A study, titled One Personality Trait Distinguishes Gifted People, and reported in Psychology Today on November 14, 2021, looked at correlations between giftedness and the Big 5 traits (Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Openness to Experience, Neuroticism and Agreeableness). See: One Personality Trait Distinguishes Gifted People
They found the following:
• Giftedness seems like a blessing but may be a burden.
• Gifted individuals have learning differences, including divergent thinking, quirky humor, and a penchant for complexity, that set them apart.
• Openness to experience is a key personality trait found in association with giftedness.
• Giftedness is not associated with less-social personality traits, dispelling the myth that gifted individuals have innate social problems.
The study involved a meta-analysis of 13 high-quality studies involving 3244 gifted individuals, so the research is relatively free of personal bias or unjustified generalization. Hence, it appears that those who have high intelligence tend to vary as much in personality traits as people of average intelligence. Isaac Newton, one of the greatest geniuses of all time, was reputed to be unpleasant, quarrelsome and self-seeking. The brilliant mathematician Kurt Gödel was quite withdrawn and almost anti-social. However, celebrated physicist Richard Feymann was flamboyant, outgoing and extremely social as well as “charismatic.”
During my life, I have met people of all intelligence levels who could be described as “nice and charismatic.” Such people tend to attract others. For more information, see the paper below.
Uzeyir Ogurlu & Adnan Özbey (2021): Personality differences in gifted versus non-gifted individuals: A three-level meta-analysis, High Ability Studies, DOI: 10.1080/13598139.2021.1985438.
