Religious Affiliation, Socioeconomic Status, and Creativity

Abstract

MANY EDUCATORS have been greatly interested by recent findings of a relationship between meas ures of creative ability1 and academic achievement (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), but have been puzzled by the fact that the correlations reported range from as high as . 64 (4) to practically zero (2). Any attempt to account for the variation in these results must consider the dimensions of creativity being measured as well as the interaction of crea tive ability with other factors affecting achievement. However, an important factor not to be overlooked is that the various groups of subjects used m ay have had quite different amounts of creative ability. Un fortunately the studies have not always used the same creativity tests or reported creative ability relative to norms, so that it would be difficult if not impossible to make any direct comparison of the range of creative ability represented in each of the studies. However, several of the studies suggest that cer tain sociological variables m ay be related to the dif ferences in correlation between creativity and achievement. If these sociological variables were also related to differing amounts of creative ability, it would imply that differences in creative ability in groups previously studied may well have existed and could account for the differences in the corre lations. In the studies reporting the strongest relation ship between creativity and achievement (3, 4, 5), the subjects were enrolled in laboratory schools with a highly selected student body with unique cul tural opportunities and family background. Mostel ler's group (4), for instance, consisted largely of children of university professors. Certainly these subjects may be characterized as coming from a relatively high socioeconomic status level. From a different frame of reference, Torrance (5) found a weak relationship between creativity and achievement with parochial school students, and hypothesized that perhaps the authoritarian struc ture of this school did not allow the creative abili ties of the students to operate sufficiently. This sug gests that religious affiliation may be related to the amount of creative ability that is presently functional.