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This study investigated whether task instruction affected comprehension of multiple conflicting-view texts after controlling for a number of individual difference variables and whether the effects of task instruction varied as a result of post-reading assessment tasks. Recruited from a First-Year Composition course, 64 participants received a task instruction that set the goal of seeking an alternative explanation and reframed argument as a process of conversation and exploration. Multiple-text comprehension was measured by a synthesis writing task and an argument writing task. The results showed that participants given the instruction outperformed participants in the control condition, as reflected in their argument writing. Among the control variables, beliefs about argumentation, need for cognition and topic interest were positively correlated with comprehension measures. These results highlight the importance of cultivating divergent thinking of multiple perspectives rather than dichotomous thinking of pros and cons. Pedagogical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The alternate uses task (AUT) is one of the most commonly utilized measures of divergent thinking within the creativity research literature. Some participants respond to the AUT by describing the possibility of using various common objects in a violent way (e.g., beat someone with a book), and this unsolicited inclination is termed malevolent creativity. In this study, participant responses on the AUT were systematically coded for malevolent uses, and the relations among malevolence and various individual differences including sex, ideational fluency, and originality, were examined. Results revealed that male participants generated significantly more malevolent responses to the AUT than did women, despite no significant sex differences on originality or fluency. In addition, participant originality significantly predicted malevolence, although ideational fluency did not. Taken together, these findings suggest that malevolent responses on the AUT do not arise simply when very many uses are generated (i.e., when fluency is high) but may represent a particular inclination, disproportionately displayed by males, toward utilizing divergent thinking in a potentially violent way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]