Аннотация:Divergent thinking was assessed in 400 adult women and men with tests of word association (associational ‘ uency) and alternate uses (production ‘ uency, ‘ exibility, and originality). The participants were from four age cohorts: young (17-22 years old), middle-aged (40-50), young-old (60-70), and old-old (75+). The test battery also included two intellectual “process” variables (inductive reasoning, memory span), one “dynamic resource variable” (intellectual speediness), one “structural resource variable” (vocabulary), and two moderator variables (depression, education). Hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that divergent thinking was significantly, linearly, positively, and moderately related to all of these variables except depression, which was not significantly related to divergent thinking. Effects of age group and gender were assessed in analyses of variance (alpha = .01). The age groups did not differ significantly in associational ‘ uency, but the middle-aged group was the best on production ‘ uency, ‘ exibility, and originality. Gender had a significant effect on only one variable: Women had higher depression scores than men.
