Extremely gifted people differ from each other in many ways. What does this mean?
Adolescence is a difficult time for many people, and social and emotional issues are sometimes additionally exacerbated in the exceptionally or profoundly gifted adolescent when navigating friendship connections, romance, and greater independence in school and home.
Many extremely intelligent young people have difficulty with making friends, feeling attractive to — and understanding — the opposite sex, and also dealing with the powerful adults in their lives. Same-sex friendships and romance have their own aspects of learning and discovery and I hope readers can sort out the overlaps and make use of the information here, too.
As we look at some of the issues of friendship and romance among extremely gifted adolescents and young adults, we touch upon some ways parents, school personnel, and counselors can appropriately guide adolescents toward emotionally healthy friendships, romance, and independence.
Extremely Gifted People Differ in Many Ways
As background, it is essential to discuss some of the ways in which exceptionally and profoundly gifted children and adolescents vary from one another. Due to these variances, solutions for how to help and guide them also vary. And, of course, extremely gifted adolescents still have much in common with everyone else, too. Significant intra-personal (between people) differences can occur in the following areas:
- Male/female differences
- Personality type differences
- Levels of giftedness
- Evenness/unevenness of intellectual gifts
- Talent differences
- Physical appearance differences
Briefly, each of the above categories is real and makes a difference. It is foolish to think or behave in a way that denies that we see or feel differences. In most cases, however, many differences are less and less important as people get to know and feel close to each other.
As you read, keep in mind that one quality adolescents are looking for in adult authority figures is honesty. Adolescents are trying to figure out who they are and how they fit into the world’s big and small pictures. When we are not honest with them about how they differ from others, we complicate their own journey. We also undermine their trust and respect for any opinions or information we might give them.
Male/female differences
There is ample research, writing, and opinion on the ways males and females are different. Some of it is brain-based, some of it is hormonal, some of it is societal, and some of it is simply individual differences among people.
Michael Gurian, a therapist and writer, has specialized in gender issues and I highly recommend his books. See articles and research by Camilla Benbow, David Lubinski, Barbara Kerr, and Sally M. Reis to get you started on seeing the male-female issues combined with high intelligence.
There are significant shifts in expectations for women and girls, however, in countries where women’s rights have made it clear that some “supposed differences” between the ways women and men are and should behave have turned out to be more due to societal pressures and restrictions than true differences.
In general, males and females may have different sex drives and interests, and as with the above-mentioned differences, not all are generated by societal expectations or stereotyping. Additionally, boys and girls have a different developmental task as they grow through their adolescences: boys have to differentiate themselves emotionally from their mothers in order to become independent men. While girls need to separate themselves from their mothers, as well, they do not need to learn how to become different to the degree that boys do.
In my book The 5 Levels of Gifted Children Grown Up: What They Tell Us (Ruf, D., 2023), Chapter 11 includes a section on gender identity. In some cases, the continuum of gender identity includes what Gurian has labeled “bridge brains,” and I encourage readers to read the reference to him on this topic to get a fuller explanation.
Personality type differences
Our personality types, learning preferences, and interests all vary. When someone is extremely gifted and placed in a school environment that does not fit them well because they are an outlier, too different from everyone else in intellect, it places extra burdens on social skills development.
Extremely gifted young people, needless to say, are very cerebral; they tend to ponder everything. They need information from the adults in their lives and guidance toward other sources of accurate information.
An extroverted child may find it easier to socialize with agemates but may have sadness over not ever feeling really connected to anyone despite all their efforts.
Introverted adolescents may be less likely to struggle to fit in because they enjoy more solitary activities and a few chums who will join them in a video game. But such a person, too, needs friendship, maybe a soul mate, and has few natural resources for finding any. Numerous websites and books, (do an online search or read my 2023 book) exist for helping families determine their personality styles and preferences. There are many personality sources and companies, but I find what matters is that what you look at makes sense to you. For personality information, my favorite is www.personalitypage.com. The low-cost assessments are also quite accurate and include descriptive information as part of the fee.
Adolescents can learn a great deal about themselves when they consider personality differences, including ways they can view others differently while changing some of their own expectations for themselves and others. Parents can also benefit when they learn how their teenager may be completely differently motivated than they, their parents, are.
Levels of Giftedness
The level of giftedness has a profound effect on how comfortable in different situations the young person will be, too. If the youth is part of a group, as in an advanced placement class, finding pals and receiving positive social feedback from classmates is more likely than if the young person is forced to sit through general education classes with students who are on a completely different intellectual — and interest — plane than they are. Intellectual level, per se, does not contribute to poor social skills. Too much time with people who are nothing like us can warp how we solve the intricate problems of learning how to get along with others.
Evenness/unevenness of intellectual gifts
Sometimes people are exceptionally or profoundly gifted in just one or two domains, and the one that stands out most often is math. Camilla Benbow participated first with Julian Stanley, and then with David Lubinski, to show that people who are more gifted in the nonverbal/mathematical domain than in the verbal domain are the most likely to go into careers in hard sciences than people who are either evenly gifted in both or stronger in verbal. In the context of this article, “hard” simply means facts and figures more than qualitative opinions and methods that cannot be as precise as the hard sciences. Why is that? Because when dealing with issues about living things, for example, there are far more caveats to any research results.
Furthermore, an unevenness of intellectual gifts can lead to a youngster not being identified as gifted because their IQ ability test results might give only one score — the final blend of the abilities, and the very high one might not be enough to push them into the gifted range for school programs. As a result, the youngster may never be placed in appropriately challenging learning environments with similarly minded potential friends. Talent differences can help or hinder a person’s connection with friends and romantic partners, as well.
Although it may sound funny to suggest it, I’ve made the intuitive leap to the observation that a number of social groups that are set up by high IQ or commonly-viewed-as-nerdy interests tend to have a high percentage of the unevenly gifted who are stronger on the mathematical sides of their brains. Such individuals can be introverts or extroverts. They can also be talkative and not talkative, but the one thing they tend to have in common is a difficulty with the kind of social conversation that helps people to make new friends easily.
Talent Differences
Some people who are good at sports have an easier time fitting in. Adolescents who sing or act or who are good at art also draw positive attention to themselves, which can help them over some of the initially awkward social meetings. At the same time, too much attention or dependence on one’s talent can attract negative consequences from those who are jealous or resentful. Some inexperienced, poorly guided, and talented young people may develop attitudes and behaviors that undermine any social advantages their talents bring, too.
Physical appearance differences
Finally, physical appearances make a big difference in what an adolescent’s social options are. The smallest boy in the class is almost always the target of ridicule and bullying; such treatment affects the developing self-concept. A beautiful girl has to learn social coping skills that are entirely different for her than her less attractive classmate, too. While a beautiful girl has more chances to find a boyfriend, she may be overwhelmed by how to treat all her suitors kindly while trying to study and plan for her own intellectual future. The less attractive girl may have more time for study, but how do her parents give her hope that she, too, is attractive and will find love and acceptance? Blithe reassurances that ignore some realities are not generally helpful.
There are also extremely gifted adolescents who are odd- or unusual — looking for one reason or another. Parents who deny this when encouraging their children may undermine their own credibility.
Resources and References
Gurian, Michael. https://www.michaelgurian.com/
Benbow, Camilla. https://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/bio/camilla-benbow
Lubinski, David. https://www.vanderbilt.edu/psychological_sciences/bio/david-lubinski
Kerr, Barbara. https://epsy.ku.edu/people/barbara-alane-kerr
Reis, Sally M. https://education.uconn.edu/person/sally-reis/
See https://www.amazon.com/Levels-Gifted-Children-Grown-Up/dp/B0C9SHFRLH
Additional resources:
Free Spirit Books. See https://www.freespirit.com/
SENG (Supporting the Social and Emotional Needs of the Gifted). See https://www.sengifted.org/
An earlier version of “Independence and Relationship Issues in Intellectually Gifted Adolescents” was published with Douglas Eby on his Talentdevelopment.com site. He is now on Medium here: https://medium.com/creative-mind-resources