Psychology Of Creativity - London IA 30.03.10

the briefest of introductions to

the psychology of creativity

@clurr

Monday, 5 April 2010

this is [a tiny part of] the science bit
Meaning empirical studies, and interesting theories that build on empirical work. Note that this is a massive ﬁeld. I’ve tried to pick some useful and pragmatic bits but this is only
the briefest of introductions to a huge ﬁeld.

image: woollywotnots.com

it’s not
about this
It’s not about De Bono. The empirical evidence for his approaches is actually very weak.

c.f. "Equally damaging to the scientiﬁc study of creativity, in our view, has been the takeover of the ﬁeld, in the popular mind, by those who follow what might be referred to as a
pragmatic approach. Those taking this approach have been concerned primarily with developing creativity, secondarily with understanding it, but almost not at all with testing the
validity of their ideas about it." Sternberg continues, "Perhaps the foremost proponent of this approach is Edward De Bono, whose work on lateral thinking and other aspects of
creativity has had what appears to be considerable commercial success." Handbook of Creativity, Robert J. Sternberg

it’s totally not about this*

*don’t even get me started...

Nor is it about left brains and right brains: there’s no basis in neuroscience for this idea at all. All cognitive processes of any complexity require both hemispheres to work
together in an integrated way and there’s no such thing as a left or right brained person or thinking. It’s acceptable as a
metaphor for balancing logical deduction with intuition. But that’s *it*.

for more on why this is hooey, see:

http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2007/10/the_left_brain_right_brain_myt.php

http://irvineccns.blogspot.com/2007/12/left-brainright-brain-wrong-minded.html

the certainty
of
pseudoscience
can be
seductive (well, maybe)

“unique genetic memories and
messages of harmony and peace
are stored in algae”

The reason those theories are successful is because certainty sells, especially to desperate people. Even if it does require you to eat algae.

empirical science tends to
offer discourse as much as
certainties

some of it may sound
obvious :)

but i hope this provides
some critical basis for
thinking about creativity

Right, let’s crack on. For those who are interested in the academic references, you can see them in the notes when this is uploaded to Slideshare.

what is
creativity
anyway?
Lots of scientiﬁc papers actually don’t deﬁne it.

[images: Gareth Pugh, afterprufrock.com]

guilford’s model of creative ability is old but still often used as a
theoretical basis:

• ﬂuency - the ability to produce lots of ideas

• ﬂexibility - ability to produce lots of different types of ideas

• originality - ability to produce unusual ideas

• elaboration - the ability to develop those ideas

in the real world, it’s not just about having ideas. they must be innovative
but also appropriate

Guilford, J.P. (1950) Creativity, American Psychologist,Volume 5, Issue 9, p444-454.

In experiments, these are often measured by how many uses you can think of for a brick. in the real world, ideas must also be appropriate

one relatively simple model deﬁnes the creative process as:

ﬁnding solving implementing
good problems those problems solutions

Basadur, M.S., Runco, M.A. and Vega, L.A. (2000) Understanding how creative thinking skills, attitudes and behaviors work together: A causal process model. The Journal of Creative
Behavior,Vol. 34, No. 2, 77-100.

This is one of the simpler statements and I think no less effective for it.

one relatively simple model defines the creative process as:


it’s not just about having ideas

Note that it’s not just about having lots of ideas. As one of these researchers points out, in real life much of the challenge is about figuring out the problem in the first place...
and the hard work of actually making the idea happen.

“creativity is allowing
yourself to make
mistakes.
“art is knowing which
ones to keep.”

scott adams


psychologists tend to look at creativity in terms of one of the 4 Ps:

• product - looking at the outputs of creativity

• process - how do people produce creative products?

• person - what personal characteristics tend to produce creativity?

• press - the environment, and how this can inﬂuence creativity
Psychologists have tended to study one of these four. Some have looked at how the last two interact. The ﬁrst one is interesting but tends to focus on great works, so doesn’t
tell us much about everyday creativity. The second is very interesting, but, for our purposes, inconclusive, though Kevin Dunbar’s study of biologists shows (again) that there’s a
lot of hard work involved (Dunbar, K. (1997)*).

*How scientists think: Online creativity and conceptual change in science. In T.B. Ward, S.M. Smith, & S.Vaid (Eds.) Conceptual structures and processes: Emergence, discovery and
Change. APA Press. Washington DC).

Today we’ll focus mostly on the last two.

[image: bordersmedia]

there are lots of interesting topics...
tips for enhancing creativity
why are we creative?

children and education
the unconscious

madness
intelligence
motivation
personality

environment organisational creativity

measuring creativity
general vs domain-speciﬁc creativity

And not much time.

...but for lack of time we’ll cover:
why are we creative tips for enhancing creativity
children and education
the unconscious

madness
intelligence
motivation
personality
environment organisational creativity

measuring creativity
general vs domain-speciﬁc creativity


personality
There’s not much we can do to change this one but people tend to like to hear about personality stuff. Whilst I’m no fan of psychometric testing at
work, being aware of ways in which people may differ can be helpful in creating an environment they feel comfortable in.

openness to experience
inventive / curious vs. cautious / conservative

conscientiousness
efficient / organised vs. easy-going / careless

extroversion
outgoing / energetic vs. shy / withdrawn the big five
agreeableness
friendly / compassionate vs. competitive / outspoken

neuroticism
sensitive / nervous vs. secure /confident

The Big Five is the personality model with the best evidence base.

First identified by e.g. T upes, E. C., & Christal, R. E. (1961). Recurrent personality factors based on trait ratings. USAF ASD Tech. Rep. No. 61-97, Lackland Airforce Base, TX: U. S.
Air Force (but described by many others).

openness to fantasy - good imagination
aesthetics - artistic interests
feelings - experiencing and valuing feelings
actions - trying new things, having many interests
ideas - curious, smart, likes challenges
values - unconventional,, liberal
conscientiousness
extroversion
agreeableness
neuroticism
strong +ve correlation
some +ve correlation
Of the big 5, the personality factor most associated with creativity is openness to experience across many, many studies.

See e.g. McCrae, Robert R, Creativity, divergent thinking, and openness to experience, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.Vol 52(6), Jun 1987, 1258-1265.

Openness to experience is split into openness to fantasy, aesthetics, feelings, actions , ideas, and values (unconventional, liberal). Actions, values and feelings are less strongly
related than the others - you can be calm or conservative and still creative, and liking to try new things doesn’t necessarily translate into creating new things.

This is related to work on sensation seeking* - e.g. Zuckerman - dimensions of sensation seeking are boredom susceptibility (intolerance for being bored), disinhibition (taking
social risks like heavy alcohol use. one night stands) experience seeking (needing new experiences, can include art or museums) and thrill and adventure seeking (physical risks,
extreme sports ).

(* Zuckerman, Marvin; Kolin, Elizabeth A.; Price, Leah; Zoob, Ina. , Development of a sensation-seeking scale. Journal of Consulting Psychology.Vol 28(6), Dec 1964, 477-482)

conscientiousness
ambition
discipline
responsibility
self-control
extroversion
agreeableness
neuroticism

-ve correlation for arts but not science

Conscientiousness is generally associated with positive work outcomes, like showing up for work on time and getting things done by deadlines. But there’s evidence that in some
domains (e.g. art, possibly design and advertising)

G J Feist (1998): A meta-analysis of personality in scientiﬁc and artistic creativity. Personality and Social Psychology Review, vol 2, No 4, 290-309.

other factors are more complex - scientists tend to be conscientious to some extent - if you lack a certain level of conscientiousness you won’t make it as a scientist at all.
However, more conscientiousness isn’t necessarily better - the most creative scientists are no more conscientious. Perhaps creativity provides shortcuts for some types of work
which less intelligent people can achieve through sheer effort.

creativity
WIN

conscientiousness
FAIL

Peter Saville’s FAC 001 publicity poster for the ﬁrst Factory night in Manchester in 1978 may have been seminal, but was effectively useless for marketing. It was famously
delivered on the night of the event itself because Saville spent so long trying to ﬁnd the perfect shade of yellow.

one study of advertising and design workers found:

• a negative correlation between creativity and
conscientiousness

• a positive correlation with neuroticism,
extraversion and openness to experience

Far be it from me to pander to stereotypes about web designers.

G A Gelade (1997): Creativity in Conﬂict: The Personality of the Commercial Creative, The Journal of Genetic Psychology, Issue:Volume 158, Number 1 / March 1997, Pages:67 -
78

[image - Nathan Barley, Channel 4]

•

individual differences have implications for managing people:

• people who score high on openness to experience
produced more creative results on open-ended tasks

• people who are high on conscientiousness will produce less
creative results when their work is closely monitored

• people who are low on emotional stability (especially those who are
also introverted) do particularly badly when they think they are being

evaluated

I’m not comfortable with personality psychometrics in the hiring process - individual differences explain much less of our behaviour than intuition would lead us to think (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error for why this is).

But an understanding of how people may differ can help people to work together.

George JM, Zhou J., 1986, When openness to experience and conscientiousness are related to creative behavior: an interactional approach. J Appl Psychol. 2001 Jun;86(3):513-24
Chamorro-Premuzic, & Reichenbacher, T, 2008, Effects of personality and threat of evaluation on divergent and convergent thinking, Journal of Research in Personality, 42,
1095-1101

motivation
[no apologies for this image: snowbombing]

much of the debate boils down to

intrinsic motivation - doing something because you
enjoy it or get personal meaning out of it
vs

extrinsic motivation - doing it for external reward, like
money or praise

neither one is objectively better or worse


lots of evidence suggests that high
levels of intrinsic motivation
to do something lead to more creative output

this works even if you just prime people to think about
intrinsic motivations before doing a task

Ruscio, J., D. M. Whitney, and T. M. Amabile. "Looking Inside the Fishbowl of Creativity:Verbal and Behavioral Predictors of Creative Performance." Creativity Research Journal 11, no.
3 (1998): 243-263.

Greer, M & Levine, E (1991) Enhancing creative performance in college students. Journal of Creative Behaviour, 25, 250-255

Graef, R, Csikszentmihalyi, M, Giannino, SM (1983) Measuring intrinsic motivation in everyday life, Leisure Studies, 2, 155-168

Amabile, T. M., R. Conti, H. Coon, J. Lazenby, and M. Herron. "Assessing the Work Environment for Creativity." Academy of Management Journal 39, no. 5 (October 1996):
1154-1184.

“to establish a place of work
where engineers can feel the
joy of technological
innovation, be aware of their
mission to society, and work
to their heart’s content.”
masaru ibuka, founder of sony

The ﬁrst purposes of incorporation of Sony.

[image: sonyinsider.com]

• involvement in the task is particularly important (e.g. being in ﬂow
state)

• higher feelings of autonomy or freedom tend to be related to
higher levels of intrinsic motivation - i.e. if you can choose what to do,
and how to do it, you’ll probably enjoy it more and thus be more
creative
Ruscio, J., D. M. Whitney, and T. M. Amabile (1998)- "Looking Inside the Fishbowl of Creativity:Verbal and Behavioral Predictors of Creative Performance." Creativity Research Journal
11, no. 3: 243-263.

Zhou, J (1998) Feedback valence, feedback style, task autonomy, and achievement orientation: Interactive effects on creative performance. Journal of Applied Psychology.Vol 83
(2), Apr 1998, 261-276

See also Csikszentmihalyi on Flow, e.g. TED talk at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXIeFJCqsPs

[image - idancerecords.com]

• if you offer people a reward
to do something that they
already ﬁnd interesting, you
may decrease intrinsic
motivation and thus
creativity

• priming people to think about
extrinsic motivations
(money, status, evaluation)
reduces creativity, but only
on open ended tasks

Amabile, T. M. "Brilliant but Cruel: Perceptions of Negative Evaluators." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 19 (March 1983): 146-156.

Amabile, T. M. "Attributions of Creativity: What Are the Consequences?" Creativity Research Journal 8, no. 4 (1995): 423-426.
R. Eisenberger, M. Selbst (1994), "Does reward increase or decrease creativity?", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,Vol. 66 pp.1116 - 1127.
Greene, D., & Lepper, M. R. (1974, September). Intrinsic motivation: How to turn play into work. Psychology Today, 49-54.

Kohn, A. (1993), Punished by Reward: The Trouble With Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A ́s, Praise, and Other Bribes, Boston: Houghton Mifﬂin.

photo by tim_caynes

• the negative effects depend on whether the extrinsic motivation is
seen as controlling or supportive

• extrinsic motivation helps improve intrinsic motivation when
you’re given constructive feedback that recognizes your
creative accomplishment
e.g. Amabile, T. M. "Motivational Synergy: Toward New Conceptualizations of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation in the Workplace."Human Resource Management Review 3, no. 3
(autumn 1993): 185-201.

this is the difference between QA...

i’m supervising you to make sure
you don’t f*** up


...and support

gosh, this is interesting, isn’t it? how
can we learn more about it?


it’s OK to have an ego

many great people have
combined high intrinsic
motivation with a strong
desire for recognition

Howard E. Gruber (1981) Darwin on man: A psychological study of scientiﬁc creativity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

remember this?



remember this?


loving what you do the prospect of
supports you at the money and
fun, idea generation recognition helps
stages you get through the
hard work needed to
develop those ideas

e.g. Amabile, T. M. 1993: "Motivational Synergy: Toward New Conceptualizations of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation in the Workplace."Human Resource Management
Review 3, no. 3

PS: If you want to read more on this I recommend looking up Teresa Amabile: http://drfd.hbs.edu/ﬁt/public/facultyInfo.do?facInfo=ovr&facId=6409

photo by rogoyski

tips for
enhancing
creativity

OK, the soundbitey quick wins bit. Some of this may sound ﬂippant but all of it has a basis in evidence.

photo by jeevs

enjoy what you do
did I say that already? :)

Csikszentmihalyi talks about immersing yourself in whatever you do by finding something meaningful in it. People who find this easy have autotelic personalities but we can all
cultivate it. And if you can’t find anything meaningful in it, you ought to be doing something else.

the ‘conscious’ bits
of the mind are serial
- they can only process
one thing at a
time

remind you of anything?

Don’t rely on your conscious mind. If you even believe in consciousness. Some very clever people don’t, e.g. see Dennett:

Dennett, Daniel (1991), Allen Lane, ed., Consciousness Explained, The Penguin Press.

Unintentionally summed up nicely by Radiohead as “just cos you feel it, doesn’t mean it’s there.”

the unconscious bits are massively parallel
which would you rather rely on?

NASA’s Pleiades supercomputer - an SGI® Altix® ICE system with 14,080 Intel® Xeon® quad-core processors (56,320 cores, 110 racks) running at 544 trillion ﬂoating
point operations per second (teraﬂops). (see nasa.gov).

the unconscious mind is a much more powerful information processor but
it won’t get a word in edgeways until you distract the conscious mind

engaging the conscious mind in something else, even just for a few
minutes, results in much more creative outputs

See the works of Ap Dijksterhuis at http://www.unconsciouslab.com/index.php?page=People&subpage=Ap%20Dijksterhuis, e.g.

Dijksterhuis at al (2006) On Making the Right Choice: The Deliberation-Without-Attention Effect Science 311, 1005

the presence of green
things increases creative
output, perhaps because
makes us feel calm and
positive

May sound like it’s from the department of the bleeding obvious, but no less valid for it.
e.g. R. S. Ulrich (1993): "Biophilia, Biophobia, and Natural Landscapes." In S. Kellert and E. O. Wilson (Eds.), The Biophilia Hypothesis. Washington, DC: Island Press

photo by a r pratana

balance group and individual work
social loaﬁng/diffusion of responsibility result in fewer ideas

A meta analysis of 20 studies showed that in most cases, people working on their own produced more and better ideas than those working in groups.

Brian Mullen ; Craig Johnson ;Eduardo Salas, (1991), Productivity Loss in Brainstorming Groups: A Meta-Analytic Integration, Basic and Applied Social Psychology, Volume 12,
Issue 1 March 1991 , pages 3 - 23

photo: dom dada

switch some members of groups

The most successful Broadway musicals are produced by teams comprised of a combination of people who have worked together before and those who have not.

Guimerà, Roger, Brian Uzzi, Jarrett Spiro, and Luís A. Nunes Amaral (2005). “Team Assembly Mechanisms Determine Collaboration Network Structure and Team Performance.”
Science 308(5722): 697-702.

Summarised at http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/index.php/Kellogg/article/collaboration_and_creativity

X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X
look at something
X X X X X X X X
unconventional
X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X

Förster, J. (2009). Cognitive consequences of novelty and familiarity: How mere exposure inﬂuences level of construal. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 444-447.

lie down

Perhaps because it makes you relaxed. Noradrenaline, of which you produce more when standing up, may inhibit creativity.

Lipnicki, DM, and Byrne, DG,(2005), Thinking on your back: Solving anagrams faster when
supine than when standing, Cognitive Brain Research,Volume 24, Issue 3, Pages 719-722

and more, hot off the press from psyblog today:

http://www.spring.org.uk/2010/03/boost-creativity-7-unusual-psychological-
techniques.php?
utm_campaign=twitter&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitter


thank you
@clurr


you may like:

Robert J Sternberg, 1998, ‘Handbook of Creativity’
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, 1988, ‘Creativity’
J C Kaufman, 2009, ‘Creativity 101’
Richard Wiseman, 2009, ‘59 Seconds’ (for quick ﬁxes)

Psyblog: http://www.spring.org.uk/

full academic references are in the notes


Psychology Of Creativity - London IA 30.03.10

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