Giftedness and Dabrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration (TPD) have been firmly linked since the Columbus Group's 1991 statement on giftedness and asynchrony. The theory's overexcitabilities (OEs) factor has been the main association with giftedness. Although OEs include certain characteristics associated with giftedness, they also include…

Forced-choice (FC) measures have been widely used in many personality or attitude tests as an alternative to rating scales, which employ comparative rather than absolute judgments. Several response biases, such as social desirability, response styles, and acquiescence bias, can be reduced effectively. Another type of data linked with comparative…

This resource review focuses on the use of the DISCflex instrument in the classroom. While frequently administered in industry, DISC-style instruments are less frequently used in academic contexts, despite a usefulness in clarifying and working with preferred behaviors. This review provides a brief history and description of the DISCflex…

The idea that certain outdoor education (OE) programs consistently improve character traits has been a recurring theme not only in OE practice but also in some approaches to research and theory (Brookes, 2003a, 2003b). Sometimes referred to as "character building," such approaches to OE persist although perhaps less prominently than in…

A civic society depends on people's ability to reason together, which requires them to seek and tell the truth. However, Sarah Stitzlein argues that schools spend too little time deliberately teaching students the value of honesty. Far from being simply a personal virtue, honesty enables citizens to think and act together for the benefit of all.…

Students' curiosity in the world and sense of belonging in the elementary classroom can develop as teachers learn alongside students in the context of a critical literacy framework. In an end-of-year reflection, one of my fifth-graders, Anne (all names are pseudonyms), a student of color (at times, I used the term "student of color" to…

This article discusses a problem in the field of giftedness--the meaning and deployment of giftedness in authoritarian systems, or in declining, failing, or pseudo-democracies. This problem exists for much of the world's population yet seems to be relatively little discussed. The article opens with a consideration of what the problem is. It then…

This article presents the PTSI (Person x Task x Situation Interaction) theory of creativity. The theory deals with the creative person, the deployment of creativity in tasks, the ecological context in which this deployment takes place, and the types of creative products that result. The theory draws upon a wide range of previous work. The article…

Creative action is idiosyncratic. Not only do "creators" differ in their approaches to creative work, but "creative endeavors" differ in complexity, scale, and level of difficulty, meaning that the self-regulation strategies people use to manage themselves and their ideas from creative ideation to implementation may differ.…

Curiosity motivates the search for missing information, driving learning, scientific discovery, and innovation. Yet, identifying that there is a gap in one's knowledge is itself a critical step, and may demand that one formulate a question to precisely express what is missing. Our work captures the integral role of self-generated questions during…

Creativity has been conceptualized not just as a measure of artistic ability, but also as an adaptive trait of everyday innovation. We posit the relevance of "everyday creativity" to the field of psychotherapy. Although creativity has been theorized in psychotherapy models of change and the therapy process, little empirical research has…

Enlightenment modernity brings about the domination of industrialization, bureaucracy and instrumental rationality over the subject and its school life. At this time, the subject is like living in what Weber called the "iron cage" ruled by instrumental rationality. The worship of rational authority in education has reached such an extent…

In this article, we introduce this second special issue on the assessment of perfectionism along with an overview of developments in the perfectionism field over the past 30 years following the shift to studying perfectionism as a multidimensional construct. We examine some key contributions over the past decade, including the proliferation of…

A recent study claiming to provide a basis for gifted education to drop the construct of overexcitabilities in favor of the construct of openness to experience and align itself with the Five Factor Model and a talent development perspective on gifted education is shown to be without merit. An analysis shows that the study supports the conclusion…

Personality fixations that have had utility in the past can later become problematic for holistic psychological development. Adult ego development research, combined with psychoanalytic assumptions, provides a way to understand multidimensional maturity through addressing and transforming the unconscious. The Enneagram and Gilbert Durand's…