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.
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