Transliminality and Creativity

Using 50 psychology undergraduates, an attempt was made to find positive correlations between, on the one hand, transliminality (psychological material crossing thresholds into or out of consciousness), and on the other hand, (item‐corrected) creative personality, and figure‐complexity preference (as given by the Revised Barron‐Welsh Art Scale: a measure of creativity). Only the correlation between transliminality and creative personality was significant. There was also a significant and high test‐retest reliability coefficient for the Transliminality Scale, as well as a significant positive correlation between creative personality and paranormal belief.     

Education and Creativity

ABSTRACT: The hypothesis that the effects of positive and negative mood on creative problem solving may differ as a consequence of the degree of constraint on the solution space of the task was tested. Sixty-eight participants were divided into positive mood, negative mood, and control conditions. Mood was experimentally induced by showing selected film clips, and performance on four different idea production tasks was recorded across a time interval of 4 min for each task. Results showed a significant mood-production time interaction. Positive mood led to the highest number of scores in early idea production and the lowest number in late production, whereas both control and negative mood led to relatively superior task performance in late production. Alternative interpretations of the results are discussed, and suggestions for further studies are offered.     

Creativity and Wonder

The experience of wonder is often said to be at the origin of acts of creativity, both historical and mundane, from big breakthroughs in science to the everyday discoveries of children at play. And yet, wonder and wondering have rarely been theorized until now, at least in the psychology of creativity. Understood as one of the main ways in which we engage with the possible, wonder presents us, upon closer inspection, with a paradox typical for creativity—experiencing what is present (the here and now) through the lenses of what is absent (the not‐yet‐here). Wondering is grounded in the possibility of adopting multiple perspectives on a certain reality; many of which are yet unknown to the creator while anticipated and actively looked for. In this paper, the creative process fuelled by the experience of wonder is described as a cyclical interplay between awareness, excitement, and exploration of the possible. Thus, one of the main consequences of reflecting on wonder and wondering is not only a renewed focus on process in creativity research but, most of all, a new emphasis on the less “visible” and yet essential aspects of creative action as it bridges the actual and the possible.     

Creativity and Values

ABSTRACT

Barron (1997 Barron , F. ( 1997 ). Introduction . In F. Barron , A. Montuori , & A. Barron (Eds.), Creators on creating (pp. 1 – 21 ). New York : Tarcher/Putnam . [Google Scholar]) and Helson (1990 Hall , W. B. , & MacKinnon , D. W. ( 1969 ). Personality inventory correlates of creative accomplishments . Journal of Applied Psychology , 53 , 322 – 236 .[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) independently have suggested that a central element in all forms of creativity is the desire or goal to be creative, implying creativity as a core value. Based on these assertions and Schwartz's (1992 Schwartz , S. H. ( 1992 ). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries . In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology ( Vol. 25 , pp. 1 – 26 ). San Diego , CA : Academic Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) theory, we tested the prediction that creative individuals will hold a different values system than their less creative counterparts. University students (N = 278) completed the Schwartz Values Survey (Schwartz, 1992 Schwartz , S. H. ( 1992 ). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries . In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology ( Vol. 25 , pp. 1 – 26 ). San Diego , CA : Academic Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), as well as a behaviorally-based self-report measure of creative accomplishments. At separate occasions, 134 of these participants also devised three creative products rated by the consensual assessment method. In keeping with prediction, creative accomplishments and products correlated significantly not only with the self-direction value composite (both including and excluding the individual item creativity), but also universalism and stimulation. Accomplishments and products correlated negatively with the value composites of tradition, security, and power. These results support the view that creativity is grounded in values, and support Schwartz's model of the dynamic structure of values as a predictor of behavior.     

Creativity and Bilingualism

A number of studies have investigated the relationship between creativity and bilingualism. Twenty-four such studies have been surveyed by the author and these are summarized in Table 1. Twenty of these have found bilinguals to perform better than monolinguals on creativity. Only one study by Withey (1974) has found no differences between the bilinguals and monolinguals, whilst three studies, on the whole, have found a monolingual superiority (Gowan & Torrance, 1965; Lemmon & Goggin, 1989; Torrance, Wu, Gowan & Aliotti, 1970).     

Creativity and Counseling

This article distinguishes between curative, restorative psychotherapy, and educative, growth-oriented counseling. The authors show how the processes and methods of creativity in scientific and artistic pursuits are similar to those of personal growth and counseling. They also discuss divergent production, deferred judgment, preparation, incubation, illumination, elaboration, and the balance between thought and emotion in terms of creativity and counseling. In this article, counselors can find new methods of facilitating creativity.