STEPHEN J.

DOLLINGER

Need for Uniqueness, Need for

Cognition, and Creativity

ABSTRACT This study examined two neglected dispositional contributions

to creativity, namely needs for uniqueness and cognition. Mul-
tiple measures of creativity were used including an inventory
of creative accomplishments, preference for complex visual
figures (a measure similar to the Barron-Welsh Art Scale),
unconventional rather than popular word associations, and
consensually-assessed creative products. The latter included
creative drawing, creative writing (a TAT story), richness of a
photo essay about the self and the vividness of a recent dream.
The predictors independently made significant contributions
to creativity.

INTRODUCTION Scholars interested in both social-personality psychology and

creativity have shown a long interest in the “creative personal-
ity” (e.g., Barron, 1969; Barron & Harrington, 1981; Helson,
1999; MacKinnon, 1965; Martindale, 1989). Curiously, creativ-
ity researchers have ignored two social-personality constructs
that have much potential for understanding original, complex
and aesthetic creations, namely the need for uniqueness
(Snyder & Fromkin, 1977), and the need for cognition
(Cacioppo & Petty, 1982). Researchers interested in the needs
for uniqueness and cognition have given almost no attention
to the possible contributions of these dispositions toward
creative accomplishments, focusing instead on marketing and
information processing, respectively. In brief, the present
study proposes that the creative person is motivated both by
the need to be distinctive and by an intrinsic enjoyment of
effortful thought.

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Uniqueness Snyder and Fromkin (1980) argued that people have an

Motivation
optimal level of feelings of similarity to and distinctiveness
from others. Grounded in experimental work in the late 1960s
(Fromkin, 1970), the construct of uniqueness motivation
evolved into an individual difference variable reflecting people’s
typical levels of desire for uniqueness or distinctiveness (Snyder
& Fromkin, 1977; 1980). By rational methods, they generated
and then delimited a large item pool, then selected the best
32 items based on correlations with measures of autonomy
(positive) and succorance (negative). This empirical step
was based on the assumption that uniqueness-motivated indi-
viduals feel relatively free from social constraints placed on
them by others and need relatively little support from others.
Thus, high scorers are thought to be independent, inventive,
high in self-esteem and resistant to conformity; low scorers
are the opposite. Factor analyses suggested the presence of
three components to the scale: lack of concern about others’
reactions to one’s different ideas or actions; desire to not
always follow rules; and willingness to defend one’s beliefs
publicly.
The scale was validated with peer ratings, group studies (e.g.,
MENSA, women’s movement and gay liberation groups vs.
same-aged controls), experimental studies of response to
bogus “sameness” or “differentness” feedback, and other work.
Notable for its relevance to creativity, one of these validation
studies showed that, compared to high uniqueness-motivated
individuals, lows gave more conventional responses in a word
association test. Since its development, scholars have applied
the need for uniqueness concept to false-consensus effects
(Kernis, 1984), consumer or marketing psychology (e.g., Lynn
& Harris, 1997; Schroeder & Dugal, 1995; Simonson & Nowlis,
2000; Snyder, 1992) and cross-cultural issues (e.g., Burns &
Brady, 1992; Yamaguchi, Kuhlman, & Sugimori, 1995).
Given its grounding in concepts like autonomy and noncon-
formity, it is surprising that so little research has been done to
link this concept with creativity. One study related the need for
uniqueness to the concept of innovation (Skinner, 1996) and
one Japanese study linked it to divergent thinking tasks
(Okamoto & Takaki, 1992). Almost by definition, creators place
great value on what is highly original and different from what
has gone before. Thus, uniqueness-motivated individuals
should be more inclined than their low-need peers to engage
in creative pursuits and be more likely to generate products
rated as highly creative.

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Creativity and In recent years, several cognitive models have been offered
Cognition
to understand creativity (Guastello, Shissler, Driscoll, & Hyde,
1998; O’Hara & Sternberg, 2000-2001; Runco & Chand, 1995;
Ward, Smith, & Finke, 1999). For example, Runco and Chand
identified a number of cognition-related topics that have been
investigated including memory, classification, judgment, cat-
egorization, problem finding, and ideation. It is not surprising
that cognitive approaches are appealing to creativity research-
ers because the new idea or the new integration of older ideas
has a central place in all definitions of creativity (Barron, 1969;
Mumford & Gustafson, 1988; Storr, 1988). What is surprising
is that creativity researchers have overlooked the widely-
researched social psychological construct of need for cognition.
Defined as individual differences in enjoyment of effortful
thought, this construct consists of a dimension ranging from
“cognitive misers” or thought-avoiders to “active cognizers”
whose minds are always engaged in complex or effortful
thought (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982; Cacioppo, Petty, Feinstein
& Jarvis, 1996). Those with a high need for cognition have
more positive attitudes toward problem solving and reasoning
tasks, and develop their experience with resources for infor-
mation acquisition (e.g., use of the world wide web vs. televi-
sion viewing, Henning & Vorderer, 2001; Tuten & Boxnjak,
2001). However, they are only slightly higher than low-need
individuals in terms of measured intelligence and they do not
differ in their response to non-intellective stimuli (e.g., pets).
High-need individuals have inquiring minds and thus they seek
out information from their environments. The validity of this
concept and its brief measure (Cacioppo, Petty, & Kao, 1984)
has been shown in dozens of studies on information process-
ing in persuasion, information seeking and recall, and with
applications to juror decision making and other situations
(Cacioppo et al., 1996).
Conceptually the need for cognition is close to Fiske’s (1949)
notion of the inquiring intellect and, as such, it should best
align with intellect or openness to experience plus conscien-
tiousness in the five factor model (cf. Cacioppo et al., 1996).
Given this conceptual link to openness (found in at least one
study, Berzonsky & Sullivan, 1992), an empirical basis for a
creativity by need for cognition link can be offered. Namely,
openness to experience is regularly found to correlate with cre-
ative products and accomplishments (Feist, 1998; King,
Walker, & Broyles, 1996; McCrae, 1987; see also Dollinger,
Urban, & James, in press). Additionally, need for cognition

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and related “intellect” measures significantly predicted the

individuality of self-descriptive photo essays which can be
regarded as one kind of creative product (Dollinger, Ross &
Preston, in press). In addition, one study related need for
cognition to measures of insight, which is conceptually related
to creativity (Schooler & Melcher, 1995). Thus, there is good
justification for testing whether persons high in need for cogni-
tion will in fact engage in more creative pursuits and generate
more creative products.
The Present Study Although past studies have frequently used divergent think-
ing tasks or creative personality scales as criterion measures,
there is little support for any single measure of creativity used
alone (Feldhusen & Goh, 1995; Hocevar, 1981; Hocevar &
Batchelor, 1989; Houtz & Krug, 1995). Thus, multiple measures
are especially important in this area. Accordingly, I selected a
range of measures including one that is more trait-like
(Hocevar’s Creative Behavior Inventory) and several tasks or
creative products that may be more state-like including visual
(drawing) and verbal (story-writing) tasks. These were evalu-
ated in accord with the Consensual Assessment Technique
(Amabile, 1982). Because the vividness of dreams and imag-
ery more generally are relevant to creativity (Campos &
Gonzalez, 1995; Domino, 1982; Kubie, 1958), I also hoped to
tap the vividness of participants’ fantasy life by requesting a
dream report, treating it as another creative product. In sum, I
predicted that the needs for uniqueness and cognition would
correlate positively with past creative accomplishments (self-
reported on a Creative Behavior Inventory; Hocevar, 1979),
preference for complex visual figures (Eisenman’s polygons
task similar to the Barron-Welsh Art Scale), unconventional
rather than “popular” word associations, vividness of dreams,
and three other creative products — creative stories told to a
Thematic Apperception Test picture, creative drawings using
the Test for Creative Thinking-Drawing Production stimulus
(Urban, 1991), and richly individualistic autophotography es-
says (Dollinger & Clancy Dollinger, 1997). Since both predic-
tors can be conceptually linked to the five-factor construct of
openness to experience, supplementary analyses considered
how these variables align with a measure of this model.

METHOD Data were derived from three extra-credit opportunities (ques-

Overview tionnaire study, creativity tasks, and a photo essay) in a large
undergraduate course. The questionnaire and creativity assess-
ments occurred in two group settings during class time; photo

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essays were completed at participants’ convenience, usually

about two-thirds into the term. To be included in the present
data set, participants had to complete at least two of the
projects.
Participants and Participants were 150 university students (59% female) who
Raters
received course credit in a Personality Psychology course for
taking part in the study. The sample averaged 22.5 years of
age; 92% were single-never married. One artist and three
psychologists (professors or psychology graduate students)
judged the creative drawings. One creative writing instructor
and three psychologists judged the stories. Photo essays
were rated by four psychologists and dream reports by three
psychologists.
Questionnaire Snyder and Fromkin’s (1980) need for uniqueness scale was
Variables used in the present study. The scale is a 32-item measure (16
of which are reverse-scored) in which participants rate the
extent to which the statements describe themselves, making
ratings on a 5-point scale. A sample item is “Feeling ‘different’
in a crowd of people makes me feel uncomfortable” (reverse-
scored). Internal consistency was reported in two studies as
.68 and .82 (Snyder & Fromkin, 1977) with retest reliabilities
of .91 (2 month) and .68 (4 month). Other researchers have
found internal consistencies in the mid-.80s (e.g., Lynn & Har-
ris, 1997; Yamaguchi, et al. 1995). Coefficient alpha in the
present sample was .84.
The abbreviated 18-item need for cognition scale (Petty,
Cacioppo, Kao, 1984) was also used. In this scale, participants
rate their agreement with items on a –4 to +4 scale; nine items
are worded in the reversed direction. A sample item is: “I like
to have the responsibility of handling a situation that requires
a lot of thinking.” The authors reported an internal consistency
reliability of .90 and most studies using the 18-item scale
report reliabilities exceeding .85. Coefficient alpha in this
sample was .89.
The Big Five Inventory was used mainly to provide a mea-
sure of openness to experience (Benet-Martínez & John, 1998).
This inventory permits an efficient assessment of the five
factors with items derived from the prototype definitions of
the factors (John, 1990). Items begin with the stem “I see
myself as someone who...” followed by 44 sentence comple-
tions, including 10 for openness (e.g.,“is original, comes up
with new ideas” or “values artistic, aesthetic experiences”) rated
on a 1 (disagree strongly) to 5 (agree strongly) scale. Scores
are the mean of relevant items. The inventory shows good

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convergence in factor analyses with the NEO-Five Factor In-

ventory. In the present sample, coefficient alpha for openness
was .83. Alphas for the other factors ranged from .74 to .85.
Creativity Measures Creativity Behavior Inventory. Among the many ap-
proaches to creativity assessment, self-reported past accom-
plishments remains one of the most accepted approaches for
general populations (e.g., Hocevar, 1981; Plucker, 1999). In
a previous study, I used Hocevar’s (1979) 90-item Creative
Behavior Inventory (Dollinger, Urban & James, in press) and
supplementary analyses from that sample were the basis for
derivation of a 28-item measure. The inventory asks partici-
pants to indicate their involvement in various creative activi-
ties (e.g., made a sculpture) on 4-point scales ranging from
“never did this” to “did this more than five times.” Items
represent accomplishments in the visual, literary and perform-
ing arts, and crafts. This measure yielded a coefficient alpha
of .89; the short and long forms correlated .90 in the previous
sample.
Polygons. Participants were presented with Eisenman’s
(1992) figure complexity preference task, conceptually simi-
lar to the older and longer Barron-Welsh Art Scale which
frequently has been used as a creativity measure. In this
task, participants view 12 polygons on a single page. Three
polygons are symmetrical (with 4, 8 or 10 points or line-inter-
sections) and 9 are asymmetrical (with 4, 12, or 24 points).
Participants choose their 3 most preferred shapes and their
score is the number of points on the chosen shapes. In a sepa-
rate sample of 142 college students, I found the one-month
retest reliability of this measure to equal .78. Eisenman has
reported his polygons task to correlate with the Barron-Welsh
Art Scale between .51 and .55 (Eisenman, 1969; Eisenman,
Borod, & Grossman, 1972). Its other significant correlates
include originality and fluency of answers to the unusual uses
test (Eisenman, 1992).
Word Association. Word association techniques have been
profitably used by a number of creativity researchers (Eysenck,
1994; Gough, 1976; Merten, 1995). Participants in this study
were invited to give two written responses to each of 10 word
association stimuli: Green, Sing, Dead, Happy, Window, Money,
Cook, Cold, Dance, and Lake. I asked for two responses per
stimulus because a second response may be less conventional
than an initial reaction and because a person could obtain 1
point for unique- and popular-association in response to each
of the 10 stimuli. Dictionaries of responses were computed and

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points were assigned for popular responses if the response was

given by 20% or more of the sample; unique responses were
defined as those given only once in the sample across both
responses. Coefficient alphas for unique and popular answers
were .66 and .60, respectively. Popular and unique responses
were inversely correlated, r = –.67 (yielding an effective reli-
ability of .80) so they were combined into a total score by sub-
tracting number of popular from unique responses. Scores
ranged from –12 to + 18, M = 0.3, SD = 5.3.
Creative Drawings. The Test of Creative Thinking — Draw-
ing Production was devised to be a brief culturally-fair instru-
ment to measure creative potential (Urban, 1991; Urban &
Jellen, 1996). It consists of five figural fragments located within
a large square frame (i.e., a semi-circle, a point, a large right
angle, a curved line, and a dashed line) and a small square
open on its fourth side located outside the frame (see Urban,
1991 for the figure). Instructions note that an artist began the
drawing but was interrupted and “you are asked to continue
with this incomplete drawing. You are allowed to draw what-
ever you wish.” This very simple instruction allows for a wide
range of interpretations, making it appropriate for young chil-
dren and yet sufficiently interesting for adolescents and adults.
Dollinger et al. (In press) used Amabile’s (1982) consensual
assessment technique for scoring two components with this
task: creativity of details and overall gestalt of the drawing. As
in that study, raters independently made initial judgments of
the drawings and then reviewed all drawings with the option of
modifying their own ratings (without consultation). In that
study, ratings by three psychologist and three artist judges
showed good correspondence for both details and gestalt, rs =
.73 and .74; overall, details and gestalt ratings correlated .73
and these ratings (pooled) also correlated .73 with the scores
obtained using the objective scoring manual. In the present
study, details and gestalt ratings were internally consistent.
Details ratings intercorrelated between .41 and .70 yielding a
coefficient alpha of .86. Gestalt ratings intercorrelated between
.42 and .78 with a coefficient alpha of .86. Because the mean
detail and gestalt ratings were significantly correlated, r = .72,
they were averaged to provide a single score for creativity of
the drawing.
Creative Stories. Narrative measures of creativity have been
used in previous research (e.g., Wakefield, 1986). I presented
Card 14 from Murray’s (1943) Thematic Apperception Test
(TAT): “The silhouette of a man or woman against a bright

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window. The rest of the picture is totally dark.” Participants

were asked to make up a creative story to this picture where
an initial sentence was provided: “While looking out the win-
dow, this person is daydreaming...” Participants’ handwritten
stories were typed and then consensual assessments made
on a 1 (very impoverished) to 7 (very creative) scale with 3
anchored as typical. Without consultation, judges read all pro-
tocols once and gave a preliminary rating; then made a final
rating upon the second reading. The four judges’ ratings were
highly correlated ranging from .57 to .64, yielding a coefficient
alpha reliability of .85.
Vivid Dreams. On a sheet labeled “Dream Recall Task,”
instructions read “Please take a moment to think about a
recent dream or nightmare that you had, one that you now
realize was interesting in some way and that you are willing
to share. Please describe it in as much detail as you recall.”
Responses were transcribed and rated by three raters on 7-
point unipolar scales of vividness, dreamlikeness, bizarreness,
and one bipolar scale positive-negative. Responses like “I don’t
remember my dreams” were treated as missing data. Each of
the four composites was internally consistent with interjudge
correlations and coefficient alpha values as follows: vividness,
r = .72 to .78, α = .89; dreamlikeness, r = .38 to .57, α = .71;
bizarreness, r = .50 to .63, α = .80; positivity, r = .72 to .78,
α = .89. Principal components analysis of the 12 ratings (3
raters x 4 variables) suggested that vividness, dreamlikeness
and bizarreness formed a single factor (eigenvalue = 5.7, 47%
of the variance) whereas the positivity ratings formed a sepa-
rate factor (eigenvalue = 2.4, 20% of the variance). Thus, the
first three ratings were averaged into a variable termed “dream
vividness.” In preliminary analyses, positivity scores were
unrelated to the other variables studied.
Photo Essays. The photo essay was based on an individu-
ally-selected extra-credit opportunity. Instructions called for
students to take or select 20 photos that answered the ques-
tion “who are you?” (Ziller, 1990; cf. Dollinger & Clancy
Dollinger, 1997). Instructions also called for verbal descriptions
of photos and a final written analysis. The richness of this photo
essay (i.e., individuality) was rated on a 1 to 5 scale where 1
was labeled as “concrete, unimaginative, commonplace and
repetitive;” 2 was “typical;” and 5 was “abstract, creative,
self-reflective, and aesthetically sensitive.” The measure has
consistently yielded reliable and valid ratings (cf. Dollinger &
Clancy Dollinger, 1997; Dollinger, Preston, O’Brien & DiLalla,

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1996) and correlates with other creativity measures (Dollinger,

Robinson & Ross, 1999, Dollinger, et al., in press). The judges’
ratings were highly correlated, ranging from .55 to .80, yield-
ing a coefficient alpha of .88.
Procedure The initial data collection occurred early in the semester,
and consisted of a questionnaire packet which included the
measures of needs for uniqueness and cognition, the Big Five
Inventory, and demographic data (N = 150). Occurring approxi-
mately one month later, the second data collection consisted
of the Creative Behavior Inventory and the creative products
tasks (N = 150, 130 for both of these data sets). Photo essay
instructions were provided at the beginning of the term and
projects were due two months later (N = 64).

RESULTS Descriptive statistics for the predictors were comparable to

other samples reported in the literature: need for uniqueness
M = 102.4, SD = 15.5; need for cognition M = 34.7, SD = 21.1.
The two predictors were significantly correlated: r = .33,
p < .001. Table 1 shows descriptive statistics and intercorrela–
tions among creativity measures. Although 95% of the corre-
lations were positive, just 57% of the intercorrelations among
creativity measures were statistically significant, with a median
and modal r of .18. Such a pattern is not surprising since most
of the measures were state- rather than trait-like, the Creative
Behavior Inventory being the exception.
Table 1 also shows intercorrelations between predictors and
criterion measures. Both predictors correlated with the Creative
Behavior Inventory, photo-essay richness and dream vividness.
Need for uniqueness also correlated significantly with polygon
preference and story creativity, and marginally with word
associations (the latter at p < .10). Need for cognition also cor-
related significantly with the creative drawings.
In order to base a test of the main hypothesis on a single
measure of creativity and retain all participants, a composite
creativity score was devised by averaging the standard scores
(M = 50, SD = 10) for whichever of the seven creativity mea-
sures a participant completed. This composite score was
regressed on the needs for uniqueness and cognition in a si-
multaneous regression model. Their interaction was included
as the cross-product of the two variables, centered around their
respective means. A significant model was obtained, F(3,126)
= 12.4 p < .001, R = .48. Standardized betas showed that both
variables were significant predictors: need for uniqueness,
β = .39, t = 4.47, p < .001; need for cognition, β = .20, t = 2.41,

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TABLE 1. Intercorrelations for Creativity Measures and Predictors.

Correlations Uniqueness Cognition

Variable M SD
2 3 4 5 6 7 r ru.c r rc.u

1. CBI 54.3 15.4 .02 .20* .39** .04 .19* .17* .33** .25* .35** .26*
2. Word Assn 0.3 5.3 .01 .09 –.02 .31** .18* .17 .16 .05 –.00
3. Polygons 34.2 15.0 .21* .19 .18* .13 .24* .23* .08 –.01
4. Drawings 3.4 1.3 .18 .32** .18* .09 .01 .23* .21*
5. Photo Essays 2.1 0.9 .17 .28* .37* .24 .33* .20
6. Stories 3.4 1.2 .26* .17* .14 .13 .08
7. Dreams 4.4 1.2 .36** .32** .22* .11

3/20/03, 8:35 AM
Note. CBI = Creative Behavior Inventory. Correlations are based on Ns of 126-150 except for photo essay where
Ns = 58-64. Correlations under Uniqueness are zero-order r and partial r controlling for Cognition. Correlations under
Cognition are zero-order r and partial r controlling for Uniqueness.
*p < .05. **p < .001.
 Journal of Creative Behavior

p < .05. Their interaction was non-significant. Hierarchical re-

gressions allowed an appraisal of the unique and shared vari-
ance of the 22.8% accounted for by the model. Specially, need
for uniqueness accounted for 11.3% of the variance, need for
cognition 3.8% and the two constructs shared 7.7% of the vari-
ance. Thus, the most creative individuals evidenced both a very
high need for uniqueness and a high need for cognition.
Supplementary Table 2 shows the relationship between the predictors and
Results
the Big Five Inventory. Both need variables correlated with
openness to experience. Additionally, need for uniqueness
correlated moderately with high extraversion, low neuroticism,
and low agreeableness. A multiple regression of the creativity
composite on the Big Five Inventory variables yielded a sig-
nificant model, F(5, 124) = 9.15, p < .001. Replicating King
et al. (1996), significant effects in the model included both
openness [β = .48, t = 5.90, p < .001] and low agreeableness
[β = –.29, t = -3.62, p < .001].

TABLE 2. Correlations between Predictors and Big Five Inventory.

Need for Need for
Uniqueness Cognition
Neuroticism –.24* –.26*
Extraversion .41** .16
Openness to Experience .39** .60**
Agreeableness –.23* .11
Conscientiousness –.02 .38**

*p < .05. **p < .001.

DISCUSSION The present results showed that individuals high in the needs
for uniqueness and cognition evidence more creative past ac-
complishments and produce richer, more creative visual and
verbal products, more individualistic photo essays, as well as
more vivid night dreams. As such the results fill a gap in the
literatures of creativity and personality psychology. I first
consider the implications for the predictors and then for the
assessment of creativity.
Uniqueness To characterize the findings qualitatively, I identified the in-
Motivation dividual item correlates from the need for uniqueness and need
for cognition scales which best predicted the creativity com-
posite. Four of the top five items were from the need for unique-
ness scale: “I do not like to say unusual things to people”

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(reversed); “I find it sometimes amusing to upset the dignity

of teachers, judges, and ‘cultured’ people”; “when I am with a
group of people, I agree with their ideas so that no arguments
will arise” (reversed); and “it is better to break rules than al-
ways to conform with an impersonal society.” These items
clearly show the creative individual’s willingness to risk antago-
nizing others to follow his or her own pathways and suggest
that the need for uniqueness construct shares much with
Barron’s older concept of independence of judgment (Barron,
1953). The Big Five Inventory correlates of uniqueness — open-
ness and extraversion plus low neuroticism and agreeableness
— suggest that high-need individuals will be not only indepen-
dent in their judgment and artistically inclined but also pos-
sess a self-confidence often thought to characterize creative
persons.
The findings replicate an early validation study showing that
uniqueness-motivated persons have somewhat more uncon-
ventional associations than their low-need peers. This finding
was marginally significant; however inspection of the two
components of the word association measure showed that
uniqueness correlated with giving few popular responses,
r = –.19, p < .05, but not necessarily more unique responses,
r = .13, ns. Thus, it might be more accurate to say that unique-
ness-avoidant individuals are prone to give more popular word
associations and presumably to think in conventional ways.
Need for Cognition One of the top five item correlates of the creativity compos-
ite — “the notion of thinking abstractly appeals to me” — illus-
trates the point that creative persons must enjoy thinking and
particularly thinking in abstract ways. Those who prefer to think
little or only in concrete ways will generally not be creative in
their lives. As predicted by Cacioppo et al. (1996), need for
cognition correlated positively with both openness and con-
scientiousness, plus low neuroticism. Thus, high-need individu-
als are likely to possess a very high degree of openness plus
self-confidence (as noted with uniqueness) plus a work orien-
tation that could contribute to their creative productivity.
The present findings are consistent with and extend our pre-
vious work on individualistic photo essays (Dollinger, et al.,
2002). In that research, we found that rich and creative photo
essays were more common for those higher in need for cogni-
tion and other “intellect” measures (e.g., trait curiosity); they
were also more common among college students who en-
dorsed an “intellectual” philosophy of college attendance (i.e.,
to learn for its own sake) as compared with those endorsing a

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“vocational” philosophy (career preparation). Such findings,

taken together with those of the present study, call to mind the
classic issue of how and to what extent intelligence contrib-
utes to or is necessary for creativity (Wallach & Wing, 1968). It
also points to the need for future studies predicting creativity
from both intelligence and need for cognition at the same time.
Since the need for cognition is especially predictive of tasks
that require effortful thought, it is interesting that the lowest
(and nonsignificant) correlations for this measure obtained
for the creativity tasks that required the least thought — word
associations and polygons (see Table 1). Both of these mea-
sures correlated with the need for uniqueness (p < .10 for word
association by uniqueness), suggesting that creativity tasks
serve different needs for thought or distinctiveness.
Although the needs for uniqueness and cognition are typi-
cally studied as traits, they can be conceptualized in state-like
terms (as chronically accessible but contextually sensitive
social motives). Future research might profitably consider how
need for cognition and need for uniqueness interact with situ-
ational factors that impact creativity and intrinsic motivation
such as deadlines or external evaluation (Amabile, 1979;
Reader & Dollinger, 1979) which might be expected to interact
with need for cognition and uniqueness, respectively. Similarly,
drawing on the creative cognition approach (Ward, Smith &
Finke, 1999) it would be of interest to see whether individuals
with high and low need for cognition differ in structured imagi-
nation, conceptual expansion, problem-finding vs. goal-
oriented creativity and other processes.
Implications for The present findings replicate other work on creativity and
Creativity Research the big five (e.g., Feist, 1998; King, et al., 1996) and bear on
issues of the cross-domain consistency of creativity (Baer, 1991,
1998; Plucker, 1998; 1999). Regardless of whether the photo
essay is counted, correlations among the creativity measures
averaged only about .18. Similar findings have been previously
reported (e.g., Ruscio, Whitney, & Amabile, 1998) and can be
taken as evidence that creativity is domain specific (e.g., Baer,
1991, 1998). However, there does appear to be consistency in
terms of their relationships with variables like openness to
experience. Excluding the creativity composite, the median cor-
relation shown in Table 1 between the predictors and creativ-
ity, .22, actually exceeds the median intercorrelation among
creativity measures. Thus, what creativity measures have in
common may be their shared association with personality con-
structs in the openness domain. However, it is worth recalling

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that the creativity measures involve somewhat state-like assess-

ments that respond to situational influences (Amabile, 1979).
This study is not without its limitations such as the use of a
college student sample and the brevity of some of the creativ-
ity measures. Nevertheless, the present design has a number
of strengths — use of multiple creativity measures (some in-
volving self-reported quantity of past creative productivity,
some the judged quality of current creative products), a one-
month temporal separation of predictors and criterion, and
diversity of rater backgrounds. Thus, it is clear that the needs
for uniqueness and cognition are indeed important predictors
of creativity in young adults.

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Contact Information: Stephen J. Dollinger, Department of Psychology, 1125

Lincoln Drive, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL 62901-6502,
Ph. 618-453-3565; fax: 618-453-3563; E-mail: dollngr@siu.edu

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS For their assistance with data reduction, the author thanks Troy James, Jodi
Pearson, Leslie Eaton, Alberta Skaggs, Bridget Siegner, and Clair Goodman.

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