The Effect Size of Variables Associated With Creativity: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to use meta-analysis to investigate the mean effect size of relevant variables associated with creative person, process, product, and environment. Altogether, 2,013 effect sizes from 111 studies were analyzed. The unweighted grand mean effect size of the 111 studies was 0.69, with a standard deviation (SD) of 0.63. Such result was significantly different from 0 at t (110) = 11.52, p < .01. When the averaged effect size of each study was weighted with the sample size of that study, the weighted grand mean effect size was 0.72. The important findings were: (a) the mean effect sizes associated with problem-solving creativity and verbal creativity were significantly larger than those associated with emotional creativity and nonverbal creativity, (b) variables having a large mean effect size were prestige of honors/awards, working circumstances favorable for creativity, defining problem, and retrieving knowledge, (c) most of the mean effect sizes of the problem solving procedures on the measures of problem solving exceeded the medium (0.5) of Cohen's guidelines. Areas to be further explored are suggested.