Creativity Map: Toward the Next Generation of Theories of Creativity

Zorana Ivcevic
Tufts University
What is creativity and how should it be studied after more than 60 years of research? In this paper I call
for more terminological clarity in creativity research, especially regarding the distinction between
creative potential and creative behavior. The former concerns cognitive abilities and processes and
personality dispositions facilitating creative expression. The latter refers to observable behavior, com-
municated ideas, or products that result from the interaction between individual potential and situational
or cultural influences. Much research has focused on different attributes of creative potential, such as
creative personality or divergent thinking abilities. I argue that future work in this area will have to
specifically address domain-specific creative potential as well as the interaction between attributes of
creative potential and situational or social attributes. The interaction of personal potential and social
environment will determine whether creativity is expressed and how it is expressed.
Keywords: theory, creative potential, creative behavior, social situation, culture
Creativity is an ability to respond adaptively to the needs for new
approaches and new products. The something new is usually a
product resulting from a process initiated by a person.
Frank Barron (1988, p. 80)
Barron (1988) essentially said that creativity was a product of
the creative process done by a creative person. The definition itself
is original. It would be difficult to find a similar definition in a
systematic literature review. It might also be appropriate; a crite-
rion for judging creativity that is more elusive. Although it might
seem circular and unspecific, it points to multiple elements in the
study of creativity, including process, person, and product. In line
with this definition, I suggest that the study of creativity would
benefit from a focus on creative behavior and its determinants in
the interaction of individual potential and social environment.
Along the way, I point to the areas of gap in our current under-
standing of creativity. In particular, I argue that the social and
cultural context should become more central in our thinking about
creativity.
What Is Creativity?
Creativity is commonly defined in terms of originality and
appropriateness. Published research has employed broad criteria
for what can be considered a measure of creativity under such
definition. Cognitive tests, including divergent thinking, remote
associates, and word associations, have been used as criteria in
foundational studies examining creativity in relation to personality
(McCrae, 1987), affect (Isen, Daubman, & Nowicki, 1987), moti-
vation (Eisenberger & Selbst, 1994), culture (Leung & Chiu, in
press), and in research testing the tenets of at least one major
theory of creativity (Eysenck, 1995). Other measures of creativity
fall into a similar category of intrapersonal attributes of creative
potentialpreference for complex drawings (Eysenck, 1994), en-
dorsement of creative personality traits (Cox & Leon, 1999), and
peoples beliefs whether they are creative in different domains
(J. C. Kaufman & Baer, 2004).
These measures have substantial predictive validity and show
expected group differences. For instance, accomplished artists give
more unusual word associations than controls and they are able to
evaluate the uncommonness of their responses (Merten & Fischer,
1999), and women rate their creativity in math and science signif-
icantly lower than men (J. C. Kaufman, 2006). These results show
that intrapersonal measures assess creative potentialhigh scores
on these tests increase a persons likelihood of exhibiting observ-
able creativity. However, other intrapersonal or social factors may
prevent this potential from actualizing. Creativity researchers
should be clear in their writing whether they are studying traits and
processes related to creativity or creativity that is observable in
how people behave and what they accomplish. To clarify the
terminological confusion in creativity research a map might be
helpful. Figure 1 delineates areas of intrapersonal creative poten-
tial and creative behavior evident in ideas, products, behaviors, and
membership in social groups.
Creativity as Creative Behavior
Although creativity exists in all aspects of life, it has been
studied most often in the arts and sciences. This bias in the focus
of creativity researchers reflects both the culture-changing impor-
tance and fascination with unambiguous creativity, such as
achievements of Einsteins miraculous year and the originality of
Picassos art. Other examples of creative behavior can be found in
relatively private behavior, such as devising a way to teach a
dyslexic child to read.
One successful approach in studying the great diversity of
creative behavior has been a semistructured interview format
(Richards, Kinney, Benet, & Merzel, 1988). This approach enables
an assessment of peoples activities without their direct awareness
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Zorana
Ivcevic, Department of Psychology, Tufts University, 490 Boston Avenue,
Medford, MA 02155. E-mail: zorana.ivcevic@tufts.edu
Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts 2009 American Psychological Association
2009, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1721 1931-3896/09/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0014918
17
that creativity is the topic of study thus minimizing biases inherent
in socially desirable responding. Moreover, this approach enables
an assessment of originality and quality of work. For instance,
when a person describes painting a lot, it is possible to probe about
the nature of her painting and distinguish between mass produc-
tion paintings of faux-impressionist landscapes for hotel chains
(not creative) from paintings exhibited in art shows (creative).
A more economical approach is to create inventories of creative
behavior (e.g., Hocevar, 1979; Ivcevic, 2007; Ivcevic & Mayer, in
press). For instance, Ivcevic and Mayer (in press) developed an
inventory of creative behavior in everyday life, the arts, and
intellectual domains. We argued that target behaviors should sat-
isfy three criteria. First, creative behavior should be assessed in
multiple domains. This criterion acknowledges that creativity is
expressed in many ways, that different kinds of activities can
inform the creative process, and it enables examination of creative
types. Second, behaviors should be appropriate for the population
of interest (e.g., participating in a science fair for high school
students vs. presenting at a research conference for graduate stu-
dents). And third, a range of behaviors and accomplishments
should be assessed. For instance, in the arts, it can be asked how
many art projects people completed in a certain time period,
whether they exhibited their work in public, and whether they
received any recognition for their art. Even studies of unambigu-
ous examples of creativity can benefit from this approach by
enabling a researcher to more closely study the quantity and
quality of work.
Based on these criteria, Ivcevic and Mayer (in press) identified
multiple areas of creative lifestyle and creative interests (self-
expressive creativity, interpersonal creativity, crafts, sophisticated
media use, and cultural refinement), artistic creativity (music,
dance, theater, visual arts, and writing), and intellectual creativity
(technology, science, and academic orientation). Furthermore, five
distinct patterns of creative behavior or five creative types were
identified in both college students and professional adults: con-
ventional person, everyday creative person, artist, scholar, and
renaissance person (Ivcevic & Mayer, 2006). Conventional people
report below average creative behavior in all three domains. Ev-
eryday creative people have above average creative lifestyle
and are below average in the arts and intellectual domains. Artists
and scholars show above average creative behavior in the arts and
intellectual domains, respectively, but also at least average levels
of creative lifestyle and creative interests. This research shows that
for most people creativity is largely domain specific (i.e., ex-
pressed either in the arts or intellectual domains). However, gen-
erality is also evident in that artistic and intellectual creativity is
complemented by a creative lifestyle. Finally, there are a few
renaissance people (approximately 1%), who report above average
creative behavior in all three domains. More targeted research will
have to examine who are these people and how they are different
from other creators.
Research using inventories of creative behavior can answer
many questions about the nature of creativity, but it also has a
number of limitations. This approach does not allow a good
assessment of the originality and quality of behavior. A good
painting is more creative than a not so good one, and it could even
be argued that not so good paintings should not earn a label of
creativity. Because productivity or quantity of work is significantly
correlated with quality (Simonton, 1997), measures of quantity of
work still hold validity in creativity assessment. Ideally, these
SOCIAL GROUPS
INDIVIDUAL TRAITS AND BELIEFS
Creative potential
e.g., divergent thinking, self-assessed creativity
INTERACTIONS WITH ENVIRONMENT
Creative behavior in relation to materials,
situations, and individuals
e.g., painting furniture, exhibiting art in public
SITUATIONAL ELEMENTS
Immedia te situation (e.g., test instructions)
Group memberships that facilitate or encourage creative behavior and professional groups
e.g., actor in a theater troupe, scientist
IMPLICIT SITUATION
Cultural beliefs, values, and institutions in
which all other situations are embedded
BIOLOGICAL DISPOSITIONS
Biological bases of individual traits
e.g., genetic bases for Openness to experience, perfect pitch
Figure 1. Areas of creative potential and behavior situated in immediate and implicit social situations.
18
IVCEVIC
measures would be complemented by others that more closely
assess the quality of work. After the initial screening using inven-
tories of creative behavior, individuals can be observed in a lab-
oratory or they may present a portfolio of work to be judged.
Individual Potential for Creativity
Intrapersonal traits and beliefs constitute potential for creativity
and influence all forms of expressed creativity. These are cognitive
processes, personality traits, and aspects of the self-concept at the
core of the creative process and the creative person. Creative
potential is based on cognitive abilities and thinking styles (Stern-
berg & Lubart, 1995; Torrance, 1988), personality traits (Feist,
1998), affect (Shaw & Runco, 1994), and motivation (Amabile,
1996).
In recent years, we have seen meta-analyses on the relationship
between creative achievement and both divergent thinking and
intelligence (Kim, 2008) and personality traits in artists and sci-
entists (Feist, 1998). There are fewer studies that investigate how
the different pieces of the creativity puzzle fit together. Based on
their investment theory, Lubart and Sternberg (1995) showed that
creativity on various laboratory tasks is independently predicted by
cognitive and noncognitive factors, including intellectual abilities,
knowledge, and intellectual styles as well as personality and mo-
tivation. Another approach has systematically sampled elements of
creative potential describing social traits (e.g., nonconformity),
emotion and motivation (e.g., intrinsic motivation), cognition (e.g.,
divergent thinking), and self-regulation (e.g., persistence) and
demonstrated differing trait profiles in relation to creative types
(Ivcevic & Mayer, 2006).
Domain-specific potential for creativity has been less well un-
derstood. One approach to understanding creativity in different
domains is an in-depth study of a single domain (e.g., Kaufman &
Kaufman, 2007). Alternatively, we can examine the key ingredi-
ents of the creative process and person that should differ across
domains (e.g., domain-specific self-efficacy). Sternberg (2000)
defined creativity as a decision. It can be argued that this decision
is largely domain specific. A person who does not believe that they
can be creative in science will not attempt to be creative in science
and therefore not achieve creatively in this domain. The next
generation of creativity theories will explicitly define many such
domain specific connections.
Creativity in Space and Time
Creativity happens in a specific space (physical and social
environment) and a specific time (developmental moment on the
individual level and historical moment on the social level). Indi-
vidual potential for creativity is influenced by different elements of
such situations. For instance, scores on divergent thinking tests can
be affected by variations in test instructions (Runco, Illies, &
Eisenman, 2005). What are the active ingredients of situations that
affect creativity? One potential hypothesis is that manifestations of
creative potential are influenced by situations that change peoples
perception of freedom on a task. The sense of psychological
freedom can be undermined in situations of competition and social
comparison or explicit presence of rewards, as demonstrated by
Amabile and her colleagues (1996). Social norms and cultural
values that place an emphasis on harmony and fitting in can also
limit peoples sense of appropriateness of free expression and
consequently negatively impact originality. These social values are
characteristic of collectivist cultural orientations as well as certain
developmental periods in childhood and adolescence when peer
groups increase in importance. Of course, this is not to say that
certain cultures do not have high potential for creativity; rather,
individual potential may be expressed differently depending on the
cultural (and/or developmental) context.
Culture is a macro social situation in which all other situations
are embedded. Cultures differ in global value orientations, such as
individualism and collectivism, which influence self-concept, so-
cial attitudes, motivation, and emotions (Oyserman & Lee, 2008).
Individualism is a cultural orientation characterized by beliefs that
the self is unique and separate from the social environment and an
emphasis on self-reliance and personal accomplishment. On the
other hand, collectivism is characterized by beliefs that the self
cannot be separated from the social environment and emphasizes
social harmony, obligation, and concern for others needs. Indi-
vidualism is related to values such as self-direction and hedonism,
whereas collectivism is related to conformity and security values
(Triandis, 1995). Performance on creativity tasks in verbal, artistic,
and mathematical domains is related to values similar to those
characteristic of individualist cultural orientation (Kasof, Chen,
Himsel, & Greenberger, 2007). Similarly, in comparison to other
regions of the world, the people of East Asia (cultures high in
collectivism) describe themselves as lower on Openness to Expe-
riences (Schmitt, Allik, McCrae, & Benet-Martinez, 2007), a per-
sonality trait closely related to creativity in multiple domains.
Although there are significant cross-cultural differences in a
number of attributes of creative potential, it remains unclear what
is the root of these differences. The differences may be due to
variations in chronically activated individualist and collectivist
orientations, but these differences are often confounded with other
social factors, such as different educational systems. Experimental
studies can isolate the causal factors in cross-cultural differences
observed in multiple-country comparisons. All cultures socialize
their members for both individualism (e.g., people learn auton-
omy) and collectivism (e.g., people need and pursue social rela-
tionships) and at different times each of these orientations can be
active. Consequently, it is possible to experimentally orient people
toward either individualism or collectivism (Oyserman & Lee,
2008). By experimentally manipulating salience of cultural orien-
tations in a laboratory situation, we can test whether differences in
attitudes and behaviors observed in cross-cultural research are due
to differences in individualism and collectivism.
The study of cultural influences on creativity will become
increasingly important with increasing globalization. Contempo-
rary technological, economic, and political changes make it more
likely that people will interact with individuals from different
cultural backgrounds and this intercultural contact can benefit
creativity (Leung, Maddux, Galinsky, & Chiu, 2008). After watch-
ing a slide show juxtaposing symbols of American and Chinese
cultures or a slide show presenting a fusion of the two cultures
(e.g., music video by Vanessa Mae), participants wrote more
creative stories than those who were exposed only to images of one
culture. This research poses new challenges to creativity scholars.
What are personality and developmental variables that facilitate
this process of creative inspiration through exposure to other
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SPECIAL ISSUE: CREATIVITY MAP
cultures? Would these benefits be similar across multiple domains
of work (e.g., scientific and artistic creativity)?
Other cultural factors influencing creativity concern the struc-
ture of social institutions. Educational systems differ in how much
emphasis they place on basic skills and standardized testing, in
how much autonomy is encouraged or expected from students, and
in the balance between textbook knowledge and research-oriented
work. Also, educational systems direct students toward relatively
specialized training at different ages. Late bloomers will have a
more difficult time developing knowledge necessary for creative
contribution in countries that direct struggling students toward
vocational schools at an early age (e.g., Germany) than in countries
where such decisions are postponed (e.g., the United States).
Furthermore, the physical environments in which students spend
their time at school differ, ranging from stark rows of desks with
little decoration such as I remember growing up in Croatia, to
relatively free-form arrangement of desks and bulletin boards with
childrens art and cartoon-like characters in many public schools in
the United States. Such surroundings can impact creativity by
creating a more or less supportive environment and influencing the
emotional experience of school. To date, the effects of such
environmental factors on creativity across cultures have not been
systematically examined.
Many social and environmental factors either support or stifle
creative potential and development of creative expression. Re-
search on creativity development should attempt to answer the
question of who becomes creative. We know that occupational
creativity in middle age is related to recalled artistic and intellec-
tual interests in childhood (Helson, Roberts, & Agronick, 1995).
However, we do not know what percentage of children with artistic
and intellectual interests achieves occupational creativity. It is
likely that many or most creative paleontologists were interested in
dinosaurs as children, but it is equally likely that most children
who are interested in dinosaurs do not become paleontologists.
What are the differences between those children whose early
artistic and intellectual interests grow into adult creative achieve-
ment and those who become relatively more conventional? Are
these developmental processes different for boys and girls, espe-
cially in the gender stereotyped domains of mathematics and
science?
Developmental research will also have to address the path to
domain specialization in creativity. Several models proposed de-
velopment of creativity from early relatively general trait ex-
pressed in everyday behavior to increasingly domain-specific be-
havior (Ivcevic & Mayer, 2006; Kaufman & Beghetto, in press). If
we were to study children nominated as creative by their teachers
or parents, what creative behaviors and interests would we see at
different ages? Do future creative scientists and engineers take
apart toys and gadgets before they understand their inner work-
ings? What environmental obstacles prevent early creative poten-
tial from developing and what environmental supports promote
development of creativity?
Conclusions
What is the role of creativity theory? In this paper I argued that
each study should start with a definition of creativity and situate
the research in relation to this definition. In particular it is impor-
tant to distinguish between creative potential (i.e., traits and abil-
ities that make creativity possible) and creative behavior or
achievement (i.e., observable expressions of creative potential).
Creativity expressed in behavior and achievement is a product of
creative potential in personality and cognition, which interact with
the immediate situation and an implicit situation or larger culture.
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Received November 3, 2008
Revision received December 1, 2008
Accepted December 2, 2008
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