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Creative Cognition in Gifted Youth

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International Handbook on Giftedness

Abstract

We focus on the cognitive processes that gifted adolescents bring to bear on creative tasks, particularly open-ended tasks that involve generating novel, candidate ideas and developing those ideas into creative products. We use the Geneplore model of creative cognition as an orienting framework and focus on processes of divergent production, problem finding and construction, and retrieval of conceptual stored knowledge at different levels of abstraction. We consider the extent to which gifted individuals employ those processes differently than individuals who have not been so identified. However, we also incorporate findings regarding motivation, the proclivity toward innovative action, implicit theories, and creative self-concept because, although a complete understanding of creative cognition in the gifted requires attention to cognitive processes, it also requires a consideration of factors outside the purely cognitive realm.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Blinn College, USA

    Katherine N. Saunders Wickes

  2. University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA

    Thomas B. Ward

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  1. Katherine N. Saunders Wickes
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Correspondence to Thomas B. Ward .

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  1. Département des sciences administratives Pavillon Lucien-Brault, Université du Québec en Outaouais, 101, rue Saint-Jean-Bosco, Case postale 1250, succursale Hull, J8X 3X7, Gatineau, Québec, Canada

    Larisa V. Shavinina

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Saunders Wickes, K.N., Ward, T.B. (2009). Creative Cognition in Gifted Youth. In: Shavinina, L.V. (eds) International Handbook on Giftedness. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6162-2_17

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