GENDER DIFFERENCES IN CREATIVITY AMONG STUDENTS IN PRIVATE HIGHER EDUCATION

<p>The primary purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between openness to experience, creativity, creative behaviour, general creativity, and support for creative behaviour from academic staff (lecturers and professors) and by the environment among students in private higher education. The aim was to investigate the contribution of gender, support for creative behaviour from academics, and the environment in predicting different measures of creativity. Additionally, this study examined the structure of the creative behaviour self-assessment questionnaire. The openness to experience scale, creativity subscale, inventory of creative behaviours, creativity self-assessment questionnaire and assessment of incentives for creative behaviour by academics and the environment were tested on a sample of 346 students (54% female), who were randomly selected from different private higher education institutions (college and universities). Students with different majors participated (70% finance and law, 16% information technology and 14% web design). Consistent with our predictions, the 'openness to experience’ domain was positively related to the creativity facet, creativity behaviour and general creativity. As expected, the openness to experience domain and its creativity facet and creative behaviour and general creativity were associated with supporting creative behaviour by the environment in both males and females. However, contrary to our predictions, support for creative behaviour from academics was unrelated to openness to experience, creativity and general creativity in both males and females. In contrast, support for creative behaviour by academics was related to creative behaviour in females but not in males. Creative behaviour and general creativity were positively associated and supported creative behaviour by academics and the environment. Support for creative behaviour from the environment was positively associated with openness to experience, creativity, creative behaviour and general creativity, while gender only showed independent positive associations with creative behaviour. Gender, support for creative behaviour from academics and support for creative behaviour from the environment together accounted for 9% of the variance in openness to experience, 7% of the variance in creativity, 12% of the variance in creative behaviour and 13% of the variance in general creativity. The results highlight the importance of support for creative behaviour from the environment in explaining openness to experience, creativity, creative behaviour and general creativity. Furthermore, they show that gender is a significant predictor of creative behaviour. The results also provide further validation of the Inventory of Creative Behaviours and further delineate the nomological network of the creativity construct.</p><p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0895/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Climate, Creativity, and the Evolution of Human Intelligence

The present essay compares two books dealing with the evolution of human mental abilities. Agustín Fuentes’ The Creative Spark focuses on creativity. Fuentes argues that creativity is the central element that makes human uniqueness, and highlights continuity between modern examples of creativity and early forms of human creative behaviour. Mark Maslin’s The Cradle of Humanity discusses the role of East Africa’s climate in increasing the intelligence of humans. To understand this role, Maslin combines geological and climatic data with the latest discoveries in human evolution and palaeontology. The essay compares the books’ content as well as their tone, and concludes on whether they might inspire future research on human evolution.

Dopamine supports idea originality: The role of spontaneous eye blink rate on divergent thinking

The neurotransmitter dopamine plays a crucial role in human creative behaviour. Specifically, striatal dopamine seems to be associated with specific dimensions of divergent thinking performance, especially with the categorical diversity (flexibility) of the ideas. In the experimental context, spontaneous Eye Blink Rate (sEBR) has been used as a proxy of striatal dopamine and it has been demonstrated an inverted U-shape relationship between sEBR and flexibility, such that a medium sEBR is able to predict higher flexibility levels. The present study aimed at carrying out further investigations about the relationship between sEBR and idea generation through divergent thinking, specifically focusing on the relationship between idea originality and dopamine level, since originality is a key element for creativity. We asked 80 participants, whose sEBR at rest was measured, to perform an Alternative Uses Task (AUT) measuring their divergent thinking performance. Results revealed that the relationship between sEBR and originality, as measured through subjective ratings of external raters, followed an inverted U-shape function with medium sEBR being associated with higher originality scores. Moreover, and most importantly, we demonstrated that sEBR predicted originality through the mediation of flexibility. Our results provide further insights on the possible role of dopamine on divergent thinking performance, demonstrating that an adequate dopamine level may facilitate the generation of original ideas through the exploration of diverse conceptual categories (higher flexibility).

A Different Way of Seeing Things

Kristen Monroe analyses the Rudolphs’ innovative use of political psychology in their study of identity, political leadership, and the consequences of perception for political action. She draws inspiration from the Rudolphs’ work on Gandhi to develop the concept of ‘moral imagination’, or the capacity to empathize with other people’s lives in ways that recast moral issues in a light that leads to innovative solutions to moral problems. Moral imagination plays a crucial role in explaining altruism and heroism. Conversely, people’s capacity to dehumanize others is an important cause of terrorism and genocide. Monroe’s analysis underscores the importance of emotions in shaping: peoples’ perceptions, moral choices, and political action. She advocates moving beyond mechanical models of ‘scientific’ explanation and developing a humanistic social science that leaves us open to surprises resulting from the innovatively creative behaviour of our fellow human beings.