If you have ever experienced the social sensation of wanting to "dumb down" your intelligence, you may have experienced the "forced-choice dilemma". What is of primary concern, however, is the degree to which developing minds may limit both their abilities and expressions thereof, in order to subscribe to the rules of social conformity and acceptance. Society requires gifted individuals in order to flourish, and in turn, an environment in which the gifted, talented and those simply with unrealized potential may succeed.
The Forced-Choice Dilemma
In academic parlance, the above-mentioned problem is sometimes referred to as the forced-choice dilemma. This concept suggests that whilst intellectual giftedness often correlates positively with healthy self-efficacy, motivation and achievement, for some gifted students and individuals there exists a dissonance between intellectual predisposition and the need for peer affiliation. Faced with this choice, some gifted students and individuals engage in purposeful social acts of circumspection, repackaging their identity to appear more demotic and substituting excellence with the quotidian when producing samples of work and ability.
A variety of studies have shown that when it comes to school-yard hierarchies of popular personality types, intellectual prowess is far from being at the top of the pecking order. Not surprisingly, a variety of problems flow on from this. Researchers have identified a variety of coping mechanisms and found support for the existence of particular strategies including denial of giftedness, emphasis on popularity, peer acceptance, social interaction, and hiding giftedness. Scaffolding understanding of these coping strategies has been research into the immediate social context of the pre- and adolescent social sphere, and the manifestations within of peer pressure and victimisation. The significant occurrence of victimisation was investigated by Wolf and Chessor (2011) in order to test for correlation between victimisation and diminished utility in affective social skills, which may lead to low self-efficacy, motivation and circumspection rather than proactive utilisation of talent.
Gifted boys have furthermore been identified as being more at risk of under-performing than girls. Monceaux and Jewell (2007) set out, in part, to uncover the peer-influenced social and emotional factors behind behaviour modification by gifted students. They found that gifted boys tended to be effected by popular peer groups, reporting the desire to ‘dumb down’ their visible intelligence to avoid victimisation. Ziegler et al’s research (2010) into the desirability of gifted students amongst peers as conversational chatroom partners supports this perspective of a popularity hierarchy, noting however, that both gifted boys and girls experienced significant shunning.
Finally, peer pressure is not only felt within immediate classroom and schoolyard locales. A variety of other dominant groups have been shown to exert a gravitational pull. An excellent example is community pressure, as evidenced in the derogatory term "acting white” directed towards gifted African-American students. Garvis (2006) found similar dynamics at work within the peers and adults of Australian Aboriginal communities. It is unfortunate to note that this desire for ‘cultural conformity’ has been identified as something at times even enforced upon students by parents (Ford 2004), regardless of the academic aspirations of the individual student.
Implications
The connection between academic success and sustained, healthy nationhood has been well-established, leading to an understanding that academic excellence must be encouraged. This is not to say that individual freedom should be curtailed in the pursuit of this goal. In fact, if anything, it should be enhanced to ensure that school-yard politics are as democratic as possible, and to ensure that talent and intellect is given the same freedom and support of expression, as say, popular sporting subtypes. In addition, whilst individuals should always have the freedom and right to explore identity and position themselves as they navigate social relationships, teachers, parents and the community have the responsibility to ensure this can be done in the most edifying atmosphere possible. The phenomenon of “forced” intellectual-subjugation as a by-product of peer or social pressure stands very much in binary opposition to this philosophy of academic and thus a nation’s success.
Giftedness, talent and academic potential is something that as a society, we should automatically encourage, for both our own and posterity’s sake. A challenge exists in both identifying those with potential talent, who are lurking in the shadows in fear of social. peer-based recrimination, and those whose talent is explicit, but goes unsupported. These individuals are required, as they often poignantly exhibit academic prowess, civic responsibility, and confident, compassionate leadership and sensitivity towards our post-modern, global, interactive world. The current cohort of gifted and talented students and adults are both our present, and our future. Therefore, we must always ensure that any challenges to the achievement of each individual's optimal potential are not unnecessarily added to by social and emotional pressures, and that all individuals, whether gifted or not, are granted the right to live in a supportive society, free to express their ideas and thoughts for the benefit of all.
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