Theories of Creativity Class 2 January 24, 2005

Creativity: An individual trait or situation-driven? Both Individual Trait Situation-Driven

Individual Traits Influencing Creativity Intrinsic Motivation Personality (e.g., Myers Briggs)  Other Personality-Related Individual Differences: Left vs. Right Brain Need for Cognition Dogmatism Divergent Thinking Ability Willingness to Break the Rules Intelligence

Approaches to Studying Creativity Case Studies / Historiometric Developmental Biological Psychometric Experimental  Social-Personality (e.g. motivation, risk-taking, intelligence)  Cognitive (e.g., processing strategies, imagery)

The Creative Cognition Approach Creative accomplishments, whether mundane or extraordinary, are based on ordinary mental processes Thus, our understanding of human cognition can be directly applied to understanding creative thought as well

The Creative Cognition Approach The Geneplore Model  Generative Processes Pre-Inventive Structures (Finke, Ward, and Smith 1992) Mental transformation / assimilation to create a structure For example, arrange an 8, a V, and a circle to make a figure or structure  Exploratory Processes

Creative Cognition Path of Least Resistance (“POLR”) (Perkins 1997; Ward 1994)  Top-Down Process Recall an existing solution to an active problem Implement a well-known plan to solve it

Constraints and the POLR Constraints  Input Restrictions In-Stock (Acquisition Costs) Monetary (Budgetary Constraints)

Input Constraints and the POLR

Individual Traits Influencing Creativity Intrinsic Motivation Personality (e.g., Myers Briggs)  Other Personality-Related Individual Differences: Left vs. Right Brain Need for Cognition Dogmatism Divergent Thinking Ability Willingness to Break the Rules Intelligence  8 Types of Intelligence (Gardner)  Linguistic (writing poems, short stories)  Logical, mathematical (solving a logical proof)  Spatial (getting the “lay of the land”)  Bodily-kinesthetic (athletics/dancing)  Musical (composing/playing)  Interpersonal (relating to others)  Intrapersonal (self understanding)  Naturalist (seeing complex patterns in a natural environment)