Scholastic Aptitudes and Vocational Needs of Original Thinkers and Good Elaborators

This study seeks to expand the concept of creativity by investigating the scholastic aptitudes and vocational needs of highly creative public high school seniors. Torrance's (1962) Minnesota Tests of Creative Thinking were administered to 708 seniors. Students scoring highest and lowest on two scales, originality and elaboration, were divided into 12 criterion groups (N = 311) among boys and girls. Significant differences were obtained on the Minnesota Scholastic Aptitude Test and the Minnesota Importance Questionnaire (MIQ) (Weiss, Dawis, England & Lofquist, 1964). Highly original seniors had significantly stronger needs than good elaborators on four MIQ scales. Students highest in both abilities had stronger needs than either high originals or good elaborators on five other MIQ scales.     

Relationships Between Inventoried Interests and Inventoried Needs

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship of interests, as defined by the Strong Vocational Interest Blank (SVIB) scales, to psychological needs, as defined by the Minnesota Importance Questionnaire (MIQ) and the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule (EPPS) scales. The 3 instruments were administered to a group of 279 University of Minnesota male student volunteers. A correlational analysis disclosed about one-third of the relationships between the SVIB and the two needs measures significant at the .01 level. Of the MIQ scales, Advancement, Authority, Security, Social Service, Social Status, and Working Conditions were most often related to the SVIB; while of the EPPS scales, Dominance clearly had the most numerous and the highest relationships with SVIB groups, and Order, Exhibition, Autonomy, Abasement, and Endurance also had some relationships. Although relatively low in magnitude, the results of this study tend to support 5 previously identified occupationally related personality need dimensions.     

VOCATIONAL VALUES AND EMPLOYMENT OUTCOMES OF THE DISADVANTAGED

There is conflicting opinion regarding the vocational values of disadvantaged persons. This study was conducted to examine vocational values and employment outcomes of 21 disadvantaged and 20 not-disadvantaged clients previously served by a U.S. Employment Service office. The Minnesota Importance Questionnaire (MIQ) was used to measure vocational values, and two measures of disadvantagement were compared with employment outcome. Only 2 of the 20 MIQ scales revealed significant differences, suggesting that there is a need to consider the individual's unique values rather than presume stereotyped needs. The two measures of disadvantagement correlated significantly with employment status at follow-up. The finding that only 43 percent of the disadvantaged were employed, in contrast to 90 percent of the not-disadvantaged, indicates a greater need for specialized services for disadvantaged clients.     

不同科学创造力个体干扰抑制机制的比较*

选取《科学创造力量表》筛选出高、低科学创造力个体各20名,通过完成经典Stroop色字干扰抑制任务,探讨高、低科学创造力的个体抑制机制的差异。结果发现:在Stroop色字任务上,无论是高科学创造力组还是低科学创造力组,都出现了Stroop干扰效应,但低科学创造力组的Stroop效应更明显;高科学创造力组在字色不一致条件下的错误率显著低于低科学创造力组,但是两组被试在Stroop任务反应时上差异不显著。本研究结果提示高科学创造力个体的认知抑制能力强于低科学创造力个体。     

Creative Actions Scale: A Spanish Scale of Creativity in Different Domains

This article introduces the Creative Actions Scale (CAS), a Spanish self‐report assessment of individual differences in creative actions. The CAS consists of independent scales that assess the frequency of engagement in everyday creative actions across seven domains: Literature, Plastic Arts and Crafts, Science and Technology, Scenic Arts, Music, Social Participation, and Everyday Creativity. The sample included 1604 men and women who lived in different provinces in Argentina. The participants’ ages ranged from 18 to 94 years. All of the participants spoke Spanish and had an average socioeconomic level. People with different levels of education were included in the sample. We applied the following data collection instruments: CAS, Biographical Inventory of Creative Behaviors, and Domains of Creativity Scale. The analysis provided evidence of internal consistency and validity of the CAS. The confirmatory factor analysis showed an adequate fit of the seven‐domain model. The results also showed significant differences according to gender in some CAS domains. Inclusion of the Social Participation and Everyday Creativity domains is novel and useful for assessing creativity in the Spanish‐speaking population.     

Impulsivity in adults: motor inhibition and time-interval estimation

There is a need for the development of behavioral measures of impusivity in order to elucidate the specific qualities of impulsive persons. The relationships between two behavioral measures of impulsivity and several personality inventories frequently used to assess inpulsivity were examined using 40 male Ss. The behavioral measures involved a motor-inhibition (MI) task and time-interval (TI) estimation. The personality measures included the Extraversion (E), Psychoticism (P) and Neuroticism (N) scales of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ), Barrat's Impulsivity Scale (BIS) and Gough's Socialization Scale (So). Significant relationships between MI scores and E, BIS and a proposed dimension of impulsivity obtained by the formation of E-P quadrants were found. In addition, performance on this task was related to So, P and E-N quadrants in the predicted directions. The consistency of these results supports the use of this task as a behavioral measure of impusivity in adults. Although personality inventory scores were not related to estimations, significant (negative) correlations were obtained between TI estimations and MI scores. The results indicate that TI estimation by itself is not an adequate measure of impulsivity, but does have implications for understanding impulsive behavior.     

Goal Structures in Creative Motivation

Our culture, as reflected in the creativity literature, has focused on products and productivity. We know relatively little about motives related to other creativity goals or to multiple-goal structures. We studied differences in goal structures between high and low creative individuals, across creative and routine situations, in four categories: person, process, situation, product. Creativity potential was assessed with a composite of four scales. Goal structures in creative and routine situations were assessed with a self-report measure. Nearly all subjects used all four goal categories to describe their motivation in both situations. Only about 34% of subjects' motivation was product-related. There were several differences between high and low creatives: (a) high creatives made more use of the full range of goal categories; (b) in creative situations, high creatives put more emphasis on person and less on product; (c) they also put less emphasis on product than low creatives did in either situation; (d) high creatives reported significantly higher motivation than low creatives in both situations.     

Creativity and Tolerance of Ambiguity: An Empirical Study

This study examines the relationship between creativity and tolerance of ambiguity. Participants were parents and their adolescent children. Three measures of creativity were used: a divergent thinking task, a story‐writing task and self‐evaluation of creative attitudes and behavior. Participants completed two self‐report measures of tolerance of ambiguity: the short version of the “Measurement of Ambiguity Tolerance” (Norton, 1975; Zenasni & Lubart, 2001) and the “Behaviour Scale of Tolerance/Intolerance for Ambiguity” (Stoycheva, 1998, 2003). Tolerance of ambiguity was significantly and positively related to creativity. Creativity of parents was related to their adolescents' creativity. However, parents' tolerance of ambiguity was not related to adolescents' tolerance of ambiguity or creativity.     

A Cross‐Cultural Study of Task Specificity in Creativity

This study provides new evidence concerning task specificity in creativity—examining through a cross‐cultural perspective the extent to which performance in graphic versus verbal creativity tasks (domain specificity) and in divergent versus convergent creativity tasks (process specificity) are correlated. The relations between different creativity tasks in monocultural and multicultural samples of Chinese and French children were compared. Electronic versions of the Wallach and Kogan Creativity Test (WKCT , W allach & K ogan, 1965; L au & C heung, 2010) and the Evaluation of Potential Creativity (EP oC; L ubart, B esançon, & B arbot, 2011; B arbot, B esançon, & L ubart, 2011) were used. Both measures showed satisfactory psychometric properties and cross‐cultural structural validity. The results showed that culture has an impact on the structure of creative ability: It appeared that correlation patterns were different across Chinese and French groups and across monocultural and multicultural groups. Such results show that it is crucial to take task specificity into account when investigating the effect of culture on creativity. Indeed, our study implies that cultural differences that are found using one specific creativity task might not be automatically generalizable to all sorts of creativity tasks. Limitations are discussed and perspectives for future research on culture and task specificity in creativity are proposed.     

Use of three depression scales for evaluation of pretreatment severity and of improvement after treatment

We investigated the Castilian Spanish versions of three scales (the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression, the Carroll Rating Scale for Depression, and the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale) as to their suitability for classifying major depression patients in four levels of severity prior to treatment with tricyclic antidepressants, and also as to their suitability for classifying these patients in four improvement levels when administered posttreatment. Although the scales behaved quite similarly, each was most efficient at the task for which it had been designed, i.e., severity rating for the Hamilton and Carroll scales, improvement rating for the Montgomery-Asberg scale.     

How Does It Feel? The Development of the Experience of Creativity Questionnaire

Creativity research has tended to neglect the phenomenology of the creative process. This article addresses this by describing the development of the Experience of Creativity Questionnaire (ECQ), designed to measure experiential (Part A) and existential (Part B) dimensions of artistic creativity. The questionnaire items were generated on the basis of an earlier qualitative investigation. Participants were 100 artists, from diverse fields of the creative arts. Two Maximum Likelihood factor analyses with Promax rotation were performed on the items comprising the initial ECQ, resulting in 6 factors in Part A and 3 factors in Part B. Factor analyses were then performed on a reduced number of items, providing the basis for 5 scales in Part A (labeled Distinct Experience, Anxiety, Absorption, Power/Pleasure, Clarity/Preparation) and 3 scales in Part B (Transformation, Centrality, Beyond the Personal). The scales demonstrated acceptable reliability, ranging from .82 to.60 (Guttman coefficient). Use of the ECQ in future research will facilitate further investigation of the phenomenology of the creative process and afford greater integration of research paradigms in creativity research.     

EFFECTS OF TRAINING AND RATING SCALES ON RATING ERRORS

Ninety business students were randomly assigned to one of three conditions where they used behavioral observation scales (BOS), behavioral expectation scales (BES), or trait scales in observing people on videotape. Half the individuals received four hours of training to minimize rating errors. Rating errors were reduced significantly regardless of the rating scale that was used. However, behavioral criteria were more resistant to rating errors than trait scales. There was no significant difference between BOS and BES on this dimension. With regard to practicality, BOS were evaluated as significantly better than BES and trait scales. BES and trait scales did not differ significantly on this measure.     

Adolescent personality and two measures of response inconsistency

This study examined the relationship between the Response Inconsistency Scale (RINC) of the Adolescent Personality Questionnaire and the Variable Response Inconsistency Scale (VRIN) of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory for Adolescents (MMPI-A) in a group of 62 participants. RINC and VRIN were positively correlated .30 (p < .01). Additionally, both scales were correlated with five broad personality scales available from the Adolescent Personality Questionnaire. Scores on both inconsistency scales correlated negatively with those on Extraversion, Independence, and Self-control (but the latter two not significantly).     

Concurrent validity and Holland's theory

This study was designed to explore two areas: (1) the concurrent validity of Holland's theory for employed men using four different operational definitions of vocational orientation, and (2) the relationships among all possible combinations of same named scales across the four inventories. Concurrent validity was studied by administering the Vocational Preference Inventory, the Self Directed Search, and the Holland Scales (Set I and Set II) to 153 male workers established in occupational environments consistent with Holland's six vocational environments. The results revealed that five scales of the VPI and of the Holland Scales (Set I and Set II) and four scales of the SDS successfully differentiated the occupational groups consistent with Holland's theoretical framework. The correlation coefficients for same named scales for all possible combinations of the four inventories were all found to be significant. In general, the findings of this study tend to support the concurrent validity of Holland's theory for employed men.     

BIOLOGY TEACHERS’ CONCEPTIONS ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF LIFE IN BRAZIL,ARGENTINA, AND URUGUAY: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Teachers’ conceptions about the origin of life in three Latin American countries with contrasting levels of secularism were analyzed: Argentina (Catholic constitution), Brazil (formally secular but not in practice), and Uruguay (consolidated secularism). A European survey questionnaire was used and the interpretation of the results drew on Barbour's four categories concerning the relationships of science and religion. A large majority of Argentinian and Uruguayan teachers were clearly evolutionist, even when believing in God (Independence or Dialogue category), with no difference between Argentina and Uruguay. The majority of Brazilian teachers assumed a religious position about the origin of life, being creationist (Conflict or Independence categories) or evolutionary creationist (Dialogue or Integration categories). Differences of Brazilian teachers’ conceptions may result from the higher percentage of evangelicals and lower proportion of agnostics/atheists. Brazilian Catholic teachers were more creationist than their Catholic colleagues in Argentina and Uruguay. Distinct patterns were found, but further research is needed to understand possible classroom impacts.     

Florida creativity index scores, conservatism, and openness in 268 U.S. regions

This study assessed whether Florida's Creativity Index (2002) scores for 268 U.S. regions were related to levels of conservatism and openness in the states in which the regions were situated. State conservatism was measured as the percentage voting for Bush in 2000. State openness z scores were taken from a survey of 619,397 residents (Rentfrow, Gosling, & Potter, 2008). Creativity scores correlated negatively with conservatism (r = -.22) and positively with openness (r = .23). Regression showed that the two predictors accounted jointly (7%) and separately for significant variance in the Creativity Index. The findings contribute evidence for the construct validity of Florida's composite Creativity Index and some, albeit moderate to weak, support of the Rentfrow, et al. conclusion that state-aggregated openness reflects the unconventionality, tolerance, and creativity of a state.     

Agile innovation: The role of team climate in rapid research and development

The impact of team climate on speed of research and development (R&D) project completion was studied in a sample of 33 R&D teams. West's model of team climate for innovation was measured and analysed in relation to project performance ratings, and also in relation to project leaders' estimates of project progress over a 9‐month period. Three of the four climate scales (namely participative safety, support for innovation, and task orientation) were significantly correlated with project performance rated by managers and customers, and two scales (namely support for innovation and vision) correlated with project leaders' ratings of project innovation. Additionally, results of hierarchical linear modelling showed that the climate scales participative safety and task orientation each predicted the rate at which projects moved towards completion. Teams with more positive initial ratings of these climate factors progressed significantly faster towards project completion over subsequent months than teams with poorer climate ratings. The results extend previous research that has linked team climate with levels of team innovation and performance, by showing that climate also predicts rate or speed of innovation.     

Affective personality differences in neural processing efficiency confirmed using fMRI

To test for a relation between individual differences in personality and neural-processing efficiency, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to assess brain activity within regions associated with cognitive control during a demanding working memory task. Fifty-three participants completed both the self-report behavioral inhibition sensitivity (BIS) and behavioral approach sensitivity (BAS) personality scales and a standard measure of fluid intelligence (Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrices). They were then scanned as they performed a three-back working memory task. A mixed blocked/ event-related fMRI design enabled us to identify both sustained and transient neural activity. Higher BAS was negatively related to event-related activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate, the lateral prefrontal cortex, and parietal areas in regions of interest identified in previous work. These relationships were not explained by differences in either behavioral performance or fluid intelligence, consistent with greater neural efficiency. The results reveal the high specificity of the relationships among personality, cognition, and brain activity. The data confirm that affective dimensions of personality are independent of intelligence, yet also suggest that they might be interrelated in subtle ways, because they modulate activity in overlapping brain regions that appear to be critical for task performance.