Narrative and Paradigmatic Thinking Styles in Creative Writing and Journalism Students

✍ Scribed by JAMES C. KAUFMAN

• Publisher: Creative Education Foundation
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 107 KB
• Volume: 36
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-0175
• DOI: 10.1002/j.2162-6057.2002.tb01064.x

✦ Synopsis

How do creative writing students and journalists differ in their thinking styles? To investigate this question, 81 undergraduate participants (41 creative writing students and 40 student journalists) were asked to write sentences in response to a series of photographs. Their responses were then scored according Bruner's theory of Narrative and Paradigmatic thought. In addition, these students were assessed on the NEO Personality Inventory — Revised (Costa & McRae, 1992) to measure personality, the Work Preference Inventory, College Student Version (Amabile, 1995) to measure motivation, and the Mental Self‐Government Thinking Styles Inventory (Sternberg & Wagner, 1991) to measure a different theory of thinking styles. As hypothesized, creative writers scored significantly higher than journalists on Narrative thought, but an interaction occurred on Paradigmatic thought. Male journalists significantly outscored male creative writers, but a non‐significant trend in the opposite direction was observed for females; these results stayed significant when personality and motivation factors were controlled.