Creativity Creatividad K Meredith Beattie and Sherard Cheung
University of California, San Diego
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VS
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Does Bilingualism affect Creativity? Why?
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Research Purpose Is there a correlation between bilingualism
and performance on creativity tasks?
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How to Operationally define Creativity? 1.Fluency 2.Originality
3.Elaboration 4.Flexibility (Torrance, 2000 )
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The Torrance Tests of Creativity TTCT: ATTA: Essentially, you
have to do a number of tasks, and the more points you receive, the
higher your level of creativity Activity IActivity IIActivity
IIIActivity IV Activity V VerbalAsk-and- Guess Product improveme nt
Unusual usesUnusual questions Just suppose FiguralPicture
construction Picture completion Repeated figures of lines or
circles Activity IActivity IIActivity III VerbalUnusual question
FiguralPicture construction/ Completion Repeated figures of
triangles Torrance, 1966, 1974, 1990, 1998; Torrance & Ball,
1984
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ATTA Verbal JUST SUPPOSE you could walk on air or fly without
being in an airplane or similar vehicle. What problems might this
create? List as many as you can?
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List of Common Responses (42) Air sickness, could get Airplane
industry, destroy/reduce/close Auto industry, destroy/reduce
Bathroom in the air, cant use Breathe easily, cannot/suffocate
Collisions, air-to-air Crowded, air would become Oxygen, loss/lack
of Privacy, loss/no Run into buildings, trees, houses, bugs Tired,
would get Traffic jams in the air UFO, people might think you were
Wet, would get
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ATTA Figural See how many objects or pictures you can make from
the triangles below, just as you did with the incomplete figures.
Remember to create titles for your pictures.
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Common Responses (28) Boat Body, person Face, person Hat House
Ice-cream cone Mountain Pyramid Rocket Tent Tree Triangle
High-Proficient Bilinguals Outperform Low-Proficient Bilinguals
Creativity Performance Index (TCTT ) Degree of Bilingualism
(Kharkhurin, 2008, 2011 )
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Confounds Culture Correlation Age Gender SES Intelligence
Motivation Immigrant Status
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Culture Bi-Cultural Effect: Perhaps bilinguals are scoring
higher than monolinguals on these tasks due to the influence of two
cultural experiences, NOT two languages
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Correlation NOT Causation All studies were based on a
pre-existing condition of bilingualism (i.e. did not use any form
of experimental manipulation) Performance measures (TTCT) represent
a correlation between bilingualism and creativity But is the nature
of interchangeably using, speaking, and thinking in two different
languages CAUSING bilinguals to be more creative?
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Pre-test and Post-test Test Group: Monolinguals spend 1+ years
learning a foreign language Control group: Monolinguals spend 1+
years learning something OTHER THAN a foreign language Randomly
Assigned Cons Extensive time required More expensive
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Conclusion OVERALL These findings suggest that bilingualism
should not be related to creativity as a unitary concept but,
rather, to the specific processes and mechanisms that underlie
creativity