Psychological Reports, 1977,41, 227-230.
Psychological Reports 1977
RELATION OF FOUR COMPONENTS OF CREATIVITY TO RISK-TAKING PREFERENCES1 JOHN A. GLOVER University of Nebraska
AND
FRED SAUTTER University of Cincinnati
Summary.-The Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking and the Kogan and Wallach Choice Dilemma Questionnaire were administered to a total population of 66 graduate students at a predominantly black universiry. Risk-taking scores were used to assign students to group with preference for high risk or low risk. This grouping was the independent variable while the four measures of creativity on the Torrance test, Fluency, Flexibility, Elaboration, and Originaliry, were the dependent variables. Individuals high and low in risk were compared on each measure via T tests. High risk-takers had significantly higher scores on Flexibility and Originality while the low risk-takers had significantly higher Elaboration scores. N o significant differences were obsetved between the two groups o n Fluency.
In the literature on creativity one of the most important tasks has been the identification of those personality traits characteristic of highly creative individuals. Torrance (1971) has noted that highly creative people are better able to cope with frustration than non-creative people and that they do not seem to be bound by conventional or typical patterns of behavior. Glover and Gary (1975) have reported a high tolerance for ambiguity, unusual problemsolving techniques, and non-conforming approaches to problems among highly creative people. Glover and Sautter ( 1976), Sautter and Glover ( 1976) reported that individuals who believe that reinforcement is contingent upon their own behavior scored significantly higher on two measures of creativity (flexibility and originality) while scoring as high on two other measures as did individuals who believe that reinforcement is independent of their control. Risk-taking behavior has been investigated from numerous points of view with special emphasis given its relation to need achievement and its relationship to locus of control. That many of the descriptions of creative individuals closely resemble similar descriptions of individuals of high risk, e.g., unusual behavior, new behavior, non-conforming behavior, risky behavior (Glover & Gary, 1975), leads quickly to the question of whether high risk-taking is a characteristic trait of creative individuals. The current study was designed to determine whether individuals determined to be high risk-takers differ from individuals characterized by preferences for low risk-taking in terms of their creative responding as measured by the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (Verbal Form B). High and low risk-taking tendencies were determined by the Kogan and Wallach ( 1964) Choice Dilemma Questionnaire. 'Reprints are available from John A Glover, Department of Educational Psychology and Measurements, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588 U.S.A.
228
J. A. GLOVER
&
F. SAUITER
MBTHOD Subjects were the total population of 66 first-year graduate students enrolled in educational psychology during the 1976 Summer term. Ages of the subjects ranged from 22 yr., 9 mo., to 48 yr., 4 mo., with a mean age of 29 yr., 4 mo. There were 39 females and 27 males in the sample. There were 47 black and 19 white students. All students were enrolled at a moderately sized, predominantly black state university in a mid-southern urban area. The data collection took place in the students' classrooms with their classroom instructors and the experimenter present over a two-day period and coincided with meetings of the three classes which made up the total population. Verbal forms of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking were administered to the students first employing Torrance's standard directions for the tasks. An arbitrary time limit of 10 min., however, was set for the completion of each of the five tasks. After completion of the test the experimenter collected the booklets. The Torrance tests, composed of five separate activities (Ask and Guess, Product Improvement, Unusual Uses, Unusual Questions, Just Suppose), yield four measures of creative ability, fluency, flexibility, elaboration and originality. The four response measures are operationally defined somewhat differently than Torrance suggests. Fluency is the measuce of the number of different ideas a person lists. For example, if a person were to list two ways of improving the product in question, that person would receive a fluency score of two. All of the fluency scores for the five subtasks were added together for the over-all score. Flexibility is the measure of the number of different kinds of ideas, i.e., if on the uses test, for example, three kinds of uses for the stimulus item were of the same kind (containing) the flexibility score would be one while the fluency score would be three on that subtest. Again, the scores on the separate subtests were combined. The Elaboration measure was the mean number of words per response for all the responses the student made in all five subtests. The Originality measure was a measure of the statistical infrequency of responses. Each response that appeared on one student's list of responses that did not appeu on any other student's list of responses received one point toward the final originality score that students obtained. Each of the 66 tests was scored by two independent raters, who were graduate students in educational psychology. Pearson product-moment correlations were computed between the two raters on all four measures to determine the reliability of the measures. The correlations were .92 for fluency, .74 for flexibility, .9O for elaboration, and .73 for originality. The mean of the two raters' scores was used in the analysis for each measure. The Choice Dilemma Questionnaire (1964) was administered to all the students the next day. Each of the three classes were read the same directions and in each instance only the experimenter and the instructor were present.
229
CREATIVITY AND RISK TAKING
The questionnaires were scored by the same persons who had scored the Torrance tests without being informed about the purpose of the study.
RESULTS The median score for the Choice Dilemma Questionnaire was computed (Md?z = 5.10) from the mean of each student's over-all score. The possible range was from 0 to 10. Students were then separated into high and low risktaking groups on the basis of whether their scores exceeded (low risk) or fell below (high risk) the median. The high-risk/low-risk groupings were then used as the independent variables in the analysis while the scores on the four components of creativity were used as the dependent variables. t tests (Champion, 1970) were then computed between the high risktaking and low risk-taking groups on each of the four measures of creativity. There was no significant difference between the groups on the flueno/ measure ( t = 1.05). The high risk-taking group had significantly higher scores on the flexibility measure ( t = 4.06, fl < .01) and on the originality measure ( t = 4.44, p < .01) than did the low risk-taking group. The low risk-taking group, however, had significantly higher levels of elaboration than did the high risk-taking group ( t = 3.91, p < .01; see Table 1 ) . TABLE 1 t
SCORES, MEANS,AND STANDARD DEVIATIONS FOR FOURMEASURES
Creativity
Fluency Flexibility Elaboration Originality
I
High-risk Group M SD
BOTH
GROUPS ON
Low-risk Group M
SD 4.86 3.77
1.05
24.15
5.15
23.08
4.06 -3.91 4.44
14.77
4.22
10.71
20.15 12.12
3.87
4.14
25.17 7.88
4.50
3.71
This study was designed to determine whether there were reliable differences between high and low risk-taking individuals in terms of their performance on the five subtests of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. The results indicate that those individuals who preferred higher risks scored significantly higher on the flexibility and originality measures than those individuals who preferred lower levels of risk taking. The low risk-takers, however, scored significantly higher on the elaboration measure than did high risk-takers. There was no significant difference on the fluency measure. These results are particularly interesting because of, the similarity to the results of a study that utilized locus of control as the independent variable (Glover & Sautter, 1976). Apparently risk taking is a function of some aspects of creative ability but the number of subjects is as yet too small to draw conclusions. Investigators of creativity might well consider risk taking as important.
J. A. GLOVER & F. SAU'ITER
REFERENCES CHAMPION,D. Busic statistics for J O C research. ~ Scranton, Penn. : Chandler, 1970. GLOVER,J. A., & GARY,A. L. Behavior modification: enhancing creatiuity and other good behaviors. Pacific Grove, Ca.: Boxwood Press, 1975. GLOVER,J. A., & SAUTIBR, F. J. An investigation of the relationship of four components of creativity to locus of control. Social Behavior and Personality, in press. KOGAN,N., & WALLACH,M.A. Risk taking: ~rstudy in cognition and personality. New York: Holt, 1964. SAUTTER, F. J., & GLOVER,J. A. A note on the relationship of locus of control to creative behaviors. Journal of Sock1 Psychology, in press. TORRANCE,E. P. Enconvaging creatiuity in the classvoom. Dubuque, la: Brown, 1971. TORRANCE,E. P. Torrance Tests o f Creative T h k k i n g . Lexington, Mass.: Ginn, 1974. Accepted June 10, 1977.
Psychological Reports 1977
RELATION OF FOUR COMPONENTS OF CREATIVITY TO RISK-TAKING PREFERENCES1 JOHN A. GLOVER University of Nebraska
AND
FRED SAUTTER University of Cincinnati
Summary.-The Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking and the Kogan and Wallach Choice Dilemma Questionnaire were administered to a total population of 66 graduate students at a predominantly black universiry. Risk-taking scores were used to assign students to group with preference for high risk or low risk. This grouping was the independent variable while the four measures of creativity on the Torrance test, Fluency, Flexibility, Elaboration, and Originaliry, were the dependent variables. Individuals high and low in risk were compared on each measure via T tests. High risk-takers had significantly higher scores on Flexibility and Originality while the low risk-takers had significantly higher Elaboration scores. N o significant differences were obsetved between the two groups o n Fluency.
In the literature on creativity one of the most important tasks has been the identification of those personality traits characteristic of highly creative individuals. Torrance (1971) has noted that highly creative people are better able to cope with frustration than non-creative people and that they do not seem to be bound by conventional or typical patterns of behavior. Glover and Gary (1975) have reported a high tolerance for ambiguity, unusual problemsolving techniques, and non-conforming approaches to problems among highly creative people. Glover and Sautter ( 1976), Sautter and Glover ( 1976) reported that individuals who believe that reinforcement is contingent upon their own behavior scored significantly higher on two measures of creativity (flexibility and originality) while scoring as high on two other measures as did individuals who believe that reinforcement is independent of their control. Risk-taking behavior has been investigated from numerous points of view with special emphasis given its relation to need achievement and its relationship to locus of control. That many of the descriptions of creative individuals closely resemble similar descriptions of individuals of high risk, e.g., unusual behavior, new behavior, non-conforming behavior, risky behavior (Glover & Gary, 1975), leads quickly to the question of whether high risk-taking is a characteristic trait of creative individuals. The current study was designed to determine whether individuals determined to be high risk-takers differ from individuals characterized by preferences for low risk-taking in terms of their creative responding as measured by the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (Verbal Form B). High and low risk-taking tendencies were determined by the Kogan and Wallach ( 1964) Choice Dilemma Questionnaire. 'Reprints are available from John A Glover, Department of Educational Psychology and Measurements, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588 U.S.A.
228
J. A. GLOVER
&
F. SAUITER
MBTHOD Subjects were the total population of 66 first-year graduate students enrolled in educational psychology during the 1976 Summer term. Ages of the subjects ranged from 22 yr., 9 mo., to 48 yr., 4 mo., with a mean age of 29 yr., 4 mo. There were 39 females and 27 males in the sample. There were 47 black and 19 white students. All students were enrolled at a moderately sized, predominantly black state university in a mid-southern urban area. The data collection took place in the students' classrooms with their classroom instructors and the experimenter present over a two-day period and coincided with meetings of the three classes which made up the total population. Verbal forms of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking were administered to the students first employing Torrance's standard directions for the tasks. An arbitrary time limit of 10 min., however, was set for the completion of each of the five tasks. After completion of the test the experimenter collected the booklets. The Torrance tests, composed of five separate activities (Ask and Guess, Product Improvement, Unusual Uses, Unusual Questions, Just Suppose), yield four measures of creative ability, fluency, flexibility, elaboration and originality. The four response measures are operationally defined somewhat differently than Torrance suggests. Fluency is the measuce of the number of different ideas a person lists. For example, if a person were to list two ways of improving the product in question, that person would receive a fluency score of two. All of the fluency scores for the five subtasks were added together for the over-all score. Flexibility is the measure of the number of different kinds of ideas, i.e., if on the uses test, for example, three kinds of uses for the stimulus item were of the same kind (containing) the flexibility score would be one while the fluency score would be three on that subtest. Again, the scores on the separate subtests were combined. The Elaboration measure was the mean number of words per response for all the responses the student made in all five subtests. The Originality measure was a measure of the statistical infrequency of responses. Each response that appeared on one student's list of responses that did not appeu on any other student's list of responses received one point toward the final originality score that students obtained. Each of the 66 tests was scored by two independent raters, who were graduate students in educational psychology. Pearson product-moment correlations were computed between the two raters on all four measures to determine the reliability of the measures. The correlations were .92 for fluency, .74 for flexibility, .9O for elaboration, and .73 for originality. The mean of the two raters' scores was used in the analysis for each measure. The Choice Dilemma Questionnaire (1964) was administered to all the students the next day. Each of the three classes were read the same directions and in each instance only the experimenter and the instructor were present.
229
CREATIVITY AND RISK TAKING
The questionnaires were scored by the same persons who had scored the Torrance tests without being informed about the purpose of the study.
RESULTS The median score for the Choice Dilemma Questionnaire was computed (Md?z = 5.10) from the mean of each student's over-all score. The possible range was from 0 to 10. Students were then separated into high and low risktaking groups on the basis of whether their scores exceeded (low risk) or fell below (high risk) the median. The high-risk/low-risk groupings were then used as the independent variables in the analysis while the scores on the four components of creativity were used as the dependent variables. t tests (Champion, 1970) were then computed between the high risktaking and low risk-taking groups on each of the four measures of creativity. There was no significant difference between the groups on the flueno/ measure ( t = 1.05). The high risk-taking group had significantly higher scores on the flexibility measure ( t = 4.06, fl < .01) and on the originality measure ( t = 4.44, p < .01) than did the low risk-taking group. The low risk-taking group, however, had significantly higher levels of elaboration than did the high risk-taking group ( t = 3.91, p < .01; see Table 1 ) . TABLE 1 t
SCORES, MEANS,AND STANDARD DEVIATIONS FOR FOURMEASURES
Creativity
Fluency Flexibility Elaboration Originality
I
High-risk Group M SD
BOTH
GROUPS ON
Low-risk Group M
SD 4.86 3.77
1.05
24.15
5.15
23.08
4.06 -3.91 4.44
14.77
4.22
10.71
20.15 12.12
3.87
4.14
25.17 7.88
4.50
3.71
This study was designed to determine whether there were reliable differences between high and low risk-taking individuals in terms of their performance on the five subtests of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. The results indicate that those individuals who preferred higher risks scored significantly higher on the flexibility and originality measures than those individuals who preferred lower levels of risk taking. The low risk-takers, however, scored significantly higher on the elaboration measure than did high risk-takers. There was no significant difference on the fluency measure. These results are particularly interesting because of, the similarity to the results of a study that utilized locus of control as the independent variable (Glover & Sautter, 1976). Apparently risk taking is a function of some aspects of creative ability but the number of subjects is as yet too small to draw conclusions. Investigators of creativity might well consider risk taking as important.
J. A. GLOVER & F. SAU'ITER
REFERENCES CHAMPION,D. Busic statistics for J O C research. ~ Scranton, Penn. : Chandler, 1970. GLOVER,J. A., & GARY,A. L. Behavior modification: enhancing creatiuity and other good behaviors. Pacific Grove, Ca.: Boxwood Press, 1975. GLOVER,J. A., & SAUTIBR, F. J. An investigation of the relationship of four components of creativity to locus of control. Social Behavior and Personality, in press. KOGAN,N., & WALLACH,M.A. Risk taking: ~rstudy in cognition and personality. New York: Holt, 1964. SAUTTER, F. J., & GLOVER,J. A. A note on the relationship of locus of control to creative behaviors. Journal of Sock1 Psychology, in press. TORRANCE,E. P. Enconvaging creatiuity in the classvoom. Dubuque, la: Brown, 1971. TORRANCE,E. P. Torrance Tests o f Creative T h k k i n g . Lexington, Mass.: Ginn, 1974. Accepted June 10, 1977.
