Gifted College Students and Androgynous Identities

College students are trying to determine an identity in life and a path forward in their careers. Gifted college students don’t fit well into narrow stereotypes and maintain identities that are deep and complex. Research by Miller, et. al. (2009) on gifted gender roles indicate that gifted excitability and higher potential have androgynous identities that accept a more complex set of male and female personality traits.

Gender identity and personality are associated into an intertwined relationship. Incorrectly people assume that males are supposed to be instrumental while females are supposed to be expressive. There is an assumption that the sex is related in some way to the personality and behavior of the individual. Societal influence appears to be the most profound definition of how boys and girls should act. 

Males and females are considered opposite ends of the spectrum. Generally, people adhere to one or the other.  When doing so they prescribe tightly to social norms regardless of internal processes.  When individuals have androgyny they are capable of accepting both male and female aspects of their personality within the same individual construct. Undifferentiated individuals do not adhere to either male or female roles nor have they integrated varying aspects of gender behavior. 

Androgynous individuals are considered psychologically the healthiest. They can understand their personal characteristics as existing on a plane of traditional male to female aspects and accept the varying degrees of their personality that fits within these modes. They are not rigidly defined by sex norms and are situational in their actions and behaviors. One aspect of their personality may be more masculine (i.e. sports) while another could be more feminine (i.e. empathy) in traditional sex roles.

According to Dabrowski’s theory of high gifted development with over excitability, their success lays in developmental potential, social environment, and internal decision-making.  Those with over-excitabilities that impact the central nervous system develop to higher levels because they have stronger experiences of emotional, intellectual, imaginational, sensual, and psychomotor stimuli. When an individual contains all of the potentials they have the highest capabilities for development.

The authors study of 562 gifted college students found that those with androgynous identities have intense over-excitabilities. Such individuals have the highest potential for advanced personality development. Of all the excitabilities emotional, intellectual, and imaginational seems to have the greatest influence on personality development.  Colleges and teachers should not rigidly define sex and stereotypes for this group so as to ensure the most comfortable learning environment.

We can draw some inferences from this study. Gifted college students do not fit rigidly into male and female social roles. Those with the highest excitabilities and potential incorporate aspects of both male and female traits within their personality. This is part of advanced development. When people rigidly define their behaviors by their sex they lack a sense of awareness and genuiness about themselves which can create tension. Professors should avoid pushing less developed stereotypes about sex roles on gifted college students who have higher potentials in multiple facets of their personalities.

Miller, et. al. (2009). Gender identity and the overexcitability profiles of gifted college students. Roeper Reivew, 31 (3).

Gifted Moral Development in Youth Far above College Students

Derryberry, et. al. (2005), works to understand the early moral development in gifted populations. When comparing gifted youth to adult college students they found that such youth were more advanced than their adult peers. The research is designed to help understand the nature of giftedness, how to foster further development, and to encourage possible transfers to other members of the population.

Moral development has a number of stages. At the lowest stage such development is associated with a personal interest schema, then norm maintenance, and then the post-conventional schema (Rest. et.al, 1999). Each stage indicates a level of personal development that grows overtime. A large percentage of society never advances beyond the first or second stage.

At the lowest stage of personal interest schema people naturally interpret morality through what is best for them. This means that people are involved in self-serving interests and associations. In the maintaining norms schema morality is based with conventions, rules, and standards. At the highest level of post-conventional schema people base their moral judgments on universal principles of justice and fairness.

There are factors associated with development that include education, intelligence, complexity of thought, personality, and open to experience. People who are likely able to develop morally seek higher levels of education, can reflect on their thinking processes, have positive personality traits, and are open to trying and understanding new things. These are the people who love to experience and learn. They are capable of seeing themselves in a larger social context of history and institutions while able to see broad cultural trends.

The study indicates that age has only a small association with moral development. Gifted people are capable of taking in a wider context of information to come to their own moral conclusions and start doing so at a young age. These differences make them inherently unique compared to both their peers as well as older members of the population. The authors encourage greater study of this population as they are widely outside the bell curve of the norm and often fight against such identification.

Derryberry, et. al. (2005). Moral judgment developmental differences between gifted youth and college students. Journal of secondary gifted education, 17 (1).

Rest, et. al (1999). Postconventional moral thinking: a neo-Kohlbergian approach. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Understanding the Gifted Adult and College Student

Turning young gifted people into adult producers is part of a range of factors based within both their environment and personality traits. The author Paula Olszewski-Kubilius presents a model that explains key traits that make this population unique. Helping college students understand giftedness and manifest their abilities promotes a more creative adult that can foster industry, and at times, national growth. 

"The unifying similarity among geniuses and innovators is not cognitive or affective but motivational. What is common among them is the unwillingness or inability to strive for goals everyone else accepts--their refusal to live by a presented life theme (Csikszentmihalyi ,1985, p. 114). Gifted individuals create their own paths in life and are not willing to accept the paths others believe they should have. 

Two types of gifted adults often emerge. Those who come from intact families are scholastically advanced while those who do not become more creative. Scholastic adults are great at earning higher grades while creative adults find new ways of doing things. Each has a positive benefit on society. Their abilities are manifested based upon their motivations. It is this motivation that makes all the differences between over achievement and underachievement. 

Gifted adults have some traits based in their biological, psychological and social development. Each seeks to create something within their lives in a long developing destiny. It is an internal feeling that pushes them to continue to create, develop and master. To understand those traits that are common to gifted children and adults it can help administrators understand how to fully bloom this group for the advancement of society. 

Time Alone:  Gifted adults often seek out time alone based upon both their psychological processes as well as their childhood environments. They use this time to solve complex problems, gain skills, read, learn and experiment. 

Thriving off Stress: Geniuses do not develop well when things are boring and conventional. They seek out stress and have developed advanced methods of dealing with that stress. They keep seeking improvement where others have long accepted the “status qua”.  

Rejection of Conventionality: Conventionality requires people to follow societal rules and these rules based more in tradition than in practicality. Those who reject conventionality have different points of view that make them more creative and unique. 

Intellectual Stimulation as Emotional Expression: Highly gifted adults use past experiences to create higher levels of intellectual stimulation.  These activities are expressions of who they are and the problems they have faced in their lives. 

Olszewski-Kubilius, P. (2000). The transition from childhood giftedness to adult creative productiveness: psychological characteristics and social supports. Roeper Review, 23 (2).