Research on Cognitive, Personality, and Social Psychology: II

Abstract

This is the second of two chapters describing research at Educational Testing Service (ETS) on cognitive, personality, and social psychology since its founding in 1947. The first chapter, Chap. 13 by Lawrence Stricker, also appears in this volume. Topics in these fields were selected for attention because they were the focus of extensive and significant ETS research. This chapter covers these topics: in cognitive psychology, creativity; in personality psychology, cognitive styles and kinesthetic aftereffect; and in social psychology, risk taking. CreativityResearch on creativity thrived at ETS during the 1960s and 1970s. Three distinct strands of work can be distinguished. One of these strands was based largely on studies of children, with an emphasis on performance in the domain of divergentthinking abilities. A second strand involved the construction of measures of scientific thinking and utilized samples of young adults. A third strand featured an emphasis on the products of creativity, mainly using young adult samples. The three strands were not entirely independent of each other as some studies explored possible links between the divergent-thinking and scientific-thinking domains or between ratings of products and characteristics of the individuals who produced them.Lawrence J. Stricker edited a final draft of this chapter that Nathan Kogan completed before his death.