The Myths of Heaven-Sent Creativity: Toward a Perhaps Less Democratic But More Down-to-Earth Understanding

Creativity is surrounded by a cluster of long-held beliefs—referred to here as myths—which regard it as confined to aesthetic/spiritual domains and as a divine gift to a tiny few, and thus render it ineluctable, ineffable and inscrutable. As a result, treating it as part of normal psychological functioning and emphasizing its usefulness seems almost blasphemous, and is regarded by some as devaluing creative talent or even rendering the idea of creativity meaningless. Indeed, there really does seem to be a danger of commodifying creativity and reducing it to fast food creativity—attractively packaged but lacking genuine nutritional value. However, a phase model of the process of creativity makes it possible to distinguish between sublime creativity, mundane creativity, and commodified creativity without attributing the former to forces beyond mere human existence. This conceptualization has practical consequences for, for instance, education.     

Entropy of Linkography: Evaluating the Creativity of Short Animation

There are important research issues surrounding the best methods for evaluating creativity of animation. This study proposed an approach to evaluate the creativity of short animation by adopting Linkography. This article reported the results of two experiments performed to test this approach. In study 1, participants identified as impressive a set of images drawn from a short animation. These images then represented moves on Linkography. Next, the interrelations between images were recognized as links on Linkography. The creativity of a short animation was determined by entropy, which was calculated by links. Results of study 1 revealed that entropy of Linkography had a high correlation (.86) with the evaluation scores obtained through a questionnaire, thus confirming the adequacy of using Linkography as a tool in evaluating the creativity of short animation. In study 2, an experiment was conducted to adjust entropy calculation. The study results showed that there existed alternatives for adjusting this calculation to reflect better the irregularity of ideas, which serves as an indicator of creativity. Further studies are needed to test the generalization of the present findings.     

Person Perception in the College Classroom: Accounting for Taste in Students' Evaluations of Teaching Effectiveness

An important applied aspect of person perception occurs when college students evaluate their professors' teaching. Student evaluations of teaching typically are conceptualized as reflecting the characteristics of professors. Yet, this view overlooks the possibility that teaching evaluations also reflect the personal tastes of students, manifested as systematic disagreement among students. Large effects of personal tastes are routinely observed in person perception research and, therefore, should be expected in students' evaluations of teaching. This article describes 3 studies in which students evaluated the same professors' teaching effectiveness. In each study, students' evaluations were strongly influenced by their personal tastes regarding teaching. Moreover, personal tastes in teaching were related in meaningful ways to students' positive affect and memory for lectures.     

论“信则有，不信则无”的真谛——关于净土存在的揭示

净土的有与无(存在与不存在)是与人们对它的信与不信相联系的。因为人们以信乐为基，而行愿到一定程度之后才能感受到净土的存在。否则，人们自始至终都没有相信过，更没有修行过，人们当然就领略不到净土的庄严和净土的存在。因为，即使它存在，那也只是诸佛的存在，同人们自己是没有必然联系的，因为那毕竟不是人们自己的净土。     

Evaluating Community Creativity and Innovation: Methodological Proposal and Reflexions

Creative persons, creative products, as well as creative processes are always emerging within certain contexts which could be investigated at different levels (individual/organizational/or global levels). This paper suggests the importance of evaluating creativity and innovation at the level of society, and proposes a methodological design to do so. Moreover, some of the difficulties of such an approach are indentified, and conditions of its feasability are outlined.     

What Hope Is There: The Enthrallment of Empire Stories

In this article, I argue that many U.S. citizens are held captive by expansionist narratives and ideologies. Our enthrallment is explained, in part, by shared weak dissociation, rationalization, moralization, and denial. Theologically, I understand the ongoing presence of these narratives and ideologies in U.S. society as a manifestation of idolatry and a refusal to mourn. Furthermore, I argue that expansionist narratives signify the presence of fate and the distortion of hope, in particular, Christian hope.     

Evaluating Creativity Through the Degrees of Solidity of Its Assessment: A Relational Approach

In this paper, we introduce a new approach to creativity assessment. Arguably, one of the main obstacles to creativity assessment is that creativity criteria are likely to change depending on what is assessed and who is making the assessment. We argue that we might be able to solve this problem by adopting a relational ontology, i.e., an ontology according to which beings of the world acquire their properties by relating to other beings. First, we present the main consequences of this ontological approach for creativity assessment: (a) Accounting for the creativity of a given object involves retracing the beings (including criteria) that relate it to its alleged creativity; (b) One can assess the creativity of this object by looking at the number of beings that substantiate this relation, i.e., by looking at what we call the “degree of solidity” of the relation; (c) One can thus account for the specificity of various forms of creativity and, at the same time, compare them in terms of solidity. Building on these ontological assumptions, we then present a new assessment technique, the Objection Counting Technique, before putting it to the test using an excerpt taken from a naturally occurring brainstorming session.     

There Is No Motive to Avoid Success: The Compromise Explanation for Success-Avoiding Behavior

ABSTRACT There are two traditional explanations for success-avoiding behavior the motive hypothesis and the cognition hypothesis A third hypothesis, compromise, is proposed m this article and explains success avoidance as a compromise between achievement and other goals A review shows that data explained by the motive hypothesis can be explained more parsimoniously by the compromise hypothesis, that some data are weakly inconsistent with the motive hypothesis, and that there is supportive evidence for the cognition and compromise hypotheses The implications of the compromise hypothesis for motivation research in general are discussed in terms of a control theory framework Compromises may be a common feature of intentional behavior     

Is There a Biochemical Predictor of Suicide?

ABSTRACT: There is a need for additional instruments to alert the clinician more effectively to the high self-destructive potential of some of his suicide-risk patients. In this study it was found that suicides-to-be tended to have higher plasma cortisols than suicidal patients who did not subsequently commit suicide within two years of the test. The article discusses the possible mechanisms involved and reviews some of the literature indicating that there may be a biochemical substratum that may play a significant role in some suicides.     

Is There a Preferred Style of Sales Management

Abstract

Recently a powerful new technique for teaching salespeople how to establish rapport has emerged from the behavioral sciences. The technique is called Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). One observes body cues such as eye movements, voice tones, and body posture to learn the thought processes behind them. Word selection used by customers reinforces the information provided by body cues. A salesperson can establish rapport by pacing or matching body and word patterns. Such rapport building facilitates the creation of mutually beneficial exchanges. The process for acquiring and teaching such skills is discussed.     

Genes for Psychosis and Creativity: A Promoter Polymorphism of the Neuregulin 1 Gene Is Related to Creativity in People With High Intellectual Achievement

ABSTRACT— Why are genetic polymorphisms related to severe mental disorders retained in the gene pool of a population? A possible answer is that these genetic variations may have a positive impact on psychological functions. Here, I show that a biologically relevant polymorphism of the promoter region of the neuregulin 1 gene (SNP8NRG243177/rs6994992) is associated with creativity in people with high intellectual and academic performance. Intriguingly, the highest creative achievements and creative-thinking scores were found in people who carried the T/T genotype, which was previously shown to be related to psychosis risk and altered prefrontal activation.     

文化的综合创造何以可能——张岱年"综合创造"的文化观研究

在文化的“古今中西”之争问题上,不同于“全盘西化派”,也不同于“东方文化派”,张岱年系统阐发了“综合创造”的文化主张。早在20世纪30年代,张岱年就明确地提出了“综合创造”的文化观。“综合创造”的文化观既反对全盘西化,也反对复古,认为在文化问题上,正确的态度是把中国固有的卓越的文化遗产同西洋文化有价值的精良的贡献融合为一,进行一种创造的综合。[1]从理论上说,“综合创造”的文化观不能回避一个前提性的问题,那就是,文化的综合创造何以可能?张岱年在批判全盘西化论及东方文化派的文化主张的基础上,对这一问题做出了自己的回答…     

Motives for Creativity: Exploring the What and Why of Everyday Creativity

People spend a lot of time on creative activities in their leisure time, but we still know little about what these activities are and what drives them. The literature suggests that several specific motives may be relevant for everyday creative behavior, including enjoyment, expression, challenge, coping, prosocial, social, material, recognition, and duty motives. Across two online studies totaling 750 participants, enjoyment was the strongest motive for everyday creativity, consistent with previous research linking creativity to intrinsic motivation and positive affect. Importantly, however, the relevance of motives differed across creative domains: visual arts, literature, and music were more strongly motivated by expression and coping motives, whereas handicrafts and creative cooking were more strongly motivated by prosocial and recognition motives. Intrinsic motives for creative activities were substantially related to high openness to experience, but explained incremental variance in the prediction of self-reported creativity as well as rated creative achievements. Together, these findings provide new insights into the motivational basis and function of everyday creativity.