Effects of a Two-Stage Solutions Test, Production and Revision Stages Administered under Neutral and Criteria-Cued Instructions, on Psychological Processes

Summary

Volunteer male and female college students (N = 225) rated themselves on Sciortino's Inventory of Psychological Processes (IPP-3) immediately after the production and revision stages of the Solutions Test. The production stage was administered under neutral instructions and the revision stage was administered under criteria-cued instructions. Ss' combined scores on the IPP-3 from both the production and revision stages of the Solutions Test were, first, subjected to a principal components analysis and, then, rotated according to Kaiser's varimax procedure. Six varimax factors were extracted: divergent thinking, frustration, modification, excitement, evaluated synthesis, and incubated thinking. The factor scores of each of the six extracted factors, for the production and revision stages, respectively, were then subjected to an analysis of variance for repeated measures. The results show that the mean values of factors divergent thinking, frustration, and excitement are significantly higher in the production stage than in the revision stage. However, the mean values of factors modification, evaluated synthesis, and incubated thinking are significantly higher in the revision stage than in the production stage.