Does the Act Predict “Inside the Box” Thinking or Creativity?: Creative Characters in the Personality Imagination Exercise

Abstract

College Admissions Tests are designed to predict academic achievement in college but their use is often criticized as being biased toward selecting uncreative students who think “inside the box” and whose learning is superficial. The empirical literature hints that standardized tests do predict creative outcomes, although not as well as they predict achievement. However, few studies have examined actual creative products devised by college students. With a sample of 116 college students, the present study tested whether admission test scores on the American College Testing program exam (ACT) were predictive of a creative writing task involving the imagination of personalities. For comparison with the ACT, we used the Big Five Inventory as a personality predictor of creativity with a particular focus on Openness to Experience. The activity took place several years after students took the ACT. Results showed that the ACT and Openness predicted the Personality Imagination Exercise but both were mediated by verbal fluency.