The Effect of Regime on Divergent Thinking Scores

S ummary . Parallel groups of pupils were subjected to ‘relaxed’ and ‘test’ regimes when completing two convergent tests and six divergent thinking tests. The subjects, 48 boys and 68 girls, covered the full ability range of a large comprehensive school. Results indicated that the imposition of mild stress (‘test’) generally increased pupils' scores on these tests compared with those obtained under a relaxed or informal regime.