7 Example of items used in tests of creativity

1. Ingenuiy (Flanagan, 1963):

(a) A very rare wind storm destroyed the transmission tower of a television station in a small town. The station was located in a town in a flat prairie with no tall buildings. Its former 300-foot tower enabled to serve a large farming community, and the management wanted to restore service while, a new lower was being erected. The problem was temporarily solved by using

(b) As part of a manufacturing process, the inside lip of a deep cup-shaped casting is machine threaded. The company found that metal chips produced by the threading operation were difficult to remove from the bottom of the casting without scratching the sides. A design engineer was able to solve this problem by having the operation performed

2. Unusual uses (Guilford, 1954):

Name as many uses as you can think of for:

a. a toothpick

b. a brick

c. a paper clip.

3. Consequences (Guilford, 1954):

Imagine all of the things that might possibly happen, if all national and local laws were suddenly abolished.

4. Fable endings (Getzels and Jackson, 1962):

Write three endings for the following fable: a moralistic, a humorous, and a sad ending

The Mischievous Dog

A rascally dog used to run quietly to the heels of every passerby and bite them without warning. So, his master was obliged to tie a bell around the cur’s neck that he might give notice wherever he went. This the dog thought very fine indeed, and he went about tinkling it in pride all over town. But, an old hound said.

5. Product improvement (Torrance: 1966) :

The subject is presented with a series of objects such as children’s toys or instruments used in his particular occupation and asked to make suggestions for their improvement

6. Remote associations (Mednick, 1962) :

Find a fourth word which is associated with each of these three words: a. rat-blue-cottage b. out-dog-cat, c. wheel-electric-high d. surprise-line-birthday

7. Word association (Getzels and Jackson, 1962) :

Write as many meanings as you can for each of the following words:

a. duck

b. sack

c. pitch

d. fair