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Gunnar_Zarncke comments on How much do we know about creativity? - Less Wrong Discussion

11 Post author: NancyLebovitz 09 June 2015 12:43PM

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Comment author: Gunnar_Zarncke 09 June 2015 09:44:30PM *  4 points [-]

When I first heard of creativity tests I was surprised that this should be possible but I was quickly convinced that at least some aspects can indeed be tested relatively straitforward:

1) Originality - statistical infrequency of response 2) Fluency - number of responses 3) Flexibility - the degree of difference of the responses, in other words do they come from a single domain or multiple domains 4) Elaboration - the amount of detail of the response

(these are from the web here but recurr in standard tests like William’s Creativity Assessment Packet (CAP) and real scoring instructions that I have seen are interestingly simple to do. More interesting are actual examples provided which show the range of creativity. And that is where I think one can actually learn to be creative: By reproducing certain dimensions of creativity. That may sound like a contradiction in terms but I have found from self-practice that many creative ideas build on earlier ones. And the earlier ones apparently don't neccessarily need to be your own :-)

While looking for accessible material online I found these: A marketing campaign which stimulates creativity and a thesis which adapts the CAP to an online setting and may give you a feel of creativity tests in practice.

Comment author: Gunnar_Zarncke 24 June 2015 10:49:00PM 0 points [-]

Found the artical I mentioned first: Torrance Test of Creative Thinking - TTCT Read it, It contains lots of illustrative examples - many very creative.