Personal Epistemology and Its Relationship with Creativity

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Abstract

A total of 135 undergraduates in China were investigated by questionnaires on their creativity and personal epistemology. Results showed the characteristics of their personal epistemology and its relationship with creativity. Chinese undergraduates considered knowledge as uncertain, improvable, and complex and considered learning speed as gradual and learning ability as incremental. They tended to use objective evidence and tend to categorize knowledge. However, they could use limited methods to justify them. Some dimensions of personal epistemology were correlated with creativity. High-creativity individuals tended to consider knowledge as more uncertain, improvable, complex, and influenced by subjective and situational factors. They tended to use objective evidences and more justification skills. They also categorized knowledge and considered learning speed as gradual and learning ability as incremental, but the degree was less than low-creativity ones. The epistemological characteristics of high-creativity students indicated that they were more on a higher developmental stage of personal epistemology.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2013

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of PsychologyLudwig-Maximilians-Universitaet of MunichMunichGermany
  2. 2.Institute of Developmental PsychologyBeijing Normal UniversityBeijingChina
  3. 3.Division of Elementary SchoolMinistry of EducationBeijingChina
  4. 4.Institute of EducationMartin-Luther-UniversityHalle-WittenbergGermany

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