Background Work on Creativity

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Background Work on Creativity

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Creativity as a Neglected Research Topic

• J. P. Guilford (1950) in his APA presidential
  address, challenged psychologists to address what
  he found to be neglected but extremely important
  attribute Creativity. He reported less than
  two-tenths of one percent of the entries in
  Psychological Abstracts up to 1950 focused on
  creativity.
• R. J. Sternberg T. Lubart (1996) analyzed the
  no. of creativity references in Psychological
  Abstracts from 1975 to 1994 and found that only
  one-half of one percent of the articles concerned
  creativity.

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Mystical Approaches

• The creative person was seen as an empty vessel
  that a divine being filled with inspiration
• Creativity is something that just doesnt lend
  itself to scientific study, because it si a more
  spiritual process.

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Pragmatic Approaches

• This approach concerned primarily with developing
  creativity, secondarily with understanding it,
  but almost not at all with testing the validity
  of their ideas about it.
• De Bonos lateral thinking skills
• Osborns synectics
• Adams Von Oechs role play approaches as
  explorer, artist, judge and warrior to construct
  a series of false beliefs that interfere with or
  challenge creativity functioning in order to
  foster creativity productivity.

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Psychodynamic Approach (1)

• Psychodynamic approach can be considered the
  first of the major twentieth-century theoretical
  approaches to the study of creativity. These
  approaches relied on case studies of eminent
  creators.
• These approaches has been criticized historically
  because of the difficulty of measuring proposed
  theoretical constructs.
• Representative figures Freud, Kubie
• Compensation process Creative work as a way to
  express their unconscious wishes in a publicly
  acceptable fashion. These unconscious wishes may
  concern power, riches, fame, honor, or love.

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Psychodynamic Approach (2)

• Adaptive regression elaboration process
  Adaptive regression is the primary process
  indicating intrusion of unmodulated thought in
  consciousness. Unmodulated thought can occur
  during active problem solving, but often occur
  during sleep, introxication from drugs,
  fantasies, or daydreams, or psychoses.
  Elaboration, the secondary process, refers to the
  reworking and transformation of primary process
  material through reality-oriented, ego-controlled
  thinking.
• Adaptive regression and elaboration process
  occurs in the stage of preconscious, which falls
  between conscious reality and the encrypted
  unconscious, is the true source of creativity.

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Psychometric Approaches (1)

• These approaches use tests or scales for
  measuring creativity
• Guilford (1950) used Unusual Uses Test for
  measuring divergent thinking
• Torrance (1974) developed the Torrance Tests of
  Creative Thinking that consist of several simple
  verbal and figural tasks involving divergent
  thinking plus other problem-solving skills. The
  tests can scored for fluency, flexibility,
  originality and elaboration. Subtests of the
  Torrance battery includes asking questions,
  product improvement, unusual uses, circles.

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Psychometric Approaches (2)

• Some psychologists, such as Cox, Terman, Merrill,
  found high creative persons usual have high IQ by
  examining bio-data.
• Cox in his research concludes that (creative
  persons are) high but not highest in
  intelligence, combined with the greatest degree
  of persistent, will achieve greater eminence that
  the highest degree of intelligence with somewhat
  less persistence.

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Psychometric Approaches (3)

• Three basic findings concerning conventional
  conceptions of intelligence as measured by IQ and
  creativity are generally agreed on
• Creative people tend to show above average IQs,
  often above 120.
• Above an IQ of 120, IQ does not seem to matter as
  much to creativity as it does below 120
• The correlation between IQ and creativity is
  variable, usually ranging from weak to moderate

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Psychometric Approaches (4)

• Positive side of psychometric approaches
• The tests facilitated research by providing
  brief, easy to administer
• Research was now possible with ordinary people
• Negative side of psychometric approaches
• Paper-and-pencil tests are trivial, inadequate
  measures of creativity
• Critics suggested that neither fluency,
  flexibility, originality, nor elaboration scores
  captured the concept of creativity. Other
  possibilities include using the social consensus
  of judges.
• Some researchers rejected the assumption that
  noneminent samples could shed light on eminent
  levels of creativity

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Cognitive Approaches

• These approaches seek to understand the mental
  representations and processes underlying creative
  thought
• Weiberg (1986, 1988, 1993, 1999) has proposed
  that creativity involves essentially ordinary
  cognitive processes (ex. analogical transfer)
  yielding extraordinary products.
• Finke, Ward, and Smith (1992) have proposed the
  Gene-plore model
• A generative phase an individual constructs
  mental representations referred to as
  pre-inventive structures, which have properties
  promoting creative discoveries.
• An exploratory phase these properties are used
  to come up with creative ideas. A number of
  mental processes may enter into these phases of
  creative invention, such as retrieval,
  association, synthesis, transformation,
  analogical transfer, and categorical reduction.

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Social-personality Approaches (1)

• These approaches have focused on personality
  variables, motivational variables, and
  socio-cultural environment as source of
  creativity.
• Representative figures Amabile, Barron, Eysenck,
  Gough, MacKinnon
• Relevant personality traits concerning
  personality include independence of judgment,
  self-confidence, attraction to complexity,
  aesthetic orientation, and risk taking.

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Social-personality Approaches (2)

• Motivation factors concerning creativity include
  intrinsic motivation, need for order, need for
  achievement
• Social environment factors concerning creativity
  include cultural diversity, war, availability of
  role models, availability of resources, and
  number of competitors in a domain

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Evolutional Approaches

• D. Cample (1960) suggested the same mechanisms
  that have been applied to the study of the
  evolution of organism could be applied to the
  evolution of (creative) ideas.
• The idea underlying this approach is that there
  are two basic steps in the generation and
  propagation of creative ideas
• The first step is blind variation
• The second step is selective retention
• Sternberg (1997) argued that good creators may or
  may not have more ideas than other people but
  they have better ideas.

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Confluence Approaches (1)

• These approaches hypothesized that multiple
  components must converge for creativity to occur.
• (Amabile) People implicit theory contain
  combination of cognitive and personality
  elements, such as connect ideas, sees
  similarities and differences, has flexibility,
  has aesthetic taste, is unorthodox, is
  motivated, is inquisitive, and questions
  societal norms.
• (Gruber) Evolving systems model hypothesized that
  a persons knowledge, purpose, and affect grow
  over time, amplify deviations that an individual
  encounters, and lead to creative products.

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Confluence Approaches (2)

• (Csikszentmihalyi) has taken a different System
  approach and highlights the interaction of the
  individual, domain, and field. An individual
  draws on information in a domain and transforms
  or extends it via cognitive processes,
  personality traits, and motivation. The field,
  consisting of people who control or influence a
  domain, evaluates and selects new ideas. The
  domain, a culturally defined symbol system,
  preserves and transmits creative products to
  other individuals and future generations.

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Confluence Approaches (3)

• (Gardner) Multiple Intelligence Framework
  indicates most greatest creative persons actually
  had strengths in more than one intelligence and
  that they had notably weakness in others. First,
  they tended to have a matrix of support at the
  time of their creative breakthroughs. Second,
  they tended to drive a Faustian bargain whereby
  they gave up many of the pleasures people
  typically enjoy in life in order to attain
  extraordinary success in their careers.
• Sigmund Freud (intrapersonal), Albert Einstein
  (logical-mathematical), Pablo Picasso (spatial),
  Igor Stravinsky (musical), T. S. Eliot
  (linguistic), Martha Graham (bodily-kinesthetic),
  Mohandas Gandhi (interpersonal)
• (Sternberg) Investment Theory of Investment

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The Investment Theory of Creativity as a Decision
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What is Investment Theory of Creativity?

• The theory concerns the decision to be creative
  and is based on the notion that creative people
  decide to buy low and sell high in the world of
  ideas --- that is, they generate ideas that tend
  to defy the crowd (buy low) and then, when they
  have persuaded many people, they sell high,
  meaning they move on to the next unpopular idea.

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Experimental Materials for Research in Investment
Theory

• Research within the framework has used tasks to
  experiment and to support the model
• Writing short stories using unusual titles
• Drawing pictures with unusual themes
• Devising creative advertisements for boring
  products
• Solving unusual scientific problems

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Six Distinct but Interrelated Resources Required
for Creativity (1)

• Intellectual abilities
• The creative skill to see problems in new ways
  and escape the bounds of conventional thinking
• The analytic skill to recognize which of ones
  ideas are worth pursuing and which are not
• The practical-contextual skill to know how to
  persuade others of the value of ones ideas
• Knowledge
• One needs to decide to use ones past knowledge,
  but also decide to let the knowledge become a
  hindrance rather than a help.
• Styles of thinking
• A legislative style is particularly important for
  creativity

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Six Distinct but Interrelated Resources Required
for Creativity (2)

• Personality
• Willingness to overcome obstacles, willingness to
  take sensible risks, willingness to tolerate
  ambiguity, and self-efficacy
• Motivation
• Intrinsic, and task-oriented motivation is
  essential to creativity
• Environment
• Supportive environment for crowd-defying ideas

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Hypothesis of Confluence of Six Components

• There may be thresholds for some components below
  which creativity is not possible regardless of
  the levels of other components
• Partial compensation may occur in which a
  strength on one component counteracts a weakness
  on another component
• Interactions may occur between components, such
  as intelligence and motivation, in which high
  levels on both components could multiplicatively
  enhance creativity

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Developing Creativity as a Decision (1)

• Redefine problems
• Question and analyze assumptions
• Do not assume that creative ideas sell
  themselves Sell them
• Encourage idea generation
• Recognize that knowledge is a double-edged sward
  and act accordingly
• Encourage children to identify and surmount
  obstacles

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Developing Creativity as a Decision (2)

• Encourage sensible risk-taking
• Encourage tolerance of ambiguity
• Help children build self-efficacy
• Help children find what they love to do
• Teach children the importance of delaying
  gratification
• Role-model creativity
• Cross-fertilize ideas

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Developing Creativity as a Decision (3)

• Allow time for creative thinking
• Instruct and assess for creativity
• Reward creativity
• Allow mistakes
• Take responsibility for both successes and
  failures
• Encourage creative collaboration
• Imagine things from others points of view
• Maximize person-environment fit

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The Propulsion Theory of Creative Contribution
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Views of Creative Contributions (1)

• Creative contribution as paradigm shift
• Kuhn (1970) distinguished between normal and
  revolutionary science
• Gardners distinguish five types of creative
  contributions
• Solving a well-defined problem
• Devising an encompassing theory
• Creating a frozen work
• Performing a ritualized work
• Rendering a high-stakes performance

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Views of Creative Contributions (2)

• Maslow (1967) distinguish two types of creative
  contributions
• Primary creativity is the kind of a person uses
  to become self-actualized
• Secondary creativity is the kind that leads to
  creative achievements typically recognized by a
  field

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Eight Types of Creative Contribution

• Contributions that accept current paradigm
• Replication
• Redefinition
• Forward incrementation
• Advance forward incrementation
• Contributions that reject current paradigm and
  attempt to replace them
• Redirection
• Reconstruction / redirection
• Reinitiation
• Contributions that merge disparate current
  paradigms
• Integration

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Replication (1)

• Replications are important because they can help
  either to establish the validity or invalidity of
  contributions, or the utility or lack of utility
  of approaches

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Replication (2)

• Example
• Jensen (1982) and others argued that correlations
  between scores on choice reaction-time tests and
  scores on intelligence tests suggest that
  individual differences in human intelligence
  could be traced to individual differences in
  velocity of neural condition. However, such
  interpretation of results were somewhat
  speculative.
• Venon and Mori (1992) tested and seemingly
  confirmed that Jensens hypothesis. They
  developed a paradigm whereby they could measures
  speed of neural condition in the arm. They found
  that neural conduction velocity did indeed
  predict scores on conventional tests of
  intelligence. However, Wickett Vernon (1994)
  failed to replicate the study.

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Redefinition (1)

• Work of redefinition type is judged to be
  creative to the extent that redefinition of the
  field is different from the earlier definition
  (novelty) and to the extent that the redefinition
  is judged to be plausible or correct (quality)

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Redefinition (2)

• Example
• Spearman (1904, 1927) who invented factor
  analysis and used this technique to argue that
  underlying performance on all tests of mental
  abilities is a general factor, which he labeled
  g.
• Thomson (1939) proposed that although Spearman
  was correct in positing a general factor
  underlying performance on mental tests, he was
  incorrect in his interpretation of it. According
  to Thomson, the general factor actually
  represents the working of multitudinous bonds.
  These bonds are all alleged to be those mental
  processes common to performance on all mental
  tests. He proposed to change not the empirical
  status of work on intelligence and argued that
  the field was not where Spearman and others
  thought it to be.

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Forward Incrementation (1)

• Forward incrementation represents the most common
  type of creative contribution. It occurs when a
  piece of work takes the field at the point where
  it is and moves it forward from that point in the
  space of contributions in the direction it is
  already going.

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Forward Incrementation (2)

• For example
• After the initial groundbreaking study of
  Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) on cognitive
  dissonance, huge numbers of follow-up studies
  were done on phenomena of cognitive dissonance
  and cognitive consistency.
• Most studies published in scientific journals can
  be characterized as forward incrementation

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Advance Forward Incrementation (1)

• An advance forward incrementation is a work whose
  potential typically is not realized at its
  premiere, yet is later recognized as a step along
  the historical path of a genre, and then seen as
  a work ahead of its time.

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Advance Forward Incrementation (2)

• Example
• Royer (1971) published an article that was an
  information-processing analysis of the
  digit-symbol task on the Wechsler Adult
  Intelligence Scale (WAIS). In the article, Royer
  showed hoe information-processing analysis could
  be used to decompose performance on the task and
  understand the elementary information processes
  underlying the performance. Royers work
  forshadowed the later work of Hunt and Sternberg,
  but his work went largely unnoticed.

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Redirection (1)

• Redirection involves accepting the field where it
  is at a given time but attempting to move it in a
  new direction. Work of this type is creative to
  the extent that it moves a field in a direction
  (novelty) and to the extent that this direction
  is seen as desirable for research (quality)

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Redirection (2)

• Example
• The pioneering Hunt, Frost, and Lunneborg (1973)
  article mentioned earlier suggested that
  researchers of intelligence use
  cognitive-psychological paradigms to study
  intelligence. The basic idea was to correlate
  scores on cognitive tasks (such as lexical
  access) with scores on psychometric tests.
• Sternberg (1977) used cognitive techniques
  different from that suggested by Hunt. In
  particular, he suggested that complex cognitive
  tasks (such as analogies classifications high
  levels of intelligent thought) be used instead of
  simple cognitive tasks and that the goal should
  be decomposed information processing on these
  tasks into its elementary information-processing
  components.

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Reconstruction (1)

• The creators suggests that the field should move
  backward to a previous point but from there move
  in a direction divergent from that it had taken.

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Reconstruction (2)

• Example
• B. F. Skinner (1972) analysis of creativity
  represents an example of reconstruction. Skinner
  apparently was perturbed that the behavioristic
  principles that he and his colleagues believed
  applied to all behavior. The 1972 paper was, in
  large part, an argument that the field of
  creativity had lost its foundations, and that it
  needed to return to the kinds of behavioristic
  analyses that Skinner believed he and others had
  shown could account for creative behavior.

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Reinitiation (1)

• In reinitiation, a contributor suggests that a
  field or subfield has reached an undesirable
  point or has exhausted itself moving in the
  direction in which it is moving. But rather than
  suggesting that the field or subfield move in a
  different direction from where it is. This form
  of creative contribution represents a major
  paradigm shift.

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Reinitiation (2)

• Example
• Spearman (1904) reinvented the filed of
  intelligence theory and research by his invention
  of factor analysis and by proposing his
  two-factor theory based on his factor-analytic
  results. Spearmans contribution was put
  theorizing about intelligence on a firm
  quantitative footing.
• Binet Simon (1916) reinvented the field of
  intelligence measurement. Whereas Galton (1883)
  has proposed that intelligence should be
  understood in terms of simple psychological
  processes, Binet and Simon proposed that
  intelligence should be understood in terms of
  higher-order processes of judgment. For the most
  part, the measurements of intelligence today are
  still based on this notion of Binet and Simon.

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Integration (1)

• The creator puts together two types of ideas
  previously seen as unrelated or even as opposed.

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Integration (2)

• Example
• Bob Silvers (1997) tasks George Seurats
  pointillist technique of using many small dots to
  form a larger work and combines it with the field
  photography.

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General Issues

• Creative contributions can vary in novelty and
  quality.
• Types of creative contributions do not
  immediately translate into levels of creative
  contributions
• What is viewed as creative will depend on the
  match between what an individual has to offer and
  what the context is willing to accept and value.

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Understand Creativity-related Phenomena via the
Propulsion Model (1)

• The mode suggests that positive or negative
  reactions to a given contribution are likely to
  vary with the type of creativity evinced in a
  given creative contribution.
• The propulsion model helps psychologists better
  understand the nature of the relation between
  creativity and leadership.
• The propulsion model helps address the question
  of whether programs based on artificial
  intelligence are creative.

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Understand Creativity-related Phenomena via the
Propulsion Model (2)

• The propulsion model may be relevant to the
  long-standing issue of the extent to which
  creativity is domain-specific or domain-general.
  It is speculative that the ability to do
  reasonably successful forward incrementations may
  be largely domain-general and may even be highly
  correlated with scores on tests of conventional
  (analytic) abilities. However, the ability to
  perform a reinitiation may be quite a bit more
  domain-specific, requiring a sense or even
  feeding for a field that goes well beyond the
  kinds of more generalized analytical abilities.