Beyond Grades: Temperament and Interests, but Not School Grades, Highlight Distinct Polymathic Learning Abilities

TL;DR

The study finds that polymathy, or exceptional learning across multiple domains, is linked to specific personality traits and interests, not school grades.

Contribution

The study identifies distinct temperament and interest profiles associated with polymathy, independent of academic performance.

Findings

Polymathy correlates with high sustained attention and intellectual endurance.

Polymathy is linked to traits like sensation seeking and social endurance.

Polymathy shows selective negative correlations with neuroticism and attention deficits.

Abstract

Polymathy relates to the exceptional learning abilities, in which individuals cultivate and coordinate Breadth, Depth, and integrative capability across multiple domains. It builds on mechanisms typically associated with intelligence, including abstraction, problem solving, and the transfer and integration of information. Because polymathic disposition has partial biological underpinnings, it may intersect with other biologically based individual differences, such as temperament. Biographical accounts also indicate that many polymaths did not achieve exceptional school grades, raising questions about whether the multiplicity of interests in polymaths is associated with distractibility and impulsivity, or whether there is a deeper institutional mismatch between polymaths and educational systems. Our study examined these issues using estimated high school grades across three subject areas, documented university grades, a neurochemistry-validated temperament assessment (Structure of Temperament Questionnaire; STQ-77), the Trait Polymathy Scale (TPS), the Barratt Impulsivity Scales (BIS-11), and information about aptitudes and interests from 296 participants (M/F = 152/144). Contrary to speculation that polymathy reflects distractibility, the TPS correlated negatively with the BIS-11 Lack of Attention scale and positively with the STQ-77 scales of Intellectual Endurance and Probabilistic Processing, confirming high sustained attention in polymaths. TPSs also had selective negative correlations with the STQ-77 Neuroticism scale and positive correlations with the STQ-77 Plasticity, Social Endurance, Sensation Seeking, dispositional Satisfaction scales, as well as several specific and general aptitudes and interests. These findings refine the dispositional profile linked to polymathy, highlighting the differential nature of the three components of polymathy.