A constructivist perspective on the creative thinking process and associated cognitive theories throughout the lifespan. Challenging the idea that children are more creative.

1. Rethinking Creativity Across the
Life Span
A Psychosocial Constructivist Perspective
Jill C. Morris, Ph.D.
8th Biennial Meeting
Society for the Study of Human Development
Fort Lauderdale, FL
November 3, 2013

2. Creativity
Creativity is the bringing into being something which did
not exist before, either as a product, process or a thought.
 Invent something which has never existed
 Invent something which exists elsewhere, but you are not aware of
 Invent a new process for doing something
 Reapply an existing process or product into a new or different market
 Develop a new way of looking at something (i.e. bringing a new idea into existence)
 Change the way someone else looks at something

3. Creative Thinking Process
Accidental
Deliberate

4. Nature/Nurture?
Individual
People who experience the
world in novel and original
ways. These are individuals
whose perceptions are fresh,
whose judgments are
insightful, who may make
important discoveries that
only they know about.
(paraphrased from “Flow” -Csikszentmihalyi)
Systemic
“Creativity is observable and
public only insofar as it ‘leaves a
trace in the cultural matrix’ . . .
Systemic definition of creativity
[is a ] jointly constituted or coconstructed in a set of relations
among three elements:
domain, field and person”
(Csikszentmihalyi quoted by Atwill & Lauer, p. 73)

5. Some common misconceptions
 Only limited to a few
 Exists solely in the domain of the
“artistic”
 Declines seriously with age
 Associated with uniqueness or
innovation

6.  Environmental influences may explain in part why childhood creativity seems to
be a poor predictor of adult creativity (Albert 1996).
 Although most young children are very creative, it is estimated that creativity
diminishes by 40% between the ages of 5 and 7 (Grupas 1990; McCormick and
Plugge 1997).
 At these ages, formal schooling begins, and there is some agreement that
education inhibits the transformation of early talent into adult creativity (Albert
1996; Amabile 1996).
 It may be that schooling and/or stage of cognitive development at that age
emphasizes logical rather than divergent thinking, or that schools (and families)
value conventional behavior, well-defined problems, and good grades (Albert
1996) or develop skills relevant to creative performance (Amabile 1996).
Source: Sandra Kerka, 1999 (ERIC Clearinghouse)

7. Sir Ken Robinson
TED (2006)

8. In what ways does the
interaction of the individual
and environment impact
creativity throughout one’s
life span?

9. Emergence
Jean Piaget
“The principle goal of education is to
create men who are capable of doing
new things, not simply of repeating
what other generations have done men who are creative, inventive and
discoverers.”
– Jean Piaget

10. Assimilation involves the incorporation of new events into
preexisting cognitive structures.
Accommodation means existing structures change to
accommodate to the new information. This dual process, assimilationaccommodation, enables the child to form schema.
Equilibration involves the person striking a balance
between himself and the environment, between assimilation and
accommodation. When a child experiences a new
disequilibrium
event,
sets in until he is able to assimilate
and accommodate the new information and thus attain equilibrium.

11. Beyond Formal Operations
Commons & Richards
 Systematic
 Metasystematic
 Paradigmatic
 Cross-Paradigmatic

12. Heinz, Health Care
& Creativity

13. “The creative person is an evolving
system…An evolving system . . .
displays . . . at every point in its
history, multicausal and reciprocally
interactive relationships both among
the internal elements of the system
and between the organism and its
external milieu.”
(Howard Gruber)

14. Dialectic of Development and
Creativity
Vygotsky

15. Creativity, Language and
the Co-construction of Meaning
Kenneth Gergen
“When we say something is socially constructed, we are
focusing on its dependence on contingent variables of our
social selves rather than any inherent quality that it
possesses itself”
“The social construction of reality is an
ongoing, dynamic process that is (and must be)
reproduced by people acting on their interpretations
and their knowledge of it . . .[and] must constantly be
maintained and re-affirmed in order to persist.”

16. When worlds of meaning intersect, creative
outcomes may occur. New forms of relating, new
realities, and new possibilities may all emerge.
When worlds of meaning conflict, they may lead to
alienation and aggression, thus undermining
relations and their creative potential.
Through creative care for relationships, the
destructive potentials of conflict may be
reduced, or transformed.
-Kenneth Gergen