CREATIVE STYLE AND DIVERGENT PRODUCTION

In a sample of British working men and women, scores on the Kirton Adaptation-Innovation Inventory (KAI) were compared with divergent production scores on Guilford's Consequences and Alternate Uses tests. On the Consequences test, adaptors and innovators produced approximately equal numbers of common responses, but the innovators produced a higher number of uncommon (remote) responses, and a higher number of responses in total. Innovators also produced more responses than adaptors on the Alternate Uses test. The results are discussed with reference to the distinction between creative style and creative level. Creative style appears to be more strongly related to some measures of creative level than to others, and the results are consistent with Kirton's view that when solving problems, innovators access a larger cognitive domain than adaptors.