Individual differences in creative cognition

Creativity is becoming an increasingly desirable characteristic across a number of domains, but the processes underlying various creative abilities remain ambiguous. The most frequently used assessments of creativity (i.e., divergent thinking tasks; creative problem-solving tasks) differ in surface features and are also rarely examined together. These inconsistencies, in addition to mixed findings in the literature, have caused considerable debate among creativity researchers concerning the particular roles of independent or dual processes that lead to success on different creativity tests. The present study expounded upon these mixed findings using a factor analytic method. The results indicated that individual differences in working memory and fluency ability impact performance on divergent thinking and creative problem-solving tasks, but to differing degrees. These results are discussed as supporting a dual-process view of creative thinking. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).