This article reviews the implications of many of the major schools in the history of psychology for understanding giftedness and its inner workings: operationist, psychometric, psychoanalytic, associationist, behaviorist, Gestalt, cognitive, humanistic/positive psychology, functionalist/pragmatic/constructivist, cultural, and biological. Each…

Positive creativity is creativity that makes the world a better place--that makes a positive, meaningful, and potentially enduring difference to the world. Positive creativity can be a bit of a slippery concept in that, what is positive to one person or one group may be neutral or even negative to another group. Much of teaching young people for…

We conducted two studies to replicate and extend, as well as test, the limits of previous findings regarding an apparent disconnect between scientific-reasoning skills in psychological science, on the one hand, and scores on standardized tests of general intelligence, on the other. In Study 1, we examined whether this disconnect would extend…

In this article, the author shares his response to James Hartley's "Reflections on 50 years of teaching psychology". Hartley concludes that the teaching of psychology has changed relatively little over the past several decades. The author states that his way of teaching now is very different from his way of 1975. This essay is about the…

Creativity is sometimes seen as irrelevant to educational practice. With an increased focus on standardized test scores, creative teachers and those who encourage creativity in the classroom often are accused of being idealists or missing the big picture. But the authors believe instead that creativity brings valuable benefits to the classroom. In…

Argues that, within the study of cognitive psychology, the theme of intelligence provides a powerful way of unifying the disparate material of a wide-ranging course. Discusses historical perspectives on intelligence, how it unifies cognitive psychology, and classroom activities to link cognitive psychology to intelligence. (DSK)

Hans Eysenck, who died in September 1997, was one of the most well-known psychologists in the world. A believer that intelligence is genetically controlled, Eysenck recognized the need for scientific investigation in the study of intelligence and creativity. He was characterized by extraordinary creativity and commitment to his scientific message.…

Presents dialectical thinking as a useful tool in teaching psychology. Argues that the basic notion of dialectical thinking is that ideas evolve in cycles. Provides examples of dialectical thinking in psychology and methods of using it in teaching. Contrasts the dialectical model for teaching with the more traditional model. (DSK)

Discusses applications of theories and research in psychology to understand controversies generated by two recent articles, explaining the need to distinguish between rational and intuitive thinking, recognize the power of context, think reflectively, and realize the costs of defying the crowd, and noting steps one can take to be wiser and more…

The importance of validity and reliability in the componential analysis of human intelligence is discussed. The roles of construct, internal, external, convergent, discriminant, and ecological validity in componential analysis are outlined. Within-replication (internal-consistency) and between-replication (alternate-forms or test-retest)…

Argues that psychology has underinvestigated the study of creativity, provides six reasons for this neglect, and describes recent work on creativity that is leading to wider interest in the topic. Confluence theories, representing various multidisciplinary approaches to creativity, are proposed as offering a more promising approach to the study of…

Mental abilities can be analyzed at four levels: composite tasks, subtasks, components, and metacomponents. Each level of analysis reveals something about the structure and content of mental abilities responsible for intelligent performance. (Author/WI)

Twenty-one suggestions are offered for successful writing for psychology journals. Suggestions include tell readers why they should be interested, consider alternative interpretations of the data, give concrete examples, write for a somewhat broader and technically less skilled audience than you expect to read the article, and don't take…

Stresses the importance of teaching students to be good consumers of research problems and questions. Contends that students must be able not only to appreciate the questions that others ask, but also to produce research and research questions on their own. Provides activities that help promote both good consumers and producers. (CMK)

A triarchic model for identifying, teaching, and assessing children who are gifted is presented. The model involves three abilities: memory-analytic, creative-synthetic, and practical-contextual. Results are presented of the Yale Summer Psychology pilot project that is based on this model. Expanding the model to other fields beyond psychology is…