Brilliant: But What For? Meaning and Subjective Well-Being in the Lives of Intellectually Gifted and Academically High-Achieving Adults

Abstract

Not much is known today about relationships between giftedness and well-being, particular among adults. The present article examined if highly gifted people manage to live meaningful and happy lives in their adult years. Two aspects of giftedness were taken into account: intellectual giftedness, and academically high achievement. Representatives of both groups were compared with each other and a control group with regard to meaningfulness and subjective well-being, respectively. Furthermore, predictors for both facets of well-being were examined. The sample consisted of 198 Intellectually Gifted, 141 academically High Achievers, and 136 control subjects. Results: High Achievers showed degrees of meaningfulness and subjective well-being that were comparable to those of the control group. The Intellectually Gifted, however, reported significantly lower values in both facets of well-being. Results of hierarchical multiple regressions indicated that Intellectually Gifted and High Achievers follow a different path towards meaningfulness and subjective well-being. Among the Intellectually Gifted, generativity is the strongest predictor for meaningfulness, whereas for the High Achievers, meaningful work is most central to their meaningfulness. As regards subjective well-being, selfcompassion was established as the strongest predictor for the Intellectually Gifted, whereas development was the most important predictor for the High Achievers.

Cross-Lagged Analyses Between Life Meaning, Self-Compassion, and Subjective Well-being Among Gifted Adults

“…Consistent with previous cross-sectional research (Phillips and Ferguson 2013;Pollet and Schnell 2017;Wong and Yeung 2017;Zessin et al 2015), the data revealed moderate to strong correlations between self-compassion, subjective well-being, and life meaning at both times of measurement. Furthermore, the results of the autoregressive model corroborated the assumption of construct stability.…”

“…A priori power analysis (G*Power; Faul et al 2007) revealed a required total n = 98 to determine at least a medium effect (f 2 = 0.15, α = 0.05, 1 − β = 0.80). Considering aforementioned findings (e.g., Pollet and Schnell 2017;Zessin et al 2015), we expected at least medium effects in regard to the associations between the three tested constructs.…”

“…Notably, there is a lack of empirical research about the lives and what constitutes the needs of gifted adults, their actual achievements and performance, but also their well-being (Dijkstra et al 2012;Lubinski et al 2006;Wirthwein and Rost 2011) and meaning in life (Pollet and Schnell 2017;Vötter and Schnell 2019). The little empirical evidence that is available concerning gifted adults' well-being suggested either no significant association or a weak positive correlation between intelligence and well-being (e.g., Dijkstra et al 2012;Lubinski et al 2006).…”

“…Most recent cross-sectional evidence has suggested that selfcompassion is associated with subjective well-being and meaningfulness in a gifted population (Pollet and Schnell 2017). Self-compassion is defined as a caring, accepting, and supportive attitude towards the self, especially in the context of (personal) suffering, failure, and shortcomings (Neff 2003a, b;Neff and Germer 2017).…”

“…(3) Mindfulness versus over-identification, which means to have a balanced awareness of (negative) thoughts and experiences rather than to over-identify or exaggerate them (Neff 2003a(Neff , b, 2009. Research has shown that selfcompassion is associated with positive psychological outcomes like well-being, meaning in life, happiness, perceived self-efficacy, self-acceptance, intrinsic motivation, optimism, wisdom, life satisfaction, and feelings of social connectedness (Hollis-Walker and Colosimo 2011 ;Neff 2003a;Neff et al 2005Neff et al , 2007Neff et al , 2008Phillips and Ferguson 2013;Pollet and Schnell 2017;Zessin et al 2015). It has also been linked with less psychopathology, reduced stress, anxiety, depression as well as lower fear of failure, and emphasis on being perfect (Krieger et al 2016;MacBeth and Gumley 2012;Neff et al 2005Neff et al , 2007.…”