PDF

The study's main objective is revealing the level of life satisfaction for gifted adults and its relation to gender, age, religiosity, income. The researcher used a descriptive approach with its two analytical and relational aspects. The study participants consisted of 80 (48 males and 32 females) members of the Jubilee School graduates from the first fifteen cohorts (Jubilee school is a special school for gifted and talented students in Jordan). To achieve the study goals and answer its questions, the researcher used the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SLS) developed by Diener et al. (1985). The finding shows that gifted adults were highly satisfied with their lives, with their living conditions, with their semi-ideal life, and they were highly satisfied that they have gotten the important things they want in life. The results also indicate no significant differences in the degree of life satisfaction among the gifted due to gender, religiosity, and income. However, there were significant differences between gifted adults' scores of life satisfaction due to age. The study concluded that gender, religion, and income have little influence on gifted adults' life satisfaction. However, further research is required to bridge the literature gap concerning different life aspects amongst gifted adults, potentially impacting their life satisfaction.

life satisfaction, gifted adults, gender, age, religiosity, income

• Ardelt, M. (1997). Wisdom and life satisfaction in old age. The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 52(1), 15-27.‏
• Al-Besher, S., & Al-Hamidi, H. (2019). The meaning of life and its relation to life-satisfaction and some positive thinking dimensions among Kuwait University students, Journal of AL-Sharqa for humanities and social Sienese, 16(2), 353-383.
• Al-Desouki, M. (1998). Study for the life satisfaction dimension and its relation to some psychological variables for a sample of young adults. Journal of Mental Health, 1(2007), 117-161.
• Ali, M., Aboud, H., & Al-Dulaimi, N. (2013). Ustawaa Attafkir Al-Ijabi Wa “Alaqatuhu Bilhasila Al-Ma’rifia waealaqath balhsylt almaerafia, Bikarat Atta’ira (The level of positive thinking and its relationship to the cognitive outcome of volleyball). Majallat Al-Ouloum Al-Insania, Jami’at Babel, Al-Iraq, 1(18), 231-244
• Assultani, A.A. (2010). The effect of a heuristic approach to developing positive thinking on the mental perception of young basketball players. Journal of Sport Educational Sciences, 3(3), 93-138.
• Baroun, A., (2006). Relations among religiosity, health, happiness, and anxiety for Kuwaiti adolescents, Psychological Reports, 99(3), 717-722.
• Baudson, T.G., & Ziemes, J.F., (2016). The importance of being gifted: Stages of gifted identity development, their correlates, and predictors. Gifted and Talented International, 31(1), 19-32.
• Boyce, C.J., Brown, G.D., & Moore, S.C. (2010). Money and happiness: Rank of income, not income, affects life satisfaction. Psychological Science, 21(4), 471-475.‏
• Çelik, N.D., & Mertol, H., (2018). Gifted Students' Purpose in Life. Universal Journal of Educational Research, 6(10), 2210-2216.
• Cotton Bronk, K., Hill, P.L., Lapsley, D.K., Talib, T.L., & Finch, H. (2009). Purpose, hope, and life satisfaction in three age groups. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4(6), 500-510.
• Diener, E., Emmons, R.A., Larsen, R.J., & Griffin, S. (1985). The Satisfaction with Life Scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 71-75.
• Diener, E., Sandvik, E., Seidlitz L., Diener, M. (1993). The relationship between income subjective well-being: Relative or absolute? Social Indicators Research, 28, 195-223.
• Dijkstra, P., Barelds, D.P., Ronner, S., & Nauta, A.P., (2017). Intimate relationships of the intellectually gifted: Attachment style, conflict style, and relationship satisfaction among members of the Mensa society. Marriage & Family Review, 53(3), 262-280.
• Doyle, D., & Forehand, M. J. (1984). Life satisfaction and old age: A reexamination. Research on Aging, 6(3), 432-448.‏
• Dumludag, D. (2013). Life satisfaction and income comparison effects in Turkey. Social Indicators Research, 114(3), 1199-1210.‏
• Faisal, A.S., (2016). The Influence of Emotional Intelligence Towards Academic Achievement Among Gifted Students in Saudi Arabi (Doctoral dissertation, Universiti Sains Malaysia).
• Frijters, P., Haisken-DeNew, J. P., & Shields, M. A. (2004). Money does matter! Evidence from increasing real income and life satisfaction in East Germany following reunification. American Economic Review, 94(3), 730-740.‏
• Fugl-Meyer, A.R., Melin, R., and Fugl-Meyer, K.S., (2002). Life satisfaction in 18-to 64-year-old Swedes: in relation to gender, age, partner, and immigrant status. Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine, 34(5), 239-246.
• Gilman, R., Ashby, J., Svrco, D., Florell, D. & Varjas, K. (2005). The relationship between perfectionism and multidimensional life satisfaction among Croatian and American Youth, Personality, and Individual Differences, 39,155-166.
• Habib, D.G., Donald, C., & Hutchinson, G. (2018). Religion and life satisfaction: A correlational study of undergraduate students in Trinidad. Journal of Religion and Health, 57(4), 1567-1580.‏
• Hackney, C.H., & Sanders, G.S. (2003). Religiosity and mental health: A meta–analysis of recent studies. Journal for the scientific study of religion, 42(1), 43-55.‏
• Holahan, C.K., (1985). The relationship between life goals at thirty and perceptions of goal attainment and life satisfaction at seventy for gifted men and women. The International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 20(1), 21-31.
• Hou, F. (2014). Keep up with the Joneses or keep on as their neighbors: Life satisfaction and income in Canadian urban neighborhoods. Journal of Happiness Studies, 15(5), 1085-1107.‏
• Janse, A.J., Uiterwaal, C.S.P.M., Gemke, R.J.B.J., Kimpen, J.L.L., & Sinnema, G. (2005). A difference in perception of the quality of life in chronically ill children was found between parents and pediatricians. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 58(5), 495-502.‏
• Keyser, A.K., and Corning, M., 2017. Creative Aging: Stimulating Creativity in Middle and Late Adulthood. In Exploring the Benefits of Creativity in Education, Media, and the Arts (pp. 50-66). IGI Global.
• Korff, S. (2006). Religious orientation as a predictor of life satisfaction within the elderly population, (Ph.D. thesis), Walden University, School of Psychology. The USA.
• Langeveldt, C. (2016). The impact of work-family enrichment on psychological health and subjective well-being. Master Thesis. department of Industrial Psychology, Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. University of Western Cape. South Africa. Retrieved from: https://etd.uwc.ac.za/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11394/5266/Langeveldt_c_mcom_ems_2016.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
• Lee, S. Y., Matthews, M., Shin, J., & Kim, M. S. (2020). Academically gifted adolescents’ social purpose. High Ability Studies, 31(1), 17-42.‏
• Lovecky, D. V. (1986). Can you hear the flowers singing? Issues for gifted adults. Journal of Counseling and Development, 64(9), 572-575.‏
• Michael, A. (2011). Reliability, validity, and factor structure for the Arabic version of satisfaction with life scale for Diener, Larsen, and Griffin. Journal of Arab Universities Union for Psychology and Education, 9(2), 11-37.
• Nauta, N., & Corten, F. (2002). Gifted adults at work. Journal for Occupational and Insurance Physicians, 10(11), 332-335.‏
• Neihart, M. (1999). The impact of giftedness on psychological well-being. What does the empirical literature say? Roeper Review, 22, 10– 17. https://doi.org/10.1080/02783199909553991.
• Niknam, K., Ghobari Bonab, B., & Hassanzadeh, S., (2019). The effect of creative problem-solving training on creativity and life satisfaction of gifted boy students. Quarterly Journal of Child Mental Health, 6(2), 205-217.
• Odacı, H., & Cikrikci, O. (2019). Cognitive flexibility mediates the relationship between Big Five personality traits and life satisfaction. Applied Research in Quality of Life, 14(5), 1229-1246.
• Oishi, SH., Diener, E., Suh, E.& Lucus, R. (1999). Value as a moderate in subjective well-being, Journal of Personality, 67(1), 157-184.
• Okulicz-Kozaryn, A. (2010). Religiosity and life satisfaction across nations. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 13(2), 155-169.‏
• Othman, Ahmed. (2001), Social support from husbands and its relationship to happiness and compatibility with the beautiful life of married university students. Zagazig University Journal of the Faculty of Education, 2(37), 143-159.
• Patel, C. J., Ramgoon, S., & Paruk, Z. (2009). Exploring religion, race, and gender as factors in the life satisfaction and religiosity of young South African adults. South African Journal of Psychology, 39(3), 266-274.‏
• Pavot, W. G., & Diener, E. (1993). Review of the Satisfaction with Life Scale. Psychological Assessment, 5, 164-172.
• Pavot, W. G., Diener, E., Colvin, C. R., & Sandvik, E. (1991). Further validation of the Satisfaction with Life Scale: Evidence for the cross-method convergence of well-being measures. Journal of Personality Assessment, 57, 149-161.
• Pavot, W., & Diener, E. (2008). The satisfaction with life scale and the emerging construct of life satisfaction. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 3(2), 137-152.‏
• Perrone, K.M., Webb, L.K., Wright, S.L., Jackson, Z.V. & Ksiazak, T.M., (2006). Relationship of spirituality to work and family roles and life satisfaction among gifted adults. Journal of Mental Health Counselling, 28(3), 253-268.
• Perrone-McGovern, K. M., Ksiazak, T. M., Wright, S. L., Vannatter, A., Hyatt, C. C., Shepler, D., & Perrone, P. A. (2011). Major life decisions of gifted adults in relation to overall life satisfaction. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 34(6), 817-838.‏
• Peterson, K.L., (2014). Gifted African Americans: The relationship between self-efficacy, familial support, educational attainment, income, and life satisfaction. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 22(8), 147-1155
• Pollet, E., & Schnell, T., (2017). Brilliant: But what for? Meaning and subjective well-being in the lives of intellectually gifted and academically high-achieving adults. Journal of Happiness Studies, 18(5), 1459-1484.
• Preckel, F., Baudson, T. G., Krolak-Schwerdt, S., & Glock, S. (2015). Gifted and maladjusted? Implicit attitudes and automatic associations related to gifted children. American Educational Research Journal, 52, 1160-1184. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831215596413.
• Shaqoorah, Y. (2012). Psychological Resilience and its Relationship with Satisfaction of Life Among the Palestinian University Students in Gaza Governorates. Unpublished Master Thesis, Azhar University in Gaza, Gaza, Gaza Strip.
• Smith, C.K., & Wood, S.M., 2018. Career counseling for the gifted and talented: A life span development approach. In Handbook of Giftedness in Children (pp. 315-333). Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
• Sulaiman, Sawsan Muhammad. (2009). Happiness and satisfaction: a precious wish and a fine sunnah, Egypt, Alam Al-Kutob.
• Vötter, B. & Schnell, T., (2019a). Bringing Giftedness to Bear: Generativity, Meaningfulness, and Self-Control as Resources for a Happy Life Among Gifted Adults. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6753398/
• Vötter, B., & Schnell, T. (2019b). Cross-lagged analyses between life meaning, self-compassion, and subjective well-being among gifted adults. Mindfulness, 10(7), 1294-1303.‏
• Wirthwein L., & Rost, D.H. (2011). Giftedness and subjective well-being: a study with adults. Learning and Individual Differences, 2, 182–186. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1041608011000069?via%3Dihub
• Wirthwein, L., Bergold, S., Preckel, F., & Steinmayr, R., (2019). Personality and school functioning of intellectually gifted and non-gifted adolescents: Self-perceptions and parents' assessments. Learning and Individual Differences, 73, 16-29.
• Wołpiuk–Ochocińska, A., & Marmola, M. (2017). A sense of satisfaction with life in adolescents and young adults of different psychological gender. Zespół Redakcyjny, 2 (30), 84- 110.
• Worrell, F. C., Subotnik, R. F., Olszewski-Kubilius, P., & Dixson, D. D. (2019). Gifted students. Annual Review of Psychology, 70, 551-576.‏