Francis Galton, who conceptualized the idea of intelligence, asserted that genius could not be attributed to intelligence alone. He attributed genius to “the concrete triple event, of ability combined with zeal and with capacity for hard labour.” In 1978, Joseph Renzulli, building on this idea, introduced what is known as his “three-ring” definition of giftedness. He argued that gifted behavior is manifest when 3 components: above average ability, extraordinary task commitment, and exceptional creativity are in play. Gifted behavior, as the intersection of the three components, is displayed in the figure below.
If we assume that these three behaviors are independent and normally distributed throughout the population, then we can make a crude estimate of the percentage of people in the general population who will display gifted behavior by the following heuristic computation.
If we define “above average ability” as “at least one standard deviation above the mean”, then the graph of the normal distribution indicates that about 16% of the population satisfies this criterion. Similarly, if creativity and task commitment are normally distributed, then about 16% of the population are above average in each of these attributes. Our admittedly contestable assumption that these three components are independent enables us to estimate the proportion of people who may exhibit gifted behavior to be about 0.16 × 0.16 × 0.16 ≈ 0.004 or 0.4% of the population. This is substantially smaller than even the 2.4% who are at least 2 standard deviations above the mean in intelligence or in any normally distributed characteristic. If there are more than 3 components (as suggested by Nobel laureate William Shockley) required for gifted behavior, this would skew even more, the distribution of creative achievements throughout the human population.
The Renzulli model of giftedness enables us to distinguish between high IQ and genius in academic pursuits. The former is a measure of fluid intelligence and resides in the circle labeled “above average ability.” It pervades all areas of learning. The latter is measurable only through achievement and is domain-specific. That is why we cannot compare the genius of Albert Einstein with the genius of Thomas Edison.
In Empowerment, (https://www.intelligence-and-iq.com/empowerment/) psychologist Gene Landrum notes that the greatest athletes have exceptional physical skills, but argues that it’s their emotional and mental dispositions that catapult them from exceptional to eminent status:
The truly eminent have physical skills that locate them on the right tail of the normal curve, but emotional and mental dispositions are the factors that combine to move the eminent to the extreme right tail of a Lotka curve, way ahead of the pack.
Indeed, while exceptional physicality is a necessary condition for an athlete to participate at the Olympic level, additional qualities of zeal and task commitment are required to win the gold. Vital to the development of those qualities is an environment in which world-class performance is valued and nurtured.
