Creative Young Women in Today's World

Abstract

Data from a 12 year followup of a longitudinal study of a creative behavior were analyzed in such a way as to give clues concerning creative young women in today's world. The subjects were students at the University of Minnesota High School (grades 7 through 12) in 1959. Followup data were obtained from 117 women and 119 men. A canonical correlation of 31 was obtained for the creativity predictors and three criteria of adult creative behavior; one of .59 was obtained for the men and one of .46 for the women. There were no differences in any of the creativity predictor measures for the subjects except for elaboration (favoring the women) nor in either of the three criteria of adult creative behavior. Number of children negatively influenced performance on all three of the criteria for the women but only the quality of the creative achievement and creativeness of aspirations of the men. The more creative women tended more frequently than their less creative peers to be involved concurrently in careers and families while the less creative women more frequently limited their involvement to their families. The more creative women tended to find their highest creative achievements in writing, educational innovation, research and new theory, and music.

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