The black legend of gifted individuals: Discussing and dispelling a myth
Type de matériel :
79
For many years, the idea that children and adults with high intelligence quotients (HIQ) are at a particularly high risk of academic failure or psychological disorders has been bandied about in the media, a phenomenon that we have described and dubbed “the black legend of gifted individuals” (Ramus & Gauvrit, 2017). In this article, we first revisit the existing scientific knowledge about intelligence and its correlates, which demonstrates that this idea is highly implausible. Then we detail five studies that we conducted to test this hypothesis in the most direct way possible, some of which were conducted in France. The results of our work are unambiguous: children with high IQs perform much better in school than other children, and they do not present with more psychological symptoms; adults with high IQs do not exhibit a greater incidence of mental disorders than other adults, and are sometimes less likely to suffer from them. We conclude that the black legend surrounding gifted individuals is scientifically unfounded.
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