Childhood Predictors of Later Creativity in Early Adolescence

Play is an important part of the everyday life of children. Play allows children to practice and master new skills, explore their environment, and add to their understanding of the physical and social world. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relations among the complexity of pretend play, child temperament, and parent creativity as they predict later creativity at ages 10-14. All children in this study participated in the Southern Illinois Twins and Sibling Study (SITTS; DiLalla, 2002) at age five. Pretend play behaviors and parent ratings of child temperament were assessed at age 5. When the children were ages 10-14 the families were invited to participate in a follow-up study, part of which involved children completing an alternative use task. It was hypothesized that pretend play at age 5, temperament, and parent creativity would predict later creativity. Path analyses indicated that preschool realistic pretend play and temperament were significant predictors of creativity in early adolescence. An additional path analysis was conducted to include the correlation between the play behaviors of the non-target child and the target child. Results indicated that the social aspects of the play session superseded temperamental aspects at age 5; when other child’s play behaviors were included in the model, temperament no longer significantly predicted play behavior. Parent creativity did not predict later creativity or pretend play behaviors at age 5. These results indicate that early pretend play behaviors are important in the development of later creativity.