Do time press, stimulus, and creative prompt influence the divergent production of undergraduate students? Yes, yes, and no, not very much.

This study examined the influence of time press, specific stimulus, and typ e of creativity prompt on fluency and flexibility scores of 75 undergraduat es randomly assigned to condition. Three stimuli were administered, in thre e time allotments (2.5, 5.0, and 7.5 min), counterbalanced with three types of prompt intended to elicit higher fluency, flexibility, or originality s cores. Dependent variables were fluency and flexibility scores. The results suggest that time press has a strong, and typically linear infl uence on both fluency and flexibility scores. When scores were adjusted by time allowed, a significant difference across stimuli was observed for flex ibility, but not for fluency scores. Prompts had very small and nonsignific ant effects. Performance did not differ for groups exposed to longer/shorte r vs, shorter/longer time patterns on successive tasks.