Studies in Creativity: IV. Appearance of Fragmentation and Reorganization in Meaningfully Associated Units

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Abstract
The purpose of this experiment was to refine the measurement of individual differences in the utilization of learned material and to explore further its relationship to creativity. The refinements were: (1) Ss memorized a list of 12 pairs of words, all of which could be used as learned and (2) Ss were not given any clues of constructional uses of the experimental words when given the problem of writing stories on topics assigned. Ss were asked to write creative stories using as many of the learned words as possible. The results strengthened previous findings that the functioning of associative bonds, the active fragmenting of associative bonds, and the process of regrouping memorized material are measurable, stable phenomena. Attempts to find relationships between measures of word usage and measures of (a) creativity, (b) originality, (c) intelligence, (d) learning, and (e) solving a human-relations problem met with failure, further indicating the need to concentrate our efforts on direct measurement of the creative process rather than inferring it from the evaluation of an end product labeled “creative,” “original,” or “innovative.”