Unique Affective Development-Gifted
Overexcitabilities, Perfectionism, Depression
Overexcitabilities
John Hopkins Center for Talented Youth
Kazimierz Dabrowski, Polish psychologist identified five personality characteristics or intensities, which he called "overexcitabilities" or "supersensitivities," which affect the way a student experiences the world:
- Psychomotor oversensitivity
- Sensual oversensitivity
- Intellectual oversensitivity
- Imaginational oversensitivity
- Emotional oversensitivity
These students may have:
- Higher than average response to stimuli
- Reactions that are over and above average in intensity, duration and frequency
- Not all gifted students have overexcitabilities, but there may be more people with overexcitabilities in the gifted population than in the average population
- Children do not grow out of these supersensitivities. A child with intense emotional feelings will experience the same depth of emotion as an adult.
- Emotional overexcitability is most commonly seen in gifted students
The primary manifestation of this intensity is exceptional emotional sensitivity.
- These students have great emotional depth and strong attachments to people, places, and things. There is a deep concern for others, but they may also have intense self-criticism and anxiety.
- They may be accused of being melodramatic or overreacting, but these emotions are very real for them.
- Telling an emotionally intense student to ignore teasing or not let the teasing bother him is impossible advice for the student to follow.
Additional Characteristics:
- Extremes of emotion
- Anxiety
- Feelings of guilt and sense of responsibility
- Feelings of inadequacy and inferiority
- Timidity and shyness
- Loneliness
- Concern for others, empathy
- Strong memory for feelings
- Heightened sense right and wrong, of injustice and hypocrisy
- Problems adjusting to change
- Depression
- Need for security
- Physical response to emotions (stomach aches caused by anxiety, for example)
https://youtu.be/ZmAcrbQZjms
Giftedness, Perfectionism, & Disappointment
Perfectionism
Perfectionism: A tendency to regard anything less than perfection as unacceptable; especially setting unrealistic demanding goals along with regarding failure to achieve them as unacceptable and a sign of worthlessness.
- Depression
- Nagging feelings of“I should”
- Shame and guilt
- Desire for face-saving
- Procrastination
- Self-deprecation
- Poor risk analysis
Attributes of Healthy Perfectionists:
- An intense need for order and organization
- Self-acceptance of mistakes
- High parental expectations
- Use of positive coping strategies with their perfectionist tendencies
- View of personal effort as an important part of their perfectionism
Attributes of Negative or Dysfunctional Perfectionists
- Anxiety about making errors (May stop trying to achieve out of fear of making a mistake) Extremely high or unrealistic standards for self (Self-esteem rises and falls depending on latest academic performance)
- Perceived excessive expectations and criticisms from others (Distrusts positive comments)
- Questioning their own judgments
- Lack of effective coping strategies
- Need for constant approval
- Doesnʼt reward improvements
- Inability to accurately judge risks or consequences
Gender and Perfectionism
Perfectionism may look different in males in females due to societal expectations ---how it “plays out” in their lives:
- Girls – tend to over-commit, are expected to be well behaved and polite, agreeable and focus on relationships (“Hermione”)
- Boys – expected to be protective, risk-taking, competitive, be the hero (“Harry”)
https://youtu.be/HCDI8GFXZX4
Depression
- Gifted students may experience existential depression or angst (depression over basic concerns about death, poverty, homelessness, war, diseases, meaninglessness, etc.).
- Young gifted students may be especially susceptible to this depression because of their perceived inability to alleviate the injustices and problems of the world.
https://youtu.be/Fw76NwVi8ys