Creative potential of Chinese children in Hong Kong and French children in Paris: A cross-cultural comparison of divergent and convergent-integrative thinking

It is argued that a comprehensive assessment of creative potential should include convergent-integrative thinking as well as divergent thinking. Accordingly, an electronic creativity battery of widely-used divergent measures (Wallach-Kogan Creativity Tests; WKCT) and newly constructed divergent-plus-convergent measures (Evaluation of Potential Creativity; EPoC) was used to compare the creative potential of Chinese school children in Hong Kong and French school children in Paris. It was found that the HK-Chinese outscored the Paris-French, irrespective of gender and grade, in all the eight divergent measures (verbal and figural fluency, flexibility, uniqueness, and unusualness) of the WKCT. Results with the EPoC indicated that only male HK-Chinese outscored the male Paris-French in the graphic divergent-exploratory measure. Also the HK-Chinese outscored the Paris-French in the verbal convergent-integrative measure, particularly for the boys and the senior grade students. The contrasting findings for Chinese and French school children in these two representative cities in the East and the West are discussed. Interpretations of the findings of the present study for cross-cultural differences and implications for creativity in mixed cultural settings are suggested.