Creativity: typologies, dimensions and phases

Creativity is a psychological phenomenon of great importance both individually and collectively. We need creativity when we seek to solve an everyday problem on an individual level and it is also useful, on a collective level, in science, art or technology.

Any advance of humanity has its origin in a creative idea. In the same way, unfortunately, creativity has been present in most of the most despicable and aberrant situations in the history of mankind. For better and for worse, creativity distinguishes us from the rest of the beings on this planet, being, perhaps, the most defining characteristic of the human.

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Some integrative proposals for the definition of creativity

The main obstacle to studying creativity at a scientific level is to reach a consensus on a definition that pleases all those who investigate it from different disciplines. One of the most complete definitions that have been achieved so far is perhaps that of Vernon (1989):

“Creativity is the ability of the person to produce new and original ideas, discoveries, restructuring, inventions or artistic objects, which are accepted by experts as valuable elements in the field of science, technology or art. Both originality and usefulness or value are properties of the creative product even though these properties may vary over time ”.

With a rather abstract approach, some authors define it as "Ability to produce new, original and appropriate ideas" (Sternberg and Lubart, 1991). Original would be understood as something that is relatively infrequent, although it is convenient to speak of degrees of originality, rather than seeing it as something absolute in the sense of “all or nothing”. As for something (idea or product) to be appropriate, it is considered to be appropriate when with your proposal solves a significant problem or is a critical intermediate step in achieving success greater. Utility is also a matter of degree.

Creativity as a set of dimensions

Other authors have tried to be more specific in their definitions, approaching creativity from four levels of analysis. It is what has traditionally been known as the 4 P’s of creativity.

1. The Process

Creativity understood as a mental process (or set of processes) that results in the production of original and adaptive ideas. It is the perspective adopted by the Cognitive Psychology, which has focused on studying different cognitive operations such as problem solving, imagination, intuition, the use of heuristics (mental strategies) and the insight (spontaneous disclosure).

Some theories that have dealt with the different states of the creative process are inspired by the initial proposal of Wallas (1926). Other authors have dedicated themselves to trying to identify the components of creative thinking, such is the case of the studies by Mumford and his colleagues (1991; 1997).

2. The Product (product)

Creativity can be conceptualized as a characteristic of a productProduct being understood as a work of art, a scientific discovery or a technological invention, among others. Generally, a creative product is one that is considered original, that is, it manages to combine novelty, complexity and surprise. In addition, it is adaptive, which means that it is capable of solving some problem in the environment. Also, depending on the domain in which it is located, the creative product is related to characteristics such as beauty, truth, elegance and virtuosity (Runco, 1996).

3. Person (personality)

Here creativity is understood as a trait, or personality profile and / or intelligence characteristic of a specific person. It is an individual quality or capacity, which is why some individuals have more than others (Barron, 1969).

Individual creativity is one of the objects of study of differential psychology, from where several features have been found that seem to coincide in the creative people. Among others, there are: intrinsic motivation (not needing external incentives to create), the breadth of interests (high curiosity in different domains), openness to experience (desire to experiment and high tolerance for failure) and autonomy (Helson, 1972). At present, personality is understood as one of the influences on creative behavior, and not something that can fully explain such behavior (Feist and Barron, 2003).

4. The environment (place or press):

The environment or climate in which creativity emerges is decisive. By combining certain elements of the situation, we manage to facilitate or block the creative process. Creativity usually appears when there are opportunities to explore, when the individual is given independence in their work and the environment encourages originality (Amabile, 1990).

In addition, the environment is key in the assessment of creativity because, finally, it will be the one who determines whether the product can be considered creative or not.

Interaction between creative elements

Evidently, these four elements of creativity are totally related in practice. It is expected that a creative product is generated by a creative person, applying creativity processes, in an environment conducive to the production of such a product and, probably, in an environment prepared assessment. At 4 P’s, recently, two new ones have been added, so now it is often talked about 6 P’s of creativity. The fifth P corresponds to the Persuasion (Simonton, 1990) and the sixth is the Potential (Runco, 2003).

If we rephrase the question, what is creativity?, We will obtain, as we have seen, several answers in depending on where we focus: the person, the product, the process, the environment, the persuasion or the potentiality. Also, we could refer to the creativity of geniuses, that of young children, or that of any person in their daily life, without giving importance to their age or their genius.

So far, most definitions focus on three components or defining characteristics of the creative act: the originality of the idea, its quality and its fit, that is, how appropriate it is for what it intends to solve. Therefore, it can be said that a creative response is one that is, at the same time, new, appropriate and relevant.

Creativity as a magnitude

Another alternative approach differentiates between different levels of creativity, treating it as a magnitude rather than considering it a set of fixed characteristics. The range of creativity magnitude would extend from minor or mundane "Little-c" creativity (more subjective) to major creativity, mature creativity or eminence "Big-C" (more objective).

The first, the worldly creativity, makes mention of the daily individual creativity that any of us use to solve a problem. It is part of human nature and is specified in something new for the individual, or for their environment close, but it is rarely recognized or represents a significant value at the social level (Richards, 2007). It is a category of great interest in the analysis of factors influencing common creativity at the home, school or work environment (Cropley, 2011).

The second has to do with the performances and products of eminent individuals in some field. They are those characters who show high performance and / or manage to transform a field of knowledge or social, for example: Charles Darwin, Newton, Mozart or Luther King.

Mini-c and Pro-c

If we pose the creativity magnitude as something dichotomous (black or white), we will find ourselves with the problem of not being able to identify nuances that exist between the Little-c category and the Big-C category.. That is to say, speaking of two types of creativity, worldly or eminent, does not represent the real distribution of the characteristic in the population because between the two there is a range of possibilities. To try to overcome the limitations of dichotomous categorization, Beghetto and Kaufman (2009) propose to include two new categories, Mini-c and Pro-c, thus expanding to four the categories that would try to frame the phenomenon of creativity.

Mini-c creativity is the most subjective of all kinds of creativity. It refers to the new knowledge that an individual acquires and how he internally interprets her personal experiences. In research, it is useful to understand the personal and developmental aspects of creativity, helping to explain it in young children.

The Pro-c category represents a level of evolution and effort that begins at Little-c but it does not become the Big-C, helping to understand the area that lies between the two. It corresponds to creativity related to expertise in some professional area. It should be noted that not all professional experts in an area achieve this type of creativity. Those who achieve it require approximately 10 years of preparation in their domain to become "experts." To become a Pro we will need to prepare a cocktail that contains high doses of knowledge, motivation and performance.

Creativity as a continuum

Although with four categories we can better cover the phenomenon of creativity, they are still scarce to capture its complex nature. For this reason, some authors prefer to treat creativity as a continuum.

Cohen (2011) proposes his “continuum of adaptive creative behaviors”. This author considers the interaction between the person and the environment essential, from an adaptive perspective, to analyze creativity. Its continuum ranges from creativity in young children to creativity in eminent adults, establishing seven levels or stages. It proposes some influential variables for the development of creativity along the continuum, such as: purpose, novelty, value, speed and structure.

The aforementioned works are only a brief sample of the effort made, especially since 1950, to define the creativity from multiple spheres of knowledge, although here we have focused on work in the field of psychology.

Among all the disciplines we are fixing certain points according to the time of establishing what can be understood by creativity and what is not, although we are still on the way to deciphering the enigma and establish some truth about this phenomenon, which will hardly become absolute, as is the case with many other constructs in the field of social sciences, it will help us to understand a little better the world around us and our own inner world.

Bibliographic references:

• Amabile, T. M. (1990). Within you, without you: The social psychology of creativity, and beyond. In M. TO. Runco, & R. S. Albert (Edits.), Theories of creativity (pp. 61-91). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

• Barron, F. (1969). Creative person and creative process. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

• Beghetto, R. A., & Kaufman, J. C. (2009). Intellectual estuaries: Connecting learning and creativity in programs of advanced academics. Journal of advanced Academics (20), 296-324.

• Cohen, L. M. (2011). Adaptation, adaptiveness, and creativity. In M. TO. Runco, & S. R. Pritzker (Edits.), Encyclopedia of Creativity (2nd ed., Pp. 9-17). London: Elseiver.

• Cropley, A. J. (2011). Definitions of creativity. In Encyclopedia of Creativity (pp. 358-369). London: Elsevier.

• Feist, G. J., & Barron, F. X. (2003). Predicting creativity from early to late adulthood: Intellect, potential and personality. Journal of research in personality.

• Helson, R. (1972). Personality of women with imaginative and artistic interests: The role of maculinity, originality, and other characteristics in their creativity. Journal of creative Behavior.

• Mumford, M. D., Baughman, W. A., Maher, M. A., Costanza, D. P., & Supinski, E. P. (1997). Process-based measures of creative problem solving skills: IV. Category combination. Creativity Research Journal.

• Mumford, M. D., Mobley, M. I., Uhlman, C. E., Reiter-Palmon, R., & Doares, L. M. (1991). Process analytic models of creative capabilities. Creativity Research Journal.

• Richards, R. (2007). Everyday creativity and new views of human nature: Psychological, social, and spiritual perspectives. American Psychological Association. Washington, DC.

• Runco, M. TO. (2003). Education for creative potential. Scandinavian Journal of Education.

• Runco, M. TO. (1996). Personal creativity: Definition and developmental issues. New Directions for Child development.

• Simonton, D. K. (1990). History, chemistry, psychology, and genius: An intellectual autobiography of historiometry. In M. TO. Runco, & R. S. Albert (Edits.), Theories of creativity. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

• Sternberg, R. J., & Lubart, T. I. (1991). An investment theory of creativity and its development. Human Development, 34 (1).

• Vernon, P. (1989). The nature-nurture problem in creativity. In J. TO. Glober, R. R. Ronning, & C. R. Reynols (Edits.), Handbook of creativity. New York: Plenum.

• Wallas, G. (1926). The art of thought. New York: Harcourt Brace and World.