Information, Experience, and Divergent Thinking: An Empirical Test

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Divergent thinking tests are often used to estimate the potential for creative problem solving. Scores on these tests may, however, reflect a kind of experiential bias. Similar biases once plagued IQ tests, the idea being that scores reflect the individual's background and information in long-term memory as much as ability per se. The investigation reported here attempted to assess the role of experience, knowledge, and memory in divergent thinking by comparing 2 kinds of tasks. One was a standard divergent thinking task (e.g., "list uses for a shoe," "uses for a brick," "uses for a newspaper"). The other allowed a number of responses but required that the examinee produce factual, knowledge- based responses. A second objective here was to compare standard- and knowledge-based ideation with tasks that shared 1 domain (e.g., transportation) with tasks that did not share a domain. Results indicated that there was a statistically significant correlation between the 2 types of tasks but only when they shared 1 domain. This was confirmed with product–moment correlations (r = .37, p = .025) and a canonical correlation (Rc = .69, p = 008). The correlations were not significant when the tasks represented different domains. It is interesting to note that both the knowledge-based and the standard divergent thinking tasks were unrelated to grade point average, which supports their discriminant validity. Limitations and directions for future research are suggested.