• About

Pumpkin Person

~ The psychology of horror

Pumpkin Person

Tag Archives: creativity

IQ tests vs creativity tests

19 Friday Jun 2020

Posted by pumpkinperson in Uncategorized

≈ 206 Comments

Tags

creativity, divergent thinking, humour, IQ

Many people think IQ tests do not measure creativity. This belief is ironic because IQ tests are backed by the statistical concept known as g (the hypothesized general factor that causes all mental abilities to positively correlate) and the most g loaded tests are those that require you to see associations between seemingly unrelated things: Pattern recognition.

Even g loaded tests as tedious as vocabulary or general knowledge require creativity because acquiring a large fund of information requires you to make some creative associations. For example, if someone asks to borrow some “dead presidents”, you must associate borrowing with money and then be creative enough to associate money with the pictures on currency which are of historical presidents. Hence “dead presidents” enters your vocabulary as a synonym for money.

But because IQ tests all have the same right answer that all high IQ people by definition converge on, many feel that they can’t be measuring creativity (which implies original thought). As a result, psychologists have created divergent thinking tests which supposedly measure creativity. A typical divergent thinking test is to ask people to name as many uses for a brick that they can think of in two minutes. Such tests do not have one right answer or even 100 right answers. The number of right answers is potentially infinite. Original answers like “for a short man to stand on when kissing a tall girl”, or “to put in your suitcase when you leave a hotel without paying so they think you’re still there” get more credit than unoriginal answers like “smash a window”, or “help build a house”.

Although divergent thinking tests correlate positively with conventional IQ tests, the correlation is low (and some say it vanishes altogether above IQ 120).

But one reason for the low correlation could be that divergent thinking tests are not measuring a cognitive ability but rather a personality trait. According to Arthur Jensen, in order for a test to be measuring an “ability” (physical or mental), there must be a clear standard of proficiency. Everyone can agree that remembering five digits is more impressive than remembering two digits or that solving a puzzle in 2 minutes is more impressive than solving it in 3 minutes. But can everyone agree that using a brick to kiss a tall girl is more impressive than using a brick to build?

There are humor tests where there is no single right answer. For example people are asked to write a caption to a cartoon and the funnier the caption, the higher the score. This potentially does have a clear standard of proficiency because although humor is subjective, laughter is involuntary, and if the test participants knew the objective was to make as many people laugh as possible, this might make a good psychometric measure of creativity.

Of course it would be completely impractical because every time someone was tested, you’d need to poll a representative sample of the public on whether the person’s answers were funny. But given that stand-up comedians have high IQs, I highly suspect this test would correlate at least moderately with g.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

contact pumpkinperson at easiestquestion@hotmail.ca

Recent Comments

pumpkinperson on Revisiting the IQs of Cro…
The Philosopher on Revisiting the IQs of Cro…
pumpkinperson on Revisiting the IQs of Cro…
The Philosopher on Revisiting the IQs of Cro…
pumpkinperson on Revisiting the IQs of Cro…
The Philosopher on Revisiting the IQs of Cro…
RaceRealist on Revisiting the IQs of Cro…
RaceRealist on Revisiting the IQs of Cro…
RaceRealist on Revisiting the IQs of Cro…
pumpkinperson on Revisiting the IQs of Cro…
Name on Revisiting the IQs of Cro…
Name on Revisiting the IQs of Cro…
pumpkinperson on Revisiting the IQs of Cro…
Name on Revisiting the IQs of Cro…
Name on Revisiting the IQs of Cro…

Archives

  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014

Categories

  • autism
  • chronometrics
  • dark dramas
  • ethnic genetic interests
  • ethnicity
  • Flynn effect
  • genetic similarity theory
  • heritability
  • horror
  • income
  • Ivy League
  • love stories
  • Low IQ
  • Michael Jackson
  • Oprah
  • politics
  • pumpkinperson
  • Uncategorized

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Recent Comments

pumpkinperson on Revisiting the IQs of Cro…
The Philosopher on Revisiting the IQs of Cro…
pumpkinperson on Revisiting the IQs of Cro…
The Philosopher on Revisiting the IQs of Cro…
pumpkinperson on Revisiting the IQs of Cro…
The Philosopher on Revisiting the IQs of Cro…
RaceRealist on Revisiting the IQs of Cro…
RaceRealist on Revisiting the IQs of Cro…
RaceRealist on Revisiting the IQs of Cro…
pumpkinperson on Revisiting the IQs of Cro…
Name on Revisiting the IQs of Cro…
Name on Revisiting the IQs of Cro…
pumpkinperson on Revisiting the IQs of Cro…
Name on Revisiting the IQs of Cro…
Name on Revisiting the IQs of Cro…

Archives

  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014

Categories

  • autism
  • chronometrics
  • dark dramas
  • ethnic genetic interests
  • ethnicity
  • Flynn effect
  • genetic similarity theory
  • heritability
  • horror
  • income
  • Ivy League
  • love stories
  • Low IQ
  • Michael Jackson
  • Oprah
  • politics
  • pumpkinperson
  • Uncategorized

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Pumpkin Person
    • Join 631 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Pumpkin Person
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
%d bloggers like this: