Creativity

Theories and Themes: Research, Development, and Practice

Mark A. Runco

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780124105225
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Personality in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

An integrative introduction to the theories and themes in research on creativity, the second edition of Creativity is both a reference work and text for courses in this burgeoning area of research. The book begins with a discussion of the theories of creativity (Person, Product, Process, Place), the general question of whether creativity is influenced by nature or nurture, what research has indicated of the personality and style of creative individuals from a personality analysis standpoint, and how social context affects creativity. This wide-ranging work then proceeds to coverage of issues such as gender differences, whether creativity can be enhanced, if creativity is related to poor mental or physical health, and much more.

The book contains boxes covering special interest items, including one-page biographies of famous creative individuals, and activities for a group or individual to test or encourage creativity, as well as references to Internet sites relating to creativity.

• Includes all major theories and perspectives on creativity
• Consolidates recent research into a single source
• Includes key terms defined and text boxes with interesting related material
• Single authored for clarity and consistency of presentation

Chapter 1

Cognition and Creativity

Abstract

This chapter discusses various aspects of cognition and creativity. Cognitive theories focus on thinking skills and intellectual processes. The approaches to creative cognition are extremely varied. There are bridges between basic cognitive processes and creative problem solving, as well as connections with intelligence, problem solving, language, and other indications of individual differences. The basic processes are generally nomothetic, meaning that they represent universals. Divergent thinking is employed when an individual is faced with an open-ended task. From this perspective divergent thinking is a kind of problem solving. Divergent thinking is not synonymous with creative thinking, but it does tell something about the cognitive processes that may lead to original ideas and solutions. Many theories of creative cognition look to associative processes. Associative theories focus on how ideas are generated and chained together. Cognitive theories of creativity often focus specifically on the problem-solving process. A problem can be defined as a situation with a goal and an obstacle. The stage models of creative cognition are also elaborated.

Keywords

Threshold theory

IQ

Structure of intellect

Associative theory

Problem solving

Problem finding

Incubation

Insight

Intuition

Meta-cognition

Mindfulness

Overinclusive thinking

You can only perceive beauty with a serene mind. Henry David Thoreau

Trouble with you is the trouble with me. Got two good eyes but still don’t see. Grateful Dead

Advance Organizer

• Universals and Individual Differences

• Intelligence, IQ, and Threshold Theory

• Structure of Intellect and Associative Theory

• Creative Thinking as Problem Solving

• Problem Finding

• Stage Theories of the Creative Process

• Insight

• Componential Models

• Incubation and the Role of the Unconscious

• Logic

• Intuition

• Tactics and Metacognition

• Mindfulness

• Overinclusive Thinking

Introduction

Cognitive theories focus on thinking skills and intellectual processes. Cognitive perspectives are quite numerous; there may be more cognitive theories of creativity than any other kind of theory. This is because there is an intuitive connection between cognition and creativity (and evidence reviewed in this chapter suggests that intuition is a useful source of information), and because cognitive research is often very scientific. In other words, we can study the cognitive bases for creative problem solving, and we can often do so in reasonably valid and reliable ways, in a controlled laboratory setting or with paper-and-pencil tests. Some approaches to creativity do not allow such experimentation and rigorous research. No doubt the prevalence of cognitive research on creativity also reflects the fact that virtually all human behavior has a cognitive basis. Creative behavior must also have a basis in cognition.

The approaches to creative cognition are extremely varied. There are bridges between basic cognitive processes (e.g., attention, perception, memory, information processing) and creative problem solving, as well as connections with intelligence, problem solving, language, and other numerous individual differences. The basic cognitive processes are generally nomothetic, meaning that they represent universals. These are things shared by all humans. Individual differences represent the dimensions along which people vary. There are both cognitive universals and cognitive individual differences in creativity.

This chapter presents an overview of the available theories of creative cognition. We will begin by examining the relationship between creativity and traditional intelligence and then explore the possibility that creativity can sometimes be a kind of problem solving. We will also review research on the creativity of computers, incubation, insight, and expertise. As we will see, cognition is related to many kinds of creative behavior.

Universals

Research on universals is sometimes described as nomothetic, but care should be taken when using this term. The word nomothetic is used to describe the kinds of laws that are found in a legal system, not laws in the sense that science defines them. Laws in the sciences refer to general rules, so there is a parallel, but it is only a parallel. Strictly speaking, it may be best to discuss universals in creativity and avoid the term nomothetic. Similar confusion arises with the complementary term idiographic. An ideograph is a symbol, but idiographic has been used to describe the scientific emphasis on individual differences. This makes sense if you think about the more common term, idiosyncratic. The confusion here, then, is simply spelling (idiographic vs. ideographic). It certainly is useful to distinguish universals from individual differences.

Creativity and Intelligence

The relationship between IQ and creative potential was quite the controversy 50 years ago. In fact, the relationship of intelligence and creativity was the key question when the study of creativity was establishing itself. This question was key because the field of creativity needed to separate itself from other scientific topics and interests in the 1950s and 1960s, and this required empirical evidence that creativity was not the same thing as intelligence. It was the demonstrated separation of creativity from traditional intelligence that first gave this field its identity and respect.

Some of the earliest research on creativity was designed to test the possibility that creativity was distinct from intelligence. After all, if creativity was dependent on intelligence there would be little reason to study or encourage it. Intelligence could be studied or encouraged and creativity would follow along. But sure enough, the early research confirmed that creativity (in the research, defined in terms of divergent thinking or some paper-and-pencil measures) was not dependent on traditional intelligence.

The field of creative studies had a shaky start. Getzels and Jackson (1962), for example, reported that creativity was not clearly distinct from intelligence. This conclusion was based on empirical research with a sizeable group of students, each of whom had taken various tests of creative potential, and for whom there was information about traditional intellectual potential. Simplifying some, the measures of creative potential and the indicators of traditional intelligence were correlated. This does not support the conclusion of independence.

Wallach and Kogan (1965) questioned the creativity–intelligence correlation, and more precisely, questioned the methodology that led to it. They felt that the tests used by Getzels and Jackson (1962) were too diverse and tapped noncreative skills as well as creative talents. Significantly, they also suggested that creativity can easily be stifled in an educational or testing environment. With this in mind, they conducted their own investigation of the Modes of Thinking in Young Children (the title of their book). This investigation relied heavily on tests of divergent thinking. As described in detail later, these contain open-ended tasks (e.g., “List multiple uses for a broom”), and an individual can therefore produce original answers.

Wallach and Kogan (1965) also took great care with the testing environment. They spent a great deal of time in the schools before data were collected, for instance, and built rapport with the students. When the measures of divergent thinking finally were administered, they were described as games rather than tests. Children were told that no grades would be given, that spelling did not matter, that they did not need to think about “correct” answers but could instead list numerous ideas. They were told to have fun, for goodness sake, and apparently they did. The game-like and permissive environment paid off. The children were indeed quite original. They gave many answers to the various divergent thinking games, and those answers reflected a mode of thought that could not be predicted from traditional intelligence. The implication is that IQ, grade point average (GPA), and the convergent thinking that is required by them (Box 1.1) is independent of divergent and original thinking.

Box 1.1

Tests of Convergent and Divergent Thinking

Convergent thinking questions always have one (or very few) correct or conventional answers. Here are examples:

• Who was the first President of the United States?

• How far is it from New York City to London?

• How many dimes are in one dollar?

• Who won the 1988 World Series?

Divergent thinking requires open-ended questions for which there are multiple answers and solutions. Here are examples from the classic study of Wallach and Kogan (1965):

Instances tasks

• Make a list of things that move on wheels.

• List strong things.

• List square things.

Uses tasks

• Make a list of the different ways that you can use a brick.

• List uses for a shoe.

• List uses for a coat hanger.

Many other divergent thinking questions and tasks have been used. Wallach and Kogan (1965) had “visual” or figural tests called pattern meanings and line meanings. More recently, realistic questions have been developed (these are discussed in detail in Chapter 2).

That may sound like a statistical and scientific result—and it is!—but consider what the same conclusion means in the sense of identifying creative children. It means that if schools care about creativity and give children exercises and tests of creative potential, but these are given in a test-like academic atmosphere, then the children who always do well on academic tests will excel, and the children who do moderately or poorly on traditional tests will do only moderately or poorly. If those same tests are administered in the permissive atmosphere—even a classroom if it is carefully controlled—children who do only moderately well or even poorly in academic tests may do exceptionally well. We may find creative children who would otherwise be overlooked.

Wallach and Wing (1969) extended this line of work in an investigation of college students. Divergent thinking tests were again administered, but unlike the earlier investigation, Wallach and Wing also collected data on the extracurricular activities and accomplishments of the students. This allowed examination of the predictive validity of the divergent thinking tests. Predictive validity is the label given to tests that provide information about the future, or about performance beyond the testing environment. Very significantly, Wallach and Wing found that divergent thinking tests were moderately correlated with (i.e., predictive of) the extracurricular activities and achievements of the students (Box 1.2), whereas the measures of more traditiona...