Towards a New Theory for Creativity
In Arab World
Amman – Jordan (November 16-17, 2013)
.
Prof. Dr. Qassim Hussein Salih
Head of Iraqi Psychological Association
Problematic concepts of creativity
Creativity has more than 20 definitions
* The ability to make human products and ideas (such as
symphonies or solutions to social problems) that are both
novel and valued by others.
* The generation of ideas that are original, novel, and useful.
*The ability to think about something in novel and unusual
and come up with unique solutions to problems.
*A cognitive process that leads to the production of
something that is both original and worthwhile.
* Creativity thinking skills include the ability to turn things
over in your mind ,like trying to make the strange
familiar and the familiar strange.
+ Question: How can we possibly define creativity as a
single construct that unifies the work of Leonardo da
Vince of Vincent Van Gogh and Isaac Newton of Albert
Einstein, and of Mosart and Nicolaus Copernicus?
* We suggest the following definition:
Creativity is a cognitive mental process,
regardless whether it relies on conscious or
unconscious, characterized by smart beautiful
thinking leads to product deserves value and
importance ,adding to knowledge something
new in its specialization field stimulates pleasure
and surprise.
IDEAS
+ Intelligence and creativity are not the same thing .Although
most creative people are quite intelligent; the reverse is not
necessary true. Many highly intelligent people are not very
creative.
+ Creativity in applied sciences (physics, A) differs from social
sciences (psychology...) and arts (B).
-In (A): its more objective, logical, convergent, wheres in (B)
its more subjective, emotive, and divergent.
+ Flexible beliefs and broadly accepting attitudes toward other
cultures, other races, and other religions creeds enhance
creativity.
+ We can not study creativity by isolating individuals and their
works from the social and historical milieu in which their
actions are carried out.
Creativity Theories
The paper covered 14 theories: Freud,Jung,Gestalt,Pavlov,..
to the last one
& Freud , da Vinci, and Dali:
Because of its emphasis on symbolic and unconscious
though, psychoanalytic theory has been extensively applied
to art and literature.
- The psychoanalytic formula is that creative work of art
satisfy unconscious wishes, because these wishes are often
unacceptable, they have to be disgused.Artistic techniques
are used for this purpose.(da Vinci was a man of extreme
sexual inhibition brought about by castration anxiety. da
Vinci channeled his sexual energy into creating the Mona
Lisa. Freud believed that the Mona Lisa's mysterious smile
was the smile of Leonardo's mother.
Although psychologists and art critics debate whether many
works of art unconsciously based, there is general agreement
that twenties-century art movement known as Surrealists saw
Freud's concept of the unconscious mind as the true source
of untainted creativity.(Rene Magritte and Salvador Dali are
two of the best known Surrealist artists.
& Guilford has used two concepts:
-Convergent thinking: Thinking that is logical and conventional
and that focuses on a problem until a solution is found.(
produces one correct answer.)
Divergent thinking: Thinking that is loosely
organized, only partially directed, and
unconventional. It produces answers that must be
evaluated subjectively .(produces many answers to
the same question).
{Architects need to use divergent thinking
when creating the design and convergent
thinking to be sure the building is
structurally sound}
& Sternberg theory: Three – Facet Model of
Creativity: There are three mental processes
regard creativity: Metacognition components, its
function to define the problem and formulate
strategy to solve it. Performance components to
execute it. And acquired knowledge (insight).
Comments:
Theory means a coherent set of interrelated ideas
that helps to make predictions and explain data. Or
a statement of some general principles that explain
a phenomenon or a set of phenomena.
-We
reached a conclusion that no certain theory
provided comprehensive interpretation to
“creativity” concept.
-Because Arab intellectuals and their honest
politicians believe that the future of the State is
fundamentally depend on its own talented and
creative citizens, thus it is essential to take this
matter seriously and find new ways to hunt our
future.
NEW SUGGESTED APPROACH
There are 4 determinisms regrd interpretation
behavior: Psychological, environmental, biological,
and socialculutral.
 We consider “creativity” is a human activity which
is processed and created rationally through the
brain software, which may occur under three
conditions:
biological composition, sort and quantity of
stimulus and characteristics of the intellectual
outputs.
•
- That means multiple individuals and
environmental factors
must converge for creativity to occur.

* Social change in most Arab countries is arbitrary.
Creativity achieved in
healthy social context and planned social change not
arbitrary one and that could be accomplished if the
following conditions taken into our consideration:
1. Fairness; in applying legislations: education is the right
for every child and so it is the governments duty to
facilitate the necessity for this issue and to provide help
to ensure that every one will have this right of the chance
for education in Arab world.
- The first legislation for Arab authorities to issue is the
compulsory education system (between ages 6-16 years
- The second legislation to accompany the
compulsory education is the National
Curriculum for education with open windows
to modern education in the world.
2.
Equality; by giving each individual similar
opportunity. Education should be for all and
all have equal opportunities regardless of race,
religion, health and ability.
3. Freedom; in thinking, expression and
behavior.
ARAB FAMILY

Family should involve in exploring and
developing creativity in their children, but
most of Arab families are still use traditional
socialization. The most important for their
children are to pass the exams which
depend on memory not on critical thinking.
Arab Schools-Suggestions
Most of Arab schools are still classic and not have
profile of gifted pupils. We suggest the following
checklist of characteristics:
- high mathematical
- alert curiosity
- Independence of action
- initiative, anxious to do new things
- imagination in thinking
- fluency in non-verbal communication

Suggestions -2
-Varied interests
- learning quickly through experience
- Mature sense of humor
- originality and creativity in thinking
- Showing desire to learn in daily work
– Showing relationships among apparently
unrelated ideas.
Arab Educational Systems



The school essential function is to establish
creative readiness, but Arabs schools, in
general, have not received their attention.
Most of Arab students from primary to
University are passive observers.
Most of Arab Educational Systems provided
children with passive stimulus; no climate
for dialogue or critical approach which is
essential for creativity.

This means looking carefully to renew
curriculum, teaching style, classroom
organization, technology of education and
well qualified teachers in order to cope
with an increasingly dynamic world.

Thus these educational systems need real
coup to clear out the out of date
curriculum and teaching methods.
IRAQ !!!

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Iraq is the only Arab-Asian country expose over the
last twenty years to a systematic unprecedented
wave of brain drain (1991-2013).
After 2003 over 600 Iraqi intellectual had been killed
and more than four thousands academicians and
researchers left Iraq.
We politely asking the conference to issue special
statement in favor of maintaining the Iraqi
intellectuals and calling back the scattered Iraqi
brain to contribute with others to rebuild their
devastated country.
HOPE


The change winds of Arab Spring that
overwhelming Arab world since January 2011
cold open the doors widely for creativity ,
intellectuality, democracy and pease as
expected,but the wind goes in the opposite
direction.This because arab enviroment was
repellent to creativity for more than thound
years!.
Although.. believers in creativity still hold
the hope!!