Outlanders: Loneliness experience of gifted girls

ABSTRACT The purpose of this qualitative research was to explore how gifted girls perceived and coped with loneliness and the relationship between loneliness and giftedness from their perspectives. Participants were four middle-school gifted girls. A loneliness scale was used to select gifted students with a high level of loneliness experience. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with each participant. In addition, they drew pictures of loneliness. Participants associated loneliness with exclusion. They felt like an outlander in their schools due to being treated like a stranger by their peers. Being alone gradually transformed from an imposed state into a choice for the participants. Their loneliness was rooted in their dissimilarities from peers, how they interacted with peers and being unaware of their behavioral problems. The way they coped with loneliness reflected their perceptions of loneliness.