Creativity
How Sex Differences in Creativity Shift Over Time
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
While girls excel in childhood creativity, gender differences in average scores vanish by age 16, although boys show more extreme scores beginning in adolescence.
How this study connects
Role on claims
Each row is a claim on a concept or method page where this paper supports, challenges, or qualifies the statement. Roles are hand-checked — not a model guess.
Not yet placed on a claim. This paper has study layers, but no concept page yet cites it as support, challenge, or qualifier.
Inspect source passages
How Sex Differences in Creativity Shift Over Time
These passages occur verbatim in the stored paper text. They support the points listed below; they do not verify every statement in the explanation.
775 participants took part in the study
A total of 775 participants from three age groups (i.e., children, adolescents, and emerging adults) completed a 4-year longitudinal study comprising four assessments of creative thinking at 1-year intervals.
The test contained six intriguing figural fragments
The test assesses creativity with a drawing task on an A4-sized testing sheet containing six intriguing figural fragments: (a) a semicircle, (b) a point (c) a 90° angle, (d) a curved line, (e) a broken line, and (f) a small open square.
Key findings
The results showed that girls scored higher on average in the child group as they grew from 8 to 11 years old, and this female advantage persisted in adolescents up to 15 years old. However, these average differences disappeared starting at 16 years of age, showing overall similarity between the sexes. When looking at the spread of scores, a pattern of greater male variability emerged starting at 14 years of age, meaning more males scored at the extreme high and low ends while females clustered in the middle.
Methodology
In this study, a total of 775 participants divided into three distinct age groups (children, adolescents, and emerging adults) took part in a 4-year longitudinal study. Over this period, they completed four assessments of creative thinking at 1-year intervals. Creativity was evaluated using a drawing test where participants had to complete an artwork using six specific visual shapes.
Limitations
The study's design cannot establish a complete developmental picture from childhood through adulthood because it tracked three separate cohorts rather than following a single group over their entire upbringing, which introduces potential cohort effects. Additionally, creativity was measured solely through a single drawing task, which might not reflect sex differences in other creative domains like writing or verbal reasoning. Lastly, because the participants were entirely Hong Kong Chinese students, the results may not generalize to other cultural, geographical, or socio-economic populations.
Related papers in this topic
Same topic cluster — not a recommendation engine.