The Fullerton Longitudinal Study: A Long-Term Investigation of Intellectual and Motivational Giftedness

Abstract

the fullerton longitudinal Study is a contemporary prospective investigation that spans approximately a quarter of a century. commencing at age 1, children and their families were systematically followed every 6 months from infancy through preschool and annually at ages 5 through 17. they were again assessed at age 24. the course of development for intellectually and motivationally gifted children was studied across a breadth of developmental domains including academic, cognitive, self-perceptions, temperament, behavioral, social, family/environmental processes, and adult educational achievement. Presented are the methodology and unique aspects of this research that contribute to the study of giftedness. Major findings regarding these two distinct dimensions of giftedness are presented, with some implications for practice and directions for future research.

Giftedness and subjective well-being: A study with adults

“…With the exception of Sekowski and Siekanska (2008), all of the above studies investigated school students. Longitudinal data also suggest that the development of gifted individuals is by no means problematic (Freeman, 2010;Gottfried, Gottfried, & Guerin, 2006;Rost, 2009a;Subotnik & Arnold, 1994) and that gifted adults report high subjective well-being (Holahan, 1984;Holahan & Sears, 1995;Lubinski et al, 2006). In conclusion, our findings indicate that intellectually gifted adults are neither especially "happy" nor especially "unhappy" relative to nongifted adults.…”

Does Infant Happiness Forecast Adult Life Satisfaction? Examining Subjective Well-Being in the First Quarter Century of Life

“…Participants were 47 % female, 90 % European-American, and the socioeconomic status of participants' families varied from high school drop-outs, to semi-skilled workers, to professionals. Further information on sample characteristics may be found in Gottfried et al (1994Gottfried et al ( , 2006.…”

“…Attrition was low, with at least 80 % of the original participants completing each wave. Attrition analyses were conducted on an extensive range of variables in the course of investigation (see Guerin et al 2003), including all major standardized measures in this longitudinal study (Gottfried et al 2006). At no point were there differences between those who continued to participate and those who did not (Gottfried et al 2006).…”

“…In the current investigation, we used data from the Fullerton Longitudinal Study (Gottfried et al 2006), which was collected from infancy through 29 years of age, to investigate whether early positive and negative affect predict life satisfaction in adulthood. In order to examine the robustness our results, we also examined links between early affect and two additional available indicators of adult well-being: workplace hope and workplace optimism.…”

An Infant Phenomenon in Colonial Australia—The Case of Anna Maria Quinn, 1854–1858

“…Francis Galton's Inherent Nature of Genius (sometimes "Hereditary Genius") (1869) was the first systematic study of the families of highly intelligent individuals. 82 Other contributors to the field later in the era included Joseph Jastrow's "Genius and Precocity" (1888). 83 Roblyn Rawlins has examined the shifting social and clinical constructions of early or precocious intellectual development in children, claiming that the view of precocity began as a clinical or psychological problem in the early nineteenth century and transformed into an exciting intellectual challenge in the post-1930s.…”