Analysis of the emotion of fear in gifted children and its use in teaching practice

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of fear in gifted children of younger school age in comparison with the control group of children. The tool used for the research was a questionnaire with statements about fear, with the intensity of selected types of fear evaluated. The questionnaire was subject to a factor analysis, which resulted in 5 areas of fear. At the level of the individual factors we determined that fear in gifted children is less intense than fear in children from the normal population, although no difference was found in the hierarchy of fear. We also found that gifted children are most afraid of global problems. Within the group of gifted children we observed differences between the sexes, while boys declared lower levels of fear than girls, in the factors My family and Phobias. The conclusion contains recommendations as to how to work with fear amongst gifted children in teaching practice. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.