3 Points for today’s lecture
• Definition – what is creativity?
• Scientific approaches to creativity
Cox; Guilford; Torrance; Mednick;
Weisberg; Finke; Sternberg
• Practical approaches
De Bono; Osborne
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).”
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 19751994 were studies of creativity. 1.5% of
entries for that period (3 times as many)
were studies of reading.
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
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
Psychometric Approach - Cox
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 = .16. Simonton (1975): r = 0.
Cox: Highest persistence + OK intelligence >
Highest intelligence + OK persistence
Psychometric Approach - Guilford
Guilford (1950): It’s 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”).
Psychometric Approach - Torrance
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
Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking
Asking questions – write out all questions 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.
Product Improvement – ways to change a toy
monkey to make it more fun
Psychometric Approach - Mednick
Mednick – Remote Associates Test
Creative thinking involves forming new relations
among elements, such that relations are useful or
match a standard. Example test items:
Cake
Surprise
Blue
Line
Cottage
Birthday
_____?
_____?
Task: find word that goes with all three in a line.
Quick & objective test – but is it a good theory?
Psychometric Approaches - Sternberg
Sternberg & Ben-Zeev on IQ and creativity:
Creative people tend to have IQs > 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).
Research on Creativity – Cognitive
Approaches
Goal is to understand mental
representations underlying creativity
and process that operate on those
representations.
Weisberg (1999) – products of creative
processes are remarkable, not the
processes themselves.
Cognitive Approach – Weisberg & Alba
Weisberg & Alba (1981)
Asked subjects to solve the nine-dot problem:
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’
doesn’t help.
What might those processes be?
Finke’s 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.
Finke’s 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)
Because this is a cognitive theory, it
emphasizes processes like retrieval,
association, analogy, transformation, &
categorical reduction.
Confluence Approaches
Csikszentmihalyi (1988, 1996) – creativity
requires 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).
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 – convincing people the idea is
great.
Sternberg & Lubart’s Investment Theory
Requires confluence of six resources:
knowledge
intellect
thinking style
personality,
motivation
and environment.
Sternberg & Lubart’s 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; don’t focus on
rewards
Environment – supportive; providing a forum
Practical Approaches
• Primary concern is developing creativity
• Secondary concern is understanding
creativity
• No concern with testing ideas empirically
• Does the commercial success of some
practical approaches damage the scientific
study of creativity, as Sternberg & Ben-Zeev
claim?
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
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.
• Where’s 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
inhibitory