Creativity Final- creative theories

Six scholarly traditions/theories of creativity

Mystical, Pragmatic, Psychodynamic, Cognitive, Psychometric, Social-Personality

Barriers to studying creativity

Connection to mysticism
Difficult to define
Doesn’t fall in one academic discipline
Subjective by nature

Mystical

Creativity is divine intervention, Rooted in Greek tradition

Plato believed creativity came from Muse

Mystical

Mystical, Human =

empty vessel

Alex Osborn -

brainstorming

Edward de Bono

lateral thinking

Roger Von Oech -

Whack Pack

Practicing creativity instead of understanding it

Pragmatic

Alex Osborn

BBDO - formed in 1928

First presented the term Brainstorming - what year

1942

Edward de Bono using creativity to

solve problems

Edward de Bono Idea Generating tool

Random entry, Provocation, Challenge

Provocation idea generating tool

1. Generate provocation(s) that ‘solve’ the problem
under consideration
2. Extract the principle that underlies the provocation
3. Move to realistic solutions based on the principle

Provocation idea generating tool
problem:
Cars run out of gas after a few hundred miles

1. Invent a car that tows a gas station behind it- Principle
2. Invent a car that runs on air- Solutions utilizing principle
3. Make everything that the car has to drive to closer- Solutions utilizing principle

A Whack on the Side of the Head - 1983
- Toy-maker, speaker, author, consultant

Roger von Oech

Clients of Roger von Oech

Apple, Sony, Disney, Intel

Jolt you out of Habitual Thinking

Roger von Oech

Psychodynamic Originally developed by

Sigmund Freud

Psychodynamic tension between

Tension between conscious and unconscious realities

Psychodynamic, Adaptive regression -

dreams, fantasies, drugs, psychoses

Freud and Pathography (1910)

the viewing of art as a privileged form of neurosis where
the analyst-critic explores the artwork in order to
understand and unearth the origins of the creator's
psychological motivations

Cognitive
-Graham Wallas:

four stage process model

Cognitive, J. P. Guilford:

Structure of intellect model, and
convergent and divergent thinking

Seeks to understand the mental representations and
processes underlying creative thought

Graham Wallas

Graham Wallas described…

creativity through the four-stage process
model in The Art of Thought (1926)

Four Stage Model, Preparation:

research problem/background, develop
assumptions, assess

Four Stage Model, Incubation:

detach from creative process

Four Stage Model, Illumination

discovery, epiphany

Four Stage Model, Verification:

application, testing

EDUCATOR AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGIS

Graham Wallas

Assumptions of the Four Stage Model

-Relatively simple process
-Discrete stages, sequential in nature
-Recursive, one can return to (repeat) an earlier stage
if necessary

Developed Structure of Intellect theory (1955)

J. P. Guilford

J. P. Guilford

Convergent thinking v. Divergent thinking

J. P. Guilford, Creativity as separate phenomenon from

IQ

Structure of Intellect theory

Operations, Content, product

Structure of Intellect theory, operations

cognition, memory, divergent
and convergent production.

Structure of Intellect theory, content

figural, semantic, symbolic,
behavioral

Structure of Intellect theory, Product,

units, classes, systems, transformations...

Psychometric

E. Paul Torrance

Studied the relationship between creativity and
intelligence

E. Paul Torrance

E. Paul Torrance developed

Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking
(TTCT) in early 1960s

TTCT scored on four scales

Fluency, Flexibility, Originality, Elaboration

TTCT scored on four scales, Fluency

total number of relevant, meaningful
responses to question

TTCT scored on four scales, Flexibility:

number of different categories represented
by responses

TTCT scored on four scales,Originality

statistical rarity of responses

TTCT scored on four scales, Elaboration

amount of detail in responses

TTCT fall into 3 categories:

Verbal tasks using verbal stimuli
Verbal tasks using non-verbal stimuli
Non-verbal tasks

Measuring creativity by evaluating personality traits

Social-Personality

Social-Personality, Creative people tend to be

more open to new
experiences, less conventional, less conscientious,
more self-confident, dominant, impulsive

who made flow?

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Flow:

complete absorption with the activity at hand,
in the groove, in the zone

Characteristics of Flow state:

loss of sense of time,
loss of self consciousness, joy, feeling of purpose,
high concentration

Under flow, Autotelic personality:

curiosity, persistence, low self-
centeredness

Teresa Amabile: Motivation & Creativity Requires lots of

Failure

Teresa Amabile

Intrinsic motivation:, Extrinsic motivation:

Extrinsic motivation:

engage in activity “to meet
some goal external to the work itself, such as
attaining an expected reward, winning a competition,
or meeting some requirement”

Intrinsic motivation:

to engage in an activity
primarily for its own sake” based on “how interesting,
satisfying or challenging” we find the activity to be

Developed Componential Model of Creativity:
expertise, creative processes, motivation
(overlap = creativity)

Teresa Amabile

Teresa Amabile researches

motivation and other social factors in
creativity