Creativity — A Sociological Approach

Monika E. Reuter

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781137531223
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Teoría y práctica de la educación

Introducing the first macro-sociological perspective on the concept of creativity this book includes a review of ten domains which have studied creativity. It also explores the results of a six-year on-going research project comparing students' ideas on creativity with employers' and industry professionals' views.

1

The Concept

Abstract: Chapter 1 cites numerous examples on how the term “creativity” is used in academic, political, and popular arenas, and various suggestions as to its meaning. The sequence of the chapters that follow is mapped out and their topics briefly addressed, revealing the tremendous schisms across fields and cultures with regard to the meaning of the term. This chapter suggests the debunking of seven common myths and presents a discussion of the shortcomings of one popular 2002 book which has had an impact on American and some international urban development.

Reuter, Monika E. Creativity – A Sociological Approach. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. DOI: 10.1057/9781137531223.0006.

Why, asks Hargadon (2004), is creativity still such a fascinating, yet elusive, concept after decades of study? The term, believed to have been coined in its present interpretation in 1927 by Alfred North Whitehead (1978), is used in daily life, from politics (i.e., President Obama’s 2011 State of the Union address, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s speech at the 2006 World Economic Forum, and Rahm Emanuel’s 2013 call for action to fix America’s dire infrastructure problems) to television shows such as the Food Network in the United States. In 2009, the European Commission declared an official Year of Creativity and Innovation even though practical outcomes of that effort are hard to quantify, and useful outcome is one criterion often applied to defining or measuring creativity in the Western world. During a speech in February 2015, German cultural minister Gruetters revealed that there are 250,000 organizations in the creativity industry with over 1 million employees and an estimated annual revenue of 145 billion euros in the European Community (2015). Ergo: Creativity matters, especially economically.

The term “suffers from inflationary overuse” (McEwan, 1998) in the public sphere while at the same time it is defined domain-specifically (see next chapter) in academia. Deeply embedded first in Psychology and more recently in Social Psychology, it has found its way into a variety of other fields, even spawning an entire consulting industry – but there still is no consensus on its meaning. As Geertz said, creativity is one of the “big words,” that is, a grand concept that is often used, but hardly ever defined adequately (in Adolf et al., 2013). There are medical models, for example, the study of brain wave changes during the creative thinking process (Shiu et al., 2011), measuring alpha and beta power, as well as a biological one (see Reuter et al., 2005). More recently, with advances in technology in the medical world, there are also increasingly neuroscientific investigations, especially about the possibility of fostering creativity (Waytz and Mason, 2013).

In one segment of the US popular science television show Through the Wormhole (Discovery Channel, undated), a creativity cap was introduced which supposedly is capable not only of detecting where creativity resides in the brain, but also, by administering short electrical currents, changing the way in which people come up with answers to puzzles much more creatively. Similarly, English (2011) reports on a research study engaging a “Thinking Cap” that was supposed to promote creativity in 213 undergraduate students.

Alternatively, it has been closely linked to the need of using new computer technologies, that is, according to Resnick (CHI Conference, 2009), these have the potential to aid people become creative thinkers living in a creative society, leading to, as the United Nations specifies in its 2013 Human Development Report, “entrepreneurial creativity and social policy innovation” worldwide (United Nations, 2013). Another example for a different conception of the term is Rettig’s (2010a, 2010b) proposition that especially one precondition needs to be fulfilled for creativity: leisure! He also insists that if the “right” people in the “right” environment are being managed in the “right” way, innovations will almost certainly follow. Employees need to feel that their employers support innovative thinking, which will lead to more overall creativity (translation mine). For Zimmer (2001) all that good new products need are businesses devoted to enabling their employees’ potential (translation mine). Tanner (1997) echoes this sentiment and proposes “total creativity in business” but for Oelze (2012), creativity is the demystification and democratization of the modern concept of genius. Creativity, in his view, has become a criterion for achievement that everybody is supposed to fulfill (2012, translation mine).

Krämer (2012: 111–112) suggests that the creative and self-organized employee is a role model for successfully working and acting in our current society. Moreover, “creativity is an expression of happiness in politics, a euphemism of the new capitalism, and a healing slogan of modern culture” (Hentig in Oelze, 2012: 79, translations mine). Creativity has become a central job and life skill, even though there is no solid explanation of its meaning, and it certainly is difficult to “hire for creativity” (Inc. Guidebook, 2010). Csikszentmihalyi (cited by Tanggaard, p. 126, in Glăveanu et al., 2015) thus says that creativity “is no longer a luxury for the few, but a necessity for all” and Oelze (2012: 82, translation mine) finds that “Creativity is whatever people think of when they speak about it!”

What deserves to be called creative? Valsiner et al. (2015) make this interesting observation: “The warm sun, or the full moon, are not to be given the honor of being creative – even as the sunrays are crucial to the upkeep of our natural survival” (p. xviii). Certain processes, products, and people are called creative, and as of the second half of the last century, even corporations, countries, economies, cities, social classes, and milieus (Merkel in Oelze, 2012: 81–82, translation mine). Habitus forms so that many social areas are suffused by the logic of the total creative imperative, say Kurt and Göttlich (2012: 10), which means an epidemic expansion of a creativity norm in Western societies. In the public, this conception of creativity is often regarded as “a theological, if not metaphysical concept of a miracle” (2012: 10). Florida (see the discussion later in this chapter) reserves the label for people – young, hip, technologically sophisticated with a flair and desire for rock music and specific urban areas. If they are also gay, creativity seems to turn into an automatic outcome for any city willing to spend money on the developments he recommends.

What just these few examples illustrate is how many different definitions and interpretations there are for the concept of creativity. A brief literature review on creativity from ten different academic domains is presented in Chapter 2: (1) organizational studies; (2) everyday and social creativity; (3) innovation; (4) creativity as a function of groups; (5) creativity as intelligence; (6) creativity as a by-product of madness in psychopathology; (7) creativity in education; (8) chaos/philosophy/design fields; (9) commercial consulting; and (10) psychology. Chapter 3 maps out a theory of creativity from a sociological perspective and presents a model that seeks to explain the social construction of creativity. Chapter 4 reports the results of an ongoing longitudinal triangulation research project which started out by asking students and then employers and industry professionals what creativity means to them. The concluding chapter lays out the major shortcomings of the present research and future research questions.

Even though there are mostly open questions (is creativity innate? can it be learned? what would be the best approach to teaching it?), an entire industry in Western industrialized societies teaches creativity. Consulting firms have arisen around the concept, and associations link themselves to the idea (the American Creativity Association, the German Creativity Association [Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Kreativitaet], the French Creativity Association [CREA]). Creativity in this domain is often considered the basis for innovation or for better corporate management. Here, it can be learned and it can be taught. In addition, thousands of books have been published on how to learn to be more creative in one’s own life.

Education and creativity are closely linked, that is, there are a variety of interpretations of the significance of creativity in education (see domain 7). Edward de Bono insists that creative thinking is first and foremost a question of discipline (Tönnesmann, 2009, translation mine). Everybody can learn creativity, just as everybody can learn how to play tennis. He criticizes educational systems that have imprinted in us the logical thinking models of Plato, Sokrates, and Aristotle who developed a thought system that depends on analyses and judgments. For 2,000 years, de Bono says, schools and universities have used this system as their mantra, which means we know many different and excellent ways to find truth, but only a few ways to create new thinking (in Tönnesmann, 2009, translation mine). The biggest problem today, according to him, is not climate change, wars, or crises, but poor, uncreative thinking (in Tönnesmann, 2009, translations mine). Sir Robinson (2001), one harsh critic of the present Western educational system, agrees with de Bono and also believes that creativity can be learned, while Makel (2009) asks creativity researchers to help bring creative thinking into the classroom.

Some experts believe creativity to be “our true human nature” (Fox, 2004) as others claim that it grows around diversity (Florida, 2002) or see it as “essential to the existence of humanity” (Vygotsky in Lindqvist, 2003: 249). A number of scholars, gurus, and journalists regard creativity as a unique gift, eminence, or genius (see Riedemann, 2011, translation mine) while others grant it everyday status, acknowledging that all people, throughout their lives, have the capacity for creativity (domain 2, Ruth Richards, 1999a, 1999b, 2007).

The field gets further muddled by very different assumptions about creativity’s importance. In the German science magazine GEO, for example, Langer (2011, translations mine) describes how crucial it is to develop “fantasy” in children. He argues that the royal discipline of homo sapiens is not intelligence, but role play – the stage where children practice to become human. That is an ability, Langer claims, which is only accessible via creativity. The play of children is equivalent to foreign trips – imagining what could be behind the borders of reality. Age, he asserts – and both social psychologists and sociologists would add, cultural imprinting during socialization! – prevents adults from seeing the magical. Langer also presumes that abiding by rules and norms kills creative capacity as we age (translation mine). Even very young children already seem to be impacted by variations in culture. Interesting here is a project by the University of Osnabrück, cited in Langer’s article, which compares drawings of children from around the world. The drawings reflect the cultural differences from one society to another, even though the subject of the task, that is, illustrating “family,” was the same. The research concludes that children see the world very differently as a result of the culture in which they have grown up.

Creativity has been both called a god-given gift and equated to madness (see domain 6) whereas authors in domain 4 see creativity as originating from group efforts, and some in domain 5 consider it a by-product of intelligence. In domain 8, creativity is part of chaos, and in the field of Sociology, described in Chapter 3, the concept has been almost completely ignored.

There are hundreds, and globally probably thousands, of definitions: Aleinikov et al. (2003) furnish 101, mostly by everyday people and artists, while Treffinger (2000) supplies 112, predominantly from academic environments. Also noteworthy is Isaksen’s (2008) compendium of creativity definitions with extensive bibliographic reviews. In the context of the World Creativity and Innovation Week, the HR’s Workplace Learning and Development Team, the AU Innovation Facilitators, and the Center for Teaching, Research and Learning (American Education, undated) published 75 quotes about creativity and innovation. Andersson and Sahlin (1997) have called this multitude of interpretations the “complexity of creativity.”

Then there is also the question of whether creative capacities are being lost, and what it means for adults when they have been defined as creative while they were children. Bronson and Merryman (2010) have reported on the amazing predictability potential of Torrance’s test with the 400 “Torrance Kids” in an ongoing longitudinal study, begun in 1958. The study investigates their accomplishments as adults. Bronson and Merryman come to an interesting conclusion in this article, that is, the Flynn effect with intelligence quotients in international comparisons. IQ scores are going up by ten points annually because of increasingly enriched environments. The opposite is true for the Torrance creativity scores, that is, in the United States, those have been falling since approximately 1990. See also, for this argument, Kim’s analysis of 300,000 US children’s creativity tests (2007) and LiveScience’s (2011) question why US children are becoming less creative. The decline is seen as most serious for younger children from Kindergarten to sixth grade. So, if creativity is lost, what can be done to get it back? That question has yet to be researched.

A look across domains and fields presented here reveals tremendous schisms in the use of the term where meanings are often contradictory. And yet, very few of the domains described consider cross-cultural interpretations of creativity (Raina, 1999), or how the term is perpetuated especially in the public. Creativity is analyzed in this volume not as a product, an action, or a personal talent, but as an effect of specific arrangements of social practices (Passoth, 2012). This also means that both academics and the public should discard the following widespread myths:

1that creativity is innate and person-specific (Mozart and Einstein were creative, but Ms. Jones and Mr. Smith are not). The persistent belief in the individual genius who is different, with god-given ideas, is misplaced from a sociological perspective. See, as an example of this very common belief system, economist Galenson who describes “the contributions of those rare individuals who can make a huge difference in science, technology and business” (2006: 30);

2that creativity is not only a gift bestowed on only a few, but that it also does not need to be practiced. Creativity means persistence, work, concentration, passion, and the need for new knowledge along the way, as creatives will advise;

3that all you need to exercise creativity is free time, that is, Rettig’s (2010b, translation mine) argument that the one precondition especially important for creativity is leisure;

4that children are still “naturally” creative while adults have lost it. Children’s play does not lead to innovation, or new ideas. It is pure fantasy. Even the most creative kids do not have to compete for the best ideas, or have to be concerned about earning paychecks by innovating products. In addition, some adults who can play at work may be subjected to harsh demands by their bosses (a well-known example is Steve Jobs). Despite media stories every once in a while of a child displaying incredible artistic talents, Mozarts or Einsteins do not typically come in mini versions;

5that creativity is the same around the world;

6that creativity is male – either it is inherently male, or it is inherited by males from their fathers. During an interview, British musician and songwriter Omar Lye-Fook (National Public Radio, 2013), for example, said that music is in his blood because his father was a drummer with Bob Marley and the Rolling Stones. However, creativity has not (yet!) been found to be a paternal genetic predisposition;

7that creativity is connected to money or usefulness. For many people, if an idea doesn’t translate into a dollar, it is not creative in the first place.

Apart from deconstructing these ideas, does environment matter as much as, or less or more than genius or talent? Is economist Cowen (2013) correct when he suggests that the secure life in US middle classes, that is, “average,” is over – or do most people have a very different future ahead, one with excitingly creative careers, as a popular book suggested for the 21st century? When Richard Florida published The Rise of the Creative Class in 2002, accolades about his predictions abounded. Yet ten years later, those predictions have not come true.

Why discuss Florida in this book? He has had a tremendous impact on US urban development as both small and big cities have embraced his ideas of creative places. Critiques of Florida address additional issues. While he sees an ascendance of the creative class in America as a positive development which should be actively supported both socially and politically, Peck (2005) furnishes a searing criticism of the bifurcation of hedonistic creatives and the “Lumpen two-thirds” (p. 757).

Florida’s idealistic vision of a creative knowledge society and the rise of creative classes, that is, “people who are paid principally to do creative work ... scientists, engineers, artists, musicians, designers and knowledge-based professionals” (2002: xiii) has not become reality in the United States. One reason for this failure can be found in his definition of the work he considers creative. Just because he classifies occupations into a creative class does not mean that people in these jobs would consider their work creative, that is, “that they also get to do more enjoyable work and they contribute more by adding creative value (that’s why they are paid highly)” (Flor...