CREATIVITY AND ACQUISITION OF KNOWLEDGE UNDER THE CONDITION OF AROUSED COGNITIVE CONFLICT

Abstract

The present study aimed at investigating the effects of creativity on acquisition of knowledge under the condition of aroused cognitive conflict.
The hypothesis of this study is as follows: highly creative individuals are of advantage to acquiring knowledge when cognitive conflict is aroused by complex and novel stimuli.
Procedure
Conflict (C) condition: (1) pre-test (immediately before)(2) Ss inferred whether it is possible to make a specific novel phenomenon occur or not. Following this, Ss were exposed to the demonstration of the phenomenon. It was expected that these procedures would arouse cognitive conflict by complexity and novelty.(3) Ss were given the statements which explained this phenomenon. It reduced the cognitive conflict.(4) post-test (right after)(5) retention-test (a week later)
Non-Conflict (NC) condition: This condition was different from the C condition in two respects. First, it lacked inference procedure, and second, Ss were given the explanation of the phemomenon before they were exposed to it. These procedures were to decrease the degree of complexity and novelty.
Subjects
Out of 154 pupils of the 5th grade, 8 groups of Ss as follows were selected for analysis. In the C condition,
High Intelligence and High Creativity (HIHC) Group: 5 Ss, High Intelligence and Low Creativity (HILC) Group: 7 Ss, Low Intelligence and High Creativity (LIHC) Group: 8 Ss Low Intelligence and Low Creativity (LILC) Group: 10 Ss. In the NC condition, there were9-6-6-9Ss in each group.
Ss were separated into upper and lower 1/3 on the basis of both intelligence and creativity tests.
Results
The result of post-and retention tests supported the hypothesis. These tests required Ss to describe the operation to make the phenomenon and its explanation. The results of post test: Ss with high creativity obtained higher score in the C condition than in NC condition between HIHC Groups or LI HC Groups. On the other hand, for Ss with low creativity, the difference between the score of the C condition was not significant (between HILC Groups or LILC Groups.) The result of retention test: Ss of the HIHC Group in the C condition obtained higher score than Ss of the other 7 groups. And Ss of the LIHC group in the C condition had tendency to obtain higher score than Ss of the two LILC groups.
These results were interpreted in term of the approaching tendency to collative (complex and novel) stimuli of the creative individual.