TDC

• Giftedness – designates the possession and use of untrained and spontaneously expressed outstanding natural abilities or aptitudes in at least one ability domain, to a degrees that places an individual at least among the top 10% of age peers
• Talent – designates the outstanding mastery of systematically developed competencies (knowledge and skills) in at least one field of human activity to a degree that places an individual at least among the top 10% of learning peers

DMGT: Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent

• Gifts: G
• Talent Development Process: D
• Intrapersonal factors: I
• Environment: E
• Chance: C
• Talent: T

Dynamic interaction: individuals with lower G can still reach a high T with the other factors, because they interact. But it is hierarchical.

G>I>D>E

From 4P (Person, Process, Product, Press) to 5A's (Actor, Action, new artifact, material and sociocultural affordances, Audience)

From a factor model to an interaction dominant process

1. Implications of the model           
   • Weakness is that the structure of connection that may occur in networks is so rich that virtually any kind of structure may emerge à complexity of the possible relationships make any such network hard to explain
   • Predicts a considerable number of properties typical of excellent human performance in many achievement domains
   • The predictions of the network model do not correspond to the idea that one specific factor, such as deliberate practice, should be primarily focused on in order to develop excellence
     • There are many possible multiplicative relationships between dynamic variable leading to excellent performance
     • So while excellence can me elicited and nurtured, the ability growth and final levels depends on genetic endowment factors (K) and in the many possible combination of variables that support the ability at issue
   • Coach or teacher should be adaptive to an idiosyncratic and changing network
     • Establish positive feedback loops between various ability-supporting components should be enhance
       • As positive links between ability-related components in individuals, lead to excellenc

• Phenomenon of emergenesis – were inheritance is multiplicated rather than additive --> not from a single gene!
  • Means that some forms of greatness may require a singular configuration of traits and abilities to be inherited for the capacity to appear at all
    • If one trait or ability is missing or below some threshold value, the entire potential is zero

à This qualifies greatness in two views:

1. Under emergenic inheritance, greatness would not likely run in family lines à it would require inheritance of the entire configuration, which is highly improbable (Galton idea would rather reflect nurture than nature)
2. The distribution is not normal (Galton said about greatness residing at the upper tail) à Under multiplicative inheritance the distribution should be highly skewed (making the highest orders of greatness much rarer)

1. Nature-Nurture Matters!
   • Nature and nurture do not always operate isolated from each other
     • They often interact in complex ways over the course of development of greatness
   • What appears to be examples of nurture could in fast be examples of nature operating incognito

1. Parents largely design their homes and family outings to match their own inclinations rather than to cultivate greatness in their children
   • The relation is the spurious result of the parents genetic makeup creating a home high in stimulation and producing children high in openness
     • The home is nothing more than a phenotypic sign of the underlying genotype for both parents and their offspring
2. Youths are not passive recipients of events, but rather act upon their world – they try to make their environment conform more closely to their inherited abilities and interest

à Environments can increasingly reinforce genetic dispositions

1. Nature is what facilitates and accentuates nurture
   • Individuals vary immensely in how ling it takes to acquires the expertise requisite for greatness 
   • Those who take less time to acquire expertise are actually better off than those who take more time
   • Greatness is positively associated with broad interest, hobbies and even versatility
2. If inherited abilities and traits have predictive validity, then nature must be contributing along with nurture

Ericsson: goes back from exceptional performance to underlying development and representive task should be used to capture superior performance. --> connection to sample based approach (VL 6)

de Groot: chess players