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Abstract Creativity is a key 21st-century skill and a consistent predictor of academic learning outcomes. Despite decades of research on creativity and learning, little is known about the cognitive mechanisms underlying their relationship. In two studies, we examined whether creativity supports associative learning through associative thinking—the ability to generate novel word associations—an ability central to creativity which has not been previously tied to associative learning. In Study 1, we found that students who generated more novel word associations learned more words on a foreign language learning test 24 h later. In Study 2, we replicated and extended the effect to naturalistic creativity tasks (i.e., writing short stories and sketching line drawings), finding associative thinking mediated the relationship between creativity and associative learning. Importantly, both studies controlled for general intelligence. Our findings suggest that creativity’s contribution to learning operates partly through a shared cognitive capacity for making new connections. 

ABSTRACT Although the relationship between creativity andADHDis uncertain, recent studies examining how dimensionally assessed characteristics ofADHDrelate to creativity and divergent thinking in adults suggest an occasional positive, linear relationship between the constructs. However, the executive functions proposed to underlie characteristics ofADHDhave not been examined in relation to creativity. This study was conducted to determine how different characteristics ofADHDrelated to executive functioning (as assessed by the BrownADDScales) predict different components of figural divergent thinking, intellectual risk‐taking, and creative self‐efficacy. Undergraduate engineering students (N = 60) completed the BrownADDScales, a figural divergent thinking task, and self‐report measures of intellectual risk‐taking and creative self‐efficacy. A series of multivariate regression models demonstrated that several components of divergent thinking (i.e., fluency, originality, and resistance to closure) were predicted by different characteristics ofADHD. Although fluency was predicted by affect only and originality was predicted by activation only, resistance to closure was predicted by activation, effort, and attention. Additionally, intellectual risk‐taking was predicted by memory, effort, and activation, whereas creative self‐efficacy was predicted by effort. The implications of these results relating to the relationship betweenADHDand creativity, as well as for engineering undergraduate education are discussed.