Teresa Amabile recruited 47 experienced creative writers who were college students and divided them at random into two groups. The students in one group were given a list of statements about external reasons (E) for writing, such as public recognition, making money, or pleasing their parents. Students in the other group were given a list of statements about internal reasons (I) for writing, such as expressing yourself and enjoying wordplay. Both groups were then instructed to write a poem about laughter. Each student's poem was rated separately by 12 different poets using a creativity scale. These ratings were averaged to obtain an overall creativity score for each poem. Parallel dotplots of the two groups' creativity scores are shownhere.

Reward Internal (1) External (E) O. 0 0.0.0... Do the data suggest that external rewards promote creativity? 0 No, since the variability in both distributions are about the same. 0 No. The maximum of the internal distribution is greater than the maximum of the external distribution, indicating that external rewards do not promote creativity. 0 No, since the shapes of both distributions are about the same. 0 No. The center of the internal distribution is greater than the center of the external distribution, indicating that external rewards do not promote creativity. 0 No. The minimum of the external distribution is lower than the minimum of the internal distribution, indicating that external rewards do not promote creativity