The Creative Personality and the Ideal Pupil Revisited*

Expectation of Gifted Children in the Primary-Secondary Transition.

“…The quality and tone of response is one of sobriety and affirmation of solid values, rather than an expression of unconventional or security-disdaining creative personalities, which is still the prevalent paradigm. The present, investigation, therefore, is more in line with Bachtold's (1974) survey of "high creative" adolescents as rather timorous, work-oriented, eager for approval and largely conventional.…”

“…Taft (1971) has refined the concept of creativity operating within a person as involving both "hot" creativity (insight, intuition, expanded states of consciousness) and "cold" creativity which is more concerned with controlled problem-solving, seeing an idea through to production, care in finish, and so on. Bachtold's (1974) study further modified the image of the high creative adolescent as distinctively rebellious when she found that the subjects in her study rated "health", "consideration for others", "sense of humour", "does work on time", "never bored" above qualities such as "independent thinking", "intuitive", "adventurous" and "self sufficient".…”

Hong Kong Chinese Parents' Perceptions of the Ideal Child

“…Bachtold (1974) showed that American parents perceive sense of humor, self-confidence, consideration of others, health, courage in convictions, independence in thinking, initiative, self-sufficiency, sense of beauty, curiosity, affection, independence in judgment, sincerity, and openness to ideas of others as the most desirable behaviors of children. Singh (1987) reported data on the most desirable characteristics of children as perceived by Indian fathers and mothers: The ideal child, according to the fathers, is obedient, sincere, self-confident, humorous, conforming, punctual about doing work, popular, healthy, socially well adjusted, and refined.…”

“…First, few studies have been carried out, and most of the existing studies have been conducted mainly within the contexts of creativity and giftedness (e.g., Bachtold, 1974;Raina, Kumar, & Raina, 1980;Singh, 1987). Obviously, although some parents perceive creativity and giftedness as attributes of the ideal child, other parents may not regard such characteristics as important.…”

“…Some isolated empirical research has been conducted to examine parents' perceptions of attributes of the ideal child based on Torrance's Ideal Child 292 The Joumcil oj Psychology Checklist (Torrance, 1975) in American, Indian, and Filipino societies (Bachtold, 1974;Paguio, 1983;Paguio, Skeen, & Robinson, 1987;Raina, 1975;Raina, Kumar, & Raina, 1980;Singh, 1987). Bachtold (1974) showed that American parents perceive sense of humor, self-confidence, consideration of others, health, courage in convictions, independence in thinking, initiative, self-sufficiency, sense of beauty, curiosity, affection, independence in judgment, sincerity, and openness to ideas of others as the most desirable behaviors of children.…”