Studying creativity by means of word association tests

Abstract

Administered the Kent-Rosanoff Free Association Test and a new scientific word list to 66 senior honor students in engineering and 45 industrial research scientists. Criterion ratings of creativity were available to all Ss. Associations were classified into 5 categories by decreasing frequency of occurrence. Moderately infrequent responses were more strongly related to creativity than were responses of extreme remoteness or common occurrence. A weighted summation of the 5 Kent-Rosanoff categories correlated .30 with the creativity criterion for engineers and .24 for scientists. A similar summation for the scientific list correlated .35 with the engineers' criterion and .36 with that for scientists. Both word association indices were relatively uncorrelated with other measures often used in studies of creativity (e.g., Unusual Uses Test and Terman's Concept Mastery Test). (16 ref) (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)