Understanding Fluency and Originality: A Latent Variable Perspective

• In Event: 73.062 - Poster Session 17
  In Poster Session: 73.062-2 - Motivational and Cognitive Processes: Language, Literacy, Communication, and Reasoning

Abstract

Divergent thinking tasks, which require participants to generate multiple original ideas, are the most widely used measures in the creativity literature. Performance on divergent thinking tasks is interpreted in terms of multiple factors, such as Fluency and Originality. Fluency refers to the quantity of ideas a participant generates, and Originality refers to the relative novelty of each of those ideas. In this study, the Uses of Objects Task is employed, and a comparison of three confirmatory factor models is undertaken on the resulting data to ascertain the nature of the constructs of Fluency and Originality as well as the relation between them. Results suggest that Fluency and Originality are best conceptualized as distinct but positively correlated constructs.

Authors

• Denis Dumas, University of Maryland - College Park

• Kevin Niall Dunbar, University of Toronto