The Relationship Between Diverse Components of Intelligence and Creativity

Intelligence and creativity are accounted for in terms of two different mental operations referred to as ‘convergent thinking’ and ‘divergent thinking’, respectively. Nevertheless, psychometric evidence on the relationship between intelligence and creativity has been controversial. To clarify their relationship, we characterized the relationship between diverse components of intelligence and creativity through the administration of psychometric tests on a large sample (WAIS, RPM, and TTCT‐figural: n = 215; TTCT‐verbal: n = 137). The general intelligence factor (g) score showed significant correlations with both TTCT‐figural and TTCT‐verbal scores. However, sub‐dimensional analysis demonstrated that their association was attributable to the specific components of both TTCTs (TTCT‐figural: Abstractness of Titles, Elaboration, and Resistance to Premature Closure; TTCT‐verbal: Flexibility) rather than to their common components (Fluency and Originality). Among the intelligence sub‐dimensions, crystallized intelligence (gC) played a pivotal role in the association between g and the specific components of both TTCTs. When the total sample was divided into two IQ groups, these phenomena were more evident in the average IQ group than in the high IQ group. These results suggest that the mental operation of creativity may be different from that of intelligence, but gC may be used as a resource for the mental operation of creativity.     

Differences in intelligence between nondelinquent and dropout delinquent adolescents

This study examined differences in intelligence between dropout delinquent adolescents and nondelinquent adolescents in Israel. It was part of research aimed at using psychological tests to characterize dropout delinquents. The participants, 215 adolescents at a psychoeducational center, were divided into three groups and were tested using the WISC-R: dropout delinquent adolescents living in residential institutions, dropout delinquent adolescents living at home, and nondelinquent adolescents living at home and enrolled in the formal education system. Results showed significant differences among the three groups in Verbal IQ, Performance IQ, Total IQ, and the Freedom from Distractibility factor, and pointed out the relative weakness of the dropout delinquent groups.     

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.     

Flexibility and Originality in Children's Divergent Thinking

Previous research on the ideational process indicates that original ideas increase in frequency as an examinee works through an open-ended task. In the present investigation, ideational flexibility was evaluated to determine if ideas also become more varied and diverse. Additionally, the relationship of intelligence (IQ) with order effects of both originality and flexibility was investigated. Tests of verbal and figural divergent thinking were administered to 80 intermediate school children. The midpoint of each individual's ideational set was found, and the flexibility and originality scores of each half of the set were compared. Results indicated that flexibility and originality scores were higher in the second half than the first half of the ideational set, but there were significant differences between high- and low-originality subjects and differences between the verbal and the figural tests. The order effect was unrelated to the IQ scores of the subjects. Suggestions are made to integrate ideational flexibility into existing theories of divergent ideation.     

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.     

Personality and biological markers of creativity

The aim of the present study was to test (i) Eysenck's theory that psychoticism (P) should be related to creativity, (ii) whether testosterone (T), due to its association with P claimed in the literature, can be identified as a biological marker of creativity, and (iii) whether the SEEK dimension of the Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS) was also related to creativity and to testosterone due to its relationship to Sensation Seeking. In a sample of N = 48 male and female subjects, test scores on figural, verbal, and numeric creativity were compared between high and low P‐scorers as well as between high and low SEEK‐scorers. Effects were controlled for fluid intelligence as measured by Cattell's CFT‐3 and crystallized intelligence as assessed by the Structure‐of‐Intelligence‐Test (Intelligenz‐Struktur‐Test, I‐S‐T 2000 R). Neither a main effect of P or T nor an interaction effect P×T on creativity could be obtained. Instead, SEEK was related to all components of creativity and explained more than 15% of the variance of total creativity. Moreover, significant differences in SEEK could be explained by differences in T, independently of gender. Furthermore, 39% of the variance of SEEK could be explained by the two uncorrelated indicators testosterone and creativity. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Intelligence Level and the Allocation of Resources for Creative Tasks: A Pupillometry Study

This pupillometry study examined the relationship between intelligence and creative cognition from the resource allocation perspective. It was hypothesized that, during a creative metaphor task, individuals with higher intelligence scores would have different resource allocation patterns than individuals with lower intelligence scores. The study also examined the influence of intelligence in language and visuo-spatial domains on the resource allocation mechanism of verbal and visual creativity. The results suggested that individuals with higher intelligence scores allocated more cognitive resources for creative tasks than those with lower intelligence scores but not for non-creative tasks. The findings of this study support the view that creativity requires allocation of several cognitive faculties and may share underlying cognitive and neural mechanisms with intelligence. Domain-specific intelligence did not seem to play a significant role in the same domain, as individuals with higher scores in both domains showed similar resource allocation patterns. However, individuals with higher intelligence scores in the visuo-spatial domain generated more creative metaphorical interpretations in both verbal and visual creative metaphor tasks suggesting its importance in creative cognition.     

Examining the Dynamics of the Implicit and the Explicit Self-Concept in Social Anxiety: Changes in the Implicit Association Test–Anxiety and the Social Phobia Anxiety Inventory Following Treatment

Data from the first two childhood memories was used to distinguish 15 delinquents from 18 nondelinquent controls. Subjects were male, middle class, 15-17 years of age, and equated for verbal IQ. All delinquents were property offenders. A coding system, devised from the memories of the delinquents and nondelinquents, successfully identified 80% of the delinquents and 100% of the nondelinquents. These prediction rates exceeded those from three clinicians experienced in working with a comparable delinquent population The coding system was then discussed in terms of the axioms and presuppositions which are suggested by the memories of the delinquent sample.     

Correlates of intellectual ability with morphology of the hippocampus and amygdala in healthy adults

Several prior imaging studies of healthy adults have correlated volumes of the hippocampus and amygdala with measures of general intelligence (IQ), with variable results. In this study, we assessed correlations between volumes of the hippocampus and amygdala and full-scale IQ scores (FSIQ) using a method of image analysis that permits detailed regional mapping of this correlation throughout the surface contour of these brain structures. We delineated the hippocampus and amygdala in high-resolution magnetic resonance images of the brain from 34 healthy individuals. We then correlated FSIQ with overall volumes and with the surface morphologies of each of these structures. Hippocampus volumes correlated significantly and inversely with FSIQ independently of gender, age, socioeconomic status, and whole brain volume. Left and right hippocampus volumes correlated respectively with verbal and performance IQ subscales. Higher IQs were significantly associated with large inward deformations of the surface of the anterior hippocampus bilaterally. These findings suggest that a smaller anterior hippocampus contributes to an increased efficiency of neural processing that subserves overall intelligence.     

Predicting Creative Behavior: A Reexamination of the Divergence Between Traditional and Teacher-Defined Concepts of Creativity

Previous research has shown that teachers' identifications of traits associated with the creative personality differ substantially from those typically identified as characteristic of creative individuals. This result has helped resolve the paradox between teachers' self-reports that they enjoy having creative children in their classrooms and the findings that they dislike characteristics such as nonconformity that traditionally are associated with creativity. Nevertheless, it is essential that the predictive utility of teacher-defined concepts of creativity be compared with that of the traditional view to further our understanding of this apparent contradiction. Verbal and figural creativity were measured in 3rd- and 4th-grade children using a story-writing task and a collage task, respectively. Results indicate that children who most closely matched teacher-defined concepts of creativity were most creative in the verbal task but not in the figural task. Conversely, children who most closely mulched the traditional concepts of creativity were highest in figural creativity but not in verbal creativity. These results are discussed in terms of problems of classroom management and the increasing focus on creativity as a domain specific rather than global trait.     

Attention deficit hyperactivty disorder in Korean juvenile delinquents

This study was conducted to identify attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in Korean juvenile delinquents. Intelligence tests (KEDI-WISC, K-WAIS), the Test of Variables of Attention (TOVA), the Teacher Report Form (TRF), the Youth Self-Report (YSR), and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale were administered to 98 incarcerated Korean adolescents (the delinquent group) and 84 adolescent nondelinquents (the control group). The groups were compared, and significant differences were found for ADHD; 42.4% of the adolescents in the delinquent group were identified as having ADHD, in comparison to 11.9% of the adolescents in the control group. Delinquent adolescents and adolescents with ADHD were found to have lower IQ scores, poorer TOVA performance, more severe problem behaviors, and lower self-esteem than nondelinquent adolescents and adolescents without ADHD. Delinquent adolescents with ADHD consistently fared the worst on assessments of intelligence, TOVA performance, problem behaviors, and self-esteem.     

Longitudinal Relations Between 2-Year-Olds' Language and 4-Year-Olds' Theory of Mind

Maternal reports of child vocabulary, utterance length, morpheme usage, and sentence complexity and experimenter-assessed receptive and expressive language were obtained at the end of the 2nd year for European American middle-class toddlers (N = 27). Maternal verbal intelligence and socioeconomic status were also measured. At 48 months of age, children's false-belief understanding and verbal intelligence were evaluated. Individual differences in child language at 24 months and child verbal IQ at 48 months predicted unique variance in performance on the false-belief tasks at 48 months, although only the early language factor findings were statistically significant. These findings demonstrate previously unobserved relations between early language and later acquisition of complex concepts related to mind.     

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.     

An exploratory analysis of American Indian children's cultural engagement, fluid cognitive skills, and standardized verbal IQ scores

This exploratory cross-sectional study examined fluid cognitive skills and standardized verbal IQ scores in relation to cultural engagement amongst Tohono O'odham children (N = 99; ages 7 to 12 years). Guardians with higher socioeconomic status engaged their children in more cultural activities, and participation in more cultural activities contributed to higher standardized verbal IQ scores. Mean cognitive skill scores varied as a function of age and Tohono O'odham language knowledge. Children who understood and/or spoke Tohono O'odham started out with lower average scores than did children with no language knowledge, but mean scores generally increased in the older age groups such that they were equal to or higher than those of nonspeakers by age 9. Children with higher fluid cognitive skill scores had higher standardized verbal IQ scores than did children with lower scores.     

Is body mass index in old age related to cognitive abilities? The Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 Study

We tested the hypothesis that the previously reported association between a higher body mass index (BMI) and poorer cognition in later adulthood is an artifact of confounding by previous cognitive ability and socioeconomic status. Participants were 1,079 adults aged about 70 years in the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 Study, on whom there are IQ data from age 11. Cognitive outcome measures included: IQ at age 70 using the same test that was administered at age 11; composite measures of general cognitive ability (g factor), speed of information processing, and memory; and two tests of verbal ability. People classified as overweight or obese in later adulthood had significantly lower scores on tests of childhood IQ, age 70 IQ, g factor, and verbal ability. There was no significant association with processing speed or memory performance. After adjusting for childhood IQ and social class in general linear models, associations with age 70 IQ and g factor were nonsignificant or attenuated. However, throughout the models, there was a persistent (inverse) relationship between BMI and performance on the National Adult Reading Test (NART) and Wechsler Test of Adult Reading (WTAR), which remained significant after full adjustment for all sociodemographic and health covariates (for the NART, p = .025; for the WTAR, p = .011). The findings suggest that the previously reported BMI-cognition associations in later adulthood could be largely accounted for by prior ability and socioeconomic status, and by the possible influence of these factors on the adoption of health behaviors in adulthood.     

Need for achievement and performance on measures of behavioral fluency.

This investigation was designed to assess the relationship between a validated personality characteristic, need for achievement (nAch), and performance on measures of behavioral fluency. To infer this relationship, 50 neurologically intact college undergraduates were administered a questionnaire assessing nAch and a battery of tests including a short form of the WAIS and measures of behavioral fluency (i.e., verbal fluency). Statistical analysis indicated that subjects high on nAch obtained higher scores than subjects low on nAch on the measures of figural fluency and the WAIS Verbal Scale. No significant difference on verbal fluency was seen between the two groups. Secondly, the group high on nAch also had a higher mean Verbal IQ but not a higher mean Performance IQ as measured by a short form of the WAIS than did subjects scoring low on nAch.     

Family interactions in black, lower-class families with delinquent and nondelinquent adolescent boys

The interaction patterns of 32 black, lower-class family triads (mother-father-son), divided into two equal groups by the son's delinquency status, were assessed across self-report and observational measures of family affect, conflict, and dominance. In support of previous research with white, middle-, and lower-middle class families, the results generally indicated that families with delinquent boys were less warm and more conflictual than families with nondelinquent boys. Relative to parents of nondelinquents, parents of delinquents were more conflictual on expressive family issues than on instrumental issues. In addition, the results showed that the content of the family interaction task (expressive vs. instrumental) influenced observed patterns of intrafamily dominance. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Academic success in adolescence: Relationships among verbal IQ,social support and emotional intelligence

The objective of this study was to examine, by gender, whether emotional intelligence (EI), peer social support, and/or family social support partially mediated the influence of verbal IQ on Grade 10 grade point average (GPA) for 192 students (96 male, 96 female). For male students, EI and peer social support predicted GPA and EI mediated the association between verbal IQ and GPA. For female students, EI, peer social support, and family support predicted GPA but did not mediate the association between verbal IQ and GPA. This study further examined whether subscales of EI (intrapersonal, interpersonal, adaptability, and stress management abilities), peer social support and family social support (emotional, socialising, practical, financial, and advice) added to the prediction of GPA after verbal IQ, gender, and socioeconomic status were controlled. Adaptability, stress management and practical family social support each added to the explanation of variability. None of the peer social support subscales predicted additional variance in GPA.     

The comparability of intelligence test results: Group- and individual-level comparisons of seven intelligence tests

A significant body of research has demonstrated that IQs obtained from different intelligence tests substantially correlate at the group level. Yet, there is minimal research investigating whether different intelligence tests yield comparable results for individuals. Examining this issue is paramount given that high-stakes decisions are based on individual test results. Consequently, we investigated whether seven current and widely used intelligence tests yielded comparable results for individuals between the ages of 4–20 years. Results mostly indicated substantial correlations between tests, although several significant mean differences at the group level were identified. Results associated with individual-level comparability indicated that the interpretation of exact IQ scores cannot be empirically supported, as the 95% confidence intervals could not be reliably replicated with different intelligence tests. Similar patterns also appeared for the individual-level comparability of nonverbal and verbal intelligence factor scores. Furthermore, the nominal level of intelligence systematically predicted IQ differences between tests, with above- and below-average IQ scores associated with larger differences as compared to average IQ scores. Analyses based on continuous data confirmed that differences appeared to increase toward the above-average IQ score range. These findings are critical as these are the ranges in which diagnostic questions most often arise in practice. Implications for test interpretation and test construction are discussed.     

Violent crime, sociopathy and love deprivation among adolescent delinquents

Ever since Wechsler observed that the adolescent sociopath characteristically scored higher on the performance section of the Wechsler IQ scale relative to the verbal section, psychologists have been debating its meaning. This study examines the relationships between P-V discrepancy scores, love deprivation, and juvenile delinquency among a sample of juvenile probationers. P greater than V scores were significantly related to love deprivation and violent crimes. It was determined that much of the explanatory power of P greater than V with regard to violent delinquent behavior was mediated by love deprivation. We also found that P greater than V scores could not be explained away by social class, low verbal scores, or lower full-scale scores. Only love deprivation was found to be significantly related to P greater than V scores in our path model, thus offering some support to the assertions of some authors that early emotional stresses affect subsequent autonomic nervous system function.