Associations between drawing creativity, task-related divergent thinking, and other creative subprocesses

Abstract

Although the majority of research investigating the creative process has focused on divergent thinking, few studies have explored the role task-related divergent thinking has in creative production. Due to this emphasis on divergent thinking, many other cognitive processes relevant to creativity remain underresearched. This study sought to determine the associations between task-related measures of divergent thinking and expert ratings of drawing creativity. Additionally, this study explored whether the creativity of drawings based on self-generated ideas would be enhanced by an elaborative strategy involving the exploration of an original idea, evaluation of the intermediate status of a drawing, and subsequent refinement of creative goals. Undergraduate university students (N =107) were divided into two groups: a treatment group that was prompted to engage in stages involving exploration, evaluation, and goal refinement and a control group that engaged in alternative activities not presumed to enhance drawing creativity. Using the Consensual Assessment Technique, seven judges trained in the visual arts provided ratings of drawing creativity. Of the different divergent thinking measures explored, the average originality of generated ideas, ideational flexibility, and novelty of selected ideas were most strongly associated with creativity ratings, and an interaction indicated that selected idea novelty was a stronger predictor among control group participants. Although this interaction illustrated a difference between control and treatment groups, creativity ratings did not vary across groups, suggesting that merely prompting exploration, evaluation, and goal refinement is not sufficient to improve drawing creativity.