A Universal Model of Giftedness – an adaptation of the Munich Model

Abstract

The Munich Model of Giftedness (MMG) by Heller and his colleagues, developed for the identification of gifted children, is adapted and expanded, with the aim of making it more universally usable as a model for the pathway from talents to performance. On the side of the talent-factors, the concept of multiple intelligences is introduced, and the moderating factors proposed in the MMG are discussed and categorized. The environmental moderators are interpolated as to incorporate not only “school-settings” but also “work-settings”.

Keywords:

• giftedness
• multiple intelligences

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. As recognized by Lao Tze in the Zhuang Zi, who states that most differences of opinion are based on the different understanding of a word and then he advices to give your opinion and skedaddle.

2. Searching topics in Web of Science for “performance” leads to 1,1881,644 hits, “motivation” 87,219 hits, and 15,157 when both topics are searched (19 December 2012). So, very bluntly put, in 17% of the cases that motivation is mentioned in topics, performance is a topic too. Searching for the two keywords in the title of publications results in 720 hits.