Variability of creativity judgments

International audienceThe Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT), developed by Amabile [Amabile, T.M. (1982). Social psychologyof creativity: A consensual assessment technique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43, 997–1013],is frequently used to evaluate the creativity of productions. Judgments obtained with CAT are usually reliableand valid. However, notable individual differences in judgment exist. This empirical study shows thatcreativity judgments for advertisements vary, depending on (1) the level of two underlying components ofcreativity — originality and appropriateness, (2) the creative ability of the judges, i.e. variations in their abilityto be original, and finally, (3) instructions or training that they received about the topic of creativityassessment. Effects of advertisements' appropriateness and judges' ability to be original on individualdifferences in creativity judgments are discussed