Open-ended verbal creativity assessments are commonly administered in psychological research and in educational practice to elementary-aged children. Children's responses are then typically rated by teams of judges who are trained to identify original ideas, hopefully with a degree of inter-rater agreement. Even in cases where the judges are…

Previous research suggests that environment can play an important role in encouraging or discouraging creative expression and productivity. Additional research has uncovered a discrepancy between the creativity students express at school and the creativity they express outside of school. The fact that, in previous research, students expressed more…

Previous research has attempted to understand why countries with relatively favorable conditions and high estimated average IQs (such as Finland and Japan) have a relatively low per capita number of scientific Nobel prizes. In the present study, we examine whether there is a relationship between national schizophrenia and left-handedness…

The purpose of this paper is to propose a training program for creative problem solving based on computer programming. The proposed program will encourage students to solve real-life problems through a creative thinking spiral related to cognitive skills with computer programming. With the goal of enhancing digital fluency through this proposed…

Exceptional creators develop existing domains or create new domains through their contribution of products that are highly valued by society in a particular domain. Typically, adults make these value judgments. This study explored whether Gardner's (1997) model of an Exceptional Creator [EC], which was developed from a cross-domain analysis and…

Analysis of personality traits of eminent persons (1450-1850) revealed four very common traits: intelligence, questioning, curiosity, and a strong desire to excel. (CL)

Two studies involving a total of 2149 writers and other eminent individuals found that female poets were significantly more likely to suffer from mental illness than female fiction writers, than male writers of any type, or than eminent individuals in other fields. This finding has been dubbed the "Sylvia Plath" effect. (Contains…

Behavior of creative children was studied by comparing 18 high IQ, creative students with 18 high IQ, low creative students matched for sex from a sample of 143 gifted fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. (PHR)

Using 50 psychology undergraduates, an attempt was made to find positive correlations between transliminality (psychological material crossing thresholds into or out of consciousness) and creative personality and figure-complexity preference. Only the correlation between transliminality and creative personality was significant. (Contains…

In the first study of the term "genius", 349 undergraduates nominated three geniuses in 1984, 1991, 1993, 1994, and 1997. Einstein was regarded as a stereotypical genius, while other nominees were subjective and transitory. In the second study, nominated geniuses were agreed to on only 26.2 percent of possible occasions. (Contains…

To test Howard Gardner's depiction of a stark contrast between Western and Eastern views and approaches to creative development, a study examined the attitudes of Singapore teachers steeped in Chinese culture (n=58) with those in the Western tradition (n=49). More of the Eastern group favored nonintervention, contrary to Gardner's proposition. (CR)

Thirty-four gifted children in Louisiana and 34 from Connecticut were administered the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (MPS) and the Khatena-Torrance Creative Perception Inventory (KTCPI). The KTCPI included the What Kind of Person Are You (WKOPAY) subtest, a measure of creative striving. Perfectionistic traits were negatively correlated with…

This study evaluated the use of guided imagery practice to enhance creative writing with 43 academically gifted students (stratified as either high or low creativity) in grades 3 and 4. Groups receiving the guided imagery practice (regardless of original creativity level) generated more original writing, which contained more sensory descriptions…

Two hundred gifted and talented secondary students received an intensive exposure to a diverse array of learning and thinking experiences (indirect training) while 68 graduate students received intensive training in creative problem solving with emphasis on right cerebral hemisphere functions (direct training). (CL)

This research attempted to identify categories of cognitive development existing in creative writing samples (written by over 5000 gifted children ages 9-18) that provide a basis for developmental analysis. Four categories with three levels of development in each were identified: (1) self, (2) others, (3) problem solving, and (4) abstractness of…