Gender, gender role, and creativity

Undergraduate students (136) were assessed with 3 measures of creative ability and a gender role measure to explore relationships between gender, gender role, and creativity. Male participants’ performance on the creativity measures generally was better than that of females, with significant differences in 2 specific creativity tasks. Androgynous individuals’ creative productions were judged to be superior to those of participants representing other gender role categories. Further analysis revealed the highest levels of creativity in men who strongly identified with feminine gender role characteristics, with androgynous women recording the next highest scores. Undifferentiated men and women, and highly feminine women achieved low creativity scores. Both men and women who reported strongly masculine gender role characteristics surpassed the performance of undifferentiated participants.