Jugend forscht und Jugend musiziert: Kognitive Fähigkeiten und Persönlichkeitsmerkmale erfolgreicher Teilnehmer

144 participants of the German science contest "Jugend forscht" and 93 participants of the German classical music competition "Jugend musiziert" are juxtaposed 461 non participating German high school students. They are viewed wether they contrast not only according their accomplished contests but also in more general manner. It is common to suppose by either theoretical conclusion or literature investigations, successful contest participants perform better in cognitive as well in creative conundrums but also provide specific non-cognitive habits. Logical thinking, spatial visualization and orientation ability, memory, creativity, personality factors concerning the conception of Cattell as well as the psychological sex role were examinated by using standardized quantitative tests. Biographical data and individual preferences were accessed by explorative questionnaires which give extra insight to possible misleading factors like age, sex or economical status. Concerning cognitive factors, the statistical analysis offered a significant group effect only for the factor spatial visualization and this only for boys of "Jugend forscht". In general the applied cognitive tests suggested less differences, even less than expected. Beside this, both groups of contest participants showed significant higher creativity and exhibit significant differences in several personality factors. Also, they revealed more often androgyne or crosssexual sex roles. It appears that differences between contest participants and high school students concerne non-cognitive factors like personality, creativity and sex role rather than logical thinking, memory or spatial ability.