Understanding Creativity: Dimensions, Views, and Characteristics

1. Creativity and Giftedness COEHS, MSU Echo Wu, Ph.D. Reference: Textbook, Clark (2013)

2. Concepts of Creativity • Creativity (C) is the synthesis of enriched rational and spatial thought, heightened physical sensing and movement, sensitive emotional and social affect, and high intuitive consciousness. • It may express the uniqueness of a person through ideas, insights, processes, acts, and/or products, and integrates all ideas and allows a broad view rather than a limited one. • Sternberg & Lubart: C is a dimension of intelligence that supplements the IQ, and should be seen as a type of giftedness.

3. Concepts of Creativity (2) • Renzulli: C is a condition for the identification of gifted behavior, when combined with motivation and above-average ability. • It can be claimed only when a product results.

4. Concepts of Creativity (3) • Runco: C is a vital component of giftedness and children will express C in specific domains. • Feldman: C is an extension of giftedness, and is limited to a cognitive view, which allows it to be more easily measured, researched, and taught. But it does not capture its complexity or bring understanding of its other dimensions.

5. Cognitive View of Creativity • Creative people must combine, reorganize, or reshape knowledge structures to generate the new understandings needed to solve problems. • Such solutions are then translated into action plans to bring the creative idea into being. • In this view, problem solving and divergent thinking are the central focus for the development of C. • This dimension of C is frequently measured by test, but it is doubtful that test results can ever identify or explain the C process.

6. Affective View of Creativity • Focusing on the actions and characteristics of the C person rather than on C products or behaviors (Maslow). • Stressing personality, one’s perceptions and personal resources over achievement (Moustakas). • Believing that C is the ability to see and to respond with intense uniqueness (Fromm). • Seeing an affective aspect, having intrinsic task motivation, as a basic ingredient of creative work (Amabile).

7. Physical/Sensing View of Creativity • This view is most related to the products of C. Art and music are examples of the expression of this aspects of C. • Visual artists, writers, and musicians are too often seen as the only representation of C, and it denies the possibility of private and personal expressions of creativity that may not be expressed tangibly. • Runco: “An emphasis on actual products and achievement may prevent us from identifying the children with creative potential who need us the most.”

8. Intuitive View of Creativity • C is an alternative level of awareness (Krippner). • It is a perception (MacKinnon). • It produces an attitude that nurtures diversity, change, optimal involvement, and self-regulation, and one must learn and relearn to honor the C within ourselves (Samples).

9. Holistic View of Creativity: Integrating the Views • Unless all of the views and the information related to them are integrated, we may not be able to understand C in a total sense. • C can be viewed from the full range of process and product, from skill development to expressions of personal emotion, and from the production of the arts to the use of intuition. • From the view of the holistic model, C depends on the balance among action, emotion, and cognition, with the addition of insight or intuition and the ability to synthesize the components of a situation into a meaningful whole.

10. Common Characteristics and Abilities See “Characteristics of Creative People” (Torrance, 1964, on p.133, Clark, 2013): • Cognitive Characteristics • Affective/Social-Emotional Characteristics • Physical/Sensing Characteristics • Intuitive Characteristics

11. Creativity as a Process • Csikszentmihalyi: flow – “concentration, absorption, deep involvement, joy, a sense of accomplishment… using psychic energy in a harmonious pattern… a sense of discovery, the excitement of self-discovery… going beyond what one has already achieved”

12. Creativity as a Process (2) • Wallas: The stages of C process include • -- Preparation: clarify the problem & collect • information • -- Incubation: think about or reflect on the • problem • -- Illumination: solution appears – the “Aha!” • moment • -- Verification: try out and evaluate the solution • -- Implementation: elaborate the solution & • carry it out

13. Developing Creativity • Nurturing C at home -- C tend to be found in homes that are less authoritarian. -- Family stresses openness and expresses enthusiasm -- Playfulness, imagination, make-believe, and fantasy -- Psychological safety & freedom -- Development at early years • Nurturing C at school -- C is considered learned behavior and is capable of improvement through instruction -- Motivation, engagement, initiative, higher-level thinking, self-expression, investigation, knowledge, peer influence, allowing mistakes, reduce anxiety…

14. Measuring Creativity • Measures of Performance • -- Test such as TTCT: Result in observable, quantifiable • information, but cannot represent the full range of C • -- Problem solving & divergent thinking: Present • incompleteness and openness, bring to closure through a • process of reasoning • Measures of Products • -- External evaluation of creative products: assessment of • performance, portfolios, exhibits, open-ended tasks etc.

15. Problems in Measuring Creativity • Problems in Measuring Creativity • -- The use of a single test to determine • creativeness • -- Questions of reliability and validity • -- The exclusive use of overuse of • divergent thinking test items • -- The use of generic tests of C in specific • content domains • -- The use of C testing for special criteria • identification of giftedness

16. Any Question? Echo Wu, Ph.D. Email: ewu@murraystate.edu Tel: 270-809-2539