Measures Of Divergent Thinking Research Articles

Creativity at rest: Exploring functional network connectivity of creative experts.

The neuroscience of creativity seeks to disentangle the complex brain processes that underpin the generation of novel ideas. Neuroimaging studies of functional connectivity, particularly functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), have revealed individual differences in brain network organization associated with creative ability; however, much of the extant research is limited to laboratory-based divergent thinking measures. To overcome these limitations, we compare functional brain connectivity in a cohort of creative experts (n = 27) and controls (n = 26) and examine links with creative behavior. First, we replicate prior findings showing reduced connectivity in visual cortex related to higher creative performance. Second, we examine whether this result is driven by integrated or segregated connectivity. Third, we examine associations between functional connectivity and vivid distal simulation separately in creative experts and controls. In accordance with past work, our results show reduced connectivity to the primary visual cortex in creative experts at rest. Additionally, we observe a negative association between distal simulation vividness and connectivity to the lateral visual cortex in creative experts. Taken together, these results highlight connectivity profiles of highly creative people and suggest that creative thinking may be related to, though not fully redundant with, the ability to vividly imagine the future.

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

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.

A Call to More Imaginative Research into Creative Achievement

ABSTRACT Psychologist J. P. Guildford issued a challenge to study creativity nearly 70 years ago. How well have we done and what might the next steps be in our endeavors to understand creativity? The field of creativity research has examined the internal thinking process of creativity, largely through measures of divergent thinking and remote associates. We have tracked the creative successes of people assumed to be of high talent and high intelligence. And, we have evaluated creative products. More recently, we have correlated various cognitive and personality measures, purported to be linked to creativity, with brain structure and function. In spite of this flurry of activity, there are some problems. These assessments do not provide specific or significant predictive validity of creative achievement. Similarly, while Guilford desired to separate creativity from the purview of intelligence in his challenge, these constructs appear to be as entangled today as they were in the 1950ʹs. When viewing all predictive variables of creative achievement across person, process, and product, we found that the personality trait of openness to experience – provides the best combination of specificity and predictive power. Finally, we join others in calling for more study of imagination as a mental tool that individuals at all skill levels use to predict outcomes, visualize scenarios, and engage in counterfactual thinking – in service of creative achievement.

Can extreme experiences enhance creativity? The case of the underwater nightclub.

Creativity is a valuable commodity. Research has revealed some identifying characteristics of creative people and some of the emotional states that can bring out the most creativity in all of us. It has also been shown that the long-term experience of different cultures and lifestyles that is the result of travel and immigration can also enhance creativity. However, the role of one-off, extreme, or unusual experiences on creativity has not been directly observed before. In part, that may be because, by their very nature, such experiences are very difficult to bring into the laboratory. Here, we brought the tools and empirical methods of the laboratory into the wild, measuring the psychological effects of a unique multisensory experience: an underwater nightclub. We showed – with fully randomized and experimentally controlled conditions – that such an experience boosted measures of divergent thinking in participants. This demonstrates that one element of creativity can be directly enhanced by unusual situations, and that experimental tools of psychology can be used to investigate a range of consumer experiences.

What can you do with a bottle and a hanger? Students with high cognitive flexibility give more ideas in the presence of ambient noise

Creativity has become a favourable skill to develop in higher education due to its value in society. Ambient noise during creative performance has traditionally been regarded as an environmental stressor and distractor, but recent findings suggest a positive impact of ambient noise on creative performance. It is still unclear what drives these inconsistent findings and whether individual differences between students explain the differential impact of noise on their performance. This study investigated the impact of ambient noise on divergent thinking performance in undergraduates during the COVID-19 pandemic, when common learning spaces were restricted and people were instructed to work from home. It also explored how cognitive flexibility (e.g., the ability to switch between different tasks and explore different strategies to problems) interacted with the impact of noise. Forty-two undergraduates completed an adult computer-based version of the Dimensional Change Card Sort task (DCCS) (a measure of cognitive flexibility) in silence, and the Alternative Uses Task (a measure of divergent thinking) in silence and in ambient noise displayed through headphones. On average, participants gave more ideas in the presence of ambient noise than in silence, but these ideas were not more original. Furthermore, the impact of noise interacted with cognitive flexibility. Participants who were more efficient at the DCCS (suggesting better cognitive flexibility) gave more ideas in noise. These findings can help to inform educational institutes and students on the influence the physical environment might have on divergent thinking.

The Patient is Thriving! Current Issues, Recent Advances, and Future Directions in Creativity Assessment

ABSTRACT In 1998, Plucker and Runco provided an overview of creativity assessment, noting current issues (fluency confounds, generality vs. specificity), recent advances (predictive validity, implicit theories), and promising future directions (moving beyond divergent thinking measures, reliance on batteries of assessments, translation into practice). In the ensuing quarter century, the field experienced large growth in the quantity, breadth, and depth of assessment work, suggesting another analysis is timely. The purpose of this paper is to review the 1998 analysis and identify current issues, advances, and future directions for creativity measurement. Recent advances include growth in assessment quantity and quality and use of semantic distance as a scoring technique. Current issues include mismatches between current conceptions of creativity and those on which many measures are based, the need for psychometric quality standards, and a paucity of predictive validity evidence. The paper concludes with analysis of likely future directions, including use of machine learning to administer and score assessments and refinement of our conceptual frameworks for creativity assessment. Although the 1998 paper was written within an academic climate of harsh criticism of creativity measurement, the current climate is more positive, with reason for optimism about the continued growth of this important aspect of the field.

Creativity and Smartphone Use: Three Correlational Studies

Various books and popular media outlets claim that mindless smartphone use can impair creativity, yet few studies have tested this idea. We conducted a survey and three correlational studies focused on divergent thinking, the mindful ability to generate creative responses to open-ended problems. Most of the 48,000 participants surveyed thought that smartphone use reduced creativity. This view was consistent with the negative correlations we found between divergent thinking and both screen time and problematic smartphone use ( to −.35) in an exploratory sample of 62 university students. However, in two pre-registered replications with larger and more diverse samples (N = 294 and 16,932), we found at most tiny correlations between measures of divergent thinking or creative achievement and several types of smartphone use ( to .09). Thus, the link between smartphone use and creativity may be weaker or more nuanced than is commonly believed.

Characterizing Creative Thinking and Creative Achievements in Relation to Symptoms of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Previous research on ADHD and ASD has mainly focused on the deficits associated with these conditions, but there is also evidence for strengths. Unfortunately, our understanding of potential strengths in neurodevelopmental conditions is limited. One particular strength, creativity, has been associated with both ADHD and ASD. However, the distinct presentations of both conditions beg the question whether ADHD and ASD associate with the same or different aspects of creativity. Therefore, the current study investigated the links between ADHD and ASD symptoms, creative thinking abilities, and creative achievements. To investigate the spectrum of ADHD and ASD symptoms, self-reported ADHD and ASD symptoms, convergent (Remote Associations Test) and divergent thinking (Alternative Uses Task) and creative achievements (Creative Achievement Questionnaire) were assessed in a self-reportedly healthy sample of adults (n = 470). We performed correlation analysis to investigate the relation between ADHD/ASD symptoms and creativity measures. In a second phase of analysis, data from an adult ADHD case-control study (n = 151) were added to investigate the association between ADHD symptoms and divergent thinking in individuals with and without a diagnosis of ADHD.Our analysis revealed that having more ADHD symptoms in the general population was associated with higher scores on all the outcome measures for divergent thinking (fluency, flexibility, and originality), but not for convergent thinking. Individuals with an ADHD diagnosis in the case-control sample also scored higher on measures of divergent thinking. Combining data of the population based and case-control studies showed that ADHD symptoms predict divergent thinking up to a certain level of symptoms. No significant associations were found between the total number of ASD symptoms and any of the creativity measures. However, explorative analyses showed interesting links between the ASD subdomains of problems with imagination and symptoms that relate to social difficulties. Our findings showed a link between ADHD symptoms and divergent thinking abilities that plateaus in the clinical spectrum of symptoms. For ASD symptoms, no relation was found with creativity measures. Increasing the knowledge about positive phenotypes associated with neurodevelopmental conditions and their symptom dimensions might aid psychoeducation, decrease stigmatization and improve quality of life of individuals living with such conditions.

Prepulse Inhibition and P50 Suppression in Relation to Creativity and Attention: Dispersed Attention Beneficial to Quantitative but Not Qualitative Measures of Divergent Thinking

The current study investigated whether lower sensory and sensorimotor gating were related to higher levels of creativity and/or attentional difficulties in a natural population of primary school children (9- to 13-year-old). Gating abilities were measured with P50 suppression and prepulse inhibition of the startle reflex (PPI). The final sample included 65 participants in the P50 analyses and 37 participants in the PPI analyses. Our results showed that children with a high P50 amplitude to testing stimuli scored significantly higher on the divergent outcome measures of fluency and flexibility but not originality compared to children with a lower amplitude. No significant differences were found on any of the creativity measures when the sample was split on average PPI parameters. No significant differences in attention, as measured with a parent questionnaire, were found between children with low or high levels of sensory or sensorimotor gating. The data suggest that quantitative, but not qualitative measures of divergent thinking benefit from lower psychophysiological gating and that attentional difficulties stem from specific instead of general gating deficits. Future studies should take the effect of controlled attention into consideration.

Predictors of creativity in young people: Using frequentist and Bayesian approaches in estimating the importance of individual and contextual factors.

© 2020 American Psychological Association. The development of creativity in young children has been studied extensively, but relatively few studies have examined the period of adolescence and emerging adulthood in relation to creative potential. The present study uses a combination of frequentist and Bayesian analyses to evaluate the impact of individual factors (e.g., IQ) and contextual factors (e.g., pursuit of creative hobbies) on creative ideation in three cohorts of young people aged 14-20 years. Measures of divergent thinking, specifically the Alternate Uses Task (AUT) and the Overcoming Knowledge Constraints Task, were used to this end. Openness to aesthetic and imaginative experience was the strongest predictor of creative potential for the 3 AUT measures. Moreover, Bayesian hypothesis testing revealed that the best predictive model for AUT ideational fluency and AUT overall originality was one that included only Openness, whereas the best predictive model for AUT peak originality, or the propensity to generate highly original responses, included Openness, as well as IQ and Engagement in Creative Hobbies. No group differences in creative potential were found between the three age cohorts (aged 14-15, 16-17, and 18-20). The study not only confirms the importance of openness to aesthetic and imaginative experience as a predictor of creative potential in adolescents and young adults, but also indicates the necessity to consider the combined and differentiated impact of individual and contextual factors in different facets of creative ideation.

Evaluating the predictive validity of four divergent thinking tasks for the originality of design product ideation.

What factors predict the originality of domain-specific idea generation? Replicating and extending an earlier study using a Design Product Ideation task in an introductory university design course, the present research, grounded in the componential theory of creativity, assessed the relative contributions to originality of design ideation from five factors: divergent thinking, personality traits, general cognitive ability, prior creative experience, and task-specific challenge/interest. The Design Product Ideation task asked participants, at two different timepoints, to propose ideas for products to improve either the experience of urban gardening or of outdoor picnics. Four divergent thinking tasks were used, including the predominantly conceptually-based Alternative Uses Task, a newly developed perceptually-based Figural Interpretation Quest, and two modified verbal tasks from the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (Torrance Suppose and Torrance Product). Regression analyses revealed that, at both timepoints, originality on the Design Product Ideation tasks was predicted by multiple divergent thinking, personality, and task-based factors. Originality of responses to the Figural Interpretation Quest was a significant predictor at both timepoints, and continued to add incremental value after controlling for the other divergent thinking measures. Collectively, these findings indicate that the four divergent thinking tasks, though related, do not measure identical constructs, and that many individual difference components, both trait-based (e.g., openness to experience) and more specifically task-based (e.g., perceived challenge of the task), shape creative performance. Methodologically, and from a practical standpoint, these findings underscore the value of incorporating both conceptual and perceptual measures of divergent thinking as contributors to originality in domain-specific idea generation.

The Cognitive–Creative Profiles of Insightful Problem Solvers: A Person‐Centered Insight Study

AbstractThis study aimed to portray insightful problem solvers. Participants solved classic insight problems and rebuses and completed cognitive and creativity tasks. Grouping the participants based on their success in solving insight problems of different modalities revealed that 95% of the spatial problem solvers succeeded in solving verbal ones (spatial verbal solvers) but not vice versa. Verbal problem solvers were not necessarily able to solve spatial ones. A latent class analysis (LCA) based on relationships among the cognitive and creativity variables confirmed these two types of insightful solvers. It portrayed two compatible classes of experts and successful solvers alongside two classes of low‐level solvers. The former classes excelled in solving rebuses and verbal problems, yet the experts outperformed the others in spatial problems. Both classes scored higher in spatial divergent thinking measures than the low‐level solvers. However, the experts benefited additionally from verbal divergent thinking and associative combination ability. Seemingly, should retrieval of diverse ideas be insufficient to solve the problem, the experts combine ideas by a novel association, thereby generating an insight. Moreover, individual differences in working memory indicated that experts favor associative–automatic strategy, whereas successful solvers utilize analytic strategy. These profiles illuminate “insight” in terms of cognitive and creative styles.

Creativity in Advertising: How to Test for Highly Creative Individuals, How to Generate Alternative Creative Ideas, and How to Pretest Them

This article addresses the three biggest issues surrounding creativity in advertising: the need for a new test to identify highly creative individuals, the need to provide a better creative idea generation procedure, and the need to pretest ideas for effectiveness. I critically review what has already been done and then draw upon my own extensive work in the field of creativity ability testing and my work with Larry Percy on creative idea generation and pretesting to show how these procedures can be carried out more effectively. Creative ability is shown to be best measured with a multiple-item measure of divergent thinking that uses familiar cue objects, with responses scored only for originality. Creative ideas for use in advertising can be most efficiently generated by recruiting high creative ability individuals and using the I-G-I method of brainstorming. The most promising creative ideas can then be pretested in rough ad form by using the Remote Conveyor Test, which requires that the creative idea be attention-getting, novel for the product category, correctly understood with the key benefit quickly evident, and executed to be free of conflicting associations.

Children's divergent thinking and bilingualism

Most children in the world grow up bilingual, and bilingualism has been linked to a range of linguistic and other cognitive skills. One such skill is creativity, which is thought could be increased in bilinguals due to enhanced executive functions or more diverse cultural experiences. However, extant literature with children has produced mixed results, perhaps due to methodological limitations. In this study, bilingual and monolingual children (N = 111, 60% bilingual) sampled from the same British schools completed three measures of divergent thinking, alongside measures of nonverbal intelligence, vocabulary, and exposure to English. No differences were found between monolingual and bilingual children across any of the divergent thinking tasks or measures, either before or after controlling for possible confounds, and effect sizes were negligible to small. This well-powered, pre-registered study provides no evidence for a bilingual advantage in the divergent thinking component of creativity amongst children, suggesting that previous mixed results may have been due to a high prevalence of false positives. Thus, while bilingualism has many benefits for children, divergent thinking is not one of them.

Cross-cultural measurement invariance of divergent thinking measures

An emerging trend in current creativity research is the cross-cultural comparison of creative potential. However, no studies have addressed the cross-cultural measurement invariance of creativity instruments, which refers to the instrument’s ability to assess the same construct across different cultures. This study investigated the latent structure and the degree of measurement invariance of two divergent thinking (DT) tests (the line meaning test and the real-world problem test) between American (n = 302) and Chinese (n = 316) college students. A two-factor model of the two DT tests was supported in both samples based on either the fluency or originality scores, suggesting variations between different types of DT tests. Multi-group confirmatory factor analyses revealed that although the assumptions of configural and weak invariance were met for both the fluency and originality indices, the partial strong measurement invariance was marginally satisfied only for the real-world problem fluency across the two cultural groups. Further, latent mean comparison showed similar fluency between American and Chinese college students on the real-world problem test. In contrast, results from the observed mean comparison indicated higher performance of American individuals on the real-world problem fluency and originality; the opposite trend was revealed for both indices on the line meaning test. Overall, the present study demonstrates the importance of examining the equivalence of the measurement instrument before interpreting cross-cultural differences in creativity. Suggestions for future cross-cultural creativity research are provided.

Measuring Creative Writing with the Storyboard Task: The Role of Effort and Story Length

AbstractThe present study examines effort in narrative creative writing (operationalized as time‐on‐task) using a new assessment approach, the storyboard task. Participants (N = 125) completed alternate forms of the storyboard task in two sessions five weeks apart. They also completed measures of divergent thinking and self‐reported ideational behavior. Time‐on‐task, story length, and rated creativity scores were obtained for the participants’ stories. The storyboard task demonstrated good alternate form reliability and convergent validity with the criterion measures. Although time‐on‐task was strongly, positively associated with creativity scores, this relationship was confounded by the contribution of story length. Relationships amongst these variables were similar when creativity was rated by novice raters using a rubric or experienced raters using the consensual assessment technique. Additionally, story length and time‐on‐task were moderately correlated with the external criterion measures of creativity. Thus, the strong associations between rated creativity, story length, and time in creative writing raise important issues and avenues for future research, and results for the storyboard task suggest that it is a valuable assessment of narrative creative writing.

The Opposite of Stress.

Cognition is affected by psychophysiological states. While the influence of stress on cognition has been investigated intensively, less studies have addressed how the opposite of stress, a state of relaxation, affects cognition. We investigated whether the extent of parasympathetic activation is positively related to divergent thinking. Sixty healthy female participants were randomly allocated to a standardized vagus nerve massage (n = 19), a standardized soft shoulder massage (n = 22), or a resting control group (n = 19). Subsequently, participants completed the Alternative Uses Test (AUT), a measure of divergent thinking. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), a vagally mediated heart rate variability component, was monitored throughout the experiment. The area under the curve with respect to the increase was calculated for RSA trajectories as an indicator of vagal tone during the relaxing intervention. Regressions tested the effect of vagal tone on AUT outcomes. We found an association between vagal tone and subsequent AUT outcomes. Yet, this association was no longer significant when controlling for the effect of the creative potential of an individual, which was strongly related to AUT outcomes. Being exploratory, we found a positive association between creative potential and vagal tone. These results imply that creative potential might be related to the capacity to relax.

Improv experience promotes divergent thinking, uncertainty tolerance, and affective well-being

BackgroundTraining in improvisational theater is a widely available, popular and entertaining activity. It also is linked to a variety of psychological benefits, such as reductions in anxiety and depression in adult psychiatric patients (Krueger et al., 2017) and in social anxiety among adolescent public-school students (Felsman et al., 2019). However, research on its benefits has generally lacked the rigor of randomized experiments. AimsThis paper follows an experimental method from previous research linking improvisation training to improvements in divergent thinking in the laboratory (Lewis & Lovatt, 2013), and includes an additional dependent variable, uncertainty tolerance, which has been broadly implicated in anxiety and depression (McEvoy & Mahoney, 2012). MethodIn two experiments (n = 74, n = 131), participants completed measures of divergent thinking, uncertainty tolerance, and affective well-being before and after engaging in 20 min of improv exercises or a matched control condition including social interactions. ResultsThis paper replicates the prior finding that improvisational theater training can improve divergent thinking (e.g., Lewis & Lovatt, 2013; Sowden et al., 2015), and provides new findings that improv can boost positive affect and increase uncertainty tolerance relative to other social interactions. ConclusionsAs a means to enhance psychological health, improvisational theater training offers benefits without the negative stigma and difficulties in access surrounding other therapeutic interventions. These results support its popular use beyond the theater to improve social and personal interactions in a variety of settings (e.g., Tint & Froerer, 2014).

How problem identification strategies influence creativity outcomes

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of students’ strategic approaches to problem identification on their ability to identify problems, solve problems, and develop divergent ideas. Eighth and ninth grade students (N = 90) completed the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking-Figural (TTCT-F), as a measure of divergent thinking. Then, students responded to semi-structured interview prompts while completing a creative problem-solving task (i.e., Creative Problem Solving-Microanalysis Interview Protocol; CPS-MIP). Problem identification strategies were significantly, positively related to (a) problem identification fluency, (b) problem-solving fluency, (c) TTCT-F Elaboration subscale performance, and (d) TTCT-F average standard score; however, the most adaptive strategic approach differed based on outcome measure. Collectively, this study demonstrates the importance of specific problem identification strategies in generating ideas to solve problems.

White matter correlates of creative cognition in a normal cohort

Creative cognition, as measured through divergent thinking (DT), offers insight into one’s ability to generate novel ideas. Relatively little work has been done exploring the relationship between creative idea generation tasks and white matter integrity via fractional anisotropy (FA). Our previous work has shown that higher scores on DT tasks were related to reduced fractional anisotropy (FA) within the left hemisphere anterior thalamic radiation (Jung et al., 2010). However, Takeuchi et al., 2010, found positive correlations with FA and DT tasks in the prefrontal cortex and genu of the corpus callosum. The present study assessed subjects studying or working in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM; N ​= ​178) for correlations in white matter FA, as related to a measure of DT. Healthy normal subjects aged (16–32 years, mean age ​= ​22.0 ​± ​3.8; F ​= ​89/178). Three idea generation DT measures were scored by three raters (α ​= ​0.71) using the consensual assessment technique, from which a composite creativity index (CCI) was derived. We found that CCI was inversely related to FA (all p ​< ​0.05, controlling for age, sex, and full scale intelligence, and corrected for multiple comparisons using family wise error), within the left hemisphere inferior frontal gyrus, inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, cingulate gyrus, inferior longitudinal fasciculus, and right hemisphere uncinate fasciculus. These results are consistent with our previous findings, implicating lower FA in white matter regions linking broad cortical networks, now established in a much larger sample of normal healthy subjects.