The Creativity Matrix: Spotlights and Blind Spots in Our Understanding of the Phenomenon

In this paper, we organize past and present theories and models of creativity by using a new conceptual framework—the creativity matrix—with the aim of highlighting the dimensions of creativity we know a lot about and those we tend to either ignore or find difficult to study. This matrix is formed by bringing together a developmental model of creativity (the 4 C's) and a structural one (the 5 A's). We start by briefly describing these two conceptual frameworks, and then, we proceed to exploring the matrix itself by describing how the 5 A's are dynamically organized at each “level” of the 4 C's. Importantly, our overview of the matrix is informed by existing models and concepts that address one of more of the C's and the A's. This gives us a unique opportunity to take stock of what has been studied so far and, toward the end, consider new avenues for the development of theory and research agendas within creativity studies.     

Socioeconomic status, resources, psychological experiences, and emotional responses: a test of the reserve capacity model

The current study used ecological momentary assessment to test several tenets of the reserve capacity model (L.C. Gallo & K. A. Matthews, 2003). Women (N = 108) with varying socioeconomic status (SES) monitored positive and negative psychosocial experiences and emotions across 2 days. Measures of intrapsychic and social resources were aggregated to represent the reserve capacity available to manage stress. Lower SES was associated with less perceived control and positive affect and more social strain. Control and strain contributed to the association between SES and positive affect. Lower SES elicited greater positive but not negative emotional reactivity to psychosocial experiences. Women with low SES had fewer resources relative to those with higher SES, and resources contributed to the association between SES and daily experiences.     

Creativity in Perspective: A Sociocultural and Critical Account

This article starts from the premise that creativity is a social construction and focuses on historical and scientific accounts of this phenomenon. Using a perspectival model in a pragmatist key, it outlines three historical perspectives on creativity—the He-, I-, and We-paradigms—differentiated internally by two positions—artist and engineer. It then argues that, instead of dialogues between perspectives, fruitful for creativity research, we are often facing monological relations. In the end, possibilities for “thirdness” are explored, including the position of the craftsman, in developing a sociocultural as well as critical account of what it means to create.     

Exposing information sharing as strategic behavior: power as responsibility and “Trust” buttons

Online platforms' success depends on individual's information sharing (IS). However, previous research showed that “knowledge is power” is a default‐perception in organizations and that individuals share relatively unimportant information while keeping the important private information for themselves. Trust has also been identified as important enabler of IS. We examined the role of power construed as responsibility for others' outcomes and of a “Trust” button, a theory‐inspired technological feature, using a 2(Power construals: opportunity vs. responsibility) × 2(Buttons: “Like” vs. “Like‐or‐Trust”) × 2(Information sharedness as within‐subjects factor; public, private) design. Findings showed that construing power as responsibility and “Trust” button's presence increased the sharing of private information; clicking behavior yielded insights into the underlying mechanisms. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

The Relationship Between Secondary Traumatic Stress and Personal Posttraumatic Growth: Personality Factors as Moderators

This present study examined the relationship between secondary traumatic stress, personality factors, and personal posttraumatic growth for persons indirectly exposed to traumatic life events. A sample of 162 nurses and physicians completed the self-report measures describing symptoms of secondary traumatic stress, personality factors and vicarious posttraumatic growth. The results indicated that secondary traumatic stress negatively correlated with vicarious posttraumatic growth. Moreover, this relation is moderated by personality factors. A low level of secondary traumatic stress symptoms is associated with a higher level of perceived posttraumatic growth for participants with a high level of openness, agreeability and conscientiousness. These findings emphasize the differences in perceiving posttraumatic growth in the context of secondary exposure to traumatic life events.     

Creating Creativity: Reflections from Fieldwork

The present article addresses the question of ‘When can we say something is creative?’ and, in answering it, takes a critical stand towards past and present scientific definitions of creativity. It challenges an implicit assumption in much psychological theory and research that creativity exists as an ‘objective’ feature of persons or products, universally recognised and independent of social agreement and cultural systems of norms and beliefs. Focusing on everyday life creative outcomes, the article includes both theoretical accounts and empirical examples from a research exploring creativity evaluations in the context of folk art. In the end, a multi-layered perspective of creativity assessment emerges, integrating dimensions such as newness and originality, value and usefulness, subjective reception and cultural reception of creative products. Implications for how we understand and study creativity are discussed.     

An Institution-independent Proof of Craig Interpolation Theorem

We formulate a general institution-independent (i.e. independent of the details of the actual logic formalised as institution) version of the Craig Interpolation Theorem and prove it in dependence of Birkhoff-style axiomatizability properties of the actual logic.We formalise Birkhoff-style axiomatizability within the general abstract model theoretic framework of institution theory by the novel concept of Birkhoff institution.Our proof destills a set of conditons behind the Craig Interpolation Property, which are easy to establish in the applications. Together with the generality of our approach, this leads to a wide range of applications for our result, including conventional and non-conventional logics (many of them from algebraic specification theory), such as general algebra, classical model theory, partial algebra, rewriting logic, membership algebra, etc. all of them in various versions and with various types of sentences (including infinitary ones). In dependence of axiomatizability properties many other applications are expected for various institutions or logics.     

Language and persuasion: A discursive psychological approach

Across the social sciences, there is a wealth of research on the role of language in persuasion in interpersonal communication. Most of these studies have been conducted in laboratories using experimental methods, have taken a social cognitive perspective, and have focused on the effects of particular linguistic practices on how persuasive messages are understood, processed, and ultimately complied with. By contrast, less attention has been paid to how language can be used to create sequential, interactional, and social obligations, in everyday interactions, like sales encounters or business negotiations, where persuasion occurs naturally and is built into the fabric of the conversation. In reviewing the former approach to studying language and persuasion, in this paper, I highlight several critical shortcomings. Then, I argue that, when studying naturally occurring persuasion-in-interaction, a discursive psychological approach is better suited for investigating and theorising the interactional structures underpinning persuasion and the role of language therein.     

Relationships of career adaptabilities with explicit and implicit self-concepts

Career adaptability is a psychosocial construct that incorporates a set of essential resources to one's career development. The adaptability resources' relevance is even higher when it comes to former communist countries, such as Romania, where job security and stability were seen as central benefits for workers. The aim of this study was to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the stable underpinnings of career adaptabilities by exploring their relationships with aspects of the self that are driven by automatic processes and that are less affected by self-presentation biases. A sample of 359 participants completed the Career Adapt Abilities Scale (CAAS)-Romanian form, out of which a subsample of 212 participants also completed a set of scales comprising explicit and implicit measures of conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism, and self-esteem. Results revealed nonsignificant additive contributions of the implicit self-concept measures over what was already explained by the explicit self-concepts. The most noticeable effect resides in the significant interaction between explicit and implicit self-esteem in relation to control, confidence, and overall adaptability. These results reveal that individuals with high explicit and low implicit self-esteem perceive themselves as being the most adaptable. Notably, these results were obtained using a Romanian version of CAAS that possesses very good psychometric properties (i.e., excellent internal consistencies, the same four-factor multidimensional solution, replicated patterns of associations between CAAS and explicit self-concepts of personality).