The influences of socioeconomic status (SES), maturation, school, and sex on creative potential were examined by administering the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking to 1,445 children. Comparisons of means indicated that scores increased with SES, sixth-grade children scored slightly higher than fifth-grade children, and girls in general earned higher scores than boys. Additionally, the school setting and in particular the classroom atmosphere seemed to be far more important to creative potential than has been previously acknowledged. Implications for the concept of creativity and the adequacy of tests as indicators of divergent thinking are discussed.

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Three hundred thirty primary grade school children between 9 and 13 years ofage participated in a study oftheir social network, interperonal concerns, and help-seeking behavior, as a function of sex, school performance and economic status. Girls showed more affective association and looked for help more readily than boys. Children with poor academic performance had difficulties in forming social relationships, were less sensitive of the social consequences of their behavior and enjoyed less supportfrom friends, their immediate family and even animals. Results in general were most unfavorable for economically disadvantaged boys. Various strategies to counteract the negative effects of poor school performance are discussed.

Chicken embryos were treated with doses of 200r or 400r of X-irradiation at either Day 2 or Day 9 of embryonic development. The hatched chickens were first exposed to an imprinting stimulus at either 10 hr. or 100 hr. after hatching and their approach behaviour was compared to that of untreated controls. There were significant differences between the early and late imprinting groups. X-irradiation significantly lowered imprinting scores but only for those chicks treated on Day 9 of incubation and given early imprinting experience. These results suggest that radiosensitive CNS structures important to imprinting are being formed in the embryo on about Day 9 of incubation and that these constitute a factor related to the offset of the sensitive period.