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Psychology of Creativity

Chapter · July 2013

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4614-3858-8_386

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Full reference:
Gabora, L. (2013). Psychology of Creativity. In Elias G. Carayannis (Ed.) Encyclopedia of Creativity,
Invention, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship (pp. 1515-1520). New Delhi, India: Springer.

Title
Psychology of Creativity

Liane Gabora

Affiliation
University of British Columbia, Canada

Synonyms
Creativity research; empirical aesthetics; empirical studies of the arts; empirical studies of
creativity

Main Text

Key Concepts and Definition of Terms

Defining Creativity
Creativity is arguably our most uniquely human trait. It enables us to escape the present,
reconstruct the past, and fantasize about the future, to envision something that does not exist and
change the world with it. The elusiveness of the construct of creativity makes it that much more
important to obtain a satisfactory definition of it. Defining creativity presents difficulties; for
example, not all creative works are useful, and not all are aesthetically pleasing, though both
usefulness and aesthetic value capture, in some sense, what creativity is about. Nevertheless,
psychologists have almost universally converged on the definition originally proposed by
Guilford over sixty years ago Guilford (1950) defined creativity in terms of two criteria:
originality or novelty, and appropriateness or adaptiveness, i.e. relevance to the task at hand.
Surprise is sometimes added as a third criterion (Boden, 2004). Some add quality as a separate
criterion (Kaufman & Sternberg, 2007), while others use the term appropriateness in a way that
encompasses quality. Creativity has also been defined as a complex or syndrome, and some
would insist that any definition of creativity include such cognitive and personality characteristics
as problem sensitivity, flexibility, the ability to analyze, synthesize, evaluate, and reorganize
information, engage in divergent thinking, or deal with complexity. However, it is the ‘originality
and appropriateness’ definition that is encountered most often, and that appears to have become
standard (e.g. Amabile, 1996; Feldman, Csikszentmihalyi & Gardner, 1994; Runco, 2004;
Sternberg, 1988). While this definition provides a much-needed departure point for discussion
about and measurement of creativity, there is probably no one-size-fits-all definition of creativity.
For scientific or technological enterprises, appropriateness might be more important, whereas in
the arts, originality might be weighted more heavily. Thus, creativity must be assessed relative to
the constraints and affordances of the task.

The Four Ps of Creativity

It is often said that creativity involves four Ps: person, process, product, and place. The creative
person tends to exhibit certain personality traits. Creativity is correlated with independence of

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judgment, self-confidence, attraction to complexity, aesthetic orientation, risk-taking, openness to
experience, tolerance of ambiguity, impulsivity, lack of conscientiousness, and high energy.
There is some evidence that creative individuals are more prone to anxiety and affective
disorders. Creative individuals differ with respect to whether they are internally versus externally
oriented, person-oriented or task-oriented, and explorers (who tend to come up with ideas) or
developers (who excel at turning vague or incomplete ideas into finished products).
A pioneering effort toward demystifying the creative process was Wallas’ (1926)
classification of the creative process into a series of stages. The first of Wallas’ stages is
preparation, which involves obtaining the background knowledge relevant to the problem, its
history (if known), and any instructions or past attempts or preconceptions regarding how to
solve it. It also involves conscious, focused work on the problem. The second stage is
incubation—unconscious processing of the problem that continues while one is engaged in other
tasks. The preparation and incubation stages may be interleaved, or incubation may be omitted
entirely. Wallas proposed that after sufficient preparation and incubation, the creative process is
often marked by a sudden moment of illumination, or insight, during which the creator glimpses
a solution to the problem, which may have to be worked and reworked in order to make sense.
The idea at this point may be ill-defined, “half-baked”, or in a state of potentiality; the ability to
work with an idea in this state is related to the personality trait of tolerance of ambiguity. Wallas’
final phase is referred to as verification. This involves not just fine-tuning the work and making
certain that it is correct, as the word implies, but putting it in a form that can be understood and
appreciated by others.
The creative product can take the form of a physical object (e.g., a painting), or
behavioral act (e.g., a dance), or an idea, theory, or plan of action.
The last of the four Ps of creativity, place, concerns the environmental conditions
conducive to creativity. Certain individual situations, such as education and training, role models
and mentors, and perhaps surprisingly, childhood trauma, are correlated with historical creativity.
Economic growth appears to have a stimulating effect on creativity, whereas war appears to have
a depressing effect.

Historical versus Personal Creativity

Although the term ‘creative’ is often reserved for those who are known for their creative output,
some make the case that daily life involves thinking things and doing things that, at least in some
small way, have never been thought or done before, and thus that everyone is somewhat creative
(Beghetto & Kaufman, 2007; Runco, 2004). Psychologists now distinguish between different
kinds and degrees of creativity, such as between historical and personal creativity (Boden, 2004).
When the creative process results in a product that is new to all of humanity and makes an impact
on the course of civilization, it is referred to as historical creativity (H-Creativity). Historical
creativity is also sometimes referred to as eminent creativity, because the creator tends to become
famous. When the creative process results in a product that is new to the creator, but someone
else has come up with it before, or it is not creative enough to exert an impact on human
civilization, it is referred to as personal creativity (P-Creativity). Although personal creativity
does not change the world, it can be a source of pleasure and amusement. Clearly there are shades
of gray between these extremes.
A concept that is closely related to personal creativity is everyday creativity. Everyday
creativity manifests in everyday life; it comes through in how one prepares a meal, decorates a
room, or interprets and shares experiences. Everyday creativity generally begins with an
innovative, often unconventional approach to life that involves capitalizing on hidden

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opportunities, undertaking common tasks in uncommon ways, and finding unique solutions to
challenges as they arise.
Historical and personal and creativity are also sometimes referred to as Big C creativity
and Little C creativity, respectively. Some additionally make the case for Mini C creativity,
which involves making novel and personally meaningful interpretations of objects and events,
and which can form the basis for more substantial creative acts (Beghetto & Kaufman, 2007).

Creativity versus Discovery and Invention

Creativity is sometimes distinguished from two related concepts, discovery and invention.
Discovery involves finding something already present and sharing it, e.g., Columbus’ discovery
of America. It is relatively impersonal in the sense that if one person hadn’t discovered it,
someone else would have. Invention entails unearthing something that was not present before,
e.g., Alexander Bell’s invention of the telephone. Like discover, it is relatively impersonal.
Creativity also involves unearthing and sharing something that was not present before. Some
psychologists additionally require that for something to qualify as creative it must be profoundly
personal in the sense that one feels the presence of a unique individual in the work, e.g.,
Leonardo Da Vinci’s art.

Theoretical Background and Open-Ended Issues

Early Conceptions
In early times the creative individual was viewed as an empty vessel that was filled with
inspiration by a divine being. Psychologists initially paid little attention to creativity because it
was thought to be too complex and frivolous for scientific investigation. Freud believed that
creativity results from the tension between reality and unconscious wishes for power, sex, love,
and so forth. While this view is not as prominent now as it was in his time, his notion of the
preconscious – a state between conscious and unconscious reality where thoughts are loose and
vague but interpretable – is still viewed by many as the source of creativity. The year 1950 marks
a turning point for psychological interest in creativity, when it was the subject of Guilford’s
address to the American Psychological Association.

Current Psychological Approaches to Creativity

Creativity is now of interest to many disciplines and approached from many directions. Even
within the discipline of psychology it is addressed in a variety of ways. Cognitive psychologists
study how people engage in cognitive processes considered creative, such as analogy, concept
combination, and problem solving, and write computer programs that simulate these processes
(e.g., Finke, Ward, & Smith, 1992). Those who take a psychometric approach develop tests of
creativity, the most widely known being the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (Torrance,
1962). Examples of such tests are the Unusual Uses Test in which participants are asked to think
of as many uses for a common object (e.g., a brick) as possible, or the Product Improvement Test,
in which participants are asked to list as many ways as they can to change a product to make it
more useful or desirable, (e.g., to change a toy monkey so children will have more fun playing
with it). Developmental psychologists study creativity in children and throughout the lifespan.
Social psychologists examine how family dynamics, group dynamics, and cultural influences
affect creativity. Clinical psychologists look at how art therapy, music therapy, and dance therapy
can help patients open up and express themselves in ways that verbal communication may not.
Neuroscientists investigate the biological basis of creativity. Organizational psychologists study

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creativity as it pertains to entrepreneurship and successful business strategies. Finally,
comparative, evolutionary, and cultural psychologists address the question of how humans came
to possess their superlative creative abilities, how these abilities compare with those of other
species, how creativity compares across different cultures, and in what sense creative ideas can
be said to evolve over time.

The Relative Contributions of Expertise, Chance, and Intuition

While most psychologists believe that creativity involves a combination of expertise, chance, and
intuition, they differ with respect to the degree of emphasis they place on these factors.
Expertise theorists point to evidence that it takes approximately a decade to master a
creative domain (Hayes, 1989). Experts are better than beginners at detecting and remembering
domain-relevant patterns, and are more adept at generating effective problem representations and,
when necessary, revising initial hypotheses. Expertise theorists posit that creativity involves
everyday thought processes such as remembering, planning, reasoning, and restructuring. They
claim that no special or unconscious thought processes are required for creativity, just familiarity
with and skill in a particular domain (Weisberg, 2006).
Critics of this view note that entrenchment in established perspectives and approaches
may make experts more prone than beginners to set, functional fixedness, and confirmation bias.
Those who emphasize the role of chance include advocates of the Darwinian theory of creativity,
according to which the creative process, like natural selection, entails blind generation of
possibilities followed by selective retention of the most promising of them (Simonton, 1999).
Other psychologists view creativity as not so much a matter of generating and selecting
amongst predefined alternatives but of intuiting an idea and then, by considering the idea from
different perspectives or trying it out different ways, taking it from an ill-defined state of
potentiality to a well-defined state of actualization (Gabora, 2010). Those who emphasize the
actualization of potentiality and the role of intuition emphasize the association-based structure of
memory, and note that creative individuals tend to have flat associative hierarchies, meaning
they have better access to remote associates, items that are related to the subject of interest in
indirect or unusual ways.

The Relative Importance of Process versus Product

To many it seems natural to value the creative process for the products it gives rise to; indeed
creative products have significantly transformed this planet. Others view the creative process
itself as more important than the product. They stress the therapeutic value of creativity. In this
view the primary value of the creative process is that it enables the creator to express, transform,
solidify, or unify the creator’s understanding of and/or relationship to the world, while the
external product provides a means of tracking or monitoring this internal transformation. This
view is more prominent in eastern than western cultures. It also figures prominently in creative
therapies such as art therapy, music therapy, and drama therapy.

Is Creativity Domain Specific or Domain General?

Psychologists who emphasize the role of expertise tend to view creativity as highly domain-
specific; expertise in one domain is not expected to enhance creativity in another domain. They
note that expertise or eminence with respect to one creative endeavor to be only rarely associated
with expertise or eminence with respect to another creative endeavor (Baer, 2010). For example,
creative scientists rarely become famous artists or dancers.
Psychologists who emphasize intuition and associative processes, on the other hand, tend to

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view creativity as somewhat domain-general, because associative thinking can result in
metaphors that connect different domains. Studies involving self-report scales, creativity
checklists, and other sorts of psychometric or personality data tend to support the view that
creativity is domain-general (Plucker, 1998). The relevance of these studies to the general versus
specific debate has been questioned because they do not actually measure creative outputs, but
rather traits associated with the generation of creative output. However, those who stress process
over product claim that these data tell us about the internal, less visible but equally important
counterpart to the external manifestations of the creative process. An emphasis on product rather
than process may have resulted in exaggeration of the extent to which creativity is domain-
specific. That is, if one asks not, ‘are individuals talented in multiple creative domains?’ but, ‘can
individuals use multiple creative domains to meaningfully develop, explore, and express
themselves?’ the answer is more likely to be affirmative. Most psychologists believe that the
truth lies somewhere between the extremes. That is, creativity in one domain may help but not
guarantee creativity in another; it is neither strongly domain-specific nor domain-general.

Is there are Dark Side to Creativity?

Although creativity is clearly stimulating and indispensable to cultural and technological
advancement, many believe it has a dark side (Cropley, Cropley, Kaufman, & Runco, 2010).
There is considerable evidence that eminent creativity is correlated with proneness to affective
disorders, suicide, and substance abuse. Moreover, it is not necessary for everyone to be creative.
We can all benefit from the creativity of a few by imitating, admiring, or making use of their
creative outputs. Excessive creativity may result in reinventing the wheel, and absorption in ones’
own creative ideas may interfere with assimilation or diffusion of proven effective ideas.
Computer modeling suggests that society self-organizes to achieve a balance between relatively
creative and uncreative individuals (Leijnen & Gabora, 2009). The social discrimination that
creative individuals often endure until they have proven themselves may aid in achieving this
equilibrium.

Implications for Theory, Policy, and Practice

The psychology of creativity has implications for theory, policy, and practice in a number of
arenas. A first area of application is clinical. Creative activities such as art making, music
making, dance, and drama are increasingly seen to have therapeutic effects that can be effective
in both clinical and non-clinical settings. The transformation that occurs on canvas or on the
written page is thought to be mirrored by a potentially therapeutic sense of personal
transformation and self-discovery that occurs within. Immersion in the creative task has been
referred to as a state of flow that may share characteristics with deeply spiritual or religious
experiences.
A second, related area of application is childrearing and education. For example, creative
play in childhood facilitates access to affect-laden (emotional) thoughts, which may enhance
cognitive flexibility and divergent thinking abilities. Amabile’s (1996) work on intrinsic
motivation showed that rewards for creative work may actually inhibit creativity because
focusing on an external reward leads people to neglect the internally rewarding nature of creative
acts.
A third area of application is in business settings. For example, psychological work on
brainstorming sessions, in which people get together as a group and put forward ideas in an open
and accepting environment, has shown that it may be more effective when group work is
followed immediately by individual work, or when individuals communicate by writing so as to

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avoid the problem of everyone talking at once.

Conclusion and Future Directions

It is our creativity that perhaps most distinguishes humans from other species and that has
completely transformed the planet we live on. The psychological study of creativity is an exciting
area that brings together many different branches of psychology: cognitive, developmental,
organizational, social, personality, clinical, neuroscience, and even computational and
mathematical models. Past and current areas of controversy concern the relative contributions of
expertise, chance, and intuition, whether the emphasis should be on process versus product,
whether creativity is domain-specific versus domain-general, and the extent to which there is a
dark side to creativity. Promising areas for further psychological study of creativity include
computational modeling, and work on the neurobiological basis of creativity, as well as
environmental influences on creativity.

Cross-References
• Creativity research

References
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