For other uses, see. Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and somehow valuable is formed. The created item may be intangible (such as an, a, a, or a ) or a physical object (such as an, a, or a ). Scholarly interest in creativity involves many definitions and concepts pertaining to a number of disciplines:,,,, (particularly ),,,,,,, and, covering the relations between creativity and general intelligence, mental and neurological processes, personality type and creative ability, creativity and mental health; the potential for fostering creativity through education and training, especially as augmented by technology; the maximization of creativity for national economic benefit, and the application of creative resources to improve the effectiveness of teaching and learning. Contents • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Definition [ ] In a summary of scientific research into creativity, Michael Mumford suggested: 'Over the course of the last decade, however, we seem to have reached a general agreement that creativity involves the production of novel, useful products' (Mumford, 2003, p. 110), or, in 's words, the production of 'something original and worthwhile'. Authors have diverged dramatically in their precise definitions beyond these general commonalities: Peter Meusburger reckons that over a hundred different analyses can be found in the literature. As an illustration, one definition given by described it as 'a process of becoming sensitive to problems, deficiencies, gaps in knowledge, missing elements, disharmonies, and so on; identifying the difficulty; searching for solutions, making guesses, or formulating hypotheses about the deficiencies: testing and retesting these hypotheses and possibly modifying and retesting them; and finally communicating the results.'

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Aspects [ ] Theories of creativity (particularly investigation of why some people are more creative than others) have focused on a variety of aspects. The dominant factors are usually identified as 'the four Ps' — process, product, person, and place (according to ). A focus on process is shown in cognitive approaches that try to describe thought mechanisms and techniques for creative thinking.

Theories invoking divergent rather than convergent thinking (such as ), or those describing the staging of the creative process (such as ) are primarily theories of creative process. A focus on creative product usually appears in attempts to measure creativity (psychometrics, see below) and in creative ideas framed as successful. The psychometric approach to creativity reveals that it also involves the ability to produce more. A focus on the nature of the creative person considers more general intellectual habits, such as openness, levels of, autonomy, expertise, exploratory behavior, and so on. A focus on place considers the circumstances in which creativity flourishes, such as degrees of autonomy, access to resources, and the nature of gatekeepers. Creative lifestyles are characterized by nonconforming attitudes and behaviors as well as flexibility.

Etymology [ ] The in the English word creativity comes from the term creō 'to create, make': its also come from Latin. The word 'create' appeared in English as early as the 14th century, notably in Chaucer, to indicate divine creation (in ). However, its modern meaning as an act of human creation did not emerge until after.

History of the concept [ ]. Main article: In, introduced the concept of bisociation — that creativity arises as a result of the intersection of two quite different frames of reference. This idea was later developed into conceptual blending.

In the 1990s, various approaches in cognitive science that dealt with,, and have been converging, and a new integrative approach to the study of creativity in science, art and humor has emerged under the label. Honing theory [ ] Honing theory, developed principally by psychologist, posits that creativity arises due to the self-organizing, self-mending nature of a worldview.

The creative process is a way in which the individual hones (and re-hones) an integrated worldview. Honing theory places emphasis not only on the externally visible creative outcome but also the internal cognitive restructuring and repair of the worldview brought about by the creative process. When faced with a creatively demanding task, there is an interaction between the conception of the task and the worldview. The conception of the task changes through interaction with the worldview, and the worldview changes through interaction with the task. This interaction is reiterated until the task is complete, at which point not only is the task conceived of differently, but the worldview is subtly or drastically transformed as it follows the natural tendency of a worldview to attempt to resolve dissonance and seek internal consistency amongst its components, whether they be ideas, attitudes, or bits of knowledge. A central feature of honing theory is the notion of a potentiality state.

Honing theory posits that creative thought proceeds not by searching through and randomly ‘mutating’ predefined possibilities, but by drawing upon associations that exist due to overlap in the distributed neural cell assemblies that participate in the encoding of experiences in memory. Midway through the creative process one may have made associations between the current task and previous experiences, but not yet disambiguated which aspects of those previous experiences are relevant to the current task. Thus the creative idea may feel ‘half-baked’.

It is at that point that it can be said to be in a potentiality state, because how it will actualize depends on the different internally or externally generated contexts it interacts with. Honing theory is held to explain certain phenomena not dealt with by other theories of creativity, for example, how different works by the same creator are observed in studies to exhibit a recognizable style or 'voice' even through in different creative outlets. This is not predicted by theories of creativity that emphasize chance processes or the accumulation of expertise, but it is predicted by honing theory, according to which personal style reflects the creator's uniquely structured worldview. Another example is in the environmental stimulus for creativity. Creativity is commonly considered to be fostered by a supportive, nurturing, trustworthy environment conducive to self-actualization.

However, research shows that creativity is also associated with childhood adversity, which would stimulate honing. Everyday imaginative thought [ ] In everyday thought, people often spontaneously imagine alternatives to reality when they think 'if only.'

Their is viewed as an example of everyday creative processes. It has been proposed that the creation of counterfactual alternatives to reality depends on similar cognitive processes to rational thought. Assessing individual creative ability [ ] Creativity quotient [ ] Several attempts have been made to develop a creativity quotient of an individual similar to the (IQ); however, these have been unsuccessful. Psychometric approach [ ] 's group, which pioneered the modern study of creativity, constructed several tests to measure creativity in 1967: • Plot Titles, where participants are given the plot of a story and asked to write original titles. • Quick Responses is a word-association test scored for uncommonness.

• Figure Concepts, where participants were given simple drawings of objects and individuals and asked to find qualities or features that are common by two or more drawings; these were scored for uncommonness. • Unusual Uses is finding unusual uses for common everyday objects such as bricks. • Remote Associations, where participants are asked to find a word between two given words (e.g.

Hand _____ Call) • Remote Consequences, where participants are asked to generate a list of consequences of unexpected events (e.g. Loss of gravity) Building on Guilford's work, developed the in 1966. They involved simple tests of divergent thinking and other problem-solving skills, which were scored on: • Fluency – The total number of interpretable, meaningful, and relevant ideas generated in response to the stimulus. • Originality – The statistical rarity of the responses among the test subjects.

• Elaboration – The amount of detail in the responses. The, a self-report test that measures creative achievement across 10 domains, was described in 2005 and shown to be reliable and valid when compared to other measures of creativity and to independent evaluation of creative output. Such tests, sometimes called Divergent Thinking (DT) tests have been both supported and criticized. Considerable progress has been made in automated scoring of tests using semantic approach. When compared to human raters, techniques were shown to be reliable and valid in scoring the originality (when compared to human raters). The reported computer programs were able to achieve a correlation of 0.60 and 0.72 respectively to human graders. Semantic networks were also used to devise originality scores that yielded significant correlations with socio-personal measures.

Most recently, an NSF-funded team of researchers led by and Mark A. Runco combined expertise in creativity research, natural language processing, computational linguistics, and statistical data analysis to devise a scalable system for computerized automated testing (SparcIt Creativity Index Testing system). This system enabled automated scoring of tests that is reliable, objective, and scalable, thus addressing most of the issues of tests that had been found and reported. The resultant computer system was able to achieve a correlation of 0.73 to human graders. Social-personality approach [ ] Some researchers have taken a social-personality approach to the measurement of creativity. In these studies, personality traits such as independence of judgement, self-confidence, attraction to complexity, aesthetic orientation, and risk-taking are used as measures of the creativity of individuals. A by Gregory Feist showed that creative people tend to be 'more open to new experiences, less conventional and less conscientious, more self-confident, self-accepting, driven, ambitious, dominant, hostile, and impulsive.'

Atc Program Director more. Openness, conscientiousness, self-acceptance, hostility, and impulsivity had the strongest effects of the traits listed. Within the framework of the model of personality, some consistent traits have emerged. Has been shown to be consistently related to a whole host of different assessments of creativity.

Among the other Big Five traits, research has demonstrated subtle differences between different domains of creativity. Compared to non-artists, artists tend to have higher levels of openness to experience and lower levels of conscientiousness, while scientists are more open to experience,, and higher in the confidence-dominance facets of extraversion compared to non-scientists. Creativity and intelligence [ ] The potential relationship between creativity and has been of interest since the late 1900s, when a multitude of influential studies – from Getzels & Jackson, Barron, Wallach & Kogan, and Guilford – focused not only on creativity, but also on intelligence. This joint focus highlights both the theoretical and practical importance of the relationship: researchers are interested not only if the constructs are related, but also how and why.

There are multiple theories accounting for their relationship, with the 3 main theories as follows: • Threshold Theory – Intelligence is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for creativity. There is a moderate positive relationship between creativity and intelligence until IQ ~120. • Certification Theory – Creativity is not intrinsically related to intelligence. Instead, individuals are required to meet the requisite level intelligence in order to gain a certain level of education/work, which then in turn offers the opportunity to be creative. Displays of creativity are moderated by intelligence. • Interference Theory – Extremely high intelligence might interfere with creative ability. Sternberg and O’Hara proposed a framework of 5 possible relationships between creativity and intelligence: • Creativity is a subset of intelligence • Intelligence is a subset of creativity • Creativity and intelligence are overlapping constructs • Creativity and intelligence are part of the same construct (coincident sets) • Creativity and intelligence are distinct constructs (disjoint sets) Creativity as a subset of intelligence [ ] A number of researchers include creativity, either explicitly or implicitly, as a key component of intelligence.

Examples of theories that include creativity as a subset of intelligence • Gardner’s (MIT) – implicitly includes creativity as a subset of MIT. To demonstrate this, Gardner cited examples of different famous creators, each of whom differed in their types of intelligences e.g. Picasso (spatial intelligence); Freud (intrapersonal); Einstein (logical-mathematical); and Gandhi (interpersonal). • Sternberg’s Theory of Successful intelligence (see ) includes creativity as a main component, and comprises 3 sub-theories: Componential (Analytic), Contextual (Practical), and Experiential (Creative).

Experiential sub-theory – the ability to use pre-existing knowledge and skills to solve new and novel problems – is directly related to creativity. • The includes creativity as a subset of intelligence.

Specifically, it is associated with the broad group factor of long-term storage and retrieval (Glr). Glr narrow abilities relating to creativity include: ideational fluency, associational fluency, and originality/creativity. Silvia et al. Conducted a study to look at the relationship between divergent thinking and verbal fluency tests, and reported that both fluency and originality in divergent thinking were significantly affected by the broad level Glr factor.

Martindale extended the CHC-theory in the sense that it was proposed that those individuals who are creative are also selective in their processing speed Martindale argues that in the creative process, larger amounts of information are processed more slowly in the early stages, and as the individual begins to understand the problem, the processing speed is increased. • The Dual Process Theory of Intelligence posits a two-factor/type model of intelligence. Type 1 is a conscious process, and concerns goal directed thoughts, which are explained by g.

Type 2 is an unconscious process, and concerns spontaneous cognition, which encompasses daydreaming and implicit learning ability. Kaufman argues that creativity occurs as a result of Type 1 and Type 2 processes working together in combination.

The use of each type in the creative process can be used to varying degrees. Intelligence as a subset of creativity [ ] In this relationship model, intelligence is a key component in the development of creativity. Theories of creativity that include intelligence as a subset of creativity • Sternberg & Lubart’s Investment Theory. Using the metaphor of a stock market, they demonstrate that creative thinkers are like good investors – they buy low and sell high (in their ideas). Like under/low-valued stock, creative individuals generate unique ideas that are initially rejected by other people.

The creative individual has to persevere, and convince the others of the ideas value. After convincing the others, and thus increasing the ideas value, the creative individual ‘sells high’ by leaving the idea with the other people, and moves onto generating another idea. According to this theory, six distinct, but related elements contribute to successful creativity: intelligence, knowledge, thinking styles, personality, motivation, and environment.

Intelligence is just one of the six factors that can either solely, or in conjunction with the other five factors, generate creative thoughts. Bijoy Bayanno 2012 Activation Code. • Amabile’s Componential Model of Creativity. In this model, there are 3 within-individual components needed for creativity – domain-relevant skills, creativity-relevant processes, and task motivation – and 1 component external to the individual: their surrounding social environment. Creativity requires a confluence of all components. High creativity will result when an individual is: intrinsically motivated, possesses both a high level of domain-relevant skills and has high skills in creative thinking, and is working in a highly creative environment.

• Amusement Park Theoretical Model. In this 4-step theory, both domain-specific and generalist views are integrated into a model of creativity.

The researchers make use of the metaphor of the amusement park to demonstrate that within each of these creative levels, intelligence plays a key role: • To get into the amusement park, there are initial requirements (e.g., time/transport to go to the park). Initial requirements (like intelligence) are necessary, but not sufficient for creativity. They are more like prerequisites for creativity, and if an individual does not possess the basic level of the initial requirement (intelligence), then they will not be able to generate creative thoughts/behaviour. • Secondly are the subcomponents – general thematic areas – that increase in specificity. Like choosing which type of amusement park to visit (e.g.

A zoo or a water park), these areas relate to the areas in which someone could be creative (e.g. • Thirdly, there are specific domains. After choosing the type of park to visit e.g. Waterpark, you then have to choose which specific park to go to. Within the poetry domain, there are many different types (e.g.

Free verse, riddles, sonnet, etc.) that have to be selected from. • Lastly, there are micro-domains. These are the specific tasks that reside within each domain e.g. Individual lines in a free verse poem / individual rides at the waterpark. Creativity and intelligence as overlapping yet distinct constructs [ ] This possible relationship concerns creativity and intelligence as distinct, but intersecting constructs. Theories that include Creativity and Intelligence as Overlapping Yet Distinct Constructs • Renzulli’s Three-Ring Conception of Giftedness.

In this conceptualisation, giftedness occurs as a result from the overlap of above average intellectual ability, creativity, and task commitment. Under this view, creativity and intelligence are distinct constructs, but they do overlap under the correct conditions. In this theory, the planning component – relating to the ability to solve problems, make decisions and take action – strongly overlaps with the concept of creativity. • Threshold Theory (TT).

A number of previous research findings have suggested that a threshold exists in the relationship between creativity and intelligence – both constructs are moderately positively correlated up to an IQ of ~120. Above this threshold of an IQ of 120, if there is a relationship at all, it is small and weak. TT posits that a moderate level of intelligence is necessary for creativity. In support of the TT, Barron reported finding a non-significant correlation between creativity and intelligence in a gifted sample; and a significant correlation in a non-gifted sample. Yamamoto in a sample of secondary school children, reported a significant correlation between creativity and intelligence of r =.3, and reported no significant correlation when the sample consisted of gifted children.

Fuchs-Beauchamp et al. In a sample of preschoolers found that creativity and intelligence correlated from r =.19 to r =.49 in the group of children who had an IQ below the threshold; and in the group above the threshold, the correlations were r =. Main article: A study by psychologist found creativity to correlate with and. Another study found creativity to be greater in than in either normal or individuals. While divergent thinking was associated with bilateral activation of the, schizotypal individuals were found to have much greater activation of their right prefrontal cortex. This study hypothesizes that such individuals are better at accessing both hemispheres, allowing them to make novel associations at a faster rate.

In agreement with this hypothesis, is also associated with and individuals. Three recent studies by Mark Batey and Adrian Furnham have demonstrated the relationships between schizotypal and hypomanic personality and several different measures of creativity. Particularly strong links have been identified between creativity and, particularly (a.k.a. ) and (a.k.a. In Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament, summarizes studies of mood-disorder rates in,, and. She also explores research that identifies in such famous writers and artists as (who shot himself after ), (who drowned herself when she felt a depressive episode coming on), composer (who died in a mental institution), and even the famed.

A study looking at 300,000 persons with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or unipolar depression, and their relatives, found overrepresentation in creative professions for those with bipolar disorder as well as for undiagnosed siblings of those with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. There was no overall overrepresentation, but overrepresentation for artistic occupations, among those diagnosed with schizophrenia. There was no association for those with unipolar depression or their relatives. Another study involving more than one million people, conducted by Swedish researchers at the Karolinska Institute, reported a number of correlations between creative occupations and mental illnesses. Writers had a higher risk of anxiety and bipolar disorders, schizophrenia, unipolar depression, and substance abuse, and were almost twice as likely as the general population to kill themselves.

Dancers and photographers were also more likely to have bipolar disorder. However, as a group, those in the creative professions were no more likely to suffer from psychiatric disorders than other people, although they were more likely to have a close relative with a disorder, including anorexia and, to some extent, autism, the Journal of Psychiatric Research reports. According to psychologist Robert Epstein, PhD, creativity can be obstructed through stress. Creativity and personality [ ] Creativity can be expressed in a number of different forms, depending on unique people and environments. A number of different theorists have suggested models of the creative person.

One model suggests that there are kinds to produce growth, innovation, speed, etc. These are referred to as the four 'Creativity Profiles' that can help achieve such goals. Main article: Daniel Pink, in his 2005 book A Whole New Mind, repeating arguments posed throughout the 20th century, argues that we are entering a new age where creativity is becoming increasingly important. In this conceptual age, we will need to foster and encourage right-directed thinking (representing creativity and emotion) over left-directed thinking (representing logical, analytical thought).

However, this simplification of 'right' versus 'left' brain thinking is not supported by the research data. Nickerson provides a summary of the various creativity techniques that have been proposed.