The Effects of a Verbal and a Figural Creativity Training on Different Facets of Creative Potential

Abstract

AbstractThis 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.