Creativity quotient: a statistical instrument for combining cognitive and personality components of creative thinking

Creative thinking is a multi-faceted trait. It encompasses a constellation of intellectual abilities and personality characteristics. In this study cognitive and personality components of creative thinking were included in an instrument. From the relevant literature the most important cognitive components in order of importance were problem finding, original problem solving, general problem solving, knowledge, and attentiveness to detail. Lack of conformity was suggested to be the most important personality component. Measures of these components of creative thinking were developed. Data were obtained by interviewing 110 third-grade children (M = 8.9 yrs), from which 80 sets were randomly selected to develop a scoring scheme. The scoring scheme was utilized to derive a statistical equation to quantify creative thinking for each individual. To ascertain the reliability and consistency of the developed scoring scheme, the author and two graduate students independently scored the remaining data (30 sets). The coefficient of variability for the three groups of scores were computed by means of pooled estimate of variance. This quantity was found to be .02 which is remarkably small. The relative contribution of each component to creative thinking and the interrelationship between them have been discussed. whether problem finding and problem solving are two separate cognitive processes was also discussed.