Creative thinking and attitude to rules in pre-adolescence

Abstract

The attitude to rules undergoes significant changes by pre-adolescence. By this age the relationships with peers, external assessment, and recognition become vital. At the same time, there are still social rules, school requirements and tasks, which can affect the creativity of schoolchildren. The current study was aimed to examine the association between creative thinking and attitude to rules in pre-adolescence. The study included 160 participants aged 9-11 years (M = 10.14; SD = 1.12). According to the results, creative thinking and attitude to rules are negatively correlated: high level of creative thinking is associated with rejection of the rules within the school environment, whereas low level of creative thinking is linked with following the rules and requirements. Our results expand the existing knowledge on the association between creative thinking and attitude to rules during pre-adolescence.