Relationships between intelligence and creativity in gifted and non-gifted children Jacques-Henri Guignard a,b, ⁎, Solenn Kermarrec a,c , Sylvie Tordjman a,c a CNAHP, Pôle Hospitalo-Universitaire de Psychiatrie de l'Enfant et de l'Adolescent, Université de Rennes 1 et Centre Hospitalier Guillaume Régnier, Rennes, France b Centre de Recherche en Psychologie, Cognition et Communication, Université de Rennes 2, CNRS EA 1285, Rennes, France c Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, Université Paris Descartes, CNRS UMR 8158, Paris, France abstract article info Article history: Received 4 February 2014 Received in revised form 21 May 2015 Accepted 13 July 2015 Available online xxxx Keywords: Intelligence Creative potential Intellectual potential Giftedness Threshold hypothesis Integrative and divergent thinking Verbal and graphic domains The interplay between creativity and intelligence has been extensively documented for decades. However, there is currently no consensus on how these constructs are related. The threshold hypothesis states that intelligence fosters creativity only below a 120 cut-off IQ. To clarify these issues, the relationships between intelligence and creativity were studied, using respectively WISC-IV and EPoC (Evaluation of Potential Creativity), in 338 children including 118 intellectually gifted children (IQ ≥ 130) and 220 non-gifted children (IQ b 130). Weak correlations were found between intelligence and creativity. However, high verbal ability children (Verbal Comprehension Index ≥ 130) showed significantly higher scores on verbal tasks of EPoC. Additionally, the threshold effect was only found for correlations between verbal integrative thinking and perceptual reasoning or processing speed. Thus, the findings indicate that the threshold effect depends on the type of process involved in the expression of creativity (divergent or integrative thinking), the domain of creativity (verbal or graphic), and the factors of intelligence considered. Taken together, these results suggest that giftedness should be conceptualized by specifying the cognitive domain of high ability, rather than focusing on a general conception of intelligence, and by distinguishing intellectual and creative giftedness. © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Historically, giftedness has been conceptualized on the basis of performance on intelligence tests. For example, the World Health Organization criteria for giftedness rely solely on the basis of general intelligence (total IQ ≥ 130). However, dimensional approaches to intel- ligence extend this definition to different types of intellectual giftedness based on intra-individual profiles (Achter, Lubinski, & Benbow, 1996; Milgram & Hong, 1999). In this vein, some authors have argued that creativity is the expression of “true” giftedness and deplore the fact that this concept relies on total IQ. For example, Gowan (1971) con- siders giftedness as an ability to produce novelty in a domain. Several authors consider high level of creativity as a particular form of gifted- ness (Heller, 1994; Sarouphim, 2001; Sternberg & Lubart, 1993; Winner, 2000). Therefore, creative potential is seen as a good candidate to complete the identification of giftedness (Naglieri & Kaufman, 2001; Treffinger, 1980). Furthermore, Renzulli (1986) proposed to distinguish between two types of giftedness. The first type – academic giftedness – includes individuals identified by conventional IQ tests, such as the Wechsler scales, which are most often used to justify the implementa- tion of special educational programs. The second type – creative– productive giftedness – refers to the ability to produce original and adapted work. This conception has been supported by a large num- ber of studies that have identified specific aspects of creative cogni- tion not captured by intelligence tests, such as divergent thinking, mental flexibility and the capacity to encode, link and combine infor- mation in unusual ways (Bink & Marsh, 2000; Getzels & Jackson, 1962). As emphasized by Besançon, Lubart and Barbot (2013), chil- dren and adults who have creative potential and/or creative talent do not necessarily have high intellectual ability, and those who are intellectually gifted are not necessarily creatively gifted (see also Guignard & Lubart, 2007 for empirical support). Creativity is seen as the capacity to achieve a production that is both novel and adapted to its context (Lubart, 1994). It is noteworthy that divergent thinking, or the capacity to generate diverse and numerous ideas, is commonly used to investigate individual differences in creativ- ity (Guilford, 1950). Individuals are asked to provide as many as pos- sible ideas to open-ended tasks in a limited time. Runco and Albert (1985) reported that divergent thinking is qualitatively and quantita- tively different in gifted (IQ ≥ 130) and non-gifted (IQ b 130) individ- uals. Divergent thinking tests have been created in several domains of production, for example verbal (TTCT; Torrance, 1966), graphic (TCT-DP; Urban & Jellen, 1996) or numerical (BIS-HB; Jäger et al., Learning and Individual Differences xxx (2015) xxx–xxx ⁎ Corresponding author at: CNAHP, Pôle Hospitalo-Universitaire de Psychiatrie de l'Enfant et de l'Adolescent, Université de Rennes 1 et Centre Hospitalier Guillaume Régnier, Rennes, France. E-mail address: j.guignard@ch-guillaumeregnier.fr (J.-H. Guignard). LEAIND-01113; No of Pages 7 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2015.07.006 1041-6080/© 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Learning and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/lindif Please cite this article as: Guignard, J.-H., et al., Relationships between intelligence and creativity in gifted and non-gifted children, Learning and Individual Differences (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2015.07.006