Toward a Theory of Creativity in Diverse Creative Women

ABSTRACT: Little is known and limited research has been completed about creative women, their creative processes, and the decisions they face about their own creative productivity. Few books or even articles suggest how creativity can be better developed, enhanced, or increased in a diverse population of girls and women. The social and political movement focusing on women during the past five decades has provided some understanding of women's creative processes as well as the creative roles that women have played in our society and the forces that shape those roles. In this article, current research is analyzed, focusing on the development of women's creativity and the classification of this research into major themes. Internal and external blocks to creativity in women are discussed, as is current research on these blocks, and an explanation is suggested for different types of creative productivity exhibited by women. A theory is proposed regarding the diversion of women's creativity into multiple areas in their lives, including relationships, work related to both family and home, personal interests, and aesthetic sensitivities. This diversion of creative efforts may result in different levels of creativity applied to work, as well as the existence of very different patterns of creative productivity in creative women.     

Toward A Very Idea Of Representation

The actual approaches of Cognitive Science offer a partial explanation of cognition. In this paper, our main point is to catch some key elements from these approaches, that can be taken together in a future perspective for a better explanation of cognition. The key elements (levels of analysis, primitives, processes, structures, threshold,self-organisation, bidirectionality, emergency, habituation, tasks, theinteraction between levels and also the interactions between the elements of the cognitive system and the environment) help us to stress the need of the representations. Then, we arediscussing the following dichotomies: procedural-declarative,consciousness-unconsciousness, implicit-explicit. Finally, we will try to motivate the necessity of an abstract theory of representation in Cognitive Science. ``The sensitive things aren't, but the ideas are'.Plato     

Creative Thinking From An Information Processing Perspective: A New Approach To Mednick's Theory Of Associative Hierarchies

Mednick (1962) proposed a theory of the creative thinking process which asserts that in generating associative responses to a stimulus, creative individuals are characterized by a flatter associative hierarchy than are less creative individuals. In order to assess this idea, an associative priming paradigm was used to measure latencies to lexical decisions primed by associations of low, medium, or high strength. Mednick's theory was not supported. However, it was found that the responses of creative subjects were uniformly less facilitated at all levels of associative strength. The set of associative strengths employed in the experiment may not have ranged low enough to provide a realistic test of creative processes. If so, then the obtained findings may be consistent with Mednick's theory as it applies to the upper end of the associative continuum.     

A Compatibilist Version Of The Theory Of Agent Causation

The Theory of Agent Causation has always been formulated as an incompatibilist view, but I think that this has been a mistake. The aim of this paper is to argue that, contrary to what agent causation theorists and their opponents have always believed, the most plausible version of the Theory of Agent Causation is actually a compatibilist version of that theory. I formulate the traditional version of the Theory of Agent Causation, and consider a series of objections to it and related views. With each objection comes a corresponding revision of the theory that is motivated by that objection, and with each revision the theory becomes increasingly compatibilistic until, finally, we arrive at a completely compatibilistic version of the Theory of Agent Causation, which I take to be the most plausible version of that theory.     

A Paraconsistent Theory Of Belief Revision

This paper presents a theory of belief revision that allows people to come tobelieve in contradictions. The AGM theory of belief revision takes revision,in part, to be consistency maintenance. The present theory replacesconsistency with a weaker property called coherence. In addition to herbelief set, we take a set of statements that she rejects. These two sets arecoherent if they do not overlap. On this theory, belief revision maintains coherence.     

Toward A Process-Oriented Theory of Human Skilled Performance

Skilled perceptual-motor performance should be approached from a point of view of the processing operations performed by S in a skilled task. This perspective is emphasized in recent attempts to develop analytic or computer-simulation models of tracking tasks. These models are illustrated, and it is argued that a model that has a discrete correction compensatory path and a continuously programmed pursuit path may form one starting point for a more general representation. This representation needs to incorporate as yet undefined processing and storage units to handle coherence prediction, memorized movement patterns, and compensation for external system dynamics.     

Playing Church: Toward Critically Creative Pastoral Practices

The author develops theory and practices that contribute to psychological health and well-being in pastoral ministry. Drawing on experiences in congregational ministry and clinical pastoral learning environments, the author argues for the benefit of a playful pastoral education method informed by the critical pedagogy of Paulo Freire and the theological worldview of Jurgen Moltmann. Attention is given to explication of core principles and practical application that foster soul-filled creativity in pastoral ministry.     

The Psychophysiology Of Intuition: A Quantum-Holographic Theory Of Nonlocal Communication

This work seeks to explain intuitive perception—those perceptions that are not based on reason or logic or on memories or extrapolations from the past, but are based, instead, on accurate foreknowledge of the future. Often such intuitive foreknowledge involves perception of implicit information about nonlocal objects and/or events by the body's psychophysiological systems. Recent experiments have shown that intuitive perception of a future event is related to the degree of emotional significance of that event, and a new study shows that both the brain and the heart are involved in processing a pre-stimulus emotional response to the future event. Drawing on this research and on the principles of quantum holography, I develop a theory of intuition that views the perception of things remote in space or ahead in time (nonlocal communication) as involving processes of energetic resonance connecting the body's psychophysiological systems to the quantum level. The theory explains how focused emotional attention directed to the nonlocal object of interest attunes the bio-emotional energy generated by the body's psychophysiological systems to a domain of quantum-holographical information, which contains implicit information about the object. The body's perception of such implicit information about things distant in space/time is experienced as an intuition.     

Toward Effective Evaluation Of the Culturally Deprived

Attention is focused on some of the factors which may result in the invalidation or distortion of both objective and subjective evaluations of students from the lower socioeconomic strata of the population. These factors include: (a) counselor attitude in evaluation; (b) counselee attitude in evaluation; (c) counselor-counselee value systems; (d) test weaknesses such as low reliability and/or validity and inadequate norms; and (e) a lack of understanding by the counselor and/or counselee of the purpose for testing. Evaluation is an integral part of the counseling process; however, the effectiveness of the evaluative process is dependent upon the counselor's knowledge and sense of responsibility as well as the validity and reliability of the tests.     

Creative Potential and Multicultural Experiences: The Mediating Role of Creative Self-Efficacy

In two studies, one in Mexico and another one in Germany, we examined the indirect influence of self-reported multicultural experience on creative potential, through its influence on creative self-efficacy, and its direct influence on creative personal identity. In both studies, business students from Mexico and Germany completed a battery of questionnaires assessing creative self-efficacy (with two different operationalizations), creative personal identity, multicultural experiences, and a divergent thinking task designed to generate ideas to solve two different business problems. Structural equation modeling was used to test our hypotheses. Results from both studies found a positive relationship between self-reported multicultural experiences and creative personal identity. Similarly, multicultural experiences had an indirect, positive relationship with originality scores from a divergent thinking task, through its influence on creative self-efficacy. Hence, the positive influence of multicultural experience on creative potential, through creative self-efficacy, was established in two countries and with different operationalizations, trait like versus state like, of creative self-efficacy. The implications of the results were discussed.     

Energizing The Creative Potential in Future Engineers

ABSTRACT Three agents needed for energizing the creative process in future engineers are realistic challenge, creative involvement, and relevant constraints. Two conditions for continuing the reaction are a reservoir of knowledge and experience, and an integrated conceptual framework. Curricula and courses can be structured to emphasize these agents and conditions.