"For the first time, research shows that American creativity is declining. ... Like intelligence tests, Torrance's test — a 90-minute series of discrete tasks, administered by a psychologist — has been taken by millions worldwide in 50 languages. Yet there is one crucial difference between IQ and CQ scores. With intelligence, there is a phenomenon called the Flynn effect — each generation, scores go up about 10 points. Enriched environments are making kids smarter. With creativity, a reverse trend has just been identified and is being reported for the first time here: American creativity scores are falling. Kyung Hee Kim at the College of William & Mary discovered this in May, after analyzing almost 300,000 Torrance scores of children and adults. Kim found creativity scores had been steadily rising, just like IQ scores, until 1990. Since then, creativity scores have consistently inched downward. 'It's very clear, and the decrease is very significant,' Kim says. It is the scores of younger children in America — from kindergarten through sixth grade — for whom the decline is 'most serious.'"
I don't know that I actually believe in something like CQ. I don't know that creativity is measurable like that. If it is, it seems to me like IQ and CQ should be highly correlated. It's always the smartest people I know that end up coming up with the most creative solutions to unexpected problems.
But if creativity is on the decline, I'm curious how trends like this might impact the price of creativity. It's no secret that you can make good money working for a creative shop, but in a world where people less creative does that also mean that there is less appreciation for creative work?
