Three issues

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Three issues

• Definition what is creativity?
• Scientific approaches to creativity
• Practical approaches

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Definition
Reed Creating a novel and useful product or
situation. Sternberg Ben-Zeev (2001)
Creativity is the ability to produce work that
is novel (original and unexpected), high in
quality, and appropriate (useful and meets the
task constraints of tasks).
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Scientific Approaches to Creativity
Guilford (1950) reported that on 2/10ths of 1 of
entries in Psychological Abstracts up to 1950
were studies of creativity. Sternberg Ben-Zeev
(2001) reported that about 5/10ths of 1 of
entries in Psychological Abstracts for the years
1975-1994 were studies of creativity. 1.5 of
entries for that period (3 times as many) were
studies of reading.
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Scientific Approaches to Creativity

• Psychodynamic approach
• Freud creativity arises from the tension
  between conscious reality and unconscious drives.
• Creative work provides an acceptable way to
  express unconscious wishes publicly.
• These wishes refer to things like power, wealth,
  fame, love

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Psychodynamic approach

• Kris (1952)
• adaptive regression intrusion of unmodulated
  thoughts into consciousness
• elaboration reworking of those thoughts into
  reality-oriented thoughts
• This approach used case studies only, so has not
  been central in scientific study of creativity

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Psychometric Approach

• Cox (1926)
• estimated IQ for 301 eminent people who lived
  between 1450 and 1850. (Average ratings)
• found correlation between IQ and rank order of
  eminence to .16. Simonton (1975) r 0.
• Cox Highest persistence OK intelligence gt
  Highest intelligence OK persistence

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Research on Creativity
Psychometric approach Guilford (1950) Its
difficult to study only eminent people such as
Einstein or Michelangelo, because there are so
few of them. Guilford suggested studying
creativity in ordinary people using tasks like
the unusual uses test (e.g., think of as many
uses as possible for a brick).
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Psychometric Approach

• Torrance (1974) Tests of Creative Thinking.
• simple tasks requiring divergent thinking and
  problem-solving
• scored for fluency, flexibility, originality,
  and elaboration
• e.g., Asking Questions, Circles, Product
  Improvement, Unusual Uses

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Torrance Tests
Asking questions write out all the qs you can
think of based on a drawing of a scene. Circles
expand empty circles into different drawings
and give the drawings titles. Unusual uses
list interesting and unusual uses of a cardboard
box. P.I. ways to change a toy monkey to be
more fun
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Psychometric Approach
Mednick Remote Associates Test Said that
creative thinking involves forming new relations
among elements, with those relations being useful
in some way or matching a standard. Cake Blue C
ottage Surprise Line Birthday Quick objective
test but is it a good theory?
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Psychometric Approaches

• Sternberg Ben-Zeev on IQ and creativity
• Creative people tend to have IQs gt 120.
• Above 120, IQ does not seem to matter
• Role of IQ varies depending upon which aspect of
  intelligence is involved, as well as field of
  creativity (e.g., art music vs. science math).

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Research on Creativity
Cognitive approaches Goal is to understand
mental representations underlying creativity and
process that operate on those representations. We
isberg (1999) it is the products of creative
processes that are remarkable, not the processes
themselves.
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Cognitive Approach
Weisberg Alba (1981) Asked subjects to solve
the nine-dot problem
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Weisberg Alba (1981)
Solution of the problem depends upon going
outside the box. But people given that insight
still had trouble solving this problem. Weisberg
Thus, extraordinary insight is not the
explanation. Solver goes through a set of
ordinary cognitive processes insight doesnt
help.
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What might those cognitive processes be?

• Finkes Geneplore model
• There are two main processes in creativity
  generation and exploration.
• Generation create pre-inventive structures
• Exploration use those structures to produce
  creative ideas.

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Finkes Geneplore Model
Person creates mental representations of objects
that emphasize certain qualities.
(Generative) Then, person uses these repns. to
create new ideas or objects. (Exploratory) Becaus
e this is a cognitive theory, it emphasizes
processes like retrieval, association, analogy,
transformation, categorical reduction.
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Confluence Approaches
Csikszemtmihalyi (1988, 1996) interaction of
individual, domain, and field Domain stores
information, problems Individual guided to a
problem by a domain, draws on information in that
domain, transforms and extends it through
cognition, personality, and motivation Field
people who control or influence domain evaluate
and select new ideas (e.g., critics).
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Confluence Approaches
Sternberg Lubart (1995) Investment
Theory Creative people buy low and sell high in
the world of ideas. Buying low pursuing ideas
that are unknown or unfashionable. Selling high
means convincing people the idea is
great. Requires confluence of six resources
knowledge, intellect, thinking style,
personality, motivation, and environment.
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Sternberg Lubarts Investment Theory
Knowledge To know domain without being bound by
that knowledge Intellect be synthetic,
analytic, practical Thinking preference for
thinking in new ways Personality persistence,
willingness to take sensible risks, tolerance for
ambiguity, SE Motivation Intrinsic,
task-focused you must love what you are doing
dont focus on rewards Environment supportive
providing a forum
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Practical Approaches

• Primary concern is developing creativity
• Secondary concern is understanding creativity
• No concern with testing ideas empirically
• Issue does the commercial success of some
  practical approaches damage the scientific study
  of creativity, as Sternberg Ben-Zeev claim?

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Practical Approaches

• Edward De Bono Lateral Thinking
• taking a broad view, with multiple viewpoints
• PMI plus, minus, interesting
• po as in hypothesis, suppose, possible, poetry
• hats data, intuition, criticism, generation

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Practical Approaches

• Osborn (1953) Brainstorming
• Ad-man developed Brainstorming to encourage
  people to open up.
• Recommended non-judgmental atmosphere where all
  ideas would be considered.
• Wheres the filter? Do you reject an idea before
  offering it publicly? Or offer it publicly
  perhaps to be rejected by group?
• He argued that critical approach is inhibtory

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