Finally! I’ve been meaning to put up a blog post about the the New York Times magazine article, Understanding the Anxious Mind, since the day it was posted to their website. Especially in light of a recent comment by reader Kirsten, who wrote:
The other thing that stands out in this post is C.’s high level of executive function. The combination of organization and determination that she has is rare.
Exactly. I have always believed that to a large extent she–and other PG kids like her–came wired that way. It’s one thing for Malcolm Gladwell et al to say that it takes 10,000 hours of practice and anyone can be “gifted.” But it doesn’t explain where the dedication, the drive, the executive function to actually do that 10,000 hours comes from. I say it’s wiring.
I first heard about Dabrowski’s Theory of Overexcitability was when the CTY psychologist went over C.’s test results. It was a big “aha” for us. Here’s how Ann Rinn describes overexcitabilies in the Fall 2009 Duke University Gifted Letter.
Overexcitabilities are extreme intensities or sensitivities that affect the ways in which an individual experiences the world. The Polish psychologist Kazimierz Dabrowski (1902-1980) identified overexcitabilities as part of a larger theory of development. Although most of us may have extra energy at times or have strong reactions to various stimuli on occasion, those with overexcitabilities experience these distinguishing behaviors regularly. Most researchers believe overexcitabilities are innate and will be present in some form throughout one’s life. It is important to note that not all gifted children have overexcitabilities, but they do seem to be found to a greater degree in gifted and/or creative children than in average-ability children. (emphasis added).
It’s something I certainly noticed in C. early on–heck, it’s why this blog has the name it does. She still is highly sensitive to smells, has acute hearing, dislikes crowds and noisy environments in general, is afraid of dogs and tends to brood and worry. Which is why I found this article on anxiety sooo interesting. I think it really ties in with Dabrowski and giftedness.
Harvard psychology researcher Jerome Kagan, like many people, was initially resistant to the idea of “wiring”:
Kagan studiously ignored this finding; it didn’t fit with his left-leaning politics, which saw all individuals as born inherently the same — blank slates, to use the old terminology — and capable of achieving anything if afforded the right social, economic and educational opportunities. “I was so resistant to awarding biology much influence, I didn’t follow up on the inhibited temperaments I was seeing,” he told me. It took another 20 years of listening to arguments about nature versus nurture for Kagan finally to entertain the possibility that some behavior might be attributed to genes.
But research revealed that
in people born with a particular brain circuitry, the kind seen in Kagan’s high-reactive study subjects, the amygdala is hyperreactive, prickly as a haywire motion-detector light that turns on when nothing’s moving but the rain.
I think it’s that edge of anxiety that could be the driver of C.’s drive, which in turn feeds into achievement. In the article Susan Engel, a developmental psychologist at Williams College, says,
“The way we deal with [anxiety] is that we both get everything done in lots of time. We can’t stand the anxiety of a looming deadline; we’re so worried about being late that we do it five days early.” This is one way to alleviate anxiety, she said. “There are other things we could do. We could drink, we could procrastinate, we could pretend we don’t have the deadline. I guess we both happen to be lucky that our method is adaptive.”
The article continues,
”This kind of adapting might have something to do with intelligence, says Steven Pinker, a psychologist at Harvard and author of “The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature.” He says he believes, based on pure conjecture, that people with higher intelligence are better at overcoming their anxious temperament and more likely to “see their own worry list as a problem to be solved, minimizing unnecessary anxiety while still being anxious enough to get things done.”
This certainly squares with what I’ve observed.
In the modern world, the anxious temperament does offer certain benefits: caution, introspection, the capacity to work alone. These can be adaptive qualities. Kagan has observed that the high-reactives in his sample tend to avoid the traditional hazards of adolescence. Because they are more restrained than their wilder peers, he says, high-reactive kids are less likely to experiment with drugs, to get pregnant or to drive recklessly. They grow up to be the Felix Ungers of the world, he says, clearing a safe, neat path for the Oscar Madisons.
People with a high-reactive temperament — as long as it doesn’t show itself as a clinical disorder — are generally conscientious and almost obsessively well-prepared. Worriers are likely to be the most thorough workers and the most attentive friends. Someone who worries about being late will plan to get to places early. Someone anxious about giving a public lecture will work harder to prepare for it. Test-taking anxiety can lead to better studying; fear of traveling can lead to careful mapping of transit routes.
Now watch her read this and do something crazy just to prove me wrong 
.
I have been told that it is extremely difficult to do accurate MRI on young children, particularly measuring brain structures, since their ability to hold still is less than that of older children, or adults.
I did like the use of blood pressure measurement. It’s not as hard to do.
I think that there is a piece that he hasn’t identified yet, in this story. We’ve got the reactive amygdala, and the thickness of the prefrontal cortex, but it sounds like he still has to divide up the children further to make predictions. And I am worried about the accuracy of the prefrontal cortex measurement.
Very interesting article – and I appreciate you stopping by my blog.
I have worked with gifted children for more than a decade, read most of the prevailing research, and I can tell you that giftedchildren absolutely look at the world through a highly unique lens. It is my hope that we will get better at meetingthe needs of these children by better understanding that lens.
I would try to post something coherent in response to this, but I’m just too tired. My dd12, with the acute sense of smell, detected a slight odor of natural gas in the middle of the night. I didn’t smell anything, but dh got up to investigate, and, yes, one of the burners on the stove was slightly ajar and there was a faint odor of gas. Downstairs. Which dd could smell upstairs.
No point in trying to get these folks to mellow out.
Thanks for the article! It definitely sheds light on my experiences (especially the sensitivities and the aversion to procrastination) as a child and now as a young adult (MD/PhD student, wonder what Pinker, Gladwell, and Kagan would posit about that!).
Jenny, I agree that there is no point in trying to get us to mellow out. I’ve tried, and it seems to create more problems than it solves…
Kristin, that is a problem in MRI studies, but large difference tend to be easier to spot, even with some movement during the MRI, than smaller differences. There are very imprecise, too, and most findings from MRI studies are those large differences that can be seen even with some movement, as locations of structures vary to some extent from person to person (even by a couple of centimeters)…
OC writes: “aversion to procrastination.” Dang, I wish that was my daughter’s reaction. But there’s another model at work here too at the cornerstone of anxiety in the profoundly gifted child. The triumvirate of perfectionism, avoidance, and anxiety.
The connection between unusually high creativity and problem solving and the anxiety that comes with getting through work that is more designed for the methodical plodding mind. These kids cannot embrace the “quick and dirty.” And when you think of it, why should they?
Interesting. My highly creative but “just GT according to the system/scores” child has exactly the acute sensitivity to smell and texture, acute empathy and superb executive function (I have never had to remind her of a homework assignment in her life). She cannot wear jewelry. Being near a gas station makes her physically ill.
My “highly GT” Magnet child (high test scores) is totally oblivious to the world around him (except music) has no executive function whatsoever and could care less about deadlines.
So I recognize the exact wiring you are talking about, but I don’t think it corresponds necessarily to “profound giftedness” the way the system defines it. Which is why I continue to have a problem with these labels and distinctions.
I have never paid for a full battery of tests, maybe that’s the issue here. But I continue to believe that both my children are profoundly gifted in different ways.
J and Susan,
Both your posts spoke to me. I have one who carries around the triumvirate, and another who knows exactly where anyone’s misplaced items in the house are located at any given time. (Birth order always strikes me as relevant, too.)
As a smart person and a worrier myself, I don’t think it’s quite as simple as Pinker would have it. I am indeed a perfectionistic slacker, at times, with a tendency to hyperfocus. Knowing when to stop is as powerful as picking what to do.
Newbie writes: “I am indeed a perfectionistic slacker, at times, with a tendency to hyperfocus.”
Oooh, Newbie, I gotta get to know you better! That’s me. I wouldn’t call myself a perfectionistic slacker but I know exactly what you mean. Rather, perfectionists avoid because it has to be, well, perfect. We try to rationalize this but….
The hyperfocusing can come in handy, though. I tell my ADD-ish daughter, use it to your advantage.
The problem is, she’s at a very high demanding school. And she’s visual spatial and these kids work better in space than time. But we don’t want to kill this either. Great stuff came from people who hyperfocused until they got it right.
My kid eternally fascinates me but you know, it ain’t easy. I’ve got this balance thing down to a science, though. How not to kill the creative spirit and urge the child along, get it done, get it done.
Thanks for the validation of my comments, Newbie. My school (if I ever get this off the ground) will be well versed in that triumvirate. (See my comments on All Gifted All the Time. Reminds me of my radio news days, All News all the Time, 1010 WINS).
You know, that’s my original term, triumvirate. Didn’t copy it from anyone. Do you think I should call my new school The Triumverate School? LOL! It should spark a lot of comments, no?
It took him 20 years to accept that genetics influence behavior? I’m guessing he didn’t have children during that period of time!
Yeah, I sort of wondered about that too. I mean, really?