Anemone's Research Emporium

Giftedness and personality

Anemone Cerridwen
January 30, 2009

Gifted people come in all types. I've spent a fair amount of time in high IQ groups, and, while there are plenty of people there who would drive you nuts (and vice versa, no doubt), there really isn't a smart personality type. Some gifted people are more task- or technology-oriented, some are more relationship-oriented. Some are conventional, some are unconventional. Some are status-oriented while others are anti-status and still others simply do not care one way or the other. It is possible that unconventional androgynous types are over-represented among the gifted, but even if that were true, most gifted people would still probably be pretty conventional, just because there are so many more conventional people in the world overall.

The problems that gifted people have are more to do with how much personality they have, rather than what kind. Most people are astonishingly smart and astonishingly creative when the situation calls for it, but then they can turn it off again when they don't need it. Gifted people, on the other hand, tend to not be able to turn it off. And what looks like the low setting to a gifted person may look like the high setting to someone who is more normal. So it may make more sense to look at gifted people as uber versions of the various personality types rather than completely separate types.

I have read biographies of over 300 well known historical figures and current celebrities, and the vast majority of them are/were probably gifted, or at least noticeably smarter than average. You don't become famous because you're average. You become famous because you stand out in the crowd in some way, in terms of your abilities, in addition to being lucky in terms of the opportunities you've had. The only famous people who are probably average are those who are born into famous families such as royalty. I wouldn't assume that every famous royal is average in intelligence, because some may be gifted (or significantly below average, for that matter), but you have a better chance of becoming famous if you're an average person in a royal family than you have if you're an average person in an average family. People from average families who become famous probably have some unusual ability driving their fame.

Take a look at the examples of different personality types in the goddess and god descriptions on this web site. Almost all of the examples are probably gifted, many spectacularly so, and yet it's possible that you think of at least a few of the types as not being as bright as the others.

For example, you may not think of athletes as being as smart as other famous people. But it takes smarts to know what to do with the talent you've got. Sports involve strategy as much as brawn.

Or you may think of conventional people as less intelligent than off-the-wall creative types. Conversely, you may assume that since conventional types are generally more practical, they're more intelligent in the ways that count.

Or, you may think of girly women as being less intelligent than women who are less emotional, more "rational". I expect that girly women do not enjoy being in the limelight as much as other people, and they may choose to channel their talents more in private than in public, but I wouldn't assume they're less intelligent. Relationship skills require intelligence, too. Certainly, research indicates that there are likely just as many exceptionally gifted women as men, when you go by the underlying g-factor (Jensen, 1998; Halpern, 2000). I once spent six months at a forum for exceptionally gifted women, and the first thing I noticed is that most of the other women didn't fit the stereotypes of what "smart" women are like any more than I did. Whew!

Basically, don't be too sure of your assumptions about giftedness and personality. Gifted people may or may not be more likely to come from some types than others, but all types produce their fair share of gifted examples.

References

Diane F. Halpern, 2000. Sex differences in cognition. Third edition. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, New Jersey.

Arthur R. Jensen, 1998. The g factor: the science of mental ability. Westport, Conn. : Praeger.