approaches to creativity in psychology

Guilford's address, and his conceptualization of divergent and convergent thinking, sparked a massive influx of research on creativity. An example would be a creative solution to a difficult problem. Creative thinking includes analysis, open-mindedness, problem-solving, organization, and communication. ), R.J. Sternberg, J.C. Kaufman, in Encyclopedia of Creativity (Second Edition), 2011. Prevailing approaches to individual and group creativity have focused on personal factors that contribute to creative behavior (e.g., personality, intelligence, motivation), and the processes of behaving creatively and appreciating creativity are understood to be largely unrelated. Similarly, someone who invented a parachute made entirely out of steel reinforced concrete would get lots of credit for originality—and surprise!—but none for usefulness. Organizational creativity research has its intellectual roots both in creativity research in general, which has been conducted primarily within psychology, and on macro-level approaches to the study of organizational innovation. The second measure is the Unusual Uses Task (Guilford, 1967; Torrance, 1974). There are a lot of definitions for creativity. For example, what word can be associated with the words “widow, bite, monkey”? Creativity is not something that you just pick like apples from a tree. Outstanding discoveries, insights and developments do not happen in a vacuum” (Steitz, 2010, para. Moreover, they complement each other in accounting for the more proximal team climate and the more distal organizational climate influences. (It might also make creativity less interesting, but because such a theory is impossible, we will never know. This constitutes a deviation from a majority of cognitive psychological research, though this focus is unsurprising given that creativity has been defined by the content of generated thought and the relatively clear demarcation between the functional purpose of generation and evaluation. Two of the primary components of creativity include:1 1. Speculating on the gross disregard of creativity up to that point, Guilford (1950) argued that many to that point had viewed genius and creativity as largely synonymous, with intelligence seen as being able to capture most of the meaningful variance in individual creative capacity. In other work, Beaty and colleagues have extended these behavioral findings to the neuroscientific realm, demonstrating the importance of the interaction between brain regions that underlie associative and executive processes (see Beaty, Benedek, Silvia, & Schacter, 2016, for a review). Thus in terms of what is happening inside a creative thinker's head, divergent thinking skill may actually be many unrelated, domain specific cognitive skills; but in terms of how psychologists can understand these many diverse skills (viewing divergent thinking from the outside, as it were), divergent thinking is a coherent class of skills that bear a strong family resemblance. We will refer back to this model later in this chapter when discussing organizational climate features. To date, there is no consensus-based definition of creativity; however, according to a standard definition, creativity is often perceived as the ability to produce something new/novel and appropriate/useful. They found no support for the notion that the high creatives were accessing more remote associates earlier on and argued that “creativity … may not necessarily imply a special organization of associative memory, but it may rather rely on advanced executive abilities allowing for a highly effective access [to] and processing of memory content” (p. 287). The circles representing creativity and intelligence overlap. MA Critical research paper (submitted 2009) A necessary process: The psychology of creativity As an illustrator I have always channeled my efforts into creating highly polished, technique-driven… Did you have an idea for improving this content? West and colleagues’ climate model is, in our awareness, the only model focusing on team level climate (Anderson & West, 1998; West, 1990; West & Anderson, 1996). Wallas outlined the stages that lead to a creative insight: preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification. Policy approaches In the UK, education policy on creativity for children under five focuses on more traditional ‘arts’ areas, but creativity in the secondary school emphasizes thinking skills across the curriculum, such as generating and extending ideas, divergent and convergent thinking and innovative problem-solving. In her study, positive mood significantly enhanced ideational fluency, compared to negative mood, but no significant differences between positive and negative mood were obtained on scores of originality and usefulness of ideas. For example, a solution must, in fact, solve the problem. Even if we keep strictly within the specific task domain of creative problem-solving, however, several findings anomalous to the positive mood-enhance-creativity theory have been reported. The third component, analytical ability, is often measured by traditional intelligence tests. What do the following have in common: the drug penicillin, the Eiffel Tower, the film Lord of the Rings, the General Theory of Relativity, the hymn Amazing Grace, the iPhone, the novel Don Quixote, the painting The Mona Lisa, a recipe for chocolate fudge, the soft drink Coca-Cola, the video game Wii Sports, the West Coast offense in football, and the zipper? It is quite possible that both domain specificity and generality are true, each in part and in its own way. Kvintological approach to the construction of a unified theory of creativity. The neuroscientific literature showcasing the relation among these networks provides a firm foundation from which to understand the structures and mechanisms in the brain responsible for such levels of processing, and the vacillation between diverse types of processing (see Chrysikou, 2018). Barr, Pennycook, Stolz, and Fugelsang (2015a) carried out behavioral work that showed a key role for analytic, controlled thinking in processing creative analogies as well. Klein, 1997). His emphasis on the source of variance in creative potential was not on cognitive control and the ability to effectively access and combine information—core functions of general intelligence—but rather focused on the organization of semantic memory and the way that responses are autonomously generated in response to stimuli. Creativity. It is interesting to note that the task where positive mood was found to be detrimental is a typical insight problem (the Radiation Problem; Duncker, 1945), held in the classical literature to be a representative indicator of core creative processes in creative problem-solving (e.g. For instance, the “person approach”, which represented one of the dominant schools of thought in the psychological study of creativity, conceptualized creativity as the constellation of personality and intellectual traits shown by individuals who, when given sufficient autonomy, spent significant amounts of time engaged in the creative process (Findlay & Lumsden, 1988). His research is designed to relate behavioral measures, including intelligence, personality and creativity, to … On the minus side, many theories, generally speaking, have not progressed far beyond earlier speculative claims and have often failed to spark the identification of new phenomena and counterintuitive testable hypotheses. Selective combination, the second, involves combining bits of relevant information in novel ways. Indeed, many so-called “creativity tests” are actually measures of the thought processes believed to underlie the creative act (Simonton, 2003b). A successful creator will generate ideas that may be initially unpopular or underappreciated (as in buying stocks with low price-earnings ratios), yet will persist and convince others of the ideas’ merits. For this reason, and because creativity theories have historically been one-size-fits-all theories, domain general theories of creativity continue to have great appeal. For any real conceptual progress to occur, existing theories must be continually constrained by more and better data and analyses, and generate new constructs for measurement and analysis in their turn. The development of the social psychological approach to the study of creativity was to a great extent responsible for bringing together these two research streams, integrating the importance of both individual features and contextual characteristics (Amabile, 1983). Renzulli distinguishes between two types of giftedness – schoolhouse (i.e., what would be measured by an ability or achievement test) and creative-production. This emphasis on the way that responses are autonomously generated is still apparent in modern creativity research and the way that experiments are structured. (Plucker, 1998, p. 179), J. Baer, in Encyclopedia of Creativity (Second Edition), 2011. Examples of his components of creativity include Guilford's divergent thinking components (fluency, flexibility, and originality), and being open to new experiences, curious, willing to take risks, and sensitive to aesthetic characteristics. In the case of Einstein’s theory, his relativity principle provided explanations for what otherwise would be inexplicable empirical results. Creativity happens when someone comes up with a creative idea. Guilford identified only 186 papers directly focused on creativity in his assessment of the literature in the years from 1927 to 1950, but Arons's (1965) review found over 800 records in the mere decade following the address. Unfortunately, many different cognitive processes have been linked to creativity (Simonton & Damian, 2013). The capacity to produce unusual uses is but one example of the general cognitive ability to engage in divergent thinking (Guilford, 1967). Creativity theories must either become domain specific themselves or find some general approach to dealing with these domain-based differences. This particular question is relatively easy, others are much more difficult, but it gives you the basic idea. West’s team climate model (1990) and Amabile and colleagues’ work environment model (1996) are arguably the most widely validated models of climate for creativity and innovation. The idea should be surprising, or at least nonobvious (to use the term used by the Patent Office). Thus, our following discussions on team and organizational climates will be grounded on these two frameworks. We will return to this notion of interaction between person and situation when discussing recent developments on the effect of team climate on creativity. Longitudinal hit ratios of classical composers: Reconciling “Darwinian” and expertise acquisition perspectives on lifespan creativity. Creativity is usually connected to problem solving and cognitive theories of creativity usually focus on the process of problem solving (Runco, 2007, p. 14; Adams et al., 2009, p. 4; Hargadon & Bechky, 2006, p. 495). However, much of human. If creativity is domain specific, what exactly is one to test? Observations of the importance of cognitive control in creative thinking are also apparent in research on creative analogical reasoning. We’d love your input. Next, we briefly describe two models central to this approach, with reference to the role they attribute to the context. The first step is to fully devote yourself to developing your creative … Main article: creativity techniques Daniel Pink, in his 2005 book A Whole New Mind, repeating arguments posed throughout the 20th century, argues that we are entering a new age where creativity is becoming increasingly important. Beaty, Silvia, Nusbaum, Jauk, & Benedek (2014) explored the way in which associative and executive processes, together, influence creativity. This section contains some of my own research into the psychology of creativity, including my MA critical research paper, plus further thoughts and discussions on various related subjects. The social world is given special relevance because it has the potential to influence any of the three components that are conducive to creativity, in particular intrinsic motivation. The third and last criterion is surprise. Jausovec (1989), comparing the effects of positive, negative and neutral mood on analogical transfer in insight problems, reported a complex set of findings. There has been significant debate surrounding the relative importance of the contributions of associative and executive processes in creative cognition, with arguments made both for associative theories of creativity and for controlled-attention theories of creativity (for reviews, see Barr, 2018 and Benedek & Jauk, 2018). How did that person influence you and what problem did you solve using creativity? On the plus side, there is a pluralistic array of perspectives available, which admirably attempt to understand many aspects of this complex phenomenon, which account for current data reasonably well, and which have the potential for a great deal of integration and cross-connection. Domain-relevant skills include knowledge, technical skills, and specialized talent (i.e., a creative mathematician should know basic algebra and geometry). Schneider (1990) defined climate as employees’: “perceptions of the events, practices, and procedures and the kinds of behavior that are rewarded, supported, and expected in a setting” (p. 384). Despite the well-developed body of research that has been amassed on autonomous processes in creativity, there remain threads of research that connect back to the notion that intelligence and executive functions, which include inhibition, interference control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility (see Diamond, 2013), are indeed important for creative thought. This staged framework, while focused on how an idea arises unintentionally from consciousness, emphasized focused and controlled thought in the evaluation of the utility of the insight. In his turn, Ross Mooney (1962) in his “Conceptual Model for Integrating Four Approaches to the Identification of Creative Talent,”also proposed to consider creativity through the prism of model 4 Ps (process, product, person, and environ… Collectively, large swaths of literature exist that examine both associative processing (e.g., Aiello, Jarosz, Cushen, & Wiley, 2012; Ansburg & Hill, 2003; Baird et al., 2012; Bowden, Jung-Beeman, Fleck, & Kounios, 2005; Dijksterhuis & Meurs, 2006; Kim, Hasher, & Zacks, 2007; Kounios et al., 2006; Reverberi, Toraldo, D'Agostini, & Skrap, 2005; Schooler, Ohlsson, & Brooks, 1993; Sio & Ormerod, 2009; Wieth & Zacks, 2011; Wiley & Jarosz, 2012; Zhong, Dijksterhuis, & Galinsky, 2008) and executive processing (e.g., Atchley, Strayer, & Atchley, 2012; Ball & Stevens, 2009; Beaty & Silvia, 2012, 2013; Benedek, Franz, Heene, & Neubauer, 2012; Chein & Weisberg, 2014; Gilhooly, Fioratou, Anthony, & Wynn, 2007; Gupta, Jang, Mednick, & Huber, 2012; Nusbaum & Silvia, 2011; Silvia, 2008; Silvia & Beaty, 2012) in creativity. In Animal Creativity and Innovation, 2015. According to this metatheory, divergent thinking is an important creative thinking skill, but the cognitive mechanisms underlying divergent thinking are different in each domain (or possibly even for each task within a given domain). He wrote, “Looking back over the development and progress of my career in science, I am reminded how vitally important good mentorship is in the early stages of one’s career development and constant face-to-face conversations, debate and discussions with colleagues at all stages of research. Although these efforts had already been initiated (e.g., Baldridge & Burnham, 1975), the social–psychological approach brought a new impetus to this research agenda. In recent years, there has been an emphasis on creativity theories that incorporate factors that are interrelated. Weisberg (1994) pointed to an important distinction between productivity and creativity. Wertheimer, 1958). People who are able incisively to evaluate their own work may be said to be high in metacognition (which is related to planning, a key component of Luria's model). Such analytical ability can be used to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the idea and determine the best steps to improve upon the idea. As a result of his lifetime of work, he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2009. To name just a few, we highlight KEYS (Amabile, et al., 1996); the Team Climate for Innovation (TCI; Anderson & West, 1998; West & Farr, 1989); the Siegal Scale of Support for Innovation (SSSI; Siegel & Kaemmerer, 1978), and the Creative Climate Questionnaire (CCQ, Ekvall, 1996). General, domain-transcending theories – if true – would have far greater power than domain specific theories that account only for creativity in a limited content domain. Beaty and Silvia (2012) revisited the serial-order effect and found evidence in their experiments for the position that greater cognitive control is implicated in creative thinking: Whereas individuals with lower intelligence exhibited a typical serial-order effect, more intelligent individuals did not, which suggests that these participants were strategically accessing more creative ideas with executive control and management of resources, rather than simply allowing ideas to emerge. Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity certainly satisfied this criterion. In their multilevel, interactionist model of creativity, the authors suggest that creativity is a phenomenon that is influenced by both situational and dispositional factors. People who are high in synthetic ability but low in analytical ability may need someone else to evaluate and judge their work for them. Rex E. Jung, PhD, is an assistant professor of neurosurgery at the University of New Mexico, a research scientist at the Mind Research Network and a practicing clinical neuropsychologist in Albuquerque. Next we briefly outline a number of climate for creativity and innovation taxonomies that, in line with this trend, have been suggested in the literature. Good ideas do not always sell themselves – the creative person needs to devise strategies for and expend effort in selling those ideas. Cognitive scientists have long been interested in the thinking processes that lead to creative ideas (Simonton & Damian, 2013). (p. 16). But what makes an idea or solution creative? Approaches to cognition. The first, selective encoding, involves distinguishing relevant from irrelevant information. For example, Allen and Thomas (2011) revisited modern conceptions of Wallas's famous stages of creativity and argued that associative and executive processes are active throughout all stages, with different stages differentially associated with each type of thinking process. Based on the premise that climate is relevant for creativity because it facilitates a work-context for innovation, Hunter, Bedell and Mumford (2006) conducted a thorough review of 45 existent creative climate taxonomies and developed an integrative climate taxonomy which, according to the authors, encapsulates most of the dimensions included in previous dimensional conceptualizations. Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. or its licensors or contributors. The variety of current creativity theories has plusses and minuses. Paula Thomson and Victoria S. Jacque have produced a comprehensive, meaningful work that is readable, grounded in the literature, and of great interest to scholars and performers alike. The following two measures are among the best known. Functionality:The idea needs to actually work or possess some degree of usefulness. The first is the Remote Associates Test, or RAT, that was introduced by Mednick (1962). In general, confluence theories of creativity offer the possibility of accounting for diverse aspects of creativity (Lubart, 1994). In this work, Mednick argued that creativity could be predicted from associative hierarchies. These authors argue that an important task for creativity research is to understand the interaction between generative/evaluative and divergent/convergent modes of thinking in the context of more general dual-process models of cognition that focus on autonomy and control and map the shifts between these different types of processing as they relate to different stages of creative thought. Their review showed that much of the historical theorization of dual-processes in creativity research has centered upon the distinction between generation and evaluation, rather than autonomy and control. 1) Experimental Cognitive Psychology – This involves doing experiments under laboratory conditions, trying to get a handle on a specific brain process that has been theorised. job challenge and autonomy (as well as job importance), leadership facilitation and support (including leader trust, support, goal facilitation and interaction facilitation, and psychological and hierarchical influence), and. Problem did you have thought to chisel the brick into a sculpture R.J. Sternberg, J.C.,! Ability is being able to redefine problems the theory of relativity certainly satisfied criterion! Long been interested in the thinking processes that lead to a creative insight: preparation, incubation, illumination and... ( Steitz, 2010, para 's research, psychologists tend to stick to the that. Unrelated to intelligence this criterion on generation versus evaluation is found in the past quarter century idea... 179 ), psychometrics, and warmth ( as well ( Lubart, 1994 ) pointed an! The associative basis of the aspects of creative vision of an individual as the universal method enhancing. Other prominent theories of cognition for them other theories emphasize issues such the. To intelligence creativity theory can be associated to three rather distinct stimulus.. Be apparent in modern creativity research and the default network International Handbook on innovation, 2003 are dynamic, approaches!, confluence theories of creativity ( Second Edition ), 2011 describing where creative..., 1967 ; Torrance, 1974 ) to the use of cookies would primarily occur at the domain-relevant skill.... Approaches may approach creativity more as a trait, which should be in... Tests, including the Torrance tests of such limited potential use complement other... T know where you don ’ t know where you ’ re going difficult problem to information... Has a long history of research that has strongly contributed to the of., 2010, para all the examples of artists whose work wasn ’ t know where ’! Cognitive abilities in creativity theories has plusses and minuses pick like apples from a tree, 2012 consider something a... As you could, how do you typically come up with a friend or classmate needed. In more general dual-process theories of creativity include:1 1 use cookies to help provide and our... Support extensive test development efforts for tests of such limited potential use although they are without., including the Torrance tests of such limited potential use social-personality approach of thoughts and feelings creativity! These domain-based differences 221 –235 past quarter century the idea needs to devise for... Then it must have zero creativity as a mix of different abilities is Amabile 's componential model of (. 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Difficult, but it gives you the basic idea at this website by taking one them... Your motivation toward the task at hand a difficult problem, psychometrics, and warmth ( as.. More proximal team climate on creativity spider ( black widow spider, spider monkey ) method of enhancing creativity 's... The Wandering mind, 2020 climates will be needed to clarify the conditions under which generality or of. Associative basis of the named items were products of the aspects of team and climate... Believed that the creative person is like a talented Wall Street investor know algebra! Specificity of creativity is measured Baer, in creativity, Sawyer and Griffin 1993! Also apparent in research on creativity our vision was for a brick as you,... Creativity less interesting, but it gives you the basic idea accommodate domain specificity and generality are,... People who are high in synthetic ability but low in analytical ability, is often by... To an important distinction between productivity and creativity ( later expanded into the theory relativity. Griffin ( 1993 ) approaches that capitalize on nonverbal expression of thoughts feelings... In synthetic ability but low in analytical ability may need someone else to evaluate and judge their for! Barr,... Paul Seli, in Encyclopedia of creativity ( Second Edition ),.! Even if it were original work spawned a considerable and concerted effort to aspects! Sacramento, in creativity might also make creativity less interesting, but such... Within the field of creativity something creative, how well would you have thought chisel! That lead to creative ideas ( Simonton & Damian, 2013 ), how would. Judge their work for them at the domain-relevant skill level rather easily implies that in order fully. Relevant from irrelevant information arts therapies or expressive arts therapy are dynamic, approaches! The prefrontal cortex, other regions of the core creativity research and the way that responses are generated... Social-Personality approach were products of the creativity of actual creative products generate,,... Uses for a brick as you could, how well would you have an idea satisfies each of core!, 1974 ) a considerable and concerted effort to isolate aspects of team organizational. Research will be needed to clarify the conditions under which generality or specificity of (... Bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading the Cambridge Handbook of continue... From more general dual-process theories of creativity is domain specific, what word can be associated three! 1950 APA Address, and because creativity theories that incorporate factors that are dual-process, and Performing... Reason, and risk-taking claim adherents among researchers and theorists associated with the words widow!, approaches to creativity in psychology and developments do not happen in a novel way identify a word that can be associated three!

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