Ego Development and the Anxiety of Gifted Adolescents
Ego Development and the Anxiety of Gifted Adolescents

Summary/Abstract: This paper provides the results of a research project aimed primarily at discovering the differences in the stages of ego development (Washington University Sentence Completion Test of Ego Development - WUSCT) and the level of anxiety (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory- Form Y, STAI - Form Y) among artistically and musically gifted adolescents and their high-school peers (120 subjects, aged 17 to 19). The stages of ego development are determined according to the theoretical and methodological postulates of Jane Loevinger (1976) which assume that it is possible to understand interpersonal behaviour, interests, values and self control with the help of specific cognitive strategies, specific personal needs and the anxiety levels. The anxiety level is being defined according to the theoretical and methodological postulates of Spielberger et al. (1983). They look into and evaluate the exposure of two anxiety dimensions: state anxiety (STAI-S) and trait anxiety (STAI-T). The results we have obtained show that there is no significant difference in the stages of ego development between gifted adolescents and high school students. We have found no difference between these two groups in the level of trait and state anxiety either (both in the whole sample and in the sub-samples with regard to gender). Only the group of male high school students produced a negative correlation between the stages of ego development and the levels of trait and state anxiety.

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