Creativity, oversensitivity, and rate of habituation

It was hypothesized that creative individuals habituate to stimuli at a rate different than less creative people. Twenty-four male undergraduate students were administered the Remote Associates Test and Alternate Uses Test in group sessions in order to assess potential creativity. Skin potential was recorded on a Beckman Dynograph as 20 bursts of 60 dB white noise were presented through headphones. As predicted, there was a highly significant Remote Associates Test × Alternate Uses Test × Trials interaction. More creative Ss exhibited higher amplitude skin potential responses and habituated much more slowly than did less creative Ss. The results suggest that creative individuals may be motivated to approach novelty rather than avoid repetition. That is, their preference for novel stimuli may not, as might intuitively be expected, arise from boredom or fast rates of habituation.