...more hardy than did older students. The results of regression analysis indicated that family hardiness and emotional intelligence had separate and direct effects on self-perceived creativity, and their effects were additive, rather than multiplicative, as their interaction terms did not yield significant increment in variance accounted for in the criterion of prediction. Similar results were obtained when different components of emotional intelligence were considered, with some suggestive evidence that family hardiness could interact with specific components of emotional intelligence in the prediction. Implications of the findings are discussed, and caution need to be exercised in the interpretation of these results, as data were cross-sectional and collected only on student perceptions.

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Findings in studies of parenting, education, and training have generally indicated that the family plays an important and positive role in the development of talents and potentials of gifted children (e.g., Bloom, 1985; Csikszentmihalyi, Rathunde, Whalen, 1993; Klein & Tannenbaum, 1992; Olszewski, Kulieke, & Buescher, 1987; Piirto, 1999; Smutny, 1998). Specifically, in nurturing creativity of gifted children, the family could provide the environmental context that stimulates or sparks creativity, rewards creative ideas and behaviors, and evaluates creative products (e.g., Sternberg & Lubart, 1993). Yet, gifted children identified by conventional intellectual measures do not typically grow up to become eminent creative producers (see Olszewski-Kubilius, 2000; Subotnik & Steiner, 1994; Terman, 1925).

In this connection, Albert (1978, 1994) has provided a plausible explanation. He distinguished scholastic achievers, who typically come from cohesive and child-centered families, from creative achievers, who typically come from families with tense relationships, unconventional parenting, and parental dysfunction or loss. Accordingly, the less harmonious family conditions can motivate gifted children to obtain power, which results in creativity. Indeed, other reasearchers have further suggested that disharmony and a stressful home environment can be highly motivating, and despite the disturbance, it would not be devastating if there were strong supportive elements in the family (see Olszewski-Kubilius, Kulieke, & Buescher, 1987). In the same vein, Russell (1979) suggested that families that managed situational and developmental crises successfully would be higher in nurturing creativity than families that were less successful in handling crises. Csikszentmihalyi et al. (1993) also suggested that it was not stress alone, but more likely a balance of stress and support within the family that provided the conditions conducive to high levels of talent development. More specifically, a stressful family environment could drive the gifted child to seek refuge in the safety of intellectual activities and use creative activities as emotional outlets (Ochse, 1993; Piirto, 1998) or to become psychologically mature at an early age (Albert, 1978, 1980). On the other hand, stressful childhood experiences could also prepare the gifted child to cope later in life with the intellectual tensions and marginal existence characteristic of many highly creative people (Feldman, 1994; Gardner, 1994).

Viewed in this manner, disruptive family environment and stressful childhood experiences might elicit and develop within gifted children responses and personality characteristics that are conducive to creative achievement. Such responses and characteristics could include a preference for time alone, an ability to cope with stress and tension, freedom from conventionality, and the use of intellectual or creative activities to fulfill emotional needs (Olszewski-Kubilius, 2000). Thus, it seems that family variables, including family functioning in response to stressors within and external to the family, could interact with personal variables, including coping strategies and emotional regulation, to result in creative achievement (see also Subotnik, Olszewski-Kubilius, & Arnold, 2003).

In their studies of family functioning as patterns for managing and adapting to stressors, McCubbin and McCubbin (1987, 1993) referred to the internal strength and durability of the family as "family hardiness," parallel to the notion of "individual hardiness" first developed by Kobasa (1979). Accordingly, individual hardiness encompasses both cognitive and behavioral aspects of personality that act as a buffer or mediating factor in mitigating the effects of stressors and demands. More specifically, individual hardiness consists of a sense of meaningfulness in life (commitment), a belief that change is normal in life and brings opportunities for development (challenge), and a belief that the individual can influence the events in his or her life (control). In parallel, the construct of family hardiness encompasses the notion of family members' responses to stressors in terms of family cohesion and support in the face of family tensions and disturbances.

To measure family hardiness, McCubbin, McCubbin, and Thompson (1987) developed the Family Hardiness Index (FHI), a 20-item scale that assesses four aspects of family hardiness (cooriented commitment, confidence, challenge, and control). Since the development of the FHI, it has been used in studies of family functioning to explore aspects of family resilience in the patient populations (see Sawin & Harrigan, 1995) including, for example, caregivers of patients receiving chemotherapy (Carey, Oberst, McCubbin, & Hughes, 1991) and mothers of developmentally delayed children (Failla & Jones, 1991). It was therefore of interest to examine whether family hardiness as a set of basic attributes about the resilience of the family system could be studied in families of gifted children who might grow up to become creative producers.

Shifting the focus from family environmental variables to personal variables, one obvious consideration was an individual's ability to manage emotions in the face of stressors. More broadly conceptualized, this personal variable could encompass an individual's competencies at perceiving, understanding, and utilizing emotional information, thus exerting effective control over his or her emotional life. This personal variable is now more commonly described as an individual's "emotional intelligence" (Salovey & Mayer, 1990). However, different researchers and practitioners might view emotional intelligence somewhat differently, as a spectrum of abilities or as abilities and personality characteristics (see Ciarrochi, Chan, & Caputi, 2000; Goleman, 1995; Mayer & Salovey, 1997; Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2000a, 2000b). For example, Mayer and Salovey have defined emotional intelligence by the specific competencies it encompasses, organizing skills in four branches: perceiving emotions, facilitating thought, understanding emotions, and managing emotions. Research studies have also demonstrated that successful coping depends on an...

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