Affective Characteristics

1. Sensitivity to themselves, others, and their environment. Gifted students are very aware of their environment and the people who are in it. This awareness is coupled with sensitivity to the feelings of others and the events in that environment.
2. Preference to be with adults or older children. Even from an early age, parents report that their gifted children have preferred to play with older children more often than with their age-peers. Teachers find that their gifted students prefer to work and discuss ideas with them, rather than with the other students in the room. People tend to gravitate to their mental age-peers; gifted students do this naturally, too.
3. Intensity. One can feel the intensity emanated from a gifted student who is working on a topic of interest. The intense concentration, perseverance, and commitment to the task are obvious in many areas of interest, not just those involved in “school learning.”
4. Perfectionism. This is one trait found in gifted people of all ages, from the very young to the elderly. There is often an inner motivation to be perfect or as near perfect as possible. The results can be high performance levels or total inability to perform for fear of failure.
5. Leadership ability. Gifted students are often looked to by other students for guidance unless the gifted students are so deviant from their age-peers that they are considered to be “weirdos, geeks, or nerds.”
6. Moralistic. A strong sense of right and wrong is often found in this population. They have a deep sense of conviction and can be found going to bat for what they believe and for those who they consider to be mistreated. Convincing them that there are gray areas of judgments may be a difficult task.
7. Resourcefulness. The ability to bring many resources to bear on a problem is characteristic of the gifted. They may be able to solve a problem through more than one procedure, find an unusual way to proceed in a problem area, or suggest a new solution to an old problem.
8. Advanced sense of humor. Gifted students often display a sense of humor that is unusually sophisticated or insightful for their ages. These are the students who are likely to understand the teachers' jokes, use puns, and conjure up riddles of their own.