Summum Bonum: Investigating Global Life Satisfaction in a Sample of Profoundly Gifted Students

The purposes of this dissertation were to provide additional information about life satisfaction --- globally and in regard to relevant dimensions of life satisfaction --- and the relationship between these aspects of life satisfaction in a sample of profoundly gifted youth. Participants in the Davidson Young Scholars Program (DYS) --- a program designed specifically for profoundly gifted youth --- completed a 90-item survey that included items pertinent to a variety of life domains.;Findings paint a picture of profoundly gifted adolescents as satisfied across life dimensions and, perhaps, more satisfied than their peers. Their satisfaction was not related to gender, though varied with age. Their school satisfaction was related to their accelerative dose, though not with whether they had been radically accelerated. The five dimensions of life satisfaction provided a very good fit (45.2%) for understanding global satisfaction in this sample and add context to existing knowledge about satisfaction among profoundly gifted adults. Further research should address how satisfaction with self-changes over time and the lack of differences in satisfaction between genders during adolescence becomes significantly different over time.