The Relationship between Creativity and Intelligence: New Evidence

Abstract

Threshold theory is one of the theories which is used to explain the relationship between creative thinking skills and intelligence. According to this theory, an individual is supposed to have at least moderate intelligence to perform creative activities. However, it has been seen that there is a greater relationship between the creativity potential and intelligence of individuals with an average intelligence, whose score is 120 or less, than those with an intelligence score of 120 or more. The research was maintained in the descriptive pattern out of survey models. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between creativity potentials of primary school students and general intelligence level. In the study, 16.839 students from 24 different primary schools in Istanbul were pre-assessed. An intelligence and creativity test was applied to 330 students who were considered to be gifted. According to the research results, while there was not a significant relationship between the intelligence and creativity scores of highly gifted students, there is a significant low positive relationship between the scores of average-mildly intelligence students and moderately gifted students. These results are in accordance with the threshold theory. Also, intelligence could only explain the 5% of the general creativity.