Jordan Peterson on psychology: what the evidence says · JRE #1769
SUBJECT: PSYCHOLOGY
The short answer
Peterson claims his Creative Achievement Questionnaire research found that 70% of people score zero across all 13 measured creative domains, meaning most people are not creative at all. Peterson co-authored the Creative Achievement Questionnaire (CAQ) with Shelley Carson and Daniel Higgins, published in 2005 in Creativity Research Journal.
Not a true/false call. Every claim is logged with its sources; read the exhibits below.
70% of people, if you sum their scores across all 13 domains, scored zero
What the evidence says 01 / RECORD
Peterson co-authored the Creative Achievement Questionnaire (CAQ) with Shelley Carson and Daniel Higgins, published in 2005 in Creativity Research Journal. Independent peer-reviewed research using the CAQ describes the instrument as assessing achievement across 10 domains of creativity, not 13 as stated in this quote, and confirms that summed CAQ scores are highly skewed, consistent with a large share of respondents scoring zero or near-zero across domains. This supports the general shape of Peterson's claim (most people show little to no measurable real-world creative achievement, producing a right-skewed distribution). However, no accessible independent source reports the specific '70%' zero-score figure Peterson cites, and the '13 domains' detail does not match the commonly documented 10-domain structure of the instrument. The claim's core idea is broadly consistent with the published literature, but the specific statistics recalled in this quote appear inaccurate or unverifiable as stated.