Creative Thinking in an Emotional Context: Specific Relevance of Executive Control of Emotion-Laden Representations in the Inventiveness in Generating Alternative Appraisals of Negative Events

Although divergent thinking ability in different domains may largely rely on the same basic executive functions, domain-specific functions may also be important, in particular when it comes to more real-life creativity demands. This study investigated if functional executive control of emotion-laden representations may be specifically relevant in cognitive reappraisal, which implies being creative in an affective context. In a sample of 88 healthy individuals, the relation between the participants’ inventiveness in generating positive reappraisals of adverse events (Reappraisal Inventiveness Test) and in generating novel ideas without emotional component (conventional divergent thinking test) to their executive functioning in tasks without (Mittenecker Pointing Test) and with emotional contribution (humor processing task) was studied. In line with hybrid models of creative thinking, poorer basic inhibition skills were found to be associated with poorer fluency performance in both divergent thinking tasks. Relations applied more specifically to reappraisal inventiveness when it came to executive processes with a more prominent emotional component. Creative performance in both tasks may have been hampered by time limits. The results support the notion that, in addition to basic executive functioning, more specific cognitive control functions are implicated in more real-life creative performance, according to related domain-specific demands.     

中学生创造性思维能力自评测验的编制

创造性思维有多种构成,其能力表现也有多种,即创造性思维能力是多维结构的.常用的最佳表现测验形式,无法良好测量其多维结构.一些研究者认为创造性思维能力是个体内在稳定的智力品质,并尝试使用典型表现测验来测量.本研究沿用此思路,尝试开发一套中学生创造性思维能力自评测验,即测查个体在日常生活中是否具有一些典型的习惯或行为方式.采用理论的探讨与实证分析相结合的方法,取得如下结果:(1)确定创造性思维能力的10维测评结构;(2)经过两轮测试检验,形成正式测验,信效度良好.     

Sex differences in instructions to "be creative" on divergent and nondivergent test scores

Harrington (1975) found that both the magnitude and meaning of male subject scores on the Alternate Uses Test were altered by explicit instructions to “be creative,” and argued for the necessity of such instructions, plus qualitative scoring criteria, in the employment of tests of creativity. The present study elaborated upon this study by including female subjects, more than one test of divergent thinking and a test of nondivergent thinking. Instructions to be creative increased the proportion of creative responses output for both males and females, and sharpened correlations with Adjective Check List personality scales. Instructions did not alter performance on the nondivergent test. These results were interpreted to mean the instructions elicited strategies particularly relevant to divergent thinking and ruled out nonspecific effects such as those due to motivation. A reliable sex-difference in ideational fluency was also observed: instructions to be creative facilitated the total number of responses output for the male subjects. This supports a hypothesis that the instructions disambiguate I he test situation differently for men and women, suggesting the need to isolate individual conceptions of creativity in order to maximize test performance.     

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.     

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.     

Effects of explicit instructions to "be creative" on the psychological meaning of divergent thinking test scores.

The Alternate Uses Test was administered to 50 undergraduate males instructed to produce creative (i.e., novel and worthwhile) uses and to 55 comparable subjects simply instructed to produce as many uses as possible. All uses were rated for creativity. An index of self-assessed creative thinking ability correlated significantly more strongly (p less than .05) with the number of creative uses produced in the qualitatively-oriented condition than with the number of creative or total uses produced in the standard, quantitatively-oriented condition. The correlation between self-rated creative ability and creative uses production in the qualitatively-oriented condition remained significant (p less than .001) after indices of achievement motivation and general verbal aptitude were partialled out. The results were interpreted as demonstrating the value of coordinating informative divergent thinking test instructions with qualitative scoring criteria.     

Exploring the Effect of Perceived Teacher Support on Multiple Creativity Tasks: Based on the Expectancy–Value Model of Achievement Motivation

The present study explores the effect of perceived teacher support on three forms of thinking related to creativity. Tests of convergent thinking (by means of the Remote Associates Test), insight thinking (explored through a brain‐teaser test), and divergent thinking (by means of a verbal creativity test) were given to 512 middle school students in China, along with assessments of their perceived teacher support and creative self‐efficacy. The results of this study indicate that perceived teacher support positively predicts convergent thinking and insight thinking, with creative self‐efficacy playing a partial mediating role between perceived teacher support and convergent thinking. However, no significant relationships were found between perceived teacher support and divergent thinking. The findings partly lend support to the expectancy–value model of achievement motivation that teacher’s behavior influences student performance through self‐belief pathway.     

A Critique of Six Measures for Assessing Creativity

Tests and measures of creativity are critical instruments guiding educators in identifying highly productive individuals capable of contributing insightful and far reaching solutionsto ourproblem ridden civilization. This paperanalyzesand critiques six popularlyused measures ofcreativity: 1) The Torrance Test of Creative Thinking by E. Paul Torrance (1966); 2) The Creativity Assessment Packet by frank Williams (1980); three subtests of divergent production of the 3) Structure ofthe Intellect Learning Abilities Test by Mary Meeker; 4) Thinking Creatively With Sounds and Words by E. Paul Torrance, Joe Khatena and Bert F. Cunnington (1973); 5) Thinking Creatively In Action and Movement by E. Paul Torrance (1981); 6) Khatena-Torrance Creative Perception Inventory by Joe Khatena & E. Paul Torrance (1976). Reviewed through personal observation and published literature, these tests reveal a capacity as partial measures of divergent and productive thinking. Findings indicate that updating and upgrading of several tests with thought toward key constituent factors of the creative process would be qualitatively beneficial to test design. Harnessing creative potential is a main concern of educators hoping to prepare America's youth for a fast paced and rapidly changing existence. The questions at the heart of this concern: what creativity is, what constitutes creative thinking, and what the creative individual is like, have given birth to many tests and biographical checklists. Understanding the dimensions ofcreativity is difficult at best, and assessing it through tests or biographical checklists is even more problematic. Through direct examination and a review ofthe literature, this paper critiques six such measures for validity, reliability and utility. Those measures included: the Creativity Assessment Packet (CAP), the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TICT), Thinking Creatively in Action and Movement, Thinking Creatively with Sound and Words, Khatena-Torrance Creative Perception Inventory, and three divergent thinking subtests ofthe Structure of Intellect Learning Abilities Test (SOl-LA).     

Short Term Intervention Model for Enhancing Divergent Thinking among School Aged Children

Creative ability can be developed and improved through intervention and training. This study presents a unique and innovative intervention program for enhancing creative thinking among children, focusing on divergent thinking skills. The program was designed as a short-term (10 weeks) training and conducted with 150 school students ranging in age from 9 to 13 years. The training included in a series of assignments, inspired by theoretical and practical concepts of mindfulness, theory of mind, and perspective taking. Divergent thinking was measured by fluency and uniqueness scores according to Tel Aviv Creativity Test (TACT). Results showed that children who participated in the program scored significantly higher on the divergent thinking tests after the intervention took place and that they showed higher creative achievements compared to children in the control groups.     

Metaphors and creative thinking

This study examined how working memory plays different roles in open-ended versus closed-ended creative problem-solving processes, as represented by divergent thinking tests and insight problem-solving tasks. With respect to the analysis of different task demands and the framework of dual-process theories, the hypothesis was that the idea generation in a divergent thinking test relies more on associative, effortless system 1 processing, but insight problem solving requires rule-based, resource-limited system 2 processing, in addition to system 1 processing. Since system 1 was suggested to be more active in resource deprivation conditions, Experiment 1 adopted the dual-task paradigm, which increased participants' working memory load. The results showed that divergent thinking performance was enhanced and insight problem-solving performance was hindered. Experiment 2 using the individual differences approach found that individuals' working memory capacity correlated with insight problem solving but not with divergent thinking performance, indicating a possible involvement of system 2 processing in insight problem solving. These findings suggested that open-ended and closed-ended creative problem solving involve different processes and helped to clarify some past inconsistencies when considering the relationship of factors with creativity.     

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.     

Domain Specificity in Creativity Testing: A Comparison of Performance on a General Divergent‐Thinking Test and a Parallel,Content‐Specific Test

The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which domain‐specific components, such as content and type of task, influence divergent thinking and creativity by comparing the performance of 112 ninth‐grade students on two parallel divergent‐thinking tests. The Verbal Forms of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT) represented the domain‐independent measures, while two forms of a Creativity in History Test (CHT), whose items corresponded closely to those of the TTCT, served as the content‐specific measures. The results indicated that both content‐specific and task‐specific factors have significant effects on divergent‐thinking and creative performance. Implications concerning the definition of creativity as a construct and its measurement are discussed.     

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.     

Dissociative Experiences and Creativity in Fine Arts Students

Studies on creative personality have revealed that the relationship between personality and creativity remains unclear, and various types of creative thinking have been have been associated with various personality traits. To assess the influence of dissociative experiences on creativity in the context of fine arts education, in which the creative process plays a key role, a sample of fine arts students received a test of creative potential and the dissociative experiences test. The results revealed significant differences in creativity (creative imagination and creative experiences) between students scoring high or low in the number of dissociative experiences. High dissociative experiences scores were associated to high scores in creative imagination and creative experiences, and low scores in dissociative experiences were inversely related to creative imagination and creative experiences. Further studies are required to corroborate these findings.     

Creativity on tap? Effects of alcohol intoxication on creative cognition

Anecdotal reports link alcohol intoxication to creativity, while cognitive research highlights the crucial role of cognitive control for creative thought. This study examined the effects of mild alcohol intoxication on creative cognition in a placebo-controlled design. Participants completed executive and creative cognition tasks before and after consuming either alcoholic beer (BAC of 0.03) or non-alcoholic beer (placebo). Alcohol impaired executive control, but improved performance in the Remote Associates Test, and did not affect divergent thinking ability. The findings indicate that certain aspects of creative cognition benefit from mild attenuations of cognitive control, and contribute to the growing evidence that higher cognitive control is not always associated with better cognitive performance.     

Convergent and divergent thinking in verbal analogy

Individual differences in convergent and divergent thinking may uniquely explain variation in analogical reasoning ability. Across two studies we investigated the relative influences of divergent and convergent thinking as predictors of verbal analogy performance. Performance on both convergent thinking (i.e., Remote Associates Test) and divergent thinking (i.e., Alternative Uses Task) uniquely predicted performance on both analogy selection (Studies 1 and 2) and analogical generation tasks (Study 2). Moreover, convergent and divergent thinking were predictive above and beyond creative behaviours in Study 1 and a composite measure of crystallised intelligence in Study 2. Verbal analogies in Study 2 also varied in semantic distance, with results demonstrating divergent thinking as a stronger predictor of analogy generation for semantically far than for semantically near analogies. Results thus further illuminate the link between analogical reasoning and creative cognition by demonstrating convergent and divergent thinking as predictors of verbal analogy.     

Developmental Trends in the Evaluative and Divergent Thinking of Children

The purpose of this study was to investigate divergent thinking and evaluative skill as important processes in the development of creative thinking in elementary schoolchildren. Children from the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades (N = 117) received divergent thinking tasks and measures of evaluative accuracy. The latter indicated how well they liked various ideas (i.e., their preferences) and the degree to which the children believed those ideas to be original. Results indicated that the accuracy of their originality judgments increased significantly with age, as did the preference for appropriate ideas. Unlike previous research, evaluative scores were not related to divergent thinking test scores. Also somewhat surprising, given earlier research, was the lack of a "4th-grade slump." In fact, there was a significant peak, rather than slump, in the divergent thinking of 4th-grade children, at least in the raw fluency scores. When fluency ratio scores were compared, there were still some incidents of a 4th-grade peak, but there was also a significant decline with grade in the proportions of 1 index of highly appropriate ideas. Although a relation was not found between evaluative skill and divergent thinking raw fluency scores, an increasing preference for appropriate square ideas was found to contribute significantly to the prediction of decreases in the proportion of high-quality round ideas given. Possible explanations are given to account for this unexpected finding, including differences in interpersonal and intrapersonal evaluative skills, and the distinction between the ability to accurately identify original or appropriate ideas and choosing to selectively express such ideas.     

Are Speedy Brains Needed when Divergent Thinking is Speeded—or Unspeeded?

In this study, we focus on mental speed and divergent thinking, examining their relationship and the influence of task speededness. Participants (N = 109) completed a set of processing speed tasks and a test battery measuring divergent thinking. We used two speeded divergent-thinking tasks of 2 minutes and two unspeeded tasks of 8 minutes to test the influence of task speededness on creative quality and their relation to mental speed. Before each task, participants were instructed to be creative in order to optimally measure creative quality. We found a large main effect of task speededness: less creative ideas were generated when tasks were speeded as compared to unspeeded (Cohen's d = −1.64). We could also replicate a positive relationship of mental speed with speeded divergent thinking (r = .21) and mental speed with unspeeded divergent thinking (r = .25). Our hypothesis that the relation is higher for the speeded divergent-thinking tasks was not confirmed. Importantly, variation in creative quality scores under speeded conditions was not explained by mental speed beyond the predictive power of unspeeded creative quality. The latter finding implies that measurement of creative quality under speeded conditions is not confounded by mental speed.     

Divergent Thinking As a Function of Time and Prompting to “Be Creative” in Undergraduates

This study examined divergent thinking in undergraduates as a function of gender, time, and test instruction conditions. Differences were examined in male and female undergraduates when tested on a divergent thinking test with or without prompting to “be creative” and with or without time limitations imposed. Subject groups were assigned to one of the following four conditions: standard instructions/four minute time limit; standard instructions/no time limit; creative instructions/four minute time limit; and creative instructions/no time limit. The no time limit condition resulted in significantly higher mean traditional fluency and flexibility divergent production scores. Males were found to have significantly higher mean divergent production scores on fluency. This study supported previous research findings regarding the lack of enhanced traditional divergent production scores for females resulting from creative instructions.     

How Creativity Was Affected by Environmental Factors and Individual Characteristics: A Cross-cultural Comparison Perspective

The purpose of this study was to explore how environmental factors (family environment and school education) and individual characteristics (personality, creative attitudes, and divergent thinking) collectively affect creative achievement of American and Chinese college students. Data were collected from 378 college students in the United States (N = 193) and China (N = 185). Results showed that the US sample had significantly higher means in home resources, high-school education, Conscientiousness, creative achievement, and all four dimensions of the Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults (ATTA) than the China sample. In contrast, the China sample scored significantly higher in understanding the importance of creativity. Results indicated creative attitudes and divergent thinking sequentially mediated the effects of parental values on creative achievement for the US sample, whereas Openness mediated the effect of high-school education on creative achievement for the China sample. For both samples, creative attitudes mediated the effect of Openness on divergent thinking. The results suggested cultural differences in the effects of environmental factors on creativity, yet more similar findings in the effects of individual characteristics on creativity between the two samples. The results and implications are discussed.