Self-Concept, Self-Esteem, and Peer Relations Among Gifted Children Who Feel "Different"

Two-hundred seventy-one elementary age high-IQ children and their parents completed an extensive battery of questions on social and emotional development. Eighty-eight children (37%) conceptualized themselves as differing from their peers. Although they described differences in a positive fashion, and although their self-esteem was above the mean reported for a large normative sample, it was lower than that of high-IQ children who did not think of themselves as being different. Furthermore, the reports about peer relations given by children who thought themselves different contained more signs suggesting difficulties than did those of children who did not. These results suggest that many cognitively gifted children need increased psychological support if they are to optimize their personal and social development.