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ERIC Number: EJ1318857
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2021-Dec
Pages: 12
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0022-0175
EISSN: N/A
Revisiting Mednick's (1962) Theory of Creativity with a Composite Measure of Creativity: The Effect of Stimulus Type on Word Association Production
Vitrano, Deana; Altarriba, Jeanette; Leblebici-Basar, Deniz
Journal of Creative Behavior, v55 n4 p925-936 Dec 2021
S.A. Mednick (1962) proposed a theory of creativity suggesting that highly creative individuals can produce more word associations to a stimulus than less creative individuals. Numerous studies have supported this theory using the Remote Associates Test (RAT) as the measure of creativity. Additionally, some studies have suggested that high-frequency words elicit more word associations overall than low-frequency words, and concrete words elicit more associations overall than abstract words. The current study further investigated Mednick's theory by: (1) creating controlled lists of stimuli that can better uncover how word type (abstract versus concrete) and word frequency (high versus low) affect the number of word associations produced to a stimulus; (2) including several creativity tasks besides the RAT; and (3) examining the role of other factors in creative thinking, including intelligence and verbal fluency. Participants first completed a word association task with four different types of words (i.e., high-frequency concrete, low-frequency concrete, high-frequency abstract, and low-frequency abstract), and then completed a variety of tasks, including several creativity tasks. Participants were categorized as highly creative or less creative based on a composite measure of the creativity tasks. Highly creative individuals produced more associations overall, supporting Mednick's theory. Furthermore, high-frequency stimuli resulted in higher overall associative responses compared to low-frequency stimuli, but contrary to previous research, no differences emerged for concrete versus abstract stimuli. There was also no difference in intelligence scores between the two creativity groups, and only a marginally significant difference in verbal fluency scores.
Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2191/en-us
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Assessments and Surveys: Remote Associates Test
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A