According to some theorists, giftedness is a social construction. This research study was grounded on the psychosocial classification of talents proposed by Tannenbaum (1983), according to whom talents can be classified as scarcity, surplus, quota and anomalous talents based on their societal values. Ac-cording this classification, the social value of a talent determines its place in a talent hier-archy. In this study, the importance of talent types and the validity of the classification were investigated among Turkish lay people. A scale consisting of 60 different types of talents was administered to 601 people. Paired samples t-test analysis showed that scarcity talents had more value than the oth-ers, surplus talents had more value than quo-ta and anomalous talents and quota talents had more value than anomalous talents. Furthermore, females attached more value to scarcity and surplus talents than did males. Findings clearly show that people attach different levels of importance to different talent types and talents can be classified in a hierarchy based on their social values.
Key words: giftedness, talent classification, social value
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