Divergent thinking tasks, which require participants to generate as many creative ideas as possible, elicit a serial order effect: Ideas generated later tend to be more original. This suggests that generating more ideas is beneficial. However, past research regarding the serial order effect has largely overlooked the interplay between serial order and fluency: Is it always true that more ideas mean higher originality? In this study, 595 participants completed four divergent thinking tasks; originality and degree of elaboration were scored for each idea, and multilevel analyses were used to model both originality and elaboration as a function of serial order and total fluency. Later ideas were found to be more original, replicating the serial order effect, but there was an antagonistic effect of sequence length: The ideas of participants with lower fluency tended to be both more original and more elaborate, regardless of serial position. In sum, generating more ideas actually came with lower originality for each idea, despite a serial order effect. These results highlight the role of time and effort for elaboration of an original idea, and also lead to recommending alternate scoring methods in divergent thinking tasks, such as "best-two ideas" or "count of good ideas."

For several years, there was a growing interest in intellectual giftedness and in particular in the non-cognitive specificities of gifted individuals. This topic attracted much public attention and sometimes led to contradictions with the scientific literature. The current review synthesizes a broad set of results related to non-cognitive specificities of intellectual gifted in children and adolescents. This synthesis of scientific research on giftedness and its associated non-cognitive features does not support the conclusion that there is a stable profile across gifted individuals that would consistently separate them from non-gifted individuals. A few specificities in some areas are noted, but they are not necessarily being systematic. These specificities often turn out to be in favor of gifted youth, contrary to the view sometimes defended in the general public that gifted individuals suffer from major everyday difficulties. Finally, methodological issues are listed regarding the designs of existing studies, with recommendations for future research in the field.