There is currently a debate about the nature of creativity. Is creativity a generalized ability that will lead to original thinking regardless of the task domain? Does creativity involve a set of domain-specific creative abilities (e.g., creativity in art, literature, business, science, etc.)? Within a domain, such as art, is it appropriate to speak of task-specific creative abilities; should we distinguish creativity in painting from creativity in sculpture, or creativity in sculpture with clay from creativity in sculpture with metal? Although it may seem paradoxical, we argue that the answer to each of these questions is "yes." Drawing on a multivariate approach to creativity, we suggest that creativity is partly a generalized ability, partly a set of domain-specific abilities, and partly a set of task-specific abilities. WHAT IS CREATIVITY?In general, creativity can be defined as the capacity to produce novel, original work that fits with task constraints (Lubart, 1994

Numerous authors reported a prevalence of perfectionism in gifted populations. In addition, an unhealthy form of perfectionism that leads to anxiety disorder has been described. Using self-report measures (CAPS and R-CMAS) with 132 children, we hypothesized that intellectually gifted children express a higher level of perfectionism and anxiety. Our results pointed out a paradox: the gifted group obtained a higher self-oriented perfectionism score than the control group in 6th grade, but present the same level of anxiety. In contrast, the gifted group showed the same level of perfectionism than non-gifted 5th graders, but reported a higher anxiety level. Thus, the interplay between perfectionism and anxiety appears to be more complex than a simple linear relationship in giftedness.

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