On the nature of dramatic intelligence: A study of developmental differences in the process of characterization by adolescents

The overall contour of the development of artistry across childhood and adolescence that has been described by Harvard University's Project Zero is shown to be theoretically useful in describing developmental differences in the enactive abilities of children and adolescents in drama. Furthermore, empirical evidence supports the hypothesis that the process of character creation and portrayal by younger adolescents (ages 12-14) differs significantly from that of older adolescents (ages 15-17).;Thirty-one subjects between the ages of 12 and 17 were randomly selected from among students who were enrolled in the Emerson College Youtheatre. The subjects were divided into two groups on the basis of age and met three times per week for five weeks in 75 minute sessions. They were taught by the same instructor, and the same three tasks were presented to each group: (a) Each subject prepared an imaginary autobiography of a character from a photograph and was interviewed in role by the instructor and other subjects; (b) each subject performed a series of short improvisations based on imagined events from the autobiography; and (c) each subject performed a three to five minute self-scripted monologue which was created from material developed in the improvisations.;Videotape recordings were made of all activities, and analysis and scoring were undertaken from the videotapes. A rating scale was designed to identify the abilities of the subjects across ten dimensions of acting skill. The data recorded from the character interview and monologue tasks were scored separately by four independent judges. The inter-judge reliability of the rating scale was high.;The results indicated that younger adolescents were as capable as older adolescents at utilizing these ten dimensions of acting skill, and in particular, they were able to create characters with detailed social and psychological lives. In fact, due to a greater degree of self-consciousness and an increase in self-criticism most of the older adolescents performed below the level of their younger counterparts across all dimensions. As predicted, however a few of these older adolescents were able to orchestrate the variety of skills required for characterization with greater success than any of the younger subjects. These results support the proposed conception of a developmental model of enactive abilities.