Test Instructions and Identification of Creative Scientific Talent
- 1 October 1963
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Psychological Reports
- Vol. 13 (2) , 495-500
- https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1963.13.2.495
Abstract
The performance of 16 scientists told to “Be creative” in working on three open-ended tasks was compared with the performance of 15 scientists given neutral instructions. Under neutral instructions, the relation of performance (as measured by a summary score reflecting the judged quality and originality of response and response frequency) on the tasks and rated on-the-job creativity was an inverted U ( rho = –.17). In comparison to this group, “Be creative” instructions improved the test performance in the scientists rated in the upper third of the creativity distribution, depressed the performance of the lower rated men, and did not affect the performance of the middle group ( rho = +.71). The neutral instructions usually given may substantially decrease the power of tests to discriminate among more and less creative individuals.Keywords
This publication has 5 references indexed in Scilit:
- The effects of anxiety and threat on the solution of a difficult task.The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1961
- A study of engineers' criteria for creativity.Journal of Applied Psychology, 1959
- The Edwards Personal Preference Schedule (EPPS) and fakability.Journal of Applied Psychology, 1958
- The effects of real-life motivation on questionnaire response.Journal of Applied Psychology, 1956
- The Lowenfeld Mosaic TestJournal of Projective Techniques, 1952