| Abstract: | The present study examines the role of conceptual tempo in creativity and problem solving. It was hypothesized that reflective children would do well on tasks involving an evaluation component, while impulsive children would do well on typical creativity tasks. Measures of creativity, assessing fluency, flexibility, and originality, as well as measures of problem solving, stressing an evaluation component, were administered to 101 white suburban fifth-grade children. Using MFF scores, four groups were identified: reflectives, impulsives, fast-accurates, and slow-inaccurates. Results indicated no significant differences among the conceptual tempo groups on any of the creativity or problem-solving tasks. It is suggested that conceptual tempo may be less effective in predicting differences in some aspects of cognitive functioning at this age. Examination of this hypothesis with younger children is recommended. |
