Talk:Creativity/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Content moved

Some content moved to Forty-nine charismatic virtues. Peter Manchester 13:22, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Map of Creativity among Japanese Industries �@

Over a decade experiences among Japanese Industries are shown in http://iccincsm.triopd.co.jp

this link is now dead EmRick 16:21, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

A brief presentation will be due at a meeting of MIJ(Mensa International Japan), titled Finding "Smart but Don't Get Things Done"

The test principles based on G.Gordon's studies on Scientists and research Engineers, and classified as Problem Solver, Problem Recognizer using fairly simple tests.

Our test has been modified for average people as well as scientists.

Satoshi Mochizuki (Ph.D.) iccinc@f6.dion.ne.jp — Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.141.116.204 (talk) 01:13, 6 December 2003 (UTC)

Don't mistake genius with creativity. You can be one and not the other. You can be a genius and not get things done which others think are important - remember Albert Einstein and his teacher? You can be creative and not a genius - remember Saul Bellow, winner of a Nobel Prize in Literature? frankahilario 20 October 2005 0500 Manila time

This phrase is hard to understand and should be clarified

"without constituent components ex nihilo (compare creationism)" — Preceding unsigned comment added by WpZurp (talk • contribs) 16:15, 15 June 2004 (UTC)

I corrected the title from "This phase is hard to understand ..." In fact, the whole of CREATIVITY is hard to understand. It is poorly organized; there are too many ideas and I can't see the flow of ideas from one to another. frankahilario 20 october 2005 0505 manila time

Text to be combined

From creativeness:

In the dictionary, creativeness means "The quality of being creative." Creative in the means of thoughts, actions, words, etc. Creativity comes out through a process of willing to see and do the not-so-normal. Amoung the most creative forms of theatre is playback theatre, the group "yours truly" founded by Nandini and Ranji explore different art forms to make a creative effort in their productions and works. Nandini's works can be viewed at www.freewebs.com/nandinirao. Although the in Bangalore the art forms, thoughts and actions leading to creativity have limited media options and public tolerance, there is certainly a part of an artist to let his/her ability out in a more "different way". Hence the need to explore and explode ideas.

Creativity sometimes also has its own ways of showing in a person from the time he/she is born. Right from genetic materials to a very "creative friendly environment" of children and adults make sure that creativity has no limitations and boundaries. Though, like a thought process, if let loose there is high sense of losing the very objective of being creative. There are also living human examples where the genius mind always does "something different" and shocks the world, but that does not mean that being creative is being genius, but it certainly an extent to which the human mind and expand. There is much more to be explored and understood about the origin of creativity in humans.

Booyabazooka 00:57, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

There is no room for any page called CREATIVENESS because any explanation here belongs to CREATIVITY. The entry can only be this:

CREATIVENESS Creativeness is the act, process, or quality of being creative. See CREATIVITY.

See also my comments on CREATIVITY above.

frankahilario 20 october 2005 0532 manila time

Incomprehensible

This content is incomprehensible, irrelevant and/or speculative. Anyone care to comment on what encyclopedia-worthy content the author was trying to get across?

Much praised in principle, much derided in fact, popular legend sees creativity serves as a refuge for the outsider with imagination. Some of the ambivalent attitude to creativity may stem from seeing the creative process as parallelling or suggesting the ingesting of drugs to generate visions, or simply from viewing creativity as eccentric behavior outside of the mainstream.

DAD 05:36, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

creativity as a commodity

It strikes me that this page has been formed by a vested interest in creativity as a business tool.

this is a valid view but it is not the whole story. I would suggest that a framework be applied that deals with creativity in the following way:

• a broad definition covering the widest sense and then outlining the areas that it is widely recognised as applying to.

a set of headings dealing with each of these associated areas i.e.

• theories regarding the mechanics of creativity from academia, artists and business
• creativity as a process
• creativity as a thinking tool
• creativity in education
• creativity as a business productivity tool
• the study of creativity - heuristics, creatology, etc

• links to creativity resources and theories.

It might be constructive to point out attempts to formulate creative procedures - this is of course a fallacy, creativity is the opposite of formulation - such examples usually stem from business in thhe hope that it will makle money, although the soviet concept of TRIZ and work by various artists such as Brian Eno and his Oblique Strategies are worth a look.

Also the various relationships with rennaisance figures such as Don Camillo (not the Don Camillo existing page) and his Theatre and Albertus Magnus

DavidP 14:00, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Creativity is not a commodity. But you cannot help mention names like those of Howard Gardner (multiple intelligences) and Edward de Bono (lateral thinking) who have their own books to sell.

The 'framework' you are suggesting looks good to me; in fact it's definitely creative! But if you include 'theories regarding the mechanics of creativity ...' we will never get to finishing the work! The same goes with 'the study of creativity ...'

In any case, if you look at the entries in CRITICAL THINKING, you will find them illuminating. Why do I mention critical thinking in the section of creative thinking? Because I personally hold them to be two sides of the same coin. That is a creative thought that may be controversial, but I'm willing to write a 'page' on such a topic as THINKING ABOUT THINKING.

At the very least, CREATIVITY should be relabelled as CREATIVE THINKING and the framework used in the presentation should be similar if not the same as that of CRITICAL THINKING.

frankahilario 20 october 2005 0517 manila time

Incomplete and Irrelevant

This page lacks alltogether any references to common sense ideas on creativity as well as pshychological findings or philosophical analysis on creativity.

Compare to the article on intelligence

It should read 'This page lacks altogether ... commonsense ideas on ... as well as psychological findings ...' And what do you refer to as 'commonsense ideas on creativity' ? Please give an example or two. That would be interesting.

If you include psychological findings on creativity, we will never get to finish the 'page' on creativity! See also my other comments here.

frankahilario 20 october 2005 0525 manila time

Deletions

An editor has been deleting material from this article without explanation. This would be a good place to discuss those deletions, thanks, -Willmcw July 5, 2005 21:21 (UTC)

Content removal

I removed the entire contents of this talk page; it was outdated: the most recent comments were from October 2005 and the Creativity page has progressed quite nicely since then.

You should have archived it instead -- but I don't have the energy at the moment to revert and do so myself. --David.alex.lamb 16:14, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Do you think we still need to keep the "Cleanup" tag?

JeffC 04:20, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I see nothing wrong with it so i guess it can be removed. anyone objects, put it back up — Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.131.129.13 (talk) 02:27, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Query about Focus and Definitions

(This is my first contribution to the Wikipedia project, so please accept my apologies if I'm going about this incorrectly.)

Welcome! It's always good to see new editors, particularly those interested in creativity. This page could certainly do with some more attention - I encourage you to help and contribute as much as you can. The best advice I can give is to be bold. Wikipedia has some conventions (and copious help pages if you have the time), but 90% of it is common sense and normal human decency. --BrettRob 05:01, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

While it's clear that a great deal of effort has gone into the Creativity article, the material does need more work. Part of this is due, no doubt, to the vastness of the subject and the intellectual controversy that surrounds it. That said, here are two items that caught my attention:

- Creativity as a "mental process." At this point in our understanding of the human psyche, defining a mental process is an impossibility. So, the definition of creativity is based on something for which we have no clear definition. Also, a generally accepted perspective of creativity is that it includes the full range of cognition, emotionality, body awareness, instinct, intuition, and so on. Creativity does not simply happen by way of thoughts in the head. I do not see that defining creativity using the phrase "mental process" serves the function of a definition. Perhaps more integrative and interdisciplinary material would be useful in the section dealing with the challenges of the term's definition.

I tend to agree. There are many things that are important to creativity other than what happens in the head. However, the scientific viewpoint seems to be that it is primarily a cognitive process (see the Neurology of creativity section for example). After all, although sight, hearing, touch, emotions and the brain are all important to creativity, a person could (presumably) still be creative without any one of those things - except, of course, their brain. So I would contend that it is primarily, but not exclusively, a cognitive process.

Having said that, I think the article at the moment over-emphasises the scientific viewpoint and hence over-emphasises the mental aspects of creativity. I suspect that this is partly due to the background of some of the contributors (myself included). But it is also partly due to the nature of an encyclopedia, which must always cite its sources. The scientific viewpoint is simply published more often and it is therefore easier to find sources to justify that viewpoint.

On a related point, I should add a word of caution about weasel words. You stated above that: "...a generally accepted perspective of creativity is that it...". It's fine to say this on a talk page (as you have), but if you added this statement to the article, they would be typical examples of weasel words. The reader is left asking "generally accepted by whom?" "where is the proof that they think that way?". The statement may or may not be true, but unless you can cite enough sources to show general concensus, or show the results of a survey on conceptions of creativity, you can't make that statement in an encyclopedia. It would be more correct to say: "Another perspective on creativity is that it includes the full range of cognition, emotionality, body awareness, instinct and intuition [insert citation]". That way, you are not presuming to speak for any kind of general concensus, just conveying an idea that is already published. --BrettRob 05:01, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

- The article seems oriented toward the novelty and utility of creativity. Within the philosophy of creativity, utility and novelty are typically used to denote aspects of craft, not of creativity itself. (One definition of the distinction between art and craft is that craft is necessarily useful, whereas art need not be.) The article might be improved by adding a section on these distinctions, and on the question of whether creativity has any necessary relationship at all to utility and novelty. Many would argue that it does not.

These are important ideas, and so far the article has suffered from the lack of them. The section on Creativity in Art and Literature comes closest to reflecting these ideas (although rather clumsily in my opinion). If you were looking for a way to ease into your editing while you are still getting a feel for it, this may be a good place to start (this is just a friendly suggestion - please do whatever you want). Don't be afraid to change or remove what's already there if you have a good reason. For example, the first paragraph contains an idea that is at least referenced, but you may know, from your reading, of ideas that dispute or expand on this simplistic statment. The second paragraph has a vague ring of truth about it, but definitely needs some work (in fact it is lucky to have escaped deletion). The phrase "one can postulate" is clearly original research, and "we conventionally expect" are classic weasel words. The last sentence in that section, apart from being pretty incomprehensible to me (or am I just stupid?) is very dubious - I know next to nothing about art theory, but I suspect that Dzalto is not a particularly important figure, and I have reason to believe that the sentence was inserted by the man himself as self-promotion - a definite no-no for wikipedia. In fact, I would have removed that whole section myself, except that it is so important (can you imagine an article on creativity that didn't mention art/craft/literature/music?). So you are more than welcome to rip into it, or add to it, when you feel ready. --BrettRob 05:01, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

As I said, this is my first attempt at a contribution. I'm not prepared, at this point, to go in and change the work of others. But I am happy to start a conversation.

Rosslaird 19:00, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Hope this helps. I've said more than I normally would here to help you get started - I know from experience that it can be daunting. But once you get going it becomes very easy (and rewarding!). --BrettRob 05:01, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

86.29.234.119 (talk) 07:14, 4 October 2008 (UTC)Like the previous contributor I am a wikinovice. The overall article is a good starting point for an overview of creativity. As so often it shows a reluctance of Non-Americans to contribute. There has been a flourishing network of creativity practitioners and theorists in other regions(and centres)for several decades. The editorial boards of journals such as Creativity and Innovation Management, Creativity Research Journal, Journal of Creative Studies reveal names and locations of key American and non-American workers. A European perspective is being developed on a recent site Tudor Rickards. Maybe some of its more validated content should be imported to this site?86.29.234.119 (talk) 07:14, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Revised Neurology of creativity

I have drastically cut down the neurology section into a much more concise summary. As pointed out several times by reviewers in the articles nomination for FA status (see here), the original section was very long, very technical, and inaccessible. Most of it was far too close in its wording to the original article, except for the last paragraph which appeared to be original research. Hopefully my edits have fixed these problems. I'm no neurologist, but I've done my best to distill the main points from the article (feel free to improve it if you can). I think the content is interesting and relevant enough to deserve a mention here. BrettRob 03:01, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

New page for History of Creativity?

I would like to propose that we create a new page called History of Creativiy, and move the sections "History of the term and the concept" and "Periods and Personalities" into it. At the moment I find this article a bit long, and it may be daunting to the first-time reader. Does anyone have any opinions on this? If nodoby has responded after a week, I'll just do it. Please speak up if you think its a bad idea. --BrettRob 05:43, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I have no objection! I suggest you move the timeline (lower down) with it, and write a short summary to go on this page replace the two of them and also provide a link to the new history of creativity page. LMackinnon 12:14, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

BTW, AFAIK, the only person who would have an objection is logolist at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Logologist (see the creativity section). You might like to flag him directly on this. LMackinnon 12:16, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

No objection. Thanks for inquiring. logologist|Talk 00:37, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for your input. It's now done. The summary that I left in the article is mostly just an edited copy-paste of the important points from the original section (with a passing reference added to muses and a paragraph on scientific study). My knowledge on this topic is very limited, so I would welcome any other additions or edits. --BrettRob 02:06, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Pop psychology, lateral thinking?

The definitions section has

<< Pop psychology sometimes associates creativity with right or forehead brain activity or even specifically with lateral thinking. >>

I'm not sure that a reference to lateral thinking belongs in the 'definition of creativity' section.

I'm not strongly attached to either leaving it in or to deleting it or to moving it into a new section (e.g. 'popular concepts of creativity' that could discuss brainstorming etc as well).

Any suggestions / strong feelings?

In principle, having a section for 'popular concepts of creativity' is a good idea, but in practice it is difficult to implement in an encyclopedic way. It is difficult to fill such a section with either facts or referenced statements/concepts/ideas. The information would tend to be of the type "It is popularly believed that..." or "Many people think that...". These statements may or may not have some truth to them, but they are not encyclopedic - they are weasel words. Several months ago the article was full of such statements, and I have tried hard to replace, restate, find references for, or remove them (although a quick scan of the article will reveal that there is still work to be done on this front).

My suggestion is, if we can find enough non-weasel content to fill a 'popular conceptions' section, we should do it (perhaps as a subsection of Definitions?), and put the above quoted sentence in there. If not, we should delete it. As for brainstorming, I think it probably belongs on the Creativity Techniques page, and/or in the Fostering Creativity section. (Speaking of which - I notice that lateral thinking is already mentioned in Fostering Creativity, which is even more of a reason to remove it from Definitions) --BrettRob 07:24, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Significant rework

I've been doing a lot of rework over the last week. I've added some of my own content, quite a few references and rearranged the structure significantly. I haven't really removed much of the old content, just tried to add some references and put it into a more logical structure. There's still a few things I want to do - Fostering Creativity could do with a bit of work, and the Social Attitudes is still quite weasely. At this stage I would really appreciate any help/comments/suggestions anyone has.--BrettRob 11:20, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

- looks good to me (but I didn't see the page beforehand).

- I fixed the account of the Wallas model (and yes, I read the book, so I should know what Wallas said! Wallas followed Poincaré, Helmholtz and a Russian psychologist with a name beginning with 'V' (Vyosetsky?), whose name I dont remember, quite closely, and the Wallas model most definitely consists of the stages I indicated.

Thanks for the correction. I admit I haven't read the book. This was my reproduction of somebody else's interpretation - I should have gone to the source. --BrettRob 01:56, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

- I also don't recall anything about Wallas linking his model to an evolutionary perspective, and suspect that that is incorrect. It was certainly part of Simonton's agenda, and I suspect that Simpnton simply ascribed that interpretation to Wallas (if Simonton said anything along these lines at all). The major evolutionary contribution to the psychology of creativity came, of course, from Campbell.

Again, I haven't read Wallas. This statement was in the article before I started editing so I can't verify or dispute it. I'm not aware of Campbell's work, perhaps you could add something? --BrettRob 01:56, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

the reference was:

Campbell, D. (1960). 'Blind variation and selective retention in creative thought as in other knowledge processes', Psychological Review, 67, pp. 380-400.

I might add something later.

See also

Simonton, D. K. (1999). 'Creativity as blind variation and selective retention: Is the creative process Darwinian?' Psychological Inquiry, 10 (4), pp. 309-328.

LMackinnon 07:03, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

- While I'm on the topic, I don't think the Wallas model should really be in the 'definitions' section. I suspect it should be in a 'psychological models of the creative process' or 'models of the creative process' section.

HTH! LMackinnon 15:21, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Fair point. --BrettRob 01:56, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

- ok, moved Wallas model.

- I also moved Koestler

I significantly changed the Freud section. I don't believe the original writer had it right. I know Freud held the view I expressed, while the account that was there previously sounds a heck of a lot like Jung to me. In the meanwhile, I'll park it here:

<< The early, psychodynamic approach was typified by Sigmund Freud, who in the early 20th century proposed that creativity arises from the tension between conscious reality and unconscious drives (Sternberg 1999). Later work has disputed Freud's notion that creative solutions to problems arise mysteriously from the unconscious mind while the conscious mind is occupied on other tasks. It is proposed instead that when a person puts aside a difficult problem to think about something else, they tend to forget old, inappropriate ways of solving the problem they had become fixated on, and hence when they return to the problem they are often able to see new, creative solutions (Anderson 2000). >>

Another lesson for me in relying on other people's summaries rather than going to the source. I have often used Sternberg's Handbook of Creativity for its conveniently brief summaries, but I'll have to be more careful in the future. --BrettRob 01:56, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

It's a good book, to get an 'orthodox'/mainstream view. It doesn't talk about creative process much though, and gets caught up on psychometric testing etc. Check out also "The Nature of Creativity" by the same author/editor. LMackinnon 07:03, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

- also, the p.o.v. proposed by Anderson is the 'unblocking hypothesis' considered by Jacques Hadamard in the 1940s. I'm not sure what the relationship is with Freud, as I haven't read Anderson (2000) (well, I may have, actually I haven't checked what this reference is). In the meanwhile, I parked this here, and substituted it with somethign I'm sure Freud did say.

LMackinnon 15:49, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I'll go back to Anderson (Cognitive Psychology and its Implications - very accessible) and revise this. I think there should be something here about the cognitive perspective on incubation/fixation/unblocking. Linking it to Freud may have been a bit of a stretch on my part.

If you're interested, check out

Hadamard, J. (1945), The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field, Princeton University Press, Princeton.

Hadamard addressed many of these issues by 1945. LMackinnon 07:03, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

At last, some help! From someone who knows what they are talking about! I was beginning to lose faith. I basically agree with everthing you've done & said, and I hope you can keep contibuting. Please see my comments above. --BrettRob 01:56, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

No worries! You were doing a good job. Glad I could help. :) LMackinnon 07:03, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Johnson attributions

The section attributed to Johnson:

<< According to Johnson (1972), creativity can be assessed on several dimensions:

• Intellectual leadership. Creative thinkers are able to create new and promising theories or exciting trends which inspire others to follow up; in essence starting a movement, school of thought or trend.
• Sensitivity to problems. Being able to identify problems that challenge others and open up a new field of thought is a mark of creative thinking.
• Originality. Creative thinkers are able to find ideas or solutions with which no one else has been able to come up. Patents are (supposedly) given out only to original ideas.
• Ingenuity. Ingenious solutions are able to solve problems in a neat and surprising way or which also reflect a new perspective at looking at the problem.
• Unusualness. Creative thinkers are able to see the remote associations between ideas. When word association tests are given, people in highly creative literary fields like poets give a higher proportion of unique responses.
• Usefulness. Solutions or ideas that are also practical are also considered more creative as the creator is able to meet the constraints of the problem while at the same time producing unusual and original solutions.
• Appropriateness. Non sequitur ideas can be highly original and unusual, but are not as creative as ideas which are also appropriate to the situation. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings Trilogy is within the genre of fantasy writing, but has also shown itself to be both convincing and imaginative.

>>

Is anyone sure Johnson said this? An earlier draft included this, but did not attribute this to Johnson. My reading of Johnson is limited - I do recall he had a stage model, but don't recall much more. He may or may not have said the above - it looks like it might have got attributed during editing. In which case perhaps it should be de-attributed from Johnson and moved to the definitions section?

This is a tough one. The section was in the article before I started editing it. I was annoyed that it was unreferenced, so I searched around until I eventually found the source (thank you scholar.google.com). I checked the book - Johnson did indeed list these "dimensions". However, they're a pretty minor part of the book (2 pages out of 450). He lists them as criteria for assessing the achievements of "great men and their works". Given that these ideas don't seem to be representative of a large body of knowledge, or even particularly representative of Johnson's work, I now think we should remove it. I kept it originally because it seemed to contain useful information, but on reflection I think it would be misrepresenting its importance to include it in the article. What do you think? --BrettRob 08:33, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I think it might still be useful in the 'definitions' section to highlight some of the dimensions of creativity, but certainly does not to be empohasised as it currently is in the psychology of/and creativity section. LMackinnon 08:24, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I have moved it to Definitions, and as a compromise cut out the wordy and perhaps unnecessary explainations of the dimensions. Feel free to change it if you don't like it. --BrettRob 02:26, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I didn't mind the explanations (except for the Lord of the Rings bit) but what you did was good too. I rewrote the Johnson description to make it less confusing, and tied it in with Rhodes etc. Hope it works for you! LMackinnon 09:15, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Yep, looks good. Definitions reads much better now. --BrettRob 07:37, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Weasel Words?

"It is hypothesized that" sure contradicts the avoid weasel words guideline -- and there may be more like it. It's standard in academic prose, but it's not for Wikipedia. Can you (or others?) supply better support e.g. "so-and-so hypothesizes that" and so on? --David.alex.lamb 16:14, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Here are several weasel words. They can be un-weaseled by citing some work that says so (which generally also involved turning them into active voice from passive).

• For some people
• one can postulate
• we conventionally expect
• Since the time of ... some have considered
• in some eyes
• can convey
• can be assessed
• Creativity can be measured
• may perhaps be due to

This paragraph is full of such stuff -- too many for me to copy:

• 'Creatitivity' is much praised in principle, but much derided in practice

There are also some that aren't exactly weasels but need some form of citation:

• The ultimate test of a creativity is history.
• In the modern art context, the notion of creativity derives from Marxism

There are some good bits -- "In The Act of Creation, Arthur Koestler (1964 and various imprints) lists three types of creative individual". Fostering creativity and Periods and Personalities are both good. The rest should be more like that. --David.alex.lamb 03:28, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

"For some people, the word creativity conjures up associations..." how can one give a citation to this? Are we supposed to carry out opinion polls?

No -- that would be original research. You're supposed to cite a source that already did that research, e.g. "In XXX Fred Smith says ...". The policy article suggests a few 'rare exceptions' but I don't think that applies here. --David.alex.lamb 17:00, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Somehow the whole page vanished, so I'm reverting from the previous version. --David.alex.lamb 17:08, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

uh...could it be in need of a complete rewrite?--Acebrock 23:50, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I tend to agree. Actually I think there are severals areas in this article that need significant work (no disrespect to the contributors, but personally I think it still deserves the cleanup tag). However as a novice contributor I am reluctant to make significant chages. I agree with David.alex.lamb that there is a desperate need for more citations (eg the whole Dimensions of Creativity section). I will try to help out where I can over the next few weeks. BrettRob 08:12, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

After several hours of searching, I finally found a reference for the material in the Dimensions section. Is this work important enough to the study of creativity that it deserves to be included? That's another question. For the moment I'm just happy its referenced. I really wish people would do that in the first place! Is that too much to ask? --BrettRob 08:09, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Most of the Weasel words identified by David.alex.lamb are now gone. The ones that remain are the ones in Creativity in art & literature and Social attitudes. For the others, I have either:

• removed them if they carried redundant information that was referenced elsewhere
• removed them if they contained opiniated statements
• cited the sources of the statements
• changed the wording to be statements of fact rather than views assigned to unnamed people.

The remaining ones I have left because they contain useful information, but I don't know enough (yet) about those specific topics to provide references. I would sure appreciate some help on this! That said, I propose that we remove the weasel words tag. Although the problem is not totally fixed, I think the quality of the article in this regard is as good as or better than many wikipedia articles. In short, it needs some work but doesn't deserve the tag. And its just plain ugly! Any thoughts? --BrettRob 23:58, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

no objections, so I'll remove it. Any objections, put it back up. I'll continue to make improvements.--BrettRob 23:53, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

removed also see Creativity Movement

Racial groups thrive on these sorts of linking. Alot of people know the word Creatitivity and i would say most. If somebody goes looking for a radical group in a well know word then they ar enot to bright(i would say a search would go like (Creativity White ..... the word "white" isnt even in this article)). Personally i have no problem with documenting them but sneeky stumble apon technics are deceitful.

The only policy I know of that's anything like this is removing spam links. Your reason seems political; do you want to ban Wikipedia entries for racist groups? (meant to be rhetorical). It seems to be standard to have such links (or links to disambiguation pages). I suppose I have to add that I despise racist groups myself, but that's not the issue. So I've restored the link for now, but we'll see how the discussion works out. --David.alex.lamb 13:40, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't see the conection between the topic of creativity that this article address and the Creativity Movement. The mere connection of a word doesn't seem sufficient. -Will Beback 21:34, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I recently edited an article about hive mind and saw that it referenced a software system called hivemind (software). I've often seen topic X say for the rock band X, see ... So what's the difference here? --David.alex.lamb 22:35, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I should have said spam, but the difference is that its not Creativity (Movement) its know as the creativity movement. If anything why arnt these pages at the top Creativity technique or Total creativity, i might create a Creativity (disambiguation) later.--Whywhywhy 00:29, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's a good idea. There is a difference between disambiguating similar terms and referencing related articles. "See also" sections serve the latter purpose, while disambiguation pages and links do the former. -Will Beback 01:09, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

done--Whywhywhy 11:47, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Periods and Personalities

Contents moved to Main article: Creativity techniques#History because article is biased, but section was not. --AndriuZ 21:23, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't agree. The fact that the article is baised is a reason to fix the article, not move content away from it. It is a useful timeline that contains descriptive/theoretical treatments of creativity as well as creativity techniques. As such it belongs in Creativity. Any thoughts?--BrettRob 02:19, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

You are welcome :-) but I did that merging so because earlear I created that timeline somehow in 2 places... IMHO description of cretivity here is very unencyclopedic... Here could be enouth timeline of definitions evolution by various authors...--AndriuZ 17:25, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree that this article is not very encyclopedic - it needs a lot of work. The Periods & Personalities section was, in some ways, the most factual, verifyable and unbiased part of the article. You have improved that section further by merging it with the timeline in Creativity Techniques. The main reason I want to move it back is because it will improve the overall quality of the article. I think we should return it to Creativity, and link to it in Creativity Techniques. I will do so soon if no-one else objects. --BrettRob 06:54, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

changes to Measuring Creativity

I have added some referenced material to Measuring Creativity. I have also re-arraged the section to give it a more logical flow, and moved the reference to creatology to the Sternberg page (it has nothing to do with measuring creativity and is not important to the overall study of creativity). Does anybody have a reference to the 'Creativity can be measured based on a response to a variety of test scenarios' paragraph? If not I will remove it as it is very similar to the (referenced, and widely used) Torrance Tests.--BrettRob 01:14, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

removed --BrettRob 06:55, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

putting the cart before the horses.

I have just revisited this page after quite a long gap to find that a noticeable bias has snuck in. It could be said that this is preferable to the mess that was before - so please don't take offence at the criticism that I'm about to offer, if it is your work I'm referring to. after all we are trying to be 'encyclopaedic aren't we.

The bias that I refer to is that of the psychological interest in this term. It starts right up front by claiming that creativity is a mental process, and proceeds to list the sciences that have studied it. I'm sure that in the eyes of a psychologist it is a mental phenomenon, but the truth of the matter is that creativity as a subject is central to many other disciplines as well, most of which use it rather than observe it, these often use the simple definition that creativity is the act of 'making' something. not at all a mental phenomenon, rather the point of translation between thought and act, internal and external.

The remnants of text on the page often refers to production and activity, but appears to have been massaged here and there to make the science seem dominant, for example; "creativity is regarded to have occurred when there takes place the production of a creative product (for example, a new work of art or a scientific hypothesis)". another from the opening para; "Unlike many phenomena in science, there is no single, authoritative perspective or definition of creativity." I could cite many examples.

The definition and the history of the term (and concept?) lightly skips over the actual meaning of the Latin 'creatus', the past participle of creare "to make, to produce." before it takes some fairly torturous turns to arrive at the sentence;

"there began to be discussion as well of creativity in the sciences (e.g., Jan Łukasiewicz) and in nature (e.g., Henri Bergson), this was generally taken as the transference, to the sciences and to nature, of concepts proper to art."

I'm glad that I now know that creativity was "transferred" to the sciences. but remain perplexed about the discussion in nature (unless it was between naturists - or birds?).

Though of course I realise that the scientific study of anything is crucial, it is not the whole story, so the passages that previously explained other perspectives really don't benefit from being bent to suit the science. which after all has developed its method to rule out the unexpected and divergent, that which creativity thrives on. Most of all, because scientists don't yet have a definitive answer to this "mysterious phenomenon" there is no need to mystify it. it is quite a simple, everyday activity that everyone partakes of, when getting dressed, arranging their furniture or making a meal. comments like this line:

"This mysterious phenomenon, though undeniably important and constantly visible, seems to lie tantalisingly beyond the grasp of most people."

are plainly insulting, or at least show a very poor opinion of "most people"

I get the impression that too many contributors have been to second rate "creativity" seminars and have lost sight of the fundamental nature of this activity. I could suggest a bit of recreation. (apologies for forgetting signature)DavidP

Thanks for your comments. I've changed the last sentence of the first section to make it less "plainly insulting" - you had a good point. It was just my feeble attempt to be grand and mysterious. As for your other comments, you have some interesting points, but I don't have the time anymore to put into making significant changes, so I will leave that up to you or anyone else who wants to contribute. The definitions and history sections are mostly not my work anyway and I don't feel able to do anything meaningful there. I agree that the history section could do with some work, and possibly some trimming down.

As for the "noticable bias" towards the scientific viewpoint, I think the reason for that is that we have to be encyclopaedic and cite our sources, and most of the sources that examine or attempt to explain creativity approach it from a scientific viewpoint (at least, most of the sources that I have access to). Feel free to prove me wrong on that one.

For the record, I have never been to any second rate creativity seminars, or any first rate creativity seminars for that matter. Nor do I claim to be an expert. If you can suggest improvements, go for it - better yet, do it yourself. There aren't really enough regular contributors to be able to rely on other people to implement your suggestions. But please remember to cite your sources :) --BrettRob 08:57, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Update- I've had some time lately and have tried to emphasise the "production" aspect of creativity by adding a bit to the lead section, contrasting it from the scientific view. I've also removed the reference to "nature" in the history section. This probably doesn't address the "noticeable bias" that you identified, but its a start. And I don't share your view that the bias is so extreme. --BrettRob 03:46, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Links

I deleted some links to noninformational/poorly designed sites. But are there any other bad links now? I can't anything about that Swedish Morphological Society's site etc. Masahiko 10:17, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Someone just reposted the Swedish morphological Society link. It is not related to creativity. The links poster needs to explain why they keep posting it. Filam3nt 23:55, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

A candidate for Featured Article Status?

This is one of the better articles on psychology that I have seen in Wikipedia (and my job, incidentally, is to teach and research psychology, a subject in which I have three degrees). It is well-written, comprehensive, and factually accurate, so can I please nominate as a Featured Article? I shall be happy to hear objections. The only thing I can see against this at present is the article's lack of images, but since the criteria for FA status specify that FA candidates should have images where "appropriate", and this might not be a topic that lends itself to images, I think we can bypass that one. ACEO 18:47, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

More on previous suggestion

It seems that we did not quite manage Featured status this time. One of the problems voiced was whether this was comprehensive enough, focussing too much on psychological and especially on cognitive approaches to creativity. Looking at this article again, even if one were to view this purely as a psychology article, I can see how there are some areas which may require further coverage - I think especially of the question of the relationship between intelligence and creativity, and the so-called "threshold hypothesis" and how research into it has been ambiguous - but, when this article covers a wider range of topics, I think it could well stand a chance. ACEO 18:46, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Citation for threshold hypothesis

I have just added something on the relationship between creativity and intelligence, mentioning the threshold hypothesis. Does any one know the source of this hypothesis? Or published papers assessing it? It would be good to back this section with published citations. ACEO 20:18, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

From what I have read, Guilford was one of the early supporters. I have also referenced a chapter from my creativity "bible", Sternberg's Handbook of Creativity.BrettRob 01:06, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Creativity and intelligence

ACEO - Thanks for your Creativity & intelligence contribution. This is clearly an important perspective. Do you, or anyone else, think it might fit better as a subheading under "Creativity in psychology & cognitive science"? To me it is a subset of the discussion of psychology rather than a main heading. --BrettRob 09:22, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Creativity through the results of Hallucinogens and Delirium

I was wondering if anyone knew anything about the concept and belief of creativity through the effects of drugs and states of usual consciousness. This is debateable but I've heard that the creator of 'Alice in Wonderland', Lewis Carroll was under the state of opium induced results. I'm hoping someone could perhaps write a section in relation to this, if it is indeed in relation with the article. Thanks, Aeryck89 10:11, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Passive voice

This entire article languishes in the passive voice. Thoughts?

Veronica de Thule

I've removed the Veronica de Thule section from "Psychological examples from science and mathematics." Please do not replace it without cleaning up the grammer and adding extra sources. As far as I can tell de Thule is a New Age "alchemist," which does not warrant her inclusion in a section relating to scientists and mathematicians. Filam3nt 21:36, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Bias

The section on Creative industries & services conveys a clear anti-capitalist bias. It uses words like "so-called" and "exploitation". This kind of opinion has no place in this article. People can edit the capitalism pages to include objections to the philosophy. Even this author's comments would be better if extracted from the facts and added as an opinion below the text, referencing the appropriate authorities. 207.173.201.76 18:35, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Should Socionics be mentioned here?

Socionics attributes creativity to the work of the personality function which complements the primary. For example, an ENTp produces new systems and structures (introverted thinking) in the context of considered ideas (extroverted intuition), an example being Einstein's use of his imagination to appraise the existence of the principle of relativity.

More information: http://wikisocion.org/en/index.php?title=Model_A Tcaudilllg 01:27, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

References section

Any references listed that are not clearly being used as such should be removed. --Ronz (talk) 18:57, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

As a new editor I added material and supplied evidence as references. The current arrangement of notes and references seems unhelpful as is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tudorrickards (talk • contribs) 18:42, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Advertising?

It is hard to see how the link to "Speaking of Creativity" is not simply an advertising link for a company that is otherwise completely irrelevant to the subject at hand. It should be struck accordingly, or, wikipedia might alternatively conisder linking to the thousands of others of "keynote speakers" on "creative thinking". Damian —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.181.75.157 (talk) 11:02, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree. It does seem to be advertising. Also, I would think that the section "Enhancing the Creative Process with New Technologies" could be trimmed down a lot. It contains a lot of items that are only semi-related. I'll edit it, but I wanted to get others input before I cut it down a lot. Tnxman307 (talk) 13:50, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Enhancing the Creative Process with New Technologies

I fully agree with Tnxman307 (and with Veinor who previously tried to delete this section). "Enhancing the Creative Process with New Technologies" was mostly written as self-promotion by 196.200.48.173 (note that this user also added self-promotion to the section "Creativity in diverse cultures"). Most of this should be removed. However, I would argue that the section itself deserves to remain. It is certainly an area of growing academic interest. I will try to add something sensible regarding new research in this area over the next few days. -BrettRob (talk) 13:31, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Tudorrickards (talk) 18:47, 31 October 2008 (UTC) Agree. Much of interest: reviews of electronic brainstorming for example. Web 2 is another emerging field. I hope to post relevant material from chapters in Companion of Creativity (Rickards, Runco, & Moger) publication date soon.

Potential references

The following was added to the references section with no indication any are actually being used as references. [1] I thought it best to list them here in case someone wanted to use them as references in the future. --Ronz (talk) 18:31, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

• Boden, Margaret (1992) The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms
• Gardner, Howard (1984) Art, Mind, and Brain: A Cognitive Approach to Creativity ISBN 0465004458
• Guindon, Raymonde (1990) Designing the Design Process: Exploiting Opportunistic Thoughts" In: Human-Computer Interaction Vol. V, pp. 305-344.
• Koestler, Arthur (1964) The Act of Creation ISBN 0140191917
• Taylor, C. W. (1988) Various approaches to and definitions of creativity. In: The nature of creativity: Contemporary psychological perspectives, ed. R. J. Sternberg (pp. 99-121). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521338921
• Wharton, J. Gregory (1999) Creativity and Cognition In: Proceedings of the C. Calhoun Lemon Colloquium on Philosophy and Values: Creativity and Values. Clemson University.

innovation vs invention

Isn't in Creativity in art and literature ment invention instead of innovation? I konw that those 2 terms are used automaticlally without thinking. Similar is that permutation, combination and variation are all called just combination. 84.16.123.194 (talk) 15:38, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Latin Roots of the word creativity?

In rejigging the definitions, I noticed it asserts the term creativity stems from the Latin Creatus.

I always thought it stemmed from the Latin verb 'Crearer'.

Apparently we have:

<< 1. Dictionary Merriam-Webster

Main Entry: create Pronunciation: krE-'At, 'krE-" Function: verb Inflected Form(s): cre?at?ed; cre?at?ing Etymology: Middle English, from Latin creatus, past participle of creare; akin to Latin crescere to grow -- more at CRESCENT Date: 14th century >>

Anyone up on their Latin? Should we cite the root as Creatus, Creare or Crescere?

I can add that my Concise Oxford English Dictionary has the following entry which also supports the latin root "creare": create [verb] 1 bring into existence. 2 invest (someone) with a title of nobility. 3 British informal make a fuss; complain. DERIVATIVES: creatable [adjective] ORIGIN: Middle English: from Latin creat-, creare 'produce'.Garyhowe (talk) 14:03, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

No such thing as "creativity"

I've always held that true creativity is impossible, and that humans are only capable on synthesizing preexisting ideas (such as putting letters together to form a word, lines to make a letter, a person did not actually create anything except for an abstraction.) I however cannot find anywhere in this article that addresses this viewpoint. Maybe I created it? ;P M00npirate (talk) 19:54, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Creativity does exist. If you want to say that it often amounts to combining ideas that already exist, that could be argued, but the article already clarifies that there is lots of uncertainty about exactly what creativity is. To be clear, you may not say that creativity isn't possible. VoteFair (talk) 05:35, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

What happened to my changes?

Having just completed a graduate level course on creativity and innovation, I do not understand why the changes I made to this article yesterday were all removed. I provided detailed documentation to outstanding work in the field. What's more, as it stands, this article is actually fairly choppy and in some respects, poor, leaving out important work on creativity while including work that is trivial. I'm going to re-enter my changes, and I hope they stick this time. I would be happy to defend these changes with anyone who is actually well trained in this area. Sincerely, Cbrookca (talk) 22:10, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

MrOllie needs to state objective reasons for deleting my additions

Apparently my very careful additions were undone by "MrOllie." Please note that all of the additions were well documented and referred to outstanding scientific journals (including Science and Nature) and books published by major publishers. What's more, my additions are drawn from material in the prestigious Encyclopedia of Creativity, published by Academic Press in 1999. MrOllie: Please state your objective reasons for undoing my additions. If not, I will (a) submit this matter for arbitration and (b) based on your previous history, take steps to have you banned from Wikipedia. (I realize that you'll simply reappear under a new name, but there's nothing I can do about that.) If you feel that anything I have added could be considered SPAM, please identify that material and state your reasons precisely. Cbrookca (talk) 22:49, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

An overemphasis on one individual's work is undue weight, in addition your external links are not appropriate per WP:EL. On a side note, I am not impressed by your threats, do what you feel is necessary. - MrOllie (talk) 14:02, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Also, would you please identify your connection to Robert Epstein? - MrOllie (talk) 14:12, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the WP:UNDUE concerns. Best to focus attention first on Robert Epstein. --Ronz (talk) 17:21, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

--User:cbrookca I have no connection with Dr. Robert Epstein but have learned about his work in courses. The material I have added is concise and fully referenced. If you would take the time to learn about the subject matter, you would find that Epstein's work in this area is the most rigorous scientific work ever done. This article, overall, is poor - a hodgepodge of random facts about creativity. I was planning to add and correct a number of issues in the article, but I'm unwilling to spend the time when the very first addition I made is completely removed. MrOllie: Please be specific about your objections. Please explain precisely why Epstein's contributions in this area are less important than other individuals mentioned in the psychology section. And please explain why references to books published by major publishers and articles published in important sources (including the Encyclopedia of Creativity) aren't good enough for Wikipedia.Cbrookca (talk) 21:41, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

So I guess this is just an interesting coincidence. - MrOllie (talk) 21:48, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Part of the problem is the wording. Saying in the article that someone has published articles is not appropriate because references/footnotes state that more concisely. A couple of the sentences refer to relevant competencies, but don't say what any of the competencies are. In other words the added content must contain specific and useful information, instead of saying the equivalent of "here is someone who has done relevant research in this area" (without saying what the research revealed). VoteFair (talk) 23:05, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, MrOllie, but I am not Dr. Epstein's wife. You're trying to turn the focus away from the the content. To Ronz & MrOllie: How, specifically, is Epstein's work in this area less important than the other individuals mentioned in the psychology section? How are the references flawed? Can you address the substantive content issues, or not? To VoteFair: Let's improve the wording.Cbrookca (talk) 00:16, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

New drawing software... where to add

I've just created a page on Alchemy, a FOSS application which seems to release the inner artist while doodling - is it worth adding to the "Understanding and enhancing the creative process with new technologies" section on this article? Quiettype (talk) 12:57, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

New drawing software... where to add

I've just created a page on Alchemy, a FOSS application which seems to release the inner artist while doodling - is it worth adding to the "Understanding and enhancing the creative process with new technologies" section on this article? Quiettype (talk) 12:57, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Creativity

Since the article changed from "Creative thought" to "Creativity" it needed new introduction. USchick (talk) 21:47, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Let's do a re-write

This page needs citations, and at least some parts of it reflect only one POV. The tone is also often not quite encyclopedic - more like an essay. A general re-write would be a good idea. I'm just starting to research this area, and as part of that, I thought I would - within RL time constraints - examine each section to see how much it reflects the literature. Is anyone interested in joining in? VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 03:13, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I've re-written the lede. There were a couple of useful quotes that I felt should go elsewhere. I've saved them in a sandbox: User talk:VsevolodKrolikov/Creativity, to make it easier for them to be put elsewhere.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 03:48, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Let's do a re-write

This page needs citations, and at least some parts of it reflect only one POV. The tone is also often not quite encyclopedic - more like an essay. A general re-write would be a good idea. I'm just starting to research this area, and as part of that, I thought I would - within RL time constraints - examine each section to see how much it reflects the literature. Is anyone interested in joining in? VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 03:13, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I've re-written the lede. There were a couple of useful quotes that I felt should go elsewhere. I've saved them in a sandbox: User talk:VsevolodKrolikov/Creativity, to make it easier for them to be put elsewhere.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 03:48, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Definitions

I think there needs to be a "Definition" section. Coming to this subject, I'm struck by how many different definitions there are (and sometimes by the same writer!). In general, the article as it stands becomes a little difficult to follow on because the word "creativity" is not used with a consistent meaning (particularly as ability, as mental process or as act, or as product). VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 03:48, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi VsevolodKrolikov, I'm happy to see someone interested in this article. I agree, it needs a lot of work starting with a definition of creativity. Then it would be easy to determine what does not belong in the article and may need to be transferred somewhere else. Your research on the subject will be very valuable.

For starters, I see that you didn't like the definition that was provided in the lead (that's ok). However, it was a referenced definition of what creativity is. If you would like to suggest another definition, please provide a credible source. As it reads now, "Creativity refers to the phenomenon whereby something new is created which has some kind of value." This actually pertains to manufacturing. Would you be willing to leave the original definition until we come up with something better?

This is what I think is important, let me know what you think.

1. Creativity is a process.

2. In this process, new ideas are generated. (A finished product as the end result is not always necessary.)

3. Originally, the process of creativity was used as a concept attributed to Gods for the purpose of creation. It was not an activity that humans could do.

4. Then later it was something that humans could do, but only in poetry. A modern definition is very different from the original concept that evolved over time. USchick (talk) 16:30, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi Uschick - glad you're getting involved in this re-write. The reason why I didn't like the lede as it was, was that it began with a particular definition of creativity that does not reflect the literature as a whole (i.e. it was POV). It said

Creativity is often defined as the ability to generate innovative ideas and manifest them from thought into reality. The process involves original thinking and then producing. Other definitions place less emphasis on the importance of manifestation, instead suggesting creativity to involve the development of new and useful products as determined by the judgement of a defined sociocultural group

The problem words here are "ability" (some people separate ability from actual output - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says flat out creativity is about highly-rated output, not potential), "innovative" - Margaret Boden makes a distinction between personal and historic creativity, and much interest in education is to do with personal, rather than historic creativity; and "from thought to reality" - which would be contested by Vygotskian language theorists (production is part of thinking), amongst others. Instead, I decided to paraphrase the Michael Mumford quotation "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". In keeping with preferred wiki style, the Mumford quotation is best put into the definition section (sourcing in the sections, nothing in the lede which is not in the sections).

In response to your concerns that the paraphrase refers to manufacturing, how about this version:

"Creativity refers variously to the ability, process or output in cases where a person produces something new which has some kind of value."

Does that meet your concerns? As for the historical development of the idea, perhaps I was too hasty in removing that material. The lede section should try to provide a nice summary of content. That said, I'm a little dubious about the content of the history section. I'd need access to the sources (I've got the Cambridge Handbook on order), but it reads a little like someone's original research - like an excerpt from someone's essay. Statements such as "Renaissance men had a sense of their own independence, freedom and creativity, and sought to give voice to this sense" seem particularly problematic and make me question what literature is being referred to here. Could we hold off putting history content back in the lede until we have sorted out the history section?VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 06:50, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

This is a tough one! How about sticking to the definition from the dictionary and then expounding on that? [2] Recent interest in creativity is limited to how it applies in business, production, and output. No disrespect to Mr. Csikszentmihalyi, but he is discounting the power of ideas as stored Potential energy, which can be very powerful – like a nuclear weapon.

In advertising for example, a creative director generates ideas only (and gets paid very well), then production people take over and produce advertising based on a few chosen ideas. And in other areas of research and development, based on the ideas generated, sometimes a product will emerge, but not always. Someone has to go through ALL the ideas that were generated and pick out the ones to develop. Creativity LEADS to production, but even in business, the creative departments are separated from production departments, although the barriers are coming down... very slowly. Other creative ideas that brought about transformational change without a "product" are: communism, fascism, democracy, civil rights, freedom, etc. My point is, I would not limit the article to experts in a specific industry, simply because they happened to discover an ancient concept like creativity and started applying it to whatever they happen to be working on and publishing "research." Again, no disrespect intended for the experts. :-) USchick (talk) 15:40, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

The thing is, Wikipedia is kind of determined by what the experts say, not our own opinions. So we can't ignore Csikszentmihalyi. He's far too notable in the field, as is Margaret Boden. The dictionary definition is rather circular, and the examples use creativity both as ability and as production. And I have to disagree with you about recent interest in creativity being limited to business. In addition to the continuing interest in psychology, you should look up Ken Robinson, for example, who is interested in creativity in education, as well as the new edition of the inter-disciplinary Cambridge Handbook of Creativity, just out last month. The lede should not favour one approach over the other, but seek to explain the overall field as simply as possible. Momford's quote is brilliant for us in this respect. (I paraphrased it for the lede) VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 16:13, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

By the way, all your edits are appearing as "minor edits" - that box should only be ticked if you're correcting typos and that kind of thing.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 16:15, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I have received comments before about minor edits. To me, minor edits are less than 5% of the article, but maybe that's wrong.

I admit that my perception on creativity may be limited to the creative industry and that a wider range on the subject is necessary. There is a lot of published material from the experts in the creative field that go against what the production industry experts say, but I'm sure they can be accommodated in separate sections.

I may disappear for a few days, I'll know more later today, so please don't take my silence as not caring. Please proceed with the article, since whatever you do will be better than what it is now. (Maybe that will give you a chance to work uninterrupted :-) ) Cheers! USchick (talk) 17:27, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I think you're exactly right about accommodating different versions of creativity. If you're coming from a different background to mine, that's all the better for the article. The real problem with the field is the use of one word to describe all different kinds of things. It's a bit of a mess. I'll start sandboxing a definitions section (in the sandbox indicated above, and you're welcome to add things), but until I get a couple of books through the post, I won't be able to do anything like a decent job. btw, WP:MINOR explains that the minor box should be ticked only for typographical changes, not for content (even if it's one word). It helps other editors as they look through article histories. VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 04:27, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Creativity and intelligence

I put the human intelligence tag back in. Academic creativity research (rather than vague notions common in popular discourse) is very much connected both historically and now with intelligence research in general. The history section mentions how creativity emerges as an aspect of genius; psychometric testing of creativity lines up alongside intelligence (and a debate still continues over the measurable distinction between creativity and general intelligence.) Modern research also connects intelligence and creativity through gifted child research. I boldly reverted because the connection is just so strong that the tag removal makes no sense. However, if the connection is not clear enough in the article (especially in the lede) that needs fixing. I'll have a go later today at the lede. I'm slowly going through the article as I read more on the topic. VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 00:06, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

The person who removed the template from this article removed it from six different articles at once, and has also been edit warring over various things related to this template for the past month. I have started a discussion about this here. [3] Your input would be welcome there.-SightWatcher (talk) 03:29, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

I've had a further look into this (because I'm very puzzled why anyone would remove the tag) and I think I know where user:WeijiBaikeBianji‎ is coming from - but I still think the removal is incorrect. The relationship between creativity and "intelligence" investigated in the literature is effectively between divergent thinking tests and IQ tests. That is, "intelligence" in some of the literature is taken as IQ score. However, to presume that IQ tests, which measure convergent thinking, are the be-all and end-all of "human intelligence" is not consensus in the field. One also has to remember that the distinction between "creativity" and "intelligence" has been partly a function of attempts to validate creativity as an independent research field (cf Runco, Mark A. (2007). Creativity: theories and themes : research, development, and practice. Academic Press. in the introduction.) Here are some examples of people placing creativity as part of intelligence, or vice versa, or as a function of intelligence:

• • Robert J. Sternberg has long been an advocate of creativity as part of intelligence, referring specifically to "creative intelligence" here, and the problems of excluding creativity from measures of intelligence here. His entry on intelligence in the Encyclopedia of creativity is here.
  • James C. Kaufman in (Kaufman, James C. (2009). Creativity 101. Springer.) identifies part of the CHC model (fluid intelligence) as being a measure of creativity in all but name, and states quite clearly "Creativity and intelligence, like bacon and eggs, certainly seem like they should go together (but with less cholesterol). But exactly how they do, or whether intelligence is part of creativity or creativity is part of intelligence, is still debated." (p. 102).
  • Cropley, Arthur J. (2001). Creativity in education & learning: a guide for teachers and educators. Routledge. has a nice chapter reviewing the inter-relationship between creativity and intelligence - but is clear that "intelligence" means IQ test scores, and both IQ and creativity are intellectual cognitive functions.
  • In Craft, A., Jeffrey, B. and Leibling, M., ed. (2001). Creativity in education. Continuum International.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link), addressing the issue of intelligence, Bill Lucas treats creativity as "a state of mind" and a function of a variety of intelligences (rather than one specific kind); Margaret Boden treats it as a property of our general intelligence.
  • In Pereira, Francisco Câmara (2007). Creativity and artificial intelligence: a conceptual blending approach. Walter de Gruyter., it states on page 86 that "there is no reason to argue that bisociation and divergent thinking are not grounded in the same cognitive processes as any other cognitive phenomenon or mode of thought. In other words, all these are manifestations of intelligence, with divergent thinking and bisociation being the ones that are more associated creativity."

There's a lot more than that. So while there is an argument within the literature that the two are separate, it's not a consensus view, with many arguing for "intelligence" also to have a broader definition that subsumes creativity. In other words, it's misleading to dissociate creativity from "human intelligence", as that would be to insistently define intelligence more narrowly as convergent thinking as measured by IQ tests, which not all RS agree with. Removal of the tag would effectively be POV. The article itself needs to be clearer on the relationships found in the research, of course, so that the reader can see what the differences might be. The same would go for the removal of the tag from Genius. It diminishes the value of the encyclopedia by enforcing a particular view that in this case limits understanding of the inter-relationship of very, very closely aligned fields, where consensus on boundaries does not exist. VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 04:42, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

The concern you mention is indeed my concern. There is one large strand in the psychology literature that operationalizes "intelligence" as that which is estimated by IQ tests, and another several strands in the psychology literature that refer to many aspects of human cognition that are plainly distinguishable from "psychometric intelligence" as "intelligence" in a broader sense. The relationship of each to creativity is an active area of research. What's puzzling about the template as it is now edited (still very soon after its creation by one bold editor) is that it's not entirely clear which approach to defining "intelligence" is being assumed by the template. Few of the linked articles yet have gone as far as you have to discuss the implications of the literature. There may indeed be a place for a navigation template (under the existing Wikipedia guidelines for such templates) to be added to various closely related articles, but in my editorial judgment that should follow rather than precede editorial discussion of how the topic of each article relates to the topic of each other article. That's a service to readers and builds a better encyclopedia. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 13:07, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

It's very simple. There is no consensus that intelligence should be narrowly defined as what is measured by contemporary IQ tests. There is clearly enough very good RS to support creativity being considered part of intelligence to merit inclusion in the overall topic. It is then up to the article to explain how this is disputed. You appear to misunderstand a key point: Wikipedia does not seek to represent "the truth". It seeks to faithfully represent the balance of reliable sources, and where there is disagreement, it reports the disagreement rather than taking sides. As for the template, it is clear that a number of editors want to include the template on several pages from which you have removed it. It's fair enough to dispute it once, but you're disputing it over and over again, and not by talking, but by removing it. That's not how one gets consensus.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 14:26, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

This page is a mess, and was lifted entirely from a non-pov blog. It doesn't conform at all to wikipedia style standards, nor does it contribute much information about the upcoming film beyond the few Asian names in it. I'm not even going to bother fixing this page at this point, and I recommend either deleting this page or turning it into something other than an Asian pride festival.75.161.95.112 (talk) 10:44, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Odd change to introduction

This change is very odd. It rejects almost the whole field of creativity research (in using words like "new" or "original" or "novel") in favour of a single rarely cited article in a management journal that in the business context sees it as "improvement". While such discussions are valid in the body of the article, it shouldn't be in the lede. I'll change it back. VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 07:55, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

History, or lack thereof

Looks like the word creativity didn't exist before 1900: [4]

Perhaps a note on reification might be in order somewhere on the page. I.e., the adjective "creative" becoming the noun "creativity". Is there any research about this? Kansaikiwi (talk) 22:38, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Using that google tool would count as original research, and I wouldn't treat it as reliably covering all publications necessary. However, it helped me to find that in 1688 Edward Stillingfleet published a book called A DISCOURSE Concerning the Nature and Grounds OF THE CREATIVITY OF FAITH, IN ANSWER To J.S. his Catholick Letters. The online etymology website gives first use as 1859, which thus appears to be incorrect. I can't access the OED, which would probably be the most authoritative source.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 05:30, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Creative thinking redirects here

Creative thinking and creativity are different things which have some common points. A songwriter may create songs for 50 years with a simple idea and we can name him/her as creative in this 50 year period. But since she never judged and developed that idea, she's a creative thinker in the first step but not in later steps. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tolgafiratoglu (talk • contribs) 18:50, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Facilitating Creativity

Is there anyway we can provide some examples of how to facilitate creativity in different contexts for educators? For example, would it be useful to provide some examples of what creativity looks like in mathematics education, along with whatever research we can find which supports creative thinking in mathematics.

24.83.169.125 (talk) 20:33, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Sounds great. I'd begin by using google scholar searches on "mathematics" and "creativity". Indeed, there's a general lack of information in this article on the stimulation and suppression of creativity. Teresa Amabile's work needs much better coverage.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 04:08, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Definition

Creativity is the ability to interpret and extrapolate information from text and apply it to real world situations. http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/01/how-shanghai-schools-beat-them-all/?hpt=hp_bn2 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.73.199.69 (talk) 14:08, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

My, that's an odd sentence in the middle of a CNN report. That looks much more like critical thinking. Let's just stick with the definitions as found in academic journals and imprints.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 14:33, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

resource

Better Ideas Through Failure; Companies Reward Employee Mistakes to Spur Innovation, Get Back Their Edge 27.Sept.2011 in WSJ by Sue Shellenbarger. 97.87.29.188 (talk) 18:22, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

It's an interesting article, although we'd be better off providing accounts of the research behind it (Simonton, Amabile etc.) Our section on "fostering creativity" is a bit rubbish. There is a good deal of work on creativity and motivation. I've been putting off thinking how to re-organise the page. Perhaps we need to have it according to the four Ps: personality (measuring individual creativity etc.), place (environmental factors, motivation), process (theories, particularly cognitive ones) and product (what makes something creative).VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 03:23, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Working memory and the cerebellum

There is valuable neurological information here, even if it is highly speculative, because not too many people look at this most important human component. The article puts neurological prototypoing in the same sentence as the Kahn Institute, which appears to be anti-creative in that it appears to be purely didactic. Further it talks about the cerebellum protyping itself. I assume prototyping means creating creative pathways, therefore the cerebellum creates creativity in creating creative pathways--makes no sense. The paragraph should be cut back to the function of the cerebellum in relation to the rest of the brain, and differing related (or opposing) research needs to be introduced. Kahn Institute, as an anti-creative force, needs to be "expelled."

--John Bessa (talk) 22:39, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Creativity and crowdsourcing

Although this article is quite comprehensive, it is curious that no mention is made of the relationship between creativity and crowdsourcing, particularly considering that this article was written through a crowdsourcing process. While there is a growing amount of research related to this topic, one particularly interesting article is "Cooks or cobblers?: Crowd creativity through combination." (http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=1978942.1979147). Perhaps the ideal location for such a discussion of creativity would be the "Creativity in various contexts" section, perhaps following the discussion of creativity in an organization. Sybek (talk) 06:24, 01 February 2012 (UTC)

Nobody has heard of "crowdsourcing." Fluency, the basis for both langauge and organized thought is commonly known (as we all have it)--perhaps this is what you are getting at. The article cites the evolution of the speech in relation to creativity, and, since fluency evolved for speech (fluency is so important in human mental organization), then there is a relationship between human organization, creativity and language-based social interrelation--through evolution. Since the cerebellum is central to this, then the characteristics of the cerebellum (as much any other part of the brain) are the foundation of modern intelligence, communiation, and creativity. As a motor-control center, it has a "blue collar" feel, suggesting exaggerated importance to purely executive functions in the formation of society, such as in people who are described as "purely intelligent."

--John Bessa (talk) 22:54, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

John you seemed to have gone off-topic here, I don't see how what you have said is relevant to whether or not "crowdsourcing" should be included in the article. Since there is a reference to it, obviously someone has heard of it. The last sentence in your above post is very unclear.--Smcg8374 (talk) 05:42, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Creativity and IQ

There should be no reason to apply the term Intelligence, when comparing IQ to Creativity. IQ involves a theory of intelligence, not (necessarily) intelligence, itself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.43.200.83 (talk) 00:25, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Keep in mind the NPOV policy. Although there is controversy about the meaning of IQ, there is nevertheless an academic consensus that IQ is a valid measure of intelligence.IQ stands for "intelligence quotient", so just using the term IQ will not dissociate the term intelligence from the subject.--Smcg8374 (talk) 01:21, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

The sources use "intelligence" so best to keep their terminology. --Ronz (talk) 01:53, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

If the sources use the term I agree it should be used here to maintain a fair representation, rather than promoting the views of some editors.--Smcg8374 (talk) 10:38, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Intelligence is a fairly broad term. The Wiki article for "Intelligence" (or a dictionary definition) does not define the concept as being, exclusively, related to 'IQ'. And while there may even be a general 'scientific' consensus at to the validity of IQ, as 'a' measure of "Intelligence", there are alternative theories, which have long been established throughout academia (ie. the theory of multiple intelligence). Implying that IQ level is the absolute measure of 'intelligence', leads to the tautological exclusion of the idea that intelligence, is a function of creativity (and rather, supporting the inverse argument, that creativity, is a function of Intelligence). But if one understands Sternberg's theory of intelligence, creativity is one, of a few factors, that define a person's intelligence. For someone who actually understands more about the few (major) theories of intelligence, using IQ and Intelligence interchangeably, is confusing. I respect the point made regarding the academic consensus for Intelligence and IQ, and in consideration of that, I would suggest to introduce a single disclaimer, such as: "Intelligence (as defined by IQ level)".Zadeh79 (talk) 20:05, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Creativity in Diverse Cultures

I just rewrote this whole section, following the 'be bold' advice, albeit with some newbie qualms. The previous version identified three people who had studied different cultural aspects of creativity (two without citations), and showed that one of them had reported the existence of courses on creativity in several different countries (www.cct.umb.edu/fangqi.pdf - I checked this out, but didn't find it a particularly convincing reference; all but one of its own references are to works by its own author). The citations I have used in the rewritten section are taken from just one source, although it is an edited collection of the work of over 30 scholars of creativity from around the world, published by a reputable academic publisher. Nevertheless, I think citations from other sources would help to add value to this section. Doctor Girl (talk) 17:50, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Good work! Lova Falk talk 17:55, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Social attitudes to creativity

I replaced an invalid youtube link by Ken Robinson's popular TED Conference talk (2006): http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/66 Why schools kill creativity - The case for an education system that nurtures creativity. Tivity (talk) 17:41, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Videos on creativity

I started this section with a popular video by John Cleese: On Creativity. Youtube, Mar 23, 2012 Tivity (talk) 18:22, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi Tivity! Please read WP:External links before you put a lot of good work into this. It says: "Some external links are welcome, but it is not Wikipedia's purpose to include a lengthy or comprehensive list of external links related to each topic." So please don't make this a long section. With friendly regards! Lova Falk talk 19:29, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Lova Falk. Ok. Although I'd say at least the talk by John Cleese is a must. Tivity (talk) 18:19, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I won't remove him! Lova Falk talk 10:54, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Citations list useful for updating this article and related articles

You may find it helpful while reading or editing articles to look at a bibliography of Intelligence Citations, posted for the use of all Wikipedians who have occasion to edit articles on human intelligence and related issues. I happen to have circulating access to a huge academic research library at a university with an active research program in these issues (and to another library that is one of the ten largest public library systems in the United States) and have been researching these issues since 1989. You are welcome to use these citations for your own research. You can help other Wikipedians by suggesting new sources through comments on that page. It will be extremely helpful for articles on human intelligence to edit them according to the Wikipedia standards for reliable sources for medicine-related articles, as it is important to get these issues as well verified as possible. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 15:59, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Moved to talk - expansion of Creative process introduction

While looking over the changes made above, I noticed that these recent changes seem undue, especially the journal article: --Ronz (talk) 17:47, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

It is a dialectical process apparent in cultural, psychological and even neurobiological research . The dialectic of order and chaos seems to be a general concept that is conceived diffferently by the individual sciences. Neurobiology has shown that the creative process takes place in an interplay between the emergence of coherent neuronal patterns and their labilisation. Also in psychology and cultural studies this interplay between coherence - incoherence, stabilization - destabilization, construction - deconstruction is apparent . Within the creative process, there are four elements: preparation (problem solver thinks about what the problem requires and keeps it in memory), incubation – solver’s mind engages in unconscious activation of critical elements and past solutions, although they may not be available for conscious thought, illumination or insight (unconscious processing bursts into conscious awareness), and verification (new awareness is applied to the problem). In order to make a creative solution, one must overcome functional fixedness, or the mode of thinking about something in an ordinary, unimaginative way.

Deleted sections

Are there any independent opinions on the content of the two sections ( "Creativity and affect" and "Historical significance" ) that User:Mark Matthew Dalton deleted a bit ago? Were there systematic problems with these sections or the information within? Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 08:14, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

I've copied the sections in question below: --Ronz (talk) 17:50, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

This is just so wrong! Sourced content was simply erased without any motivation given! It is respectless to all the editors who previously worked with this text. I put the erased sections back in. Lova Falk talk 19:27, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

It would have been good idea to move the sections to the talk page. I didn't know about that technique. Thank you for educating me (at my talk page), Ronz. And, indeed it would have been a good idea to provide an explanation. I was in a rush, and I guess I hoped someone else would explain why I'd done it. It seems I was wrong about that.

I deleted the sections because I thought they were boring, because they contained little actual information about creativity, and were mainly about research people did in order to have done research, ie academic waffle. I thought that was obvious and had concluded that probably the article had been forgotten about. I thought the article would be better without the sections I deleted, among many other similarly boring sections in that bloated article. Some sections were extremely interesting, and access to them was being hindered, imho, by the boring sections. I read the article out of interest in the subject. I am a very active creative thinker. The sections I deleted seemed really to be useless fat better trimmed off.

I guess it was a mistake to neglect to explain fully why I'd deleted the sections. On the other hand, I think it was a mistake to restore the sections that I deleted. You might have placed them in the talk section for debate and waited for some support from someone else before putting them back. Just speculating.Mark Matthew Dalton (talk) 04:27, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Historical importance

James C. Kaufman and Beghetto introduced a "four C" model of creativity; mini-c ("transformative learning" involving "personally meaningful interpretations of experiences, actions and insights"), little-c (everyday problem solving and creative expression), Pro-C (exhibited by people who are professionally or vocationally creative though not necessarily eminent) and Big-C (creativity considered great in the given field). This model was intended to help accommodate models and theories of creativity that stressed competence as an essential component and the historical transformation of a creatie domain as the highest mark of creativity. It also, the authors argued, made a useful framework for analysing creative processes in individuals.

The contrast of terms "Big C" and "Little c" has been widely used. Kozbelt, Beghetto and Runco use a little-c/Big-C model to review major theories of creativity Margaret Boden distinguishes between h-creativity (historical) and p-creativity (personal).

Robinson and Anna Craft have focussed on creativity in a general population, particularly with respect to education. Craft makes a similar distinction between "high" and "little c" creativity. and cites Ken Robinson as referring to "high" and "democratic" creativity. Mihály Csíkszentmihályi has defined creativity in terms of those individuals judged to have made significant creative, perhaps domain-changing contributions. Simonton has analysed the career trajectories of eminent creative people in order to map patterns and predictors of creative productivity.

Creativity and affect

Some theories suggest that creativity may be particularly susceptible to affective influence. As noted in voting behavior the term "affect" in this context can refer to liking or disliking key aspects of the subject in question. This work largely follows from findings in psychology regarding the ways in which affective states are involved in human judgment and decision-making.

Creativity and positive affect relations

According to Alice Isen, positive affect has three primary effects on cognitive activity:

1. Positive affect makes additional cognitive material available for processing, increasing the number of cognitive elements available for association;
2. Positive affect leads to defocused attention and a more complex cognitive context, increasing the breadth of those elements that are treated as relevant to the problem;
3. Positive affect increases cognitive flexibility, increasing the probability that diverse cognitive elements will in fact become associated. Together, these processes lead positive affect to have a positive influence on creativity.

Barbara Fredrickson in her broaden-and-build model suggests that positive emotions such as joy and love broaden a person's available repertoire of cognitions and actions, thus enhancing creativity.

According to these researchers, positive emotions increase the number of cognitive elements available for association (attention scope) and the number of elements that are relevant to the problem (cognitive scope).

Various meta-analyses, such as Baas et al. (2008) of 66 studies about creativity and affect support the link between creativity and positive affect

Creativity and negative affect relations

On the other hand, some theorists have suggested that negative affect leads to greater creativity. A cornerstone of this perspective is empirical evidence of a relationship between affective illness and creativity. In a study of 1,005 prominent 20th century individuals from over 45 different professions, the University of Kentucky's Arnold Ludwig found a slight but significant correlation between depression and level of creative achievement. In addition, several systematic studies of highly creative individuals and their relatives have uncovered a higher incidence of affective disorders (primarily bipolar disorder and depression) than that found in the general population.

Creativity and affect at work

Three patterns may exist between affect and creativity at work: positive (or negative) mood, or change in mood, predictably precedes creativity; creativity predictably precedes mood; and whether affect and creativity occur simultaneously.

It was found that not only might affect precede creativity, but creative outcomes might provoke affect as well. At its simplest level, the experience of creativity is itself a work event, and like other events in the organizational context, it could evoke emotion. Qualitative research and anecdotal accounts of creative achievement in the arts and sciences suggest that creative insight is often followed by feelings of elation. For example, Albert Einstein called his 1907 general theory of relativity "the happiest thought of my life." Empirical evidence on this matter is still very tentative.

In contrast to the possible incubation effects of affective state on subsequent creativity, the affective consequences of creativity are likely to be more direct and immediate. In general, affective events provoke immediate and relatively fleeting emotional reactions. Thus, if creative performance at work is an affective event for the individual doing the creative work, such an effect would likely be evident only in same-day data.

Another longitudinal research found several insights regarding the relations between creativity and emotion at work. Firstly, evidence shows a positive correlation between positive affect and creativity. The more positive a person's affect on a given day, the more creative thinking they evidenced that day and the next day—even controlling for that next day's mood. There was even some evidence of an effect two days later.

In addition, the researchers found no evidence that people were more creative when they experienced both positive and negative affect on the same day. The weight of evidence supports a purely linear form of the affect-creativity relationship, at least over the range of affect and creativity covered in our study: the more positive a person's affect, the higher their creativity in a work setting.

Finally, they found four patterns of affect and creativity: affect can operate as an antecedent to creativity; as a direct consequence of creativity; as an indirect consequence of creativity; and affect can occur simultaneously with creative activity. Thus, it appears that people's feelings and creative cognitions are interwoven in several distinct ways within the complex fabric of their daily work lives.

removal of subsection

I removed the subsection titled "Creativity and battlefield of philosophers". This section appeared to be supported by sources but it seemed to be badly written and unclear - in fact it was incomprehensible to me. Perhaps an expert on the subject can re-write the subsection in a clear, correct, reasonably easy to understand, encyclopedic fashion? IjonTichy (talk) 22:31, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Definition

Flagged 2nd paragraph as needing cleanup due to unclear language making the para difficult to read and understand. Probably needs to be wholly rewritten or deleted. I'm no subject expert, so don't feel fit to rewrite it. Rjlx (talk) 19:44, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Hence, creativity is an almost steady ability to generate a new concept with no time, age, kind, manner, way, technics, advantage, efficacy and subject limitation and restriction. But only precisely, is related to novelty and recency. So it only identified by "generating recent or new concept". Whether seems so floppy and ineffective or very serious and polestar. Whether established on an existent concept made before, or some is fundamentally made up recently. Whether created and made up by mind power or made by mind readymade material before (and assembled with a realizable bit difference) (Hamid Rajaei 2008)[5] (Albeit in battlefield of philosophers)

This paragraph is not only unclear, it is also confusing, and more importantly it also appears to be unnecessary - it does not appear to contribute the article. It should be removed. IjonTichy (talk) 20:10, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Definition

There seems to be some resistance by some editors to the idea that creativity has a basic working definition in the research field ("the production of novel, useful products" in Mumford's formulation). However, this definition (it is formulated in different ways but is clearly the same two part thing in each instance) is certainly very widespread. Perhaps it needs to be stressed that this is a very broad definition, and in no way dismisses the "magic" of creativity.

In particular, "Useful" (which could be replaced by valuable, worthwhile, good etc.) does not mean anything mercenary or monetary. It's that what we see as "creative" is affected by how "good" as well as how "novel" the work is. There is a difference between a child flicking paints onto a canvas, and a Jackson Pollock, and the important difference is not in the "newness" of the configuration of paint. Both parts taken together, this definition is simply a useful framework through which we can start to define specific cases of creativity (for example, in a high school art class (new for the students) rather than an international art competition, in a science lab rather than a group of musicians or cordon bleu chefs.), as well as comparing creativity in different fields. It also allows us to understand cross-cultural differences in the understanding of creativity, where there is evidence of a western bias towards the "new", and a (far) eastern bias towards the "useful"/valuable/good.

Crucially, the definition doesn't say anything about where creativity comes from, or how it occurs. It leaves the space open for divine inspiration as well as neuroscience. I hope this calms people's resistance. OsFish (talk) 06:02, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Meta-Models, Meta-Creating, Meta-Creativity, Meta-Cognition

This wall of text appears not to relate to any specific proposals regarding the content of this article - it is per WP:NOTFORUM thus off-topic
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
While most academic works on creativity are found in Education and Psychology departments and journals, there are many well formed studies and interesting results on creativity and its nature found in other disciplines, ranging from mechanical engineering to sculpture. The unfortunate present reality is no one field, journal, set of conferences unites this diverse set of people working on creativity and its nature. However, movement towards unification of creativity-related work, can be found. The University of Conneticut recently hired a number of leading creativity researchers to establish something like an Institute of Creativity and Innovation Study/Research/Science. Keio University supported partial development of a Creativity & Novelty Sciences School in recent years, De Tao Masters Academy in Beijing and Shanghai, China has assembled 500+ of the world's leading designers in over 50 fields, into a part-time faculty and consultancy body for emerging Chinese firms and projects. New scholars of creativity like Richard Tabor Greene, followed by established figures like Robert Sternberg, have in recent years published meta-models of creativity going well beyond the 4 P's models of the past, to 42 models of creativity, 60 models of creativity, and 120 models of creativity. Sternberg suggested creativity may be a "they" not an "it" a few years after Greene published his "A Model of 42 Models of Creativity" monograph. Repertoires of diverse models of creativity may out-perform in applications to increase creativity of outcomes use of any single right-y model of it--something yet to be investigated in well formed research projects. Also, Flavell's work in the 1970s on how meta-cognition improved various types of cognitive performance--people aware of how they were thinking and tinkering with it while in process--may have a good analog in meta-creating--creators aware of what model of creating they are now using and considering in process alternatives may out-create creators inside one un-changing model of how to create. This too has yet to receive definitive well formed research treatment. If creativity turns out to be more than one process/entity/approach then a host of research questions appear, such as: which models of creativity produce the most creative outcomes in various genres and domains of work? do more models employed produce more creative outcomes than fewer models employed? do the models of particular creators evolve in some consistent pattern over their creative lifetimes? September 2001, Kwansei Gakuin University's Journal of Policy Studies published an article of over 100 pages presenting 42 models of creativity in general and 8 in detail; a book presenting 60 models of creativity in detail was published in youpublish.com and later scribd.com (where it is now available)in 2000; Springer's Carayannis, editor, Encyclopedia of Creativity, Invention, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 2014 includes an article presenting in some detail 120 models of creativity. Citations of these meta-models by scholars in Australia, Great Britain, Germany, and the USA indicate a need in the field of creativity studies in general, for comprehensive orderings of the variety of creativity models available, and new forms of meta-creating and plural diverse models inside single creators and their processes, enabled by them. Procter & Gamble Corporation's VP of Innovation, in 1986 and again in 1996 purchased particular creativity models of the 42 models of creativity, meta-model, to fill gaps in the meta-model of creativity models that corporation maintained. Heads of research and innovation and product development in industry, generally, are moving toward realization that their organizations already have, unacknowledged and unrealized in many cases, plural models of creativity at work, though system "supports" for creativity aim at only one formally acknowledged model, and thereby perhaps miss supporting the several other models operant in parts of their organization and perhaps needing "supports". For each such organization it is a vital question whether "supports" and effort should be expended to bolster existing models of creating, or would such work be better directed at installing models of creating found elsewhere in the world but missing now in their organization. Swarm intelligence and crowd-sourcing on the web have a natural fit with repertoires of diverse models of creativity--with contributors naturally deploying diverse own models of creating when contributing together to some collective outcome, whether in parallel or in sequential editing (such as Wikipedia employs). In the history of science, and in studies of knowledge dynamics within single minds and among diverse persons collaborating across time, pulsed systems dominate--rhythms of isolation and engagement, much the same as the alternating of engagement with detachment periods in insight processes as studied by scholars of creativity. Detachment, dis-engagement such periods, in such rhythms, naturally are where alternative models and modes come into view or contemplation. Creativity suffers from an intense ambiguity about whether "I am a nut over-investing in a failing line of action" or "by persisting beyond all others and all my own past bounds, I may succeed where all others failed in this endeavor". The high failure rate in historic-scale creativity efforts, in part stems from this ambiguity. Committing too stubbornly to one's first or preferred or habitual model of creativity may hurt as may switching models too often and too easily without fighting through obstacles to see through to what one model can really do. GiantBagOfGas (talk) 12:23, 11 August 2014 (UTC) The Meta-Models Themselves, Sources: https://www.academia.edu/7924155/8_CREATIVITY_PAPERS---by_RTGreene---42 models, 60 models, 120 models all covered in this source. Works citing such meta-models: Tackling the Wicked Problem of Creativity in Higher Education by Norman Jackson Background paper for a presentation at the ARC Centre for the Creative Industries and Innovation, International Conference Brisbane June 2008 From CSCW to Web 2.0: European Developments in Collaborative Design ...By David Randall, Pascal Salembie. ECSCW 2009: Proceedings of the 11th European Conference on Computer ...By Ina Wagner, Hilda Tellioglu, Ellen Balka, Carla Simone, Luigina Ciolfi Creativity Research: An Inter-Disciplinary and Multi-Disciplinary Research ...edited by Eric Shiu Social Media Tools and Platforms in Learning Environments By Bebo White, Irwin King, Philip Tsang FOSTERING CREATIVITY: A DIAGNOSTIC APPROACH FOR HIGHER EDUCATION AND ORGANISATIONS Arthur Cropley and David Cropley Hampton Press Inc. Cresskill, NJ 07676 Published 2009 McWilliam, Erica L. (2007) Is Creativity Teachable? Conceptualising the Creativity/Pedagogy Relationship in Higher Education. In Proceedings 30th HERDSA Annual Conference : Enhancing Higher Education, Theory and Scholarship, Adelaide Design Issues for Supporting Collaborative Creativity Thomas Herrmann Information and Technology Management, Ruhr-University of Bochum, Universitaetsstr. 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany Teaching for creativity: from sage to guide to meddler by Erica McWilliam Asia Pacific Journal of Education Vol. 29, No. 3, September 2009, 281–293 DIGITALLY PRESERVING SPIRITUAL & CULTURAL HERITAGE WITH TRADITIONAL ARTISTS IN SECOND LIFE Tonietta A. Walters1,2 and Jennifer Saxton2 What Theories and Models of Creativity and its importance in enhancing Creativity? Wiki Answers, Jobert123456 Teaching for creativity: towards sustainable and replicable pedagogical practice Erica McWilliam . Shane Dawson Cognitive and Trait Creativity in Relation with Academic Achievement by Mahnaz Kaboodi and Yeo Kee Jiar, International Journal of Social Science and Humanity, Vol. 2, No. 5, September 2012 — Preceding unsigned comment added by GiantBagOfGas (talk • contribs) 11:24, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Deleted paragraphs

I deleted the following two paragraphs from section 16 (Understanding and enhancing the creative process with new technologies) as they contain excessive postmodernism.

If all the activity of the universe could be traced with appropriate captors, it is likely that one could see the creative nature of the universe to which humans are active contributors. After the web of documents, the Web of Things might shed some light on such a universal creative phenomenon which should not be restricted to humans. In order to trace and enhance cooperative and collective creativity, Metis Reflexive Global Virtual Team has worked for the last few years on the development of a Trace Composer at the intersection of personal experience and social knowledge.

Metis Reflexive Team has also identified a paradigm for the study of creativity to bridge European theory of "useless" and non-instrumentalized creativity, North American more pragmatic creativity and Chinese culture stressing more creativity as a holistic process of continuity rather than radical change and originality. This paradigm is mostly based on the work of the German philosopher Hans Joas, one that emphasizes the creative character of human action. This model allows also for a more comprehensive theory of action. Joas elaborates some implications of his model for theories of social movements and social change. The connection between concepts like creation, innovation, production and expression is facilitated by the creativity of action as a metaphor but also as a scientific concept.

138.251.180.14 (talk) 19:40, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Never mind 'excessive postmodernism', the paragraphs don't belong in the article as they serve no purpose beyond publicising 'Metis Reflexive Global Virtual Team' - whatever that is. Though I must admit (having a degree in a subject partly within the remit of the social sciences) that I might be sympathetic to the view that any postmodernism at all was too much... AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:26, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Deleted Section

I am about to "park" a significant section from the main page onto the talk page here for the following reasons:

• Tone is very different from the rest of the article (exclamation points, hyperbole). The tone is not encyclopedic.
• Numerous errors in English. These need much work when/if this section is re-included.
• If the English & tone were the only problems, I might try to edit it heavily. But unlike some things written by non-native English speakers, I cannot even guess at the meaning of many phrases. This really is the central problem.

I believe much of this was added by User:mahtabshadi and I intend to notify her on her talk page. --Officiallyover (talk) 06:21, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

I am now pasting in the text below. No changes except to equal signs in heading markup. --Officiallyover (talk) 06:24, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

‏Epistemological theory, the phases and contextual planning

‏ ‏There is other imparted theory, explaines epistemological interpretation, the phases and contextual planning of creativity (By Hamid Rajaei 2008). This theory is based on an epistemological theory, with no serious disagreement with other creativity theories. In Rajaei’s theory, all of concepts are considered like galaxies (Galaxy-like and gradual correspondence theory) He believes if we were well-informed on this similarity (On situation and structure of concepts and human knowledge) we would found the flexibility and variability manners in thought realm, and could actualize our creativity power so better. In this theory, he criticizes Aristotle school (using only traditional process: step-by-step logic and line thinking) In traditional system, attaining a new concept and passing the process of understanding, is considered and exemplified by Rajaei, as entrapping a cat and our cognitive system considered like a bag! (Then comprehension=sacking the evasive cat) Then the hardness and dearth of understanding and exploring, is like entrapping the cat. Then the mind after entrapping stops. But in galaxy-like theory, the realty is made of many parts, in phenomenal and outward appearance and is consistent, alive and glory full in noumenon kind and its indipendent existence however, appears like infinite diamond parts spreated and hidden in a wide desert, we are gathering and organizing them for completing and perfecting our Knowledge Basket. The concepts are the galaxies of meaning and the parts that may be changed in many ways. Rajaei believes this theory is an epistemological amendment in human knowledge, especially in traditional societies(See:Tradition).(Hamid Rajaei 2008) The explained phases maybe posed‏ as this: ‏

1.Excitation with a serious emotion to create something.

‏Contextual planning:

Being under a kind of shock or mystique, a kind serious need, hard pressed or poverty, a kind of lovelorn are necessary here: nothing brings nothing.

2.Prolixes phase: gathering Information.

‏Contextual planning:

Having wide study, being expert in the course, a good memory and soul- mind buffer is so good here.

3.High Prolixes phase: to analyze & get extract.

‏Contextual planning:

Having brainstorming & open mind, able to combine lateral thinking and the logic, watching the parallelism and differentiates.

4.The I.G.C phase. Including 3 sub phases‏:‏

‏4/1.Homogenizing the prolixes

4/2.Willy-nilly awaiting revelation

4/3.Achieving the I.G.Cs (immature and glossy concept) The IGCs are very torchbearer, snappy, troublemaker rumbustious & tricky.

‏‏Contextual planning:

Having solitude, private, purification, fervent prayer, God love, loving the solution, or having a kind of pure love, etc. is very facilitative here.

5.Achieving simplifies, letting the brain and mind have an interchange rest, & make or encounter the new simplifies.

6.Fertilizing the simplifies, with "Orbiting around the issue in 360 degrees, horizontally and vertically" & hunting between simplifies and prolixes.

‏‏Contextual planning:

Being aware of the kind and sorts of transition and interactions among the concepts is the cane and template for fertilizing and making the concepts couple or uncouple and how to do with each other‏.‏ ‏ ‏ 7.Achieving the elementary and sophomoric new concepts.

‏‏Contextual planning:

Endure and maturity, fixity and flexibility in a mix of stability, jocularity, are very facilitative and troubleshooter here.

8.Exposing sophomoric concepts to more prolixes. (In fact, a sub process)

‏‏Contextual planning:

Being disinterested, Having universal connections and work-group dictations, critical arguments and not to be in solitude and private etc… is so useful but imperative here.

9.Get the SH Concept (satisfactory harvest: till the next serious conflict.

‏‏Contextual planning:

Having an Idea of epistemology, psychology of epistemology, not being slack believe, sectarian, opinionated, especially to producing soft wares and pragmatic lookout for the hard wares made them, and avoiding credulous or incredulous too, are the main wardrobe of any one in the section. ‏However creativity is an intercourse and interaction of the brain and soul. The brain parts function has basic impress maybe known through the case studies and study of the characters and turnover of right or left hemisphere of brain.

Prolixes and Super simplifies

Hamid Rajaei believes, when we indagate, any creativity stages (for ex. as Graham Wallass' model: preparation, incubation intimation illumination & Verification) we can draw out (especially in terms 2, 3, 4 & 5) that we extract the information with super simplifies, as a natural process in our brain system and common habits. A super simplifier is an image of a concept, made by the brain and mind. It makes them:

1.To release itself from the inconvenience caused with bushiness & density of information, extra calculating, extra nerve activation and force.(with mental -spiritual context)

2.To achieve a paradigmatic concept, that is intact and spiritual. (With spiritual context) aiming to examine the unity, immaculacy & purity. In this position simplifiers go to play as a unifier.

Therefore, prolixes (verbal meaning: too many words and therefore boring) in his euphemism are complicated means or a galaxy of meaning (In accordance with his epistemological theory: The galaxies theory) entangles the cognitive system, so, considered "too many & boring ", by appropriately of the stage: being compacted therefore simplified)

End of parked section --Officiallyover (talk) 06:24, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

References

Deleted text is largely back

I reviewed the text that User:mahtabshadi has added back to the article in this edit. It is not exactly the same as in a previous string of edits that created the section I deleted.

My previous objections to this passage are the same (very difficult to understand, not encyclopedic tone, errors in English). I hope it will help if I give some direct examples of problem phrases. These are only examples. There are many, many more than just these:

1. But only precisely, is related to novelty and recency.
2. Whether seems so floppy and ineffective or very serious and polestar.
3. High Prolixes phase: to do analyse & get extracts.
4. Achieving the I.G.Cs (immature and glossy concept) The IGCs are very torchbearer, snappy, troublemaker rumbustious & tricky.
5. Getting the SH Concept (satisfactory harvest: till the next serious conflict)
6. To release itself from the inconvenience caused with bushiness & density of information, extra calculating, extra nerve activation and force.

I hope it is obvious why those don't make sense. However, the user re-added this text, so I will assume that I didn't communicate well. Therefore, here is my explanation of why these don't make sense:

1. Why is it "only" precisely? How is it related to novelty & recency? What are we even talking about?
2. This is not a sentence at all. Even if I pretend it's connected to the prior one, how can an idea be floppy? Polestar is not an adjective or even close to a metaphor.
3. Extracts of what??
4. "Immature and glossy concept" seems like jargon but there is no definition at all. How can a concept be "torchbearer, snappy, troublemaker rumbustious & tricky"?? Many of those are not adjectives. Even if I stretch my imagination, many do not make sense. "Tricky" is at least grammatical, but in what way is the Concept tricky?
5. Again, "satisfactory harvest" is jargon at best.
6. This is not a sentence. True, I could force it to be grammatical: "A super simplifier makes concepts release themselves from the inconvenience caused by bushiness of information." This does very little to help me understand anything, though.

This article has many problems. This section "The prolixes and the simplifiers, Creativity theory," is one of those problems. It makes very little sense. I don't believe it can remain in the article. I am going to notify the user on her talk page. --Officiallyover (talk) 23:29, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Third insertion of text with problems

A lot of the text apparently based on the work of Hamid Rajaei is back. Example quote: "Achieving the I.G.Cs (immature and glossy concept) The IGCs are very torchbearer, snappy, troublemaker rumbustious & tricky." String of edits that reinstated the text.

I had asked User:mahtabshadi "please do not put this section back unless you do a lot of work to improve it." I do not see evidence of significant work to improve this passage. My main objections are completely unchanged:

1. very difficult to understand; difficult to make much sense at all out of the passage
2. not encyclopedic tone
3. errors in English

I really want other editors to offer their assessments here. So far I am the only editor commenting on this re-appearing passage. --Officiallyover (talk) 13:46, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Simply put, the passage does not belong in Wikipedia article text because the reliable secondary sources on creativity don't mention this fringe theory. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 15:08, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I've removed it, as almost unintelligible and as promoting what appears to be promoting theories unsupported by any third-party source. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:18, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. I agree that the removed text is not suitable. Johnuniq (talk) 01:16, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree, and have removed additional material which is not only a very minor, obscure fringe theory but is also incoherent and meaningless. IjonTichy (talk) 02:34, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Dear User:mahtabshadi, please don't think we are ganging up on you. The only reason we have removed the material is because of the problems listed above. Furthermore, please note that over the last several years I've read books on creativity written by professors at major universities and by successful business people, I've read peer-reviewed papers on innovation, and viewed many hours of videos of talks on creativity by successful technology entrepreneurs, and none of them mention the material that we have removed here. If sometime in the future the work of Hamid Rajaei would become more notable, then please bring the material here to the talk page before including it into this Wikipedia article, and I'm sure the community would be more open to discussing his work in more depth and breadth here on the talk page. Warm Regards, IjonTichy (talk) 16:55, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Removed insertion of material by same user, referencing same material

I removed material added to the definition section sourced to Hamid Rajaei. I couldn't find the material on google scholar, or indeed any material on creativity by this author there. OsFish (talk) 02:52, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Parenthetical statement

The In other professions section contains a parenthetical statement that civil service is "popularly derided as wholly opposite to the creative" It was added here with the whole sentence that is sourced to C. Sullivan, Literature in the Civil Service: Sublime Bureaucracy (2013). I have added a verification needed tag because I question if the author would have put that into the book. -- GB fan 14:16, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

The source says "bureaucracy is dismissed as dull in popular and literary commentary" (p.2) and "Probably now we oppose the notions of creativity and bureaucracy..." (p. 3). The reference title was wrong - it's Literature in the Public Service. I've updated the text to make it fit the source better. I agree that it looked overblown.OsFish (talk) 03:05, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

very heterogene article

From the beginning to the section 'mental health' the article really is worth reading. But beyond that - explicitely '12 Some types of creativity according to R.J. Sternberg 13 In various contexts

   13.1 Creativity profiles
   13.2 In diverse cultures
   13.3 In art and literature
   13.4 Psychological examples from science and mathematics
   13.5 Creative industries and services
   13.6 In other professions
   13.7 In organizations
   13.8 Economic views of creativity
   13.9 Social network view of creativity

14 Fostering creativity 15 Understanding and enhancing the creative process with new technologies 16 Social attitudes' - the article is utter bullshit in it's full variety: You find promotion of notions completely contrary to creativity like the notion that creation is something, which emerges out of nothing from 1 individual instead of being basically just a derivative of works of others (see expressions used for intellectual goods/creative works), you find book advertisement of books, which are not meaningfully contributing to the topic of creativity (see 12 Some types of creativity according to R.J. Sternberg), you find government advertisement implying that they cultivate creativity with their politics although they're doing exactly the opposite as they're locking culture away and surpress connections and creative exchange across borders (see Economic views of creativity and their sections talking about politics of EU commission), and you find ridiculous economic paraphasing of what creativity is, which have nothing to do with creativity. At the end - 16 social attitudes - the article implicates being creative overlaps with being an ethically bad person. If I have read that point at the very beginning of the article, be sure I would have left the article one second after that.

If the cited section 12 - 16 would be completely erased, it would be a huge improvement for the quality of the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.119.187.130 (talk) 12:20, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

I agree that there is some very poor material there, but I'm not sure cutting all of it is a good idea. Business studies has been a good source of research on creative behaviour, and the relationship between creativity and culture is important too. I notice, however, there doesn't seem to be a section directly addressing creativity and personality (Creativity profiles comes closest). My suggestion would be this:

• • Section 9 (on affect) needs to go somewhere. It's too thin on its own. Leave as is until someone has an idea.
  • Rename 10 (Formal theory) "Creativity and artificial intelligence". It's currently all about the work of one person.
  • Cut 12
  • Create a section called "Creativity and Personality", move the 13.1 profile material there
  • Raise 13.2 on culture to a full section, and rename it "Creativity across Cultures"
  • Cut 13.3 to 13.6
  • Change 13.7 to Creativity in organisations, make it its own section
  • Keep 13.8 on economics, make into a section, cut the last paragraph
  • Cut 13.9
  • 14 (Fostering creativity) could probably be cut, as the focus is really unclear. It's very fluffy.
  • Cut 15 and 16 (technology and social attitudes)

How would that be? OsFish (talk) 05:15, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Starting to do changes. I'll save some excised text here if anyone wants to use it:

"Some types of creativity according to R.J. Sternberg"

An article by R. J. Sternberg in the Creativity Research Journal reviewed the "investment" theory of creativity as well as the "propulsion" theory of creative contribution, suggesting that there are eight types of creative contribution; replication — confirming that the given field is in the correct place — redefinition — the attempt to redefine where the field is and how it is viewed — forward incrementation — a creative contribution that moves the field forward in the direction in which it is already moving — advance forward movement — which advances the field past the point where others are ready for it to go — redirection — which moves the field in a new, different direction — redirection from a point in the past — which moves the field back to a previous point to advance in a different direction — starting over/ re-initiation — moving the field to a different starting point — and integration — combining two or more diverse ways of thinking about the field into a single way of thinking.

OsFish (talk) 06:26, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

More to go

"In art and literature"

Henry Moore's Reclining Figure

Most people associate creativity with the fields of art and literature. In these fields, originality is considered to be a sufficient condition for creativity, unlike other fields where both originality and appropriateness are necessary.

Within the different modes of artistic expression, one can postulate a continuum extending from "interpretation" to "innovation". Established artistic movements and genres pull practitioners to the "interpretation" end of the scale, whereas original thinkers strive towards the "innovation" pole. Note that we conventionally expect some "creative" people (dancers, actors, orchestral members, etc.) to perform (interpret) while allowing others (writers, painters, composers, etc.) more freedom to express the new and the different.

Contrast alternative theories, for example:

• artistic inspiration, which provides the transmission of visions from divine sources such as the Muses; a taste of the Divine. Compare with invention.
• artistic evolution, which stresses obeying established ("classical") rules and imitating or appropriating to produce subtly different but unshockingly understandable work. Compare with crafts.
• artistic conversation, as in Surrealism, which stresses the depth of communication when the creative product is the language.

In the art practice and theory of Davor Dzalto, human creativity is taken as a basic feature of both the personal existence of human being and art production. For this thinker, creativity is a basic cultural and anthropological category, since it enables human manifestation in the world as a "real presence" in contrast to the progressive "virtualization" of the world.

"Psychological examples from science and mathematics"

Jacques Hadamard, in his book Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field, uses introspection to describe mathematical thought processes. In contrast to authors who identify language and cognition, he describes his own mathematical thinking as largely wordless, often accompanied by mental images that represent the entire solution to a problem. He surveyed 100 of the leading physicists of his day (ca. 1900), asking them how they did their work. Many of the responses mirrored his own.

Hadamard described the experiences of the mathematicians/theoretical physicists Carl Friedrich Gauss, Hermann von Helmholtz, Henri Poincaré and others as viewing entire solutions with "sudden spontaneity."

The same has been reported in literature by many others, such as Denis Brian, G. H. Hardy, Walter Heitler, B. L. van der Waerden, and Harold Ruegg.

To elaborate on one example, Einstein, after years of fruitless calculations, suddenly had the solution to the general theory of relativity revealed in a dream "like a giant die making an indelible impress, a huge map of the universe outlined itself in one clear vision."

Hadamard described the process as having steps (i) preparation, (ii) incubation, (iv) illumination, and (v) verification of the five-step Graham Wallas creative-process model, leaving out (iii) intimation, with the first three cited by Hadamard as also having been put forth by Helmholtz:

Marie-Louise von Franz, a colleague of the eminent psychiatrist Carl Jung, noted that in these unconscious scientific discoveries the "always recurring and important factor … is the simultaneity with which the complete solution is intuitively perceived and which can be checked later by discursive reasoning." She attributes the solution presented "as an archetypal pattern or image." As cited by von Franz, according to Jung, "Archetypes … manifest themselves only through their ability to organize images and ideas, and this is always an unconscious process which cannot be detected until afterwards."

"Creative industries and services"

Today, creativity forms the core activity of a growing section of the global economy—the so-called "creative industries"—capitalistically generating (generally non-tangible) wealth through the creation and exploitation of intellectual property or through the provision of creative services. The Creative Industries Mapping Document 2001 provides an overview of the creative industries in the UK. The creative professional workforce is becoming a more integral part of industrialized nations' economies.

Creative professions include writing, art, design, theater, television, radio, motion pictures, related crafts, as well as marketing, strategy, some aspects of scientific research and development, product development, some types of teaching and curriculum design, and more. Since many creative professionals (actors and writers, for example) are also employed in secondary professions, estimates of creative professionals are often inaccurate. By some estimates, approximately 10 million US workers are creative professionals; depending upon the depth and breadth of the definition, this estimate may be double.

Creativity is required at all stages of the product development process, from the generation of new product ideas to their commercialization. A work environment that stimulates employee creativity is generally believed to be beneficial for a firm's new product performance. When people at any level in the organization have creative capabilities they can contribute to innovation, despite claims that people at lower levels of an organization introduce fewer and less radical innovation. All organizational members can directly (e.g., as part of new product development (NPD) team) or indirectly contribute to product innovation, especially in less structured organizations.

"In other professions"

Isaac Newton's law of gravity is popularly attributed to a creative leap he experienced when observing a falling apple.

Creativity is also seen as being increasingly important in a variety of other professions. Architecture and industrial design are the fields most often associated with creativity, and more generally the fields of design and design research. These fields explicitly value creativity, and journals such as Design Studies have published many studies on creativity and creative problem solving.

Fields such as science and engineering have, by contrast, experienced a less explicit (but arguably no less important) relation to creativity. Simonton shows how some of the major scientific advances of the 20th century can be attributed to the creativity of individuals. This ability will also be seen as increasingly important for engineers in years to come.

Accounting has also been associated with creativity with the popular euphemism creative accounting. Although this term often implies unethical practices, Amabile has suggested that even this profession can benefit from the (ethical) application of creative thinking.

In a recent global survey of approximately 1600 CEO's, the leadership trait that was considered to be most crucial for success was creativity. This suggests that the world of business is beginning to accept that creativity is of value in a diversity of industries, rather than being simply the preserve of the creative industries. For instance, the civil service bureaucracy (in modern discourse frequently derided as in opposition to the creative), has benefitted from employing creative writers, from John Milton, to Anthony Trollope, to Flann O'Brien, who are capable of analysing the workings of their own institutions.

More

From economics and creativity:

The creative industries in Europe — including the audiovisual sector — make a significant contribution to the EU economy, creating about 3% of EU GDP — corresponding to an annual market value of €500 billion — and employing about 6 million people. In addition, the sector plays a crucial role in fostering innovation, in particular for devices and networks. The EU records the second highest TV viewing figures globally, producing more films than any other region in the world. In that respect, the newly proposed 'Creative Europe' programme will help preserve cultural heritage while increasing the circulation of creative works inside and outside the EU. The programme will play a consequential role in stimulating cross border co-operation, promoting peer learning and making these sectors more professional. The Commission will then propose a financial instrument run by the European Investment Bank to provide debt and equity finance for cultural and creative industries. The role of the non-state actors within the governance regarding Medias will not be neglected anymore due to a holistic approach.

More

Social network view of creativity

Creativity research has long been polarized between the ‘romantic’ view that major creative achievements are sparked by imaginative and uniquely gifted individuals at the margin of an intellectual field. Although this remains the dominant approach when examining individual creativity, an increasingly large number of studies have stressed the importance of also looking at social factors. Following this line of thought and drawing more explicitly from research by sociologists and sociopsychologists, organizational scholars have increasingly recognized the importance of the network side of individual creativity.

The key idea of this perspective is that a deeper understanding of how creative outputs are generated and become accepted can be achieved only by placing the individual within a network of interpersonal relationships. The influence of the social context in which individuals are embedded determines the range of information and opportunities available to them during the creative process. Several studies have begun to expose the network mechanisms that underlie the genesis and legitimacy of creative work. — Preceding unsigned comment added by OsFish (talk • contribs) 06:36, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

More from the intro to all that section

An electric wire reel reused as a center table in a Rio de Janeiro decoration fair. The creativity of this designer in reusing this waste was used with good effects to the environment.

Creativity has been studied from a variety of perspectives and is important in numerous contexts. Most of these approaches are undisciplinary, and it is therefore difficult to form a coherent overall view. The following sections examine some of the areas in which creativity is seen as being important. — Preceding unsigned comment added by OsFish (talk • contribs) 06:37, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

That's around 20,000 words cut. I kept "fostering creativity" as I think it should probably be somewhere in the article. OsFish (talk) 06:45, 21 December 2015 (UTC)