What, if any, effect the habitual evocation of imaginary playmates, and the elaboration of the imaginary land, may exert on character formation and habits of adjustment in adulthood is at present unknown. Psychologists should study the hygienic aspects of these methods of finding satisfaction outside of the real world. Since gifted children are, as has been stated, on the whole a stable and rational group, perhaps no effects, or good effects only, result from this play of the imagination.
It has been mentioned that gifted girls are less interested in traditional girls' play than are unselected girls. They show a preference for boys' books and boys' play, and a greater community of interests with boys than the generality of girls display. This merely means that girls of a high degree of intelligence are, as a group, more competitive, aggressive, and active than girls are supposed to be.
An illustrative case is that of a seven-year-old girl of IQ 170, whose mother wished to learn from psychology how to break her child of being a "tomboy" and how to rear her to "be a lady." The mother complained that the girl had never cared for dolls, that she would not take an interest in her clothes, and that she wanted to do nothing after school but read or play "rough, outdoor games." "How," inquired the mother, "could I break her of the habit of climbing lampposts?" This child was active and competitive. When asked why she did not play with dolls, she replied, "They aren't _real_. The doll that is supposed to be a baby doll is twice as big as the one that is made like a mother doll."
Aside from their dissatisfaction with the play habits ordinarily associated with their sex, gifted girls have various other problems to face which arise directly from the facts that they are able and that they are girls. When they reach the stage of life-planning, as they do very early, they are confused in their self-seeking by the uncertainty in contemporary customs as to what a girl may become. This difficulty is growing less and less, to be sure, but it is still something to be reckoned with, especially in certain localities. The intelligent girl begins very early to perceive that she is, so to speak, of the wrong sex. From a thousand tiny cues, she learns that she is not expected to entertain the same ambitions as her brother. Her problem is to adjust her ambitions to a sense of sex inferiority without, on the one hand, losing self-respect and self-determination, and, on the other, without becoming morbidly aggressive. This is never an easy adjustment to achieve, and even superior intelligence does not always suffice to accomplish it. The special problem of gifted girls is that they have strong preferences for activities that are hard to follow on account of their sex, which is inescapable.