics and, therefore, considered themselves to be normal. Therefore, when the other children could not perform activities that for them were easy, they considered the others to be dumb. This was, of course, a cause of trouble with the other children that could have been avoided if knowledgeable teachers had told them about their special condition and taught them to appreciate the other’s strengths.

The fact that teachers did not give the gifted children class work related with their capacity was also unfortunate because it made that the children did not respect school authorities that obliged them to carry out tasks that they considered being foolish. A circumstance like this can lead to a generalized lack of respect for authority, and can cause that the gift adult be unable to understand that he must accept a subordinated position before being in a leading one.

The gifted child is normally compelled to control the exactness of every argument and the conflicts with his teachers for this cause can lead to anger and hostility that can influence his adult life. The negativism and cynicism induced in the child as a result of being treated incorrectly can make necessary in adulthood a program of emotional education to prevent his career from being seriously affected.

According to Hollingworth, an IQ between 130 and 150 makes the child to be sufficiently smart to occupy a leadership position among his schoolmates, but no so smart as to be much different from them. Beyond that intelligence level, differences with the other children are too great to make interesting to him to integrate within the group. In this case, isolation is likely to occur.

Contemporary research about gifted people’s characteristics established that most gifted people have reading as their main entertainment. Typically, they were raised in homes with more than 500 books. The amount of books at home and the diversity of subjects are greater as the intelligence of the individual increases. The literature gender preferred by the young gifted person is scientific fiction.

The fact of having children of the same age as schoolmates can have a negative effect on the self-esteem of the gifted child; the feeling of isolation and confusion caused by his differences with the others is more intense as are greater his intellectual abilities. If the child is placed in a class with schoolmates that are older than him but with the same intellectual development, he will have the opportunity to build a good self-esteem.

Young gifted people may worry about topics such as life and death, the origin of life, and the relation of men with God. They prefer intellectual games that correspond to an older age. Their concern with ethics and morals leads them to take values as relative and to doubt of things that other children have as assumed.

Lewis Terman, the creator of the Stanford-Binet test of intelligence, studied from childhood until adulthood the life of 1,500 gifted children from California State in the first half of the 20th century. It was observed that gifted children had less interest than normal children to participate in games that demanded social interaction. Terman attributed this greater degree of self-sufficiency to the fact that they were more able to entertain themselves. He also indicated that social adjustment was difficult to a gifted child, and that to achieve a normal adjustment the child had to have a very well balanced personality and excellent social abilities.

Games that may be preferred by a gifted child as quizzes, puzzles, chess, checkers, are not generally of interest to the other children as a result of the intellectual effort that they require. That is why when children with different interests and preferences are placed together in the same school class, the gifted one appears as less sociable, perhaps because he has already lost interest in games that the others still find to be acceptable.

Besides observing, in the whole group, a tendency to solitude that he considered to be intentional, Terman also noted that children of higher IQ (above 170) did not manifest in their grades the outstanding level that would be expected. On the contrary, some of them had average or bad grades.

Among the aspects researched were honesty and sincerity. It was found that gifted children attained high levels at this respect, what sometimes made them to get into trouble because they were deemed as impolite.

In the 1920s, Leta Hollingworth made a study of children with an IQ greater than 180, which furnished interesting results about the troubles they meet in a conventional school environment. Such children, said Hollingworth, were considered to be inattentive, unable to attend to class work, and socially immature.

Terman had observed inconvenient attitudes and laziness in the subjects of his study. Hollingworth postulated that there was no such laziness but rather a lack of motivation caused by a class work that did not excite them and that accustomed them to little effort in learning and working.

She concluded that, in reality, the gifted children were not lazy but bored and unmotivated because they were given class work that they had mastered much earlier than their classmates. Usually, exposed Hollingworth, a child that was given a task too easy for him would try to avoid boredom by daydreaming or teasing his classmates.

One interesting finding of Hollingworth was that having to study with children of lesser capacity and being subject to the authority of teachers without the adequate capacity has an effect on personality. The result of schoolwork too easy for the gifted children was that they did not acquire the habit of hard work.

To be a person with a high IQ does not necessarily mean that the person has to stand out in such a manner as to be qualified as a ‘genius.’ This term is usually applied to those people that are prominent in some field of human activity. It can be stated that to be intelligent does not ensure to be a genius.

To arrive at this conclusion, one has only to think that a person with an IQ of 145 or higher is certainly a gifted person. Tests administered in the USA indicate that in this country there are about three of these persons for each thousand (0.3%). This may seem insignificant, but, considering the population of United States, approximately 800 thousand of USA inhabitants should be regarded as geniuses, which obviously it is not the case.

The reason that this does not occur is that geniuses are not self-made people who overcame every sort of obstacles employing nothing more than his intellect.
This was made evident by Catherine Cox who made a study of three hundred eminent historical figures. In this research, it was found that the majority of them was educated at home or received specialized education. These people had as a common trait a negative attitude towards formal education. They had troubles with it or directly rejected it. A usual circumstance was the strong support from their parents and, especially, from their mother. Those that had fewer difficulties to apply their abilities were aided by a family environment that conformed to their particular characteristics. But everyone, said Cox, had experiences or people that give them the drive they needed.

Similar results were obtained by V. and M. G. Goertzel, who studied four hundred famous personalities from the XX century. At least a parent, and often all the family, helped the gifted child to attain a position of preeminence in the field of his choice. They give the child an opportunity by letting him access books and other assets, by furnishing private teachers, and by allowing alterations to normal school schedule. It was usual to find cases of school quitting due to lack of patience with the normal educational process.

The parents’ attitude was, exposed the Goertzel, to stress the importance of intellectual or creative work and to ignore or diminish the role of normal schooling. They did not participate from the usual concept that schools provide a knowledge that everyone must acquire. Rejection to school was, however, diminished when the child found a teacher that could establish an adequate communication.

Another study by Benjamin Bloom of people who earned fame in a given area shows that the majority exhibited abilities in the area once they were acquainted with it, and that this was made possible by the action of the parents rather than the school. Parents that had an interest in giving their children an opportunity to receive education in the area were decisive in the career of the subjects, who acknowledged that the greater part of their learning occurred out of school.

Family support was essential, says Bloom, to the accomplishments of his subjects, as well as the teaching of hard work’s value. Occasionally, they were also fortunate to have a teacher or private instructor who could give them the impulse to develop.

The statistical distribution of IQ scores can be used in order to define a gifted person. Every intelligence test gives scores that follow a normal or Gaussian curve, although the values of the mean and the standard deviation (SD) may vary from test to test. I will take here as an example a very usual test–the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS).

This test is standardized so that the average corresponds to a score of 100 and the standard deviation is set to 15 points. Assuming that the scores’ distribution is normal, 68% of the scores will be between the average minus one SD and the average plus one SD, that is, they will be between 85 and 115. Ninety-five percent of the scores will be between the values of 70 and 130. The small number of individuals whose score is greater than 130 (only 2.5%) are usually called ‘gifted persons’ to emphasize that their intelligence is significantly greater than the average.

When two persons have IQ scores that differ notably, let us say 20 or 30 points, this is not the only difference but there are as well other differences that affect personality. The interests of a child with an IQ of 120 are not the same than those of a child with an IQ of 140. They will prefer, for instance, different ways to spend their leisure time. The probability that a child had an IQ of 140 is about one in fifty, so that from fifty children only one may be in this situation. In a school class, this child will probably be the only of his type. Most certainly, his interests and his values will have little in common with the rest of the class.

To talk about gifted people, it is necessary first to characterize them. This is also needed so that people trying to help can recognize them, and they can recognize themselves. Most gifted people do not recognize themselves as being gifted. This leads to psychological suffering that can be avoided if a correct identification is made. It is important, therefore, to try to obtain a good description of a gifted person. Research abounds in characteristics that are attributed to the gifted person. However, it is difficult to say which of these characteristics is necessary to make up a gifted person, and which are only more usual among gifted people. Many of these characteristics are not exclusive of gifted people but rather it is their intensity that is different in gifted people. For example, emotional intensity is normally attributed to gifted people. However, everybody has emotions, and it is difficult to ascertain what emotional level a person must attain to be called gifted.

Intelligence was the first trait in originate the qualification of gifted, and it is still the more dependable. It is so because we have a way to quantify the intelligence of a person–psychometric tests. Although very controversial, psychometric tests are the most well understood psychological measurements. They have a high reliability–whatever it is that they measure, it is measured accurately. If we designate the characteristic that is measured by psychometric tests as ‘intelligence,’ we can say that a high intelligence is the first requisite to be a gifted person.

An intelligence test score is usually known as an intelligence quotient (IQ), so a highly intelligent person can be called a high IQ person. To qualify as a high IQ person, a person must have an IQ of 130 or higher. Only 2.5 percent of the population has such a high IQ, what means that one of 40 persons is possibly gifted. It is a usual error to assume, though, that all people with an IQ higher than 130 are similar. A person with an IQ of 160 is as much different from the person of IQ 130 as is this one from an average person.

The second most cited characteristic of gifted people is emotional intensity, which means having profound and varied feelings. It has been argued that gifted people not only think differently, but also feel differently. Some people even postulate that emotional intensity is related with intelligence: the higher the intellectual level, the more emotionally intense the person will be.

The third most popular characteristic among researchers is moral concern. It is said to be an expression of intellectual intensity and likely to be observed even in small gifted children. Moral concern can be related with another trait, idealism, which indicates an ability to know what could be possible and can easily become a tendency to assert what it should be.

The nature of the gifted person has been attributed to the asynchronous development of mental capabilities in relation with other traits. The gifted child has mental processes that correspond to an older child, while his social abilities are similar or inferior to those of his peers. This has effects on the overall development of the person, as the experiences of a child that has precociously started to speak or read are very different from those of other children.

It should be mentioned that there exist people who argue that a gifted person should be distinguished not by his characteristics but because of his performance or his achievements. With respect to performance, this conception may have been originated in a usual use of the term ‘gifted’ to refer to a person that has been endowed with some talent. It is usual to hear that somebody is “a talented actor” or “a gifted singer.” It must be remarked, nonetheless, that this interpretation is not related at all with any intelligence measure. To be a good or even an excellent singer it is not necessary to have a high IQ. It is therefore convenient to differentiate these two cases using the words ‘gifted’ and ‘talented.’

With respect to achievement, the argument is that to be called gifted a person must give some practical demonstration of his gift, as can be an important discovery in the case of a scientist. It must be remembered that every definition is meant to be used in a given context, and that context must be kept in mind when discussing the validity of a definition. If one is going to assign funds to research, it may be valid to consider that a gifted person is the person with a history of achievements. On the other hand, if one is considering why in some instances gifted people do not achieve, then this definition is not useful.

Self-esteem is not a mere feeling, neither is it the state of mind induced by alcohol or drugs. It is a belief substantiated in a way of living that entails the practice of consciousness, self-acceptance, responsibility, assertiveness, integrity and having a life purpose.

Consciousness is the human characteristic of being aware of oneself and one’s surroundings. Animals are conscious of their environment; this is indispensable for their survival. In addition, man is aware of himself. He can watch himself and pay heed to his internal states of anger, joy, fear, etc. However, human consciousness can be controlled. People can choose how much awareness they want to exert, and some people elect to be as least aware as possible. These people are not likely to have a good self-esteem.

To accept oneself means to have no disapproving feelings about what one knows of oneself. It is related with awareness, the primary attribute. If you have a false image of yourself, you may approve it, but you are wrong in doing so. A person who has high self-esteem does not need to deceive himself. The cause for self-deception is low self-esteem. The person thinks poorly of himself, so he builds an idealized image that he can like.

To behave with responsibility means to acknowledge the consequences of one’s actions. Every action one performs has some outcome that affects oneself or other people. One should be aware of these consequences and should decide accordingly what to do and what not to do. If one chooses one’s actions without minding their consequences, one cannot be said to be a responsible person.

Being assertive means to honor one’s feelings, desires, values, and tastes. It means to not discard them in favor of other person’s, unless there is a good cause to do so. It does not mean to demand that everyone think as you do, or like what you like, but to support your right to have it your way. An assertive person upholds his opinion when it is sensible to do so.

A basic condition to esteem a person is that the person had a behavior according to what he says to profess or to the commitments he makes. Failure to do so may cause that one like him because he is warm-hearted, or because he is generous, but this is not to be mistaken for esteem. The same applies to self-esteem. You know what are your beliefs, and you know when you betray them in what you say or what you do. Self-esteem cannot be enjoyed unless there is integrity in your life.

Having a purpose for one’s actions means that one is in control of one’s life. Therefore, it does not matter what that purpose is, as long as it is freely chosen. What undermines self-esteem is to follow other person’s purpose, or not having purpose at all. You may decide to dedicate your life to assist other people, and it will be all right because it is your decision.

Self-esteem cannot be induced by drugs or compliments. If you take drugs–including alcohol–that make you think you are a very resourceful person, you may feel confident but this is not self-esteem: it is just an illusion. People with high self-esteem do not need to be intoxicated to think highly of themselves. They also do not need other people’s compliments to think so. As it can be seen, self-esteem refers on one side to being in touch with reality, and on the other side to observing certain behaviors. Both aspects are affected when one escapes from reality due to the influence of fear or desire.

Change is a characteristic of life, and ours is a time when change occurs more rapidly than ever. Every man that lived had to experience the changes that inevitably happen from birth to death. Everyone had to go through infancy, adolescence, adulthood, old age, and senility.

Each person confronts differently the changes that the pass of time imposes on his body and on his mind. Some ones pass from one age to the next with grace and smoothly. For others each turn of age is a crisis, what caused that the expression “life crisis” were coined. Self-esteem has much to do with the manner in which a life crisis is faced.

To pass from one life age to the next involves changes in ways of thinking and in responsibility. Things that were impossible to do are now possible, and things that one used to do one should not do them anymore. There are also things that one would like to continue doing, and that one cannot do. Things that one may never have dreamed to do are now a necessity.

These changes in behavior, even if they are not abrupt, pose a challenge on the person. How this challenge is dealt with depends partially on the self-esteem of the person. The low self-esteem person is annoyed by these changes; the high self-esteem person confronts them confidently. Of course, it is not the only factor: social expectations, for example, also play a part. However, flexibility and self-esteem are highly correlated.

Superimposed on the changes that biology and society cause to each individual, there are the changes that society itself experiments. In previous times, these changes were slow enough so that a person did not take notice of them. When he was a child, he had an image of old people. When he himself became an old person, he would incarnate that same image.

This does not happen any longer. While a person goes from childhood to maturity, social expectations vary considerably. The mature person finds that social roles are no longer what he learned when he was a child. What society expects from the young and the old is now different. He has to change his outlook on youth and his expectations about becoming old.

This situation is seen as a threat to the self, because when your reference framework is altered your individuality dilutes. If this individuality was already weak as a result of low self-esteem, the situation is even more complicated. A high self-esteem is based in strong individuality, and it prepares the person to resist changes better.

When a person has low self-esteem, he depends on the beliefs of other people. He has not beliefs of his own because he is not confident on his ability to reason. When the occasion arises to make a decision, which is always based on a judgment, he turns to the judgment of others. Conversely, the person with high self-esteem need not turn to others to know what to do. He has his own ideas that govern his behavior. This creates a feeling of security that it is not available by other means. Security is one of the features of self-esteem; insecurity is a symptom of its absence.

In modern societies the usual goal of everyone is to succeed, understanding success as the possession of more money, fame or power.
It is evident the importance of self-esteem in this endeavor, because without self-esteem it is much more difficult to succeed. It is also less probable that you enjoy what you may achieve.

When a person has low self-esteem, he may achieve what can be called external success at any rate. This means that he will be considered to be successful by other people, but he may consider himself to be unsuccessful. His low self-esteem will drive him to outshine other people, to have more money than any other. Nevertheless, when the goal of being richer than all his competitors be achieved, he will feel that even that is not enough.

What happens in these cases is a disagreement between goals and means. If a person experiences low self-esteem, he may think that outperforming all others will cure his problem, but it is not so. He will try to get rid of the pain caused by low self-esteem by getting more of anything that he consider will convert him into a winner. Money is one of those things, but it could also be honor, admiration, fame, wisdom, or sexual conquests.

The reality is that getting more of something than any other, will not cure his low self-esteem and so his pain will not end. However, he will be a success to the eyes of everybody. The only cure to low self-esteem is, not surprisingly, high or normal self-esteem. That is to say, to cure low self-esteem one must increase his self-esteem. However, increasing self-esteem is not a matter of what the others think, but of what you think. It is your judgment what counts, not the judgment of others.

On the other hand, the person with a normal o high self-esteem may try to succeed, but not as a means to outdo others. For example, he will try to be richer because he has some good use for the money. He may succeed without wanting it: he may become famous for doing something he loves and not because he is seeking fame. It is easier to achieve your goals when you are focused in your work than when you are constantly watching what the others do.

Other consequences of high self-esteem are of importance for the well being of a person. Relationships with other people are smoother compared with those of a low self-esteem person. The latter is always suspicious that other people are trying to take advantage of him. This prevents him of fully engaging in what he is doing and makes him less able to cooperate.

High self-esteem people have, nonetheless, another type of trouble. This is the need to necessarily interact with low self-esteem people. These people will certainly dislike the high self-esteem person, will try to thwart his work, and will criticize everything he does.

To have a good self-esteem is very important to be confident on your reasoning ability. This is part of your overall capability to cope with life challenges. You may lack physical abilities that ordinary people have, you may be handicapped, but, as long as you retain your capacity to reasoning, you have the most valuable asset to confront the struggle for life.

Good sight or strong limbs are just tools to make something. You may have good or bad tools, but what is really important is what you are going to do with those tools, and this should be decided by the use of reason. You must trust, in general, on reason as a quality of the human mind, and, in particular, on your personal reason. These are two aspects that do not necessarily go together–you may accept that humans in general can make profit of reasoning, but you may have doubts about your own reasoning ability.

One of the soundest motives to think well of yourself is the belief in your ability to influence your destiny. To believe in yourself, you must be first be convinced that any man is capable, up to a certain degree, of influencing his destiny. Except for natural catastrophes, stock market depressions, etc., you must believe that a man’s actions can affect the course of his life.

If you believe the course of a man’s life is fixed from the moment he was born, what is known as the theory of predestination, then you have not means to influence your life. Whether you believe you are at the mercy of a supernatural being, or that your life is determined by the position of the stars when you were born, the result is that you can do nothing to alter your fate.

You may think that humans, as a species, have certain power over their lives, but you may distrust your own capacity. You can consider that your reason, the faculty that enables you to deliberate and argument, is not strong enough to be able to tell you what to do. In that case, you will leave decisions in the hands of other people, other human beings like you, to whom you give the power to decide.

It must be understood the difference between reason and knowledge. There are people from whom you may take advice, as lawyers, engineers, physicians, etc. If you have a health trouble, you should ask the advice of a physician, but this does not mean to let him decide in your place. Your life should be your responsibility and, whether or not you take advice of someone more knowledgeable, it is you who must decide what to do. To make a decision you must use your reason to examine the alternatives and your will–your faculty of choice and decision–to choose the better path for you.

It is other factor of self-esteem to accept yourself as you are, and to accept yourself you must first know yourself. If you know yourself, you will know your weaknesses and your strengths. If you know–due to dispassionate study of yourself–that you are not so good at reasoning, you may ask somebody more clever than you to analyze for you what are the alternatives, and the costs and benefits of each one, but finally it is your decision what counts.