An important part of experimental psychology is the area of psychological testing and measurement (also called psychometrics). As one might imagine, there are many potential issues that can arise when measuring such things as attitudes, beliefs, and opinions. Such measurements are inherently more complicated than measuring purely objective things such as weights of objects or their lengths. As a result, the evolution of a psychological test is usually a long and involved process.
The present laboratory experiment is designed to investigate how two psychological tests are related to each other. The first, The Inventory of Student Explanation Preferences, or ISEP (Hergenhahn, 1962), is designed to measure an objectivity-subjectivity dimension. A high score supposedly indicates a tendency toward subjectivity and perhaps a mild rejection of the scientific method of acquiring knowledge. A low score supposedly indicates the acceptance of more objective explanations of various phenomena and perhaps a more favorable attitude toward science. The second test is an extremely crude measure of creativity in which a participant lists as many things as he or she can think of doing with a coat hanger. The participant is given three minutes to make the list
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