A Research Report submitted to the Faculty of Arts
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in
partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree
of Mnster of Arts in Clinical Psychology.
September ~991 / The study aimed to examine the ego functioning of the
creative child, with a view to testing theories of
creative functioning. The development of these
theories is reviewed from Freud'e writings at the
beginning of the century to more current conceptions
of Creativity as a function of ego proCeSses. The
theories examined related to the ego functions of
Tolerance of Ambiguity, Regression in the Service of
the Ego and Empathy, all of which were hypothesised .a
being employed to a greater degree by creative
individuals. A theoretical conception of the
autonomous 1 intellective and creative ego was
developed according to Norma Haan's (1977) view of
Constructivist Man. The ego function of 60 children
(39 male and 21 female' batween the ages of 8 and 12
years were tested by having their mothers rate them on
Haan's Q-sort of Ego Processes. A measure of
Creativity was obtained using activities from the
Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (Torrance 1974)
completed by the chiIdren. AnalysiS for the results
failed to show any significant support for the
hypotheses concerning the 3 main Ego Functions. Of
the other Ego functions also exmined using the Haan
instrument, only that of Substitution showed a
significant (and negative) correlation with
Creativity. This suggested that (a) children
employing this ego function to a significant degree
tend not to be creative and (b) Mothers valuing
substitution highly may tend to stifle creativity in
their children by their expectations and parenting
styles. The failure to find significant support for
the hypothesis is attributed to Ca) possible
incomplete measures of Creativity and (b) the Mother's
difficulty in using the ego rating instrument in an
unbiased way rather than rating for Racial
desirability and perceived expectations of the
research on Certain key functions. It was concluded
that trained professionals may be better equipped to
accurately assess ego functioning. A discussion of
the results and 1imitations of the study follows with
a consideration of methodological problems in the
measurement of both Personality and Creativity.
suggestions are made for further research. No strong
conclusions can be drawn regarding the validity of the
theories discussed but they are felt to be very useful
formulations for work in the educational and clinical
fields.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/20858 |
| Date | 12 August 2016 |
| Creators | Blumberg, Zachary |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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