A Variation Account of Divergent Thinking

A variation account was applied to divergent thinking accommodated as a kind of creative thinking. To provide control (contrast) condition the variation account was applied to psychometric intelligence. The main premise was that creative variation represents "thought trials" with diverse ways to find a solution to the problem. Task demands and the respective creative problem solving reveal advantageous sources that suggest the variation. Probably, uncertainty, information search, and finding alternatives extracted from memory precede, entail and provide variety of seeking, as well. A principal hypothesis to be tested was that divergent thinking enables its variation rather than intelligence does that to its variation. As predicted, the divergent thinking and its variation were related. Compared to uncreative, creative persons were characterized by larger variation. Apart from the mathematical intelligence, other kinds of intelligence and their variation did not correlate. Mainly, the data obtained, thus, lend support to the claimed hypothesis.