创造性思维的性别差异

Gender Differences in Creative Thinking

创造性思维是推动科学技术进步和人类社会与文化发展的重要心理基础。人类两性分别在创造性思维的聚合思维和发散思维方面表现出显著的行为和神经活动差异。在发散思维方面,女性优势相对明显;但在聚合思维方面,男性具有一定优势。两性在不同类型创造性思维方面的相对优势与大脑两半球的加工优势有密切联系,且受到包括性别作用等因素的调节。研究对这些问题进行了系统探讨,并就当前研究不足和未来趋势进行了展望。

Creative thinking is an important psychological foundation in advancing not only scientific and technological progresses, but also human society and cultural development. The present work reviewed existing investigations on gender difference in creative thinking and mainly discussed those behavioral differences on convergent thinking and divergent thinking as well as its relevant neural manifestations of gender effect. With regarding to gender difference in divergent thinking, the female exhibited relative advantages; however, the male showed significant gender dominance in convergent thinking. These differences in behavioral performance across two genders might originate from the dissimilar processing advantages of brain hemispheres and could be mediated by several factors such as gender role and personality traits. The present study reviewed the findings on these differences and recommended several directions in future studies.