ABSTRACT
Constructive thinking is denned as the ability to solve problems in everyday life at a minimal cost in stress. Recently, a promising measure of constructive thinking, the Constructive Thinking Inventory (CTI), was introduced (Epstein & Meier, 1989). The most recent version of the CTI contains a global scale plus the following 6 specific scales: Emotional Coping, Behavioral Coping, Categorical Thinking, Superstitious Thinking, Naive Optimism, and Esoteric Thinking. These scales, although moderately independent, are all, with the exception of Naive Optimism, significantly interrelated. The scales were all derived from the factor analysis of a large sample of items that described everyday adaptive and maladaptive thinking. The finding of a general factor, from which the global scale was derived, is of considerable interest as it indicates that there is a g of constructive thinking analogous to the g factor in intelligence. People who are good constructive thinkers in one way tend to be good constructive thinkers in other ways. The specific scales indicate, again like intelligence, that constructive thinking is composed of a limited number of separate abilities in addition to a highly general ability.
