Values and motivation underlying visual creativity1
Mariia Bulatova2
Nowadays more than ever creativity is viewed as a key to anything innovative,
bright, and progressive. We may notice that the concept of creativity is regarded at
differently in different spheres: in education it is called ‘innovation’, in business it
is ‘entrepreneurship’, in mathematics it is often equated with ‘problem solving’, and
in music it is ‘performance’ or ‘composition’ (Reid & Petocz, 2004). The creative
product in art, in turn, has to be new, unusual, and also must reflect an original
approach and individuality of creator.
As stated in modern theories, creativity is not unidimentional construct. Like
art, that can not be viewed without addressing cultural and societal background,
creativity can not be studied without measuring cultural and social concepts that
determine it and regulate the given creative activity (Csikszentmihalyi, 1994). We
hypnotize, along the influential line of research creativity and values, that the
relationship of values and types of motivation determines creativity level in art
domain, and that the leading value orientations and types of motivation will differ in
different cultural regions. We tested these hypotheses in two Federal Districts:
Central and North Caucasus.
We based our research on several influential theories in the field:
(1) Theory of individual values by Sh. Schwartz [Schwartz et al., 2010];
(2) Self-determination theory by E. Deci and R. Ryan, which reveals the
gradation of the motivational orientation of individual behaviour [Ryan & Deci,
2000];
1
The study was implemented in the framework of the Basic Research Program at the National
Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) in 2013.
2
Trainee Researcher, International Scientific-Educational Laboratory for Socio-Cultural
Research, National Research University Higher School of Economics
(3) Investment theory of creative behaviour by R. Stenberg and T. Lubart,
which views creative behaviour as a way to search for unknown or unpopular
decisions and ideas [Sternberg & Lubart, 1991]; and
(4) Amusement Park Theory by J. Baer and G. Kaufman, who understand
creativity as the behaviour or a product, which meets the requirements of novelty,
usefulness, and applicability. Creative behaviour is believed to be partly domaingeneral, but acquiring domain-specific characteristics at the lower levels of the
model.
2046 participants from the North Caucasian and Central federal districts were
asked to fill in the following set of questionnaires:
(1) Revised Values Questionnaire by Sh. Schwartz;
(2) The evaluation scale of creativity manifestations in particular field (Creative
Behaviour Inventory). The manifestation of creativity was measured in several
domains including the domain of Visual Art Creativity;
(3) The modified questionnaire of self-regulation of behaviour that allowed
identifying of predominant type of creative motivation of individual behaviour.
We found significant relations of values, types of motivation, and domains of
creative behaviour in two Federal Districts. In consistence with our hypotheses,
different relations are formed in various domains of creative behaviour.
In the Central Federal District, the domain of Visual Art is positively related to
the individual
values
Self-Direction (thoughts), Self-Direction
(actions),
Stimulation, Benevolence (dependability), Universalism (care), Universalism
(nature), as well as to Intrinsic motivation; and negatively - to Humility value.
In the North Caucasus Federal District, Visual Art domain is positively related
to the values Self-Direction (thoughts) and Benevolence (care); and negatively - to
the Face and Conformity (rules) values.
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