The Effects of a Verbal and a Figural Creativity Training on Different Facets of Creative Potential

This study investigated the effects of different types of creativity interventions on different facets of creative potential, also including more school-related creativity demands. In a sample of 77 fourth-graders in the age between 9 and 12 years, we administered a verbal and a figural creativity training, realized in two school lessons over two consecutive days each. As outcome measures, creative potential in both the verbal and the figural domain by means of two well-established divergent thinking tasks was assessed. As additional measures of creative potential, a story completion task and a picture painting task were administered to examine training effects on more school-related types of creative behavior. The verbal training was found to increase both verbal and figural divergent thinking ability, but not creative potential in the story completion and the picture painting task. The figural training yielded significant training effects only regarding the picture painting task. Findings suggest a specific training effect of the figural creativity training, and moreover indicate that the verbal creativity training, rather than stimulating “verbal” creative abilities per se, was more strongly concerned with domain-general creativity processes including ideational fluency, flexibility, and originality that are characteristics of divergent thinking tasks across different domains.     

Does the Eye of the Beholder Construct Beauty? Contributions of Self-Efficacy Factors to Divergent Thinking Traits

The study initiated a project exploring a contribution of creative perception to creative behavior. This study investigated the factors in creative self-perception contributing to creative potential. Creative potential was operationalized as divergent thinking and measured by the Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults. Creative self-perception was operationalized as creative self-efficacy and assessed by Khatena-Torrance Creative Perception Inventory. Undergraduate college students’ creative self-efficacy was found to make a reliable and measurable contribution to their divergent thinking performance. Specifically, fluency was predicted by initiative and intellectuality, originality—by initiative, and flexibility—by environmental sensitivity and self-strength. These findings suggested that in addition to process, product, person, place, persuasion, and potential perspectives, creativity construct could be evaluated from a standpoint of creative perception.     

Visual Creativity Across Cultures: A Comparison Between Italians and Japanese

Culture-related differences in visual creativity were investigated, comparing Italian and Japanese participants in terms of divergent (figural completion task) and product-oriented thinking (figural combination task). Visual restructuring ability was measured as the ability to reinterpret ambiguous figures and was included as a covariate. Results showed that in divergent thinking, Italians only outperformed Japanese participants in elaboration and in product-oriented thinking in terms of originality of products. Visual restructuring ability was found to play a key role both in originality and practicality of products. Both groups scored the same in terms of fluency, originality, and flexibility of visual divergent thinking, as well as in term of practicality of creative products. These findings are consistent with the idea that Italians and Japanese have the same creative potential, although from the early stages of the design Japanese seem to show a greater tendency to take practicality constraints into account when creating in the visual domain.     

Creative Self-Efficacy: The Influence of Affective States and Social Persuasion as Antecedents and Imagination and Divergent Thinking as Consequences

Two studies examined the influence of encouragement for creativity, curiosity, harmonious passion, and autonomy support as antecedents of creative self-efficacy and imagination and divergent thinking as consequences. College students completed a battery of questionnaires. Structural equation modeling treating the variables as latent and not normally distributed was used to test our hypotheses. Results from study 1 showed a positive influence of encouragement for creativity and curiosity on creative self-efficacy. Similarly, creative self-efficacy was a positive predictor of reproductive and creative imagination. Results from study 2 showed a positive effect of harmonious passion on creative self-efficacy. Creative self-efficacy was a positive predictor of fluency and originality scores from a divergent thinking task. The theoretical and applied implications of the results were discussed.     

Strategy Induction Enhances Creativity in Figural Divergent Thinking

Instructional effects in creative‐thinking tasks are important to understand in order to promote creative performance of individuals. In divergent‐thinking tasks, for example, instructional and strategic enhancement effects have been extensively studied for verbal tasks. However, while studies on instructional enhancement effects on creative drawing tasks exist, it is surprising that strategy enhancement in figural divergent thinking is still underresearched. In this study, we used a strategy manipulation approach to reassess the role of executive strategy implementation and the moderating role of an indicator of fluid intelligence, figural analogical reasoning, in two types of figural divergent‐thinking tasks (abstract vs. concrete). The sample comprised N = 75 high‐school students. Importantly, we found strategic enhancement effects by combining strategy instructions with a prompt to “be creative.” This combined instruction was contrasted with a standard instruction, and main effects were found for overall, concrete, and abstract creativity. Moreover, we found in a regression analysis a main effect for figural analogical reasoning on overall creativity and creativity for only the concrete object tasks. An expected interaction effect of instruction and figural analogical reasoning was not found. As another addition, the role of current motivation in figural divergent thinking was explored.     

Unity and diversity of executive functions in creativity

Increasing evidence suggests that executive functions (EFs) – a set of general-purpose control processes that regulate thoughts and behaviors – are relevant for creativity. However, EF is not a unitary process, and it remains unclear which specific EFs are involved. The present study examined the association between the three EFs, both uniquely (EF-Specific) and together (Common EF), and three measures of creativity. Participants (N = 47) completed a divergent thinking test, and self-reported their real-life creative accomplishments. A subset of participants indicated their involvement in the artistic or information technology (IT) professions. Results indicated that fluency (but not originality) of divergent thinking was uniquely predicted by working memory Updating. Better response Inhibition predicted higher number of real-world artistic creative achievements. Involvement in the artistic (versus IT) professions was associated with better Common EF, and with enhanced mental set Shifting abilities. Results demonstrate that different EFs predict creativity depending on its operational definition.     

Measuring creative thinking: An activity‐based approach

The primary objective of this exploratory study was to test activity‐based behavioral measures of creative thinking with a sample of Hong Kong fifth‐grade school children, and also to determine the concurrent validity between activity‐based measures of creative thinking and standard divergent thinking tests. Altogether five creative thinking abilities were measured using the behavioral techniques and the children's scores for fluency, flexibility, and originality were compared with those from the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT). The construct‐related validity among all the different abilities on the behavioral measures was also calculated. Contrary to previous assertions about the lack of creativity among Chinese populations, the Hong Kong children demonstrated their ability to use a number of creative thinking features in order to solve problems. No construct validity was found between the different measures of creativity except between originality and fluency. Possible reasons for this are reviewed. The TTCT and the behavioral techniques were found to have some concurrent validity in relationto fluency and originality on the Verbal Tests. There was no correlation for flexibility. The advantages of using activity‐based measurements of creative behavior are discussed.     

Creativity of university students: What is the impact of field and year of study?

There is a long‐lasting dispute about development of students' creativity in the course of their university education. Both the duration and major field of study may represent the educational effects. To address the issue, the present study collected data (N = 859) from a series of surveys of students in Hong Kong to clarify educational effects by controlling a number of background characteristics and prior scores on creativity. Apart from measuring self‐reported creative traits and creative products, it measured divergent thinking with five tasks to elicit students' creative ideas, which led to scores of fluency, flexibility, novelty, innovativeness, and originality. Results indicate the trend of monotonic decline in creativity with years of study at university and the general superiority of verbal creativity among students of humanities and social sciences, whereas business students had the highest scores on self‐assessed creative traits and products.     

The cognitive underpinnings of creative thought: A latent variable analysis exploring the roles of intelligence and working memory in three creative thinking processes

The field of creativity has largely focused on individual differences in divergent thinking abilities. Recently, contemporary creativity researchers have shown that intelligence and executive functions play an important role in divergent thought, opening new lines of research to examine how higher-order cognitive mechanisms may uniquely contribute to creative thinking. The present study extends previous research on the intelligence and divergent thinking link by systematically examining the relationships among intelligence, working memory, and three fundamental creative processes: associative fluency, divergent thinking, and convergent thinking. Two hundred and sixty five participants were recruited to complete a battery of tasks that assessed a range of elementary to higher-order cognitive processes related to intelligence and creativity. Results provide evidence for an associative basis in two distinct creative processes: divergent thinking and convergent thinking. Findings also supported recent work suggesting that intelligence significantly influences creative thinking. Finally, working memory played a significant role in creative thinking processes. Recasting creativity as a construct consisting of distinct higher-order cognitive processes has important implications for future approaches to studying creativity within an individual differences framework.     

Different Effects of Cognitive Shifting and Intelligence on Creativity

The relationship between creativity and executive control has long been controversial. Some researchers view creative thinking as a defocused process with little executive control involvement, whereas others claim that executive control plays a vital role in creative thinking. In this study, we focused on one subcomponent of executive control, cognitive shifting, and examined its relationship with creativity by using latent variable analysis and structural equation modeling. We also analyzed whether this relation was mediated by intelligence. The results showed that: (a) cognitive shifting ability had a positive relationship with creativity, but only on the quantitative aspects (fluency and flexibility); (b) Intelligence had a positive relationship with both quantitative and qualitative aspects (originality) of creativity, and its effect on qualitative aspect was stronger than that on the quantitative aspect; (c) There was a mediating effect of intelligence on the relationship between creativity cognitive and shifting.     

Identifying Creativity During Problem Solving Using Linguistic Features

Creativity is commonly assessed using divergent thinking tasks, which measure the fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration of participant output on a variety of different tasks. This study assesses the degree to which creativity can be identified based on linguistic features of participants’ language while completing collaborative divergent thinking tasks. To this end, 78 participants’ conversational dialogs (i.e., 39 dyads) within a chat environment were collected while completing three open-ended problem-solving tasks. Expert raters scored the dialogs in terms of fluency, flexibility, elaboration, and originality, as well as three types of creative language (metaphor and simile, humor, and word play). Factor analyses indicated that these scores captured two main constructs (creativity and elaboration). The linguistic features of the participants’ language (captured computationally using natural language processing tools) accounted for significant amounts of variation in both the creativity (R² = .640) and elaboration (R² = .550) scores within linear mixed effect (LME) models. These results highlight specific linguistic features that can be used to explain large amounts of variance in constructs related to creativity.     

Unraveling Effects of Novelty on Creativity

Novelty is inherent to creative processes. A positive effect of novelty on creative task performance was therefore predicted. However, creativity can benefit from divergent, as well as convergent thinking. Subsequently, novelty may benefit creative performance when divergent thinking is required, but it could inhibit creative performance when convergent thinking is required. In Study 1, participants were primed with novelty or familiarity, and performed a creativity task that required divergent thinking. Results showed a beneficial effect of novelty priming on originality of the answers. In Study 2, a creativity task that required convergent thinking was framed as novel, familiar, or neutral. Results showed an inhibitory effect of novelty on creativity. Results are related to information processing styles, and implications for creativity and novelty research are discussed.     

Person-oriented profiles of originality and fluency in divergent thinking responses

Researchers often use divergent thinking tasks to assess creative potential and find a positive inter-individual relation between fluency and originality. But are there different within-person patterns of originality and fluency? Study 1: undergraduates completed an alternate uses task and the NEO-FFI. Three profiles emerged: (1) low originality and fluency; (2) above average originality, moderate fluency; and (3) average originality, high fluency. Study 2: high school students completed a divergent thinking task and 10 facets of the IPIP NEO-PI. Four profiles emerged: (1) average originality, moderate fluency; (2) above average originality, high fluency; (3) low originality and fluency; and (4) high originality, low fluency. Profile differences in personality and maximum originality, and implications of these findings are discussed.     

The roles of associative and executive processes in creative cognition

How does the mind produce creative ideas? Past research has pointed to important roles of both executive and associative processes in creative cognition. But such work has largely focused on the influence of one ability or the other—executive or associative—so the extent to which both abilities may jointly affect creative thought remains unclear. Using multivariate structural equation modeling, we conducted two studies to determine the relative influences of executive and associative processes in domain-general creative cognition (i.e., divergent thinking). Participants completed a series of verbal fluency tasks, and their responses were analyzed by means of latent semantic analysis (LSA) and scored for semantic distance as a measure of associative ability. Participants also completed several measures of executive function—including broad retrieval ability (Gr) and fluid intelligence (Gf). Across both studies, we found substantial effects of both associative and executive abilities: As the average semantic distance between verbal fluency responses and cues increased, so did the creative quality of divergent-thinking responses (Study 1 and Study 2). Moreover, the creative quality of divergent-thinking responses was predicted by the executive variables—Gr (Study 1) and Gf (Study 2). Importantly, the effects of semantic distance and the executive function variables remained robust in the same structural equation model predicting divergent thinking, suggesting unique contributions of both constructs. The present research extends recent applications of LSA in creativity research and provides support for the notion that both associative and executive processes underlie the production of novel ideas.     

Effects of Movement Improvisation and Aerobic Dancing on Motor Creativity and Divergent Thinking

Creativity is considered to be an embodied concept, where internal psychological and external behavioral processes are intertwined. Creativity enhancement programs often target the cognitive side of this bi‐dimensionality leaving the impact of motor interventions underexplored. To address this gap in the literature, we tested the effectiveness of two motor programs on motor creativity and divergent thinking (verbal and figural). A total of 92 college students (M_age = 25.36, SD = 2.66) were randomly allocated to a movement improvisation, an aerobic dance, or a control condition. Participants in both motor programs took part in ten 30‐minute classes twice a week over a period of 5 weeks. The findings revealed a significant effect of the motor programs on motor fluency and flexibility. Movement improvisation yielded the greatest effects on those variables, followed by aerobic dancing and control condition. Movement improvisation also impacted significantly more figural originality than the control condition. However, the effects were limited to the motor domain and failed to transfer into other divergent thinking variables. The findings highlighted the contribution of movement programs to creative potential development, and the imperative role of a non‐judgmental environment, where individuals are free to move spontaneously.     

才思泉涌“举步”间：体育运动对创造性思维的影响

创造性思维是运用独特且新颖的观点解决问题的思维形式,发散与聚合思维是两种常见的类型。体育运动对发散与聚合思维具有不同的影响,且受到运动强度、方式、时长以及个体差异等因素的调节。目前解释体育运动如何影响创造性思维的理论有情绪假说、执行功能假说与身心隐喻理论。未来的研究需要在进一步重视研究规范性的基础上,加强神经科学研究并拓宽群体覆盖面,关注体育运动与创造性成就的关系,为开具创造性思维运动处方提供有力的科学支持。     

Revisiting Mednick's Model on Creativity‐Related Differences in Associative Hierarchies. Evidence for a Common Path to Uncommon Thought

Fifty years ago, Mednick [Psychological Review, 69 (1962) 220] proposed an elaborate model that aimed to explain how creative ideas are generated and why creative people are more likely to have creative ideas. The model assumes that creative people have flatter associative hierarchies and as a consequence can more fluently retrieve remote associative elements, which can be combined to form creative ideas. This study aimed at revisiting Mednick's model and providing an extensive test of its hypotheses. A continuous free association task was employed and association performance was compared between groups high and low in creativity, as defined by divergent thinking ability and self‐report measures. We found that associative hierarchies do not differ between low and high creative people, but creative people showed higher associative fluency and more uncommon responses. This suggests that creativity may not be related to a special organization of associative memory, but rather to a more effective way of accessing its contents. The findings add to the evidence associating creativity with highly adaptive executive functioning.     

A Meta-Analysis of the Relation between Creative Self-Efficacy and Different Creativity Measurements

This meta-analysis investigated the relations between creative self-efficacy (CSE) and creativity measures and hypothesized that self-assessed questionnaires would have a different relation to self-efficacy beliefs compared to other creativity tests. The meta-analysis synthesized 60 effect sizes from 41 papers (overall N = 17226). Taken as a whole, the relation between CSE and creativity measures was of medium size (r = .39). Subgroup analyses revealed that self-rated creativity correlated higher with self-efficacy (r = .53). The relation with divergent thinking (DT) tests was weak (r = .23). Creativity scales had a medium size relation (r = .43), and was stronger than the relation to verbal performance tasks (r = .27) and figural performance tasks (r = .19). In a comparison between measures focusing on the creative person (r = .47), the creative product (r = .32), and the creative process (r = .27), the person aspect was most strongly linked to CSE. Thus, the relation between self-efficacy and creativity measures is dependent on the type of measurement used, emphasizing the need for researchers to distinguish between different instruments—not the least between self-report scales and more objective test procedures. Conceptual implications are discussed and critique concerning the creativity concept is brought up.     

Bicultural Effects on the Creative Potential of Chinese and French Children

This study examined possible bicultural effects on creative potential of children in four groups of Chinese and French children in Hong Kong and Paris. An international battery of widely used divergent measures (Wallach-Kogan Creativity Tests; WKCT) and newly constructed divergent-plus-integrative measures (Evaluation of Potential Creativity; EPoC) was established for assessment. Study 1 showed that most measures of WKCT and EPoC were reasonably high in reliability and they had expected correlations with the fluency scores of some subtests of Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. Study 2 found some interestingly mixed bicultural effects favoring verbal divergent responses for French children and graphic integrative responses for Chinese children. Compared with Paris-French children, the bicultural Hong Kong-French children had significantly higher scores in figural fluency, figural flexibility, and figural uniqueness of WKCT (requiring only verbal divergent responses) but significantly lower scores in the graphic divergent-exploratory measure of EPoC. Compared with Hong Kong-Chinese children, the bicultural Paris-Chinese children had significantly higher scores in the graphic convergent-integrative measure of EPoC, but significantly lower scores in verbal fluency, verbal flexibility, figural fluency, figural flexibility, figural uniqueness, and figural unusualness of WKCT. Implications of the mixed bicultural effects in relation to the diverse creativity measures and children groups are discussed.     

Validity of the Brown ADD scales: an investigation in a predominantly inattentive ADHD adolescent sample with and without reading disabilities

The Brown ADD Scale for Adolescents is widely used in clinical settings, yet, no published studies have investigated divergent and concurrent validity and specificity and sensitivity to inattentive ADHD symptomatology. Ninety-eight participants (13 to 16 years) were classified as ADHD/I and/or reading disabled (RD) using Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorder and Schizophrenia (K-SADS), Conners' Rating Scales (CRS-R), and Ontario Child Health Study Scales (OCHSS), WRAT3, and WRMT-R. The results were: 29 ADHD/I; 12 RD, 16 ADHD/I with RD; and, 41 controls. The RD group was included to evaluate specificity. The Brown was administered but not used in classification. The ADHD groups scored higher on the Brown subscales compared with the other two groups. The recommended cutoffs resulted in high rates of false negatives but few false positives; this suggests good specificity but poor sensitivity. There were moderate correlations among the Brown, CRS-R, and OCHSS. The Brown can be useful in screening out ADHD; however, its low sensitivity precludes its usefulness in diagnosing ADHD.