Creativity in old age

Sixty elderly subjects (M = 72 years) were tested and interviewed to find out how they experience and come to terms with the advent of illness, aging, and death. The choice of test instruments was steered by the necessity to learn how our subjects handled their anxiety (the Meta‐Contrast Technique [MCT]); to operationally define the concept of self‐image (the Identification Test [IT]); and to illuminate the findings from the perspective of creativity (the Creative Functioning Test [CFT]). The results revealed creativity to be a key factor in aging. The attitude of creative individuals towards aging was less negative and their attitude to illness less defensive. On the whole, their self‐projections were not only more flexible but also more emotional. However, creativity is not uninfluenced by context, particularly when it is of medium strength. The results also revealed that the subliminal messages used in the IT to manipulate the projected self‐image were effective.     

Creativity and Goal Conflict

This study assessed the relation of goal conflict variables to faculty-rated creativity in advanced students of art, physics, and ecology. Neither the amount of conflict between personal strivings nor the amount of ambivalence felt toward strivings predicted ratings of creativity. However, the degree to which subjects felt that they could handle and ultimately resolve their striving conflicts was correlated with creativity. These results support the proposal that the ability to tolerate conflict is a core characteristic of creative persons. They are also consistent with the claim that creativity results from exceptional mental health rather than from illness.     

Taoistic Psychology of Creativity

In this paper, Lao Tzu's Tao is psychologically reinterpreted in terms of Taoistic cognition, Taoistic objectivity, and Taoistic creativity. All of these three domains are interrelated and are characterized by the attitude of let-be. Taoistic cognition is mainly a kind of intuition or personal knowledge. Taoistic objectivity is interpreted by will-free motivation which allow others to be and to obtain insight. Taoistic creativity involves incubation, syntectic thinking, and the unification through the opposites. Lao Tzu's Taoism is mainly related to artistic creativity, but its influence on mental health and scientific creativity is also discussed.     

Winning the Future: An Investigation into the Creativity Capacity Across the Levels of Education in Ireland

This research investigated the creativity capacity across the levels of education in Ireland, involving 702 participants. Creative capacity was investigated through a comparative analysis of creativity quotient (CQ). A divergent thinking task comprising the how many uses activity was assessed using the criteria for determining CQ; fluency, flexibility, and product. Convergent thinking tasks comprised of graphic problems. A comparative analysis occurred between the divergent and convergent thinking activities. It is necessary that creativity is promoted throughout education systems to ensure that students maintain and develop their creative capacities into adulthood. Education systems need to foster independent thinking, creativity, and innovation. This article investigates students’ creative capacity spanning 3 levels of education. The interdisciplinary and progressive graduate attributes from the levels of education were identified and synthesized toward developing collaborative progressive creativity across the levels of education for future success. Finally, this articles outlines, in the Irish context, the uniqueness with regard to the ability to sustain creative capacity (divergent and convergent thinking) at each level of education, and the degree to which this effort is supported by administration, teachers, and a common cultural interpretation of the nature of education.     

Using Daily Creativity Planning to Promote Creative Behavior

Research has demonstrated that on the path from a creative idea to a creative outcome, high creativity motivation and self-efficacy do not necessarily lead to creative behavior. The present study proposed and examined the notion that daily creativity planning could promote creative behavior and contribute to the cultivation of creativity. A total of 77 middle school students (39 students in the experimental group and 38 in the control group) participated in this study, for which a quasi-experimental design was administered. The experimental group conducted a two-week daily planning for creative activities, while the control group did not conduct any intervention. The results showed that students' creativity motivation and creative self-efficacy were at relatively high levels overall and were positively and moderately correlated with creative behavior. Daily planning could effectively facilitate students' creative behavior. These findings point to a promising and simple creativity enhancement strategy for cultivating students to develop the habit of making creative plans in their daily lives.     

Assessing the Relationship Between Youth Sport Participation Settings and Creativity in Adulthood

This article presents an assessment of the relative influences of time spent participating in organized sports and informal sports during childhood with respect to the development of general creativity. In this study, 99 upper-division undergraduate and graduate students completed a comprehensive childhood leisure activities questionnaire and the Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults. According to the results of the joint generalized least-squares regression analysis, hours spent in organized sport settings was negatively related to creativity as an adult; time spent in unstructured sport settings was found to be positively related to adult creativity. The findings also point to the importance of balancing participation across organized and unstructured settings. The most creative individuals in the sample were those who spent roughly half of their sport participation time in each setting, as opposed to individuals with below-average creativity, who spent upwards of 3/4 of their sport participation time in organized settings. Therefore, fostering creative development through sport may not require a dramatic reorientation from current youth sport development models, but only a shift toward a more balanced distribution of time spent playing in both organized and unstructured settings. Future experiments are needed to test this relationship.     

Recent Transformations in China's Economic,Social, and Education Policies for Promoting Innovation and Creativity

The purpose of this study is to review major Chinese policies related to creativity education. We first identify and describe the role of innovation and creativity in economic and social development policies over the past 20 years, then analyze how the call for enhanced Chinese innovation and creativity was actualized in corresponding education policies. The article concludes with an analysis of issues surrounding Chinese education policy toward creativity and several directions for future research in this area.     

Creativity and mental health in everyday life

Abstract

The connection between mental health and creativity has traditionally been studied in terms of outstanding aesthetic‐professional creativity and mental illness. More interesting however, is the possible connection between “everyday “ creativity and mental health. Everyday creativity involves attacking day to day activities in a divergent way: It derives from a complex of cognitive, affective, personal, motivational, and social factors, and is characterized by openness, flexibility, autonomy, playfulness, humor willingness to take risks, and perseverance. These characteristics are also consistently emphasized in models of “normal”; personality growth, so that the possibility of promoting mental health arises by fostering creativity in day to day life. Several small studies described in this article give examples of how this might be done and the kinds of benefits which can result.     

Mapping Dimensions of Creativity in the Life-Space

Three studies examined content dimensions of creativity. A life-report questionnaire was developed to measure everyday, artistic, and intellectual creativity. Multiple life areas were assessed, including self-presentation, education and work, arts and crafts, culture and media consumption, everyday relations and activities, and memberships in groups that encourage creativity. Study 1 indicated that everyday creativity could be empirically distinguished from artistic creativity. Factor analyses in Studies 2 and 3 identified three broad dimensions of creativity in college students and professional adults: creative life-style, arts, and intellectual achievement. Both similarities and differences among these dimensions were observed in relation to gender and personality traits.     

The Structure of Creativity in Primary Education: An Empirical Confirmation of the Amusement Park Theory

In this study, we explored the structure of pupils’ creativity in primary education following the Amusement Park Theory, by investigating undiscovered linkages between the domains of writing, mathematics, and drawing. More specifically, we examined: (a) whether some domains and general thematic areas are more closely related to each other than to others, (b) whether literacy and mathematical ability are specific underlying traits of creativity in writing and mathematics, respectively, and (c) whether intelligence and divergent thinking are related to creativity in all domains. The sample consisted of 331 Dutch 4th grade pupils. For each research question, a model was analyzed using structural equation modeling. We found creativity in mathematics and creativity in writing to be most similar, followed by creativity in mathematics and creativity in drawing, with creativity in writing and creativity in drawing being least similar. Additionally, we found evidence for several underlying traits (i.e., literacy ability and mathematical ability) and initial requirements of creativity (i.e., intelligence and divergent thinking), none of which were important for creativity in only one domain, and of which only intelligence was important for creativity in all domains. Herewith, our study provides insights regarding the complexity of the structure of creativity in primary education.     

Aging stereotypes and active lifestyle: Personal correlates of stereotype internalization and relationships with level of physical activity among older adults

ObjectivesThe goal of this study was to identify the personal correlates (openness to experience and implicit theories of ability) of internalization of aging stereotypes and its relationships with physical activity.DesignCross-sectional survey.MethodOne hundred and ninety-two older adults (78 men and 114 women) from 60 to 93 years (M_age = 73.44, SD = 7.34) completed a series of questionnaires measuring openness to experience, implicit theories of ability, stereotypes about older people and physical activity, attitude toward own aging, physical self-worth, physical activity level, self-rated health and education level.ResultsThe main results showed that (a) openness to experience positively predicted physical activity level through incremental theories, endorsement of aging stereotypes relative to benefits, attitude toward own aging, and physical self-worth; and (b) entity theories negatively predicted physical activity level through endorsement of aging stereotypes relative to risks, attitude toward own aging, and physical self-worth.ConclusionThe present study indicates that openness to experience and implicit theories of ability are correlates of endorsement of aging stereotypes and suggests that endorsement may be an important factor of engagement in physical activity in older adults.     

Training Creativity in Adolescence: A Discussion of Strategy*

Contemporary psychologists are beginning to do more than identify those traits characteristic of creative adolescents, for while a trait approach to creativity is indeed informative, it fails to suggest precisely how creativity may be enhanced. In the following paper, Davis suggests that creativity profitably may be conceptualized as consisting mainly of three trainable components, (1) appropriate creative attitudes, the most critical of which is a favorable attitude toward highly imaginative problem solutions, (2) various cognitive abilities which facilitate whatever mental abstracting, combining, perceiving, associating, filling in gaps, etc., contribute to the fluent production of original ideas, and (3) techniques for the conscious and systematic production of new combinations of ideas. Further, by incorporating many concepts and principles from this three-part model, Davis describes a novel program for developing creativity in adolescents.     

Creativity and Religiosity: A Reanalysis with Regional Predictors

Building on previous research showing a negative relationship between conservatism and creativity, the present investigation focused specifically on religiosity in the context of the United States. Because of the association between conservatism and religiosity, creativity might have a negative association with religiosity, too. To this end, individuallevel and regional data were matched by linking responses to psychometric measures such as Attitudes and Values toward Creativity to regional data such as church attendance. These analyses controlled other regional variables including education, diversity, and socio-economic status. Two-level analyses with individual data at Level 1 and county data at Level 2 indicated that people from more religious locations held less positive attitudes and values toward creativity and rated their environment as less creative. On the other hand, creative personality, ideational behavior and creative achievement were not significantly related to religiosity. Those analyses provided evidence that creativity and religiosity have a negative relationship in terms of people's attitudes and values toward creativity as well as their perceptions of environment for creativity. Findings were discussed in terms of types of religiosity and other socio-cultural variables.     

Mapping Creativity: Creativity Measurements Network Analysis

This article borrowed network analysis tools to discover how the construct formed by the set of all measures of creativity configures itself. To this end, using a variant of the meta-analytical method, a database was compiled simulating 42,381 responses to 974 variables centered on 64 creativity measures. Results, although preliminary, indicate the existence of a core dimension filled with variables that indicate novelty, which is surrounded by the paired dimensions of negative affect and social leadership, and high cognitive performance and positive affect. As for the measurement instruments, it was found that, although tests of divergent thinking, self-reported biographies, and composite scores are the most appropriate tools to gauge creativity itself, both attitude and personality inventories are best for diagnosing the different kinds of creators.     

Domain Specificity and the Limits of Creativity Theory

A growing body of research evidence suggests that creativity is very domain‐specific and that domain‐general skills or traits contribute little to creative performance. The term “creativity” is a convenient term for collecting many interesting artifacts, processes, and people into a single category, and the term “creative thinking skills” may be a useful way to connect a diverse set of unrelated cognitive processes that operate on different content and in different domains. These concepts are misleading, however, because although they connect things that may seem similar to observers, they lack any underlying cognitive psychological validity. This has implications for the ways we understand and assess creativity, and also for how we should direct our efforts to develop creative‐thinking skills in diverse domains. Creativity training needs either to target the domains in which creativity enhancement is desired or to use a wide range of activities in diverse domains if the goal is more general improvement in many domains. Creativity assessment needs to focus on domain‐by‐domain assessment and to review findings based on allegedly domain‐general tests of creativity that may have misled researchers to unsupportable interpretations. Creativity theory needs to set more modest goals of domain‐by‐domain theory development and to recognize that theories that may seem domain‐general might better be understood as meta‐theoretical heuristics that do not actually describe domain‐general processes. These meta‐theories might in some cases help guide the search for domain‐based theories.     

Creativity Research Overlooks the Study of Resilience among Young Children: A Bibliometric Network Review

Creativity researchers are increasingly interested in understanding when, how, and for whom creativity can be beneficial. Previous reviews have demonstrated that creativity research largely ignores the study of its impact on factors that promote health, and well-being among populations of adults. It is unclear, in fact, whether this gap in research also extends to creativity research among young children. This paper addresses this issue. Early childhood is a crucial stage for the cognitive development of young children who remain highly sensitive to stress, and adversity. It is therefore essential to identify and promote factors that are beneficial to early childhood resilience, thereby contributing to documenting more of the effects of creative activities on positive outcomes. This paper presents a review with a bibliometric analysis of 1000 randomly selected articles from the Web of Science, without bias towards any specific peer-reviewed journal. The analysis of 454 included articles shows that approximately 80% of the included studies focus on creativity as an outcome (replicating previous findings with a larger sample), with only 3.78% investigating creative activities as predictors among young children. In this small percentage, most of the studies addressed creative activities in young children related to resilience outcomes.     

Creativity and Cooperation in the Elementary Music Classroom*

The author examines attitudes towards, and the effects of focus on, creativity and cooperation in the elementary music classroom. First, elementary music teachers were interviewed regarding their values towards creativity and cooperation. Then, a curriculum was field tested that utilized cooperative learning and emphasized activities designed to encourage creative thinking and problem solving. A pretreatment-posttreatment study, with experimental and control group, was conducted to measure actual changes in student levels of creativity and attitudes towards cooperation. A follow-up of creativity measures was conducted four years later. Results indicate that elementary music teachers can adapt cooperative learning models to their teaching and can, short-term, influence students' levels of creativity and attitudes towards cooperation. Implications and opportunities for social-psychological creativity research and classroom educators are discussed. In 1983, Goodlad observed that, in general, there was a “gap between the rhetoric of individual flexibility, originality, and creativity … and the cultivation of these [things] in our schools” (p. 241) and that schools provided students with little opportunity to develop “satisfying relations with others based on respect, trust, cooperation, and caring” (p. 240). Goodlad encouraged teachers in the arts to provide opportunities for creative problem solving and to “boldly demonstrate the potentiality for doing through the arts what cannot be done readily through the other fields” (p. 238). His appeal to arts teachers is reminiscent of Maslow (1968):     

情绪创造性的影响因素及其与应对方式的关系

探讨情绪创造性的影响因素以及情绪创造性与应对方式的关系及其途径。研究1对150名高中生施测父母教养觉知量表、简式人格问卷、情绪创造性问卷;研究2对152名高中生施测情绪创造性问卷、成就动机量表、应对方式问卷。结果表明,大五人格和父母教养方式均可显著预测情绪创造性;情绪创造性通过成就动机间接影响应对方式,其中有效性通过追求成功动机而促进问题中心应对,准备性通过避免失败动机而促进情绪中心应对。     

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.     

Boundless Creativity: Evidence for the Domain Generality of Individual Differences in Creativity

This study investigated correlates of domain‐general and domain‐specific components of creativity. 158 college students completed a questionnaire that assessed their motivational and personality traits (i.e., intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, creative personality, and originality in word association) as well as intellectual abilities (SAT verbal and quantitative scores). Under two different instruction conditions (standard instruction or explicit “be creative” instruction), students also took a battery of multi‐item, product‐based tests of creativity in three domains (artistic, verbal, and mathematical creativity). Factor analyses showed evidence of domain‐generality of creativity. Furthermore, results from structural equation models showed that motivational and personality traits and intellectual abilities were associated with the domain‐general component of creativity. Only one variable (SAT quantitative score) was found to be associated with the domain‐specific component of mathematical creativity under the explicit “be creative” instruction condition. These results affirm the domain‐generality of creativity and challenge researchers to identify correlates of domain‐specific components of creativity.