The Decline of Creativity in the United States

The Decline of Creativity in the United States: 5 Questions for Educational Psychologist Kyung Hee Kim

An article titled “The Creativity Crisis,” published in Newsweek this past summer, discussed the decline of creativity among children in the United States. Mentioned in that article was the work of Kyung Hee Kim, an associate professor of educational psychology at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. Kim had performed analyses of a creativity measure known as the Torrance test for almost 300,000 American adults and children. Her findings, that Americans’ creativity has plummeted in recent years, caught the attention of teachers and psychologists across the country.

America was once of the world’s most innovative societies. Curious about creativity testing, and wondering what derailed our train of ingenuity and inventiveness, Britannica science editor Kara Rogers pitched a few questions to Kim, whose discussion of the current U.S. creativity crisis is eye-opening and provocative. Her responses expose not only the factors underlying the loss of our creative spirit but also the impacts of this loss on American society.

Britannica: Could you briefly explain the Torrance test and how it is used to measure creativity?

Kim: Dr. E. Paul Torrance developed the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT) in 1966 and the test has been updated five times, in 1974, 1984, 1990, 1998, and 2008. The TTCT appears in almost 40 different languages. Educators and corporate entities use and reference the TTCT more than any other creativity test in the world. The TTCT predicts creative achievement better than any other creativity test or divergent thinking test, and based on my extensive analyses, I have concluded that the TTCT is more than just a divergent-thinking test: it is the best creativity test currently available. The TTCT gives a profile of test results on several subscales (different than tests like the IQ test, which gives a single measure of intelligence).
Creative is not synonymous with artistic, and the TTCT measures creativity on many other levels than artistic ability. Western people tend to think of creativity as artistic ability, whereas Eastern people tend to think of creativity as scientific ability. Eastern people think of artistic ability as a separate construct from creativity. Since the TTCT is not just a measure of artistic ability, it leads to the question of what does the TTCT measure? The TTCT measures the creative mind more broadly; it measures creative potential in many diverse areas such as art, literature, science, mathematics, architecture, engineering, business, leadership, and interpersonal relationships.

As noted above, the TTCT does not produce a single measure of creativity. Instead the TTCT measures the following subscales of creative potential: Fluency, Originality, 13 Checklists of Creative Strengths, Elaboration, Abstractness of Titles, and Resistance to Premature Closure. The above subscales can be grouped together into three main concepts of creative potential:

1) Lateral/Innovative Thinking factor (Fluency & Originality): Fluency measures an ability to produce a number of relevant ideas. Originality measures an ability to produce a number of statistically infrequent ideas and shows how unique and unusual the ideas are.

2) Vertical/Adaptive Thinking factor (Elaboration & Abstractness of Titles): Elaboration measures an ability to develop and elaborate upon ideas and detailed and reflective thinking, but it also indicates motivation to be creative. Abstractness of Titles measures an ability to produce the thinking processes of synthesis and organization, and further, it measures an ability to capture the essence of the information involved and to know what is important. This is based on the idea that creativity requires an abstraction of thought. Abstractness of Titles is also related to verbal intelligence.

3) Creative Personality factor (Resistance to Premature Closure & 13 Checklists of Creative Strengths): Resistance to Premature Closure measures intellectual curiosity as well as open-mindedness. Open-mindedness predicts both IQ and creativity, and it is also found to be the most influential factor on intelligence. Finally, for the Creativity Personality factor, 13 Creative Strengths include creative personality traits, such as being emotionally expressive (Emotional Expressiveness), energetic (Movement or Action), talkative or verbally expressive (Storytelling Articulateness, or Expressiveness of Titles), humorous (Humor), imaginative (Fantasy), unconventional (Extending or Breaking Boundaries), lively or passionate (Richness of Imagery), perceptive (Colorfulness of Imagery), connecting seemingly irrelevant things together (Synthesis of Incomplete Figures), synthesizing (Synthesis of Lines or Circles), and seeing things from a different angle (Unusual Visualization or Internal Visualization).

Britannica: Based on your study results, how significantly has creativity decreased in U.S. children?

Kim: Creativity decreased over the last 20 years. The results indicate that all of the scores of the Lateral/Innovative thinking factor, Vertical/Adaptive thinking factor, and Creative personality factor have significantly decreased or have significantly started decreasing. The decrease has been more in recent years than earlier years. The results of each subscale of the TTCT are below:

•  Decrease in Fluency after 1990: Fluency scores (quantity of the ideas: ability to produce a number of ideas) decreased by 4.68% from 1990 to 1998 and by 7.00% from 1990 to 2008.

•  Decrease in Originality after 1990: Originality scores (quality of the ideas: ability to produce a number of statistically infrequent ideas that shows how unique and unusual the ideas are) decreased by 3.74% from 1990 to 1998 and remained static from 1998 to 2008. Originality scores have actually significantly decreased, but the decrease has been deflated through the use of outdated scoring lists.

• Decrease in Creative Strengths after 1990: Creative Strengths scores (creative personality traits, including being emotionally expressive, energetic, talkative or verbally expressive, humorous, imaginative, unconventional, lively or passionate, perceptive, connecting seemingly irrelevant things together, synthesizing, and seeing things from a different angle) decreased by 3.16% from 1990 to 1998 and by 5.75% from 1990 to 2008.

• Decrease in Elaboration after 1984: Elaboration scores (ability to develop and elaborate upon ideas and detailed and reflective thinking and motivation to be creative) decreased more than other subscales of the TTCT. Elaboration scores decreased by 19.41% from 1984 to 1990, by 24.62% from 1984 to 1998, and by 36.80% from 1984 to 2008.

• Decrease in Abstractness of Titles after 1998: Titles scores (ability to produce the thinking processes of synthesis and organization, to capture the essence of the information involved, and to know what is important) increased until 1998, but decreased by 7.41% from 1998 to 2008.

• Decrease in Resistance to Premature Closure after 1998: Closure scores (intellectual curiosity and open-mindedness) decreased from 1984 to 1990, increased from 1990 to 1998, and decreased by 1.84% from 1998 to 2008.

Britannica: What are some possible explanations for the recent decrease in creativity in American children?

Kim: These are new findings, and I am not aware of a research study specifically addressing this topic, so research is needed in the area. Kindergarteners and first graders tend to be influenced more by home than school environments, so logically, home environments could be a strong factor. Possible explanations abound, and one may point a finger at the excessive time our children tend to spend in front of televisions and computers, watching programs, and playing videogames, rather than engaging in creative activities such as playing outside or exploring the outside world. Another ready explanation for decreasing creativity among upper-grade elementary school children is the lack of creativity development and the stifling of children’s creative opportunities in classrooms.

Britannica: How might decreased creativity impact individuals and society?

Kim: A world without creativity or with markedly reduced creativity would be less interesting and less satisfying in general, like eating dry cereal out of the box to the exclusion of other foods. The world would be more predictable, less exciting, and boring without creativity. Productivity and development would diminish.
The heart of The American Spirit is American Ingenuity, the ability to create novel solutions. The United States provided an environment that fostered creativity, provided opportunities for creative individuals, and rewarded creative achievements. A creative soul is part of what enabled the U.S. to ascend to world leader, with such a tiny and un-historied population. Creativity is central to the American soul and the American spirit, and these associations explain part of the public’s fascination with the study of creativity. The U.S. has always felt secure that its vast inventories of creative potential would prevail against every foe, from British Redcoats and Soviet Red Communists to National Socialists and Japanese Industrialists. The recent decreases in creativity measures indicate a threat to national security.

The U.S. has served as a beacon for creative hearts and adventurous spirits from before its inception to the present, calling out to those in search of freedom of expression and freedom of thought, like Albert Einstein, Igor Stravinsky, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Ieoh Ming Pei, and Alexander Graham Bell. If the United States is no longer an environment that encourages creativity, will it still continue to attract those seeking creative expression? At the same time, while U.S. creativity is suffering, there are mounting and substantial dangers looming: global warming, overpopulation, and terrorism and militancy, for example. Americans may be prepared to lead the world, but are they able? Other countries and other cultures are jealous of what the U.S. has, and some of them have been cultivating creativity by mimicking the way the U.S. used to be, providing environments for creativity to flourish, to their own ends.

The U.S. can expect its international status to slide, if the new generation is less well prepared to deal with the future challenges that await them, and if innovation and free thinking is discouraged so the U.S. is unable to meet these challenges. Global competition will rush in to offer solutions to perceived problems. Future leaders will not be ready to accept risks, even though the population may expect the rewards that the previous generations enjoyed as their legacy. The U.S. productivity (compared with other countries) and the standard of living may slip, and this will lead to frustration and possibly to more insular thinking, increased nationalism, and to a jealous population.

For example: Edison invented the electric light bulb. There were lamps and candles before, but Edison really made light better. Edison’s invention was exported everywhere, together with the wires and generators and other technologies to make it all happen. The U.S. exported all of this technology, where there was not even a real need before Edison invented the light bulb. Today, people think of places without electricity as backward. An American’s creative impulse and effort led to a new world and to significant profit for Americans. In the future, the biggest innovations may come from Korea or China and the majority of the benefits (and profits from them) are likely to incur to these countries. The U.S. may be waiting for the next wave of profitability, but if creativity continues to drop, the wait may be eternal as other countries contribute and capture the best and most useful intellectual properties of the future.

Creative ability may change the world as we know it. Countries that are investing in the creative abilities of their people can expect populations who are more difficult to control. They can expect their populations to develop into free and critical thinkers, who demand answers and improvements and who are impatient for action from bureaucracies or dictatorships. Even as the countries enjoy increased productivity and improved standards of living, they can expect their people to exercise, exhibit, and demand increased independence of thought and action. Their social fabrics will need to stretch to accommodate these changes.

Countries investing in creativity can expect new ways of life and of governance, new materials and tools, and new technologies and occupations that we cannot even begin to imagine. This is why it is so important for the U.S. to recognize the importance of, and place a premium on, fostering creativity and creativity research—to put it simply, so the U.S. does not get left behind. The study of creativity is a creative exercise in and of itself. It is of interest not only to the U.S., but to its Asian and European neighbors. This creative exercise will result in solutions. Ideally, the U.S. will examine itself, resume its culture of creativity, and continue to lead the world creatively and partner with other nations to meet present and future challenges. It starts with our children. Our children start with us.

Britannica: Are there programs or activities that parents and teachers can use to encourage children to be more creative?

Kim: To strengthen children’s creativity, parents and teachers must not only find or develop programs or activities with new techniques, but must first change environments that inhibit creativity. The best creative techniques, or the strongest creative programs, cannot compensate for a culture that crushes creativity. Creative growth demands that we adapt our environments into a creativity-friendly environment. Only through a self-evaluation of our culture to determine the elements that are blocking our children and through the construction of more fertile creative soil can we lead our children to new levels of creative achievement.
Individuals are born creative, some more, some less. Creativity is killed first by parents (especially parents who are perfectionists), then later by teachers, schools, society, cultures, and the like. So before we worry about encouraging creativity, we should learn to preserve it. Research has determined that there are many ways to preserve creativity in our children.

Preserve Curiosity: To preserve creativity, children’s curiosity should be satisfied and encouraged. Most children go through a period when they ask a lot of questions to parents, teachers, adults, anyone where they can get answers. Parents take the brunt of this questioning and at times this gets annoying. However, instead of getting annoyed and discouraging this curiosity, parents should take the time to try to find the answers and, probably more importantly, to demonstrate to their curious children how to find the answers.
Focus on Ideas: I watched a mother criticizing her little son because he drew a dog with red fur. If he had drawn wings for his dog, she would have screamed at him. For her, spelling the right words was more important than having ideas or imagination. In contrast, Cathy who is one of the participants of the Torrance’s 40-year (from 1958 to 2008) longitudinal study still remembers that when she was writing essays in fourth grade, the teachers who participated in the study did not emphasize spelling, but emphasized original ideas in the essays. Thus, parents and teachers may not want to always emphasize getting the “right” answers and or even the correct spelling; they should instead peek into a world of child fantasy, imagination, and inventiveness and encourage that ability. They can always help children prepare for being wrong or making mistakes and correcting those mistakes.

Raise Nonconformists: Creative individuals do not like to follow the rules; they tend to follow their own rules. They tend to question and rebel against established norms. Perceptual and mental-sets, well-learned and habitual ways of thinking, and rules and traditions that restrict individuals’ behavior stifle creativity. Thus, parents and teachers should welcome unorthodox views and accept when children have different ideas or want to be different.

Raise Girl-like Boys and Boy-like Girls: Creative individuals show integration of feminine and masculine components. In our culture, however, sensitivity is viewed as feminine and independence as masculine. Creative children tend to sacrifice their creativity to maintain gender role expectations that parents and teachers imposed upon them. Parents and teachers should welcome girl-like boys or boy-like girls.
Be Playful: Creative individuals tend to have a sense of humor, flexibility, and playful thinking. Parents and teachers should not force children to think and act mature and should provide opportunities for spontaneity and play, playfully engaging students, and encouraging childlike or even silly approaches to problems.
Be Ready for Drama: Creative individuals tend to be restless and energetic. They can be very talkative and have stronger needs for self-expression and a fuller range of emotional expression than other children. They are spontaneous and even impulsive. Highly creative individuals may be hard to live with. Research shows that many children diagnosed with ADHD are creative, and many creative children are misdiagnosed as having ADHD. The very qualities that facilitate individuals’ creative accomplishments can be the same ones that may cause them to have problems. Research shows creativity is punished and discouraged by parents and teachers who perceive creative behavior as inconvenient and difficult to manage. Parents and teachers need to be patient and understanding of the characteristics of creative children, and there are many books and research articles on the subject that may help.

Be Less Protective: Creative people tend to have a somewhat marginalized family background, which means that they tend to be a member of a minority group in some ways (e.g., ethnicity, culture, language, geography, sexual orientation, religion, etc.). This could be because experiencing difficulties psychologically and emotionally may foster resilience, which allows them to become stronger and more persistent than those who are not experiencing such difficulties. Thus, having a perfectly happy and protected childhood can be worse than having an unhappy childhood in terms of fostering children’s creativity. Parents and teachers should not be overly protective of children and prevent them from having difficulties. Instead, parents and teachers should observe and understand the difficulties and be ready to discuss issues with a child.

Foster Independence: Mild parental rejection is necessary for encouraging a child’s creativity because a lightly rebellious attitude leads to more-independent thinking. Enjoying experiences separate from the family, and less encouragement of all family members doing all things together, can encourage creativity. Thus, parents should let their children sleep-over or camp-out without their parents, under adult supervision, but not overly close.

Travel: Creative people tend to be well traveled. Traveling and experiencing places with different scenery or different cultures can encourage open-mindedness and seeing from different perspectives. Living in more than one culture or speaking more than one language can also foster creativity. Parents and teachers should be able to introduce children to different experiences including different places, cultures, food, languages, and different people.

Give Time Alone: Most creative people have needs for privacy or time alone so that they can incubate their creative ideas. It is important for parents to let their children explore their interests by exposing them to different subjects, topics, programs, and areas. However, it is more important for those parents to give their children time alone. In addition, parents who nurture creativity tend not to rely on the use of premature and excessive worksheets and academic material.

Teach in Nonconventional Ways: Creative individuals do not like competitive situations or restricted-choice situations. Thus, allowing choice of topics and variety of assignments is important to encourage creativity. Creative individuals do not like rote recitation, precise performance under time pressure, completion of familiar and repetitive procedures, or classes in a formal manner. Parents and teachers should give children open-ended assignments or components, encouraging brainstorming and intellectual risk-taking, encouraging intrinsic (not extrinsic, because these children will perform when they like to) motivation and persistence, and delaying gratification.

Be Less Clean and Organized: Parents of highly intelligent children focus on visible qualities such as right answers, cleanliness, and good manners, whereas parents of highly creative children focus on less-visible qualities, such as openness to experience, interests, imagination, and enthusiasm. Very organized and clean home environments can stifle children’s creativity. A mother built an experiment room in the basement of her house for her fourth-grade son who liked taking things apart and doing all kinds of experiments. The floor and walls of the room were made of tile so that it could be cleaned easily. Teaching children how to clean and organize is a good life skill, but it should not limit the child’s freedom to explore or satisfy their curiosity. When there is no space for additional room, then parents and teachers can designate a corner or space in which children can draw or build whatever they want and can make a mess.

Find a Friend: Creative individuals tend to have imaginary childhood playmates. Talking to visible or non-visible, non-human-being objects should not be discouraged. Creative individuals tend to have friends who are younger or older than themselves. Parents tend to welcome older friends for their children compared to younger friends. However, not only does being friends with older children foster a child’s maturity and resourcefulness, but also being friends with younger children can foster a child’s leadership skills. Being friends with non-peer group members can foster an ability to see from different perspectives than their peer group.

Find a Mentor: Torrance’s 40-year longitudinal study and other studies found that individuals who are creatively successful have at least one significant mentor in their lives. Introducing children to creative adults, especially those with similar interests as the children, is necessary to inspire creativity. Books, video tapes, and movies (especially good with guided viewing) that depict creative individuals are helpful for creative children with regard to their self-understanding and self-acceptance and for their identity issues and social and emotional needs.

Be Educated: Teachers who claim to value creativity often display a preference for non-creative personality traits over creative personality traits in the classroom. Parents and teachers often say that they enjoy working with creative children; however, when they are questioned about the qualities of the ideal child, these qualities rarely include characteristics of highly creative children. Not only do parents and teachers often fail to recognize the talents of the creatively gifted, but these children are often treated with contempt.
In the U.S, a marriage license is required to get married. But, no license is required to have a baby. Parents and teachers should be educated to understand creative minds. When parents become educated about creativity, they can help their children preserve their natural creativity which I believe is the first step in fostering creativity in our society.