Four Ps and mysterious mental happenings

definitions and theories I
four Ps and mysterious
mental happenings
[Scene: Austrian courtroom. Judge Heinrich Hangum is reading
the charges against defendant
Sigmund Freud.]
Judge Hangum: Herr Doktor Freud, you bin charged mit using
schmutty ideas in your
creativity theory und offendink the sensitivities of delicate
folks. How do you plead,
you guilty rascal?
Sigmund Freud: Not guilty, Herr Judge. I bin writin' und
speakin' only die truth!
Judge: But die truth is, you bin saying' we're bein' creative
because we got a big sexy sex
drive! You bin guilty as Cain!
Freud: But Herr Judge, dot isn't schmutty! We're bein' creative'
cause our id got sex needs,
our superego got a clean conscience, und so our ego-dot's our
"self' -puts the sex
needs into creative fantasies!
Judge : Schmutty fantasies?
Freud: Nein, nein! Creative idea fantasies-poetry und painting,
nice tings like dot.

Judge: Sounds fischy to me! Herr Doktor Freud, are you sure?
Freud: I am not die world's greatest psychoanalyst for nothink,
you know.
Judge: I sink I vill give you six months in das schlammer to
clean up your theory.
Freud: I sink you love your mama, hate your papa, und so you
bin pickin' on defenseless
psychoanalysts!
Judge: Make dot a year.
The creative writer does the same as the child at play. The
writer creates
a world of phantasy which he or she takes very seriously ...
while separating it sharply from reality.
Sigmund Freud
39
40 Chapter Three
Definitions Sometimes
Are Theories, and
Vice Versa
"Model" Often
Means "Theory"
Models Are Analogical

Test Manuals Include
Theories
Definitions and
Theories Simplify
Complex Phenomena
The Creativity
Question
Lombroso: Creativity
Related to Insanity
The Creative Process
T
There are many definitions and theories of crea.tivity. To
complicate matters, defi-
nitions sometimes are considered theories and some theories are
just definitions.
Elaborate definitions are especially likely to be called theories.
And then there is the word model, which often is used
interchangeably with
theory. Traditionally, the word model implies an analogical
relationship, a point-
for-point correspondence between one phenomena and a
different one. For exam-
ple, we might say an attractive home with a well-manicured
yard "looks like a
million dollars." The description is analogical. As we will see,
the investment the-
ory of creativity is an analogical model. Investment terms and
relationships are
used to clarify aspects of creativity.

Also, every creativity test manual must explain what the test
purports to
measure. Therefore, creativity test manuals are another source
of definitions and
theories, most of which will duplicate definitions and theories
in this chapter.
The commonality among definitions, theories, and models of
creativity is that
all seek to simplify and explain a complex phenomena. To
impose some structure,
this chapter will briefly review:
• Four categories of definitions of creativity, which focus on the
creative per-
son, process, product, and environment (press)-known
collectively as the
"four Ps."
• ''Mysterious mental happenings," familiar especially to artists,
writers, and
composers.
Chapter 4 will continue with definitions and theories by
examining:
• Three classical theoretical approaches to creativity-
psychoanalytic, behav-
ioristic, and self-actualization.
• Seven contemporary "theories" (definitions, ideas)-Stemberg' s
three-facet
model; Amabile's three-part model; Csikszentmihalyi's (and
Gardner's)
person, domain, and field model; Simonton's chance-

configuration theory; in-
vestment theory; an interactionist model of creativity that
describes interrela-
tionships among everything; and a common-sense, almost
tongue-in-cheek
viewpoint, implicit theories of creativity. Finally, we will look
briefly at the
new field of interdisciplinarity-scientific studies of aesthetic
experiences.
For a more extensive review of creativity theories and
definitions, the reader
might begin with the old-but-excellent The Creativity Question
(Rothenberg &
Hausman, 1976), which includes, for example, Plato (inspiration
from the gods
through the Muses); behaviorist Burrhus Frederick Skinner (his
friends called
him "Fred"; reinforcement of creative responses); Paul Torrance
(the creativity
man himself); Frank Barron (creative personality); and Joseph
Bogen and Glenda
Bogen (creativity and brain hemispheres). The book also
presents a selection by
my favorite classic scholar, Cesare Lombroso, who in 1895
related creativity to
insanity-and therefore to brain degeneration-because both the
creative and the
insane tend to be original. 1
The Creative Process (Ghiselin, 1952), another anthology,
presents original writ-
ings by historically creative persons, for example, Einstein,
Mozart, van Gogh,
Wordsworth, and Neitzsche. A more recent volume by Gardner
(1993) describes

relevant parts of the lives of seven creatively eminent persons-
Freud, Einstein,
Picasso, Stravinsky, T. S. Eliot, Martha Graham, and Gandhi.
Other books covering
1Lombroso would have loved Rosanne Barr, Steve Martin, Jim
Carrey, and Howard
Hughes.
. .
Many Definitions
and Theories
What's Creativity?
Experts Disagree
The Ninja View
Creativity Is Complex,
Multifaceted
Four Interrelated Ps
Simonton's P:
Persuasion
Definitions and Theories I: Four Ps and Mysterious Mental
Happenings 41
creativity theory are by Arietti (1976), Runco and Albert
(1990), and Sternberg
(1988b).

To set the tone, there are about as many definitions, theories,
and ideas about cre-
ativity as there are people who have set their opinions on paper.
As a few pertinent
quotes, Freeman, Butcher, and Christie (1968) concluded that
"there is no unified
psychological theory of creativity" and that we freely use such
terms as imagination,
ingenuity, innovation, intuition, invention, discovery, and
originality interchangeably
with creativity. Nicholls (1972) added that "the term creativity
is used with something
approaching [reckless] abandon by psychologists ... and people
in general."
Tardif and Sternberg (1988b, p. 429), in an attempt to review
commonalities and
differences among the theoretical explanations in Sternberg's
(1988b) anthology on
creativity, concluded that "Different levels of analysis were
used to address the
concepts; within levels, different components were put forth;
and even when simi-
lar components were discussed, differences were seen in how
these components
are defined and how crucial they were claimed to be for the
larger concept of
creativity." Translation: Gee whiz, even experts have different
ideas about what's
important for creativity! After reading this chapter and Chapter
4, you will agree .
An Asian viewpoint explained Ninja Secrets of Creativity
(Petkus, 1994). A state
of emptiness (Ku; e.g., having a problem) leads one to draw
from four bipolar

centers: chi (earth; stability [ +] versus resistance to change [-
]); sui (water; flexi-
bility [ +] versus over-emotionalization [ - ]); ka (fire; dynamic
vitality [ +] versus
fear[-]); and fu (wind; wisdom and love [+]versus over-
intellectualization [- ]).
One's personality, cognitive style, and situational requirements
are said to influ-
ence the selection. Western tastes may find excess terms and
concepts in this
view, but it illustrates the complexity issue.
A main problem in pinning down "creativity'' is its complexity
and multifac-
eted nature. We can choose to examine, theorize, or conduct
research about any
minuscule or global part of creativity, and we do. Said Carl
Jung (1959), "the
creative aspect of life ... baffles all attempts at rational
formulation." Well, not
entirely. Two traits of creative people are attraction to
complexity and tolerance
for ambiguity, which also seem to characterize anyone
interested in pursuing
this topic.
DEFINITIONS Of CREATIVITY
It's convenient and conventional to organize creativity around
the "four Ps. As
mentioned above, these are the creative person, the creative
process, the creative
product, and the creative press-the environment. Many people
skip the confusing
word "press" and just say environment (e.g., Hasirci &
Demirkan, 2003), even

though it does not begin with "p." For example, sections of
Arietti's (1976) classic
book are organized around the creative person, process, product,
and environ-
ment. In the final chapter of their anthology, Tardif and
Sternberg (1988b) re-
viewed each author's chapter in regard to its contributions to
clarifying each of the
four P areas. Long-time creativity leader Calvin Taylor (see
Chapter 11) already
had organized his chapter around the four Ps. Person, process,
product, and press
remain a sensible and popular way to classify creativity
research, definitions, theo-
ries, and other discussions of the topic (e.g., Hasirci &
Demirkan, 2003).
Simonton (1988a, 1990), incidentally, added a fifth P,
persuasion, to emphasize the
role of leadership in impressing others with one's creativity. "A
creator [must] claim
appreciators or admirers to be legitimatized as a true creator"
(p. 387). We also will
see this social-interpersonal part of creativity in the theories of
Csikszentmihalyi
(1988; pronounced "Smith") and Gardner (1993). For now, we
will sample defini-
tions included under the first four Ps-person, product, process,
and press.
42 Chapter Three
4 Ps Are Related

Creative Persons
Possess Particular
Traits
Lombroso's Signs
of Degeneracy in
Creative People
Rank's Creative Type
Emphasis on
Personality
The four Ps are interrelated in the obvious way: Creative
products are the out-
come of creative processes engaged in by creative people, all of
which are sup-
ported by a creative environment. Torrance (1988) relates the
creative process,
person, product, and press with these words: "I chose a process
definition of cre-
ativity for research purposes. I thought that if I chose a process
as a focus, I could
then ask what kind of person one must be to engage in the
process successfully,
what kinds of environments will facilitate it, and what kinds of
products will re-
sult from successful operation of the processes" (p. 47).
In addition to the four Ps, this section will include discussions
of mysterious
mental happenings, a pesky category that cannot be ignored
despite the best strug-
gles of contemporary objective thinking.
CREATIVE PERSON

In Chapter 5 we will review many recurrent personality and
biographical traits
of creative people, for example, confidence, energy, risk-taking,
humor, and a his-
tory of creative activities. Definitions with a person orientation
respond to the
question "What is creativity?" with an answer such as, "Well, a
creative person is
someone who ... (possesses particular traits that increase the
person's likelihood
and level of creativeness)."
This section will briefly review three classic and more-or-less
amusing defini-
tions (descriptions, theories) regarding the nature of the
creative person.
Cesare Lombroso
At the top of our list is Cesare Lombroso's (1895) degenerate
brain theory .
Naming specific famous and creative people, Lombroso noted
that "signs of
degeneration in men of genius" include stuttering, short stature,
general emacia-
tion, sickly color, rickets (leading to club-footedness, lameness,
or being hunch-
backed), baldness, amnesia/forgetfulness, sterility, and that
awful symptom of
brain degeneration-left-handedness! While rating high in
entertainment value,
the characteristics are not related to creative potential, except
possibly the left-
handedness. 2

Otto Rank
While most psychoanalysts of the time assumed artists were
neurotic, Otto
Rank (1945) described his creative type-also referred to as the
artist or the man of
will and deed-as well-adjusted and self-actualized. The creative
person has a
strong, positive, integrated personality and "is at one with
himself ... what he
does, he does fully and completely in harmony with all his
powers and ideals."
Rank's creative type contrasts with his "average man" and his
"conflicted and
neurotic man."
Rank also wrote that creating art is "a spontaneous expression
of the creative
impulse, of which the first manifestation is simply the forming
of the personality
itself" (Rank, 1932, p. 37). And again, "The creative impulse
itself is manifested
first and chiefly in the personality'' (p. 38). A former glass
blower, Rank himself
probably was an artist .
2As elaborated slightly in Chapter 5, the suggestion is that left-
handers, most of whom are
ambidextrous, have superior access to both brain hemispheres,
which helps creativity. The
jury is still out.
Jealousy of Female
Procreation?

Jung's Psychological
'fype
Jung's Visionary Type
Happenings 43
Perhaps influenced by Freud, in many books Rank argued that
"male creators
are motivated by jealousy of female procreation" (Rothenberg &
Hausman, 1976,
p. 114). (Creativity exercise: What reasoning and thoughts
could lead to this idea?
Your suggestions can be amusing and preposterous also.)
Carl Jung
Carl Jung was a colleague of Freud. He was a regular guest at
the weekly meet-
ings of Freud's Wednesday Psychological Society. In 1909
Freud and Jung trav-
eled together to Clark University in Massachusetts to promote
psychoanalysis,
and in 1910 Freud offered Jung the presidency of his new
International Psychoan-
alytic Association (Gardner, 1993).
Jung (1933, 1959, 1976) described the creative works of
novelists and poets, partic-
ularly Goethe, and identified two types of artistically creative
people, the
psychological type and the more imaginative visionary type.
The psychological type of
creator draws from the realm of human consciousness--lessons

of life, emotional
shocks, and experiences of passion and human crises. For
example, said Jung, the
poet's work is an interpretation of conscious life that raises the
reader to greater clar-
ity and understanding. Novels about love, crime, the family, or
society, along with
didactic poetry and much drama, also are of the psychological
type. According to
Jung, the material is understandable, based in experience, and
fully explains itself.
More interesting and mystical is his visionary type. ''It is a
strange something
that derives its existence from the hinterland of man's mind ....
It is a primordial
experience which surpasses man's understanding" (Jung, 1933).
This "primordial
"I got primordial archetypes and you-au don't. I got primordial
archetypes and
you-ou don't!" gloated Harpo. "They're probably in that stupid
hat!" replied
Zeppo. (Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research.)
("Animal Crackers",
1930. Courtesy of Universal Studios Licensing LLLP.)
44 Chapter Three
Primordial Archetypes
Thin Evidence!
Torrance's Definition

Wallas Stages
Six CPS Stages
experience" is said to be an activation of one's "archetypes" or
"primordial im-
ages." Jung claimed that "The archetypal image .. . lies buried
and dormant in
man's unconscious since the dawn of culture ... they are
activated-one might
say 'instinctively'-[in the] visions of artists and seers." When
exposed to such
archetypes, said Jung, we may be astonished, taken aback,
confused, and perhaps
even disgusted. They remind us of nothing in everyday life, but
they may remind
us of dreams, nighttime fears, and "dark recesses of the mind"
about which we
have misgivings.
The visionary creative person, due to dissatisfaction with
current circum-
stances, is said to reach out to this collective unconscious. "The
creative process,
in so far as we are able to follow it at all, consists in an
unconscious animation of
the archetype, and in a development and shaping of this image
till the work is
completed" (Jung, 1976, p. ·125-126).
Is there evidence for this eyebrow-raising explanation of the
creative person?
Said Jung (1976), the assumption that an artist has tapped his
collective uncon-
scious for an unfathomable idea can be derived only from a

posteriori analysis of
the work of art itself. That is, the material seems not to be
reflection of the poet's
personality, experience, or psychic disposition. However, noted
Jung (1933), "we
cannot doubt that the vision is a genuine, primordial experience,
regardless of
what reason-mongers may say."
The critical reader, presumably a reason-monger, might place
Jung's arche-
types alongside Plato's Muses and the tooth fairy.
CREATIVE PROCESS
E. Paul Torrance
Torrance's (1988, 1995) definition of creativity describes a
process that resem-
bles steps in the scientific method: "I have tried to describe
creative thinking as
taking place in the process of (1) sensing difficulties, problems,
gaps in informa-
tion, or missing elements; (2) making guesses or formulating
hypotheses about
these deficiencies; (3) testing these guesses and possibly
revising and retesting
them; and finally (4) communicating the results. I like this
definition because it de-
scribes such a natural process" (Torrance, 1995, p. 72).
Torrance's process defini-
tion is unique in including the entire creative episode, from
detecting a problem to
presenting the results. We noted earlier that Torrance's process
definition includes
the creative person (someone who can do this), the creative

product (the success-
ful result), and the creative press (the environment that
facilit~tes the process).
Graham Wallas
In Chapter 6 we will look at several proposed sets of stages in
creativity, each
of which has been described as "the creative process." For now,
we will mention
just briefly Wallas' (1926) ancient-but-still-healthy four steps of
preparation, incu-
bation, illumination, and verification. The terms are almost self-
defining, but you
may peek at Chapter 6 if you wish.
Creative Problem Solving (CPS) Model
The currently most useful set of stages, in the sense of helping
one to creatively
solve real problems, is the Creative Problem Solving (CPS)
model (e.g., Osborn,
1963; Parnes, 1981; Treffinger, Isaksen, & Dorval, 1994a). To
anticipate Chapter 6,
the six thought-and-work guiding stages are entitled (1) Mess
Finding (locating
Or Five
How Can Something
Come from Nothing?
Generation, Selection,
Preservation of Ideas:

Perkins
Koestler: Bisociation
of Ideas
Happenings 45
a problem needing solution), (2) Fact Finding (examining what
you know about
the problem) , (3)Problem Finding (selecting a specific problem
definition) , (4) Tdea
Finding (e.g., through brainstorming), (5)
Solution
Finding (evaluating ideas), and
(6) Acceptance Finding (implementing the ideas). The CPS
model sometimes is pre-
sented without the first step, that is, as a five-stage model (e.g.,
Parnes, 1981).
Combining Ideas
Many process definitions assume that a creative idea is a
combination of previ-
ously unrelated ideas, or looking at it another way, a new
relationship among ex-

isting ideas. The creative process, therefore, is the process of
combining the ideas
or perceiving the relationships.
To note a few notables;
"It is obvious that invention or discovery, be it in mathematics
or anywhere
else, takes place by combining ideas" (Hadamard, 1945).
"The ability to relate and to connect, sometimes in odd and yet
striking fash-
ion, lies at the very heart of any creative use of the mind, no
matter in what
field or discipline" (Seidel, 1962).
''The intersection of two ideas for the first time" (Keep, cited in
Taylor, 1988).
''The integration of facts, impressions, or feelings into a new
form" (Porshe,
1955).
''That quality of the mind which allows an individual to juggle
scraps of

knowledge until they fall into new and more useful patterns"
(Read, 1955).
"The creative process is the emergence in action of a novel
relational product,
growing out of the uniqueness of the individual" (Rogers, 1962,
p. 65).
"Creativity is a marvelous capacity to grasp two mutually
distinct realities
without going beyond the field of our experience and to draw a
spark from
their juxtaposition" (Preface to Max Ernst Exhibition, cited in
Fabun, 1968).
David Perkins: Selection, Generation, Preservation
Perkins' (1988) explanation of creativity focused on how one
deals with idea
combinations. Perkins began by posing the hypothetical
question of whether in-
vention is possible: How can something come out of nothing?
His solution, in
brief, includes a process analogous to natural selection-the
generation, selection,

and preservation of ideas. Unlike natural selection, the
generation process is not
random. The potential "combinatorial explosion" of possibilities
is "mindfully di-
rected" by creative people, who are motivated, have creative
"patterns of deploy-
ment" or "personal maneuvers of thought," and have raw ability
in a discipline.
Such people mentally represent and "operate on" traditional
boundaries, produc-
ing practical innovations (e.g., the light bulb) and impractical
ones (e.g., poetry-
his example).
Arthur Koestler: Bisociation
Arthur Koestler's (1964; see also Mudd, 1995) bisociation of
ideas theory of cre-
ativity is an over-eloquent statement that elaborates the popular
notion that cre-
ativity involves combining ideas. Said Koestler, "Let me
recapitulate the criteria
which distinguish bisociative originality from associative
routine ... The first [is]
the previous independence of the mental skills or universes of

discourse which
46 Chapter Three
The More Unlikely the
Combination, the
More Creative It Is
Highly General
Who Smokes 'Em?
High Intuitive Appeal
Creative Combinations
Require a Creative
Person
Many creative ideas are the product of combining previously
unrelated
ideas. In this historic photo Winchester Arms inventor Wally
Boome com-
bined the idea of "big oaf" with the idea of "cannon" to produce

the first
self-propelled, self-aiming artillery piece that runs on a daily
fuel supply of
five chickens and 25 pounds of potatoes. "A little rhubarb pie,
too," adds
Olaf Oaf, carefully taking aim. (From Why Worry, Starring
Harold Lloyd.
Copyright © 1923 by Harold Lloyd Trust. Reprinted by
permission.)
are transformed and integrated into the novel synthesis of the
creative act ...
[Creativity is] the amalgamation of two realms as wholes, and
the integration of
the laws of both realms into a unified code of greater
universality ... The more
unlikely or more 'far-fetched' the [idea combination], the more
unexpected and
impressive the achievement."
Koestler's broad theory emphasizes the commonality of
creativity processes in
jokes, artistic representations, and intellectual insights
generally. He applied it to
genetic codes and amino acids, on one molecular hand, and to

aesthetics and or-
ganizational behavior, on the other much larger other one. If it
helps the reader's
visualization, a "realm" (domain) is conceived as a two-
dimensional plane--a flat
matrix containing coded ideas, rules, and action sequences-
whose intersection
with another plane sparks the creative combination . Said
Koestler (1967, p. 36),
"The creative act . .. always operates on more than one plane,"
and "The bisocia-
tive act connects previously unconnected matrices of
experience" (p. 45).
Woody Allen once combined a religion plane with a cigarette
plane to create a
catchy commercial for New Testament cigarettes . A priest
proclaims, "I smoke 'em,
He smokes 'em."
Defining creative ideas as new combinations of existing ideas
has strong intu-
itive appeal. For example, virtually any consumer product, from
bread makers
and roller blades to Chinese pizza and glowing golf balls, easily

can be dissected
into the parts that were combined into the innovative wholes.
The same usually
applies to scientific, medical, technological, and-perhaps with
more difficulty-
to artistic and literary creations.
Assembling high quality creative combinations normally
requires experience,
highly-developed technical and stylistic skills, high energy, a
lively imagination,
Product and Process
Related
Originality
And Social Worth
He's a Good Egg!
Barron: Newness,
Purposefulness,

Aptness
Happenings 47
and a polished aesthetic taste to know when the idea
combination is good. The
final creation may be complex, such as Beethoven's Ninth or
your student union
building, or simple, such as chocolate worms.
CREATIVE PRODUCT
Some definitions of creativity in the process category are a hair-
width (or less)
from definitions in the creative product category and easily
could appear in this
section.
Definitions that focus on the creative product typically
emphasize originality, a
word sometimes used interchangeably with creativity. If the
person penning the
definition thinks a few seconds longer, he or she usually will
include some notion

of correctness, appropriateness, value, usefulness, or social
worth. Such terms ex-
clude the bizarre, off-the-wall-but unquestionably original-
scribblings of a
chimpanzee or babblings of a child, mentally deranged person,
or politician. Said
Briskman (1980), "The novelty of a creative product clearly is
only a necessary
condition of its creativity, not a sufficient condition; for the
man who, in Russell's
apt phrase, believes himself to be a poached egg may very well
be uttering a
novel thought, but few of us, I imagine, would want to say that
he was producing
a creative one" (p. 95).
Some definitions emphasizing just originality are:
"Creative ability appears simply to be a special class of
psychological activity
characterized by novelty'' (Newell, Shaw, & Simon, 1962).
Creativity is "the process of bringing something new into birth"
(R. May, 1959).
"Creativity ... is a noun naming the phenomenon in which a

person commu-
nicates a new concept (which is the product)" (Rhodes, 1987).
Adding a dash of appropriateness, value, or social worth we get:
"Creativeness, in the best sense of the word, requires two
things: an original
concept, or 'idea,' and a benefit to someone" (Mason, 1960).
"To be considered creative, a product or response must be novel
... and appro-
priate" (Hennessey & Amabile, 1988).
"Creativity is the occurrence of a composition which is both
new and valu-
able" (Murray, cited in Fabun, 1968).
"Creativity is the disposition to make and to recognize valuable
innovations"
(Lasswell, cited in Fabun, 1968) .
''The creative process is any thinking process which solves a
problem in an
original and useful way'' (Fox, cited in Fabun, 1968).

"A creative person, by definition, .. . more or less regularly
produces outcomes
in one or more fields that appear both original and appropriate"
(Perkins,
1988).
Emphasizing both originality and worth, Barron (1988) wrote
that "Creativity
is an ability to respond adaptively to the needs for new
approaches and new
products. It is essentially the ability to bring something new
into existence pur-
posefully" (p. 80). Expanding on the purposefulness of
innovations, Barron
emphasized "their aptness, their validity, their adequacy in
meeting a need ...
The emphasis is on whatever is fresh, novel, unusual, ingenious,
clever, and apt"
(p. 80).
48 Chapter Three

Environment Has
Central Role
Press May Repress
Creativity
Or Support Creativity
Responses to Social
Needs: Rhodes
And Sufficient
Technology
Environment Provides
Judges
Things That Go Bump:
Shulz
Creativity Eludes
Understanding: Jung
Drew Repeatedly
Until One Had Feeling

and Life
CREATIVE PRESS
A fourth category of definitions of creativity emphasizes the
creative press, the
social and psychological environment. 3 We do not find
definitions or theories that
are based solely on the presence or absence of a creative
environment. We do find
continual reference to the role of colleagues, society, or culture
in most thoughtful
writings on creativity.
We know that the environment may repress imagination and
innovation, for
example, as described in our cultural barriers section of Chapter
2. We saw that
organizations or nations can squelch creativity by stressing
conformity, tradition,
duty, obedience, role obligations, inflexible rules, and the status
quo in general. To
anticipate Freud's theory (Chapter 4), he combined virtually all
social pressures
into his word superego, which usually translates social

conscience.
We find an emphasis on a favorable creative press in
brainstorming, with its
defining …
creativity, self-actua I ization,
and you
[Scene : Enchanted forest home of two lovable gnomes, Rodney
Dangergnome and Gnome Rickles .
The dear friends are trying to help each other with difficult
personal problems.]
Gnome Rickles: Look, dummy, you can' t sit around all yer life
sweatin' an ' straightenin'
yer tie an' mumblin' ''I don't get no respect! I don't get no
respect!" Of course you
don't get no respect. Yer a failure! Ya gotta get self-actualized
an' realize yer
potential-like me!
Rodney Dangergnome (Straightenin' his tie): You dunno how

tough it's been, Rickles.
When I wuz a kid even my mother said she just liked me as a
friend! An ' I couldn't
play hide an' seek 'cause nobody wanted to find me!
Rickles: Maybe it's yer creativity, fish face! Have you ever
though of usin ' yer
imagination? Tryin' to solve a problem once in a while? An' yer
personality! Yer
neurotic! Self-actualized people ain't neurotic!
Dangergnome: Okay, okay, I'll be self-actualized! But it ain't
easy bein' well-adjusted
when you're me. My dad took me to the chimp cage at the zoo,
an' the zookeeper
said "Thanks for bringin' 'im back!" Last week my psychiatrist
said I was crazy. I tol'
him I wanted a second opinion, so he said I was ugly, too!
Rickles: Just one more time, nincompoop! I'll talk slow. Try to
read my lips . Ya gotta be
more creative, more confident , better adjusted, an' ya gotta
develop yer skills as
much as ya can. I don't expect much, yer too stupid . But ya
gotta give it a try!

Dangergnome: Watch it, Rickles! You ain't exactly Prince
Charmin', ya know what I mean?
Next to you, a sore rattlesnake is a beautiful person! I got
problems! When I was a
teenager my girlfriend said "Sure, come on over . Nobody's
home." So I went over,
an' nobody was home!
Rickles: Tell you what! Let's both sit down . You keep yer yap
shut, an ' let's read Chapter 1
together! Real careful like!
The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent
for absorbing positive knowledge.
1
~---- - -- ------------ ------
Albert Einstein
2 Chapter One

Self-Actualization Is
Profoundly Important
Abraham Maslow,
Carl Rogers
Creativity Is Part of
Self-Actualization
Moustakis Agrees
Creativity Is a Lifestyle
Relationship of
Creativity to
Self-Actualization Is
Now Common
Assumption
SELF-ACTUALIZATION AND CREATIVITY
One of the most profoundly important concepts in the field of
creativity is the
relationship between creativity and self-actualization.
Humanistic psychologists

Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers describe self-actualization as
using all of one's
talents to become what one is capable of becoming-actualizing
one's potential.
Further, the self-actualizing person is mentally healthy, self-
accepting, forward
growing, fully functioning, democratic minded, and more. In
Maslow's (1954)
words, self-actualization "refers to our desire for self-
fulfillment, namely, to the
tendency for a person to become actualized in what he or she is
potentially ... the
desire to become more and more what one is, to become
everything that one is ca-
pable of becoming ... what one can be, one must be." After
fourteen years of
thought, Maslow (1968, p. 138) added, ''We are dealing with a
fundamental char-
acteristic, inherent in human nature, a potentiality given to all
or most human
beings at birth, which most often is lost or buried or inhibited
as the person gets
enculturated." Maslow further observed that self-actualization
includes an ever-
increasing move toward unity, integration, and synergy within

the person.
Look carefully at Maslow's description of self-actualized people
in Inset 1.1.
The thoughtful reader may agree that few things in life are more
important that
one's self.:.actualiza tion .
Rogers (1962) tied self-actualization to creativity with these
words: ''The main-
spring of creativity appears to be the same tendency which we
discover so deeply
as the curative force in psychotherapy-one's tendency to
actualize oneself,
to become one's potentialities ... the urge to expand, extend,
develop, mature--
the tendency to express and activate all of the capabilities of the
organism"
(pp. 65--66). In a scientifically cautious statement, Maslow
(1971, p. 57) similarly
noted "the concept of creativeness and the concept of the
healthy, self-actualizing ,
fully human person seem to be coming closer and closer
together, and may turn
out to be the same thing."

To add further credibility to this paramount relationship, Clark
Moustakis
(1967), another early humanistic psychologist, wrote that "It is
this experience of
expressing and actualizing one's individual identity in an
integrated form in
communication and with one's self, with nature, and with other
persons that I
call creative."
Creativeness is not identical to mentally-healthy self-
actualization; however, it is
an important component. Further, the more you come to define
creativity as a
lifestyle--a way of living and perceiving-the greater is the
overlap . Creativity
clearly is more than producing zany ideas in art, science,
business, and on diver-
gent thinking tests.
Popular Use of "Self-Actualization and Creativity''
In recent decades the bond between self-actualization and
creative development

has caught on to the point where the relationship is both a
semantic trend and vir -
tually a given. For example, Moyer and Wallace (1995) argued
that the role of edu-
cation is not to foster compliance, but to develop the self-
actualization that springs
from individuality and creative growth. Weiner (1992) stressed
a mentor's role in
heightening students' anticipation, expectations, individuality,
and value--and cre-
ativity and self-actualization. Weaver (1990) described
techniques to increase the
"growth"-job-satisfaction, life-satisfaction, creativity, and self-
actualization-of
university faculty. We need it. Under the umbrella of aging
individuals, radio-
journalist Goldman (1991) described her "late bloomers"
program that fosters life-
long learning-and self-esteem, self-actualization, and creativity.
Kastenbaum (1991)
"Growth" Theory of
Creativity

Flow: Involvement
and Enjoyment
Creativity, Self-Actualiza.tion, and You 3
Inset 1.1
Maslow's 15 Characteristics of Self-Actualized People
According to Maslow, self-actualized people:
• Perceive reality more accurately and objectively. They are not
threatened by the
unknown, and tolerate and even like ambiguity.
• Are spontaneous, natural, and genuine.
• Are problem-centered, not self-centered or egotistical. They
have a philosophy of
life and probably a mission in life.
• Can concentrate intensely. They need more privacy and
solitude than do others.
• Are independent, self-sufficient, and autonomous. They have
less need for popu-

larity or praise.
• Have the capacity to appreciate again and again simple and
common-place expe-
riences. They have a zest in living and an ability to handle
stress.
• Have (and are aware of) their rich, alive, and intensely
enjoyable "peak
experiences"-moments of intense enjoyment.
• Have a high sense of humor, which tends to be thoughtful,
philosophical, and con-
structive (not destructive).
• Form strong friendship ties with relatively few people, yet are
capable of greater
love.
• Accept themselves, others, and human nature.
• Are strongly ethical and moral in individual (not necessarily
conventional) ways.
They are benevolent and altruistic.
• Are democratic and unprejudiced in the deepest possible
sense. They have deep

feelings of brotherhood with all mankind.
• Enjoy the work in achieving a goal as much as the goal itself.
They are patient, for
the most part.
• Are capable of detachment from their culture, and can
objectively compare cul-
tures. They can take or leave conventions.
• Are creative, original, and inventive, with a fresh, naive,
simple, and direct way of
looking at life. They tend to do most things creatively, but do
not necessarily pos-
sess great talent.
Is it important to develop your self-actualized creativity?
noted that for many senior citizens, creativity and self-
actualization continue into
later years-they remain open to new experiences, have healthy
creative attitudes,
and engage in creative activities.

The self-actualization approach has been named a growth theory
of creativity
(e.g., Treffinger, Isaksen & Firestien, 1982), since one grows-or
should grow-in
self-actualization and creativity.
Flow, Entrepreneurship, and Self-Actualization
Csikszentrnihalyi' s (pronounced "Smith's"; 1990b) best-selling
book Flow tries to
describe solutions for nothing less than our search for
happiness. "Flow" is involv-
ing oneself with an activity to such an extent that nothing else
seems to matter-
the experience itself is intensely enjoyable. Activities that
consistently produce flow,
•
4 Chapter One
Entrepreneurship:
Freedom, Involvement,

and Enjoyment
Measures of
Self-Actualization:
POI, POD, SI, ROSE,
ROSY
Maslow's Need
Hierarchy and the
Maslowian Scale
--r----
noted Smith, are sports, games, art, and hobbies. Further,
experts such as artists,
athletes, musicians, chess masters, or surgeons experience flow
because they are
doing exactly what they want to do. It sounds disarmingly
simple. Smith also em-
phasized personal dedication, experiencing exhilaration from
taking control of our
lives, and the 11direct control of experience-the ability to
derive moment-by-
moment enjoyment from everything we do. 11 According to
Gardner's (1993,

p. 25-26) interpretation, "those 'in flow'" ... feel that they have
been fully alive, to- ,
tally realized, and involved in a 'peak experience.'" Does flow
relate directly to
Maslow' s self-actualization?
There is also literature on entrepreneurship with main points
that seem identical
to Smith's fl.ow. For example, Solomon and Winslow (1988)
define an entrepre-
neur as "one who starts and is successful in a venture and/ or
project that leads to
profit (monetary or personal) or benefits society." Rather than
great wealth, entre-
preneurs described the best thing about being an entrepreneur
as, for example,
11 Freedom to test my ideas and the pleasure of seeing the
fruits of my labor" and
"Being in complete control of my professional and personal
life." They defined
success as 11Doing what I like to do," "Having control over my
own destiny,"
"Being happy with myself, doing things I enjoy," and "Seeing
my baby live and
grow." Does entrepreneurship resemble Csikszentmihalyi's flow

experience? Do
both smack of self-actualization and creativity?
Research Relating Self-Actualization and Creativity
The relationship between creativity, on one hand, and mentally
healthy,
democratic-minded, and forward-growing self-actualization, on
the other, has
lent itself nicely to empirical research. The obvious research
question is: Does the
relationship exist or not?
As background, the main measure of Maslow's self-actualization
has been
Shostrom's (1963) Personal Orientation Inventory (POI) and
slightly newer Personal
Orientation Dimensions (POD; Shostrom, 1975).1 Crandall,
McCoun, and Robb
(1988) described a shortened version-just 15 items-of the POI
entitled the Short
Inventory of Self-Actualization (SI). Buckmaster created the
80-item college-level
Reflections on Self and Environment (ROSE) inventory
(Buckmaster & Davis, 1985).

For younger students, Schatz and Buckmaster (1984) built the
62-item Reflections on
Self by Youth (ROSY). Both the ROSE and the ROSY
inventories were based directly
on Maslow's 15 characteristics described in Inset 1.1, and both
used a rating-scale
format.
Now Maslow's (1970) best-known concept is his motivational or
11need" hier-
archy. Beginning at the bottom, seven levels include
physiological needs, safety
needs, love and belonging needs, needs for esteem, needs to
know and understand,
aesthetic needs, and at the top, needs for self-actualization.
According to Maslow,
lower level needs must be met before one addresses higher
levels of needs. The
Maslowian Scale (Lewis, 1993) is a brief, twelve-question test
based on this hier-
archy that produces a total score reflecting movement toward
self-actualization.
Turning to the research, college students' scores on the ROSE
measure of self-

actualization (Buckmaster & Davis, 1985) were compared with
their scores on a
shortened version of the creativity inventory How Do You
Think? (HOYT; Davis,
1975, 1991a; described in Chapter 10), which measures
personality and biographi-
cal characteristics of creative people. The statistical correlation
between scores on
the two inventories was a whopping .73 (on a scale of O to 1.0).
Almost every
1The POI was considered by Maslow himself to be a sensible
test of self-actualization.
It has nothing to do with Hawaiian dining.
High Creativity = High
Self-Actualization
Creativity and
Self-Actualization
Items Cluster Together
Higher Self-

Actualization = Better
Adjustment
Creativity Plus
Intelligence: Highest
Self-Actualization
Can You Name Some
Neurotic, Highly
Creative People?
Special Talent
Creativity
May or May Not Be
Self-Actualized in
Mentally Healthy
Sense
Creativity, Self-Actualization, and You 5
individual who scored high in self-actualization also scored
high in creativity and
vice versa, despite the fact that the inventories were constructed
based on two

supposedly different sets of concepts and literature. Trust me, I
was there. Also
with college students, Runco, Ebersole, and Mraz (1991) found
that intercorrela-
tions between subscales of the HDYr (Davis & Subkoviak,
1978) and the Short
Inventory of Self-Actualization again showed good relationships
between cre-
ativity and self-actualization. The energetic originality and
arousal and risk-taking
subscales were the best predictors of SI scores (rs = .42 and .46,
respectively).
Research with 302 grade 4, 5, and 6 students who took the
ROSY focused on test
item interrelationships and clusters (Schatz & Buckmaster,
1984). One main cluster
was entitled perceptions, with items relating to perceptions of
oneself as creative
(e.g., ''I have a good imagination," "I like to try new and
different things," and "I am
creative, I can think of many new or unusual ideas").
Importantly, other test items
in this same cluster reflected other components of self-
actualization (e.g., '1 am fair

to everyone when I work and play," ''I speak my opinions
without worrying
about being right or wrong," and "I can laugh at myself').
Concluded the authors,
their research with the ROSY "further confirms the relationship
between self-
actualization and creativity." And we're talking nine- to eleven-
year old children.
Lewis, Karnes, and Knight (1995) administered the ROSY, the
Maslowian
Scale, and the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale,
basically a measure of
healthy personality adjustment, to 368 high IQ students in
grades 4 through 12.
Everything was related to everything. Scores on the ROSY and
the hierarchy-
based Maslowian Scale correlated .51. ROSY and the Piers-
Harris correlated .43,
meaning that the higher their ROSY self-actualization scores,
the better were their
Piers-Harris self-concept scores.
Earlier, Yonge (1975) had reviewed research showing positive
correlations be-

tween scores on the POI and various measures of creativity, for
example, scores
on a creativity scale for the Adjective Check List (Chapter 10).
Damm (1970; yes,
that's his name) concluded that it helps to be smart, too. While
measures of cre-
ativity and intelligence each were related to self-actualization
scores, the highest
levels of self-actualization were reached by his high school
students who were
both creative and intelligent.
This sample of research confirms that creativity and self-
actualization are in-
deed related . The next section complicates the issue.
SELF-ACTUALIZED CREATIVITY
AND SPECIAL TALENT CREATIVITY
It may or may not have occurred to the thoughtful reader that
many world-
class creative people have been extraordinarily neurotic-not at
all self-actualized
in the mentally healthy sense. History is full of neurotic
creative geniuses. The

names of Vincent van Gogh and Edgar Allen Poe come to mind,
and perhaps
Beethoven, Mozart, Howard Hughes, Judy Garland, John
Belushi, Janis Joplin,
and introvert Yves St. Laurent. (Can you think of others?)
The solution to this apparent dilemma lies in Maslow's (1954)
perceptive dis-
tinction between self-actualized versus special talent creative
people. By now you
should understand the notion of a general, self-actualized
creativeness. In con-
trast, special talent creative people--by definition-possess an
extraordinary cre-
ative talent in art, literature, music, theater, science, business,
or other area. These
people could be well-adjusted and live reasonably happy, self-
actualized exis-
tences. Or they might be neurotic and miserable in their
personal, professional,
and social lives. As we will see in Chapter 5, a long-standing
and continuing litera -
ture relates high creativity to psychopathology (e.g., Barron,
1969; Kaufman, 2001;

6 Chapter One
Creativity and
Psychopathology?
Everyday Creativity,
Eminent Creativity,
Happy Clowns
Three Implications
Self-Actualized
Creative People May
Not Have a Great
Creative Talent
Highlights Importance
of Affective Traits
Creative Thinking Is a
Way of Living
Richards, 1990; Richards et al., 1988), for example, among

entrepreneurs (Solomon &
Winslow, 1988), regular college students (Schuldberg, 1990),
and most notably
artists and writers, especially poets (Ludwig, 1995).
Probably identical to Maslow's self-actualized and special talent
creativity ,
Richards (1990) distinguished between individuals who possess
everyday creativ-
ity versus eminent creativity. While the former are mentally
healthy, the majority of
eminent artists and writers have mental disorders , most often
manic-depressive
mood swings. Noted Richards, had Vincent van Gogh been
given antidepressants
he might have painted happy clowns on black velvet.
The following three sections discuss implications of
distinguishing between
self-actualized and special talent creativity : (1) Living and
thinking creatively
without having a specific great talent, (2) the core role of
personality and affective
traits in creativity, and (3) whether creativity must be taught
within a subject area.

We will look briefly at each.
One Can Be Creative without a Great Creative Talent
The first implication of the distinction between self-actualized
and special talent
creativity is tucked into Maslow's last item in Inset 1.1. Under
no circumstances
should the reader stop and look at the last item in Inset 1. 1.
Self-actualized creative
people are mentally healthy and live full and productive lives; it
is a general form
of creativeness . Such people tend to approach all aspects of
their lives in a flexible,
creative fashion. They do not necessarily have an outstanding
creative talent in a
specific area, for example, one that makes them famous and
probably rich. You
need not possess exceptional artistic, literary, scientific, or
entrepreneurial talent to
consider yourself a creative person and live a creative life. It is
unfortunate that the
word creativity is associated too strongly with the possession of
extraordinary,
distinquished, and highly visible talent.

Emphasis on Personality and Affective Traits
The second implication is the built-in emphasis on the
importance of affective
and personality traits-attitudes, motivations, and conscious
dispositions to
think creatively. Affective traits, not basic intelligence, mark
the difference between peo-
ple who do or do not use their capabilities in a creative way. We
have argued that cre-
ativity is a lifestyle, a way of living, a way of perceiving the
world, and a way of
growing. Living creatively is developing your talents, learning
to use your abili-
ties, and striving to become what you are capable of becoming.
Being creative is
exploring new ideas, new places, and new activities. Being
creative is developing
a sensitivity to problems of others and problems of humankind .
Consider
Maslow's list in Inset 1.1. Is this what life is-or should be-
about?
The humanistic, self-actualization approach to creativity does

not focus only
on developing one's creative abilities and creative processes.
From this theoretical
viewpoint , one ' s creative abilities and processes are by-
products of a larger, more
important growth in self-actualization.
In Chapter 5 we will examine the creative personality more
closely. Most of the
creative personality characteristics described in that chapter-for
example, inde-
pendence, adventurousness, curiosity, humor, perceptiveness,
open-mindedness-
mesh nicely with Maslow's description of self-actualization and
with Smith's flow.
Creativity Need Not Be Taught within a Subject Matter
A third implication of the self-actualized versus special talent
distinction
relates to whether creativity must be taught within a subject
area . The matter
is a long-standing inaccuracy . For example, Keating (1980) and
Schiever and

Self-Actualized
Creativity Is Content
Free
And May Be Taught
and Learned
Creativity
Consciousness,
Attitudes, Techniques,
Abilities
Brainstorming and
CPS Model Are
Content Free
Special Talent
Creativity.Is Taught
within a Subject Area
Independent Projects
Teaches Knowledge,

Technical Skills,
Creativity
Creativity Training
May Be in a Content
Area or Content Free
Independent Continua
Maker (1997) claim that creativity cannot be taught in the
abstract and must be
tied to subject matter. The seemingly logical arguments are that
students "need
something to think about" and that creativity taught in the
abstract will not trans-
fer to content areas (Schiever and Maker, 1997, p. 113-114).
Wrong. Both are realis-
tic and effective. Creativity may be taught in a completely
abstract, content-free
setting, or the training may be embedded within a specific
content or subject area,
for example, photography or eighteenth-century theater
costuming.

Many successful creativity courses, programs, workshops,
books, and work-
books try to:
• Raise creativity consciousness
• Strengthen creative attitudes, such as valuing novel ideas
• Teach idea finding and creative problem solving techniques
• Strengthen underlying creative abilities through exercise
All creativity courses and workshops stress the nature of
creativity and cre-
ative persons, and all encourage learners to approach personal,
academic, and
professional problems in a more creative fashion. This approach
to teaching cre-
ativity is sensible, common, and effective (e.g., Davis & Bull,
1978; de Bono,
1992a; Edwards, 1968; Parnes, 1978, 1981; Smith, 1985;
Stanish, 1979, 1981, 1988;
Torrance, 1987b, 1995; von Oech, 1983, 1986). The general
approach is characteris-
tic of teaching brainstorming and the Creative Problem Solving
(CPS) model of the
Creative Education Foundation (Chapters 6 and 8).

On the other hand, a goal might well be to strengthen creative
thinking and
problem solving skills as they relate directly to a specific
subject such as creative
writing, photography, theater, botany, architecture, astronomy,
or dinosaurs.
With the typical independent projects approach, students are
given (or find) a
project or problem and proceed to clarify it, consider various
approaches, settle
on a project or problem definition, research it, process it, and
prepare a project re-
port or problem solution. Throughout, students identify and
resolve numerous
sub-problems, evaluate their methods and results, acquire
knowledge, develop
technical skills in the content area, and strengthen their creative
abilities
and skills.
We will see in Chapter 11 that independent projects are a
common strategy for
teaching academic content, technical skills, and creativity to
gifted children.

Content-free creativity training also is widely employed, for
example, in brain-
storming sessions that teach creativity consciousness,
receptiveness to wild ideas,
suspension of criticism and evaluation, and principles of
looking for many ideas
and building upon others' ideas.
Self-Actualized and Special Talent Creativity: Two Continua
While Maslow identified the two types-self-actualized and
special-talent
creativity-it seems more logical that each of the two traits lies
on an independent
continuum. As illustrated on the horizontal axis of Figure 1. 1,
any given person
will be low to high in Maslow's general, self-actualized
creativity. As we have seen, a
person high in this trait takes a creative approach to most
aspects of life; it is a way
of living, growing, and perceiving one's world, as well as a way
of thinking and
solving problems. Such a person is mentally healthy, self-
accepting, and grows to-
ward self-realization. As represented on the vertical axis of

Figure 1. 1, a person
also may be low to high in recognized creative productivity,
Maslow's special talent
creativity. By definition, a person high in this dimension has
achieved recognition
for socially-judged creative achievement, for example, in art,
science, or business.
He or she may or may not be mentally healthy in the self-
actualization sense.
8 Chapter One
Everyone Can Be More
Creative
Civilization: History of
Creative Ideas
Cottontail Drumstick
Anyone?
r

E.g., Vincent
van Gogh
Low
E.g., 50-year-
old burger
flipper
High
General
Low
0
~-
0..
n
re a.
E.g., Walt
Disney

Creativeness
> High
g. ....
IC
< s
IC :, ....
E.g., creative
teachers, parents
Figure 1.1. Two-dimensional illustration of personal
creativeness. A person may be low to
high in general creativeness, which is a lifestyle and a thinking
style (Maslow's self-
actualized creativity), and low to high in recognized creative
achievement (Maslow's
special-talent creativity).
This broad conception of creativity acknowledges the obvious-
that many
people think and act creatively, some in just a few areas, some
in all areas of their
lives, and a handful achieve recognition and eminence. This
view also acknowl-

edges the truism that everyone has an opportunity to live a more
creative life and
become a more fulfilled and creatively productive person. The
word creative must
not be restricted only to persons who have achieved creative
eminence, as is
claimed by some (Chapters 3 and 4).
CIVILIZATION: A HISTORY OF CREATIVE IDEAS
Because the main purpose of this chapter is to increase
awareness of the im-
portance of creativity, we might remind the reader that the
history of civilization
is more than a sequence of famous wars. Civilization is a
history of creative ideas
that have been modified, combined, transformed, borrowed, and
built upon each
other into ever new creations. It has happened, and continues to
happen, in any
area we might look at-art, science, mathematics, technology,
education, law,
medicine, politics, music, philosophy, agriculture, economics,
consumer prod-
ucts, and more imaginative ways to conduct those wars. 2

Without creative ideas
and creative thinkers, we still would be living in caves and
trees, picking berries,
and clubbing bunny rabbits for breakfast.
Civilization will continue to have problems and aesthetic needs,
and creative
people will continue to provide solutions and aesthetic
experiences.
2creativity may be used constructively or, regrettably,
destructively.
Mystery of Creativity
Lots of Poppycock
Freud's Neurotic
Conflict
------------ -

"The history of civilization is a history of creative innovation.
This machine revolutionized
transportation. "It beats walking," muttered Lance Legstrong,
"but I wish somebody would in-
vents some dang pedals!". (Buster Keaton in "Our Hospitality,"
1923. Courtesy of Photofest.)
COMPLEXITY OF CREATIVITY
It may be trivial to point out that creativity is intricate and
complicated. Artis-
tic and scientific creativity reflect enticingly mysterious
processes, capabilities,
and experiences that have baffled scholars, philosophers, and
creative people
themselves for centuries. The ambiguity continues to encourage
unusual and
superstitious beliefs about creativity.
For example, ancient Greek poets, composers, and others
credited their ideas
to inspiration from the Muses-nine sister goddesses, daughters
of Zeus and
Mnemosyne-who presided over the arts (which curiously

included astronomy).
Plato suggested that a state of "divine madness" helps the
inspiration. Chalking
up creativity to inspiration from the gods seems an unscientific
idea with remark-
able endurance. A few …
CREATIVITY
FLOW AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DISCOVERY AND
INVENTION
MIHALY CSIKSZENTMIHALYI
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments

One: Setting the Stage
PART I
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
Two: Where Is Creativity?
Three: The Creative Personality
Four: The Work of Creativity
Five: The Flow of Creativity
Six: Creative Surroundings
PART II
THE LIVES
Seven: The Early Years
Eight: The Later Years

Nine: Creative Aging
PART III
DOMAINS OF CREATIVITY
Ten: The Domain of the Word
Eleven: The Domain of Life
Twelve: The Domain of the Future
Thirteen: The Making of Culture
Fourteen: Enhancing Personal Creativity
Appendix A: Brief Biographical Sketches of the Respondents
Who Were
Interviewed for This Study
Appendix B: Interview Protocol Used in the Study
Notes

References
Searchable Terms
About the Author
Other Books by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Copyright
About the Publisher
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The idea for this book emerged in a conversation with Larry
Cremin, then
president of the Spencer Foundation. We agreed that it would be
important to
study creativity as a process that unfolds over a lifetime, and
that no
systematic studies of living creative individuals existed. With
its customary
vision, the Spencer Foundation then financed a research project,

which was to
last four years, to remedy this gap in our understanding.
Without this grant
the laborious task of collecting, transcribing, and analyzing the
lengthy
interviews would have been impossible.
The other contribution without which this book could not have
been
written is the assistance of the ninety-one respondents whose
interviews form
the bulk of the book. All of them are extremely busy
individuals, whose time
is literally invaluable—thus I deeply appreciate their
availability for the
lengthy interviews. It is indeed difficult to express my gratitude
for their help,
and I can only hope that they will find the results were worth
their time.
A number of graduate students helped with this project and
often
contributed creatively to it. Several have written or coauthored
articles about
the project in professional journals. Especially important were

four of my
students who have been involved in the project since its
inception and who
have since earned their doctorates: Kevin Rathunde, Keith
Sawyer, Jeanne
Nakamura, and Carol Mockros. The others who took an active
part are listed
among the interviewers in appendix A, which describes the
sample.
While we collected and analyzed the data, I had many
opportunities to
consult with fellow scholars whose specialty is creativity. I
should mention at
the very least Howard Gardner, David Feldman, Howard Gruber,
Istvan
Magyari-Beck, Vera John-Steiner, Dean Simonton, Robert
Sternberg, and
Mark Runco—all of whom contributed, knowingly or not, to the
development of ideas in this book.
Several colleagues helped with earlier drafts of the manuscript.

I am
particularly glad to acknowledge the inspiration and critique of
my old friend
Howard Gardner, of Harvard University. As usual, his
comments have been
exactly on target. William Damon, of Brown University, made
several
excellent suggestions that helped reorganize the contents of the
volume. Benö
Csapó, from the University of Szeged, Hungary, brought a
different cultural
perspective to the work.
Three chapters of the book were drafted while I was a guest of
the
Rockefeller Foundation in its Italian Center at Bellagio. The
rest were written
while I was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the
Behavioral
Sciences in Palo Alto, with support from the John D. and
Catherine T.
MacArthur Foundation grant #8900078, and the National
Science Foundation
grant #SBR–9022192. I am grateful to them for the opportunity
to

concentrate on the manuscript without the usual interruptions—
and in such
glorious surroundings.
In the later stages of the work, Isabella Selega, who had the
good grace
to consent to marry me some thirty years ago, oversaw the
editing of the
manuscript and many other important details. She did the same
when I wrote
my doctoral dissertation in 1965 on the same topic. It is
difficult for me to
admit how much of whatever I have accomplished in the years
in between I
owe to her loving, if critical, help.
None of the shortcomings of this book should be attributed to
any of
those mentioned here, except myself. For whatever is good in it,
however, I
thank them deeply.

ONE
SETTING THE STAGE
This book is about creativity, based on histories of
contemporary people
who know about it firsthand. It starts with a description of what
creativity is,
it reviews the way creative people work and live, and it ends
with ideas about
how to make your life more like that of the creative exemplars I
studied.
There are no simple solutions in these pages and a few
unfamiliar ideas. The
real story of creativity is more difficult and strange than many
overly
optimistic accounts have claimed. For one thing, as I will try to
show, an idea
or product that deserves the label “creative” arises from the
synergy of many
sources and not only from the mind of a single person. It is
easier to enhance
creativity by changing conditions in the environment than by

trying to make
people think more creatively. And a genuinely creative
accomplishment is
almost never the result of a sudden insight, a lightbulb flashing
on in the
dark, but comes after years of hard work.
Creativity is a central source of meaning in our lives for several
reasons.
Here I want to mention only the two main ones. First, most of
the things that
are interesting, important, and human are the results of
creativity. We share
98 percent of our genetic makeup with chimpanzees. What
makes us different
—our language, values, artistic expression, scientific
understanding, and
technology—is the result of individual ingenuity that was
recognized,
rewarded, and transmitted through learning. Without creativity,
it would be
difficult indeed to distinguish humans from apes.

The second reason creativity is so fascinating is that when we
are
involved in it, we feel that we are living more fully than during
the rest of
life. The excitement of the artist at the easel or the scientist in
the lab comes
close to the ideal fulfillment we all hope to get from life, and so
rarely do.
Perhaps only sex, sports, music, and religious ecstasy—even
when these
experiences remain fleeting and leave no trace—provide as
profound a sense
of being part of an entity greater than ourselves. But creativity
also leaves an
outcome that adds to the richness and complexity of the future.
An excerpt from one of the interviews on which this book is
based may
give a concrete idea of the joy involved in the creative
endeavor, as well as
the risks and hardships involved. The speaker is Vera Rubin, an
astronomer
who has contributed greatly to our knowledge about the
dynamics of
galaxies. She describes her recent discovery that stars belonging

to a galaxy
do not all rotate in the same direction; the orbits can circle
either clockwise or
counterclockwise on the same galactic plane. As is the case with
many
discoveries, this one was not planned. It was the result of an
accidental
observation of two pictures of the spectral analysis of the same
galaxy
obtained a year apart. By comparing the faint spectral lines
indicating the
positions of stars in the two pictures, Rubin noted that some had
moved in
one direction during the interval of time, and others had moved
in the
opposite direction. Rubin was lucky to be among the first cohort
of
astronomers to have access to such clear spectral analyses of
nearby galaxies
—a few years earlier, the details would not have been visible.
But she could
use this luck only because she had been, for years, deeply
involved with the
small details of the movements of stars. The finding was
possible because the

astronomer was interested in galaxies for their own sake, not
because she
wanted to prove a theory or make a name for herself. Here is
her story:
It takes a lot of courage to be a research scientist. It really
does. I mean, you invest an enormous amount of yourself, your
life,
your time, and nothing may come of it. You could spend five
years
working on a problem and it could be wrong before you are
done.
Or someone might make a discovery just as you are finishing
that
could make it all wrong. That’s a very real possibility. I guess I
have been lucky. Initially I went into this [career] feeling very
much that my role as an astronomer, as an observer, was just to
gather very good data. I just looked upon my role as that of
gathering valuable data for the astronomical community, and in
most cases it turned out to be more than that. I wouldn’t be
disappointed if it were only that. But discoveries are always
nice. I
just discovered something this spring that’s enchanting, and I

remember how fun it was.
With one of the postdocs, a young fellow, I was making a
study of galaxies in the Virgo cluster. This is the biggest large
cluster near us. Well, what I’ve learned in looking at these
nearby
clusters is that, in fact, I have enjoyed very much learning the
details of each galaxy.
I mean, I have almost gotten more interested in just their
[individual traits], because these galaxies are close to us—well,
close to us on a universal scale. This is the first time that I have
ever had a large sample of galaxies all of which were close
enough
so that I could see lots of little details, and I have found that
very
strange things are happening near the centers of many of these
galaxies—very rapid rotations, little discs, all kinds of
interesting
things—I have sort of gotten hung up on these little interesting
things. So, having studied and measured them all and trying to
decide what to do because it was such a vast quantity of
interesting
data, I realized that some of them were more interesting than
others

for all kinds of reasons, which I won’t go into. So I decided that
I
would write up first those that had the most interesting central
properties (which really had nothing to do with why I started
the
program), and I realized that there were twenty or thirty that
were
just very interesting, and I picked fourteen. I decided to write a
paper on these fourteen interesting galaxies. They all have very
rapidly rotating cores and lots of gas and other things.
Well, one of them was unusually interesting. I first took a
spectrum of it in 1989 and then another in 1990. So I had two
spectra of these objects and I had probably not measured them
until
1990 or 1991. At first I didn’t quite understand why it was so
interesting, but it was unlike anything that I had ever seen. You
know, in a galaxy, or in a spiral or disc galaxy, almost all of the
stars are orbiting in a plane around the center. Well, I finally
decided that in this galaxy some of the stars were going one
way
and some of the stars were going the other way; some were

going
clockwise and some were going counterclockwise. But I only
had
two spectra and one wasn’t so good, so I would alternately
believe
it and not believe it. I mean, I would think about writing this
one up
alone and then I would think that the spectra were not good
enough,
and then I would show it to my colleagues and they would
believe
it and they could see two lines, or they couldn’t, and I would
worry
about whether the sky was doing something funny. So I decided,
because the 1991 applications for using the main telescopes had
already passed, that in the spring of ’92 I would go and get
another
spectrum. But then I had an idea. Because there were some very
peculiar things on the spectrum and I suddenly…I don’t know…
months were taken up in trying to understand what I was
looking
at. I do the thinking in the other room. I sit in front of this very
exotic TV screen next to a computer, but it gives me the images
of
these spectra very carefully and I can play with them. And I

don’t
know, one day I just decided that I had to understand what this
complexity was that I was looking at and I made sketches on a
piece of paper and suddenly I understood it all. I have no other
way
of describing it. It was exquisitely clear. I don’t know why I
hadn’t
done this two years earlier.
And then in the spring I went observing, so I asked one of my
colleagues here to come observing with me. He and I
occasionally
do things together. We had three nights. On two of them we
never
opened the telescope, and the third night was a terrible night but
we
got a little. We got enough on this galaxy that it sort of
confirmed
it. But on the other hand it really didn’t matter because by then
I
already knew that everything was right.

So that’s the story. And it’s fun, great fun, to come upon
something new. This spring I had to give a talk at Harvard and
of
course I stuck this in, and in fact it was confirmed two days
later by
astronomers who had spectra of this galaxy but had not
[analyzed
them].
This account telescopes years of hard work, doubt, and
confusion. When
all goes well, the drudgery is redeemed by success. What is
remembered are
the high points: the burning curiosity, the wonder at a mystery
about to reveal
itself, the delight at stumbling on a solution that makes an
unsuspected order
visible. The many years of tedious calculations are vindicated
by the burst of
new knowledge. But even without success, creative persons find
joy in a job
well done. Learning for its own sake is rewarding even if it fails
to result in a
public discovery. How and why this happens is one of the
central questions

this book explores.
EVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY AND IN CULTURE
For most of human history, creativity was held to be a
prerogative of supreme
beings. Religions the world over are based on origin myths in
which one or
more gods shaped the heavens, the earth, and the waters.
Somewhere along
the line they also created men and women—puny, helpless
things subject to
the wrath of the gods. It was only very recently in the history of
the human
race that the tables were reversed: It was now men and women
who were the
creators and gods the figments of their imagination. Whether
this started in
Greece or China two and a half millennia ago, or in Florence
two thousand
years later, does not matter much. The fact is that it happened
quite recently
in the multimillion-year history of the race.

So we switched our views of the relationship between gods and
humans.
It is not so difficult to see why this happened. When the first
myths of
creation arose, humans were indeed helpless, at the mercy of
cold, hunger,
wild beasts, and one another. They had no idea how to explain
the great
forces they saw around them—the rising and setting of the sun,
the wheeling
stars, the alternating seasons. Awe suffused their groping for a
foothold in
this mysterious world. Then, slowly at first, and with increasing
speed in the
last thousand years or so, we began to understand how things
work—from
microbes to planets, from the circulation of the blood to ocean
tides—and
humans no longer seemed so helpless after all. Great machines
were built,
energies harnessed, the entire face of the earth transformed by
human craft
and appetite. It is not surprising that as we ride the crest of
evolution we have

taken over the title of creator.
Whether this transformation will help the human race or cause
its
downfall is not yet clear. It would help if we realized the
awesome
responsibility of this new role. The gods of the ancients, like
Shiva, like
Yehova, were both builders and destroyers. The universe
endured in a
precarious balance between their mercy and their wrath. The
world we
inhabit today also teeters between becoming either the lovely
garden or the
barren desert that our contrary impulses strive to bring about.
The desert is
likely to prevail if we ignore the potential for destruction our
stewardship
implies and go on abusing blindly our new-won powers.
While we cannot foresee the eventual results of creativity—of
the
attempt to impose our desires on reality, to become the main
power that
decides the destiny of every form of life on the planet—at least

we can try to
understand better what this force is and how it works. Because
for better or
for worse, our future is now closely tied to human creativity.
The result will
be determined in large part by our dreams and by the struggle to
make them
real.
This book, which attempts to bring together thirty years of
research on
how creative people live and work, is an effort to make more
understandable
the mysterious process by which men and women come up with
new ideas
and new things. My work in this area has convinced me that
creativity cannot
be understood by looking only at the people who appear to make
it happen.
Just as the sound of a tree crashing in the forest is unheard if
nobody is there
to hear it, so creative ideas vanish unless there is a receptive

audience to
record and implement them. And without the assessment of
competent
outsiders, there is no reliable way to decide whether the claims
of a self-
styled creative person are valid.
According to this view, creativity results from the interaction of
a
system composed of three elements: a culture that contains
symbolic rules, a
person who brings novelty into the symbolic domain, and a field
of experts
who recognize and validate the innovation. All three are
necessary for a
creative idea, product, or discovery to take place. For instance,
in Vera
Rubin’s account of her astronomical discovery, it is impossible
to imagine it
without access to the huge amount of information about
celestial motions that
has been collecting for centuries, without access to the
institutions that
control modern large telescopes, without the critical skepticism
and eventual

support of other astronomers. In my view these are not
incidental contributors
to individual originality but essential components of the
creative process, on
a par with the individual’s own contributions. For this reason,
in this book I
devote almost as much attention to the domain and to the field
as to the
individual creative persons.
Creativity is the cultural equivalent of the process of genetic
changes
that result in biological evolution, where random variations take
place in the
chemistry of our chromosomes, below the threshold of
consciousness. These
changes result in the sudden appearance of a new physical
characteristic in a
child, and if the trait is an improvement over what existed
before, it will have
a greater chance to be transmitted to the child’s descendants.
Most new traits
do not improve survival chances and may disappear after a few
generations.
But a few do, and it is these that account for biological

evolution.
In cultural evolution there are no mechanisms equivalent to
genes and
chromosomes. Therefore, a new idea or invention is not
automatically passed
on to the next generation. Instructions for how to use fire, or the
wheel, or
atomic energy are not built into the nervous system of the
children born after
such discoveries. Each child has to learn them again from the
start. The
analogy to genes in the evolution of culture are memes, or units
of
information that we must learn if culture is to continue.
Languages, numbers,
theories, songs, recipes, laws, and values are all memes that we
pass on to our
children so that they will be remembered. It is these memes that
a creative
person changes, and if enough of the right people see the
change as an

improvement, it will become part of the culture.
Therefore, to understand creativity it is not enough to study the
individuals who seem most responsible for a novel idea or a
new thing. Their
contribution, while necessary and important, is only a link in a
chain, a phase
in a process. To say that Thomas Edison invented electricity or
that Albert
Einstein discovered relativity is a convenient simplification. It
satisfies our
ancient predilection for stories that are easy to comprehend and
involve
superhuman heroes. But Edison’s or Einstein’s discoveries
would be
inconceivable without the prior knowledge, without the
intellectual and social
network that stimulated their thinking, and without the social
mechanisms
that recognized and spread their innovations. To say that the
theory of
relativity was created by Einstein is like saying that it is the
spark that is
responsible for the fire. The spark is necessary, but without air
and tinder

there would be no flame.
This book is not about the neat things children often say, or the
creativity all of us share just because we have a mind and we
can think. It
does not deal with great ideas for clinching business deals, new
ways for
baking stuffed artichokes, or original ways of decorating the
living room for a
party. These are examples of creativity with a small c, which is
an important
ingredient of everyday life, one that we definitely should try to
enhance. But
to do so well it is necessary first to understand Creativity—and
that is what
this book tries to accomplish.
ATTENTION AND CREATIVITY
Creativity, at least as I deal with it in this book, is a process by
which a
symbolic domain in the culture is changed. New songs, new
ideas, new
machines are what creativity is about. But because these
changes do not

happen automatically as in biological evolution, it is necessary
to consider
the price we must pay for creativity to occur. It takes effort to
change
traditions. For example, memes must be learned before they can
be changed:
A musician must learn the musical tradition, the notation
system, the way
instruments are played before she can think of writing a new
song; before an
inventor can improve on airplane design he has to learn physics,
aerodynamics, and why birds don’t fall out of the sky.
If we want to learn anything, we must pay attention to the
information to
be learned. And attention is a limited resource: There is just so
much
information we can process at any given time. Exactly how
much we don’t
know, but it is clear that, for instance, we cannot learn physics
and music at
the same time. Nor can we learn well while we do the other

things that need
to be done and require attention, like taking a shower, dressing,
cooking
breakfast, driving a car, talking to our spouse, and so forth. The
point is, a
great deal of our limited supply of attention is committed to the
tasks of
surviving from one day to the next. Over an entire lifetime, the
amount of
attention left over for learning a symbolic domain—such as
music or physics
—is a fraction of this already small amount.
Some important consequences follow logically from these
simple
premises. To achieve creativity in an existing domain, there
must be surplus
attention available. This is why such centers of creativity as
Greece in the
fifth century B.C., Florence in the fifteenth century, and Paris
in the
nineteenth century tended to be places where wealth allowed
individuals to
learn and to experiment above and beyond what was necessary
for survival. It

also seems true that centers of creativity tend to be at the
intersection of
different cultures, where beliefs, lifestyles, and knowledge
mingle and allow
individuals to see new combinations of ideas with greater ease.
In cultures
that are uniform and rigid, it takes a greater investment of
attention to achieve
new ways of thinking. In other words, creativity is more likely
in places
where new ideas require less effort to be perceived.
As cultures evolve, it becomes increasingly difficult to master
more than
one domain of knowledge. Nobody knows who the last
Renaissance man
really was, but sometime after Leonardo da Vinci it became
impossible to
learn enough about all of the arts and the sciences to be an
expert in more
than a small fraction of them. Domains have split into
subdomains, and a

mathematician who has mastered algebra may not know much
about number
theory, combinatorix, topology—and vice versa. Whereas in the
past an artist
typically painted, sculpted, cast gold, and designed buildings,
now all of these
special skills tend to be acquired by different people.
Therefore, it follows that as culture evolves, specialized
knowledge will
be favored over generalized knowledge. To see why this must
be so, let us
assume that there are three persons, one who studies physics,
one who studies
music, and one who studies both. Other things being equal, the
person who
studies both music and physics will have to split his or her
attention between
two symbolic domains, while the other two can focus theirs
exclusively on a
single domain. Consequently, the two specialized individuals
can learn their
domains in greater depth, and their expertise will be preferred
over that of the
generalist. With time, specialists are bound to take over

leadership and
control of the various institutions of culture.
Of course, this trend toward specialization is not necessarily a
good
thing. It can easily lead to a cultural fragmentation such as
described in the
biblical story of the building of the Tower of Babel. Also, as the
rest of this
book amply demonstrates, creativity generally involves crossing
the
boundaries of domains, so that, for instance, a chemist who
adopts quantum
mechanics from physics and applies it to molecular bonds can
make a more
substantive contribution to chemistry than one who stays
exclusively within
the bounds of chemistry. Yet at the same time it is important to
recognize that
given how little attention we have to work with, and given the
increasing
amounts of information that are constantly being added to
domains,
specialization seems inevitable. This trend might be reversible,
but only if we

make a conscious effort to find an alternative; left to itself, it is
bound to
continue.
Another consequence of limited attention is that creative
individuals are
often considered odd—or even arrogant, selfish, and ruthless. It
is important
to keep in mind that these are not traits of creative people, but
traits that the
rest of us attribute to them on the basis of our perceptions.
When we meet a
person who focuses all of his attention on physics or music and
ignores us
and forgets our names, we call that person “arrogant” even
though he may be
extremely humble and friendly if he could only spare attention
from his
pursuit. If that person is so taken with his domain that he fails
to take our
wishes into account we call him “insensitive” or “selfish” even
though such

attitudes are far from his mind. Similarly, if he pursues his
work regardless of
other people’s plans, we call him “ruthless.” Yet it is practically
impossible to
learn a domain deeply enough to make a change in it without
dedicating all of
one’s attention to it and thereby appearing to be arrogant,
selfish, and ruthless
to those who believe they have a right to the creative person’s
attention.
In fact, creative people are neither single-minded, specialized,
nor
selfish. Indeed, they seem to be the opposite: They love to make
connections
with adjacent areas of knowledge. They tend to be—in
principle—caring and
sensitive. Yet the demands of their role inevitably push them
toward
specialization and selfishness. Of the many paradoxes of
creativity, this is
perhaps the most difficult to avoid.
WHAT’S THE GOOD OF STUDYING CREATIVITY?

There are two main reasons why looking closely at the lives of
creative
individuals and the contexts of their accomplishments is useful.
The first is
the most obvious one: The results of creativity enrich the
culture and so they
indirectly improve the quality of all our lives. But we may also
learn from
this knowledge how to make our own lives directly more
interesting and
productive. In the last chapter of this volume I summarize what
this study
suggests for enriching anyone’s everyday existence.
Some people argue that studying creativity is an elite
distraction from
the more pressing problems confronting us. We should focus all
our energies
on combating overpopulation, poverty, or mental retardation
instead. A
concern for creativity is an unnecessary luxury, according to
this argument.
But this position is somewhat shortsighted. First of all,
workable new
solutions to poverty or overpopulation will not appear magically

by
themselves. Problems are solved only when we devote a great
deal of
attention to them and in a creative way. Second, to have a good
life, it is not
enough to remove what is wrong from it. We also need a
positive goal,
otherwise why keep going? Creativity is one answer to that
question: It
provides one of the most exciting models for living.
Psychologists have
learned much about how healthy human beings think and feel
from studying
pathological cases. Brain-damaged patients, neurotics, and
delinquents have
provided contrasts against which normal functioning may better
be
understood. But we have learned little from the other end of the
continuum,
from people who are extraordinary in some positive sense. Yet
if we wish to
find out what might be missing from our lives, it makes sense to

study lives
that are rich and fulfilling. This is one of the main reasons for
writing the
book: to understand better a way of being that is more satisfying
than most
lives typically are.
Each of us is born with two contradictory sets of instructions: a
conservative tendency, made up of instincts for self-
preservation, self-
aggrandizement, and saving energy, and an expansive tendency
made up of
instincts for exploring, for enjoying novelty and risk—the
curiosity that leads
to creativity belongs to this set. We need both of these
programs. But …
T
barriers, blocks, and squelchers
why we are not more creative
[Scene: Small girl scout camp deep in forest of Southern

California. Scout Leader Rita Rambo is
discussing plans to rescue pet duck, held hostage without
sardines by disgruntled political group.
Small girl scouts Darcy, Jennifer, and others listen intently.
Darcy opens the creative problem
solving.]
Darcy: We need a plan. Something creative to surprise those
people-maybe distract them
while we sneak in and grab Daffy!
Rita Rambo: No thanks, kiddo! Somebody would have suggested
it before if it were any
good! You've got to be kidding. What bubblehead thought that
up! I say let's hit 'em
with everything we got. Jennifer , did you bring your little
bazooka?
Je.nnifer: No, Ms. Rambo, but I have my brother's baseball bat.
Darcy: But Ms. Rambo, we shouldn't be violent. Besides, we
might hurt Daffy!
Rambo: You don't understand the situation, small fry! And don't
forget the chain of

command. I learned how to deal with duck-nappers on Wake
Island! Soften 'em up
with artillery, then we go in! That's the way it's always been
done!
Darcy: What about disguising ourselves as Groucho Marx, Ben
Turpin, Charlie Chaplin,
and W. C. Fields? We could walk in, argue about who is the
funniest, and when
Jennifer says "That's the most ridiculous thing I ever hoid!" I'll
sneak off with Daffy!
Rambo: Not this girl scout, cookie! It just won't work, we've
never done that before, too
blue sky, we need more lead time. I don't see the connection,
the comedians' union
will scream, it'll mean more wo rk, don't step on any toes, don't
rock the boat, and
you can't teach this old dog new tricks!
Jennifer: Do you imagine that ...
Rambo : No, I never imagine.
Jennifer: Well, do you suppose sometimes?

Rambo: Sometimes I suppose, if it's not difficult.
Jennifer: Suppose we hire a mariachi band? While everyone is
drinking margaritas and
dancing the New Mexican Hat Dance, Darcy could pop Daffy
into her big siesta.
19
20 Chapter 1wo
We Do Not Use the
Creative Abilities
We Have
Lots of Blocks and
Barriers
Understand and Be
Ready
Routines, Language

Habits, Correct
Categories
Have You Been
Creative Lately?
Habits Are Necessary
Rule s and Traditions:
Necessary but
Restricti ve
Darcy: You mean my sombrero.
Rambo: We did all right without a mariachi band, our people
won ·t accept tt, let' s be
practical, and what will the other girl scouts think? Besides, we
tried that before!
Darcy: Maybe we could negotiate a trade-a dozen Big Macs,
some french fries, and a
winning season for the Los Angeles Rams!
Jennifer: Let's just buy a new duck! Daffy's in the soup by now
anyway!

The first need is to transcend the old order. Before any new
idea can be defined, the absolute power of the established, the
hold u-pon us of what we know and are, must be broken.
Brewster Ghiselin (1952)
All of us would be more creative were it not for internal and
external blocks,
barriers, and squelchers. But because of well-learned habits , an
unsupportive or
repressive environment, or our fears and insecurities, most
people do not fully
use their creative abilities and imaginations. One argument is
that everyone is
born creative, but in our early years the social pressures of
home , school, and
community suppress our lively imaginations and produce dutiful
conformers.
This chapter will look more closely at some common barriers to
creative think-
ing and productivity: habit and learning, rules and traditions,
perceptual blocks,
cultural blocks, emotional blocks, and resource blocks, at least

the first four
of which are interrelated and stem from lifelong learning. We
also will review
von Oech's (1983) ten types of mental blocks, which may take a
whack on the side
of the head to jar loose. Finally, we will itemize probably-too-
familiar "idea
squelchers," a list that has been growing for half a century.
The challenge to anyone wishing to increase his or her personal
creativeness is to
understand, expect, and be ready to cope with barriers to
creativity from the environment
or from inside oneself.
HABIT AND LEARNING
The first and most obvious barrier to creative th.inking and
innovation is just
habit, our well- learned and customary ways of thinking and
responding. It begins
when we are munchkins. We learn the "correct" responses,
routines, and patterns
of behavior. We learn language habits and the conceptual
categories that th.ings

and ideas belong in. We learn "the way things have always been
done" and "the
way things are supposed to be done." Over the years it becomes
more and more
difficult to break away from these habits, to see and create new
possibilities.
When did you last try something truly new? An exotic
restaurant? A new
sport? A college course in some intriguing topic? Are your old
habits and expecta-
tions interfering with new ideas and activities?
Of course, the ability to form habits and expectations is an
adaptive and neces-
sary capability for humankind and lower animals. It would be
troublesome in-
deed to open your eyes each morning and wonder what you are
supposed to do
next. Being a "creature of habit" is a boon and a curse.
RULES AND TRADITIONS
Clearly, social groups-from your family to educational,
corporate, national ,

and international groups-could not function without the rules ,
regulations ,
Inflexible School
Systems?
Organizational
Pa.ta.lysis?
Brain-Damaged
Bureaucracies?
-r-
Barriers, Blocks, and Squelchers: Why We Are Not More
Creative 21
policies, and traditions that guide personal, social, and
institutional behavior.
Howevor, guide often means restrwt or inhibit.
Ambrose (1996), for example, took a few shots at inflexible
school systems. He

claimed they suffer from a lack of creative flexibility because
of top-heavy, bu-
reaucratic structures that cubbyhole people into specialized and
rigid roles. Such
people focus on everyday minutiae and lose their capability for
big-picture, vi-
sionary thought Oai.med Ambrose, they seldom have good
reason to take risks
beyond the confines of established procedures, particularly
since "mistakes are
routinely punished in our right-answer-fixated bureaucracies"
(p. 28).
In the 1990s criticizing the rigidity of traditional organizations
seemed a
common catharsis (e.g., Peters, 1992; Tapscott & Caston, 1993).
Ambrose (1995),
injured only mildly while hopping on the bandwagon, listed
these traits of
"dullard ... brain -damaged bureaucracies ... inherited from the
old industrial
era":
• Myopic and coercive leadership that treats employees as
automatons

• Premature judgment
• Repressed creativity
• Anger, frustration, and resentment
• Inflexible conformity
• Reflexive ritual
• Habit bound
• Narrow focus
• Poorly integrated subsystems
• Slow
Habit, tradition, rules, regulations-all will interfere with
versatile creative prob-
lem solving. "Sure. chief, we're all trained up an' ready to give
out them parking
tickets! Before we can move, the boys gotta' know if they
should use a number
2 or a number 3 pencil!" (Keystone Cops "In the Clutches of the
Gang," 1914.
Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research.)
22 Chapter Two
Versus Genius and

Creatively Intellieent
Status Hierarchy
Enforcement of Rule
Following
Understatement?
Procedural Barriers
The opposite characterized well-functioning "genius ...
creatively intelligent
post-industrial organi7.ation " :
• Visionary leadership
• Critical analysis and judgment
• Creative thinkers and creative teamwork
• Flexibility
• Excitement
• Pride and purpose
• Sensitivity and responsiveness
• Dynamism

Van Gundy (1987) described additional organizational barriers
to creative inno-
vation that also are rooted in rules and traditions. While aimed
at corporate organi-
zations, these barriers seem to apply to educational and other
organizations as well.
One barrier is the status hierarchy. Lower-status persons are
reluctant to suggest
ideas to those in higher positions due to insecurity and fear of
evaluation. With
little lower-level participation in decision-making, it is unlikely
that new ideas
will "trickle up."
Further , if a new idea threatens to reduce status differences
(''Hey, we can
increase sales if we make everybody a vice president!"), the
idea will be resisted
by higher status persons.
The formalization barrier refers to the degree to which
following rules and pro-
cedures is enforced. Observed Van Gundy in an understatement,
"It is thought

that formalization is detrimental to initiation of innovations ....
If organizational
members are expected to behave in prescribed ways, and
innovation is not pre-
scribed; fewer idea proposals will be generated" (p. 361).
However, he also ob-
served that after an innovation is accepted, an efficient formal
structure expedites
its implementation.
Van Gundy's procedural barriers include policies, procedures,
and regulations
(including unwritten ones) that inhibit creative innovation.
Some examples are:
Promoting administrators based on analytic skills, not on ability
to encourage
a creative atmosphere.
Emphasizing short-term (translation: short-sighted) planning.
Avoiding expenditures that do not produce an immediate
payback.
Overemphasizing external rewards (profit) rather than internal,
personal

commitment.
Insisting on an orderly advancement with an innovation, with
excessive de-
tailed control early in its development.
Rules and traditions keep the system working. However , like
habits, such pre-
determined guides can work against creative thinking.
PERCEPTUAL BLOCKS
PerceptWJl blocks also are based in learning and habit. We
become accustomed to
perceiving things in familiar ways, and it is difficult to see new
meanings, relation-
ships, or applications and uses. Psychologists refer to our
predisposition to perceive
Perceptual Set,
Mental Set Functional
Fixedness

Provocative Ways to
Stimulate New Views
Jumping to
Conclusions
Puzzles
Can Miss the "Real"
Problem
Failure to See Other
Possibilities
Making the Familiar
Strange: Seeing New
Possibilities
Expectatio ns,
Conformity
Fear of Being Different
Kindergarten Slump

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