Appendix C

TEST OF CREATIVITY

Answer Sheet and Feedback

The test you just completed covers the major types of mental activity associated with creativity: insight, recognizing relationships that are not easily evident, visualizing, thinking laterally as well as linearly, withholding evaluation (judgment) so as to generate many ideas (brainstorming), using familiar concepts or objects in unfamiliar (novel) ways, and so on.

Creative people tend to have traits that are not shared by most other people. Often they have grown up as “loners,” seeking solitude rather than friends and peer group support. They see no reason to conform and meet arbitrary norms. They value their uniqueness and originality. They are not ashamed of having “off-the-wall” thoughts and do not fear the realization that others will see them as bizarre, foolish, or “out-of-touch.” They prefer challenge to routine, and value excitement over predictability and fixedness.

Although creativity requires superior intelligence, a high I.Q. is no guarantee of creativity. In fact, only a small fraction of the intellectually gifted are creative. Besides being novel, the fruits of your creativity must also be appropriate or relevant or satisfying to others (for example, aesthetically pleasing in works of art or music). Otherwise, anyone who smears paint on canvas or pounds on piano keys in novel and bizarre ways would have to be deemed creative (and this could include the entire family of man as well as our primate friends, apes, monkeys, and King Kong!).

1. On this first exercise, your mission was to come up with as many words as you can generate in five minutes that begin with the letter c. Did you plunge right in by listing any word that came to mind? Or did you spend a moment planning your creative journey with questions like these:

(a) Is it better to work through the alphabet so as to avoid later confusion as to whether you’ve already used a word (e.g., all “ca . . .” words, followed by all “ce . . .” words, “ch . . .” words, etc.)?

(b) Is it better to write only one-syllable words, since you can write more of them in three minutes (e.g., can, cow, cut, chip versus circumference, communications, celebrity)?

(c) Is it acceptable to use different forms of the same word (e.g., cheat, cheater, cheats, cheating), or would that not be very challenging or original? (Remember: creative people prefer challenge and excitement to routine and fixedness.)

All of these questions are rational and analytical, and draw on the left brain. Creative individuals harness and channel their creativity by planning their approach to a creative assignment with such questions. If you did so, you probably realize that: (a) an alphabetic approach would enable you to generate more words in shorter time, since you are following a system rather than a random process; (b) although one-syllable words can be written more quickly, if you start to pass judgment and edit yourself, your momentum will slow down; (c) if you are highly creative, you’re likely to be bored by simply sticking different endings onto a root word. You won’t see them as new (original, novel) words, and there won’t be much challenge or excitement.

Printed below is a list of c words to show how easy it is to follow these (a), (b), (c) guidelines and to generate words as fast as you can write. Writing at a rate of 30 words per minute, you could come up with about 150 words, as shown in the list below. (No need for your list to resemble ours, of course.) Take a moment to count the total number of words you generated in five minutes. Divide this number by five.

2. In this exercise, you generated possible explanations in response to (a), then came up with possible solutions in response to (b). We’ve listed twelve relevant answers to each. Your responses will differ from ours, of course. See how many plausible responses you came up with.

(a) • it’s summer and they value their three- to four-day weekends more than the money

• they really are sick, having exerted themselves excessively over the weekend

• they have Monday hangovers

• they are paid so well that the docking doesn’t hurt them

• the Friday deliveries are heavier: more work stocking stores for the weekend

• the Monday “out-of-stocks” (it’s summer) mean more work and second trips

• the routes are too big, too many outlets

• the traffic on Friday and Monday is too much of a hassle

• weekend sporting events (stadium, arena, coliseum) require much more labor

• their trucks can’t carry enough product for extra-heavy Monday/Friday deliveries

• their jobs aren’t satisfying; long weekends are providing the balance

• drivers may be going off in groups for long weekends (hunting, fishing, drinking)

(b) • provide weekend deliveries for stores that have had “out-of-stock” conditions

• take advance orders by phone so trucks carry only what they need

• reduce the number and variety of packages (sizes, cans vs. bottles)

• hire helpers to work with drivers; they can run routes if necessary

• have retirees on call in case regulars don’t show up

• carry more product: use larger trucks or use pallets for delivery to larger stores

• increase the penalty for absenteeism

• reapportion the territory so as to break up larger (out-of-stock) routes

• set up a special weekend “hot line” so that dealers can phone for supplementary delivery

• terminate for excessive absenteeism, replace with drivers with a different work ethic

• deliver product to sporting events during midweek, not on Friday

• carry only the best sellers on Monday and Friday (80% of sales come from 20% of product line)

3. Creativity requires superior intelligence. In this exercise, you could channel your thinking into a variety of different fields: agriculture, construction, manufacture, and so on. Your ability to “shift gears” and move your focus from one context to another is important to success on exercises such as this.

First of all, you should recognize that peanut shells can be used “as is” in some applications. However, by processing them, we can greatly expand our list of potential uses, as shown in the list below. We’ve listed 15 applications—many more than you had time to generate or write in 3 minutes.

Use peanut shells “as is” for:

• animal feed (silage)

• filler in human food (like soybeans)

• aggregate (additive) in cement for use as stucco—makes it lighter

• fiber in “scratch coat” (undercoat) prior to fine plaster coat

• fiber in asphalt as paving

• pulp to be rolled into special kinds of paper or sheet products

• insulation (if fireproofing is economical or unnecessary)

• additive in potting soil—helps it breathe

• filler in a contained jumping, rolling, bouncing area for children

• filler (sterilized) in pillows, quilts, blankets (like kapok)

Process the shells (shred, grind, pulverize) to use as:

• mulch and ground cover for planting areas

• fuel, either alone or as additive

• packing material (like styrofoam pellets and squiggles)

• crushable filler in highway and vehicle collision barriers (in bags or plastic canisters)

• additive to plastic, resins, plaster, cement (fibers add strength)

4. If English is not your native language, you will find an exercise like this to be especially challenging. Let’s see how the fruits of your labor compare with ours. Listed below are some candidates for “fruity” figures of speech.

5. Words formed from these letters are listed below. Note the flow, or sequence in which the mind can be mapped to go from each word to the next. This helps in identifying the full range of possibilities, or as many as 3 minutes will allow.

NXEYOTI

Give yourself two points for each of the ten assignments that you got right. Give one point for half-right answers. The total possible is 20 points.

HOW DID YOU DO?

Highly creative persons will usually score in the range of 15–20 points in each of the six boxes, for a total of 90–120 points. Moderately creative persons typically score in the range of 10–15 points on each item, for a total of 60–90 points. Add up your scores in the six boxes, and enter this new total in the box at the right.

What insights have you gained into the nature of creativity and your areas of creative strength and weakness?