Are children really more creative than adults? A mixed-methods examination of creative performance and experience
4 affiliations
- 1Department of Psychology, University of Graz, Graz, Austria.
- 2Department of Psychology, LMU Munich, Munich, Germany.
- 3Psychological Sciences Research Institute, UCLouvain, Louvain-la Neuve, Belgium.
- 4Child Study Center, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America.
Abstract
It is widely believed that children are more creative than adults, yet direct empirical tests of this assumption are scarce. A qualitative pre-study indicated that creativity is commonly attributed to preschoolers and associated with intrinsically motivated engagement, informing the design of the main study. 92 preschool children and 70 adults completed a divergent thinking task and two drawing tasks varying in structure (free vs. goal-directed). Independent raters evaluated all products for novelty, effectiveness, and overall creativity; participants reported motivation, enjoyment, confidence, and anxiety. Adults outperformed children on externally rated creativity, particularly in structured tasks. In contrast, children reported higher confidence and motivation, lower anxiety, and—except in the structured drawing task—greater enjoyment. Together, these findings challenge the view that children are generally more creative than adults by showing that their apparent advantage lies in confident and intrinsically motivated engagement, whereas creative thinking performance increases with age.
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BibTeX
@article{saretzki2026children,
title = {{Are children really more creative than adults? A mixed-methods examination of creative performance and experience}},
author = {Janika Saretzki and Ines Fratzl and Baptiste Barbot and Mathias Benedek},
journal = {PLOS One},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0346553},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0346553},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Are children really more creative than adults? A mixed-methods examination of creative performance and experience
AU - Janika Saretzki
AU - Ines Fratzl
AU - Baptiste Barbot
AU - Mathias Benedek
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/21
JO - PLOS One
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0346553
UR - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0346553
AB - It is widely believed that children are more creative than adults, yet direct empirical tests of this assumption are scarce. A qualitative pre-study indicated that creativity is commonly attributed to preschoolers and associated with intrinsically motivated engagement, informing the design of the main study. 92 preschool children and 70 adults completed a divergent thinking task and two drawing tasks varying in structure (free vs. goal-directed). Independent raters evaluated all products for novelty, effectiveness, and overall creativity; participants reported motivation, enjoyment, confidence, and anxiety. Adults outperformed children on externally rated creativity, particularly in structured tasks. In contrast, children reported higher confidence and motivation, lower anxiety, and—except in the structured drawing task—greater enjoyment. Together, these findings challenge the view that children are generally more creative than adults by showing that their apparent advantage lies in confident and intrinsically motivated engagement, whereas creative thinking performance increases with age.
SN - 1932-6203
ER -