Evidence to support the componential model of creativity: Secondary analyses of three studies

Amabile's (1983a, 1983b, 1988) componential model of creativity predicts that three major components contribute to creativity: skills specific to the task domain, general (cross-domain) creativity-relevant skills, and task motivation. If all three components actually do contribute to creative performance, multiple measures of creativity taken from the same persons should show positive correlations. These correlations should be relatively low across different performance domains, higher within a performance domain, and even higher within a performance domain in situations where task motivation is likely to remain constant (as when measures are taken within the same experimental session). Because three creativity studies with overlapping participant populations were carried out in our laboratory during the same semester, we had the opportunity to test these hypotheses. Short stories were used as dependent measures in two of these studies; a third study involved engaging in various art activities. Correlations among these measures of creativity follow the predicted pattern and thus provide support for Amabile's model.