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Beliefs of students talented in academics, music, and dance concerning the heritability of human abilities in these fields

This study assessed the heritability beliefs of talented students concerning the heritability of human abilities, more specifically the extent to which these talented laypersons endorsed the strong environmentalist ideology promoted in the social sciences and the media. Three groups of talented students (academics, music, dance) assessed the heritability of three sets of human abilities (cognitive, musical, physical), as well as motivational characteristics, for a total of 22 items. Six formal hypotheses were formulated; four of them were confirmed. The results showed that a majority of the respondents held middle‐of‐the‐road positions, recognizing a significant causal role for both nature and nurture. However, the very large standard deviations indicated the presence of substantial numbers of students toward both extremes of the heredity‐environment continuum. Explanations for such diversity in beliefs remain elusive in the literature. Significant differences in degree of perceived heritability were observed between ability domains as well as within each of them. A series of follow‐up studies are proposed.