The 7 C's of Creativity

This paper presents a framework for conceptualizing work on creativity in terms of 7 C's. These are: Creators, Creating, Collaborations, Contexts, Creations, Consumption, and Curricula. The content of these thema are described and situated with respect to previous proposals.     

Malevolent Creativity in Terrorist Organizations

Terrorist organizations are both imitative and innovative in character. While the drivers of imitation have been extensively modeled using concepts such as contagion and diffusion, creativity and innovation remain relatively underdeveloped ideas in the context of terrorist behavior. This article seeks to redress this deficiency by presenting a conceptual framework with which we can understand the complex nature and multiple drivers of creativity and innovation within terrorist organizations. The overriding questions we address are: what factors spark creativity and innovation within terrorist organizations, and are there particular organizational traits that increase an organization's propensity to be creative and innovative? Using insights from industrial and organizational psychology and aided by illustrative examples and case studies from the history of terrorism, we aim to show that the multiple drivers of creativity and innovation are identifiable. By providing a conceptual framework that explores these key issues, we suggest that a much clearer research agenda for these issues may emerge. We conclude with a discussion concerning how our framework can help inform counter‐terrorism practices.     

Teacher's Encouragement on Creativity,Intrinsic Motivation,and Creativity: The Mediating Role of Creative Process Engagement

Drawing on Dewey's pragmatic perspective on talent cultivation and previous research on promoting employee creativity in industry, this study investigates student creativity performance in relation to teacher's encouragement, intrinsic motivation, and creative process engagement. Based on survey data collected from 140 vocational high school students who participated in a nation‐wide contest in Taiwan, path analyses were performed using structure equation modeling techniques. The results indicate that both teacher's encouragement and intrinsic motivation have a significant, although indirect, effect on student creativity, and that creative process engagement, as opposed to teacher encouragement or intrinsic motivation, has a direct and significant mediating effect on student creativity. This finding is in partial agreement with prior research which reports student creativity is positively associated with teacher encouragement and intrinsic motivation, highlighting the mediating role of creative process engagement in facilitating student creative performance.     

A Religious Interpretation of Emergence: Creativity as God

Thinking of God today as creativity (instead of as The Creator) enables us to bring theological values and meanings into significant connection with modern cosmological and evolutionary thinking. This conception connects our understanding of God with today's ideas of the Big Bang; cosmic and biological evolution; the evolutionary emergence of novel complex realities from simpler realities, and the irreducibility of these complex realities to their simpler origins; and so on. It eliminates anthropomorphism and anthropocentrism from the conception of God, thus overcoming one of the major reasons for the implausibility of God-talk in today's world—here viewed as a highly dynamic reality (not an essentially stable structure), with God regarded as the ongoing creativity in this world. This mystery of creativity—God—manifest throughout the universe is quite awe-inspiring, calling forth emotions of gratitude, love, peace, fear, and hope, and a sense of the profound meaningfulness of human existence in the world—issues with which faith in God usually has been associated. It is appropriate, therefore, to think of God today as precisely this magnificent panorama of creativity with which our universe and our lives confront us.     

Polite Girls and Creative Boys? Students' Gender Moderates Accuracy of Teachers' Ratings of Creativity

The aim of this study was to examine whether, and to what extent, teachers are able to recognize the creativity of their students. The study measured the creative abilities, creative attitude, creative activity, as well as intrinsic motivation, intelligence, and school functioning of 589 Polish high school students, while their teachers (N = 178) rated students' creativity. The structural equation model (SEM) demonstrated that the accuracy of teachers' ratings of students' creativity is generally low—the latent factor of students' creativity reliably, however weakly, predicted teachers' ratings. The accuracy of teachers' ratings was moderated by gender: Only in the case of male students did the latent creativity factor reliably predict teachers' ratings. Students' school functioning emerged as a key factor positively associated with the perception of students as creative.     

A Model of Creativity in Organizations: John Holland's Theory of Vocational Choice (1973) at Multiple Levels of Analysis

This conceptual paper serves to create a model of creativity and innovation at different organizational levels. It draws on John Holland's Theory of Vocational Choice (1973) as the basis for its structure by incorporating the six different personality types from his theory: conventional, enterprising, realistic, social, investigative, and artistic, as working together with each other within and between teams in organizations. The model begins with opposite personalities working together in two‐person groups to generate creative ideas and then expands to all six personalities working together as one team to implement innovative products and services. It is the underlying contrast of personalities in Holland's (1973) theory, where each personality contributes diverse ideas and skills, that when combined, produce new products and services that are financially beneficial, useful, and enhancing of well‐being for organizations and society.     

Are Teachers' Implicit Theories of Creativity Related to the Recognition of Their Students' Creativity?

We examine the structure of implicit theories of creativity among Polish high schools teachers and the role those theories play for the accuracy of teachers' assessment of their students' creativity. Latent class analysis revealed the existence of four classes of teachers, whose perception of a creative student differed: two of these classes defined a creative student incoherently with the existing theories of creativity, and the other two classes did that in accordance with Kirton's (1976) theory of creativity styles, that is, as adaptors or innovators. Teachers who perceived a creative student as an adaptor tended to more accurately assess the creativity of females, whereas teachers perceiving a creative student as an innovator more accurately assessed the creativity of males. We discuss the theoretical and practical consequences of these findings.     

MATRIX THINKING: AN ADAPTATION AT THE FOUNDATION OF HUMAN SCIENCE,RELIGION, AND ART

Intrigued by Robinson and Southgate's 2010 work on “entering a semiotic matrix,” we expand their model to include the juxtaposition of all signs, symbols, and mental categories, and to explore the underpinnings of creativity in science, religion, and art. We rely on an interdisciplinary review of human sentience in archaeology, evolutionary biology, the cognitive science of religion, and literature, and speculate on the development of sentience in response to strong selection pressure on the hominin evolutionary line, leaving us the “lone survivors” of complex, multiple lines of physical and cultural evolution. What we call Matrix Thinking—the creative driver of human sentience—has important cognitive and intellectual features, but also equally important characteristics traced to our intense sociability and use of emotionality in vetting rational models. Scientist, theologian, and artist create new cultural knowledge within a social context even if alone. They are rewarded by emotional validation from group members, and guided by the ever present question, “Does it feel right?”     

A CHRISTIAN NATURALISM: DEVELOPING THE THINKING OF GORDON KAUFMAN

This essay develops a theological naturalism using Gordon Kaufman's nonpersonal idea of God as serendipitous creativity in contrast to the personal metaphorical theology of Sallie McFague. It then develops a Christian theological naturalism by using Kaufman's idea of historical trajectories, specifically Jesus trajectory₁ and Jesus trajectory₂. The first is the trajectory in the early Christian church assuming a personal God in the framework of Greek philosophy that results in the Trinity. The second is the naturalistic‐humanistic trajectory of creativity (God) that evolves from nonpersonal interactions in the universe and life to creativity in persons and is manifested in Jesus as love. This is elaborated further with Dean Keith Simonton's Darwinian understanding of genius and Marcus Borg's analysis of Jesus as Jewish mystic, teacher of alternative wisdom, and nonviolent resister to the domination system of the Roman Empire. What makes Jesus a religious genius is his exemplifying unconditional, universal love—a new mode of creativity (God) that has evolved from nonhuman to a human form.     

Age,Emotion Regulation Strategies,Temperament, Creative Drama,and Preschoolers' Creativity

Based on Yeh's (2004) Ecological Systems Model of Creativity Development, this study investigated the effects that age, the use of emotion regulation strategies, temperament, and exposure to creative drama instruction have on the development of creativity among preschool children. Participants were 1164‐ to 6‐year‐old preschool children. This study categorized the emotion regulation strategies used by preschool children and developed a creativity test which includes the measurement of usefulness, an indicator of creativity that has, until now, been ignored. The main findings are that (a) 6‐year‐olds outperform 4‐ and 5‐year‐olds in terms of creativity; (b) emotion regulation strategies as well as a positive temperament have positive effects on children's creativity; (c) creative drama instruction contributes to children's creativity; and (d) age group, emotion regulation strategies, temperament, and creative drama instruction can collectively predict children's creativity.     

Inside the Creative Sifter: Recognizing Metacognition in Creativity Development

The parallels between cognitive development and creativity are neglected in the literature. Piaget's information transformations are personalized, meaning individual constructions can involve creativity. Vygotsky's work considers the implications and interactions of social influences, conventions, and personal implications for creative development. The Cognitive‐Creative Sifting Model is proposed to focus attention on these and other connections between cognitive development and creativity. Other common methods of assessing creativity are compared to the proposed model. It is argued that the model provides a foundation to evaluate individual creative potentials more holistically. Specifically, the conceptual elements of metacognition are described and their role in the development of creativity is suggested. It is argued that future researchers should pay particular attention to the interaction effects metacognition has with traditional measures of creativity focused on ideation and product evaluation.     

Creative Imagination is Stable Across Technological Media: The Spore Creature Creator Versus Pencil and Paper

T. B. Ward (1994) investigated creativity by asking participants to draw alien creatures that they imagined to be from a planet very different from Earth. He found that participant drawings reliably contained features typical of common Earth animals. As a consequence, Ward concluded that creativity is structured. The present investigation predicts that this limitation on creativity is not restricted to drawings: the use of different technology will not change creative output. To investigate this question, participants performed Ward's task twice: once using pencil and paper and once using software made to design creatures (the Spore Creature Creator). Only minor significant differences were found. This preliminarily suggests that changing tools does not affect the overall rigidity of the creative process. This lends further support to Ward's thesis on the structural rigidity of creativity. We conclude by suggesting an elaboration to Ward's thesis that will be explored in future work. We suggest that aesthetics might be one of the factors that contribute to creative constraint, in that creatures that are too unusual would be less interesting.     

From Implicit Theories to Creative Achievements: The Mediating Role of Creativity Motivation in the Relationship between Stereotypes,Growth Mindset,and Creative Achievement

Research has demonstrated that implicit theories of creativity are crucial in shaping an individual’s behavior and real‐life decisions toward being creative. The present study proposed and examined the underlying mechanisms of how two kinds of implicit theories—the growth mindset of the creative self and the stereotype of creative others—are associated with creative achievements through the mediating role of creativity motivation. Participants were 606 undergraduate students who were enrolled in an education major in two universities in China. Overall, the study found that Chinese students held a positive image toward a creative student, regarding him or her as highly competent, warm, and popular. Student perceptions of a creative other were positively related to their growth mindset of creativity. Moreover, results verified both the mediating role of creativity motivation on growth mindset, as well as the effect of positive stereotyping of the creative other on students’ creative achievement. These findings point to promising creativity motivation strategies including the cultivation of a malleable view of creativity and of creative role models, that may, in turn, promote creative achievement by encouraging students to do, learn, and accomplish new things.     

Proactive yet reflective? Materializing proactive personality into creativity through job reflective learning and activated positive affective states

Studies linking proactive personality to creativity have primarily taken a future-oriented perspective, describing a process where individuals assess future opportunities and risks of creative endeavors. Complementing this approach, we draw on an attribution theory perspective to delineate how proactive personality relates to employee creativity through the serial mediating effects of job reflective learning—a backward-looking cognitive process—and activated positive affective states. Job reflective learning captures backward-looking self-assessments and the underlying internal causal attributions, and it is differentiated into two valences: job reflective learning from successes and from failures. Based on two separate multi-wave, multi-source field studies, our findings consistently show a serial mediation process linking proactive personality to creativity through both valences of job reflective learning and activated positive affective states. Job reflective learning from successes breeds joviality, whereas job reflective learning from failures arouses attentiveness. Joviality and attentiveness—both types of activated positive affective states—in turn promote creativity. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of how proactive employees manifest their proactivity trait into actual creativity through backward-looking cognitive and affective processes.     

Advancing Creativity Theory and Research: A Socio-cultural Manifesto

This manifesto, discussed by 20 scholars, representing diverse lines of creativity research, marks a conceptual shift within the field. Socio-cultural approaches have made substantial contributions to the concept of creativity over recent decades and today can provide a set of propositions to guide our understanding of past research and to generate new directions of inquiry and practice. These propositions are urgently needed in response to the transition from the Information Society to the Post-Information Society. Through the propositions outlined here, we aim to build common ground and invite the community of creativity researchers and practitioners to reflect up, study, and cultivate creativity as a socio-cultural phenomenon.     

Psychometric Qualities and Measurement Invariance of the Modified Self‐Rated Creativity Scale

The 13‐item self‐rated creativity scale (SRCS) initially developed for supervisory rating of employees’ creativity was modified by some researchers and used as a self‐report of creativity. However, it is not clear if the modified SRCS is psychometrically sound. The present study addressed this gap in three studies (N = 1,033). The exploratory factor analysis (Study 1) revealed a two‐factor solution after removing Item 9 due to low factor loading. Confirmatory factor analysis was then used in Study 2 to examine and compare the conceptual one‐factor model with 13 items (Model 1), one‐factor model with 12 items (Model 2), two‐factor model with 12 items (Model 3), and the 12‐item bifactor model with one general factor and two specific factors (Model 4). The results indicated that Model 4 is more superior to all the competing models. Study 3 further confirmed that the bifactor model, showed support to the reliability and convergent validity, and found partial metric invariance across Chinese and Malay undergraduates. Taken together, the modified (12‐item) SRCS is a psychometrically sound tool for self‐rated creativity in the Malaysian context.     

What's Wrong with Creativity Testing?

Creativity testing as it is now done is often based on a defective assumption that different kinds of creativity can be compressed into a single unidimensional scale. There is no reason to believe that the different kinds of creativity represent, simply, different amounts of a single unidimensional construct. The article shows how three different ways of viewing creativity lead to different ways of measuring creativity, all at variance with current unidimensional models. The point of view presented here does not suggest that current creativity tests are invalid, but rather, that care must be taken in the nature of claims made for them. Moreover, many of the same arguments could be applied to the measurement of intelligence and even wisdom as well.     

Dev E-R: A computational model of early cognitive development as a creative process

This paper describes a computational model named Dev E-R (Developmental Engagement-Reflection) that, inspired by Piaget’s theory, simulates the assimilation-accommodation adaptation process. It is implemented with a new extended version of the computational model of creativity known as Engagement-Reflection. That is, this model simulates adaptation as a creative activity. We introduce here the implementation of our model on an agent that is initialized with basic reflex conducts and that through the interaction with a 3D virtual world, it is able to build new behaviors autonomously. The new acquired skills, according to Piaget’s theory, are typically observed in children that have reached the second substage of the sensorimotor period.     

On the Continuity and Origin of Identity in Distributed Ledgers: Learning from Russell's Paradox

This article studies the origin and continuity of the identity of the entities inscribed in a distributed ledger. Specifically, it focuses on the differences between the identities of the entities that exist in a distributed ledger and those of the entities that exist outside the ledger but must be represented in the ledger in order to interact with it. It suggests that a distributed ledger that contains representations of entities that exist outside the ledger can yield a continuum of interconnected existing and past identities that is constantly redefined to represent new conceptual entities. This continuum can be understood as a metasortal—or a sortal of sortals—that resembles the mathematical structure of a set of sets. Further, the article presents the dilemma that arises when representing the identities of entities in a distributed ledger, and it draws an analogy between this dilemma and Russell's Paradox.