Individual Differences In Creativity Research Articles

On the relationship between creative potential and creative achievement: Challenges and future directions

A central tenet in creativity research is that individual differences in creative achievement arise from the interplay of individual differences in creative potential. So far, however, measures of creative potential (e.g., divergent thinking ability) have explained only very limited variance in creative achievement. This article identifies eight conceptual and methodological challenges that require attention in the study of creative potential-achievement relationship, including considerations regarding the proper assessment of creative achievement, the scope and specificity of creative potential, forms of interaction and developmental dynamics, the role of mediating creative behaviors, environmental influences, and sample characteristics. These deliberations inform a model of individual differences in creativity, which outlines the structure and interplay of relevant components at the levels of creative potential, creative behavior, and creative achievement under the influence of the environment. Drawing a more detailed picture of the complexities associated with the creative potential-achievement relationship may help to improve and eventually also recognize limits to the prediction of creative achievement. Educational relevance and implication statementThis article highlights the many facets of creativity at the level of creative potential, creative behavior, and creative achievement, and proposes mechanisms of how creative potential manifests into creative achievement. Implication for educational practice include the understanding that different aspects of creative potential are relevant at different stages in creative development and for different creative domains, which has implications for the fostering of creative potential.

The effects of creativity and crystallized intelligence on metaphor comprehension

The nature of the cognitive processes involved in metaphor comprehension has spurred ongoing debate, particularly concerning the relative contributions of general analogy versus language-specific categorization. One prominent proposal posits that metaphor comprehension necessitates analogical reasoning to establish a relationship between the target and the source. An alternative perspective posits that metaphors can be interpreted as categorization statements. This paper adopts an individual-differences approach to probe metaphor comprehension, encompassing both literary and non-literary metaphors. The research conducted a metaphor-comprehension study involving college students, measuring both creativity (using the Chinese Remote Association Test) and crystallized verbal intelligence (using the verbal subscale of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale). The research findings revealed distinct predictive relationships between each measure and metaphor comprehension. Specifically, it had been observed that crystallized intelligence significantly influences comprehension across a wide spectrum of metaphor types, encompassing both literary and non-literary examples. Conversely, individual differences in creativity predominantly impact the comprehension of more cognitively intricate metaphors, notably those originating from literary sources.

The Relationship between Creativity and Attitudes toward Intergroup Conflicts

ABSTRACTThe maintenance and escalation of intergroup conflicts have been explained by negative emotions and attitudes toward outgroup members. Considering that creative cognition entails the ability to generate diverse and new ideas, we sought to investigate whether creativity may contribute to overcoming negative emotions and attitudes associated with intergroup conflicts. Therefore, we examined whether individual differences in creativity predict conflict‐related emotions and attitudes in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. To that end, we recruited Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs who identify themselves as Palestinian and administered the Torrance task of divergent thinking to assess the levels of originality and flexibility of participants. We also measured outgroup‐targeted emotions and attitudes toward the conflict. Results indicate that participants who demonstrate higher levels of original thinking, on average, reported higher levels of positive emotions toward outgroup members and were more supportive of conciliatory attitudes toward the conflict. Moreover, these associations were more evident among Israelis than among Palestinians. Finally, a mediation analysis demonstrated that originality predicts conciliatory attitudes through an increase in positive emotions and a decrease in negative emotions toward outgroup members. This relationship was not moderated by nationality. These findings suggest that interventions based on creativity training may be beneficial to encourage reconciliation.

The Instability of Creativity Over Weeks Through the Lens of Distributional Models

Remote work presents a challenge to workers’ creativity, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic and the stay-at-home requirements. Individual differences in creativity, considered through the lens of distributional models, and their stability across different conditions are unknown. We assess the between-person variability in common metrics of creativity, despite sharing similar experiences of virtual reality and mindfulness. The paper also assesses the stability of an individual’s creativity over time. We measured the creativity of 20 remote-workers daily, during a 9-week study. Creativity was measured with respect to divergent thinking and convergent thinking. Distributional models show significant individual differences in variability of creativity. Stability analyses also revealed that individuals’ creativity is relatively unstable over time— both within and across conditions. Although one measure of divergent creativity was relatively stable, the other was not. We suggest more research should assess the extent of variability in creativity relative to individual differences and under different conditions.

Counting the Muses in German Speakers – Evaluation of the German-Language Translation of the Kaufman Domains of Creativity Scales (K-DOCS)

Abstract. The Kaufman Domains of Creativity Scales (K-DOCS) assess individual differences in creativity across five domains (Everyday, Scholarly, Performance, Science, and Artistic). We provide data on the psychometric properties and the structural and nomological validity of the German adaptation of the K-DOCS from three samples ( Ntotal = 1,379). Our findings supported the 5-factorial structure of the German K-DOCS in line with the original version and prior language adaptations. Our findings showed overall satisfying psychometric properties (reliability: .78 ≤ ωs ≤ .87) and scalar measurement invariance for gender. Correlations with external measures of broad and narrow traits supported the convergent validity (self-reports of creativity and a situational judgment test of creative thinking) and the nomological validity (e.g., Big Five personality traits, cognitive styles, and adult playfulness). Overall, the findings support the notion that the German-language adaptation of the K-DOCS can be used to study individual differences across five domains of creativity.

Intra-Individual Variability in Creativity

Abstract. Individual differences perspectives have dominated the scientific study of creativity since the 1950’s. These perspectives, however, mainly emphasize group-level variations or inter-individual differences, with limited interest in individual-level variations. Yet, (1) group-level findings are often used to make inferences at the person-level, which might not apply consistently across individuals, and (2) a focus on intra-individual variations could supplement knowledge based on inter-individual differences and accurately inform creativity as a dynamic and multifaceted psychological construct. Indeed, when observed at the individual level, creativity can vary from moment to moment, task to task, and even item to item, which is not well reflected in the current understanding of creativity. After introducing the historical context for the study of individual differences in creativity, this article presents and illustrates three fundamental and distinct aspects of intra-individual variability as they apply to creativity, namely (in)consistency (or processing fluctuation), dispersion, and intraindividual change. While doing so, recent developments in apparatus and methods to assess creativity as a more dynamic phenomenon are presented. The article concludes by discussing the promise of accounting for intra-individual variability in creative performance and potential and the new knowledge it may elicit for both creativity research and practice.

Examples in creative exhaustion: The role of example features and individual differences in creativity

This study examined how example features (i.e. idea novelty and idea diversity) affected creativity after creative exhaustion. In addition, how individual differences in creativity influenced the effect of example diversity was also investigated. By dividing examples into high-, medium- and low-novel ideas, experiment 1 revealed that idea originality was more enhanced in the high-novel example group than in the low-novel example and none example groups (control group). The low-novel group showed higher idea fluency and flexibility than the control group. In experiment 2, participants were divided into high-creative and low-creative groups. Both groups received diverse and similar examples with high novelty. Results showed that idea fluency, originality and flexibility were higher in the high-creative group than those in the low-creative group. Moreover, diverse examples facilitated fluency and flexibility while similar examples facilitated originality after creative exhaustion. These findings indicate that example features affect the stimulation effect of example after creative exhaustion.

Creativity and Executive Function in School-Age Children: Effects of Creative Coloring and Individual Creativity on an Executive Function Sorting Task

We examined the relationship between executive function (EF) and creativity and whether a creative manipulation related to free coloring or coloring task-relevant materials would impact EF performance in the Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS). Participants also completed individual difference measures of creativity with an Alternative Uses Task and EF with a Backward Digit Span Working Memory Task and Delay of Gratification Inhibition Task. Although we failed to find a relationship between creativity in the Alternative Uses Task and our EF measures (rs < .25, ps > .10), we found evidence to suggest the effects of a creative color manipulation differed by individual differences in creativity. Those who were low in certain creative components like the ability to switch between categories (p = .03 and p = .08), generate a number of unique ideas (p = .03 and p = .04), and originality (p = .01) seemed to perform better when allowed to freely color before the DCCS compared to other conditions. Those who performed higher in creative measures generally did not benefit from a creative manipulation before the task. This suggests that a more nuanced examination of the relationship between creativity and EF considering possible experimental manipulations, multiple components, and individual differences may be useful in understanding the relationship between these 2 constructs.

Conceptual expansion via novel metaphor processing: An ERP replication and extension study examining individual differences in creativity

The aims of the present ERP study were twofold. First, to determine whether a previous study on creative cognition could be replicated, and second, to extend these findings by examining individual differences in creativity. Conceptual expansion, a capacity that is central to creativity, was induced via the processing of novel metaphors. Brain activity patterns in relation to these were compared to the processing of literal and nonsense phrases. The previous findings were replicated in that the N400, known for its sensitivity to semantic anomalies, indexed the originality of the phrases, while a post-N400 late component (LC), which is linked to semantic integration processes, indexed the appropriateness of the phrases. Moreover, only the LC was significantly sensitive to individual differences in creativity in the processing of these phrases. Differences at the level of semantic integration processes as well as the structure of knowledge organization are thereby implicated in individual differences in creativity.

A novel coding scheme for assessing responses in divergent thinking: An embodied approach.

In the present study we devised a novel coding scheme for responses generated in a divergent thinking task. Based on considerations from behavioural and neurocognitive research from an embodied perspective, our scheme aims to capture dimensions of simulations of action or the body. In an exploratory investigation, we applied our novel coding scheme to analyze responses from a previously published dataset of divergent thinking responses. We show that a) these dimensions are reliably coded by naïve raters, and that b) individual differences in creativity influences the way in which different dimensions are used over time. Overall, our results provide new hypotheses about the generation of creative response in the divergent thinking task and should serve to characterize the cognitive strategies used in creative endeavors.

Divergent Thinking in Survival Processing: Did Our Ancestors Benefit From Creative Thinking?

The survival processing advantage is a robust mnemonic device in which information processed for its relevance to one's survival is subsequently better remembered. Research indicates that elaborative processing may be a key component underlying this memory effect, and that this mechanism resembles divergent thinking, whereby words with a greater number of creative uses in a given scenario are better remembered. If this particular function underpins adaptive memory, then individual differences in creativity may play a part in the degree to which people benefit from this advantage. We expected that highly creative individuals who engage more in divergent thinking would not necessarily benefit to a greater degree than less creative individuals, due to potential redundant processing. In this between-subjects experiment, participants rated words according to their relevance to the typical grasslands survival scenario or according to their pleasantness (a control common to the survival paradigm and known to enhance memory). While we did find a main effect of both condition (survival v. pleasantness) and creativity (high v. low), there was no interaction. This set of findings suggests that creative individuals may not benefit to a greater degree in survival processing, despite their ability to think divergently.

Креативность и управляющие функции: обзор зарубежных дифференциально-психологических исследований

The paper presents a review of foreign studies of individual differences in creativity and executive functions (EF) carried out within the last decade. We consider mainly such EF as updating, inhibition and switching. The key research questions concern direct involvement of EF into creative abilities and their mediating role with respect to correlation of intelligence and creative performance. Studies applying structural equation modelling are being prioritized within the review. The key findings are described with respect to EF and (1) divergent and (2) convergent creative problem solving in adults. The latter includes performance on insight problems and remote associates tasks. Developmental perspective is highlighted by addressing to studies with children and adolescents’ samples involved. We discuss theoretical context, measurement issues as well as educational importance of the findings which link executive functioning and creativity within individual differences approach.

Coda: Creativity in psychological research versus in linguistics – Same but different?

Abstract Understanding the very nature of creativity is a hot topic in research across various disciplines and has profound societal relevance. In this contribution, we discuss verbal creativity by highlighting its definition, psychometric measurement, and relations with other personality dispositions. We relate psychological research with findings from linguistics presented in this issue and depict similarities and differences between both approaches. More specifically, we relate the linguistic terminology of F-creativity to fluency and flexibility, whereas we identify E-creativity as akin to originality. We propose latent semantic analysis as a possible approach for evaluating originality and compare this approach with more commonly applied human ratings. Based on contributions in this issue, we discuss creativity as a domain-general process that is (e. g., in applied arts) often driven by the recombination of mental elements. Lastly, we propose several intelligence and personality dispositions as determinants of individual differences in creativity. We conclude that creativity research in linguistic and psychology has many communalities and interdisciplinary work bears strong promises for the future.

Evidence against a relation between bilingualism and creativity.

Are bilinguals more creative than monolinguals? Some prior research suggests bilinguals are more creative because the knowledge representations for their second language are similarly structured to those of highly creative people. However, there is contrasting research showing that the knowledge representations of bilinguals' second language are actually structured like those of less creative people. Finally, there is growing skepticism about there being differences between bilinguals and monolinguals on non-language tasks (e.g., the bilingual advantage for executive control). We tested whether bilinguals tested in their second language are more or less creative than both monolinguals and bilinguals tested in their first language. Participants also took a repeated semantic fluency test that we used to estimate individual semantic networks for each participant. We analyzed our results with Bayesian statistics and found support for the null hypothesis that bilingualism offers no advantage for creativity. Further, using best practices for estimating semantic networks, we found support for the hypothesis that there is no association between an individual's semantic network and their creativity. This is in contrast with published research, and suggests that some of those findings may have been the result of idiosyncrasies, outdated methods for estimating semantic networks, or statistical noise. Our results call into question reported relations between bilingualism and creativity, as well as semantic network structure as an explanatory mechanism for individual differences in creativity.

The dynamics of resting-state alpha oscillations predict individual differences in creativity

The neuronal mechanisms underlying creativity are poorly understood. Arguably, the brain's ability to switch states would contribute to achieving novel ideas, and thus to creativity. Faster brain-state switching is reflected in the temporal dynamics of functional brain activity. Stronger autocorrelations in brain activity measures can make a brain stay in a certain state for longer periods, whereas low temporal autocorrelations reflect faster state switching. We established the brain's inherent tendency to switch or stay in a resting, no-task condition using 128 channel electroencephalography (EEG). We assessed temporal autocorrelations of the amplitude modulation of the dominant alpha oscillations (8–13 Hz). Creativity was measured by a self-rating, an examiner-rating and the alternative uses task in 40 healthy young adults, which was scored on dimensions of verbal fluency, originality, elaboration, usefulness, and flexibility. For each dimension, the total number of subject-reported alternative uses that matched the criterion was noted (the quantity measure), as well as the proportion of uses that matched the dimensional criterion. A principal components analysis confirmed the two-component structure of quantity and quality. Partial correlation analysis was used controlling for gender and age, and a cluster permutation test was performed to correct for multiple testing. A significant cluster over right central/temporal brain areas was found with a negative correlation between creativity and temporal autocorrelations were observed (p = 0.028). To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration that individual variation in the dynamically changing activity in the brain may offer a neuronal explanation for individual variation in creative ideation.

Genetic susceptibility to parenting style: DRD2 and COMT influence creativity

The present study systematically investigated if genetic variations in the DRD2 and COMT interacted with parenting style to predict individual differences in creativity. In a sample of young adults, we first examined the interaction of each individual polymorphism and parenting style on creativity. Then, we aggregated the contribution of these susceptibility polymorphisms into a Cumulative Genetic Score (CGS) which combines the plasticity conferred by two or more single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of DRD2 and COMT into a single score. When polymorphisms were examined in isolation, the results indicated there were only two polymorphisms from COMT (rs5993882 and rs5993883), which were found to interact with mother authoritativeness to predict creativity. However, a CGS comprising of several potential susceptibility polymorphisms from DRD2 and COMT genes did indeed interact with parenting style to explain a significant amount of variance in the creativity. Furthermore, the analysis of regions of significance (Ros) showed supporting evidences for differential susceptibility model, such that the individuals with high CGS were more likely to be affected by their both negative and positive parenting style, demonstrating higher and lower creativity. These results further provide evidence for the involvement of dopaminergic genes in the relationship between parenting style and creativity and suggest individuals with the greater susceptibility are the ones who are more susceptible to environmental influences.

Neuroimaging predictors of creativity in healthy adults

Neuroimaging has revealed numerous neural predictors of individual differences in creativity; however, with most of these identified in only one study, sometimes involving very small samples, their reliability is uncertain. To contribute to a convergent cognitive neuroscience of creativity, we conducted a pre-registered conceptual replication and extension study in which we assessed previously reported predictors of creativity using a multimodal approach, incorporating volumetric, white matter, and functional connectivity neuroimaging data. We assessed sets of pre-registered predictors against prevailing measures of creativity, including visual and verbal tests of divergent thinking, everyday creative behaviour, and creative achievement. We then conducted whole-brain exploratory analyses. Greater creativity was broadly predicted by features of the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and inferior parietal lobe (IPL), including both local grey matter and white matter predictors in the IFG, the superior longitudinal fasciculus that connects them, and IFG-IPL functional connectivity. As IFG and IPL are important nodes within executive control and default mode networks (DMN), respectively, this result supports the view that executive modulation of DMN activity optimizes creative ideation. Furthermore, white matter integrity of the basal ganglia was also a generalizable creativity predictor, and exploratory analyses revealed the anterior lobe of the cerebellum and the parahippocampal gyrus to both be reliable predictors of creativity across neuroimaging modalities. This pattern aligns with proposals ascribing roles of working and long-term memory to problem-solving and imagination. Overall, our findings help to consolidate some, but not all, neural correlates of individual differences that have been discussed in the cognitive neuroimaging of creativity, yielding a subset that appear particularly promising for focused future investigation.

Viability in Multiplex Lexical Networks and Machine Learning Characterizes Human Creativity

Previous studies have shown how individual differences in creativity relate to differences in the structure of semantic memory. However, the latter is only one aspect of the whole mental lexicon, a repository of conceptual knowledge that is considered to simultaneously include multiple types of conceptual similarities. In the current study, we apply a multiplex network approach to compute a representation of the mental lexicon combining semantics and phonology and examine how it relates to individual differences in creativity. This multiplex combination of 150,000 phonological and semantic associations identifies a core of words in the mental lexicon known as viable cluster, a kernel containing simpler to parse, more general, concrete words acquired early during language learning. We focus on low (N = 47) and high (N = 47) creative individuals’ performance in generating animal names during a semantic fluency task. We model this performance as the outcome of a mental navigation on the multiplex lexical network, going within, outside, and in-between the viable cluster. We find that low and high creative individuals differ substantially in their access to the viable cluster during the semantic fluency task. Higher creative individuals tend to access the viable cluster less frequently, with a lower uncertainty/entropy, reaching out to more peripheral words and covering longer multiplex network distances between concepts in comparison to lower creative individuals. We use these differences for constructing a machine learning classifier of creativity levels, which leads to an accuracy of 65 . 0 ± 0 . 9 % and an area under the curve of 68 . 0 ± 0 . 8 % , which are both higher than the random expectation of 50%. These results highlight the potential relevance of combining psycholinguistic measures with multiplex network models of the mental lexicon for modelling mental navigation and, consequently, classifying people automatically according to their creativity levels.

Creative conceptual expansion: A combined fMRI replication and extension study to examine individual differences in creativity

The aims of this fMRI study were two-fold. The first objective of the study was to verify whether the findings associated with a previous fMRI study could be replicated in which a novel event-related experimental design was developed which rendered it possible to investigate the brain basis of creative conceptual expansion. The ability to widen the boundaries of conceptual structures is integral to creative idea generation, which makes conceptual expansion a core component of creative cognition. Creative conceptual expansion led to the engagement of brain regions that are known to be involved in the access, storage and relational integration of conceptual knowledge in the original study. These included the anterior inferior frontal gyrus, the temporal poles and the lateral frontal pole. These findings in relation to the brain basis of creative conceptual expansion were replicated in the current study. The second objective of this study was to evaluate the brain basis of individual differences in creative conceptual expansion. The high creative group relative to the low creative group was shown to exhibit greater activity in regions of the semantic cognition network as well as the salience network during creative conceptual expansion. The findings are discussed from the point of view of classical hypotheses about information processing biases that explain individual differences in creativity including flat associative hierarchies, defocused attention and cognitive disinhibition.

Structural correlates of Openness and Intellect: Implications for the contribution of personality to creativity.

Openness/Intellect (i.e., openness to experience) is the Big Five personality factor most consistently associated with individual differences in creativity. Recent psychometric evidence has demonstrated that this factor consists of two distinct aspects-Intellect and Openness. Whereas Intellect reflects perceived intelligence and intellectual engagement, Openness reflects engagement with fantasy, perception, and aesthetics. We investigated the extent to which Openness and Intellect are associated with variations in brain structure as measured by cortical thickness, area, and volume (N = 185). Our results demonstrated that Openness was correlated inversely with cortical thickness and volume in left middle frontal gyrus (BA 6), middle temporal gyrus (MTG, BA 21), and superior temporal gyrus (BA 41), and exclusively with cortical thickness in left inferior parietal lobule (BA 40), right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG, BA 45), and MTG (BA 37). When age and sex were statistically controlled for, the inverse correlations between Openness and cortical thickness remained statistically significant for all regions except left MTG, whereas the correlations involving cortical volume remained statistically significant only for left middle frontal gyrus. There was no statistically significant correlation between Openness and cortical area, and no statistically significant correlation between Intellect and cortical thickness, area, or volume. Our results demonstrate that individual differences in Openness are correlated with variation in brain structure-particularly as indexed by cortical thickness. Given the involvement of the above regions in processes related to memory and cognitive control, we discuss the implications of our findings for the possible contribution of personality to creative cognition.