Which of the following is not associated with Creativity?

Concept — creativity is defined as the production of ideas that are both novel and appropriate. Novelty by itself is not enough: an idea that nobody else offers but that serves no purpose is not treated as creative. Educational psychology operationalises this through divergent thinking, and J. P. Guilford's factor-analytic work, carried forward into E. P. Torrance's tests, scores it on four dimensions: fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration.

Application — each term offered here is checked against that definition and against those four scored dimensions.

• Originality — the statistical rarity of a response; one of the scored dimensions of divergent thinking.

• Fluency — the number of relevant responses produced within a set time; one of the scored dimensions of divergent thinking.

• Utility — the appropriateness or usefulness of the idea; the second half of the novel-and-useful definition of creativity.

• Economy — thrift in the use of resources, that is, obtaining a result at the least cost. It is a criterion of efficiency drawn from economics and management, and it appears neither in the definition of creativity nor among its scored dimensions.

Cross-check — the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking report exactly four scores (fluency, flexibility, originality, elaboration) and no measure of thrift or cost. Conversely, a highly economical solution can be completely routine, which shows that the two ideas vary independently of each other.

Hence the trait not associated with creativity is Economy.