Don Ambrose

• Rider University

This interdisciplinary, conceptual analysis addresses the nature and benefits of artistic processes in learning andwork. While recognizing various forms of artistry, the emphasis is on visual-spatial thinking. The benefits of thiskind of thinking in academic and professional activities include the simplification of massively complex writing,improve...

There are powerful, hidden contextual influences that strengthen, weaken, or distort the discovery of aspirations and the development of talents in gifted individuals. These influences can be hidden from gifted individuals and their teachers and mentors because they are not sufficiently addressed in the gifted education research literature. This an...

A wide variety of phenomena influence manifestations of intelligence, creativity, and wisdom. This interdisciplinary exploration sheds light on some of these phenomena and on how they energize or suppress these important dimensions of human ability. A few examples from the exploration include the need for long-range vision; the usefulness of interd...

Discovering the cultural dimensions of high ability is analogous to a large-scale creative problem-solving initiative. Just as the early phases of the creative-problem-solving process require broad-scope searches through diverse data sources, understanding the culture-giftedness nexus requires broad-scope excursions through interdisciplinary schola...

There is considerable overlap when it comes to moral and creative actions in the world. Initiatives that are morally positive, or immoral, often require creativity. An interdisciplinary search can help us build a stronger understanding of this overlap. This analysis is based on a collection of insights derived from theories and research findings in...

The Psychology of Wisdom: An Introduction is the first comprehensive coursebook on wisdom, providing an engaging, balanced, and expert introduction to the psychology of wisdom. It provides a comprehensive and up-to-date account of the psychological science of wisdom, covering wide-ranging perspectives. Each chapter includes extensive pedagogy, incl...

The tension between transactional and transformational giftedness becomes more important as 21-century macroproblems worsen. If humanity is to survive and perhaps thrive while navigating through these turbulent environmental and socioeconomic problems, gifted education will have to enable bright young people to inject ethical awareness and big-pict...

Shifting gifted education away from transactional toward transformational giftedness will enable the brightest, most talented young people to strengthen their ethical awareness, appreciate big problems and issues, and contribute to the betterment of the world over the long term. Many of today’s big problems and issues are barriers that will work ag...

Theoretical and practical work in gifted education has been dominated by mechanistic precision in measurements designed to select students for gifted programs and guide them through their development. Too much faith in mechanistic precision can become a form of dogmatism that obscures very important, less-measurable dimensions of human ability. Thi...

Creativity, giftedness, and leadership are complex, important phenomena, especially in the threatening turbulence of 21st-century conditions; consequently, there is an increasing need to understand how to strengthen them. We can learn much about these phenomena from within the borders of specialized disciplines; however, they are too complex and mu...

Interdisciplinary work is gaining recognition for its importance in theory development and empirical research, especially in the natural sciences. Arguably, gifted education needs interdisciplinary contributions even more than most fields because it addresses the immensely complex dynamics of the human mind. This analysis describes the nature of in...

This chapter reviews the previous chapters in the book and identifies points of agreement and disagreement among authors. The greatest point of agreement is that those wishing to identify and develop giftedness in young people need to go beyond IQ in their conception of what it means to be gifted.

This book brings together eminent and emerging scholars to present cutting-edge research on diverse conceptions of giftedness and talent from a range of international perspectives. It covers classical views, emphasizing IQ, but also seeks to move the academic debate on from the common exclusive emphasis on IQ-based skills. In each chapter the cont...

Millions of young people from minority populations suffer from deprivation, segregation, and stigmatization. While a number of scholars have been doing impressive work revealing the nature and nuances of these problems, interdisciplinary investigation can reveal some additional nuances of the phenomena they are studying as well as other phenomena t...

A healthy democracy maintains a fine balance between individual freedom and compassionate responsibility. A totalitarian government destroys both of these ideals, leaving virtually all of the power in the hands of an unethical few while abusing the human rights of the vast majority. This interdisciplinary analysis shows how democracies can strength...

Interdisciplinary and domain-specific investigative trajectories represent very different approaches to the study of creative intelligence. They proceed in opposing directions and seem to generate contradictions. Interdisciplinary work seems to make domain-specific inquiry look excessively insular while domain-specific work seems to undermine the c...

This analysis extends creative design thinking to the macro-level, applying it to the enormous problems and opportunities generated by twenty-first century globalization. Today’s macroproblems and macro-opportunities require creative, interdisciplinary thinking, and collaboration to enable individuals and teams to address the dogmatism that hinders...

The forces of globalization are magnifying the importance of interdisciplinary creative work. While the field of creativity studies always has been more open to interdisciplinary idea borrowing than many other fields, it can and should do more interdisciplinary synthesizing. This article begins with a discussion of the rationale for encouraging int...

This chapter explores how misguided school reformers, the policymakers and citizens who believe those reformers, and the school systems and teachers obeying reform mandates often become trapped within a single worldview and think they are being creative. They might be creative to an extent but they are limiting their creativity by confining their t...

This article employs an interdisciplinary approach to explore some psychological dimensions of mathematical creativity and the dogmatism that can emerge when mathematical applications are confined within a single worldview. More specifically, it explores some ways in which mathematics has been confined and distorted in service of dogmatic conceptio...

Robert Sternberg’s (2017) Active Concerned Citizenship and Ethical Leadership (ACCEL) framework provides a helpful way to align gifted education with the complexities of 21st-century socioeconomic and cultural environments. The recommendation that we shift away from pseudoquantitative precision in conceptions of giftedness aligns with similar recom...

This introductory paper describes the purpose and contents of a special issue of the Roeper Review guest edited by the prominent psychologist Robert J Sternberg. In his focus article Sternberg proposes an expansion of conceptions of giftedness beyond the excessive use of the IQ construct. This expansion will magnify active concerned citizenship and...

The caveman principle raises questions about the extent to which violence and dominance have plagued humanity from prehistoric times up to the present. There have been some arguments in archaeological circles about this. The emerging consensus is that, in terms of collective behavior, we’ve always had mixed inclinations ranging from violent, hierar...

This chapter represents an attempt to shed more light on the long-term development of the gifted, talented, and creative by placing that development in a large-scale context of 21st-century trends, which include macroproblems and macro-opportunities. Macroproblems are high-impact, global, long-term, transdisciplinary difficulties that threaten to h...

How can creative individuals and societies adapt to complex 21st-century conditions? Will civilizations thrive or collapse in the decades to come if they are not creative enough, or if they are too creative? Interest in these questions is growing; however, until now there has been inadequate understanding of the socioeconomic and cultural trends an...

Are gifted and talented young people ready to handle complex 21st-century socioeconomic, political, cultural, and technological conditions when they move into adulthood? Will complex 21st-century societies benefit sufficiently from the actions of the gifted and talented to survive and thrive in the rapidly evolving context of 21st-century globaliza...