Investigation of perfectionism and peer relationship levels of gifted and normally developed children

The aim of this study is to examine the perfectionism and peer relationship levels of gifted and normally developing children in terms of various variables and to determine the relationship between perfectionism levels and peer relationships. The universe of the research consisted of BİLSEM students studying in the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th grades of the schools affiliated to the Ministry of National Education in the city center of Ankara and children with normal development. A total of 353 children, including normally developing children (n=220) and gifted children (n=133), selected by the typical case sampling method, were included in the study. Research data were collected with the "Personal Information Form", "Child and Adolescent Perfectionism Scale" and "Peer Relationship Scale". Unrelated samples t-test, Mann Whitney U test, Two-Way Analysis of Variance (two-way ANOVA), Kruskal Wallis H test and Spearman Correlation Coefficient test were used in the analysis of the data. As a result of the research, it was determined that the perfectionism behaviors of gifted children and children with normal development were similar, and in peer relations, only gifted children got high scores in the sub-dimension of self-disclosure. It is seen that the self-directed perfectionism scores of the gifted 6th and 7th grade children are higher than those of the children with normal development, and the self-directed perfectionism scores of the 5th and 8th grade children with normal development are higher than the gifted children. It was found that the scores of special gifted children, who are single children and have a sibling, in the self-disclosure dimension, whose perfectionism scores are higher than those of normally developing children, are higher than those of normally developing children who are an only child and have a sibling, and children with normal development who perceive parental attitudes as authoritarian and perfectionist. It was found that the scores they got from the dimension were higher than the gifted children. In addition, while no negative or positive finding was found between perfectionism and peer relations in gifted children, a positive correlation was found between socially based perfectionism behaviors and peer relations trustiness dimension scores of children with normal development.