Creativity in Middle and Late School Years

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to follow the development of creativity defined as the inclination to transgress the confines of an established perceptual context in youngsters aged 12-16 years, after having studied 4-11-year-olds previously. There were altogether 142 subjects, 24-33 in each age group, who were tested with a special percept-genetic creativity test (PG). A creativity-fantasy scale was also applied together with a percept-genetic personality test (MCT). After a creative peak among 10-11-year-olds, 12-year-olds showed a significant decrease of strong creativity signs, a simultaneous increase of compulsive and kindred defense strategies and decrease of signs of anxiety. The recovery of creativity was slow during high puberty (14-15 years) but more marked after (16 years). Using the duality of inwardness and the outside world as a point of departure the paper discusses the fluctuations between high and low creative periods and, among other things, tries to explain why they are more pronounced among subjects with an academic home background.