A Note on Change in Creativity by Handedness Over A Maturational Time Period

Thirty left-handed and right-handed Ss (10 each from the second grade, fifth grade, and college) were compared on four subtests of the Torrance creativity test. At each age level, left-handed students had higher creativity scores than right-handers. The greatest differences were found on the Elaboration subtest.     

大学生创造力特点的研究

运用问卷法对我国八大行政区10所不同类型学校的1008名大学生进行调查研究。从创造性思维和创造性人格多侧面认识大学生创造力的特点,研究发现:大学生有较强的创造潜能,突出表现为创造性人格富有挑战性;创造性思维核心品质的新颖性表现突出,创造性思维能力的典型表现中投射未来、评估力和通感特点较为明显;专业类别对大学生创造力的发展有显著影响,艺术类大学生的创造力较为突出,社科类大学生的创造力较差;大学生创造性人格和创造性思维的年级差异明显。     

The Notion of Creativity Revisited: A Philosophical Perspective on Creativity Research

This article is a critical, yet constructive, review of some recent attempts to define and understand creativity, informed by the methods and debates of contemporary philosophy. I argue that the definitional project is not essential to creativity research, but important nevertheless. The standard definition of creativity as the production of something that is both novel and appropriate is on the right track, but needs further qualification and tends to be elaborated in ways that make it either too narrow or too broad. I argue that the product, and not the person or process, should be viewed as the primary bearer of creativity and criticize some influential theorists for making creativity too strongly dependent on social acceptance, while also recognizing that the realist alternative tends to widen, and thus threatens to trivialize, the central notion of an appropriate product. The notion of response‐dependence might be of some help to find the proper balance between the two extremes, and some comparisons with evolutionary theory also help to shed further light on the problem. Finally, I try to spell out the practical consequences of my investigation for creativity research.     

A Note on Harmony

In the proof-theoretic semantics approach to meaning, harmony, requiring a balance between introduction-rules (I-rules) and elimination rules (E-rules) within a meaning conferring natural-deduction proof-system, is a central notion. In this paper, we consider two notions of harmony that were proposed in the literature: 1. GE-harmony, requiring a certain form of the E-rules, given the form of the I-rules. 2. Local intrinsic harmony: imposes the existence of certain transformations of derivations, known as reduction and expansion. We propose a construction of the E-rules (in GE-form) from given I-rules, and prove that the constructed rules satisfy also local intrinsic harmony. The construction is based on a classification of I-rules, and constitute an implementation to Gentzen’s (and Pawitz’) remark, that E-rules can be “read off” I-rules.     

创造力研究的新领域:合作创造力

创造力研究已经从重视个体创造力逐渐走向重视具有复杂互动功能的合作创造力。本文首先论述了合作创造力研究的产生及特点,然后总结了合作创造领域目前研究的主要问题,如个体与群体同一性、个体与群体动机以及有助于创造的个体及环境因素,并指出合作创造力研究领域需要解决的问题,认为应在重视合作创造过程与机制研究的基础上,建构系统的合作创造力理论,同时注重研究合作创造力的支持环境与支持技术,并且发展出合作创造力的评估体系。     

Malevolent Creativity: A Functional Model of Creativity in Terrorism and Crime

Although creativity is often seen as an aspect of self-fulfillment, it is important to recognize its social effects. The traditional view is that these should be beneficial, creativity thus being benevolent. However, those who wish to do deliberate harm to others can also display creativity, in this case malevolent creativity. This is governed by the same principles as benevolent creativity, differing only in its intended purpose. Like any creativity, malevolent creativity can be examined through its products. Concepts from research on creative products provide important insights into the activities of terrorists and criminals, especially the idea of competing solutions. The key ideas in malevolent creativity are summarized in 11 principles; recognizing these helps in developing more effective means for counteracting terrorism.