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Validity of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking to the Brazilian Culture

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Creativity Research Journal
2006, Vol. 18, No. 1, 15–25
Validity of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking
to the Brazilian Culture
Solange Wechsler
Pontifical Catholic University of Campinas
ABSTRACT: This research provides evidence of the va-
lidity of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking
(TTCT; 1966, 1990). The sample consisted of 59 Bra-
zilians (29 males, 30 females) who have received pub-
lic recognition through awards and 69 Brazilians (31
males, 38 females) who have not received recognition.
The TTCT were administered to all participants and
scored using Torrance’s procedure as well as Wechs-
ler’s procedure (1985). Results analyzed through
Pearson correlations indicated there were significant
relationships among creative achievements and the
creative indicators in the TTCT (r = .14 to r = .33, p ≤
.05 to p ≤ .001). Persons with recognized and without
recognized achievements also could be distinguished
on the basis of the presence of creative indicators in the
TTCT using t tests. Figural and Verbal Creative In-
dexes were significantly related. The validity of the
Verbal and Figural TTCT to the Brazilian culture was
confirmed.
Creativity can be described as a multifaceted phenom-
enon, derived from the interaction of four major ele-
ments: person, process, product, and environment.
Thus, creativity is complex and has many elements that
interact on its manifestation (Isaksen, Puccio, &
Treffinger, 1993).
The breadth of scholarship on creativity includes
many measures used to assess creativity. For example,
Puccio and Murdock (1999) located more than 250
studies that used different methods to identify creativ-
ity, including questionnaires, observations, leisure ac-
tivities, self-descriptions, biographies, and tests.
Therefore, there is no single way to measure a complex
and dynamic construct such as creativity. Therefore it
is necessary to select a specific focus when trying to as-
Creativity Research Journal
Copyright © 2006 by
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
sess creativity, such as personality traits, life histories,
thinking skills, and expertise domains.
Moreover, an understanding of the different ways
that creativity is expressed within each environment or
culture requires an understanding of the context from
which it was derived. For example, values and personal
beliefs, as well as the historical climate, can have a ma-
jor effect on the type of behavior or products consid-
ered by a society to be creative (Csikszentmihalyi,
1996). Thus, the cultural component of creativity com-
prises an important dimension of the assessment of
creativity.
Methods that identify and assess creativity must
consider issues associated with validity and reliability
(American Educational Research Association, 1999).
Validity refers to the degree to which the evidence and
theory support the interpretation of a specific measure
or test score. Reliability refers to the consistency of
measures, which may be related to judges’ agreement
or stability on test results across time.
The question of validity is the most challenging
(Treffinger, 1987). Three major sources of evidence for
validity should be considered when evaluating a test or
a measure, which are related to the test content, the re-
sponse processes involved, and their relation to other
variables. This last type of evidence, known as crite-
rion-related validity, brings unusual threats to efforts
that examine the quality of measure (Treffinger &
The author acknowledges the support from Conselho Nacional de
Desenvolvimento Tecníco Cientifico-CNPQ to this research and the
kind reviews done by Arlene Freitas and Thomas Oakland.
Correspondence and requests for reprints should be sent to
Solange Wechsler, Pontifical Catholic University, Campus II,
Psicología, Av. John Boyd Dunlop s/n, Jardim Ipaussurama,
Campinas, SP,13060–904, Brazil. E-mail: wechsler@lexxa.com.br
15
S. Wechsler
Poggio, 1972), because of a lack of consensus as to the
external criteria that should be used to evaluate creative
performance. Some researchers believe explanations
or predictions of creativity can never be made accu-
rately, because there are too many factors that can con-
tribute to the development and expression of creativity,
including but not limited to, personal (cognitive,
metacognitive, motivational attitudinal, affective), so-
cial (values, opportunities), and environmental (educa-
tional level, family background) influences, as indi-
cated by Runco (1993).
The reliability of creativity measures poses another
challenge. If reliability is conceptualized as score sta-
bility, several intrusive effects may undermine the re-
sults obtained (Treffinger & Poggio, 1999). This leads
to several questions. Can creativity be considered a sta-
ble trait? Can creativity be measured in a reliable way?
The number of approaches used for making judgments
about whether products, ideas, or persons are creative
depends on the assessment made by supervisor, peers,
teachers, or expert ratings (Hocevar, 1981). Can these
people make stable reliable decisions about creativity?
To counteract the presence of subjective evaluation of
creativity, Amabile (1983) proposed that products, not
the creativity of the person or process, should be evalu-
ated based on some objective and previously defined
criteria to obtain consensual agreement among judges.
She believed this type of assessment to be superior to
the use of creativity tests or subjective assessment.
Creativity Assessment With Torrance’s Tests
Divergent thinking tests have been used widely as
measures of creative potential. Such tests have been
based mainly on Guilford’s Structure of Intellect
model (Guilford, 1977). Four different cognitive com-
ponents of creativity are assessed through these tests:
fluency (the quantity of ideas), flexibility (the genera-
tion of different types of ideas), originality (the degree
responses are uncommon), and elaboration (the enrich-
ment of ideas). These four creativity components were
first measured on Torrance’s battery of creativity (i.e.,
the Minnesota Tests of Creative Thinking) and after-
wards as Torrance’s Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT;
Torrance, 1966; Millar, 1995). More than 1,500 studies
in 16 countries used these tests (Torrance, 1996). For
example, in Brazil, the TTCT has been used widely in
theses and dissertations with persons of different ages
16
(Wechsler, 1998, 1999). However, no Brazilian studies
have examined the validity of these tests in Brazil
(Wechsler, 2001, Wechsler & Nakano, 2003).
The sensitivity of the TTCT to predict life achieve-
ments in the United States was observed in longitudi-
nal studies with people followed-up 20, 30, and 40
years after taking the creativity tests (Torrance, 1972,
1980,1999). The qualities in these people, named “the
beyonders” by Torrance (1992), displayed in their writ-
ten responses and drawings were related to the quality
and number of their life achievements. His results also
suggested that the TTCT were better predictors of cre-
ative achievement than intelligence measures. Based
on the information obtained from these studies,
Torrance decided to look for more creative indicators
on his figural test (Torrance, 2000). This led to his pro-
posing 14 more creative indicators or characteristics in
addition to the well-known four indicators of fluency,
flexibility, originality, and elaboration. the other indi-
cators suggested were abstractedness of titles, resis-
tance to premature closure, emotional expressiveness,
story articulateness, movement, expressiveness of ti-
tles, synthesis of ideas, unusual visualization, internal
visualization, extending or breaking boundaries, fan-
tasy, humor, colorfulness of imagery, and richness of
imagery. A procedure to score this figural test (e.g.,
streamlined scoring) was developed to evaluate these
creative indicators in the drawings (Torrance & Ball,
1984). Later procedures to score this test have elimi-
nated the indicator flexibility in an attempt to increase
the efficiency of the evaluation process (Torrance, Ball,
& Safter, 1990).
Although Torrance discovered additional indicators
of creativity in the drawing portion of his test, he did
not identify more indicators to assess verbal creativity
other than the creative characteristics he had initially
proposed (Torrance, 1966): fluency (quantity of writ-
ten responses), flexibility (change of categories of re-
sponses), originality (unusualness of written ideas),
and elaboration (explanation of ideas). Moreover, elab-
oration was considered optional and was not included
in his later publications (Torrance, 1990). However,
Wechsler (1981, 1985) identified four methods to mea-
sure creative characteristics in the verbal tests in addi-
tion to the four previous ones, which could have pre-
dictive value not only in the United States but also in
Brazil. These verbal creativity indicators were expres-
sion of emotions (feelings in the responses), fantasy
(mention of fairy tales or imaginary entities in the re-
Creativity Research Journal

sponses), unusual perspective (questions related to
other characters in the picture other than the only one
depicted), and analogies or metaphors (comparisons of
the stimuli with other ideas). Her proposal also in-
cluded more systematic procedures for scoring the cre-
ative characteristic of elaboration by considering the
use of adjectives to embellish ideas in addition to de-
tailed explanations of them.
Although there are many studies examining
TTCT’s verbal and figural content, additional studies
are needed to examine the test’s ability to predict cre-
ativity. For example, Howieson (1981) compared
achievement in arts, sciences, writing, and drama, as
well as general achievements 10 years after people
completed several creativity measures including the
TTCT (including two verbal and two figural tasks),
Torrance’s Leisure Interest Checklist, Golan Forced
Choice Questionnaire, and a Creative Story. The re-
sults obtained indicated that predictions improved if
the results from the TTCT were combined with other
tests, including Torrance’s Leisure Interest Checklist,
thus indicating the need to consider individual’s previ-
ous interests as having an impact on future productiv-
ity. Plucker’s study (1999) also confirmed the predic-
tive value of the TTCT; when he analyzed Torrance’s
samples collected in 1958 and 1972, he observed that
people’s results on the TTCT were more related or
could better predict achievements than their results on
IQ tests.
Cultural differences have been considered when
evaluating the expression of creativity. For example,
differences in the drawings of U.S. and Brazilian chil-
dren were found when they answered the figural TTCT
(Wechsler & Richmond, 1982). U.S. children demon-
strated more humor and added more contexts to their
drawings than the Brazilian children, who presented
more feelings in their pictures and drew more from an
internal visual perspective. Findings from research on
learning and thinking styles also indicated cultural dif-
ferences. Compared with U.S. adolescents, those from
Brazil expressed more preferences for learning and
producing in groups, surrounded by their peers or su-
pervised by their parents (Wechsler, 1993). Thus, at-
tention to the styles or preferred way of expressing cre-
ativity within each culture is needed.
These challenging issues affect creativity assess-
ment and result in various questions to those engaged
in international research: How is creativity defined in
different environments? Are there traits, validated
Creativity Research Journal
Validity of Torrance Tests
cross-nationally, that can distinguish creative from
noncreative people? Which are the best measures or
procedures to use when assessing creative thinking and
behaviors in different cultures?
Therefore, his study is designed to determine
whether the verbal and figural creative characteristics
presented in the TTCT are related to creative achieve-
ments in the Brazilian culture, to determine whether
Brazilians who have and do not have their creative
achievements recognized could be distinguished based
on the appearance of figural and verbal creative charac-
teristics in their responses to the Figural and Verbal
TTCT, and to examine whether data from the figural
and verbal tests were comparable. These three issues
could provide information as to the extent the TTCT
may be valid for use in Brazil.
Method
Participants
The participants were 128 people (68 women, 60
men), ranging in age from 18 through 75 years old (M
= 33), living in different cities in the State of Sao Paulo,
Brazil. All participants had reached high school or un-
dergraduate university levels and came from middle
class socioeconomic environments.
Fifty-eight people (30 women, 29 men) were lo-
cated based on references obtained about them as hav-
ing received previous public recognition of their
achievements through awards or prizes, at the local,
state, or national level. A parallel sample by age and
educational level was randomly composed of 69 peo-
ple (38 women, 31 men) who had no recognition of
their achievements up to the time of the study. Differ-
ent types of awards were represented in this sample,
pertaining to the following areas: visual arts, choreog-
raphy, publicity, literature, sports, music, education,
medicine, psychology, philosophy, engineering, and
sociology. The number of publicly recognized achieve-
ments averaged 2.38 for men and 1.93 for women.
Measures
Thinking Creatively With Pictures–Figural A
(Torrance, 1966, 1990). This test is composed of
three activities involving different forms to be com-
pleted through drawings. The scoring systems used in
17
S. Wechsler
this research were based on the procedures developed
primarily by Torrance (1966) and later on by Torrance
et al. (1990). These two scoring systems complement
each other and can present a broad understanding of
the cognitive as well as the affective process involved
in figural creativity. Through these scoring systems, it
is possible to identify 17 indicators of creativity in the
individual’s drawings. However, in this research, only
13 figural creativity indicators were used because of
the low reliability of scoring observed in the other four
indicators (resistance to closure, humor, richness of
imagery, and colorfulness of imagery).
The 13 figural creativity indicators used in this
study were fluency, flexibility, originality, elaboration,
emotional expressiveness, fantasy, movement, internal
visualization, unusual visualization, story articulate-
ness, synthesis of incomplete figures, extension of
boundaries, and expressiveness of titles.
The originality scoring was obtained by first assess-
ing the frequency of responses to each test stimuli in
the sample. Responses were granted 0 points if they ap-
peared in more than 5% of the population, indicating
they were common. Responses that appeared between
2% and 4% of the population received 1 point, and re-
sponses that had frequency equal to or less than 1% re-
ceived 2 points, because they were considered to be
very original. This criterion was established by
Torrance (1966). This scoring was used only for origi-
nality as all the other creative indicators received one
point each time they appeared in the drawings.
A Figural Creativity Index I was derived by adding
the first four figural creativity characteristics (fluency,
flexibility, elaboration, and originality), which were re-
garded as measures of divergent thinking (Guilford,
1960). A Figural Creativity Index II consisted of the re-
maining 13 creativity indicators, because they could
represent both cognitive and emotional domains, thus
providing a better understanding of figural creativity,
as proposed by Torrance (1990).
Thinking Creatively With Words–Form A
(Torrance, 1966, 1990). This test is composed of
six activities. The first three activities require the par-
ticipant to produce questions, causes, and conse-
quences for a situation depicted in one picture. The
fourth activity demands the use of creative ideas to im-
prove a toy elephant. The fifth requires ideas for using
tin cans, and the sixth presents an imaginary situation,
in which strings are hanging from the clouds to the
18
earth, requiring the participant to write all possible im-
plications of this event.
The scoring of the verbal creativity test was carried
out based both on Torrance’s and Wechsler’s proce-
dures. Using Torrance’s present scoring procedure
(1990), it is possible to identify three indicators of cre-
ativity in the participant’s written responses: fluency,
flexibility, and originality. Wechsler’s procedure
(1981, 1985) enables the identification of four creativ-
ity indicators in the individual’s verbal responses, spe-
cifically: emotional expressiveness, fantasy, unusual
perspective, and analogies or metaphors. In addition,
Wechsler revised the scoring for elaboration through a
more reliable procedure, thus indicating the possibility
of evaluating eight verbal creative characteristics.
The originality scoring was obtained from this sam-
ple, using the same criteria observed with the figural
test. According to the frequency of their appearance in
each activity, 0, 1, or 2 points were given to each re-
sponse, which indicated whether they were uncommon
or original answers. This scoring was used only for
originality, because all the other creative indicators re-
ceived one point each time they appeared in the draw-
ings.
A Verbal Creativity Index I was developed by add-
ing four verbal creativity indicators (figural, flexibility,
originality, and elaboration) that measured the cogni-
tive components of creativity or divergent thinking
(Guilford, 1960). A Verbal Creativity Index II was de-
veloped by adding all eight verbal characteristics that
were considered to be the best indicators of the emo-
tional as well as the cognitive components involved in
verbal creativity.
Survey of creative achievements. This survey
was composed of open-ended questions designed to
evaluate the type and quantity of both creative achieve-
ments recognized through awards and special distinc-
tions and achievements that did not generate any prizes
or recognition in the country. The questions related to
achievements included the following areas: poetry, lit-
erature, painting, music, drama, journalism, publicity,
sports, and sciences. This survey was elaborated based
on Torrance’s longitudinal study (1980) to investigate
the validity of the TTCT to predict creative achieve-
ments in the United States.
Respondents had to indicate what type of creative
achievement they had produced and whether they had
received public recognition from society by means of
Creativity Research Journal

local, state, or national distinctions or prizes. There-
fore, whether their achievement could be considered
creative was also dependent on participants’ informa-
tion, which is an important method to obtain informa-
tion, as considered by Hocevar (1981). Three indica-
tors of achievements were derived from this personal
data: (a) recognized creative achievements; (b) unrec-
ognized creative achievements; and (c) total creative
achievements.
Procedures
People who were referred to as having received
public recognition from their achievements were con-
tacted by phone and invited to participate in the re-
search. A comparable sample based on age and level of
instruction was randomly selected and invited to par-
ticipate in the research later. The Figural and the Verbal
TTCT were individually administered in a 2-day ses-
sion, according to their time limits, as established by
Torrance (1966, 1990). Participants were given 30 min
to answer the survey regarding their creative achieve-
ments.
Three types of evidence on the validity for the
TTCT were investigated. The first study on validity
aimed to verify whether there were significant relation-
ships between the creative characteristics and the num-
ber of achievements recognized, not recognized, and
the total number of achievements (sum of recognized
and not recognized). The second study on validity ex-
amined whether there were significant differences in
the number of creativity indicators presented in the
TTCT by the two groups; that is, whether people with
recognized achievements could be differentiated from
those with no recognition based on the number or cre-
ative characteristics. Finally, the third study of validity
compared whether there were significant relationships
between the Figural and Verbal Creativity Indexes.
This would demonstrate whether they were measuring
the same construct. The same procedure was used for
the Figural and Verbal TTCT. The statistics used for
these comparisons was the Pearson correlation; the t
test was used to differentiate the two groups.
Results
The significance of the relationships of each figural
creativity indicator, as well as of the Figural Creativity
Creativity Research Journal
Validity of Torrance Tests
Index I and II, to the participants’ creative achieve-
ments was examined first. Pearson correlations with
the three criteria variables (recognized, not recognized,
and total number of creative achievements) are pre-
sented in Table l.
The results presented in Table 1 indicate that 6 of
the 13 figural creative characteristics (fluency, elabora-
tion, originality, fantasy, extension of boundaries, and
expressiveness of titles) had significant relationships
with recognized creative achievements (r = .14 to r =
.33, p ≤ .05 to p ≤ .001). The last two indicators were
the most highly related to real-life achievements. How-
ever, considering the total of creative achievements,
which encompassed the number of productions recog-
nized and not recognized, 10 out of the 13 characteris-
tics could be regarded as having predictive relation-
ships to them (r ≤ .17 to r =.29, p ≤ .05 to p ≤ .001). The
only indicators that did not have any significant rela-
tionships to any of the three criteria (recognized, not
recognized, and total achievements) were internal vi-
sualization and synthesis of ideas.
The cognitive creative indicator named as Figural
Creative Index I was observed as being highly related
to recognized achievements as well as to the total num-
ber of creative achievements (r =.21 to r =.24; p ≤ .01
to p ≤ .005). Significant relationships also were ob-
served among the Figural Creativity Index II with rec-
ognized and total creative achievements (r =.26 to r
=.30, p ≤ .001).
The significant correlations obtained between the
figural creativity indicators and the creative achieve-
ments demonstrated they had criterion-related validity
to the Brazilian culture. Similarly, the Figural Index I,
which was the measure of the cognitive components of
creativity, as well as the Figural Index II, which mea-
sured the cognitive and the affective dimensions of cre-
ativity, were both highly related to real-life creativity,
thus indicating they were also valid measures to assess
creativity in Brazil.
Another procedure to study the validity of the
TTCT was to observe whether there were significant
differences in the number of figural creativity indica-
tors in the responses of the two groups, the one with
recognized creative achievements and the other with-
out recognition. The mean number of responses of
each group is presented in Table 2; the significance lev-
els among them were analyzed by the t test.
The results presented in Table 2 indicated that the
group with recognized achievements had higher means
19
S. Wechsler

Table 1. Pearson Correlations Among Figural Creative Characteristics and Types of Achievements
Nonrecognized Recognized
Creative Creative Total Creative
Figural Creative Characteristics Achievements Achievements Achievements

Fluency .0723 .1953* .1792*

Flexibility .1104 .1526 .1824*
Elaboration .1192 .1885* .2118**
Originality .2176** .1919* .2912****
Emotional Expressiveness .1383 .1205 .1842*
Fantasy .0555 .1485* .1366
Movement .2690** .0949 .2709***
Unusual Visualization .1211 .1411 .1831*
Internal Visualization .1030 .0469 .1104
Story Articulateness .1721* .1214 .2113**
Synthesis of Ideas .0449 .0063 .0393
Extension of Boundaries .1670 .2199** .2690****
Expressiveness of Titles .1028 .3327**** .2893****
Figural Creativity Index I .1414 .2181** .2478***
Figural Creativity Index II .1708* .2695*** .3031****

*p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01. ***p ≤ .005. ****p ≤.001.

Table 2. Means and t Tests for Creative and Noncreative Individuals on Figural Characteristics
Group Type Means

Recognized Nonrecognized
Creative Creative
Figural Creative Characteristics Achievements Achievements t test

Fluency 19.59 16.41 –2.35*

Flexibility 15.95 13.78 –2.07*
Elaboration 61.98 43.78 –3.43***
Originality 10.59 8.57 –2.44**
Emotional Expressiveness 2.46 1.51 –3.08**
Fantasy .58 .28 –2.18**
Movement 2.03 1.46 –1.79
Unusual Visualization 4.22 3.70 –1.01
Internal Visualization 2.02 1.52 –1.78
Story Articulateness 2.10 1.57 –1.44
Synthesis of Ideas .42 .29 –.61
Extension of Boundaries 6.97 4.88 –3.12**
Expressiveness of Titles 19.75 12.32 –4.56***
Figural creativity Index I 108.12 82.40 –3.64***
Figural creativity Index II 148.66 110.06 –4.36***

*p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01. ***p ≤.001.

than the group with no recognition in all figural cre-
ativity indicators. Significant differences (t = –2.07 to t
= –3.43, p ≤ .05 to p ≤ .001) were observed among 8 of
the 13 figural indicators: fluency, flexibility, elabora-
tion, originality, emotional expressiveness, fantasy, ex-
tension of boundaries and expressiveness of titles. The
indicators that could best distinguish the two groups
were elaboration and expressiveness of titles. The five
figural indicators that could not make significant dis-
criminations between the two groups were movement,
unusual visualization, internal visualization, story ar-
ticulateness, and synthesis of ideas. Again, the Figural
Creative Indexes I and II were found to be the best
ways to identify people with recognized achievements

20 Creativity Research Journal


from those with no recognition, because these indexes
had the highest discriminative levels (t = –3.64 to t =
–.4.36, p ≤ .001).
Analyzing the results observed from these groups,
one can conclude there is evidence on the validity for
the figural creativity indicators presented in the TTCT
as they could discriminate people with recognized cre-
ativity from those who had no recognition.
Considering the two types of validity studies taken
with the Figural TTCT, it was verified that the weak-
est figural indicators were internal visualization and
synthesis of ideas. All the other indicators, as well as
the Figural Creativity Indexes, gave important infor-
mation related to life creativity, either by relating to
the total number of achievements or discriminating
people with recognized achievements from those with
nonrecognized achievements.
The next step taken was to verify the validity of the
Verbal TTCT. In the first instance, the relationships of
the verbal creativity indicators (proposed by Torrance
and Wechsler) were compared with achievements, rec-
ognized, not recognized, and total number of achieve-
ments. This analysis was done with Pearson correla-
tions and is presented in Table 3.
The results presented in Table 3 indicated that six
of the eight verbal creativity indicators had signifi-
cant relationships with recognized achievements (r
=.19 to r =.39, p ≤ .05 to p ≤ .001): fluency, flexibil-
ity, elaboration, originality, emotional expressiveness,
and unusual perspective. The two indicators with no
significant correlations to recognized achievements
were fantasy and analogies/metaphors. In addition,
six of eight creativity indicators (fluency, flexibility,
Table 3. Pearson Correlations Among Verbal Creative Characteristic and Types of Achievement
Nonrecognized
Creative
Verbal Creative Characteristics Achievements
Fluency .1747*
Flexibility .1066
Elaboration .2104**
Originality .0773
Emotional Expressiveness .0001
Fantasy .1658
Unusual Perspective .1394
Analogies/Metaphors .1090
Verbal Creative Index I .1719*
Verbal Creative Index II .1758*
*p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .02. ***p ≤ .01. ****p ≤ .001.
Creativity Research Journal
Validity of Torrance Tests
elaboration, originality, fantasy, and unusual perspec-
tive) had significant relationships with the total
number of creative achievements (r = .17 to r = .30, p
≤ .05 to p ≤ .001). The only indicator that failed to
demonstrate significant relationships to all criteria
was analogies/metaphors.
Again, the sum of the cognitive creative indicators
through an index, in this case, the Verbal Creative In-
dex I, was observed as being highly related to recog-
nized creative achievements, as well as to the total
number of creative achievements (r = .30 to r = .32, p ≤
.001). Significant relationships, at the same level, also
were observed for the Verbal Creativity Index II with
recognized achievements as well as with total number
of creative achievements (r = .31 to r = .33, p ≤ .001),
thus representing the powerful combination of the cog-
nitive with the affective dimensions of creativity.
The results presented indicated that Torrance’s pro-
cedure, combined with Wechsler’s scoring system, can
yield important validity information about verbal cre-
ativity in the Brazilian culture, as the creativity indica-
tors proposed by both of them were found to have sig-
nificant relationships to real-life creativity. Therefore,
the criterion-related validity of the Verbal TTCT was
confirmed.
Next, the discriminative value of the verbal creativ-
ity indicators in the TTCT were investigated to verify
whether the group of persons with recognized achieve-
ments could be distinguished from the group with no
recognition. The mean number of responses of each
group is presented in Table 4. The significance be-
tween them was analyzed through the use of the t test
statistics.
Recognized
Creative Total
Achievements Achievements
.2280*** .2802****
.1927** .2046**
.2173*** .3016****
.3963**** .3091****
.2309*** .1448
.0672 .1724*
.1988** .2339***
.1107 .1550
.3083**** .3283****
.3111**** .3333****
21
S. Wechsler
Table 4. Means and t Tests for Creative and Noncreative Individuals on Verbal Characteristics
Group Type Means
Recognized
Creative
Figural Creative Characteristics Achievements
Fluency 73.29
Flexibility 30.61
Elaboration 14.54
Originality 25.68
Emotional Expressiveness 7.15
Fantasy 3.95
Unusual Perspective 3.63
Analogies/Metaphors 2.03
Verbal Creativity Index I 144.12
Verbal Creativity Index II 160.83
*p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01. ***p ≤ .001.
The results presented in Table 4 indicated that the
group with recognized creative achievements had
means superior to those of the group with no recogni-
tion for all the verbal creativity indicators. Significant
differences among the means (t = –2.88 to t = –4.53, p
≤ .05 to p ≤ .001) for each group were observed in five
of the eight verbal creativity indicators: fluency, elabo-
ration, originality, emotional expressiveness and un-
usual perspective. The verbal indicators that could best
distinguish the two groups were elaboration and origi-
nality. As was already observed, the Verbal Creative
Indexes I and II were the best ways to differentiate peo-
ple with recognized achievements from those with no
recognized achievements, because these indexes had
high discriminative level (t = –3.90 to t = –3.95, p ≤
.001).
Comparing the two procedures used to score the
verbal creativity test, it was possible to verify that the
three creativity indicators proposed by Torrance (flu-
ency, flexibility, and originality) were significantly re-
lated to recognized achievements. Of the four verbal
creativity indicators suggested by Wechsler, one did
not significantly contribute to identify life creativity:
analogies/metaphors. As was observed, the composi-
tion of the Verbal Creativity Indexes I and II, combin-
ing the cognitive and the affective measures was the
best measure to assess or identify verbal creative
achievements.
Evidence on the validity of the verbal indicators in
the TTCT was verified, because they discriminate peo-
ple with recognized achievements from those with no
recognition in the Brazilian culture. The results on the
22
Nonrecognized
Creative
Achievements t Test
57.68 –2.97**
27.14 –2.12
9.91 –3.41***
14.12 –4.53***
4.46 –3.11**
3.09 –1.16
2.14 –2.88**
1.98 .08
108.86 –3.95***
120.58 –3.90****
Figural and Verbal TTCT were examined to verify
whether they were measuring the same construct. Hav-
ing observed that the Figural Indexes and the Verbal In-
dexes were valid indicators of creativity, their relation-
ships were studied using the Pearson correlation
statistics. The results are presented in Table 5.
As can be observed in Table 5, there were signifi-
cant relationships (r = .33 to r = .40, p ≤ .01) among the
Figural and Verbal Indexes I and II. The strength of
these relationships demonstrated that the constructs
measured in both tests were related, although they
were obtained through different creative expressions,
that is, by drawings or written responses. Therefore,
one can conclude, by observing the convergence
among the results on the Verbal and Figural TTCT, that
these tests have validity for the Brazilian culture.
Conclusions
Creativity tests have been criticized for not provid-
ing evidence that they predict creative achievements
(Plucker & Renzulli, 1999). Evidence that the Verbal
and Figural Forms of the Torrance Tests of Creative
Thinking (TTCT) predict achievement exists, albeit on
U.S. samples (Torrance, 1990, 1996).
This study was designed to investigate whether the
verbal and figural creative characteristics presented in
the TTCT were related to creative achievements in the
Brazilian culture, to determine whether Brazilians who
have recognized and those with no recognized creative
achievements could be distinguished based on the ap-
Creativity Research Journal

Table 5. Pearson Correlations Among the Figural and Verbal Creativity Indexes
Creativity Indexes Figural I
Figural I — .96*
Figural II
Verbal I
Verbal II
*p ≤ .01.
pearance of figural and verbal creative characteristics,
and to examine whether data from the figural and ver-
bal tests were comparable. These three issues could
provide information as to the extent the TTCT might be
valid for use in Brazil.
Evidence on criterion-related validity of the Figural
TTCT was observed, because 6 of 13 figural creative
characteristics were significantly related to recognized
achievements, and 10 characteristics were related to
the total number of achievements. Thus, the use of
figural characteristics as indexes of achievement was
confirmed. In addition, the validity of the figural data
was verified, with 8 of 13 figural creativity indicators
discriminating people who have and do not have recog-
nized achievements. Internal visualization and synthe-
sis of ideas were not sensitive to the criteria. The
Figural Creativity Indexes I and II had the highest rela-
tionships with the criteria, thus indicating they might
be the best measures of figural creativity.
The results from this study using the figural data as
well as those reported by Torrance (1990) indicated
that the synthesis of ideas data were the weakest figural
indicators for predicting achievements in the United
States as well as in Brazil. However, the creative char-
acteristic flexibility was able to predict creative
achievements in this Brazilian sample, although
Torrance had removed this characteristic from his later
streamlined scoring procedure. The Creativity Index
was the best predictor for creative achievements in
Torrance’s longitudinal studies (2000). This index,
composed of 17 indicators, is comparable to the
Figural Creativity Index II used in this study, albeit one
composed of 13 indicators.
Support for the criterion-related validity of the ver-
bal data was provided by evidence that six of eight ver-
bal creativity indicators, derived from Torrance’s pro-
posal (1966, 1990) as well as Wechsler’s (1985) were
related to the quantity of recognized achievements.
The validity of the verbal data was also supported as
Creativity Research Journal
Validity of Torrance Tests
Figural II Verbal I Verbal II
.34* .33*
.00 .40* .40*
— .99*
—
five of the eight verbal creativity indicators discrimi-
nated people with recognized achievements from those
with no recognition. The Verbal Creativity Indexes I
and II have the highest relationships with the criteria
variables, thus recommending them as one of the best
measures to assess creativity.
Attempts to compare validity data for the verbal in-
dex obtained in this study with those reported in
Torrance’s longitudinal studies (1990) were difficult
because Torrance combined figural and verbal creativ-
ity indicators in his research. Wechsler’s (1981)
reanalysis of Torrance’s verbal data found that four
verbal indicators could predict creative achievements
in the United States, later confirmed with Brazilian
samples (Wechsler, 1985). The findings obtained from
this current study partially confirmed the previous re-
sults as three verbal creativity indicators (emotional
expressiveness, fantasy, and unusual perspective) were
related significantly to Brazilians’ achievements. The
indexes of analogy and metaphor did not correlate with
achievements. This finding calls into question the
views of those who emphasize the importance of anal-
ogy for creative thinking (Gibbs, 1999). Further
studies are needed to examine the importance of meta-
phorical and analogical thinking for creativity. Further-
more, data obtained from both Torrance’s and Wechs-
ler’s verbal creativity indicators and summarized in the
Verbal Creativity Indexes I and II support the belief
that both scoring systems are valid and may be used to
evaluate verbal creativity in Brazil and the United
States.
The convergence evidence on the verbal with the
figural indicators also indicates the validity of TTCT,
thus supporting that they were measuring similar con-
structs, although expressed in different ways, by writ-
ten responses or drawings. This type of evidence for
validity is a very important issue when studying a test
dimension (Treffinger & Poggio, 1972), especially if
considering two different ways of expressing creativ-
23
S. Wechsler
ity, such as verbal and figural. Therefore, both tests
should be used if a broader understanding of creativity
is being sought.
The profiles of people who received recognition for
their creative achievements revealed both cognitive
and affective elements related to their creativity. The
importance of cognitive indicators were observed by
the Index I, figural or verbal, derived from four charac-
teristics usually associated with divergent thinking
(Guilford, 1960; Torrance,1990): fluency, flexibility,
originality, and elaboration. However, the strongest as-
sociations were observed when affective indicators
were added to the cognitive indicators, as reflected in
Index II, composed from all variables. These findings
suggest that, in addition to creative thinking, one needs
to demonstrate affective or interpersonal skills that will
enable people to deal with the resistance to innovation
encountered whenever new ideas are presented to be
creatively productive and be recognized by society.
In conclusion, results obtained in this study con-
firmed the Puccio and Murdock (1994) review that in-
dicated that, although divergent thinking measures
have been criticized, the TTCT have demonstrated re-
markable predictive validity.
Limitations and Future Research Needs
Some limitations of this study need to be consid-
ered. First, it was impossible to determine the judges’
criteria used to award prizes to the people identified as
creative in this sample. Some judges have difficulty
differentiating creativity from other traits (e.g., intelli-
gence, expertise, personality traits), as indicated by
Hocevar (1981). Therefore, measures of achievements
used in this study could have been influenced by quali-
ties other than creativity. Even if intelligence tests were
administered to this sample, the results obtained when
comparing their scores to creativity tests results could
be misleading; Runco and Albert (1986) pointed out
that the relationship between creativity and intelli-
gence depends on the type of tests used as the measure
of these constructs.
Although relationships between several creative
figural and verbal indicators and life achievement were
significant, the correlations obtained were modest,
ranging from r =. 17 to r =. 33, thus accounting for a
small percentage of the variance in life achievement
and leaving out a considerable amount of variance un-
24
explained associated with creative achievements.
Many factors may influence the expression of creativ-
ity in adulthood (e.g., life history, motivation, specific
skills, social and cultural opportunities) as mentioned
by Runco (1993). Therefore, the ability to predict cre-
ative achievements fully and accurately using tests
may be impossible.
Future researchers need to evaluate what types of
achievements are mostly related to TTCT results, be-
cause this was not the purpose of this study. In addi-
tion, considering the important information that the
TTCT can provide for understanding creative achieve-
ments, their use should be investigated when combined
with more sources of data about the people, such as in-
dividual’s educational history, professional life, and
leisure activities.
In conclusion, this research has demonstrated that
some creative indicators presented in the verbal and
figural forms of the TTCT are related to life achieve-
ments, not only within the United States but also within
Brazil. These results indicate the existence of
cross-cultural traits possessed by creative or produc-
tively achieving persons independent of their environ-
ments. Further testing of these assumptions has to be
continued through other studies comparing verbal and
figural indicators of creative people living in more
countries and using diverse creativity criteria. Studies
to investigate the reliability and to standardize the
TTCT to the Brazilian population, according to age,
educational level, or other variables are still needed.
This procedure is recommended by the International
Testing Commission (2004) to complete the scientific
information on educational and psychological tests be-
fore making them available to professionals in each
country.
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