Creativity

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Creativity (or creativeness) is a mental process involving the generation of new ideas or concepts, or new associations between existing ideas or concepts. The products of creative thought (sometimes referred to as divergent thought) usually have both originality and appropriateness. Although intuitively a simple phenomenon, it is in fact quite complex. It has been studied from the perspectives of behavioural psychology, social psychology, psychometrics, cognitive science, philosophy, history, economics, design research, business, and management, among others. The studies have covered everyday creativity, exceptional creativity and even artificial creativity. Unlike many phenomena in science, there is no single, authoritative perspective or definition of creativity. Unlike many phenomena in psychology, there is no standardized measurement technique.

Creativity has been attributed variously to divine intervention, cognitive processes, the social environment, and personality traits. It has been associated with genius, mental illness and humour. 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 and is 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 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 most people.

"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

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Contents

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Definitions of creativity

"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

Creativity and creative people have been regarded with wonder and admiration for most of human history. It is fair to say that without creativity, human beings would have remained in a palaeolithic existence. Creativity is a central and powerful mode of human activity and thought.

More than 60 different definitions of creativity can be found in the psychological literature<ref>(Taylor, 1988)</ref>, and it is beyond the scope of this article to list them all. The etymological root of the word in English and most other European languages comes from the Latin creatus, literally "to have grown."

Colloquial definitions of creativity are typically descriptive of activity that results in producing or bringing about something partly or wholly new; to invest an existing object with new properties or characteristics; to imagine new possibilities that were not conceived of before; and to see or perform something in a manner different to what was thought possible or normal previously.

A useful distinction has been made by Rhodes<ref>(Rhodes, 1961)</ref> 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<ref>(Johnson, 1972)</ref>, 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.

Perhaps the most widespread conception of creativity in the scholarly literature is that creativity is regarded to have occured when the production of a creative product (for example, a new work of art or a scientific hypothesis) that is both novel and useful takes place.

Often implied in the notion of creativity is a concomitant presence of inspiration, cognitive leaps or intuitive insight as a part of creative thinking and acting<ref>(Koestler, 1964)</ref>. Pop psychology sometimes associates creativity with right or forehead brain activity or even specifically with lateral thinking.

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Creativity in various contexts

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Creativity in art & 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<ref>(Amabile, 1998)</ref>.

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 evolution, which stresses obeying established ("classical") rules and imitating or appropriating to produce subtly different but unshockingly understandable work. Compare with crafts.

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

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Creativity in psychology & cognitive science

The study of the mental representations and processes underlying creative thought belongs to the domains of psychology and cognitive science.

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A 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, 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 5 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 subconscious 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 subconscious processing into conscious awareness) and
(v) verification (where the idea is consciously verified, elaborated, and then applied).

Wallas considered creativity to be a legacy of the evolutionary process, which allowed humans to quickly adapt to rapidly changing environments. Simonton<ref>(Simonton, 1999)</ref> provides an updated perspective on this view in his book, Origins of genius: Darwinian perspectives on creativity.

Guilford<ref>(Guilford, 1967)</ref> 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 roughly similar to (but not synonymous with) creativity.

In The Act of Creation, Arthur Koestler<ref>(Koestler, 1964) and various imprints</ref> lists three types of creative individual - 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 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. Weisberg<ref>(Weisberg, 1993)</ref> argued, by contrast, that creativity only involves ordinary cognitive processes yielding extraordinary results.

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Creativity and madness

A study by the psychologist J. Philippe Rushton found that creativity correlated with intelligence and psychoticism<ref>(Rushton, 1990)</ref>. Additionally, a different study found that creativity is greater in schizotypal individuals than either normal or fully schizophrenic individuals. 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<ref>http://exploration.vanderbilt.edu/news/news_schizotypes.htm (Actual paper)</ref>. This study hypothesizes that these 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 has also been associated with bipolar disorder.

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Creative industries & services

Today, creativity forms the core activity of a growing section of the global economy — the so-called "creative industries" — capitalistically generating (generally non-tangible) wealth through the creation and exploitation of intellectual property or through the provision of creative services. The Creative Industries Mapping Document 2001 provides an overview of the creative industries in the UK.

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Creativity in other professions

Image:NewtonsPrincipia.jpg Creativity is also seen as being 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.<ref>for a typical example see (Dorst et al., 2001)</ref>

Fields such as science and engineering have, by contrast, experienced a less explicit (but arguably no less important) relationship with creativity. Simonton<ref>(Simonton, 1999)</ref> shows how some of the major scientific advancements of the 20th century can be attributed to the creativity of individuals. This ability will also be seen as increasingly important for engineers in years to come<ref>(National Academy of Engineering 2005)</ref>.

Accounting has also been associated with creativity with the popular euphemism creative accounting. Although this term often implies unethical practices, Amabile<ref>(Amabile, 1998)</ref> has suggested that even this profession can benefit from the (ethical) application of creative thinking.

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Creativity and innovation

In many cases in the context of examining creativity in organizations, it is useful to explicitly distinguish between creativity and innovation.

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 necessary but not sufficient condition for the second". <ref>(Amabile et al., 1996 p. 1154-1155, emphasis added)</ref>
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Creativity in organisations

Amabile<ref>(Amabile, 1998)</ref> argued that to enhance creativity in business, three components were needed: Expertise (technical, procedural & intellectual knowledge), Creative thinking skills (how flexibly and imaginatively people approach problems), and Motivation (especially intrinsic motivation).

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Economic views of creativity

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.

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 people such as hi-tech workers, artists, musicians, gay men and a group he describes as "high bohemians", tend to have a higher level of economic development.

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Measuring creativity

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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<ref>(Kraft, 2005)</ref>. Most measures of creativity are dependent on the personal judgement of the tester, so a standardized measure is difficult to develop.

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Psychometric approach

J. P. Guilford's group<ref>(Guildford, 1967)</ref>, who 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 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)

Building on Guilford's work, Torrance<ref>(Torrance, 1974)</ref> developed the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. They inolved 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.
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Social-personality approach

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<ref>(Sternberg, 1999)</ref>. Other researchers<ref>for example McCrae (1987)</ref> have related creativity to the trait openness to experience.

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Other approaches to measurement

Genrich Altshuller introduced approaching creativity as an exact science with TRIZ in the 1950s with the Level of Invention measure.

The creativity of thousands of Japanese, expressed in terms of their Problem Solving capability and Problem Recognizing capability has been measured in Japanese firms<ref>Details: http://iccincsm.at.infoseek.co.jp</ref>.

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Fostering creativity

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Daniel Pink, in his 2005 book A Whole New Mind, 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).

Nickerson<ref>(Nickerson, 1999)</ref> 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

Some see the conventional system of schooling as "stifling" of creativity and attempt (particularly in the pre-school/kindergarten and early school years) to provide a creativity-friendly, rich, imagination-fostering environment for young children. Compare Waldorf School.

A growing number of pop psychologists are making money off the idea that one can learn to become more "creative". Several different researchers have proposed several different approaches to prop up this idea, ranging from psychological-cognitive, such as:

to the highly structured such as:

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Social attitudes to creativity

"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<ref>(Runco 2004)</ref>, social attitudes about this topic remain divided. The fact that there is wealth of literature regarding the development of creativity<ref>see (Feldman, 1999) for example</ref>, and the profusion of creativity techniques indicates there is wide acceptance, at least among academics, that it is desirable. However, there is a dark side to creativity, in that it represents a "quest for a radical autonomy apart from the constraints of social responsibility"<ref>(McLaren, 1999)</ref>. In other words, by encouraging creativity we are encouraging a departure for society's existing norms and values. The 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, has called for a higher level of creativity in graduates<ref>(BCA, 2006)</ref>. The ability to "think outside the box" is a highly sought after.

Ambivalence to creativity in the West may perhaps be due to the culture's image of creativity; the ingesting of drugs to generate visions; the celebration of eccentric behaviour; the possible cross-over between creativity and mental illness; the often bohemian sexual tastes of artists; the cultural association of artists with a life of poverty and misery.

In the modern art context, the notion of creativity derives from Marxism. Under this system, the universe is meaningless and derived from random evolution. Creative art then, does not copy anything but is under the mastery of the artist. While this may make creativity the final refuge of freedom, it is nihilistic, meaningless, and not bound by standards or final causes.

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Periods and Personalities

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Ancient Greece

3rd century
4th century of the Christian Era
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1000s - 1500s

1200s

an early attempt to use logical means to produce knowledge, around 1275, Ramon Llull designed a method of combining attributes selected from a number of lists, which he first published in full in his Ars generalis ultima or Ars magna (1305), used concept structures of the mind map form.

1470s
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1500s - 2000s

There was no real demand for such a science until the 19th century when the Industrial Revolution started:

Following along Miles’ line of thought were:

  • beginning in the mid-1940s - start of knowledge-based creativty era by TRIZ
Early 20th century
1940s
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
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Undated

  • Reviewed Dendrogram technique, relies on the experience of designers which may be limited to certain areas of expertise such as chemistry or electronics. Thus, a solution that might be simpler and cheaper using magnetism could be missed.
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Notes

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Cited References

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External links

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Essays:

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See also

The following terms are sometimes used interchangeably with creativity, although each has slightly different meanings: creative problem solving, invention, ideation, ingenuity, imagination, inspiration, intuition, insight, originality.

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