Social Functioning
Altruistic behaviors and cooperation among gifted adolescents. August 2022. This small study from Egypt and Kuwait University found that a positive relationship between gifted adolescents and altruism and cooperation that appeared to grow stronger with age.
Outlanders: Loneliness experience of gifted girls. April 2022. This small study of 4 gifted middle school girls found the girls felt separate from their school, like an outsider, due to being treated like a stranger by their peers. Their stories highlighted that being alone became part of their norm, and they felt lonely and dissimilar from their peers.
The influence of intelligence and sex on interpersonal skills and executive functions in children. January 2022. Takeaway: Children with higher IQ showed higher interpersonal skills and executive functions. Boys in high IQ group showed higher working memory, inhibition, and cause attribution in interpersonal conflicts.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Being "Gifted": Perceptions of the Label by Gifted Pupils. 2021. This research in the Czech Republic found that being labelled as gifted had positives like feeling good about oneself and more educational opportunities. However, it also found gifted pupils had higher chance of being singled out from their peer groups, used for school work, and even bullied.
Bullshit Ability as an Honest Signal of Intelligence. 2021. The researchers found that bullshit ability is associated with an individual's intelligence and individuals capable of producing more satisfying bullshit are judged by second-hand observers to be more intelligent. The researchers conclude that, "The ability to produce satisfying bullshit may serve to assist individuals in negotiating their social world, both as an energetically efficient strategy for impressing others and as an honest signal of intelligence."
Sociability and need for solitude in gifted adults. Research published in December 2021 that found that "compared to the control group, gifted adults depicted themselves as being more autonomous and goal oriented. They also reported a greater need for solitude, associated with a greater appreciation of their freedom of action and movement. This study was the first to investigate both sociability and desire for solitude in gifted adults. It suggests that gifted adults are highly motivated to engage in positive interactions with others, although they do not express the same needs as their peers regarding the frequency, quantity and quality of these interactions."
Emotion Perception in Members of Norwegian Mensa. 2019. The researchers wanted to test whether there is a cost to giftedness in social interaction and specifically with emotion perception. They found the intellectually gifted were better at recognizing emotion, especially anger. They summarize that their findings support that gifted people are also better at recognizing emotions.