Creativity: Idea Quantity

The study relates performance on a cognitive-style measure of perceptual sensitivity and grade point averages to several indices of creativity as affected by a checklist procedure and verbal pretraining. Subjects were 76 students, half of which received verbal pretraining requiring them to list adjectives under five categories. The pretrained subjects were divided into three groups. One group was instructed to use the long checklist consisting of seven category names followed by an extensive listing of specific values in thinking of physical changes in the product improvement problem. Another group was instructed to use the short checklist consisting of only seven category labels from the long checklist. The third group did not receive any checklist. The remaining students with no verbal pretraining were also divided into three groups and administered the same checklist treatments as the pretrained subjects. All subjects were presented a product improvement problem for 10 minutes and an unusual uses problem for the following 10 minutes. Among the results are: (1) subjects more sensitive to perceptual detail are not necessarily more creative, (2) grade point averages are not highly related to creativity, (3) verbal pretraining facilitates idea fluency but not originality. (Author/MC