Promoting Children's Creativity: Effects of Competition, Self-Esteem, and Immunization

Abstract

The effects of reward and intrinsic motivation training on the creativity and self-esteem of elementary school students were assessed. Third-grade children (N = 103) participated in an intrinsic motivation or control training session, completed the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory before and after training, and participated in a collage-making task. The children were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 groups: intrinsic motivation training/reward, intrinsic motivation training/no reward, control training/reward, and control training/no reward. Two sets of judges—3 artists and 21 schoolteachers—rated the creativity of the collages using a consensual assessment technique. Creativity ratings of artist judges revealed a main effect of reward, and ratings by the teachers revealed a marginally significant effect of training. No significant changes in self-esteem scores were found. These results were compared to earlier findings that intrinsic motivation training reverses the negative effect of reward on creativity. Questions about the validity and reliability of the consensual assessment technique for measuring creativity were also raised.

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