Continuing the conversation about concepts, one cannot fail to mention the concept of reduction (transition) from creativity to intelligence, the supporters of which were the British psychologist Hans Jurgen Eysenck, American psychologists Joe Paul Gilford and Alice Paul Torrens and some other scientists, which we will mention below.
Ideas of Eysenck and his supporters
According to Eysenck's concept, the indicator of a person's creativity is determined by the level of his intelligence. Hans Jurgen Eysenck, based on the relationship of IQ with Guildford's tests, suggested that creativity is one of the components of general mental development.
Supporters of Eysenck and his assumption, in order not to be unfounded, conducted several practical studies, one of the most serious among which was the work of the American psychologist Lewis Madison Terman. In 1926, together with fellow American psychologist Catherine Cox, he analyzed the biographies of 282 famous people in order to estimate their IQ based on their achievements between the ages of 17 and 26. In their studies, scientists also relied on the Stanford-Binet scale, which allows them to assess their intelligence in childhood.
In the future, the age indicators of acquiring skills and knowledge in celebrities were compared with similar indicators in ordinary children. And it was revealed that the IQ of celebrities is many times higher than usual - it averaged 158.9. Based on this, Theremin concluded that geniuses are people who already in early childhood showed signs of high giftedness. The results of this study became known throughout the world and became part of many.
However, much more interesting were the results of the long California study organized by Theremin and Cox as early as 1921. For the study, students of 95 California secondary schools were selected - 1528 girls and boys aged 8 to 12 years old, whose IQ was 135. After all the experiments, it turned out that children who are intellectually gifted are ahead of their peers in terms of development by about two school class.
60 years after the start of this long study, the psychologist D. Feldman checked the results of the longitudinal study begun by Theremin and Cox - the results that the people who were selected for the experiment in 1921 achieved in life were evaluated. All children with high IQs graduated from schools with excellent marks, two-thirds of them graduated from universities. Of these, 800 men, whose IQ was above 135, published 67 works of art and science, received patents for 150 inventions, 78 people received a Ph.D., 48 - doctors of medicine and other sciences. And 47 people were marked in the directory " The best people for 1949". However, not a single highly intelligent person who participated in the study showed himself as an exceptional talent in the field of art, literature, science, etc., and left no trace in the development of world culture. But almost all of them have achieved a high position in society, as well as an income several times higher than the average.
All this allowed scientists to conclude that intellectually gifted people can successfully adapt in society, but even a very high IQ is not a guarantee of creative achievements, in other words, you can be an intellectual, but never become a real outstanding creator.
In 1967, the work of Joe Paul Guildford "The Nature of the Human Intelligence" was published, after which the concept of creativity and its connection with intelligence began to gain more and more adherents.
Ideas by Guilford and Torrance
The ideas of Joe Paul Guildford speak of a fundamental difference between two types of mental operations - convergent and divergent. Convergent thinking becomes relevant when a person solving a problem, based on a number of conditions, is looking for a single solution. Divergent thinking, on the other hand, allows for several ways to solve a problem, due to which unexpected results and conclusions appear. Guilford said that divergent operations, together with transformative ones, are the basis of creativity as the ability to create.
In total, Guilford named four parameters of creativity (with the exception of general intelligence):
- Originality as the ability to produce associations and unusual solutions;
- Semantic flexibility as the ability to identify the main properties of an object and offer new ways to use it;
- Figurative adaptive flexibility as the ability to change the form of the stimulus to search for new signs and application possibilities;
- Semantic spontaneous flexibility as the ability to produce various ideas.
Based on these assumptions, Guilford and his team created the ARP tests, tests of the ability utilization program, aimed primarily at diagnosing divergent productivity.
Subsequently, the presented program was developed in the research of Alice Paul Torrance, who developed his tests in the process of educational and methodological activities aimed at developing creativity in children.
Creativity was understood by Torrens as a person's ability to sharply perceive shortcomings, disharmony, gaps in knowledge, etc. He believed that the act of creativity is divided into several stages:
- Problem perception
- Finding a Solution
- The emergence and formulation of hypotheses
- Hypothesis testing
- Hypothesis modification
- Finding a result
It is from these stages that the ideal test for diagnosing creativity should consist, so the Guilford tests were modified by Torrance for their tasks. In total, Torrens compiled 12 tests, divided into three categories - these are verbal, pictorial and sound batteries, evaluating verbal, pictorial and verbal-sound. Moreover, the Torrens tests, unlike the Guildford tests, could be used both on children and adults.
Thanks to the factor analysis of the new tests, factors were identified that correspond to the specifics of the tasks, and not just such parameters as ease, flexibility, accuracy and originality of thinking. In addition, the relationship of these parameters in any one test is much higher than their relationship in different tests.
The main parameters of creative thinking were characterized by Torrensk as follows:
- The ease of thinking is the speed of solving problems, which indicates an indicator of high-speed intelligence;
- Flexibility of thinking is the ability to switch from one category of objects to another;
- Originality of thinking is the ability to find solutions to a problem that are rarely found in a homogeneous group of subjects.
In practice, the Torrens tests showed that the success of tasks is due to high-speed mental qualities. In other words, it is high-speed intelligence that makes it possible to evaluate creativity.
conclusions
Naturally, the ideas of Eysenck, Guildford and Torrance presented in this article are considered only superficially and for the purpose of acquaintance, which does not allow us to make an exhaustive analysis of them and give them an appropriate assessment. This is especially true for people who are not specialists in the field and creativity. However, we can still draw some conclusions about these ideas.
Modern society is directly interested in creating such conditions in which the creative potential of each person could develop. And this can be achieved in such ways as raising the level of education of children, using special strategies that develop intelligence in the process of upbringing, developing innovative methods for developing intelligence and creativity and implementing them in studying proccess and professional activity, as well as the formation in people of the right attitude towards their intellect and creative abilities - attitude precisely as a special value.
It is for this reason that nowadays in many educational institutions and organizations for this, many transformations are made, their new types and categories appear, various options for training and advanced training programs are used. And in the very process of learning and other activities, the latest methods, intellectual, economic and business games are used, and many specialized trainings are held to develop intellectual and creative potential.
ALICE PAUL TLRRENS - THE NATURE OF CREATIVITY
Biography
Career
In 1936 he started his pedagogical activity at Midway Vocational School and in 1937 at the Georgia War College. In 1945 he was drafted into American army where he worked as a disabled veterans counselor at the Counseling Center at the University of Minnesota. In 1951, he became director of the US Air Force Rehabilitation Science Center in Colorado, and in 1958 he returned to the University of Minnesota, where he served as director of the Center for Educational Research until 1966.From 1966 to 1978, Torrance served as chair and from 1978 to 1984 as professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Georgia (UGA). In 1984, he retired and, in the same year, the Torrens Center for the Development of Creativity and Talent was established at the University of Georgia. Personality: Torrens had a good-natured, delicate, and generous personality. He was an outstanding mentor and teacher, always showing respect and support to his colleagues and students.
Creation
There has been active debate in the psychological literature about whether intelligence and creativity are parts of the same process (adjacent hypotheses) or represent different mental processes (disjoint hypotheses). Evidence from attempts to link intelligence and creativity since the 1950s by authors such as Baron Guildford or Wolack and Kogan has consistently demonstrated that the relationship between the two is small enough to allow them to be seen as completely different. concepts. Some researchers believed that creativity is a consequence of the same cognitive process as intelligence, and is defined as creativity only on the basis of its consequences, that is, when something new is born as a result of a cognitive process. Perkins conditionally called this approach the “nothing special” hypothesis.
Highly popular model, later known as the Threshold Hypothesis,
The threshold hypothesis proposed by Alice Paul Torrance states that in the general sample there will be a positive relationship between creativity and intelligence at a low level of their development, but the relationship will not be found at more high levels. The development of the "threshold" hypothesis, however, has met with mixed reactions ranging from enthusiastic support to rebuttal and denial. In 1974, Torrens created an orderly grading system. As part of the conceptual framework of creativity, he identified five measurable norms and 13 measurable criteria. The five norms measured are: fluency, originality, abstractness of titles, elaboration, and resistance to premature termination. Criteria measured include: emotional expression, clarity of wording when telling a story, movement or action, expressiveness of titles, juxtaposition of incomplete data, juxtaposition of lines, circles, extraordinary visualization, expansion or destruction of boundaries, humor, imaginative richness, vividness of imagination, and fantasy. According to Arasteh and Arasteh (1976), the most systematic definition of the creative abilities of children of primary school age was developed by Torrens and his colleagues (1960a,1960b, 1960c, 1961,1962,1962a,1963a,1964), who developed Minnesota Tests of Creative Thinking (MTCT) and conducted them among several thousand students. And while they used many of Guilford's concepts in the design of the tests themselves, the Minnesota group, unlike Guilford, developed tasks that could be assessed on multiple dimensions, including both verbal and non-verbal aspects and based on feelings other than vision.
Torrance in 1962 grouped the various tasks of the Minnesota Creative Thinking Tests into three categories: Verbal tasks using verbal stimuli (stimuli); Verbal tasks using non-verbal stimuli (stimuli); nonverbal tasks. A summary of the tasks used by Torrens is given below:
Unusual application. Unusual application tasks using verbal stimuli are a modified version of Guildford's brick application test. After preliminary attempts, Torrens (1962) decides to replace the brick with cans and books, believing that it will be easier for children to operate with cans and books, since both are more accessible to children than bricks.
The task of "impossibility". Originally used by Guilford et al. (1951) as a measure of fluency that included a combination of limitations and great potential. In the process of personality development and mental health, Torrens experimented with the number of changes in the basic task, making the restrictions more specific. In this task, test subjects are asked to list as many impossibilities as they can.
Consequence task. The consequences problem has also been previously applied by Guilford et al. (1951). Torrance adapted it with a few changes. He chose three improbable situations and the children were required to list their consequences. "Just Guess" Task This is an adapted version of the "Consequences" test that aims to detect a higher degree of spontaneity and is intended to be more effective in children. As in the consequences task, the test-taker is faced with improbable situations and must predict the possible consequences caused by the introduction of a new or unknown variable.
Situation problem. This task was modeled after Guilford's (1951) test, which was designed to measure the ability to see what needs to be done. Three general problems are presented to the test subjects, so that they come up with as many possible solutions to the problems as they can. For example: suppose all schools were cancelled, what would you do to try to become educated? General Problems Task This task is an adaptation of Guilford's (1951) test, which was designed to measure the ability to see shortcomings, needs, and deficits, as well as a determining factor called “problem sensitivity”. Test subjects are instructed to be presented with general situations in which to see as many possible problems stemming from those situations. For example: if you do your homework on the way to school in the morning.
improvement task. This test is an adaptation of Guilford's (1952) apparatus test, designed to assess the ability to see faults and all aspects of sensitivity to problems. To solve this problem, test-takers are offered a list of common objects in order to suggest as many ways to improve each of them as possible. At the same time, they are asked not to worry about how these improvements are applicable to reality.
"Mom's Problem - Hubbard". This problem was conceived as an adaptation of the situations problem for oral use in elementary grades, but is also applicable to older groups. This test activates a whole range of ideas about the factors that inhibit the development of thinking. Fictional Story Task For this task, the child is asked to write the most interesting and exciting story they can imagine. The titles of the stories are offered ready-made, for example: “The dog that did not bark”, or the child can use his own ideas.
Problems of a jumping cow. The jumping cow problem is a companion problem to the Mum-Hubbard problem, and was proposed to be solved in the same groups under the same conditions, and evaluated according to the same principle. The task is to think about all the possible consequences that could happen if the cow jumped to the moon. Verbal tasks using non-verbal stimuli[edit | edit wiki text]
Task "Ask and Guess". In this task, the individual is to be asked a question about a painting, a question that cannot be answered by looking at the painting alone. Then he is asked to guess or formulate a hypothesis about the possible causes of the depicted event. And then about its consequences - both immediate and remote.
Product improvement challenge. In this task, familiar toys are used. The child is asked to suggest improvements for each of the toys in order to make them more interesting (more fun) to play with. The test-taker is then asked to think of other unusual uses for these toys besides playing with them.
The task of unusual application. In this problem, along with the problem of improving the product, another one (unusual application) is used. The child is asked to think of the smartest, most interesting, and most unusual use of the proposed toy, other than playing with it. This use must be offered for the toy as it is, or modified in some way.
nonverbal tasks.
Problem of incomplete figures. This is an adaptation of the "drawing completion" test, which was developed by Kate Franck and used by Barron in 1958. A sheet of ordinary white paper measuring 54 square inches is divided into six squares, each of which depicts some kind of stimulus figure. The subject is asked to outline some new drawings or images by adding as many lines as needed to the existing six shapes. Design an image or shape task In this task, the child is given the shape of a triangle or jelly and a piece of white paper. The child is asked to come up with an image, a picture in which this form would become an integral part. He must place it in any place of the white sheet chosen by him and draw with a pencil so that a new picture is obtained. Then the picture must be named and signed at the bottom of the sheet.
Problem "Circles and squares". It was originally conceived as a task to identify the flexibility and fluency of thinking, and then redesigned in such a way as to emphasize originality and elaboration (detail). This test uses two printed templates. On one test subject sees an image of forty-two circles, he is asked to sketch objects or pictures in which the circles would form the basis of the image. The second pattern uses squares instead of circles.
The task of the creative project. Designed by Henrikson, it looks promising, but the scoring system is far from perfect. For testing, circles and strips of various sizes and colors, a four-page booklet, scissors and glue are used. The test subject's task is to construct an image, a "project", using all the colored circles and stripes. Time is limited to thirty minutes. You can use one, two, three, or all four pages. After using these circles and stripes, you can refine the image using a colored or black and white pencil.
Achievements:
Professional, social position: American psychologist and educator
Main contribution (what is known): Torrance is the father of modern creativity, created the Torrance Creative Thinking Assessment Test (TOTMT), and created the Future Problem Solving Program, .
Contributions:1
. Creation. E.P. Torrens has dedicated his career to teaching and researching creativity. His interest in creativity arose as early as 1937, when he, working as a teacher, noticed that many of his disadvantaged students later became successful in life and work. While still in the US Air Force (1951-57), he proposed a survival-based definition of creativity, in which courageous risk-taking is an essential characteristic of creativity.
Later he defines creativity as the process of perceiving gaps or disturbances, missing elements; the formation of ideas or hypotheses about them; testing these hypotheses; and reporting results, possible modification, and retesting of hypotheses (1962).
2. Torrens Creative Thinking Test (TTMT) or the Minnesota Creative Thinking Assessment Tests (MTOTM)
2.1. Torrance with his colleagues developed the widely acclaimed Torrens Creative Thinking Test (TTMT), the original version of which was published in 1966. In developing this test, Torrens relied on the work J. Gilford(1950, 1956). However, unlike the latter, he began to explore verbal and non-verbal activity, and also grouped the various TTMT subtests into three categories:
1. Verbal tasks using verbal stimuli (stimuli); 2. Verbal tasks using non-verbal stimuli (stimuli); 3. Non-verbal tasks (Figured forms).
2.2. Torrens designed a system for quantifying creativity. Initially, he used the four factors of divergent thinking introduced J. Gilford (1956):
1. Fluency. The total number of interpretable, meaningful, problem-solving ideas generated in response to a stimulus.
2. Flexibility. Number of different categories of relevant responses.
3. Originality. Statistical rarity of responses.
4. Elaboration. The number of details in the answers. (1966, 1974).
2.3. Subsequently, Torrensdecided to improve assessment of non-verbal tests (curly forms). The third edition of the TTMT eliminated the Flexibility scale and added two new rating scales: Resistance to Abortion and Abstractness of Titles (1984).
Within his system, non-verbal tests were assessed using 5 measured norms and 13 measured criteria. The five norms measured are: fluency, originality, title abstractness, elaboration, and resistance to premature termination. Criteria measured include: emotional expression, clarity of wording when telling a story, movement or action, expressiveness of titles, juxtaposition of incomplete data, juxtaposition of lines, circles, extraordinary visualization, expansion or destruction of boundaries, humor, imaginative richness, vividness of imagination, and fantasy.
2.4. Latest Version test Torrens' creative thinking (Goff and Torrens, 2002) aims to measure 4 abilities: 1. verbal fluency, the ability to generate numerous ideas related to an activity. 2. originality, the ability to generate rare ideas. 3. elaboration, the ability to develop ideas related to activities. 4. flexibility, the ability to interpret the same stimuli in different ways.
2.5. Torrens and colleagues administered the Minnesota Creative Thinking Tests to several thousand high school students. They also completed a 40-year longitudinal study of creativity that included 215 students in two Minneapolis elementary schools during the period 1958-1964.
At the same time, Torrens has always been aware that using TTCT fails to measure the essential aspects of creativity, and that a high level of measurable creativity only increases a person's chances of being creative.
3. Threshold Hypothesis. Torrance proposed a popular model called the Threshold Hypothesis, according to which, in the general sample, there is a positive correlation between creativity and intelligence at low level their development, but such a correlation does not appear at higher levels.
4. Program "Solving the problems of the future". Torrens created the Solving the Future Program and also developed the Incubation Learning Model, which currently reaches over 250,000 students worldwide.
This program stimulates critical and creative thinking, expands understanding of the real world, forms a vision for the future, integrates problem solving into curricula, develops leadership skills and the ability to evaluate.
E.P. Torrance wrote: “I have always been interested in ways to empower children and to unleash their creativity, but first I had to measure that potential. So I have a reputation as a psychometrician, although all this time I was engaged in the development of creativity" (1989).
Honorary titles, awards: Torrens was awarded the Arthur Lipper Award (World Olympics of the Mind) for his outstanding original contribution to creativity. He was listed as a "Who's Who in the World". Torrance was a US Army veteran and a member of the First Baptist Church in Athens, USA.
Main works: Torrance is the author of over 2,000 books, monographs, articles, reports, tests, visual aids and instructions. 1. Torrance, E. P. (1962). Guiding creative talent. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. 2. Torrance, E. P. (1965). Rewarding Creative Behavior. Experiments in Classroom Creativity. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc. 3. Torrance, E. P. (1966). 4. Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking: Norms technical manual (Research Edition). Princeton, NJ: Personnel Press. 5 Torrance, E. P. (1974). Norms-technical manual: Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. Lexington, MA: Ginn and Company. 6. Torrance, E.P. (1974). Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. Scholastic Testing Service Inc. 7. Torrance, E. P. (1979). The search for Satori and creativity. New York: Creative Education Foundation. 8. Torrance, E. P., & Safter, H. T. (1990). The Incubation Model: Getting beyond the aha! Buffalo, NY: Bearly. 10. Torrance, E. P., & Safter, H. T. (1999). Making the creative leap beyond. Buffalo, NY: Creative Education Foundation Press. 11. Torrance, E. P., & Sisk, D. A. (1997). Gifted and talented children in the regular classroom. Buffalo, NY: Creative Education Foundation Press. 12. Torrance, E. P. (1994). Creativity: Just wanting to know. Pretoria, Republic of South Africa: Benedic Books. 13. Torrance, E. P. (1995) Why Fly? A philosophy of creativity. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex. 14. Torrance, E. P. (2001). Experiences in developing creativity measures: Insights, discoveries, decisions. Manuscript submitted for publication. 15. Goff, K., & Torrance, E. P. (2002). Abbreviated Torrance test for adults manual. Bensenville, IL: Scholastic. Testing Service Inc.
Life:
Origin: Torrance was born in Milledgeville, Georgia. His parents were Ellis and Jimmy Paula Torrens. His sister Ellen was born four years later.
Education: BA (1940, Mercer University), MA in Educational Psychology (1944, University of Minnesota), Doctor of Psychology (1951, University of Michigan).
The main stages of professional activity: In 1936 he began his teaching career at Midway Vocational School and in 1937 at the Georgia War College. In 1945, he was drafted into the US Army where he worked as a consultant to disabled veterans at the Counseling Center at the University of Minnesota.
In 1951, he became director of the US Air Force Rehabilitation Science Center in Colorado, and in 1958 he returned to the University of Minnesota, where he served as director of the Center for Educational Research until 1966.
From 1966 to 1978, Torrance served as chair and from 1978 to 1984 as professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Georgia (UGA). In 1984, he retired and, in the same year, the Torrens Center for the Development of Creativity and Talent was established at the University of Georgia.
The main stages of personal life: In 1959, at the age of 44, he married Pansy Nigh (1913-1988), his student, who later worked as a nurse instructor, assistant and partner.
Personality. Torrens had a good-natured, delicate and generous character. He was an outstanding mentor and teacher, always showing respect and support to his colleagues and students.
Ellis Paul Torrance died in 2003 in Athens, Georgia at the age of 87.
(Torrance, Ellis Paul)
Was born: 1915, Milledgeville, Georgia, USA.
Interests: creativity, issues of education of gifted children, educational psychology, futurology, school psychology.
Education: B.A., Mercer University, 1940; MA, University of Minnesota, 1944; doctor, University of Michigan, 1951.
Professional activity: Distinguished Professor of Educational Psychology (retired) at the University of Georgia; Trustee of the Creative Education Foundation; Award "For Outstanding Contribution" of the Central Executive Committee of the Association for the Assistance to Gifted Children, 1973; "Outstanding Scientist", National Association for Gifted Children, 1974-; Founder's Medal of the Emergency Children's Fund, 1979; member of the National Academy of Physical Education, 1979; National Association for Arts Education Award for Contribution to Arts Education, 1980; Arthur Lipper Award "For Contribution to Creative Activity", 1982; Hall of Fame of the National Association for the Creation of Adults and Children, 1985; editor of the Mentors series (Burley); guest editor Journal of Research and Development in Education, 4(3), 1971, 12(3), 1979; member of the editorial boards: Journal of Creative Behavior, Gifted Child Quarterly, Creative Child and Adult Quarterly, Gifted Children Newsletter, Highlights for Children, Journal of Research and Development in Education, La Educacion Hoy, Education Digest, Journal for Humanistic Education, Journal of Group Psychotherapy, Psychodrama, Sociometry.
Main tests:
Torrens test of creative thinking(Torrance Test of Creative Thinking).
Main publications:
1962 Guiding Creative Talent. Prentice Hall.
1963 Education and the Creative Potential. University of Minnesota Press.
1965 constructive behavior; Stress, Personality and Mental Health. Wads-worth.
1969 Search for Safari and Creativity. Creative Education Foundation.
1972 Can we teach children to think creatively? Journal of Creative Behavior, 6, 114-143.
1972 Career patterns and peak creative achievements of creative high school students twelve years later. Gifted Child Quarterly, 16, 75-88.
1975 Sociodrama as a creative problem solving approach to studying the future. Journal of Creative Behavior, 9, 182-195.
1976 Creativity in mental health. In S. Arieti and Chrzanowski (eds), New Dimensions in Psychiatry, vol. 2. Basic Books.
1979 An instructional model for enhancing incubation. Journal of Creative Behavior, 13, 23-35.
1981 Predicting the creativity of elementary school children (1958-1980). Gifted Child Quarterly, 25, 55-62.
1984 Mentor Relationships: How they Aid Creative Achievement, Endure, Change and Die. bearly.
1984 The role of creativity in the identification of the gifted and talented. Gifted Child Quarterly, 28, 153-156.
1986 Teaching creative and gifted learners. In M. C. Wittrock (ed.), Handbook of Research on Teaching(3rd edn). Macmillan.
Initially, Torrance was interested in problems related to stress and survival, but this work of his attracted relatively modest attention. His main contribution is related to creativity research. The list of his achievements can be presented as follows.
1. He developed and improved a whole series of tests for creative thinking, which are widely used.
2. He found that the developmental characteristics of the majority creative abilities differ from those in tests of intelligence and logical thinking.
3. He showed that a creative crisis can be overcome with the judicious use of methodological materials.
4. He showed that about 70% of creative students pass intelligence tests.
5. He found that creatively gifted children who do not qualify as gifted on the IQ test (IQ130) outperform those who were gifted on the IQ test but did not meet the same criteria on creativity tests as adults;
6. He argued that the presence of a leader significantly affects the creative achievements of adults.
7. According to Torrance, the creative achievements of adults are also significantly influenced by the children's image of a future career - "falling in love with something" - as well as efforts to realize it.
8. The presence of confidence of teachers in primary school increases the chances of creative achievements of adults.
9. The creativity test shows no connection with socioeconomic and racial status.
10. Children in emotionally retarded classes show great creativity compared to the norm.
11. A range of technologies for developing more creative problem-solving leads to creative growth without affecting other types of educational achievement.
In addition, Torrens founded the Future Problem Solving Program, which has grown into a national and international program. As well as the International Network of Gifted Children and their Educators. He also owns a methodical model for enhancing creativity, which has been widely used through the 360 and 720 programs of Jeanne Reading.
Alice Paul Torrance(born Ellis Paul Torrance; October 8, 1915 - July 12, 2003) was an American psychologist from Milledgeville, Georgia.
After graduating from Mercer University, he received his M.A. from the University of Minnesota and then his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. His teaching career, which lasted from 1957 to 1984, began at the University of Minnesota and then continued at the University of Georgia, where he became a professor of educational psychology in 1966.
In 1984, the University of Georgia established the Torrens Creativity and Talent Development Center.
Torrens Creative Thinking Assessment Test (TOTMT)
Torrens became famous for his research into the nature of creativity. In 1966, he developed a comparison method for determining the degree of creative activity using the Creative Thinking Assessment Tests he developed. Building on the writings of J. P. Guilford, they included simple tests to determine the level of development of divergent thinking and other problem-solving skills, the results of which were assessed according to four parameters:
- Fluency. The total number of interpretable, meaningful, problem-solving ideas generated in response to a stimulus.
- Flexibility. Number of different categories of relevant responses.
- Originality. Statistical rarity of responses.
- Thoroughness. The number of details in the answers.
In the third edition of the 1984 TOTMT, the Flexibility parameter was removed.
Threshold Hypothesis
There has been active debate in the psychological literature about whether intelligence and creativity are part of the same process (adjacent hypotheses) or represent different mental processes (disjoint hypotheses). Evidence from attempts to link intelligence and creativity since the 1950s by authors such as Baron Guildford or Wolack and Kogan has consistently demonstrated that the relationship between the two is small enough to allow them to be seen as completely different. concepts. Some researchers believed that creativity is a consequence of the same cognitive process as intelligence, and is defined as creativity only on the basis of its consequences, that is, when something new is born as a result of a cognitive process. Perkins conditionally called this approach the “nothing special” hypothesis.
A very popular model, later known as the Threshold Hypothesis,
proposed by Alice Paul Torrens, argues that in the general sample there will be a positive relationship between creativity and intelligence at a low level of their development, but the relationship will not be found at higher levels. The development of the "threshold" hypothesis, however, has met with mixed reactions ranging from enthusiastic support to rebuttal and denial.
In 1974, Torrens created an orderly grading system. As part of the conceptual framework of creativity, he identified five measurable norms and 13 measurable criteria. The five norms measured are: fluency, originality, abstractness of titles, elaboration, and resistance to premature termination. Criteria measured include: emotional expression, clarity of wording when telling a story, movement or action, expressiveness of titles, juxtaposition of incomplete data, juxtaposition of lines, circles, extraordinary visualization, expansion or destruction of boundaries, humor, imaginative richness, vividness of imagination, and fantasy. According to Arasteh and Arasteh (1976), the most systematic definition of the creative abilities of children of primary school age was developed by Torrens and his colleagues (1960a,1960b, 1960c, 1961,1962,1962a,1963a,1964), who developed Minnesota Tests of Creative Thinking (MTCT) and conducted them among several thousand students. And while they used many of Guilford's concepts in the design of the tests themselves, the Minnesota group, unlike Guilford, developed tasks that could be assessed on multiple dimensions, including both verbal and non-verbal aspects and based on feelings other than vision.