The Relationship Between Interdependence and Creative Efficiency

There is a long, ongoing search for the best way to measure and promote creativity. In this study, participant’s self-reported interdependence with elicited members of their social life (Same-Sex Best Friend, Same-Sex Acquaintance, Sibling (or Relative), and Enemy) were collected alongside their performance on several iterations of J.P. Guilford’s Alternative Uses Task. It was predicted that higher scores obtained on the fitness interdependence scale would predict higher scores on the creativity tasks, and lower scores on the former would also predict lower scores on the latter. Ultimately, the results did not support our hypothesis that creative efficiency is predicted by an individual’s self-reported interdependence with members of their social circle. Although higher scores on the Same-Sex Best Friend Interdependence, Sibling (Relative) Interdependence, Acquaintance Interdependence, and Enemy Interdependence categories were found to significantly predict a higher number of alternative uses submitted in a creativity task, the fact that these four subcategories predicted the Total Volume score and not the Total Originality score shows that a better design, and more robust methods, must be used to investigate the relationship between interdependence and creative outcomes.