What means the word creativity

Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and valuable is formed. The created item may be intangible (such as an idea, a scientific theory, a musical composition, or a joke) or a physical object (such as an invention, a printed literary work, or a painting).

Scholarly interest in creativity is found in a number of disciplines, primarily psychology, business studies, and cognitive science. However, it can also be found in education, the humanities (philosophy, the arts) and theology, social sciences (sociology, linguistics, economics), engineering, technology and mathematics. These disciplines cover the relations between creativity and general intelligence, personality type, mental and neural processes, mental health, artificial intelligence; the potential for fostering creativity through education, training, leadership and organizational practices;^[1] the factors that determine how creativity is evaluated and perceived;^[2] the fostering of creativity for national economic benefit; and the application of creative resources to improve the effectiveness of teaching and learning.

Etymology[edit]

The English word creativity comes from the Latin term creare, «to create, make»: its derivational suffixes also come from Latin. The word «create» appeared in English as early as the 14th century, notably in Chaucer (in The Parson’s Tale^[3]), to indicate divine creation.^[4]

However, its modern meaning as an act of human creation did not emerge until after the Enlightenment.^[4]

Definition[edit]

In a summary of scientific research into creativity, Michael Mumford suggested: «Over the course of the last decade, however, we seem to have reached a general agreement that creativity involves the production of novel, useful products» (Mumford, 2003, p. 110),^[5] or, in Robert Sternberg’s words, the production of «something original and worthwhile».^[6] Authors have diverged dramatically in their precise definitions beyond these general commonalities: Peter Meusburger estimates that over a hundred different definitions can be found in the literature, typically elaborating on the context (field, organisation, environment etc.) which determines the originality and/or appropriateness of the created object, and the processes through which it came about.^[7] As an illustration, one definition given by Dr. E. Paul Torrance in the context of assessing an individual’s creative ability, described it as «a process of becoming sensitive to problems, deficiencies, gaps in knowledge, missing elements, disharmonies, and so on; identifying the difficulty; searching for solutions, making guesses, or formulating hypotheses about the deficiencies: testing and retesting these hypotheses and possibly modifying and retesting them; and finally communicating the results.»^[8]

Creativity in general is usually distinguished from innovation in particular, where the stress is on implementation. For example, Teresa Amabile and Pratt (2016) define creativity as production of novel and useful ideas and innovation as implementation of creative ideas,^[9] while the OECD and Eurostat state that «Innovation is more than a new idea or an invention. An innovation requires implementation, either by being put into active use or by being made available for use by other parties, firms, individuals or organisations.»^[10]

There is also an emotional creativity^[11] which is described as a pattern of cognitive abilities and personality traits related to originality and appropriateness in emotional experience.^[12]

Aspects[edit]

Theories of creativity (particularly investigation of why some people are more creative than others) have focused on a variety of aspects. The dominant factors are usually identified as «the four Ps» – process, product, person, and place/press, a framework first put forward by Mel Rhodes.^[13] A focus on process is shown in cognitive approaches that try to describe thought mechanisms and techniques for creative thinking. Theories invoking divergent rather than convergent thinking (such as Guilford), or those describing the staging of the creative process (such as Wallas) are primarily theories of creative process. A focus on creative product usually appears in attempts to assess creative output, whether for psychometrics (see below) or in understanding why some objects are considered creative. It is from a consideration of product that the standard definition of creativity as the production of something novel and useful arises.^[14]
A focus on the nature of the creative person considers more general intellectual habits, such as openness, levels of ideation, autonomy, expertise, exploratory behavior, and so on. A focus on place (sometimes called press) considers the circumstances in which creativity flourishes, such as degrees of autonomy, access to resources, and the nature of gatekeepers. Creative lifestyles are characterized by nonconforming attitudes and behaviors as well as flexibility.^[15]

In 2013, based on a sociocultural critique of the Four P model as individualistic, static, and decontextualised, Glǎveanu proposed a «five A’s» model consisting of actor, action, artifact, audience, and affordance.^[16] In this model, the actor is the person with attributes, but also located within social networks; action is the process of creativity not only in internal cognitive terms, but also external, bridging the gap between ideation and implentation; artifact emphasises how creative products typically represent cumulative innovations over time rather than abrupt discontinuities; and «press/place» is divided into audience and affordance, which consider the interdependence of the creative individual with the social and material world respectively. Although not supplanting the four Ps model in creativity research, the five As model has exerted influence over the direction of some creativity research,^[17] and has been credited with bringing coherence to studies across a number of creative domains.^[18]

Conceptual history[edit]

Ancient[edit]

Most ancient cultures, including thinkers of Ancient Greece,^[19] Ancient China, and Ancient India,^[20] lacked the concept of creativity, seeing art as a form of discovery and not creation. The ancient Greeks had no terms corresponding to «to create» or «creator» except for the expression «poiein» («to make»), which only applied to poiesis (poetry) and to the poietes (poet, or «maker») who made it. Plato did not believe in art as a form of creation. Asked in The Republic,^[21] «Will we say, of a painter, that he makes something?», he answers, «Certainly not, he merely imitates.»^[19]

It is commonly argued that the notion of «creativity» originated in Western cultures through Christianity, as a matter of divine inspiration.^[4] According to the historian Daniel J. Boorstin, «the early Western conception of creativity was the Biblical story of creation given in the Genesis.»^[22] However, this is not creativity in the modern sense, which did not arise until the Renaissance. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, creativity was the sole province of God; humans were not considered to have the ability to create something new except as an expression of God’s work.^[23] A concept similar to that of Christianity existed in Greek culture. For instance, Muses were seen as mediating inspiration from the Gods.^[24] Romans and Greeks invoked the concept of an external creative «daemon» (Greek) or «genius» (Latin), linked to the sacred or the divine. However, none of these views are similar to the modern concept of creativity, and the rejection of creativity in favor of discovery and the belief that individual creation was a conduit of the divine would dominate the West probably until the Renaissance and even later.^[23][25]

Renaissance[edit]

It was during the Renaissance that creativity was first seen, not as a conduit for the divine, but from the abilities of «great men».^[25] The development of the modern concept of creativity began in the Renaissance, when creation began to be perceived as having originated from the abilities of the individual and not God. This could be attributed to the leading intellectual movement of the time, aptly named humanism, which developed an intensely human-centric outlook on the world, valuing the intellect and achievement of the individual.^[26] From this philosophy arose the Renaissance man (or polymath), an individual who embodies the principals of humanism in their ceaseless courtship with knowledge and creation.^[27] One of the most well-known and immensely accomplished examples is Leonardo da Vinci.

Enlightenment and thereafter[edit]

However, the shift from divine inspiration to the abilities of the individual was gradual and would not become immediately apparent until the Enlightenment.^[25] By the 18th century and the Age of Enlightenment, mention of creativity (notably in aesthetics), linked with the concept of imagination, became more frequent.^[28] In the writing of Thomas Hobbes, imagination became a key element of human cognition;^[4] William Duff was one of the first to identify imagination as a quality of genius, typifying the separation being made between talent (productive, but breaking no new ground) and genius.^[24]

As a direct and independent topic of study, creativity effectively received no attention until the 19th century.^[24] Runco and Albert argue that creativity as the subject of proper study began seriously to emerge in the late 19th century with the increased interest in individual differences inspired by the arrival of Darwinism. In particular, they refer to the work of Francis Galton, who through his eugenicist outlook took a keen interest in the heritability of intelligence, with creativity taken as an aspect of genius.^[4]

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, leading mathematicians and scientists such as Hermann von Helmholtz (1896) and Henri Poincaré (1908) began to reflect on and publicly discuss their creative processes.

Modern[edit]

The insights of Poincaré and von Helmholtz were built on in early accounts of the creative process by pioneering theorists such as Graham Wallas^[29] and Max Wertheimer. In his work Art of Thought, published in 1926, Wallas presented one of the first models of the creative process. In the Wallas stage model, creative insights and illuminations may be explained by a process consisting of five stages:

(i) preparation (preparatory work on a problem that focuses the individual’s mind on the problem and explores the problem’s dimensions),

(ii) incubation (where the problem is internalized into the unconscious mind and nothing appears externally to be happening),

(iii) intimation (the creative person gets a «feeling» that a solution is on its way),

(iv) illumination or insight (where the creative idea bursts forth from its preconscious processing into conscious awareness);

(v) verification (where the idea is consciously verified, elaborated, and then applied).

Wallas’ model is often treated as four stages, with «intimation» seen as a sub-stage.

Wallas considered creativity to be a legacy of the evolutionary process, which allowed humans to quickly adapt to rapidly changing environments. Simonton^[30] provides an updated perspective on this view in his book, Origins of genius: Darwinian perspectives on creativity.

In 1927, Alfred North Whitehead gave the Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh, later published as Process and Reality.^[31] He is credited with having coined the term «creativity» to serve as the ultimate category of his metaphysical scheme: «Whitehead actually coined the term – our term, still the preferred currency of exchange among literature, science, and the arts… a term that quickly became so popular, so omnipresent, that its invention within living memory, and by Alfred North Whitehead of all people, quickly became occluded».^[32]

Although psychometric studies of creativity had been conducted by The London School of Psychology as early as 1927 with the work of H. L. Hargreaves into the Faculty of Imagination,^[33] the formal psychometric measurement of creativity, from the standpoint of orthodox psychological literature, is usually considered to have begun with J. P. Guilford’s address to the American Psychological Association in 1950.^[34] The address helped to popularize the study of creativity and to focus attention on scientific approaches to conceptualizing creativity. Statistical analyses led to the recognition of creativity (as measured) as a separate aspect of human cognition to IQ-type intelligence, into which it had previously been subsumed. Guilford’s work suggested that above a threshold level of IQ, the relationship between creativity and classically measured intelligence broke down.^[35]

«Four C» model[edit]

James C. Kaufman and Beghetto introduced a «four C» model of creativity; mini-c («transformative learning» involving «personally meaningful interpretations of experiences, actions, and insights»), little-c (everyday problem solving and creative expression), Pro-C (exhibited by people who are professionally or vocationally creative though not necessarily eminent) and Big-C (creativity considered great in the given field). This model was intended to help accommodate models and theories of creativity that stressed competence as an essential component and the historical transformation of a creative domain as the highest mark of creativity. It also, the authors argued, made a useful framework for analyzing creative processes in individuals.^[36]

The contrast of terms «Big C» and «Little c» has been widely used. Kozbelt, Beghetto and Runco use a little-c/Big-C model to review major theories of creativity.^[35] Margaret Boden distinguishes between h-creativity (historical) and p-creativity (personal).^[37]

Robinson^[38] and Anna Craft^[39] have focused on creativity in a general population, particularly with respect to education. Craft makes a similar distinction between «high» and «little c» creativity^[39] and cites Ken Robinson as referring to «high» and «democratic» creativity. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi^[40] has defined creativity in terms of those individuals judged to have made significant creative, perhaps domain-changing contributions. Simonton has analysed the career trajectories of eminent creative people in order to map patterns and predictors of creative productivity.^[41]

Process theories[edit]

There has been much empirical study in psychology and cognitive science of the processes through which creativity occurs. Interpretation of the results of these studies has led to several possible explanations of the sources and methods of creativity.

Incubation[edit]

Incubation is a temporary break from creative problem solving that can result in insight.^[42] There has been some empirical research looking at whether, as the concept of «incubation» in Wallas’ model implies, a period of interruption or rest from a problem may aid creative problem-solving. Early work proposed that creative solutions to problems arise mysteriously from the unconscious mind while the conscious mind is occupied on other tasks.^[43]
This hypothesis is discussed in Csikszentmihalyi’s five-phase model of the creative process which describes incubation as a time that your unconscious takes over. This was supposed to allow for unique connections to be made without our consciousness trying to make logical order out of the problem.^[44]

Ward^[45] lists various hypotheses that have been advanced to explain why incubation may aid creative problem-solving, and notes how some empirical evidence is consistent with a different hypothesis: Incubation aids creative problem in that it enables «forgetting» of misleading clues. Absence of incubation may lead the problem solver to become fixated on inappropriate strategies of solving the problem.^[46]

Convergent and divergent thinking[edit]

J. P. Guilford^[47] drew a distinction between convergent and divergent production (commonly renamed convergent and divergent thinking). Convergent thinking involves aiming for a single, correct solution to a problem, whereas divergent thinking involves creative generation of multiple answers to a set problem. Divergent thinking is sometimes used as a synonym for creativity in psychology literature or is considered the necessary precursor to creativity.^[48] Other researchers have occasionally used the terms flexible thinking or fluid intelligence, which are roughly similar to (but not synonymous with) creativity.^[49]

Creative cognition approach[edit]

In 1992, Finke et al. proposed the «Geneplore» model, in which creativity takes place in two phases: a generative phase, where an individual constructs mental representations called «preinventive» structures, and an exploratory phase where those structures are used to come up with creative ideas. ^[50] Some evidence shows that when people use their imagination to develop new ideas, those ideas are heavily structured in predictable ways by the properties of existing categories and concepts.^[51] Weisberg^[52] argued, by contrast, that creativity only involves ordinary cognitive processes yielding extraordinary results.

The Explicit–Implicit Interaction (EII) theory[edit]

Helie and Sun^[53] more recently proposed a unified framework for understanding creativity in problem solving, namely the Explicit–Implicit Interaction (EII) theory of creativity. This new theory constitutes an attempt at providing a more unified explanation of relevant phenomena (in part by reinterpreting/integrating various fragmentary existing theories of incubation and insight).

The EII theory relies mainly on five basic principles, namely:

1. The co-existence of and the difference between explicit and implicit knowledge;
2. The simultaneous involvement of implicit and explicit processes in most tasks;
3. The redundant representation of explicit and implicit knowledge;
4. The integration of the results of explicit and implicit processing;
5. The iterative (and possibly bidirectional) processing.

A computational implementation of the theory was developed based on the CLARION cognitive architecture and used to simulate relevant human data. This work represents an initial step in the development of process-based theories of creativity encompassing incubation, insight, and various other related phenomena.

Conceptual blending[edit]

In The Act of Creation, Arthur Koestler introduced the concept of bisociation – that creativity arises as a result of the intersection of two quite different frames of reference.^[54] This idea was later developed into conceptual blending. In the 1990s, various approaches in cognitive science that dealt with metaphor, analogy, and structure mapping have been converging, and a new integrative approach to the study of creativity in science, art and humor has emerged under the label conceptual blending.

Honing theory[edit]

Honing theory, developed principally by psychologist Liane Gabora, posits that creativity arises due to the self-organizing, self-mending nature of a worldview. The creative process is a way in which the individual hones (and re-hones) an integrated worldview. Honing theory places emphasis not only on the externally visible creative outcome but also the internal cognitive restructuring and repair of the worldview brought about by the creative process. When faced with a creatively demanding task, there is an interaction between the conception of the task and the worldview. The conception of the task changes through interaction with the worldview, and the worldview changes through interaction with the task. This interaction is reiterated until the task is complete, at which point not only is the task conceived of differently, but the worldview is subtly or drastically transformed as it follows the natural tendency of a worldview to attempt to resolve dissonance and seek internal consistency amongst its components, whether they be ideas, attitudes, or bits of knowledge.

A central feature of honing theory is the notion of a potentiality state.^[55] Honing theory posits that creative thought proceeds not by searching through and randomly ‘mutating’ predefined possibilities, but by drawing upon associations that exist due to overlap in the distributed neural cell assemblies that participate in the encoding of experiences in memory. Midway through the creative process one may have made associations between the current task and previous experiences, but not yet disambiguated which aspects of those previous experiences are relevant to the current task. Thus the creative idea may feel ‘half-baked’. It is at that point that it can be said to be in a potentiality state, because how it will actualize depends on the different internally or externally generated contexts it interacts with.

Honing theory is held to explain certain phenomena not dealt with by other theories of creativity – for example, how different works by the same creator are observed in studies to exhibit a recognizable style or ‘voice’, even in different creative outlets. This is not predicted by theories of creativity that emphasize chance processes or the accumulation of expertise, but it is predicted by honing theory, according to which personal style reflects the creator’s uniquely structured worldview. Another example is in the environmental stimulus for creativity. Creativity is commonly considered to be fostered by a supportive, nurturing, trustworthy environment conducive to self-actualization. However, research shows that creativity is also associated with childhood adversity, which would stimulate honing.

Everyday imaginative thought[edit]

In everyday thought, people often spontaneously imagine alternatives to reality when they think «if only…».^[56] Their counterfactual thinking is viewed as an example of everyday creative processes.^[57] It has been proposed that the creation of counterfactual alternatives to reality depends on similar cognitive processes to rational thought.^[58]

Dialectical theory of creativity[edit]

The term «dialectical theory of creativity» dates back to psychoanalyst Daniel Dervin^[59] and was later developed into an interdisciplinary theory.^[60] The dialectical theory of creativity starts with the antique concept that creativity takes place in an interplay between order and chaos. Similar ideas can be found in neurosciences and psychology. Neurobiologically, it can be shown that the creative process takes place in a dynamic interplay between coherence and incoherence that leads to new and usable neuronal networks. Psychology shows how the dialectics of convergent and focused thinking with divergent and associative thinking leads to new ideas and products.^[61] Also, creative personality traits like the ‘Big Five’ seem to be dialectically intertwined in the creative process: emotional instability vs. stability, extraversion vs. introversion, openness vs. reserve, agreeableness vs. antagonism, and disinhibition vs. constraint.^[62] The dialectical theory of creativity applies also to counseling and psychotherapy.^[63]

Neuroeconomic framework for creative cognition[edit]

Lin and Vartanian developed a framework that provides an integrative neurobiological description of creative cognition.^[64] This interdisciplinary framework integrates theoretical principles and empirical results from neuroeconomics, reinforcement learning, cognitive neuroscience, and neurotransmission research on the locus coeruleus system. It describes how decision-making processes studied by neuroeconomists as well as activity in the locus coeruleus system underlie creative cognition and the large-scale brain network dynamics associated with creativity.^[65] It suggests that creativity is an optimization and utility-maximization problem that requires individuals to determine the optimal way to exploit and explore ideas (multi-armed bandit problem). This utility maximization process is thought to be mediated by the locus coeruleus system^[66] and this creativity framework describes how tonic and phasic locus coerulues activity work in conjunction to facilitate the exploiting and exploring of creative ideas. This framework not only explains previous empirical results but also makes novel and falsifiable predictions at different levels of analysis (ranging from neurobiological to cognitive and personality differences).

Behaviorism theory of creativity[edit]

Skinner attributed creativity to accidental behaviors that are reinforced by the environment.^[67] Spontaneous behaviors done by living creatures reflect past learned behavior.^[68] In Karen Pryor’s book Don’t Shoot the Dog she refers to how she reinforced a dolphin to display novel behaviors. This is what one can attribute to both those who are creative and those who appreciate creativity. A behaviorist may say that prior learning caused novel behaviors to be reinforced many times over and the individual has been shaped to produce increasingly novel behaviors.^[69] A creative person, according to this definition, would be someone who has been reinforced more often for novel behaviors than others. Behaviorists would also suggest that anyone can be creative, they just need to be reinforced to learn to produce novel behaviors.

Personal assessment[edit]

Psychometric approaches[edit]

J. P. Guilford’s group,^[47] which pioneered the modern psychometric study of creativity, constructed several performance-based tests to measure creativity in 1967:

• Plot Titles, where participants are given the plot of a story and asked to write original titles.
• Quick Responses is a word-association test scored for uncommonness.
• Figure Concepts, where participants were given simple drawings of objects and individuals and asked to find qualities or features that are common by two or more drawings; these were scored for uncommonness.
• Unusual Uses is finding unusual uses for common everyday objects such as bricks.
• Remote Associations, where participants are asked to find a word between two given words (e.g. Hand _____ Call)
• Remote Consequences, where participants are asked to generate a list of consequences of unexpected events (e.g. loss of gravity)

Originally, Guilford was trying to create a model for intellect as a whole, but in doing so also created a model for creativity. Guilford made an important assumption for creative research: creativity is not one abstract concept.  The idea that creativity is a category rather than one single concept opened up the ability for other researchers to look at creativity with a whole new perspective.^[70][71]

Additionally, Guilford hypothesized one of the first models for the components of creativity.  He explained that creativity was a result of having:

1. Sensitivity to problems, or the ability to recognize problems;
2. Fluency, which encompasses

   a. Ideational fluency, or the ability rapidly to produce a variety of ideas that fulfill stated requirements;

   b. Associational fluency, or the ability to generate a list of words, each of which is associated with a given word;

   c. Expressional fluency, or the ability to organize words into larger units, such as phrases, sentences, and paragraphs;

3. Flexibility, which encompasses

   a. Spontaneous flexibility, or the ability to demonstrate flexibility;

   b. Adaptive flexibility, or the ability to produce responses that are novel and high in quality.

This represents the base model by which several researchers would take and alter to produce their new theories of creativity years later.^[70] Building on Guilford’s work, tests were developed, sometimes called Divergent Thinking (DT) tests have been both supported^[72] and criticized.^[73] For example, Torrance^[74] developed the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking in 1966.^[75] They involved task of divergent thinking and other problem-solving skills, which were scored on:

• Fluency – The total number of interpretable, meaningful, and relevant ideas generated in response to the stimulus.
• Originality – The statistical rarity of the responses among the test subjects.
• Elaboration – The amount of detail in the responses.

Considerable progress has been made in automated scoring of divergent thinking tests using semantic approach. When compared to human raters, NLP techniques were shown to be reliable and valid in scoring the originality.^[76][77] The reported computer programs were able to achieve a correlation of 0.60 and 0.72 respectively to human graders.

Semantic networks were also used to devise originality scores that yielded significant correlations with socio-personal measures.^[78] Most recently, an NSF-funded^[79] team of researchers led by James C. Kaufman and Mark A. Runco^[80] combined expertise in creativity research, natural language processing, computational linguistics, and statistical data analysis to devise a scalable system for computerized automated testing (SparcIt Creativity Index Testing system). This system enabled automated scoring of DT tests that is reliable, objective, and scalable, thus addressing most of the issues of DT tests that had been found and reported.^[73] The resultant computer system was able to achieve a correlation of 0.73 to human graders.^[81]

[edit]

Some researchers have taken a social-personality approach to the measurement of creativity. In these studies, personality traits such as independence of judgement, self-confidence, attraction to complexity, aesthetic orientation, and risk-taking are used as measures of the creativity of individuals.^[34] A meta-analysis by Gregory Feist showed that creative people tend to be «more open to new experiences, less conventional and less conscientious, more self-confident, self-accepting, driven, ambitious, dominant, hostile, and impulsive.» Openness, conscientiousness, self-acceptance, hostility, and impulsivity had the strongest effects of the traits listed.^[82] Within the framework of the Big Five model of personality, some consistent traits have emerged.^[83] Openness to experience has been shown to be consistently related to a whole host of different assessments of creativity.^[84] Among the other Big Five traits, research has demonstrated subtle differences between different domains of creativity. Compared to non-artists, artists tend to have higher levels of openness to experience and lower levels of conscientiousness, while scientists are more open to experience, conscientious, and higher in the confidence-dominance facets of extraversion compared to non-scientists.^[82]

Self-report questionnaires[edit]

An alternative is using biographical methods. These methods use quantitative characteristics such as the number of publications, patents, or performances of a work. While this method was originally developed for highly creative personalities, today it is also available as self-report questionnaires supplemented with frequent, less outstanding creative behaviors such as writing a short story or creating your own recipes. For example, the Creative Achievement Questionnaire, a self-report test that measures creative achievement across 10 domains, was described in 2005 and shown to be reliable and valid when compared to other measures of creativity and to independent evaluation of creative output.^[85] Besides the English original, it was also used in a Chinese,^[86] French,^[87] and German-speaking^[88] version. It is the self-report questionnaire most frequently used in research.^[86]

Intelligence[edit]

The potential relationship between creativity and intelligence has been of interest since the late 1900s, when a multitude of influential studies – from Getzels & Jackson,^[89] Barron,^[90] Wallach & Kogan,^[91] and Guilford^[92] – focused not only on creativity, but also on intelligence. This joint focus highlights both the theoretical and practical importance of the relationship: researchers are interested not only if the constructs are related, but also how and why.^[93]

There are multiple theories accounting for their relationship, with the three main theories as follows:

• Threshold Theory – Intelligence is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for creativity. There is a moderate positive relationship between creativity and intelligence until IQ ~120.^[90][92]
• Certification Theory – Creativity is not intrinsically related to intelligence. Instead, individuals are required to meet the requisite level intelligence in order to gain a certain level of education/work, which then in turn offers the opportunity to be creative. Displays of creativity are moderated by intelligence.^[94]
• Interference Theory – Extremely high intelligence might interfere with creative ability.^[95]

Sternberg and O’Hara^[96] proposed a framework of five possible relationships between creativity and intelligence:

1. Creativity is a subset of intelligence
2. Intelligence is a subset of creativity
3. Creativity and intelligence are overlapping constructs
4. Creativity and intelligence are part of the same construct (coincident sets)
5. Creativity and intelligence are distinct constructs (disjoint sets)

Creativity as a subset of intelligence[edit]

A number of researchers include creativity, either explicitly or implicitly, as a key component of intelligence.

Examples of theories that include creativity as a subset of intelligence

• Sternberg’s Theory of Successful intelligence^[95][96][97] (see Triarchic theory of intelligence) includes creativity as a main component, and comprises three sub-theories: Componential (Analytic), Contextual (Practical), and Experiential (Creative). Experiential sub-theory – the ability to use pre-existing knowledge and skills to solve new and novel problems – is directly related to creativity.
• The Cattell–Horn–Carroll theory includes creativity as a subset of intelligence. Specifically, it is associated with the broad group factor of long-term storage and retrieval (Glr). Glr narrow abilities relating to creativity include:^[98] ideational fluency, associational fluency, and originality/creativity. Silvia et al.^[99] conducted a study to look at the relationship between divergent thinking and verbal fluency tests, and reported that both fluency and originality in divergent thinking were significantly affected by the broad level Glr factor. Martindale^[100] extended the CHC-theory in the sense that it was proposed that those individuals who are creative are also selective in their processing speed. Martindale argues that in the creative process, larger amounts of information are processed more slowly in the early stages, and as the individual begins to understand the problem, the processing speed is increased.
• The Dual Process Theory of Intelligence^[101] posits a two-factor/type model of intelligence. Type 1 is a conscious process, and concerns goal directed thoughts, which are explained by g. Type 2 is an unconscious process, and concerns spontaneous cognition, which encompasses daydreaming and implicit learning ability. Kaufman argues that creativity occurs as a result of Type 1 and Type 2 processes working together in combination. The use of each type in the creative process can be used to varying degrees.

Intelligence as a subset of creativity[edit]

In this relationship model, intelligence is a key component in the development of creativity.

Theories of creativity that include intelligence as a subset of creativity

• Sternberg & Lubart’s Investment Theory.^[102][103] Using the metaphor of a stock market, they demonstrate that creative thinkers are like good investors – they buy low and sell high (in their ideas). Like under/low-valued stock, creative individuals generate unique ideas that are initially rejected by other people. The creative individual has to persevere, and convince the others of the ideas value. After convincing the others, and thus increasing the ideas value, the creative individual ‘sells high’ by leaving the idea with the other people, and moves onto generating another idea. According to this theory, six distinct, but related elements contribute to successful creativity: intelligence, knowledge, thinking styles, personality, motivation, and environment. Intelligence is just one of the six factors that can either solely, or in conjunction with the other five factors, generate creative thoughts.
• Amabile’s Componential Model of Creativity.^[104][105] In this model, there are three within-individual components needed for creativity – domain-relevant skills, creativity-relevant processes, and task motivation – and 1 component external to the individual: their surrounding social environment. Creativity requires a confluence of all components. High creativity will result when an individual is: intrinsically motivated, possesses both a high level of domain-relevant skills and has high skills in creative thinking, and is working in a highly creative environment.
• Amusement Park Theoretical Model.^[106] In this four-step theory, both domain-specific and generalist views are integrated into a model of creativity. The researchers make use of the metaphor of the amusement park to demonstrate that within each of these creative levels, intelligence plays a key role:
  • To get into the amusement park, there are initial requirements (e.g., time/transport to go to the park). Initial requirements (like intelligence) are necessary, but not sufficient for creativity. They are more like prerequisites for creativity, and if an individual does not possess the basic level of the initial requirement (intelligence), then they will not be able to generate creative thoughts/behaviour.
  • Secondly are the subcomponents – general thematic areas – that increase in specificity. Like choosing which type of amusement park to visit (e.g. a zoo or a water park), these areas relate to the areas in which someone could be creative (e.g. poetry).
  • Thirdly, there are specific domains. After choosing the type of park to visit e.g. waterpark, you then have to choose which specific park to go to. Within the poetry domain, there are many different types (e.g. free verse, riddles, sonnet, etc.) that have to be selected from.
  • Lastly, there are micro-domains. These are the specific tasks that reside within each domain e.g. individual lines in a free verse poem / individual rides at the waterpark.

Creativity and intelligence as overlapping yet distinct constructs[edit]

This possible relationship concerns creativity and intelligence as distinct, but intersecting constructs.

Theories that include Creativity and Intelligence as Overlapping Yet Distinct Constructs

• Renzulli’s Three-Ring Conception of Giftedness.^[107] In this conceptualisation, giftedness occurs as a result from the overlap of above average intellectual ability, creativity, and task commitment. Under this view, creativity and intelligence are distinct constructs, but they do overlap under the correct conditions.
• PASS theory of intelligence. In this theory, the planning component – relating to the ability to solve problems, make decisions and take action – strongly overlaps with the concept of creativity.^[108]
• Threshold Theory (TT). A number of previous research findings have suggested that a threshold exists in the relationship between creativity and intelligence – both constructs are moderately positively correlated up to an IQ of ~120. Above this threshold of an IQ of 120, if there is a relationship at all, it is small and weak.^{[89][90][109]} TT posits that a moderate level of intelligence is necessary for creativity.

In support of the TT, Barron^[90][110] reported finding a non-significant correlation between creativity and intelligence in a gifted sample and a significant correlation in a non-gifted sample. Yamamoto^[111] in a sample of secondary school children, reported a significant correlation between creativity and intelligence of r = 0.3, and reported no significant correlation when the sample consisted of gifted children. Fuchs-Beauchamp et al.^[112] in a sample of preschoolers found that creativity and intelligence correlated from r = 0.19 to r = 0.49 in the group of children who had an IQ below the threshold; and in the group above the threshold, the correlations were r = <0.12. Cho et al.^[113] reported a correlation of 0.40 between creativity and intelligence in the average IQ group of a sample of adolescents and adults; and a correlation of close to r = 0.0 for the high IQ group. Jauk et al.^[114] found support for the TT, but only for measures of creative potential, not creative performance.

Much modern day research reports findings against TT. Wai et al.^[115] in a study using data from the longitudinal Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth – a cohort of elite students from early adolescence into adulthood – found that differences in SAT scores at age 13 were predictive of creative real-life outcomes 20 years later. Kim’s^[116] meta-analysis of 21 studies did not find any supporting evidence for TT, and instead negligible correlations were reported between intelligence, creativity, and divergent thinking both below and above IQ’s of 120. Preckel et al.,^[117] investigating fluid intelligence and creativity, reported small correlations of r = 0.3 to r = 0.4 across all levels of cognitive ability.

Creativity and intelligence as coincident sets[edit]

Under this view, researchers posit that there are no differences in the mechanisms underlying creativity in those used in normal problem solving; and in normal problem solving, there is no need for creativity. Thus, creativity and Intelligence (problem solving) are the same thing. Perkins^[118] referred to this as the ‘nothing-special’ view.

Weisberg & Alba^[119] examined problem solving by having participants complete the nine dots puzzle – where the participants are asked to connect all nine dots in the three rows of three dots using four straight lines or less, without lifting their pen or tracing the same line twice. The problem can only be solved if the lines go outside the boundaries of the square of dots. Results demonstrated that even when participants were given this insight, they still found it difficult to solve the problem, thus showing that to successfully complete the task it is not just insight (or creativity) that is required.

Creativity and intelligence as disjoint sets[edit]

In this view, creativity and intelligence are completely different, unrelated constructs.

Getzels and Jackson^[89] administered five creativity measures to a group of 449 children from grades 6–12, and compared these test findings to results from previously administered (by the school) IQ tests. They found that the correlation between the creativity measures and IQ was r = 0.26. The high creativity group scored in the top 20% of the overall creativity measures, but were not included in the top 20% of IQ scorers. The high intelligence group scored the opposite: they scored in the top 20% for IQ, but were outside the top 20% scorers for creativity, thus showing that creativity and intelligence are distinct and unrelated.

However, this work has been heavily criticised. Wallach and Kogan^[91] highlighted that the creativity measures were not only weakly related to one another (to the extent that they were no more related to one another than they were with IQ), but they seemed to also draw upon non-creative skills. McNemar^[120] noted that there were major measurement issues, in that the IQ scores were a mixture from three different IQ tests.

Wallach and Kogan^[91] administered five measures of creativity, each of which resulted in a score for originality and fluency; and 10 measures of general intelligence to 151 5th grade children. These tests were untimed, and given in a game-like manner (aiming to facilitate creativity). Inter-correlations between creativity tests were on average r = 0.41. Inter-correlations between intelligence measures were on average r = 0.51 with each other. Creativity tests and intelligence measures correlated r = 0.09.

Neuroscience[edit]

The neuroscience of creativity looks at the operation of the brain during creative behaviour. It has been addressed^[121] in the article «Creative Innovation: Possible Brain Mechanisms». The authors write that «creative innovation might require coactivation and communication between regions of the brain that ordinarily are not strongly connected.» Highly creative people who excel at creative innovation tend to differ from others in three ways:

• they have a high level of specialized knowledge,
• they are capable of divergent thinking mediated by the frontal lobe.
• and they are able to modulate neurotransmitters such as norepinephrine in their frontal lobe.

Thus, the frontal lobe appears to be the part of the cortex that is most important for creativity.

This article also explored the links between creativity and sleep, mood and addiction disorders, and depression.

In 2005, Alice Flaherty presented a three-factor model of the creative drive. Drawing from evidence in brain imaging, drug studies and lesion analysis, she described the creative drive as resulting from an interaction of the frontal lobes, the temporal lobes, and dopamine from the limbic system. The frontal lobes can be seen as responsible for idea generation, and the temporal lobes for idea editing and evaluation. Abnormalities in the frontal lobe (such as depression or anxiety) generally decrease creativity, while abnormalities in the temporal lobe often increase creativity. High activity in the temporal lobe typically inhibits activity in the frontal lobe, and vice versa. High dopamine levels increase general arousal and goal directed behaviors and reduce latent inhibition, and all three effects increase the drive to generate ideas.^[122] A 2015 study on creativity found that it involves the interaction of multiple neural networks, including those that support associative thinking, along with other default mode network functions.^[123]

Similarly, in 2018, Lin and Vartanian proposed a neuroeconomic framework that precisely describes norepinephrine’s role in creativity and modulating large-scale brain networks associated with creativity.^[64] This framework describes how neural activity in different brain regions and networks like the default mode network are tracking utility or subjective value of ideas.

In 2018, experiments showed that when the brain suppresses obvious or ‘known’ solutions, the outcome is solutions that are more creative. This suppression is mediated by alpha oscillations in the right temporal lobe.^[124]

Working memory and the cerebellum[edit]

Vandervert^[125] described how the brain’s frontal lobes and the cognitive functions of the cerebellum collaborate to produce creativity and innovation. Vandervert’s explanation rests on considerable evidence that all processes of working memory (responsible for processing all thought^[126]) are adaptively modeled for increased efficiency by the cerebellum.^[127] The cerebellum (consisting of 100 billion neurons, which is more than the entirety of the rest of the brain^[128]) is also widely known to adaptively model all bodily movement for efficiency. The cerebellum’s adaptive models of working memory processing are then fed back to especially frontal lobe working memory control processes^[129] where creative and innovative thoughts arise.^[130] (Apparently, creative insight or the «aha» experience is then triggered in the temporal lobe.^[131])

According to Vandervert, the details of creative adaptation begin in «forward» cerebellar models which are anticipatory/exploratory controls for movement and thought. These cerebellar processing and control architectures have been termed Hierarchical Modular Selection and Identification for Control (HMOSAIC).^[132] New, hierarchically arranged levels of the cerebellar control architecture (HMOSAIC) develop as mental mulling in working memory is extended over time. These new levels of the control architecture are fed forward to the frontal lobes. Since the cerebellum adaptively models all movement and all levels of thought and emotion,^[133] Vandervert’s approach helps explain creativity and innovation in sports, art, music, the design of video games, technology, mathematics, the child prodigy, and thought in general.

Essentially, Vandervert has argued that when a person is confronted with a challenging new situation, visual-spatial working memory and speech-related working memory are decomposed and re-composed (fractionated) by the cerebellum and then blended in the cerebral cortex in an attempt to deal with the new situation. With repeated attempts to deal with challenging situations, the cerebro-cerebellar blending process continues to optimize the efficiency of how working memory deals with the situation or problem.^[134] Most recently, he has argued that this is the same process (only involving visual-spatial working memory and pre-language vocalization) that led to the evolution of language in humans.^[135] Vandervert and Vandervert-Weathers have pointed out that this blending process, because it continuously optimizes efficiencies, constantly improves prototyping attempts toward the invention or innovation of new ideas, music, art, or technology.^[136] Prototyping, they argue, not only produces new products, it trains the cerebro-cerebellar pathways involved to become more efficient at prototyping itself. Further, Vandervert and Vandervert-Weathers believe that this repetitive «mental prototyping» or mental rehearsal involving the cerebellum and the cerebral cortex explains the success of the self-driven, individualized patterning of repetitions initiated by the teaching methods of the Khan Academy. The model proposed by Vandervert has, however, received incisive critique from several authors.^[137][138]

REM sleep[edit]

Creativity involves the forming of associative elements into new combinations that are useful or meet some requirement. Sleep aids this process.^[139] REM rather than NREM sleep appears to be responsible.^[140][141] This has been suggested to be due to changes in cholinergic and noradrenergic neuromodulation that occurs during REM sleep.^[140] During this period of sleep, high levels of acetylcholine in the hippocampus suppress feedback from the hippocampus to the neocortex, and lower levels of acetylcholine and norepinephrine in the neocortex encourage the spread of associational activity within neocortical areas without control from the hippocampus.^[142] This is in contrast to waking consciousness, where higher levels of norepinephrine and acetylcholine inhibit recurrent connections in the neocortex. It is proposed that REM sleep aids creativity by allowing «neocortical structures to reorganize associative hierarchies, in which information from the hippocampus would be reinterpreted in relation to previous semantic representations or nodes.»^[140]

Affect[edit]

Some theories suggest that creativity may be particularly susceptible to affective influence. As noted in voting behavior, the term «affect» in this context can refer to liking or disliking key aspects of the subject in question. This work largely follows from findings in psychology regarding the ways in which affective states are involved in human judgment and decision-making.^[143]

Positive affect relations[edit]

According to Alice Isen, positive affect has three primary effects on cognitive activity:

1. Positive affect makes additional cognitive material available for processing, increasing the number of cognitive elements available for association;
2. Positive affect leads to defocused attention and a more complex cognitive context, increasing the breadth of those elements that are treated as relevant to the problem;
3. Positive affect increases cognitive flexibility, increasing the probability that diverse cognitive elements will in fact become associated. Together, these processes lead positive affect to have a positive influence on creativity.

Barbara Fredrickson in her broaden-and-build model suggests that positive emotions such as joy and love broaden a person’s available repertoire of cognitions and actions, thus enhancing creativity.

According to these researchers, positive emotions increase the number of cognitive elements available for association (attention scope) and the number of elements that are relevant to the problem (cognitive scope). Day-by-day psychological experiences including emotions, perceptions, and motivation will significantly impact creative performance. Creativity is higher when emotions and perceptions are more positive and when intrinsic motivation is stronger.^[144]

Various meta-analyses, such as Baas et al. (2008) of 66 studies about creativity and affect support the link between creativity and positive affect.^[145][146]

Computational creativity[edit]

Jürgen Schmidhuber’s formal theory of creativity^[147][148] postulates that creativity, curiosity, and interestingness are by-products of a simple computational principle for measuring and optimizing learning progress. Consider an agent able to manipulate its environment and thus its own sensory inputs. The agent can use a black box optimization method such as reinforcement learning to learn (through informed trial and error) sequences of actions that maximize the expected sum of its future reward signals. There are extrinsic reward signals for achieving externally given goals, such as finding food when hungry. But Schmidhuber’s objective function to be maximized also includes an additional, intrinsic term to model «wow-effects». This non-standard term motivates purely creative behavior of the agent even when there are no external goals. A wow-effect is formally defined as follows. As the agent is creating and predicting and encoding the continually growing history of actions and sensory inputs, it keeps improving the predictor or encoder, which can be implemented as an artificial neural network or some other machine learning device that can exploit regularities in the data to improve its performance over time. The improvements can be measured precisely, by computing the difference in computational costs (storage size, number of required synapses, errors, time) needed to encode new observations before and after learning. This difference depends on the encoder’s present subjective knowledge, which changes over time, but the theory formally takes this into account. The cost difference measures the strength of the present «wow-effect» due to sudden improvements in data compression or computational speed. It becomes an intrinsic reward signal for the action selector. The objective function thus motivates the action optimizer to create action sequences causing more wow-effects. Irregular, random data (or noise) do not permit any wow-effects or learning progress, and thus are «boring» by nature (providing no reward). Already known and predictable regularities also are boring. Temporarily interesting are only the initially unknown, novel, regular patterns in both actions and observations. This motivates the agent to perform continual, open-ended, active, creative exploration. Schmidhuber’s work is highly influential in intrinsic motivation which has emerged as a research topic in its own right as part of the study of artificial intelligence and robotics.

According to Schmidhuber, his objective function explains the activities of scientists, artists, and comedians.^[149][150]
For example, physicists are motivated to create experiments leading to observations obeying previously unpublished physical laws permitting better data compression. Likewise, composers receive intrinsic reward for creating non-arbitrary melodies with unexpected but regular harmonies that permit wow-effects through data compression improvements.
Similarly, a comedian gets intrinsic reward for «inventing a novel joke with an unexpected punch line, related to the beginning of the story in an initially unexpected but quickly learnable way that also allows for better compression of the perceived data.»^[151]
Schmidhuber argues that ongoing computer hardware advances will greatly scale up rudimentary artificial scientists and artists^{[clarification needed]} based on simple implementations of the basic principle since 1990.^[152]
He used the theory to create low-complexity art^[153] and an attractive human face.^[154]

Creativity and mental health[edit]

A study by psychologist J. Philippe Rushton found creativity to correlate with intelligence and psychoticism.^[155] Another study found creativity to be greater in people with schizotypal personality disorder than in people with either schizophrenia or those without mental health conditions. While divergent thinking was associated with bilateral activation of the prefrontal cortex, schizotypal individuals were found to have much greater activation of their right prefrontal cortex.^[156] This study hypothesizes that such individuals are better at accessing both hemispheres, allowing them to make novel associations at a faster rate. Consistent with this hypothesis, ambidexterity is also more common in people with schizotypal personality disorder and schizophrenia. Three studies by Mark Batey and Adrian Furnham have demonstrated the relationships between schizotypal personalty disorder^[157][158] and hypomanic personality^[159] and several different measures of creativity.

Particularly strong links have been identified between creativity and mood disorders, particularly manic-depressive disorder (a.k.a. bipolar disorder) and depressive disorder (a.k.a. unipolar disorder). In Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament, Kay Redfield Jamison summarizes studies of mood-disorder rates in writers, poets, and artists. She also explores research that identifies mood disorders in such famous writers and artists as Ernest Hemingway (who shot himself after electroconvulsive treatment), Virginia Woolf (who drowned herself when she felt a depressive episode coming on), composer Robert Schumann (who died in a mental institution), and even the famed visual artist Michelangelo.

A study looking at 300,000 persons with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or unipolar depression, and their relatives, found overrepresentation in creative professions for those with bipolar disorder as well as for undiagnosed siblings of those with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. There was no overall overrepresentation, but overrepresentation for artistic occupations, among those diagnosed with schizophrenia. There was no association for those with unipolar depression or their relatives.^[160]

Another study involving more than one million people, conducted by Swedish researchers at the Karolinska Institute, reported a number of correlations between creative occupations and mental illnesses. Writers had a higher risk of anxiety and bipolar disorders, schizophrenia, unipolar depression, and substance abuse, and were almost twice as likely as the general population to kill themselves. Dancers and photographers were also more likely to have bipolar disorder.^[161]

As a group, those in the creative professions were no more likely to have psychiatric disorders than other people, although they were more likely to have a close relative with a disorder, including anorexia and, to some extent, autism, the Journal of Psychiatric Research reports.^[161]

People who have worked in the arts industry throughout history have faced many environmental factors that are associated with and can sometimes influence mental illness. Including things such as poverty, persecution, social alienation, psychological trauma, substance abuse, and high stress.^[162] In fact, according to psychologist Robert Epstein, PhD, creativity can be obstructed through stress.^[163] So, while research has found that people are the most creative in positive moods,^[164] it might be pursuing a career that causes some problems.

Conversely, research has shown that creative activities such as art therapy, poetry writing, journaling, and reminiscence can promote mental well-being.^[165][166]

Bipolar Disorders and Creativity[edit]

Nancy Andreasen was one of the first known researchers to carry out a large scale study revolving around creativity and whether mental illnesses have an impact on someone’s ability to be creative. Originally she had expected to find a link between creativity and schizophrenia but her research sample had no real history of schizophrenia from the book authors she pooled. Her findings instead showed that 80% of the creative group had previously had some form of mental illness episode in their lifetime.^[167] When she performed follow up studies over a 15-year period, she found that 43% of the authors had bipolar disorder compared to the 1% of the general public that has the disease. In 1989 there was another study done by Kay Redfield Jamison that reaffirmed those statistics by having 38% of her sample of authors having a history of mood disorders.^[168] Anthony Storr who is a prominent psychiatrist remarked that, «The creative process can be a way of protecting the individual against being overwhelmed by depression, a means of regaining a sense of mastery in those who have lost it, and, to a varying extent, a way of repairing the self-damaged by bereavement or by the loss of confidence in human relationships which accompanies depression from whatever cause.»^[167]

According to a study done by Shapiro and Weisberg, there appears to be a positive correlation between the manic upswings of the cycles of bipolar disorder and the ability for an individual to be more creative.^[169] The data that they had collected and analyzed through multiple tests showed that it was in fact not the depressive swing that many believe to bring forth dark creative spurts, but the act of climbing out of the depressive episode that sparked creativity. The reason behind this spur of creative genius could come from the type of self-image that the person has during a time of hypomania. A hypomanic person may be feeling a bolstered sense of self-confidence, creative confidence, and sense of individualism.^[169]

In reports from people who were diagnosed with bipolar disorder they noted themselves as having a larger range of emotional understanding, heightened states of perception, and an ability to connect better with those in the world around them.^[170] Other reported traits include higher rates of productivity, higher senses of self-awareness, and a greater understanding of empathy. Those who have bipolar disorder also understand their own sense of heightened creativity and ability to get immense amounts of tasks done all at once. McCraw, Parker, Fletcher, & Friend (2013) report that out of 219 participants (aged 19 to 63) that have been diagnosed bipolar disorder 82% of them reported having elevated feelings of creativity during the hypomanic swings.^[171]

Giannouli believes that the creativity a person diagnosed with bipolar disorder feels comes as a form of «stress management».^[172] In the realm of music, one might be expressing their stress or pains through the pieces they write in order to better understand those same feelings. Famous authors and musicians along with some actors would often attribute their wild enthusiasm to something like a hypomanic state.^[173] The artistic side of society has also been notorious for behaviors that are seen as maladapted to societal norms. Side effects that come with bipolar disorder match up with many of the behaviors that we see in high-profile creative personalities; these include, but are not limited to, alcohol addiction, drug abuse including stimulants, depressants, hallucinogens and dissociatives, opioids, inhalants, and cannabis, difficulties in holding regular occupations, interpersonal problems, legal issues, and a high risk of suicide.^[173]

Weisberg believes that the state of mania sets «free the powers of a thinker». What he implies here is that not only has the person become more creative they have fundamentally changed the kind of thoughts they produce.^[174] In a study done of poets, who seem to have especially high percentages of bipolar authors, it was found that over a period of three years those poets would have cycles of really creative and powerful works of poetry. The timelines over the three-year study looked at the poet’s personal journals and their clinical records and found that the timelines between their most powerful poems matched that of their upswings in bipolar disorder.^[174]

Personality[edit]

Creativity can be expressed in a number of different forms, depending on unique people and environments. A number of different theorists have suggested models of the creative person. One model suggests that there are four «Creativity Profiles» that can help produce growth, innovation, speed, etc.^[175]

(i) Incubate (Long-term Development)

(ii) Imagine (Breakthrough Ideas)

(iii) Improve (Incremental Adjustments)

(iv) Invest (Short-term Goals)

Research by Dr Mark Batey of the Psychometrics at Work Research Group at Manchester Business School has suggested that the creative profile can be explained by four primary creativity traits with narrow facets within each

(i) «Idea Generation» (Fluency, Originality, Incubation and Illumination)

(ii) «Personality» (Curiosity and Tolerance for Ambiguity)

(iii) «Motivation» (Intrinsic, Extrinsic and Achievement)

(iv) «Confidence» (Producing, Sharing and Implementing)

This model was developed in a sample of 1000 working adults using the statistical techniques of Exploratory Factor Analysis followed by Confirmatory Factor Analysis by Structural Equation Modelling.^[176]

An important aspect of the creativity profiling approach is to account for the tension between predicting the creative profile of an individual, as characterised by the psychometric approach, and the evidence that team creativity is founded on diversity and difference.^[177]

One characteristic of creative people, as measured by some psychologists, is what is called divergent production. Divergent production is the ability of a person to generate a diverse assortment, yet an appropriate amount of responses to a given situation.^[178] One way of measuring divergent production is by administering the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking.^[179] The Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking assesses the diversity, quantity, and appropriateness of participants responses to a variety of open-ended questions.

Other researchers of creativity see the difference in creative people as a cognitive process of dedication to problem solving and developing expertise in the field of their creative expression. Hard working people study the work of people before them and within their current area, become experts in their fields, and then have the ability to add to and build upon previous information in innovative and creative ways. In a study of projects by design students, students who had more knowledge on their subject on average had greater creativity within their projects.^[180] Other researchers emphasize how creative people are better at balancing between divergent and convergent production, which depends on an individual’s innate preference or ability to explore and exploit ideas.^[64]

The aspect of motivation within a person’s personality may predict creativity levels in the person. Motivation stems from two different sources, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is an internal drive within a person to participate or invest as a result of personal interest, desires, hopes, goals, etc. Extrinsic motivation is a drive from outside of a person and might take the form of payment, rewards, fame, approval from others, etc. Although extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation can both increase creativity in certain cases, strictly extrinsic motivation often impedes creativity in people.^[181]

From a personality-traits perspective, there are a number of traits that are associated with creativity in people.^[182] Creative people tend to be more open to new experiences, are more self-confident, are more ambitious, self-accepting, impulsive, driven, dominant, and hostile, compared to people with less creativity.

From an evolutionary perspective, creativity may be a result of the outcome of years of generating ideas. As ideas are continuously generated, the need to evolve produces a need for new ideas and developments. As a result, people have been creating and developing new, innovative, and creative ideas to build our progress as a society.^[183]

In studying exceptionally creative people in history, some common traits in lifestyle and environment are often found. Creative people in history usually had supportive parents, but rigid and non-nurturing. Most had an interest in their field at an early age, and most had a highly supportive and skilled mentor in their field of interest. Often the field they chose was relatively uncharted, allowing for their creativity to be expressed more in a field with less previous information. Most exceptionally creative people devoted almost all of their time and energy into their craft, and after about a decade had a creative breakthrough of fame. Their lives were marked with extreme dedication and a cycle of hard-work and breakthroughs as a result of their determination.^[184]

Another theory of creative people is the investment theory of creativity. This approach suggest that there are many individual and environmental factors that must exist in precise ways for extremely high levels of creativity opposed to average levels of creativity. In the investment sense, a person with their particular characteristics in their particular environment may see an opportunity to devote their time and energy into something that has been overlooked by others. The creative person develops an undervalued or under-recognised idea to the point that it is established as a new and creative idea. Just like in the financial world, some investments are worth the buy in, while others are less productive and do not build to the extent that the investor expected. This investment theory of creativity views creativity in a unique perspective compared to others, by asserting that creativity might rely to some extent on the right investment of effort being added to a field at the right time in the right way.^[185]

Malevolent creativity[edit]

So called malevolent creativity is associated with the «dark side» of creativity.^[186][187] This type of creativity is not typically accepted within society and is defined by the intention to cause harm to others through original and innovative means. Malevolent creativity should be distinguished from negative creativity in that negative creativity may unintentionally cause harm to others, whereas malevolent creativity is explicitly malevolently motivated. While it is often associated with criminal behaviour, it can also be observed in ordinary day-to-day life as lying, cheating and betrayal.^[188]

Crime[edit]

Malevolent creativity is often a key contributor to crime and in its most destructive form can even manifest as terrorism. As creativity requires deviating from the conventional, there is a permanent tension between being creative and producing products that go too far and in some cases to the point of breaking the law. Aggression is a key predictor of malevolent creativity, and studies have also shown that increased levels of aggression also correlates to a higher likelihood of committing crime.^[189]

Predictive factors[edit]

Although everyone shows some levels of malevolent creativity under certain conditions, those that have a higher propensity towards it have increased tendencies to deceive and manipulate others to their own gain. While malevolent creativity appears to dramatically increase when an individual is placed under unfair conditions, personality, particularly aggressiveness, is also a key predictor in anticipating levels of malevolent thinking. Researchers Harris and Reiter-Palmon investigated the role of aggression in levels of malevolent creativity, in particular levels of implicit aggression and the tendency to employ aggressive actions in response to problem solving. The personality traits of physical aggression, conscientiousness, emotional intelligence and implicit aggression all seem to be related with malevolent creativity.^[187] Harris and Reiter-Palmon’s research showed that when subjects were presented with a problem that triggered malevolent creativity, participants high in implicit aggression and low in premeditation expressed the largest number of malevolently-themed solutions. When presented with the more benign problem that triggered prosocial motives of helping others and cooperating, those high in implicit aggression, even if they were high in impulsiveness, were far less destructive in their imagined solutions. They concluded premeditation, more than implicit aggression controlled an individual’s expression of malevolent creativity.^[190]

The current measure for malevolent creativity is the 13-item test Malevolent Creativity Behaviour Scale (MCBS).^[188]

Cultural differences in creativity[edit]

Creativity is viewed differently in different countries.^[191] For example, cross-cultural research centered on Hong Kong found that Westerners view creativity more in terms of the individual attributes of a creative person, such as their aesthetic taste, while Chinese people view creativity more in terms of the social influence of creative people (i.e., what they can contribute to society).^[192] Mpofu et al. surveyed 28 African languages and found that 27 had no word which directly translated to ‘creativity’ (the exception being Arabic).^[193] The principle of linguistic relativity (i.e., that language can affect thought) suggests that the lack of an equivalent word for ‘creativity’ may affect the views of creativity among speakers of such languages. However, more research would be needed to establish this, and there is certainly no suggestion that this linguistic difference makes people any less (or more) creative; Africa has a rich heritage of creative pursuits such as music, art, and storytelling. Nevertheless, it is true that there has been very little research on creativity in Africa,^[194] and there has also been very little research on creativity in Latin America.^[195] Creativity has been more thoroughly researched in the northern hemisphere, but here again there are cultural differences, even between countries or groups of countries in close proximity. For example, in Scandinavian countries, creativity is seen as an individual attitude which helps in coping with life’s challenges,^[196] while in Germany, creativity is seen more as a process that can be applied to help solve problems.^[197]

Organizational creativity[edit]

It has been the topic of various research studies to establish that organizational effectiveness depends on the creativity of the workforce to a large extent. For any given organization, measures of effectiveness vary, depending upon its mission, environmental context, nature of work, the product or service it produces, and customer demands. Thus, the first step in evaluating organizational effectiveness is to understand the organization itself – how it functions, how it is structured, and what it emphasizes.

Amabile^[198] and Sullivan and Harper^[199] argued that to enhance creativity in business, three components were needed:

• Expertise (technical, procedural and intellectual knowledge),
• Creative thinking skills (how flexibly and imaginatively people approach problems),
• and Motivation (especially intrinsic motivation).

There are two types of motivation:

• extrinsic motivation – external factors, for example threats of being fired or money as a reward,
• intrinsic motivation – comes from inside an individual, satisfaction, enjoyment of work, etc.

Six managerial practices to encourage motivation are:

• Challenge – matching people with the right assignments;
• Freedom – giving people autonomy choosing means to achieve goals;
• Resources – such as time, money, space, etc. There must be balance fit among resources and people;
• Work group features – diverse, supportive teams, where members share the excitement, willingness to help, and recognize each other’s talents;
• Supervisory encouragement – recognitions, cheering, praising;
• Organizational support – value emphasis, information sharing, collaboration.

Nonaka, who examined several successful Japanese companies, similarly saw creativity and knowledge creation as being important to the success of organizations.^[200] In particular, he emphasized the role that tacit knowledge has to play in the creative process.

In business, originality is not enough. The idea must also be appropriate – useful and actionable.^[198][201] Creative competitive intelligence is a new solution to solve this problem. According to Reijo Siltala it links creativity to innovation process and competitive intelligence to creative workers.

Creativity can be encouraged in people and professionals and in the workplace. It is essential for innovation, and is a factor affecting economic growth and businesses. In 2013, the sociologist Silvia Leal Martín, using the Innova 3DX method, suggested measuring the various parameters that encourage creativity and innovation: corporate culture, work environment, leadership and management, creativity, self-esteem and optimism, locus of control and learning orientation, motivation, and fear.^[202]

Similarly, social psychologists, organizational scientists, and management scientists (who conduct extensive research on the factors that influence creativity and innovation in teams and organizations) have developed integrative theoretical models that emphasize the roles of team composition, team processes, and organizational culture. These theoretical models also emphasize the mutually reinforcing relationships between them in promoting innovation.^{[203][204][205][206]}

The investigation by Sai Loo, an academic and author of research monographs,^[207] on creative working in the knowledge economy brings together studies of creativity as described in this web page. It offers connections with the sections on the ‘»Four C» model’, ‘Theories of creative processes’, ‘Creativity as a subset of intelligence’, ‘Creativity and personality’, and ‘In organisations’. It is the last section that the investigation addresses.

Research studies of the knowledge economy may be classified into three levels: macro, meso and micro. Macro studies refer to investigations at a societal or transnational dimension. Meso studies focus on organisations. Micro investigations centre on the minutiae workings of workers. There is also an interdisciplinary dimension such as research from businesses,^[208][209] economics,^{[210][211][212]} education,^[213][214] human resource management,^[215] knowledge and organizational management,^{[216][217][218]} sociology, psychology, and knowledge economy-related sectors – especially information technology (IT) software^[219][220] and advertising.^[221][222]

Loo studies how individual workers in the knowledge economy use their creativity and know-how in the advertising and IT software sectors. It examines this phenomenon across three developed countries of England, Japan, and Singapore to observe global perspectives. Specifically, the study uses qualitative data from semi-structured interviews of the related professionals in the roles of creative directing and copywriting (in advertising), and systems software developing and software programme managing.^[207]

The study^[207] offers a conceptual framework of a two-dimensional matrix of individual and collaborative working styles, and single and multi-contexts. The investigation draws on literature sources from the four disciplines of economics,^[223][224] management,^{[225][226][227]} sociology,^{[228][229][230][231][232]} and psychology.^[233][234] The themes arising from the analysis of knowledge work and creativity literature serve to create a distinct theoretical framework of creative knowledge work. These workers apply their cognitive abilities, creative personalities and skill sets in the areas of science, technology, or culture industries to invent or discover new possibilities – e.g. a medium, product or service. These work activities may be done individually or collectively. Education, training and ‘encultured environments’ are necessary for the performance of these creative activities. Acts of creativity are viewed as asking new questions over and above those questions asked by an intelligent person, seeking novelty when reviewing a situation,^[235] and creating something that is different and novel, i.e. a ‘variation’ on the idea of existing ideas in a domain.^[236] This framework is evidenced by the empirical chapters on the micro-workings of creative workers in the two knowledge economy sectors from global perspectives.

This investigation identifies a definition of creative work, three types of work and the necessary conditions for it to occur. These workers use a combination of creative applications including anticipatory imagination, problem-solving, problem seeking, and generating ideas and aesthetic sensibilities. Taking aesthetic sensibilities as an example, for a creative director in the advertising industry, it is a visual imagery whether still or moving via a camera lens, and for a software programmer, it is the innovative technical expertise in which the software is written. There are specific creative applications for each of the sectors such as emotional connection in the advertising sector, and the power of expression and sensitivity in the IT software sector. In addition to the creative applications, creative workers require abilities and aptitudes to carry out their roles. Passion for one’s job is generic. For copywriters, this passion is identified with fun, enjoyment and happiness alongside attributes such as honesty (regarding the product), confidence, and patience in finding the appropriate copy. Knowledge is also required in the disciplines of the humanities (e.g. literature), the creative arts (e.g. painting and music) and technical-related know-how (e.g. mathematics, computer sciences and physical sciences). In the IT software, technical knowledge of computer languages (e.g. C++) is especially significant for programmers whereas the degree of technical expertise may be less for a programme manager, as only knowledge of the relevant language is necessary to understand the issues for communicating with the team of developers and testers.

There are three types of work. One is intra-sectoral (e.g. ‘general sponge’ and ‘in tune with the zeitgeist’ [advertising], and ‘power of expression’ and ‘sensitivity’ [IT software]). The second is inter-sectoral (e.g. ‘integration of advertising activities’ [advertising], and ‘autonomous decentralized systems’ [ADS] [IT software]). The third relates to changes in culture/practices in the sectors (e.g. ‘three-dimensional trust’ and ‘green credentials’ [advertising], and ‘collaboration with HEIs and industry’ and ‘ADS system in the Tokyo train operator’ [IT software]).

The necessary conditions for creative work to exist are a supportive environment such as supportive information, communications and electronic technologies (ICET) infrastructure, training, work environment and education.

This investigation has implications for lifelong learning of these workers informally and formally. Teaching institutions need to offer multi-disciplinary knowledge of humanities, arts and sciences and it has impacts on the programme structure, delivery approaches and assessments. At a macro level, governments need to offer a rich diet of cultural activities, outdoor activities and sports fixtures that inform potential creative workers in the areas of video gaming and advertising. This study has implications for work organisations that support and encourage collaborative working alongside individual working, offer opportunities to engage in continuous professional development (formally and informally), and foster an environment, which promotes experiential functioning and supports experimentation.

Team composition[edit]

Diversity between team members’ backgrounds and knowledge can increase team creativity by expanding the total collection of unique information that is available to the team and by introducing different perspectives that can integrate in novel ways. However, under some conditions, diversity can also decrease team creativity by making it more difficult for team members to communicate about ideas and causing interpersonal conflicts between those with different perspectives.^[237] Thus, the potential advantages of diversity must be supported by appropriate team processes and organizational cultures in order to enhance creativity.^{[203][204][205][206][238][239]} Recent study by An Zeng et al.^[240] found that studies of fresh research teams is associated with higher creativity or originality.

Team processes[edit]

Team communication norms, such as respecting others’ expertise, paying attention to others’ ideas, expecting information sharing, tolerating disagreements, negotiating, remaining open to others’ ideas, learning from others, and building on each other’s ideas, increase team creativity by facilitating the social processes involved with brainstorming and problem solving. Through these processes, team members are able to access their collective pool of knowledge, reach shared understandings, identify new ways of understanding problems or tasks, and make new connections between ideas. Engaging in these social processes also promotes positive team affect, which facilitates collective creativity.^{[203][205][206][238]}

Organizational culture[edit]

Supportive and motivational environments that create psychological safety by encouraging risk taking and tolerating mistakes increase team creativity as well.^{[203][204][205][206]} Organizations in which help-seeking, help giving, and collaboration are rewarded promote innovation by providing opportunities and contexts in which team processes that lead to collective creativity can occur.^[241] Additionally, leadership styles that downplay status hierarchies or power differences within an organization and empower people to speak up about their ideas or opinions also help to create cultures that are conducive to creativity.^{[203][204][205][206]}

Constraints[edit]

There is a long-standing debate on how material constraints (e.g., lack of money, materials, or equipment) affect creativity. In psychological and managerial research, two competing views in this regard prevail. In one view, many scholars propose a negative effect of material constraints on innovation and claim that material constraints starve creativity.^[242] The proponents of this view argue that adequate material resources are needed to engage in creative activities like experimenting with new solutions and idea exploration.^[242] In an opposing view, scholars assert that people tend to stick to established routines or solutions as long as they are not forced to deviate from them by constraints.^{[243][244][245]} In this sense, Neren posits that scarcity is an important driver of creativity.^[246] Consistently, Gibbert and Scranton demonstrated how material constraints facilitated the development of jet engines in World War II.^[247]

To reconcile these competing views, contingency models were proposed.^{[248][249][250]} The rationale behind these models is that certain contingency factors (e.g., creativity climate or creativity relevant skills) influence the relationship between constraints and creativity.^[248] These contingency factors reflect the need for higher levels of motivation and skills when working on creative tasks under constraints.^[248] Depending on these contingency factors, there is either a positive or negative relationship between constraints and creativity.^[248][249]

The sociology of creativity[edit]

Creativity research for most of the twentieth century was dominated by psychology and business studies, with little work done in sociology as a discipline. While since the turn of the millennium, there has been more attention paid by sociological researchers,^[251][252] it has yet to establish itself as a specific research field, with reviews of sociological research into creativity a rarity in high impact literature.^[253]

While psychology has tended to focus on the individual as the locus of creativity, sociological research is directed more at the structures and context within which creative activity takes place, primarily based in the more long-standing field of the sociology of culture, which finds its roots in the works of Marx, Durkheim, and Weber. This has meant a particular focus on the cultural and creative industries as sociological phenomena. Such research has covered a variety of areas, including the economics and production of culture, the role of creative industries in development, and the rise of the «creative class».^[254]

Economic views[edit]

Economic approaches to creativity have focussed on three aspects – the impact of creativity on economic growth, methods of modelling markets for creativity, and the maximisation of economic creativity (innovation).

In the early 20th century, Joseph Schumpeter introduced the economic theory of creative destruction, to describe the way in which old ways of doing things are endogenously destroyed and replaced by the new. Some economists (such as Paul Romer) view creativity as an important element in the recombination of elements to produce new technologies and products and, consequently, economic growth. Creativity leads to capital, and creative products are protected by intellectual property laws.

Mark A. Runco and Daniel Rubenson have tried to describe a «psychoeconomic» model of creativity.^[255] In such a model, creativity is the product of endowments and active investments in creativity; the costs and benefits of bringing creative activity to market determine the supply of creativity. Such an approach has been criticised for its view of creativity consumption as always having positive utility, and for the way it analyses the value of future innovations.^[256]

The creative class is seen by some to be an important driver of modern economies. In his 2002 book, The Rise of the Creative Class, economist Richard Florida popularized the notion that regions with «3 T’s of economic development: Technology, Talent and Tolerance» also have high concentrations of creative professionals and tend to have a higher level of economic development.^[257]

Fostering creativity[edit]

Several different researchers have proposed methods of increasing the creativity of an individual. Such ideas range from the psychological-cognitive, such as Osborn-Parnes Creative Problem Solving Process, Synectics, science-based creative thinking, Purdue Creative Thinking Program, and Edward de Bono’s lateral thinking; to the highly structured, such as TRIZ (the Theory of Inventive Problem-Solving) and its variant Algorithm of Inventive Problem Solving (developed by the Russian scientist Genrich Altshuller), and Computer-Aided morphological analysis.

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. In this conceptual age, we will need to foster and encourage right-directed thinking (representing creativity and emotion) over left-directed thinking (representing logical, analytical thought). However, this simplification of ‘right’ versus ‘left’ brain thinking is not supported by the research data.^[258]

Nickerson^[259] provides a summary of the various creativity techniques that have been proposed. These include approaches that have been developed by both academia and industry:

1. Establishing purpose and intention
2. Building basic skills
3. Encouraging acquisitions of domain-specific knowledge
4. Stimulating and rewarding curiosity and exploration
5. Building motivation, especially internal motivation
6. Encouraging confidence and a willingness to take risks
7. Focusing on mastery and self-competition
8. Promoting supportable beliefs about creativity
9. Providing opportunities for choice and discovery
10. Developing self-management (metacognitive skills)
11. Teaching techniques and strategies for facilitating creative performance
12. Providing balance

Managing the need for closure[edit]

Experiments suggest the need for closure of task participants, whether as a reflection of personality or induced (through time pressure), negatively impacts creativity.^[260] Accordingly, it has been suggested that reading fiction, which can reduce the cognitive need for closure, may help to encourage creativity.^[261]

Education policies[edit]

Some see the conventional system of schooling as stifling of creativity and attempt (particularly in the preschool/kindergarten and early school years) to provide a creativity-friendly, rich, imagination-fostering environment for young children.^{[259][262][263]} Researchers have seen this as important because technology is advancing our society at an unprecedented rate and creative problem solving will be needed to cope with these challenges as they arise.^[263] In addition to helping with problem solving, creativity also helps students identify problems where others have failed to do so.^{[259][262][264]} See the Waldorf School as an example of an education program that promotes creative thought.

Promoting intrinsic motivation and problem solving are two areas where educators can foster creativity in students. Students are more creative when they see a task as intrinsically motivating, valued for its own sake.^{[262][263][265][266]} To promote creative thinking, educators need to identify what motivates their students and structure teaching around it. Providing students with a choice of activities to complete allows them to become more intrinsically motivated and therefore creative in completing the tasks.^[259][267]

Teaching students to solve problems that do not have well defined answers is another way to foster their creativity. This is accomplished by allowing students to explore problems and redefine them, possibly drawing on knowledge that at first may seem unrelated to the problem in order to solve it.^{[259][262][263][265]} In adults, mentoring individuals is another way to foster their creativity.^[268] However, the benefits of mentoring creativity apply only to creative contributions considered great in a given field, not to everyday creative expression.^[88]

Musical creativity is a gateway to the flow state. A place conducive to spontaneity, improvisation, and creativity. Recent studies have shown that we should emphasize students’ creative side and integrate more creativity into their curriculums. A reason for this is that «Students aiming to express themselves and connect with peers through music will be able to tap into higher-order brain regions during improvisation rather than limiting themselves to the areas seen for rudimentary pattern generator» (Landau, 2017:30). Schools should teach this Buddhist philosophy to help musicians, for example, better understand what’s happening when you’re in a creative process and ways to realize it better. In this sense, an improvisation is a form of self-expression that can generate connectivity amongst peers and surpasses the age-old rudimentary aspects of school.

Scotland[edit]

In the Scottish education system, creativity is identified as a core skillset for learning, life and work and is defined as «a process which generates ideas that have value to the individual. It involves looking at familiar things with a fresh eye, examining problems with an open mind, making connections, learning from mistakes and using imagination to explore new possibilities.»^[269] The need to develop a shared language and understanding of creativity and its role across every aspect of learning, teaching and continuous improvement was identified as a necessary aim^[270] and a set of four skills is used to allow educators to discuss and develop creativity skills across all subjects and sectors of education – curiosity, open-mindedness, imagination and problem solving.^[271] Distinctions are made between creative learning (when learners are using their creativity skills), creative teaching (when educators are using their creativity skills) and creative change (when creativity skills are applied to planning and improvement). [1] Scotland’s national Creative Learning Plan^[272] supports the development of creativity skills in all learners and of educators’ expertise in developing creativity skills. A range of resources have been created to support and assess this [2] including a national review of creativity across learning by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate for Education.^[269]

Academic journals[edit]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Kaufman, James C.; Sternberg, Robert J., eds. (2019). The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity (Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology) (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1316638545.
• Glǎveanu, Vlad Petre, ed. (2019). The Creativity Reader. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190841713.
• Craft, A. (2005). Creativity in Schools: tensions and dilemmas. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-32414-4.
• Boden, Margaret (2004). The Creative Mind: Myths And Mechanisms. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-297-82069-7.
• Amabile, Teresa M. (1996). Creativity in Context: Update to the Social Psychology of Creativity. Routledge. ISBN 9780813330341.
• J. P. Guilford’s 1950 inaugural speech to the American Psychological Association, reproduced in Guilford, Joy Paul (1950). «Creativity». American Psychologist. 5 (9): 444–454. doi:10.1037/h0063487. PMID 14771441.
• Wallas, Graham (1926). The Art of Thought. Jonathan Cape.

Creativity is a process involving the generation of new ideas or concepts, or new associations between existing ideas or concepts, and their substantiation into a product that has novelty and originality. From a scientific point of view, the products of creative thought (sometimes referred to as divergent thought) are usually considered to have both «originality» and «appropriateness.» An alternative, more everyday conception of creativity is that it is simply the act of making something new.

Although intuitively a simple phenomenon, creativity is in fact quite complex. It has been studied from numerous perspectives, including psychology, social psychology, psychometrics, artificial intelligence, philosophy, history, economics, and business. Unlike many phenomena in science, there is no single, authoritative perspective, or definition of creativity; nor is there a standardized measurement technique. Creativity has been attributed variously to divine intervention or spiritual inspiration, cognitive processes, the social environment, personality traits, and chance («accident» or «serendipity»). It has been associated with genius, mental illness and humor. Some say it is a trait we are born with; others say it can be taught with the application of simple techniques. Although popularly associated with art and literature, it is also an essential part of innovation and invention, important in professions such as business, economics, architecture, industrial design, science, and engineering. Despite, or perhaps because of, the ambiguity and multi-dimensional nature of creativity, entire industries have been spawned from the pursuit of creative ideas and the development of creativity techniques.

This mysterious phenomenon, though undeniably important and constantly visible, seems to lie tantalizingly beyond the grasp of scientific investigation. Yet in religious or spiritual terms it is the very essence of human nature. Creativity, understood as the ability to utilize everything at hand in nature to transform our living environment and beautify our lives, is what distinguishes human beings from all other creatures. This is one way that human beings are said to be in the image of God: they are second creators, acting in a manner analogous to God, the original Creator.

Moreover, all people, regardless of their intellectual level, are co-creators of perhaps the most important thing—their own self. While God provides each person with a certain endowment and circumstance, it is up to each individual to make what he will of his life by how he or she choses to live it.

Definitions of Creativity

«Creativity, it has been said, consists largely of re-arranging what we know in order to find out what we do not know.» George Keller

«The problem of creativity is beset with mysticism, confused definitions, value judgments, psychoanalytic admonitions, and the crushing weight of philosophical speculation dating from ancient times.» Albert Rothenberg

More than 60 different definitions of creativity can be found in the psychological literature.^[1] The etymological root of the word in English and most other European languages comes from the Latin creatus, literally «to have grown.»

Perhaps the most widespread conception of creativity in the scholarly literature is that creativity is manifested in the production of a creative work (for example, a new work of art or a scientific hypothesis) that is both «novel» and «useful.» Colloquial definitions of creativity are typically descriptive of activity that results in producing or bringing about something partly or wholly new; in investing an existing object with new properties or characteristics; in imagining new possibilities that were not conceived of before; and in seeing or performing something in a manner different from what was thought possible or normal previously.

A useful distinction has been made by Rhodes^[2] between the creative person, the creative product, the creative process, and the creative «press» or environment. Each of these factors are usually present in creative activity. This has been elaborated by Johnson,^[3] who suggested that creative activity may exhibit several dimensions including sensitivity to problems on the part of the creative agent, originality, ingenuity, unusualness, usefulness, and appropriateness in relation to the creative product, and intellectual leadership on the part of the creative agent.

Boden noted that it is important to distinguish between ideas which are psychologically creative (which are novel to the individual mind which had the idea), and those which are historically creative (which are novel with respect to the whole of human history).^[4] Drawing on ideas from artificial intelligence, she defines psychologically creative ideas as those which cannot be produced by the same set of generative rules as other, familiar ideas.

Often implied in the notion of creativity is a concomitant presence of inspiration, cognitive leaps, or intuitive insight as a part of creative thought and action.^[5] Pop psychology sometimes associates creativity with right or forehead brain activity or even specifically with lateral thinking.

Some students of creativity have emphasized an element of chance in the creative process. Linus Pauling, asked at a public lecture how one creates scientific theories, replied that one must endeavor to come up with many ideas, then discard the useless ones.

History of the term and the concept

The way in which different societies have formulated the concept of creativity has changed throughout history, as has the term «creativity» itself.

The ancient Greeks, who believed that the muses were the source of all inspiration, actually had no terms corresponding to «to create» or «creator.» The expression «poiein» («to make») sufficed. They believed that the inspiration for originality came from the gods and even invented heavenly creatures — the Muses — as supervisors of human creativity.

According to Plato, Socrates taught that inspired thoughts originate with the gods; ideas spring forth not when a person is rational, but when someone is «beside himself,» when «bereft of his senses.» Since the gods took away reason before bestowing the gift of inspiration, «thinking» might actually prevent the reception of divinely inspired revelations. The word «inspiration» is based on a Greek word meaning «the God within.» The poet was seen as making new things—bringing to life a new world—while the artist merely imitated.

In the visual arts, freedom was limited by the proportions that Polyclitus had established for the human frame, and which he called «the canon» (meaning, «measure»). Plato argued in Timaeus that, to execute a good work, one must contemplate an eternal model. Later the Roman, Cicero, would write that art embraces those things «of which we have knowledge» (quae sciuntur).

In Rome, these Greek concepts were partly shaken. Horace wrote that not only poets but painters as well were entitled to the privilege of daring whatever they wished to (quod libet audendi). In the declining period of antiquity, Philostratus wrote that «one can discover a similarity between poetry and art and find that they have imagination in common.» Callistratos averred that «Not only is the art of the poets and prosaists inspired, but likewise the hands of sculptors are gifted with the blessing of divine inspiration.» This was something new: classical Greeks had not applied the concepts of imagination and inspiration to the visual arts but had restricted them to poetry. Latin was richer than Greek: it had a term for «creating» (creatio) and for creator, and had two expressions—facere and creare—where Greek had but one, poiein.^[6] Still, the two Latin terms meant much the same thing.

Although neither the Greeks nor the Romans had any words that directly corresponded to the word creativity, their art, architecture, music, inventions, and discoveries provide numerous examples of what we would today describe as creative works. At the time, the concept of genius probably came closest to describing the creative talents bringing forth these works.^[7]

A fundamental change came in the Christian period: creatio came to designate God’s act of «creation from nothing.» Creatio thus took on a different meaning than facere («to make»), and ceased to apply to human functions.

The influential Christian writer Saint Augustine felt that Christianity «played a leading role in the discovery of our power to create» (Albert & Runco, 1999). However, alongside this new, religious interpretation of the expression, there persisted the ancient view that art is not a domain of creativity.^[6] This is also seen in the work of Pseudo-Dionysius. Later medieval men such as Hraban the Moor, and Robert Grosseteste in the thirteenth century, thought much the same way. The Middle Ages here went even further than antiquity; they made no exception of poetry: it too had its rules, was an art, and was therefore craft, and not creativity.

Another shift occurred in more modern times. Renaissance men had a sense of their own independence, freedom, and creativity, and sought to give it voice. Baltasar Gracián (1601-1658) wrote: «Art is the completion of nature, as it were ‘a second Creator'»; … Raphael, that he shapes a painting according to his idea; Leonardo da Vinci, that he employs «shapes that do not exist in nature»; Michelangelo, that the artist realizes his vision rather than imitating nature. Still more emphatic were those who wrote about poetry: G.P. Capriano held (1555) that the poet’s invention springs «from nothing.» Francesco Patrizi (1586) saw poetry as «fiction,» «shaping,» and «transformation.»

Finally, the word «creation» appeared in the writings of the seventeenth-century Polish poet and theoretician of poetry, Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski (1595-1640), known as «the last Latin poet.» In his treatise, De perfecta poesi, he not only wrote that a poet «invents,» «after a fashion builds,» but also that the poet «creates anew» (de novo creat). Sarbiewski even added: «in the manner of God» (instar Dei).

By the eighteenth century and the Age of Enlightenment, the concept of creativity was appearing more often in art theory, and was linked with the concept of imagination.^[6] There was still resistance to the idea of human creativity which had a triple source. The expression, «creation,» was then reserved for creation ex nihilo (Latin: «from nothing»), which was inaccessible to man. Second, creation is a mysterious act, and Enlightenment psychology did not admit of mysteries. Third, artists of the age were attached to their rules, and creativity seemed irreconcilable with rules. The latter objection was the weakest, as it was already beginning to be realized (for example, by Houdar de la Motte, 1715) that rules ultimately are a human invention.

The Western view of creativity can be contrasted with the Eastern view. For the Hindus, Confucius, Daoists and Buddhists, creation was at most a kind of discovery or mimicry, and the idea of creation from «nothing» had no place in these philosophies and religions.^[7]

In the nineteenth century, not only was art regarded as creativity, but «it alone» was so regarded. When later, at the turn of the twentieth century, there began to be discussion of creativity in the sciences (e.g., Jan Łukasiewicz, 1878-1956) and in nature (such as Henri Bergson), this was generally taken as the transference to the sciences of concepts proper to art.^[6]

The formal starting point of the scientific study of creativity is sometimes considered to be J. P. Guilford’s address to the American Psychological Association in 1950, which helped to popularize the topic.^[8] Since then (and indeed, before then), researchers from a variety of fields have studied the nature of creativity from a scientific point of view. Others have taken a more pragmatic approach, teaching practical creativity techniques. Three of the best-known are Alex Osborn’s brainstorming techniques, Genrikh Altshuller’s Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ); and Edward de Bono’s lateral thinking.

Creativity in psychology and cognitive science

An early, psychodynamic approach to understanding creativity was proposed by Sigmund Freud, who suggested that creativity arises as a result of frustrated desires for fame, fortune, and love, with the energy that was previously tied up in frustration and emotional tension in the neurosis being sublimated into creative activity. Freud later retracted this view.

Graham Wallas, in his work Art of Thought, published in 1926,^[9] presented one of the first models of the creative process.
Wallas considered creativity to be a legacy of the evolutionary process, which allowed humans to quickly adapt to rapidly changing environments.^[10]

In the Wallas stage model, creative insights and illuminations may be explained by a process consisting of 5 stages:

1. preparation (preparatory work on a problem that focuses the individual’s mind on the problem and explores the problem’s dimensions),
2. incubation (where the problem is internalized into the subconscious mind and nothing appears externally to be happening),
3. intimation (the creative person gets a «feeling» that a solution is on its way),
4. illumination or insight (where the creative idea bursts forth from its subconscious processing into conscious awareness); and
5. verification (where the idea is consciously verified, elaborated, and then applied).

Wallas’ model has subsequently been treated as four stages, with «intimation» seen as a sub-stage. There has been some empirical research looking at whether, as the concept of «incubation» in Wallas’ model implies, a period of interruption or rest from a problem may aid creative problem-solving. Ward^[11] lists various hypotheses that have been advanced to explain why incubation may aid creative problem-solving, and notes how some empirical evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that incubation aids creative problem-solving in that it enables «forgetting» of misleading clues. Absence of incubation may lead the problem solver to become fixated on inappropriate strategies of solving the problem.^[12] This work disputed the earlier hypothesis that creative solutions to problems arise mysteriously from the unconscious mind while the conscious mind is occupied on other tasks.^[13]

Guilford^[14] performed important work in the field of creativity, drawing a distinction between convergent and divergent production (commonly renamed convergent and divergent thinking). Convergent thinking involves aiming for a single, correct solution to a problem, whereas divergent thinking involves creative generation of multiple answers to a set problem. Divergent thinking is sometimes used as a synonym for creativity in psychology literature. Other researchers have occasionally used the terms «flexible» thinking or «fluid intelligence,» which are similar to (but not synonymous with) creativity.

In The Act of Creation, Arthur Koestler^[5] listed three types of creative individuals: the «Artist,» the «Sage,» and the «Jester.» Believers in this trinity hold all three elements necessary in business and can identify them all in «truly creative» companies as well. Koestler introduced the concept of «bisociation»—that creativity arises as a result of the intersection of two quite different frames of reference.

In 1992, Finke^[15] proposed the «Geneplore» model, in which creativity takes place in two phases: a generative phase, where an individual constructs mental representations called preinventive structures, and an exploratory phase where those structures are used to come up with creative ideas. Weisberg^[16] argued, by contrast, that creativity only involves ordinary cognitive processes yielding extraordinary results.

Creativity and intelligence

There has been debate in the psychological literature about whether intelligence and creativity are part of the same process (the conjoint hypothesis) or represent distinct mental processes (the disjoint hypothesis). Evidence from attempts to look at correlations between intelligence and creativity from the 1950s onwards regularly suggested that correlations between these concepts were low enough to justify treating them as distinct concepts.

It has been proposed that creativity is the outcome of the same cognitive processes as intelligence, and is only judged as creativity in terms of its consequences. In other words, the process is only judged creative when the outcome of cognitive processes happen to produce something novel, a view which Perkins has termed the «nothing special» hypothesis.^[17] However, a very popular model is what has come to be known as «the threshold hypothesis,» stating that intelligence and creativity are more likely to be correlated in general samples, but that this correlation is not found in people with IQs over 120. An alternative perspective, Renculli’s three-rings hypothesis, sees giftedness as based on both intelligence and creativity.

Neurology of creativity

Neurological research has found that creative innovation requires «coactivation and communication between regions of the brain that ordinarily are not strongly connected.»^[18] Highly creative people who excel at creative innovation tend to differ from others in three ways: they have a high level of specialized knowledge, they are capable of divergent thinking mediated by the frontal lobe, and they are able to modulate neurotransmitters such as norepinephrine in their frontal lobe. Thus, the frontal lobe appears to be the part of the cortex that is most important for creativity.^[18]

Creativity and madness

Creativity has been found to correlate with intelligence and psychoticism,^[19] particularly in schizotypal individuals.^[20] To explain these results, it has been hypothesized that such individuals are better at accessing both hemispheres, allowing them to make novel associations at a faster rate. In agreement with this hypothesis, ambidexterity is also associated with schizotypal and schizophrenic individuals.

Creativity in various contexts

Creativity has been studied from a variety of perspectives and is important in numerous contexts. Most of these approaches are unidisciplinary, and it is therefore difficult to form a coherent overall view.^[8] The following sections examine some of the areas in which creativity is seen as being important.

Creativity in art and literature

Most people associate creativity with the fields of art and literature. In these fields, «originality» is considered to be a sufficient condition for creativity, unlike other fields where both «originality» and «appropriateness» are necessary.^[21]

Within the different modes of artistic expression, one can postulate a continuum extending from «interpretation» to «innovation.» Established artistic movements and genres pull practitioners to the «interpretation» end of the scale, whereas original thinkers strive towards the «innovation» pole. Note that we conventionally expect some «creative» people (dancers, actors, orchestral members, etc.) to perform (interpret) while allowing others (writers, painters, composers, etc.) more freedom to express the new and the different.

The word «creativity» conveys an implication of constructing novelty without relying on any existing constituent components (ex nihilo — compare creationism). Contrast alternative theories, for example:

• artistic inspiration, which provides the transmission of visions from divine sources such as the Muses; a taste of the Divine.

• artistic evolution, which stresses obeying established («classical») rules and imitating or appropriating to produce subtly different but unshockingly understandable work.

In the art, practice, and theory of Davor Dzalto, human creativity is taken as a basic feature of both the personal existence of human beings and art production.

Creativity in science, engineering and design

Creativity is also seen as being increasingly important in a variety of other professions. Architecture and industrial design are the fields most often associated with creativity, and more generally the fields of design and design research. These fields explicitly value creativity, and journals such as Design Studies have published many studies on creativity and creative problem solving.^[22]

Fields such as science and engineering have, by contrast, experienced a less explicit (but arguably no less important) relation to creativity. Simonton^[10] shows how some of the major scientific advances of the twentieth century can be attributed to the creativity of individuals. This ability will also be seen as increasingly important for engineers in years to come.^[23]

Creativity in business

Creativity, broadly conceived, is essential to all successful business ventures. Entrepreneurs use creativity to define a market, promote a product or service, and make unconventional deals with providers, partners and lenders.

Narrowly speaking, there is a growing sector of «creative industries» — capitalistically generating (generally non-tangible) wealth through the creation and exploitation of intellectual property or through the provision of creative services.^[24]

Amabile^[21] argues that to enhance creativity in business, three components were needed: Expertise (technical, procedural, and intellectual knowledge), Creative thinking skills (how flexibly and imaginatively people approach problems), and Motivation (especially intrinsic motivation). Nonaka, who examined several successful Japanese companies, similarly saw creativity and knowledge creation as being important to the success of organizations.^[25] In particular, he emphasized the role that tacit knowledge has to play in the creative process.

In many cases in the context of examining creativity in organizations, it is useful to explicitly distinguish between «creativity» and «innovation.»^[26]

In such cases, the term «innovation» is often used to refer to the entire process by which an organization generates creative new ideas and converts them into novel, useful and viable commercial products, services, and business practices, while the term «creativity» is reserved to apply specifically to the generation of novel ideas by individuals, as a necessary step within the innovation process.

For example, Amabile et al. suggest that while innovation «begins with creative ideas, creativity by individuals and teams is a starting point for innovation; the first is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the second» (emphasis added).^[26]

Economic views of creativity

In the early twentieth century, Joseph Schumpeter introduced the economic theory of «creative destruction,» to describe the way in which old ways of doing things are endogenously destroyed and replaced by the new.

Creativity is also seen by economists such as Paul Romer as an important element in the recombination of elements to produce new technologies and products and, consequently, economic growth. Creativity leads to capital, and creative products are protected by intellectual property laws. Creativity is also an important aspect to understanding entrepreneurship.

The «creative class» is seen by some to be an important driver of modern economies. In his 2002 book, The Rise of the Creative Class, economist Richard Florida popularized the notion that regions with high concentrations of creative professionals such as hi-tech workers, artists, musicians, and creative people and a group he describes as «high bohemians,» tend to have a higher level of economic development.

Creativity, music and community

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania Social Impact of the Arts Project^[27]found that the presence of arts and culture offerings in a neighborhood has a measurable impact on the strength of the community. Arts and culture not only attract creative workers, but also is a key element in the revitalization of neighborhoods, and increases social well-being. They also found that music is one of the key arts and cultural elements that attracts and retains “creative workers.” To slow down the large emigration of young cultural workers from Pennsylvania, this study proposed enhancing school-based music education and community-based musical cultural offerings. This study discovered the following traits in creative workers: individuality; creativity; technology and innovation; participation; project orientation; and eclecticism and authenticity. They found that music education helps foster all these traits to help Americans realize their creative potential. As a result, the author claimed, music education not only nurtures creativity but also plays a crucial role in the knowledge economy, and in strengthening communities.

Measuring Creativity

Creativity quotient

Several attempts have been made to develop a «creativity quotient» of an individual similar to the Intelligence quotient (IQ), however these have been unsuccessful.^[28] Most measures of creativity are dependent on the personal judgement of the tester, so a standardized measure is difficult to develop.

Psychometric approach

J. P. Guilford’s group,^[14] which pioneered the modern psychometric study of creativity, constructed several tests to measure creativity:

• Plot Titles where participants are given the plot of a story and asked to write original titles.
• Quick Responses is a word-association test scored for uncommonness.
• Figure Concepts where participants were given simple drawings of objects and individuals and asked to find qualities or features that are common by two or more drawings; these were scored for uncommonness.
• Unusual Uses involves finding unusual uses for common everyday objects such as bricks.
• Remote Associations where participants are asked to find a word between two given words (such as Hand _____ Call)
• Remote Consequences where participants are asked to generate a list of consequences of unexpected events (such as loss of gravity)

Building on Guilford’s work, Torrance^[29] developed the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. They involved simple tests of divergent thinking and other problem-solving skills, which were scored on:

• Fluency The total number of interpretable, meaningful, and relevant ideas generated in response to the stimulus.
• Flexibility The number of different categories of relevant responses.
• Originality The statistical rarity of the responses among the test subjects.
• Elaboration The amount of detail in the responses.

Some researchers have taken a social-personality approach to the measurement of creativity. In these studies, personality traits such as independence of judgement, self-confidence, attraction to complexity, aesthetic orientation, and risk-taking are used as measures of the creativity of individuals.^[8] Other researchers^[30] have related creativity to the trait, «openness to experience.»

Fostering creativity

Daniel Pink, repeating arguments posed throughout the twentieth century, has argued that we are entering a new age where creativity is becoming increasingly important. In this «conceptual age,» we need to foster and encourage «right-directed thinking» (representing creativity and emotion) over «left-directed thinking» (representing logical, analytical thought).^[31]

The following is summary^[32] of techniques to foster creativity, including approaches developed by both academia and industry:

1. Establishing purpose and intention
2. Building basic skills
3. Encouraging acquisitions of domain-specific knowledge
4. Stimulating and rewarding curiosity and exploration
5. Building motivation, especially internal motivation
6. Encouraging confidence and a willingness to take risks
7. Focusing on mastery and self-competition
8. Promoting supportable beliefs about creativity
9. Providing opportunities for choice and discovery
10. Developing self-management (metacognitive skills)
11. Teaching techniques and strategies for facilitating creative performance
12. Providing balance

A growing number of psychologists are advocating the idea that one can learn to become more «creative.» Several different researchers have proposed approaches to support this idea, ranging from psychological-cognitive, such as:

• Osborn-Parnes’ Creative problem solving
• Synectics;
• Purdue Creative Thinking Program;
• lateral thinking of Edward de Bono,

to the highly-structured, such as:

• Theory of Inventive Problem-Solving (TRIZ);
• Algorithm of Inventive Problem-Solving (ARIZ), both developed by the Russian scientist Genrich Altshuller;
• Computer-Aided Morphological analysis^[33]

Origins of Creativity

While scientific approaches have struggled to understand, describe, and explain the creative phenomenon, religion and philosophy has addressed the fundamental question of the origin of creativity in a number of ways.

Religions

According to many religions, God as the original creator of the world initiated the first act of creativity. Human beings, variously conceived of as made in God’s image or as manifestations of God, consequently also have the ability to create. The artist, scientist and designer takes after the creativity of God; indeed it is God who impels him or her to create. Thus the Japanese new religion Perfect Liberty Kyodan begins its precepts:

Life is art.

The whole life of man is self-expression.
The individual is an expression of God.

We suffer if we do not express ourselves. (Precepts 1-4)

In the Bible, in Genesis 1 God creates the earth and all its creatures. In the next chapter, God tells Adam, the first man, to give names to all the creatures. This act of naming was also a kind of creation, for God accepts the results:

Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. (Genesis 2:19)

God does whatever He will, but it is only when human beings know of it that God’s work of creation is confirmed and glorified. A human being’s ability to know, and to consciously utilize things according to his knowledge, makes him a creative being. In the Jewish tradition, Rabbi Akiba taught:

Beloved is man, for he was created in the image of God. But it was by a special love that it was made known to him that he was created in the image of God. (Mishnah, Avot 3.18)

All these concepts point to the idea that human beings are «co-creators» with God. The Qur’an uses the term «vicegerent»:

I will create a vicegerent on earth. (Qur’an 2:30)

Do human beings create in the way that God creates? Not if one conceives of divine creation as an act of pure speech, as in: «And God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.» (Genesis 1:3) Yet elsewhere Scripture describes creation as effortful. God expended such energy to create that on the seventh day he «rested from all his work which he had done.» (Genesis 2:3) To create human beings, God acted the part of a sculptor working with clay:

The Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. (Genesis 2:7)

The artist likewise works with a medium and breathes his life—his spirit, into his work. Then it can be said to be art.

In the Eastern religions, where there is no absolute distinction between God and human beings, the concept that human creativity takes after the original divine creativity is more explicit. Take this passage from the I Ching. It teaches that the creative moment cannot be forced, but requires waiting until the time is ripe, while preparing one’s mind to receive it:

Vast indeed is the sublime Creative Principle, the Source of all, co-extensive with the heavens. It causes the clouds to come forth, the rain to bestow its bounty and all objects to flow into their respective forms. Its dazzling brilliance permeates all things from first to last; its activities, symbolized by the component lines [of the hexagram], reach full completion, each at the proper time. [The superior man], mounting them when the time is ripe, is carried heavenwards as though six dragons were his steeds! The Creative Principle functions through Change; accordingly, when we rectify our way of life by conjoining it with the universal harmony, our firm persistence is richly rewarded. (I Ching 1: The Creative)

Another religious insight is that creativity originates in a state emptiness, an unconscious state where one is not «trying» to do anything (corresponding to Wallas’s «incubation» stage.) Scriptural accounts of «creation ex nihilo (out of nothing) point to the truth that to create, we too have to begin in a state of nothingness. Thus is the first creative moment described in this Hindu text:

This universe existed in the shape of darkness, unperceived, destitute of distinctive marks, unattainable by reasoning, unknowable, wholly immersed, as it were, in deep sleep.

Then the Divine Self-existent, himself indiscernible but making all this, the great elements and the rest, discernible, appeared with irresistible power, dispelling the darkness… created all beings. (Laws of Manu 1.5-16)

The Bible also begins creation from a moment of darkness:

The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:2)

In Daoism, a religion which has been the creed of most Chinese artists, creativity likewise begins from a low place, the «gate of the subtle and profound female»:

The spirit of the valley never dies.

It is called the subtle and profound female.
The gate of the subtle and profound female
Is the root of heaven and earth.
It is continuous, and seems to be always existing.

Use it and you will never wear it out. (Tao Te Ching 6, translated by Wing Tsit Chan)^[34]

Finally, according to the Baha’i Faith, the inspiration for creativity originates from communication with the spirit world, where artists and inventors on the other side continue their work and then communicate their energies to earthly artists and inventors:

The light which these souls [of departed saints] radiate is responsible for the progress of the world and the advancement of its peoples. They are like leaven which leavens the world of being, and constitute the animating force through which the arts and wonders of the world are made manifest.^[35])

Philosophy

Philosophers such as Nikolai Berdyaev and Alfred North Whitehead have addressed the question of human creativity, and the problem of how anything novel can be produced if the world originated from and operates according to fixed principles. For if there are no fixed principles, then we can never understand the world or ourselves, nor have any control over our own destiny. Inevitably, their discussions of human creativity lead back to nature of God as the origin of creativity.

Berdyaev

Nikolai Berdyaev regarded creativity as the ultimate destination of human beings. For him, the end of objectivization means the recognition of creativity as each person’s highest purpose and fulfillment, for «only he who is free, creates.»^[36] Creativity does not just mean producing a work of art. Rather it is the transformation of self and the world:

In every artistic activity a new world is created, the cosmos, a world enlightened and free.^[37]

Berdyaev’s view of creativity was not of something measurable by scientific or external means, for it is an internal aspect of human nature:

Creativity is something which proceeds from within, out of immeasurable and inexplicable depths, not from without, not from the world’s necessity. The very desire to make the creative act understandable, to find a basis for it, is failure to comprehend it. To comprehend the creative act means to recognize that it is inexplicable and without foundation.^[37]

He could see the coming of a time when our creative potential will be more developed. We will then be in a position to collaborate with God to re-create the world:

The dawn of the creative religious epoch also means a most profound crisis in man’s creativity. The creative act will create new being rather than values of differentiated culture; in the creative act life will not be quenched. Creativity will continue creation; it will reveal the resemblance of human nature to the Creator. In creativity the way will be found for subject to pass into object, the identity of subject with object will be restored. All the great creators have foreseen this turning-point. Today, in the depths of culture itself and in all its separate spheres, this crisis of creativity is ripening.^[37]

Berdyaev’s vision is of humanity overcoming the gap that separates us from God through the creative act, and in the process becoming divinized:^[36]

The third creative revelation in the Spirit will have no holy scripture; it will be no voice from on high; it will be accomplished in man and in humanity — it is an anthropological revelation, an unveiling of the Christology of man.^[37]

Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead, in his Process Theology, saw God in cosmological terms as an «actual occasion» functioning within nature, reflective of «the eternal urge of desire» that works «strongly and quietly by love,» to guide the course of things within the world into «the creative advance into novelty.» Whitehead’s philosophy of the «beginningless endless creative advance into newness» inspired what is became known as «Process New Thought.» Human beings are considered co-creators of life with God as the senior partner.

The following are the major characteristics of Process New Thought as related to creativity:

1. It accepts science’s discovery of a process-relational outlook, but with a Whiteheadian recognition of the creative, living nature of the pulses or bursts of energy (called occasions of experience by Whitehead), with energy recognized as what we experience as feeling. Occasions of experience are the basic building blocks of reality.
2. Life is that in which there is (a) aim (relatively free choosing of possibilities), (b) creative activity (transforming potentiality into actuality), and (c) enjoyment of the process (of creating a new unity out of the combined many coming to an occasion from the past—which is composed of a multitude of earlier choices).
3. The creative process is the taking (prehending, feeling, including, absorbing) of the many units of the past and blending their influence with also-prehended divinely given possibilities, thus producing unique new creations. The job of all existence is the creation of new unities. «The many become one, and are increased by one. In their natures, entities are disjunctively ‘many’ in process of passage into conjunctive unity.» ^[38] Unity is an ongoing process of unifying, not a static state of a changeless one.
4. As the new many new units of reality are created, they are added to God’s awareness (prehension, inclusion), resulting in God’s endless growth.
5. Living in the moment is required by serial selfhood. Since concretely one has only a moment to live, one should make the most of it. Understanding that we are new creations moment by moment can provide a powerful psychological impetus to drop old limitations and to accept divinely-given opportunities for fullest living.
6. There is no unilateral creation, by God or by any other experience. All creation is co-creation. The pattern of creation by means of blending the contrasting influences of the God-given initial aim and the past is the most basic reality, that which always has been and always will be. Our task and privilege is to learn to co-create with God in the most conscious and effective ways.

«The man who invented fire was probably burned at the stake.» (Ayn Rand)

Although the benefits of creativity to society as a whole have been noted,^[39] social attitudes about this topic remain divided. The wealth of literature regarding the development of creativity^[40] and the profusion of creativity techniques indicate wide acceptance, at least among academics, that creativity is desirable.

«To be creative means to become profoundly individualized thus separating one’s self from the crowd.» (Paul Palnik)

There is, however, a dark side to creativity, in that it represents a «quest for a radical autonomy apart from the constraints of social responsibility.»^[41] In other words, by encouraging creativity we are encouraging a departure from society’s existing norms and values. Expectation of conformity runs contrary to the spirit of creativity.

Nevertheless, employers are increasingly valuing creative skills. A report by the Business Council of Australia, for example, called for a higher level of creativity in graduates.^[42] The ability to «think outside the box» is highly sought after. However, the above-mentioned paradox may well imply that firms pay lipservice to thinking outside the box while maintaining traditional, hierarchical organization structures in which individual creativity is not rewarded.

Notes

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Anderson, J.R. Cognitive Psychology and its Implications. Worth Publishers, 2005. ISBN 0716701103
• Berdyaev, Nicolai. The Meaning of the Creative Act. Trans. Donald A. Lowrie. Semantron Press, 2009. ISBN 978-1597312622
• Boden, M.A. The Creative Mind: Myths And Mechanisms. Rutledge, 2004. ISBN 0465014518
• Finke, R., T.B. Ward, and S.M. Smith. Creative Cognition: Theory, Research, and Applications. MIT Press, 1996. ISBN 0262560968
• Florida, R. The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life. New York: Basic Books, 2003. ISBN 0465024777
• Guilford, J.P. The Nature of Human Intelligence. McGraw-Hill, 1967.
• Johnson, D. M. Systematic Introduction to the Psychology of Thinking. Harper & Row, 1972. ISBN 0060433310
• Koestler, Arthur. The Act of Creation. Macmillan, 1975. ISBN 0330244477
• Kraft, U. «Unleashing Creativity.» Scientific American Mind (April 2005): 16-23.
• Markham, Ian S. A World Religions Reader. Blackwell Publishing, 2000. ISBN 0631215190
• Michalko, M. Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Genius. Ten Speed Press, 2001. ISBN 1580083110
• Nagel, L. (ed.). Encyclopaedia of Cognition. New York: Macmillan, 2003.
• National Academy of Engineering. Educating the Engineer of 2020: Adapting engineering education to the new century. National Academies Press, 2005.
• Nickerson, R.S. «Enhancing Creativity.» In Handbook of Creativity, edited by Sternberg, R.J. Cambridge University Press, 1998. ISBN 0521576040
• Pink, D.H. A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age into the Conceptual Age. Riverbed, 2005. ISBN 1573223085
• Runco, M.A., and S.R. Pritzker. Encyclopedia of Creativity. Academic Press, 1999. ISBN 0122270754
• Simonton, D.K. Origins of Genius: Darwinian Perspectives on Creativity. Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN 0195128796
• Sternberg, R.J. (ed.). The Nature of Creativity: Contemporary Psychological Perspectives. Cambridge University Press, 1988. ISBN 0521338921
• Tatarkiewicz, Władysław. A History of Six Ideas: an Essay in Aesthetics, Translated from the Polish by Christopher Kasparek. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1980. ISBN 9024722330
• Torrance, E.P. Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. Georgia Studies of Creative Behavior, 1974.
• Wallas, G. Art of Thought. Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1926.
• Weisberg, R.W. Creativity: Beyond the Myth of Genius. Freeman, 1993. ISBN 0716723670
• Whitehead, Alfred North. Process and Reality. New York: Free Press, 1979. ISBN 0029345707

External links

All links retrieved April 30, 2022.

• Creativity Techniques
• Tom Ritchey. General Morphological Analysis: A General Method for Non-Quantified Modelling From the Swedish Morphological Society
• About Fritz Zwicky From the Swedish Morphological Society
• Creativity Web
• Process Philosophy Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Stevan Harnad. Metaphor and Mental Duality. Chapter from book. Cogprints.org.
• Stevan Harnad. Creativity: Method or Magic? Cogprints.org.

Creativity is one of those traits that people seem to have an intrinsic understanding of, but if you actually ask them to define it, they get tripped up. It’s easy to come up with a list of creative people (Frida Kahlo, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Einstein), and the outcomes of creativity (a novel, an invention, a new way of looking at the world), but it’s difficult to wrap your head around the actual concept of creativity. The more I researched this article, the more I realized creativity is an incredibly nuanced phenomenon.

But you have to start somewhere, so let’s begin with a definition:

Creativity is the ability to transcend traditional ways of thinking or acting, and to develop new and original ideas, methods or objects.

Let’s break that down:

• It’s an ability
  It’s also an ability to run a mile, or to do calculus or recite a Shakespearean sonnet (Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?). So creativity is a skill that is specific to an individual. For some people, it might seem to come naturally, but it is something that anyone can improve at if they give it the time and effort.
• It transcends traditional ways of thinking or acting
  Transcending means you’re going above and beyond. It’s recognizing the limitations of what already exists, and trying to improve upon it.
• It develops new and original things
  I think the key word here is develops. Creativity goes beyond imagining: it’s about developing. If it’s an idea, you go out and do the research to prove it. If it’s a new process you try and test it to see if it works. If it’s an object, you build it.

Great! And now that I’ve provided you with that enlightening definition, let’s wade a bit deeper and try to really understand what creativity is (and why you should or shouldn’t care).

Creativity is a relatively new phenomenon
—

Creativity has only been a thing for the past 60-80 years or so.

“But wait,” you say, “what about all those amazing artists and inventors of yesteryear. Are you telling me you don’t think Mark Twain and Sir Isaac Newton weren’t creative? Preposterous!”

I am certainly not one to dis the fathers of Tom Sawyer and gravity. What I’m saying is that the concept of creativity as we understand it—even though it seems so ubiquitous—wasn’t really part of the popular lexicon until midway through the last century:

In many ancient cultures, ideas or advancements that we would attribute to an individual’s creativity were deemed “discoveries.” Even artwork was seen as an imitation of nature rather than a form of creation.

In the medieval Christian world, creative ideas were positioned as divine inspiration. Did you do something awesome? You owe god a high five for sending that fantastic idea your way, my friend.

With the dawning of the enlightenment, we started to see a gradual shift towards individual responsibility, but even then the focus was on imagination and intelligence—both of which are definitely part of the modern definition of creativity, but not quite the same thing.

Where we really begin to see the emergence in the idea of modern creativity is in the 1920s. With the birth of psychology¹ at the end of the 19th century, paradigms in the western world shifted to focus more intently on the individual, and our unique capabilities and personalities. (Another one of those things that we think as innate—personality wasn’t really a thing until Freud.) Creativity as an ability, or a personality trait, first gained popularity after Graham Wallas’ book Art of Thought. In this work, Wallas presents a model for how humans approach problems and think creatively.

And thus, the modern idea of creativity was born. Since then, psychologists and researchers in other disciplines have only continued to develop the idea into what we understand today.

So does that mean that no one was creative until the 1930s? No, clearly humans have had the ability to think outside the box and develop new ideas for a long time. What the current focus on creativity does show is that it’s a valued quality in our culture right now. The focus on it as a coveted trait can probably be linked to the rapid development of new ideas and technology in the past century.

Creativity is a pattern of thinking
—

So we know that creativity is an ability that allows people to develop new ideas, but that still feels a bit vague and intangible (kind of like saying swimming is the ability to not drown in water—technically true, but not particularly useful if you’re going for a deeper understanding, or ya know, wanting to not drown). Put on your floaties and let’s dive into the deep end.

All skills originate in our brains: whether it’s physical (learning to do the breaststroke) or mental (learning to solve an algebraic equation), it’s all about neurons in the right part of your brain firing over and over again until what you’re doing becomes ingrained.²

Creativity is the skill to transcend traditional ways of thinking and come up with new ideas. But where do these new ideas come from?

Forget left vs. right brained, it’s all about the networks.

Like the persistent “we only use 10% of our brains” myth, the concept of left-brained = creative vs. right-brained = analytical is total pseudoscience.

Yes, there are parts of our brain that have specific functions, but it’s the connections between these areas, and the subsequent networks they create which creates cognition. For example, if you’re trying to climb over a log that’s fallen on a path, you’re likely engaging the network which links the parts of your brain that process visual images and govern motor coordination. If you’re explaining to a friend how to climb over said log, add in the parts of your brain which control language.

When it comes to creativity, neuroscientists have identified three large-scale (and aptly named) networks of the brain that are important:

1. The executive attention network helps you pay attention and focus
2. The imagination network allows you to daydream or imagine yourself in someone else’s shoes
3. The salience network let’s you identify when things you have buried deep in your brain are salient to the world around you (e.g. you’re going for a hike and taking in the scenery, and you notice this plant… realize it looks familiar… and that it’s poison ivy! And you just saved yourself from a terrible itchy rash.)

The more active these networks are in your brain, and the more they work together, the more creative you are.³

So going back to our original question: what is creativity? Creativity is a skill that allows you to draw understanding of the world around you, connect those observations to your existing knowledge reservoirs, and imagine new applications of your knowledge on the world.

Is there a connection between creativity and intelligence?
—

So if it’s all about what’s going on in certain brain networks, does that mean that creative people are smarter? I wish I had an easy yes or no answer for you, but the study of creativity is still a pretty new thing, and the research isn’t entirely settled on this matter yet.

In 1999, researchers Sternberg and O’Hara provided a framework of five possible relationships between creativity and intelligence:

1. Creativity is a type of intelligence
2. Intelligence is a type of creativity
3. Creativity and intelligence are overlapping constructs (they have some traits in common)
4. Creativity and intelligence are part of the same construct (they’re basically the same thing)
5. Creativity and intelligence are distinct constructs (there is no relationship between them)

There are studies that provide evidence in favor of each of these perspectives, but thus far none has been overwhelming in its conclusions. So essentially there’s nothing that shows if you’re smarter you’re more creative. But there’s nothing showing that there’s not a correlation either.

Are children more creative than adults?
—

If you do a Google search on creativity, you’ll pretty quickly run into an article that mentions a study run by Professor George Land that seems to show that children become less creative over time.

The gist: Land worked with NASA to develop a creativity test that would help them select innovative engineers and scientists for the space program. In 1968, he and colleague Beth Jarmen gave the same test to 1,600 children and found that—shock—98% of five-year-olds were apparently creative geniuses. And we all just got less and less creative as we aged, until only a measly 2% of us adults qualify as creative geniuses.

Now, maybe I’m just bitter because I’m jealous of all those child prodigies and their ideas that would allow them to be astronauts, but I’m a bit skeptical of these results. Sure, they make for great clickbait and feel-goodry (just embrace your inner child, ignore the pressures of society and you might be able to qualify to go the moon!) but have you spent any time with a five year old recently?

My colleague has a son about this age: this past weekend he linked together a Barrel of Monkeys to create a ladder for his green army men to climb.

Not only is this adorable, but it’s an amazing example of out-of-the-box creative thinking. But real world application? Maybe not so much. (Though I’m having a fantastic time imagining this scenario!)

Fewer synapses = fewer monkeys?

Young children have amazing brains: they develop literally trillions of neural synapses in the first few years of life. Then, through a process called synaptic pruning, those connections decrease over time, as some of these synapses are used and others aren’t.

In other words, kids connect all sorts of weird things together in their minds because they haven’t learned that these things don’t necessarily go together yet. This ability to make connections between seemingly unrelated things—also called divergent thinking—is an important tennant in creative thinking. But it’s just one part of it. And probably why I’m not quite ready to trust the Space Program to child geniuses just yet.

But this highlights an important question:

How do we test for creativity?
—

The original creativity tests developed in the 1960s are tests of divergent thinking. A couple examples of these include alternative uses (how many different ways can you think of to use a paperclip; the number and originality of your ideas impact your score) and incomplete figure tests where you’re given a line on a paper and asked to finish the drawing (uncommon subject matter, implied stories, humor and originality earn high marks).⁴

Other researchers have tried to measure creativity through self-reported creativity questionnaires and social-personality approaches (where they look at a mix of other personality traits and try to find a “formula” for a creative person). Both of these methods have some inherent biases.

So while divergent thinking tests have been criticized, they are currently the most accepted measure of creativity. (Though I’m very curious to see where the neuroscience takes us.)

Why should you care about creativity?
—

I hope I’m not being to presumptuous when I say everyone wants to develop new skills or grow their abilities. (Who wouldn’t want to be a faster runner or a better poker player?) But we all have limited hours in the day, so you can’t practice to get better at everything. Why is creativity one of those skills you should spend time developing?

Well, if you care about your career, it’s probably worth the investment. Both individuals and businesses value hold those with creative qualities in high regard. According to a survey by Adobe, people that identify as creative earn 17% more money than those who don’t. Similarly, in a survey of 1,500 CEOs, IBM found that creativity is the number one trait needed for business success.

And yes, the data from these surveys is based on opinion or self-reported creativity levels, but even if the scientists might squawk, it’s probably worth paying attention to. Basically, your boss and your boss’ boss both think creativity is important. And that makes sense as the definition of a creative person is literally someone who comes up with good ideas and can bring them to fruition. In today’s world, that is exactly the fuel that drives business success. So if you want to get ahead, start churning out those ideas like a barrel of monkeys. (Am I doing it right?)

Can you become more creative?
—

Absolutely! Creativity isn’t a magical gift bestowed to just a few lucky individuals, it’s a skill that you can hone and develop. The trick is figuring out how to flex your creativity muscles.

<sup>1. A number of things happened at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries that shifted our world view, from the discover of relativity to the invention of mass, fast transportation, new ways of communicating across long distances, and of capturing reality (i.e. photography and filmmaking).↩
2. This TED Talk on how to practice effectively is great. It offers a great explanation of the impact of practice on our brains.↩
3.All that being said, there are some compelling evidence that our current education system is not setup to nurture the type of creative thinking that we value in today’s society. Which makes sense if you consider that the basic structure and curriculum of schools (at least here in the United States) comes from the 19th century.↩
4. Interested in more? 99U has a great article with 5 classic creativity tests you can try.↩</sup>

Creativity: Do you know what the meaning of this word is? Most people would respond with the simplest answer, being that it is something you create, such as art or music. However, is this the complete creativity definition? When delving into the subject, you will discover that this only covers the tip of the iceberg, and when you have to define creativity, there is a lot more involved. So, we are going to try and unravel the complex question, “What is creativity?”

Developing a Creativity Definition

You can define creativity by saying it is about rising above the conventional way of thinking, to improve and create unique approaches to ideas. Creativity can be seen as an ability; you can either have a natural ability to perform, or you can learn and improve on what you have, as everybody has something they can tap into.

There are also many facets to creativity, and it can be subjective as many might measure creativity differently and include things like imagination, gratification, the value of an idea, differences in the creative process, and how original the idea is.

The idea of creativity today means thinking out of the box, understanding there might be limits to what you can do, trying to overcome these, and improving on the results. Creativity involves more than just thinking things up, it is taking those ideas and developing them. For example, if it is an item you wish to make, then you have to imagine, design, and build it, or if it is a new concept or idea, you should be able to test it out and prove that it works.

The way we think of or define creativity today is something that has only recently come into being. This is because, in past cultures, any ideas were seen more as discoveries or reproductions of what already existed.

Creativity as we know it today only started evolving during the early parts of the 20th century when the focus was placed on the individual and the different types of personalities, which has since developed over the years.

With the development of science and technology, today you can visually see what happens in the brain. When it comes to creativity and any other skill, both mental and physical, all originate in the brain. When learning a skill, it is the neurons going off in a particular part of the brain, until what you are learning becomes second nature.

Creativity is a skill that rises above the more traditional ways of thought and new or unique ideas are formed.

Sometimes, this process is easier for some than others and it all depends on how the brain forms connections or a network in the brain. When these networks are highly active, the more creative you can be. Some of these networks have been identified and are as follows.

• Executive attention: This helps the brain to focus and disregard other distractions and to control responses. Mainly situated in the brain’s prefrontal cortex.
• Imagination network: The place where you daydream and imagine scenarios and ideas. This network can involve the prefrontal cortex and areas of the parietal lobe.
• Salience network: Regions in the brain that is responsible for deciding which stimuli should be taken note of. For example, if you see something familiar and you form an appropriate response.

When all the networks are firing effectively, you could have an epiphany or a seemingly unexpected creative moment. A famous example is Archimedes in his bathtub, who coined the term “eureka”. However, this does not happen randomly and out of nowhere; there are thought processes in motion.

• Convergent thinking: This is where you use a variety of different information and look for a single solution to the problem. For example, puzzles or multiple-choice questions, where you have one solution, but you need to sift through information to get to the correct answer.
• Divergent thinking: This involves coming up with multiple ideas for a solution. For example, how many applications can you think of for a specific object? Some ideas can be conventional, while others are more original, which closely links this process to creative thinking as well as problem-solving.

When looking at a creativity psychology definition, does it mean that those who are more creative are also more intelligent? There has been a lot of research on the matter, but this subject is still relatively new, and the complete answer to this question is still pending.

However, some research has indicated a few links between intelligence as well as creativity. You can say that intelligence can be categorized as a type of creativity, but you can also say that creativity is a type of intelligence.

These two aspects of the human mind can both overlap and have a lot of things in common. They both process information, which is then formulated into a solution. Intelligence can easily be measured, while creativity is more difficult to define and measure. Generally, those that have high intelligence are more creative.

Also, those that are highly creative, can have high intelligence. However, even though there is research in favor of both ideas, it is not absolute and there is no definitive research that proves either case.

Creativity and intelligence are more parts of the same process, and the skills tend to overlap, but they are not dependent on one another. So, technically, you can be either of these or both. As you can already see, creativity is a complex topic. Research has discovered that it can include several thought processes. Besides what we have already discussed, research has indicated that more processes go into creativity, including the following.

In the end, coming up with a creativity definition is difficult as it is such a complex subject that involves multiple brain processes, which use different parts of the brain. So, creativity cannot be limited to a single part of the brain.

For example, scientists believed creativity was generated by the right side of the brain, or the right hemisphere. However, recent discoveries point to more areas involved than a single section or half of the brain.

Various Sections of the Brain Involved in Creativity

There are various sections of the brain that play a part in the creative process. These include the hippocampus, frontal cortex, basal ganglia, and white matter of the brain. White matter is what connects the different brain structures. So, if the connections between the brain structures work more efficiently, the more effective the brain can process information. This could mean better, faster, and more creative ideas.

• Hippocampus: This is a part of the brain responsible for learning and memory, which involves storing and retrieving these memories. By retrieving various memories and experiences you may have had, you can use your imagination and use these memories to create new and different ideas.
• Frontal cortex: This structure has been seen as playing a central role in creativity, as we depend on it for various functions related to creative thinking. For example, short-term memory
• Basal ganglia: This can be found deep within the brain and is responsible for processing how to do tasks. Many times, these tasks will seem automatic, for example, riding a bike. When developing and practicing, creative tasks can become easier.

There has been some research into the various functions of different parts of the brain, especially in those who have difficulty or who have sustained an injury. Scientists can then measure the differences between a normal brain versus a damaged brain. For example, research has discovered a direct association between creative thinking and the hippocampus.

Where participants who had some form of damage to the area, showed they had lower scores when given a test that measures divergent thinking. Specifically, the Torrance Test of Creativity, which evaluates the potential for creativity.

Distributed functional brain network associated with divergent thinking; Roger E. Beaty, Mathias Benedek, Scott Barry Kaufman, and Paul J. Silvia, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Today, we also have access to things like MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans or EEG (electroencephalogram) images. The MRI creates a detailed image of the brain, while the EEG tests the electrical activity within the brain. Using these tools, scientists can study the brain more effectively. Studies done this way have shown that for participants who had these scans done while performing creative tasks, scientists can observe where in the brain the activity is processed.

From these tests, it can be determined that creativity originated from more than one section of the brain but requires a network of processes from different parts of the brain, depending on the task at hand.

Is Creativity Important?

Some people say that they are simply not creative, and in many cases in schools, the creative subjects are placed below other subjects deemed more important. So, why should we look closer at creativity? We all want to be good at something, and this requires a lot of time and dedication to develop new skills. But we all cannot be everything at once, so why should you consider spending a bit more time developing your creativity?

In this day and age of development and technology, there is always a place for unique thinking to help grow business ideas.

Many companies and businesses appreciate creative qualities and are searching for those who can apply lateral thinking. A survey that was done by IBM showed that creativity is seen as the main quality needed for a successful business.

Various other surveys also show how creativity can be important. Even though the surveys might not be scientific and are more opinions of individuals, they are still something that should be taken into account. If you combine it with scientific research, this just proves that creativity plays an important role in everyday life.

A creative person is someone who can come up with good, original ideas, and can bring them into reality, something any business can successfully utilize.

Benefits of Creativity

The studies concerning creativity might only be beginning, and there is a lot still to learn and discover about the brain. However, there have been quite a few discoveries concerning the benefits of creativity, even though how it all works is still in process.

Being Creative Can Help to Stabilize Emotions

 Many therapies involve creative tasks such as art, dance, and music. These activities and creative activities can help those who suffer from mental disorders like depression, anxiety, dementia, Alzheimer’s, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Working through difficult emotions can be done through various creative outlets.

Creating Is Stimulating

When you are in the process of creating something, not only are you more relaxed, but it can also be energizing and stimulating, as well as help you to focus. Your attention is on the current task, and there is some excitement about what the outcome will be.

Stress Relief

This is one of the more apparent advantages of focusing on creative activities or tasks. When participating in a creative task, you bring more awareness to the here and now, while momentarily putting aside thoughts of yesterday and tomorrow. This helps to reduce stress and can bring about a feeling of calm and accomplishment.

If you are doing something you enjoy, you are also freer in the creative process, without deadlines and other stressors that could hold you back.

Creativity Can Help to Improve Empathy

It has been proven that certain forms of creativity can help to improve a person’s feelings of empathy. By viewing other people’s art and forms of creativity, it can develop a certain understanding of others, their culture, and their situations.

Creativity Improves Brain Plasticity

Brain plasticity is the ability of the brain to modify or change the activity in response to whatever stimuli and then reorganize the connections. For example, in the way we form a new habit. Being creative can help to stimulate the various connections in the brain.

This is said to help improve the way we live. 

The Basic Stages of Creativity

You might have come across someone that says that they do not possess any creativity, however, all of us possess a certain degree of creativity. The only main difference is how you display your creativity. For some, it might be in art or music, while others use their creativity in work or simply in the way they look at the world.

Whatever the case, creativity ultimately originates from the way we think.

Since creativity is such a complex subject, there are various methods people can use during the creative process. However, there are a few stages that are common, and which were first expressed by a social psychologist, Graham Wallas. He made known these stages in a book in the early 20th century called, The Art of Thought. Below is a short description of these five stages.

Ways to Improve Creativity

Is there a way to become more creative? Some people have a natural talent for certain things, but even they can benefit from improving their skills. So, yes you can always improve on creativity, and it is a useful skill that anybody can learn, no matter where you are in life.

Creativity definition: is being able to come up with unique ideas that can help solve problems, aid in better communication, or simply entertain. If you want to improve your creative abilities, there are a few things you can do.

Set Goals

For anything to work, you need to commit yourself to the process, and setting goals is a way to do this. Do not put off what you want to do, decide to do it, and set yourself a time for developing new skills. As with all things, to get good at something, you need to practice.

You also need to know everything about whatever you are interested in. As you learn and understand a subject, it will become easier and better for you to come up with more novel and unique ideas.

Be a Risk Taker

To advance in certain areas, there is always a certain amount of risk involved. For example, sharing a painting in a class might be daunting, but the positive critique will make you a better painter in the future. You might not succeed every time, but nothing is wasted as you also learn from your mistakes. So, next time you try, it may be even better than you anticipated.

Build Confidence

When it comes to a lack of confidence, this can be something that is quite debilitating and stops you from doing what you want. Insecurity is something that can stifle creativity, so try to work on building your confidence by rewarding yourself or being less critical of your work.

Try to avoid negative thoughts, even if you do not do well, to begin with, see it as a learning curve, and move on.

Brainstorm Ideas

Brainstorming is used in schools and is a way to help develop creativity. Again, the main thing is to let go of any negative thoughts and criticism, and to write down any ideas. The point is to come up with a lot of ideas in as little time as possible.

You can then look at all the ideas and improve on them, and so work your way to a possible solution. This is a great method for problem-solving and utilizing creative thinking skills. There are other methods or techniques you can try.

• Mind maps: This as well as flow charts are a great way to help connect ideas and it is an original way to find answers to challenging questions.
• Six thinking hats technique: This is a way to incorporate the various ways people think to come up with the best solution. For example, there are six colored hats each connected to a different thinking process to help form a solution more cohesively as a group.
• Thought experiments: Creating hypothetical situations where you have to think through the consequences of an idea or theory.

Keep a Journal

An effective way to help with the creative process is to keep a journal. Whenever you have an idea, make sure to write it down, even if it is not relevant to your current project. This is a great way to keep track of ideas and also look back on what you have already achieved, and maybe come up with more possible ideas.

This can also be a way to challenge yourself in the future, to continually grow from what you have done in the past. Make sure you try new things, instead of falling back on old ideas and using the same solution all the time.

Go Out and Find Inspiration

Going out to find inspiration can be just what you need to come up with new ideas. You can visit a museum, travel, listen to music, and read a book you would not normally choose. Engage in activities you would not normally do, to get out of your comfort zone and experience new things. You should also love and enjoy what you are doing because this is the best way to boost creativity. If you love something, then it is easier to do, and you will commit to it without having problems or making excuses.

Ask Others for Their Input

Take your ideas and bounce them off others and get their input and advice. You do not have to be alone in the process, while others might have the answer to your problem. Learning from others can only help to improve your creative abilities and outcomes.

Asking for help should not be seen as a weakness, as everyone has their own knowledge base and experience, it can only help. A fresh perspective might just be what is needed.

Unwind and Relax

Sometimes, things can get overwhelming and nothing is coming to mind. This might be a good time to simply stop what you are doing and do something else. Go and run, walk, or simply relax and read a book. Your mind needs to relax as well, and in so doing, the answer you were looking for might just appear.

In the end, creativity is something we all possess, it is just a matter of how we express it. Creativity is a skill that helps you to better understand the world we live in and to take make observations, use and compare them with existing knowledge, and then form new ideas and applications others have not thought of. It is proof of how wonderful and complex our minds are.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is Creativity?

The creativity psychology definition describes it as an ability to produce original and unique thoughts, ideas, and possibilities, to help solve problems, aid in communication, and can also be a form of entertainment.

Can You Describe Creativity as a Skill?

Some individuals seem to have a natural-born talent; however, creativity is a skill that can be developed. Creativity starts with the basis of knowledge and learning and then can be enhanced by practicing the way you think. Being creative can mean experimenting, imagining, exploring, and questioning things around us.

Are There More Creative People Than Others?

As mentioned, some people have a natural talent for performing certain tasks, but everybody can be creative – it just takes a little more practice and dedication to develop creativity. A lot more research must still be done in this field.

But for me, the key to unlocking my right-brain creativity is getting all my left-brain infrastructure in order. ❋ Unknown (2010)

If you met Mister Litlove your main impression would be of a very confident and capable person, but his creativity is the place where he loses faith in himself. ❋ Unknown (2010)

Having a list handy of the things that help to stir your creativity is a useful tool – a Plan B, for the moments when writers block hits or the ideas just refuse to come. ❋ Unknown (2009)

I haven’t been able to participate but the creativity is amazing. ❋ Unknown (2008)

This creativity is our great joy, and during off hours we often enjoy tactile hobbies such as jewelry making, furniture making, fly tying, sewing, ceramics, etc. ❋ Maggie Jochild (2007)

Wikipedia explains the term creativity the following way: «Creativity is a mental and social process involving the discovery of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the creative mind between existing ideas or concepts. ❋ Unknown (2009)

But creativity is what brings me to you today, with a bag full of blackening bananas, a touch of leftover coconut and a box of bargain-priced Ganong chocolate creams in my (cold) little hands. ❋ Sarah (2009)

Charoenchai Chaipiboolwong, an economist blogger from Thailand believes that nurturing creativity is important for individuals seeking jobs ❋ Unknown (2009)

He is a motivational speaker and trains workers and managers in creativity and practical problem solving. ❋ Odysseyworkshop (2009)

You can write whatever you want to, so your creativity is focussed on your own writing goals. ❋ Unknown (2009)

When creativity is medium/normal, stress is low, and when creativity is really high stress is high. ❋ Unknown (2009)

Disassociating alcohol from creativity is important for moving forward. ❋ Unknown (2010)

Endless research not creativity is the key, especially in SF/F. ❋ Marshallpayne1 (2010)

Has an aesthetic theory: creativity is a driving force of human beings. ❋ Rebecca Tushnet (2009)

New concept of personality theory: act of creativity is what matters. ❋ Rebecca Tushnet (2009)

It was a crash course in creativity for corporate managers. ❋ Unknown (2010)

Classic interiors, with kitchen elements gathered up on one wall and a table in the middle has become so popular, that we often see examples where creativity is regarded as a negative factor. ❋ Unknown (2010)

playing childishly with obvious, known or old information and ideas can produce something new and great. This is creativity. It is the engine of imagination and the [keel] of not just science and art, but all intelligence, [problem solving] and dealing with life in general. Every child is born creative. Its our key challenge to help our kids preserve their creativity into [adulthood]. ❋ Johnisnow (2009)

man, [the radio] sucks, the tv sucks, video games are starting to suck, [my grandma] sucks
can [we die] now? ❋ DIdotFMlover (2005)

all [forms] of plagerism ❋ Tenkin (2003)

[Creative] people [tend] to be [forgetful]. ❋ Phrodu (2004)

creativity is when a person responds to a brief or situation that [he / she] is encountering — a [canvas] to [enact] on ❋ Daniel Ting Chong (2005)

[i am] [literally] the creativity [god] ❋ Creativity Goddess Xx (2020)

[Michael] : see that [Lisa] chick she is creativitydave : yeah [gee] she hot ❋ Harveybare(:(: (2009)

[Steve Martin] is a [true] creative. ❋ Nadine Key (2013)

Her [painting] is [beautiful], she’s so creative. ❋ My Name (2004)

Your [son], [Jimmy], is a very, well, …[creative]… boy. ❋ Danny The Girl (2004)