不同学业成就中学生创造性思维的差异研究

本研究采用创造力量表对990名不同学业成就中学生的创造性思维进行研究,结果发现:(1)高学业成就组中学生的创造性思维、发散思维和聚合思维显著高于低学业成就组.(2)高低学业成就组中学生创造性思维、发散思维和聚合思维表现出年级差异性.(3)高低学业成就组中学生的创造性思维都随着年级发展而上升,但是两组的高峰期却出现差异,高学业成就组创造力高峰出现在初二和高二,而低学业成就组出现在高一.(4)发散思维的发展趋势上,高学业成就组呈现出曲折上升的趋势,而低学业成就组整体的发展趋势平稳.(5)高低学业成就组中学生聚合思维的发展趋势相似,都呈现出在初中阶段上升到高中阶段趋于稳定,并且在高中阶段两组的水平接近.     

Convergent Thinking Moderates the Relationship between Divergent Thinking and Scientific Creativity

Creativity plays an important role in human society as well as in individual development, and creativity in the domain of science is a specific form. A body of research had demonstrated the role of divergent thinking in creativity. The role of convergent thinking had also been recognized, but more empirical evidence was needed. To investigate the interaction between convergent and divergent thinking on adolescent scientific creativity, the current study tested 588 high school students. The results showed that convergent thinking interacted with fluency/flexibility of divergent thinking on scientific creativity. In particular, divergent thinking predicted creativity in those high in convergent thinking. Findings suggested a threshold-setting effect of convergent thinking, which meant only when convergent thinking capacity reached a certain level, divergent thinking could play a role in scientific creativity. Implications for future research and educational practice were discussed.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Linkographic Evidence for Concurrent Divergent and Convergent Thinking in Creative Design

For a long time, the creativity literature has stressed the role of divergent thinking in creative endeavor. More recently, it has been recognized that convergent thinking also has a role in creativity, and the design literature, which sees design as a creative activity a priori, has largely adopted this view: Divergent and convergent thinking are seen as occurring in cyclic phases within the design process. Neurological evidence suggests that frequent shifts between defocused and focused attention to stimuli in memory activation, which equate divergent and convergent thinking, are a hallmark of creative thinking. In this article, we use linkography to show that the shifts between divergent thinking—forelinking of design moves, and convergent thinking—backlinking of moves, are so frequent that at the cognitive scale they can be seen as occurring concurrently in the ideation phase of creative designing. It is proposed that in assessments of creative potential, shifts between divergent and convergent thinking should be the yardstick instead of, or alongside measurements of divergent thinking.     

Strengthening Creative Problem-Solving within Upper-Elementary Science Education

This intervention study examined the effectiveness of instructional support tailored toward two techniques (i.e., random associations and constraint identification) to strengthen children's creative problem-solving skills within upper-elementary science education. Five inquiry-based science lessons with ample opportunity for creative problem-solving (i.e., divergent and convergent thinking) were provided. Children were assigned to a condition with instructional support (n = 107) or without (n = 134). Domain-general and specific measures of divergent and convergent thinking were included, and reading comprehension as well as mathematical ability were taken into account. Repeated measures multivariate analyses of covariance revealed how all children improved in terms of domain-general convergent thinking, with a larger increase for children who performed better in mathematics. This shows a promising premise for future research focusing on the domain generality of convergent thinking and for the potential of transfer across domains. No additional improvement based on instructional support was found and children did not improve in terms of divergent thinking. The constraint identification and random associations technique might not be suitable for elementary school children, yet future research is necessary to validate such claims. Meanwhile, teachers could possibly support convergent thinking by simply providing exercises for divergent and convergent thinking.     

Enhanced divergent thinking and creativity in musicians: a behavioral and near-infrared spectroscopy study

Empirical studies of creativity have focused on the importance of divergent thinking, which supports generating novel solutions to loosely defined problems. The present study examined creativity and frontal cortical activity in an externally-validated group of creative individuals (trained musicians) and demographically matched control participants, using behavioral tasks and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). Experiment 1 examined convergent and divergent thinking with respect to intelligence and personality. Experiment 2 investigated frontal oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin concentration changes during divergent thinking with NIRS. Results of Experiment 1 indicated enhanced creativity in musicians who also showed increased verbal ability and schizotypal personality but their enhanced divergent thinking remained robust after co-varying out these two factors. In Experiment 2, NIRS showed greater bilateral frontal activity in musicians during divergent thinking compared with nonmusicians. Overall, these results suggest that creative individuals are characterized by enhanced divergent thinking, which is supported by increased frontal cortical activity.     

Characteristics of ADHD Related to Executive Function: Differential Predictions for Creativity-Related Traits

Although the relationship between creativity and ADHD is uncertain, recent studies examining how dimensionally assessed characteristics of ADHD relate to creativity and divergent thinking in adults suggest an occasional positive, linear relationship between the constructs. However, the executive functions proposed to underlie characteristics of ADHD have not been examined in relation to creativity. This study was conducted to determine how different characteristics of ADHD related to executive functioning (as assessed by the Brown ADD Scales) predict different components of figural divergent thinking, intellectual risk-taking, and creative self-efficacy. Undergraduate engineering students (N = 60) completed the Brown ADD Scales, a figural divergent thinking task, and self-report measures of intellectual risk-taking and creative self-efficacy. A series of multivariate regression models demonstrated that several components of divergent thinking (i.e., fluency, originality, and resistance to closure) were predicted by different characteristics of ADHD. Although fluency was predicted by affect only and originality was predicted by activation only, resistance to closure was predicted by activation, effort, and attention. Additionally, intellectual risk-taking was predicted by memory, effort, and activation, whereas creative self-efficacy was predicted by effort. The implications of these results relating to the relationship between ADHD and creativity, as well as for engineering undergraduate education are discussed.     

The development of creativity in Chilean kindergarten and school children / Desarrollo de la creatividad en párvulos y escolares chilenos

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore the development of creativity in Chilean kindergarten and school children. For this, we evaluated non-verbal divergent and convergent thinking skills in a sample of 320 Chilean kindergarten, second-, fourth- and sixth-grade school children. We found that kindergarten and second-grade children showed a lower performance in creative fluency and originality than fourth-grade and sixth-grade children. In addition, we found that kindergarten and second-grade children had a low performance in creative elaboration, which worsened in the fourth and sixth grades. We did not find differences between the different educational levels in convergent thinking skills. Our results contradict previous international studies that report a stable development of creativity throughout the first few years of schooling, with a transitory slump in the fourth or sixth grade, revealing an early slump of creative skills in Chilean children, which rebound after the fourth grade. We discuss the potential relationship between the academization and rigidization of Chilean early childhood education and the early slump in creativity.     

In Praise of Convergent Thinking

ABSTRACT: Free production of variability through unfettered divergent thinking holds out the seductive promise of effortless creativity but runs the risk of generating only quasicreativity or pseudocreativity if it is not adapted to reality. Therefore, creative thinking seems to involve 2 components: generation of novelty (via divergent thinking) and evaluation of the novelty (via convergent thinking). In the area of convergent thinking, knowledge is of particular importance: It is a source of ideas, suggests pathways to solutions, and provides criteria of effectiveness and novelty. The way in which the 2 kinds of thinking work together can be understood in terms of thinking styles or of phases in the generation of creative products. In practical situations, divergent thinking without convergent thinking can cause a variety of problems including reckless change. Nonetheless, care must be exercised by those who sing the praises of convergent thinking: Both too little and too much is bad for creativity.     

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.     

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.     

高二理科生物理问题创造性解决的表象特征研究

物理问题创造性解决是一个发散思维和聚合思维交替运行的过程,而表象对问题的创造性解决具有重要作用。本研究通过自编的物理问题对天津市某中学109名高二理科学生进行物理问题创造性解决测验,探讨高中理科学生物理问题创造性解决中的表象特征。验证了表象与物理问题创造性解决中的发散思维具有显著的正相关,与聚合思维无显著相关。对109名高二理科学生K聚类分析发现：物理问题解决过程中,高创造性和中等程度创造性的学生人数较少,而低创造性的学生人数较多;表象丰富性很高和较高的学生较少,表象丰富性较低的学生较多。     

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。     

不同冥想类型对创造性思维的影响及作用机制

冥想与创造性的关系正逐渐被关注,澄清冥想练习对创造性思维的影响效果和作用机制对个体创新潜能的培养与提升具有重要意义。不同冥想类型对创造性思维的影响具有特异性,专注冥想主要通过注意聚焦和提升自上而下的执行控制能力来对聚合思维产生积极影响;正念冥想引起的离焦的注意状态,以及对认知灵活性和积极情绪的促进,有助于发散思维。未来应加强不同冥想类型与创造性思维的整合研究,探讨冥想影响创造性思维的脑机制,以及冥想与其他干预训练对创造性思维的不同作用机制等。     

The (b)link between creativity and dopamine: Spontaneous eye blink rates predict and dissociate divergent and convergent thinking

Human creativity has been claimed to rely on the neurotransmitter dopamine, but evidence is still sparse. We studied whether individual performance (N = 117) in divergent thinking (alternative uses task) and convergent thinking (remote association task) can be predicted by the individual spontaneous eye blink rate (EBR), a clinical marker of dopaminergic functioning. EBR predicted flexibility in divergent thinking and convergent thinking, but in different ways. The relationship with flexibility was independent of intelligence and followed an inverted U-shape function with medium EBR being associated with greatest flexibility. Convergent thinking was positively correlated with intelligence but negatively correlated with EBR, suggesting that higher dopamine levels impair convergent thinking. These findings support the claim that creativity and dopamine are related, but they also call for more conceptual differentiation with respect to the processes involved in creative performance.     

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.     

Conceptual Combinations and Subsequent Creativity

Conceptual combination has been advocated as an important component of creativity, but relatively little research has investigated its importance. Two experiments were designed to extend previous research on the relationship between performance on conceptual combination tasks and subsequent performance on creativity tasks. Both experiments involved the generation of category exemplars and manipulated the type of conceptual combination experience and whether the items presented were related or unrelated to one another. In the first experiment, this was followed by a brainstorming task (divergent thinking) and in the second experiment by a creative problem solving task (convergent thinking). Contrary to expectations, the condition that required conceptual combinations did not enhance the generation of the number and originality of exemplars. As predicted, exposure to unrelated items led to more original products than related ones. The conceptual combination task with related items was predictive of performance on the creative problem solving task but not the divergent thinking task. Performance on the divergent task was related to the generation of exemplars for unrelated items. These results suggest that the conceptual combination task taps creative problem solving rather than divergent creativity.