CHAPTER 10
INNOVATION AND THE CREATION OF IDEAS
The cornerstone of innovation is creativity: the process by which humans generate
new ideas. Any desire to promote innovation must necessarily speak to how we can be
more intentional and supportive of this process. We must therefore turn see what scholars
have to say about creativity. Surprisingly, the study of creativity is a relatively recent
addition to the research agenda in psychology. Except for some notable attempts early in
the 20th Century, the study of creativity was conspicuously absent within psychology until
the 1960s. As experimental psychology began to emerge as a legitimate academic
discipline after 1900, empirical studies of perception, learning, and memory proliferated.
But as the Century progressed and Behaviorism came to exert hegemony over
psychology, deeper interest in the nature of mind and the study of thinking were kept
under a bushel.
As mentioned previously, the radical position espoused by leading Behaviorists,
such a John Watson and B. F. Skinner, was that Mind was not a legitimate topic for
scientific investigation, despite what Professor James had to say in his 1890 masterpiece.1
The mindless psychology movement was a product of an over zealous attempt to place
psychology on sound scientific footing. Psychology has always been self-conscious about
its status as a science. The Behaviorists’ strategy for overcoming the discipline's self-
doubt was to obsess over observational objectivity. The aim was for psychology to be
more chemistry and astronomy than alchemy and astrology. The Behaviorists’ passion for
avoiding the chimerical world of mental states was justified as a noble attempt to emulate
physics, the quintessential science. Ironically, the physics that Behaviorists sought to
emulate, Newtonian Mechanics, had already been transformed into the highly inferential
New Age physics of relativity and quantum mechanics. Electrons, quanta, wave-particle
dualities, cats that were simultaneously dead and alive, and four-dimensional space-time
continua were no more observable than ids, egos, or superegos.
Fortunately, the icy grip of Behaviorism began to thaw as psychology began to go
cognitive. Riding a growing tide of respectable mentalism, catalyzed by the advent of the
electronic computer, creativity attained legitimacy as a scientific topic within psychology
and other cognitive sciences. Nancy Andreasen, a leading creativity scholar, describes the
pivotal moment as when J. P. Guilford delivered his Presidential address to the American
Psychological Association in 1950. He offered a clarion call for the scientific study of
creativity proclaiming that the ability of individuals to generate novel ideas was for too
long ignored and must be on the agenda of modern psychology.2
Today there exists an extensive literature on creativity reflecting a vibrant and
diverse field of study. This broad based enterprise emphasizes psychology, but it also
captures the role of biological, social, and cultural forces from perspectives beyond
traditional psychology. Research in psychology is organized around three broad
strategies. First is a deep interest in psychometric analysis of creativity. These studies
attempt to develop tests that ‘measure’ creativity in individuals that can then be related to
measures of personality, intelligence and other attributes that distinguish people. A
second strategy involves case studies. The goal here is to find individuals who have
demonstrated extraordinary creativity and determine what they are or were like, which
attributes they share with other highly creative thinkers, and how they went about
creating novel ideas. As with the psychometric approach, the emphasis of case studies is
on discovering and describing correlations between expressions of creativity and factors
presumably responsible for that creativity. The third strategy relies on methods and
conceptual tools of modern experimental psychology and cognitive science. The goal of
these studies is to go beyond correlations in order to discover causal relationships that can
lead to explanations of creativity within the context of modern theories of cognition.
Notable within the psychometric approach to creativity is the pioneering research
of Lewis Terman begun early in the 20th Century. Terman contributed broadly and
significantly to the growing American interest in intelligence. Most pertinent to creativity
is his landmark project launched in 1921.3 This longitudinal study tracked a group of
children for several decades. The subjects of interest were boys and girls, quaintly labeled
‘the Termites’, with IQs over 135. Realize that an average IQ is 100 and less than 2% of
the population has an IQ over 135. The Termites were thought to be very, very smart.
Terman’s expectation was that these kid geniuses would grow into exceptional adults and
leave behind a trail of creative contributions. The higher one’s intelligence, the higher
one’s creativity seemed a reasonable assumption.4
Surprisingly, the data showed something different. As Andreasen summarizes:
“… as the cohort matured, its members did not produce a significant number of creative
individuals.”5 There were some exceptional achievers among the group, but certainly not
enough to affirm any causal linkage between intelligence and creativity. Subsequent
research has clearly established that intelligence and creativity are not the same. Creative
individuals are not necessarily very intelligent, and very intelligent individuals are not
necessarily very creative. In other words, creativity is not merely expressed intelligence;
although, there seems to be agreement that the very creative among us are smart if not
exceptionally so. An IQ of 120 is about enough cognitive capital to leave a creative mark
on the world, but IQ points beyond 120 do not add much. This fact has important
implications for promoting innovation, especially through education.
If creativity, as the capacity to generate novel ideas, is not merely an expression
of general intelligence, then how are we to understand why some individuals are more
creative than others? The case study and experimental approaches are valuable here, but
modern psychometrics also offers insights. Rather than looking at creativity as it relates
to general intelligence, contemporary approaches conceive of creativity as itself a kind of
intelligence. Howard Gardner and Robert Sternberg have helped pioneer the idea that
intelligence is not one, monolithic ability but rather several different abilities. Gardner
favors eight intelligences and Sternberg opts for three.6 They agree, however, that each
aptitude must be assessed through a targeted test. The familiar IQ tests, which measure
general intelligence, do not accurately assess creative intelligence. The latter requires a
test that measures how well people respond to novel situations, rather than one that
exposes how well they manage well-structured problems, vocabulary levels, memory
capacity, or spatial ability. Today there exist a number of popular tests of creativity, and
considerable attention is now on relating measures from those instruments to other
attributes of creative individuals. Although it is no doubt valuable, the psychometric
approach is still limited to uncovering variables that correlate with creativity rather than
revealing cognitive mechanisms responsible for creativity.
The case study approach similarly attacks the question of creativity in terms of
correlations. The assumption is that by studying individuals deemed creative, dead or
alive, we can gain insights into what makes some people more creative than others. But
again we must proceed with caution. There are limits to what case studies can tell us.
Many assumptions are not sufficiently recognized or clarified, and we need to appreciate
how easy it is to do a bad case study.
In order to pursue a case study of creativity, it is necessary to first identify
creative individuals, which depends on the ability to identify creative acts. The latter is
not easy. True creativity entails more than merely novel ideas. To be labeled creative, an
idea must be somehow significant, important, or of value; ascriptions that depend on
some form of judgment. Margarett Boden, one of the first cognitive scientists to tackle
creativity, offers some important insights into this basic issue in her classic, The Creative
Mind.7 She first distinguishes two types of creativity: Personal and Historical. The former
refers to those instances whereby individuals generate ideas that are novel to themselves;
the ideas that we as individuals have never had before. Although novel to us, our ideas
may not be of significant value to the public square, or they may not be novel with
respect to the history of ideas. How many times have you generated a great idea only to
discover that someone beat you to it? The other type of creativity, Historical Creativity,
entails ideas generally acknowledged by others to be important, profound, or significant.
The innovations we celebrate as clever ideas represent historical creativity. If it
were just a matter of generating novel ideas, then hell we are all creative. Every new
thought I generate is an act of creativity, but most of my creativity goes unnoticed,
thankfully. I once had the idea of building a gigantic unattached ring encircling the earth
some 500 feet above the ground. Attached to the ring would be ropes with comfortable
handles hanging within reach of the ground. One could venture to where a rope was
dangling, grab on, and as the earth below moved one could travel to a new location. Let
us not bother unpacking the ridiculous assumptions behind this idea; I was only seven
when my Eureka moment struck. My point is that creativity is more than having a novel
idea; it has to be an idea that matters to others.
The obvious challenge here is to determine who gets to define an idea as
sufficiently valuable to qualify as creative and by which criteria. Here we can benefit
from the work of another leading scholar in creativity, Professor Csikszentmihalyi. Now,
if you need a creative name as a prerequisite to getting into the creativity business,
Professor C has set the bar quite high. His work is equally noteworthy.8 He has been
especially effective is using the case study approach to develop a theoretical framework
with which to understand the process of creativity. With respect to identifying ideas
reflecting historical creativity, he emphasizes the critical role of context and timing.
Many ideas that we now generally accept as being very creative ascended to that status
over time. In some cases the ascension took a very long time, and often it occurred well
after the idea’s creator became one with the earth. Great acts of creativity are not
necessarily recognized as such upon arrival.
The temporal lag in creativity is easily observed in the arts. Many artists, their
works, and their entire style were met with scorn and rejected with extreme prejudice
when first introduced. Henri Matisse, who today is regaled as one of the best painters of
all time, helped introduce Fauvism in 1905. Recall that the appellation derives from
Fauve, the French word for wild beast, which is consonant with the public’s initial
outrage when the style first appeared. Leonard Shlain aptly captures that reaction: “ The
Fauvists assault on the senses led one critic to warn pregnant women to stay away from
the exhibition because he believed the paintings were so disorienting they could possibly
cause a miscarriage.”9 Seems that Henri was on to one hell of an idea. Cubism similarly
evoked invectives when introduced by Picaso and Braque early in the 20th Century.10
In my own lifetime I witnessed the emergence of Pop Art, with its ready-mades,
exploitation of advertizing logos, and prolific use of cultural icons and celebrity images
as content staples. The reaction of the general public was at first derision, but try buying
one of Lichtenstein’s comic book offerings and report back on whether his crazy idea
possesses value today. Great artists have been dissatisfied giving the public what it wants
and have instead fought to give it new wants. Many ideas in art that initially provoked
disdain are today displayed in prominent museums and sell for prices that defy reason.
Were my father alive, he would be dumfounded, and probably a little pissed off, that a
Warhol self-portrait fetched over $38,000,000 at auction.11 The lesson here is that ideas
are not creative by their inherent nature; it is how the idea is judged to matter that
determines whether or not it qualifies as creative. And judgments can change over time.
In some cases, however, an idea arrives that is self-evidently creative by virtue of
how quickly and how profoundly it assumes value. Cases of near instant acclaim are at
the heart of innovation. For example, the iPhone is regarded by most as a very creative
device and has been so from its introduction. The entire panoply of ideas generated under
the Apple rubric has earned Steve Jobs admission into the pantheon of modern super-
creators. Reference to Steve Jobs illustrates another dimension of historical creativity
linked to innovation. How much of what an iPhone is can be attributed to design ideas
emanating from the mind of Steve Jobs? Especially with creativity attached to complex
technology, personal credit can rarely be assigned exclusively to one person. Individual
creativity and invention are nurtured by others also engaged with those ideas, sometimes
beyond the awareness or acknowledgement of the individual given most of the credit.
Yet, despite the designers and engineers who may have contributed to what the iPhone,
iPod, and iPad are, it is the idea of these devices, not their ultimate manifestation or
detailed structure, that attaches accolades of creativity to Jobs. It is as a creative
entrepreneur that Jobs is to be celebrated, a point that will be revisited. For now
appreciate that Jobs was especially effective in pushing ideas. The creative essence of the
Apple II technology owes more to Wozniak the engineer than Jobs the entrepreneur, but
the spread of the Apple II as a great idea is credited to Jobs. To reiterate, in order to
understand innovation it is necessary to appreciate both idea creation and idea adoption.
Returning to historical creativity, Professor C offers a formal schema by which to
understand the process of social judgment essential to understanding extraordinary acts of
creativity. His approach relies on a systems model in which three critical components
interact. Individuals contribute ideas within a Domain: a well-defined knowledge
structure. Recall the Idea Space concept of Richard Ogle I introduced earlier. Domains
are well structured in that they consist of symbolic rules by which ideas, concepts,
theories, and schemas are connected and organized. A creative idea functions in one of
three ways: it significantly changes a Domain by adding some powerful new idea; it
changes a Domain by restructuring existing ideas within the Domain; or it establishes an
entirely new Domain.
Each Domain has a set of ‘overseers’ who adjudicate the process by which ideas
are proclaimed creative: a Field of experts. The Field is composed of those respected as
being knowledgeable about a particular Domain. In some cases they are credentialed. A
PhD in physics qualifies one to judge ideas in physics. Each domain sets its criteria for
the acceptable credentials and qualifications to judge creativity, which include areas such
as music and art in which expertise is often self-proclaimed or indirect; every critic and
every consumer of art offers a judgment that contributes to shaping the creative standards
in the arts.12
In specialized fields, as opposed to major cultural contributions associated with
innovative consumer technologies, the Field serves as the jury and usually does so tacitly.
There are usually no annual evaluation meetings at which new ideas within a Domain are
formally vetted and hierarchically ordered with respect to creativity. There are, however,
some social conventions whereby members of a Field do select from among the most
creative ideas in order to honor a particular standout; i.e., Pulitzer awards, Noble Prizes,
etc. The key criterion is the degree to which an idea matters to a particular Domain.
In many cases the Domain is well defined and can be partitioned into sub-
domains. For example, science as a whole is a Domain, but physics, geology,
anthropology, psychology and other disciplines are themselves sub-domains. Similarly,
journalism, apparel, and the music industry are domains. Each domain has it own rule-
governed process, implicit or explicit, by which the label creative is bestowed on worthy
ideas, but in all cases a creative idea must be more than novel.
In some cases the Domain is expansive and might include an entire culture. So,
while we defer to experts to tell us which ideas in physics are most creative, we
consumers ‘vote’ on the relative creativity of a new product or service by merely
purchasing it. We do not need experts to tell us that the personal computer is one hell of a
creative idea, as is true for television, the automobile, and many other technologies that
have transformed individual lives and entire cultures. Implicit in all of this is the principle
that for an idea to be regarded as a case of historical creativity, it must be recognized as
such. When we speak of innovations, we are speaking about ideas that, by virtue of their
broad adoption, have passed the threshold to be deemed historically creative.
Although case studies have contributed much to our understanding of creativity,
there are some caveats. It is worth mentioning here Francis Galton’s Hereditary Genius,
published a decade after his half-cousin Charles Darwin published Origin of Species.13
The book summarized Galton’s case-study analysis of ‘famous people’ and concluded
that genius runs in families; talent is in the blood. It was the first shot in the nature-
nurture controversy that referenced empirical evidence. A great many philosophers had
previously offered views on the role of nature and nurture, but the likes of Adam Smith,
David Hume, Thomas Hobbs, Jacque Rousseau, and other notable humanists had
proffered their personal observations without rigorous empirical evidence.
Despite his empirical approach, Galton’s research reveals just how difficult it is to
engage in postmortem analysis of creativity. His book consists of a list of hereditary
lineages of famous personalities. One problem is that the research is too vulnerable to
interpretational bias: Galton’s prejudices regarding the hereditary foundation of genius.
He just might have been looking for evidence for what he already believed. His
methodology in this and his subsequent books has led some to criticize the flawed
sampling techniques he used and the resulting spurious correlations it produced. Be that
as it may, I am more interested in the radioactive dimension of his conclusions, which
have in the minds of many earned him status as enfant terrible in the social sciences. He
is credited with launching what has been a long and persistent ‘debate’ over how much of
what we are is the product of nature and how much is due to nurture. Although
Shakespeare may have introduced the nature-nurture phrase, Galton popularized it as a
major theme in psychology; one that has been preeminent for the past century and a half.
And the nature-nurture debate is pertinent to the question of what produces creativity.
Where Galton accrued his harshest critics is in his efforts to apply his conclusions.
Galton took a strong nature position: geniuses are born, which we can extrapolate to
creativity is innate. He coined the word eugenics and outlined the key ingredients of a
social movement that sought to control the quality of society by controlling human
breeding. If you are looking for a case study of how ideas matter, here it is. As with the
concept of Social Darwinism, the concept of eugenics is often unfurled as the first assault
on any position that embodies or merely hints at a nature bias.
Not surprisingly, there is a sharp asymmetry to the nature-nurture controversy,
which contributes to the level of acrimony surrounding the debate. The strongest
emotional reactions and most flamboyant vituperations are targeted against the nature
position. The arguments and counter-arguments often generate more heat than light. It is
the kind of intellectual controversy that symbolizes Francis Bacon’s contention that the
human mind is not inherently rational.14 Professional scholars, public intellectuals, and
general citizens similarly engage the topic of nature-nurture guided more by prejudice,
anxiety, and anger than reason. It is no surprise that the ideas encompassed by the nature-
nurture controversy elicit strong visceral reactions that debase the debates into mere
shouting matches.
Perhaps it is the American mythical impulse toward egalitarianism that sensitizes
people to claims, actual or inferred, that some part of what we are is the result of what we
bring into the world as biological specimens. We do not like the idea that some might
have a head start. The public reaction to Herrnstein’s and Murray’s The Bell Curve,
which appeared in 1994, is telling.15 I have met many scholars who hold the authors in
contempt and reject what they assume is the message of the book, despite not having read
it. Apparently, they could more or less smell the argument in the title. The old
omniscience of the PhD surfaces again! We academics often believe we know more than
we actually know; a condemnation we are wont to hurl at the general public.
It is not just ideas that inflame antipathy, but so too do the people who proffer
them. A number of scholars who have attempted to argue for nature’s influence have
been vilified and have become the target of violent scorn within and outside of academe.
In launching Sociobiology, E. O. Wilson, like Herrenstein and Murray, received a tidal
wave of disrespect after publicizing ideas that his opponents concluded, based on
something between careful reading and clairvoyance, were unduly enthusiastic about the
influence of our biological nature.16 Among our most formidable enemies are those we
invent, and imagined ideas can generate as much fear as anything found in the real world.
Interestingly, the more recent appearance of evolutionary psychology has begun
to accrue a more widespread tolerance for the nature position than Sociobiology could
ever muster, but there are still plenty of hostile naysayers; there are many who are
ardently against something that they can name but not articulate. There are also credible
voices encouraging a rethinking of the sources of talent. From Malcolm Gladwell’s
Outliers to David Schenk’s The Genus in All of Us, modern authors are offering
provocative arguments and evidence that experience, luck, and hard work seem to explain
a great deal of where the sources of talent and creativity can be found.17 Of course, if you
want to find evidence of people holding a strong prejudice for nature, talk with parents
who have been told that their children are gifted. The nature-nurture debate over the
sources of creativity continues, but there is little likelihood that we will learn much about
why some people are more creative than others by sifting through their genes.
On a personal note, well before The Bell Curve appeared I had the opportunity to
meet Professor Herrnstein. He had built a career in psychology as a card-carrying
Skinnerian. He even discovered an important Law of Conditioning. I could not have
encountered a more humble, kind, and warm individual. He was a true gentleman-
scholar, and he was immensely generous to a very young academic. Yet, I had a
conversation with a social scientist after The Bell Curve appeared during which my
colleague not only condemned the book but suggested as well that Herrnestein was Hitler
reincarnate. Of course, he never met Herrnstein, and he had not actually read the book.
Oh yes ideas matter, and they mater in ways far more complicated and significant than
can be discerned from the ideas themselves.
Let us return to case studies of creativity. In his book Creativity: Flow and the
Psychology of Discovery and Invention, Professor C describes a process for conducting a
solid case-study of creativity.18 His research relies on careful analysis of extensive
interviews of individuals deemed creative. In describing how the individuals were chosen
and what they were asked, one comes to understand how to complete a rigorous living
case study. Others have used credible historical case studies to uncover principles of
creative minds. With careful constraint, the analysis of erstwhile individuals can add
significant value to our understanding of creativity. D. K. Simonton’s Origins of Genius
and Richard Ogle’s Smart World illustrate the value of the approach.19 The latter is
particularly pertinent to innovation. Ogle uses the case study method to analyze
celebrated innovations and the innovators behind them in order to derive theoretical
principles of the innovation process.
Case studies and psychometric approaches concentrate on molar aspects of
creativity. In contrast, experimental approaches adopt reductionist analyses of
psychological processes presumed to be involved in creativity. Several different
strategies exist within the experimental perspective. One approach, called creative
cognition, takes advantage of what is known about cognition to ask very detailed
questions about how minds generate novel ideas. One of the implicit assumptions of
creative cognition is that creativity is a process shared by all of us; it is not something
abnormal or an ability imbued in the minds of some but not all. Creativity is not a gift. In
that respect, these studies focus on what Margaret Boden calls Psychological Creativity,
in contrast to Historical Creativity.
Research on creative cognition is of inherent value to the study of mind and offers
some important insights into the processes that produce novel ideas. The Geneplore
Model guides much of this research.20 The basic concept behind this model (the
neologism is a contraction of generate-explore) is that our minds generate candidate ideas
that we then further explore for creative potential. The generative and exploratory
processes involve a number of basic cognitive functions such as perceptual organization,
memory retrieval, conceptual synthesis, imagery manipulation, use of metaphors, and
others. Accordingly, creativity is not viewed as some magical process that transcends
basic thinking. Rather, creative ideas, which by definition are novel and therefore
abnormal, result from the quite normal processes of cognition. Although we may not be
able to predict the ideas themselves, we can explain the process by which they arrive.
As an example of research in this field, consider a simple study by a leading
creative cognition investigator, Thomas Ward. He was interested in how subjects are
influenced by information in their memories when asked to create new ideas. For
example, subjects were asked to draw and describe an imaginary animal living on a
planet very different from earth. The key finding was that the imagined animals were
highly structured and composed of features derived from real, remembered animals. Most
imagined critters possessed the bilateral symmetry we see in nature: bodily structures in
which the right side mirrors the left side. The imaginary animals also had at least one
typical sense organ (an eye or an ear) and some kind of appendage (a wing or a leg).21
What this simple study tells us is that in the process of generating a novel idea we
are influenced by ideas we already have. This finding may not seem provocative, but it
reflects an important principle of the creative process: you can only work with what you
have. That principle should serve as a warning to those seeking to be creative. One of the
sad ironies of modern times is that many youthful minds so wanting to be creative fail to
do the hard work. They are unwilling or unable to recognize that they have deficiencies in
their knowledge either in terms of formal education or raw experience. One expression of
that tendency involves attitudes toward higher education. I am especially distressed when
I hear aspiring art students disparage science or when I witness science students express
their disdain for the arts and humanities. Students passionate about their desire to write
need to know something in order to write something worth reading. Creativity is not a
mere impulse, and you cannot know too much. We cannot allow the next generation to
think that it is all about finding your muse, nor can we allow them to embrace the
penchant to explain creativity as inexplicable genius. Ignorance does not fuel creativity;
learning does not blunt a creative mind. We educators and parents contribute to the
problem when we capitulate and accept unbalanced curricula, at any level of education
including college. As Kris Kimel, founder of the IdeaFestival in Kentucky, is wont to say
‘there is no such thing as useless knowledge.’
So, the kinds of findings by creative cognition researchers are especially
important in separating fact from fiction in the realm of creativity. Too many self-help
books on creativity are more content to spin magical tales than accept empirical reality.
Ward and his colleagues have taken many small steps, and as the research findings
continue to accumulate important insights will emerge in understanding both the general
nature of cognition as well as the processes responsible for novel ideas.
This claim also says something about the general nature of scientific analysis;
progress in science usually occurs one small step at a time. Science has been the single
most important creative force in civilization, and we can glean much of value about
creativity by reflecting on the scientific enterprise. For instance, rarely does science serve
up a revolutionary discovery. Most of the success in science is attributed to the gradual
accumulation of knowledge gained through hard work, rigorous commitment to detail,
and constant reflection of what is gained through each small step. It requires persistence,
patience, and discipline. Yes, there are moments when giant leaps occur. Kuhn’s concept
of paradigmatic revolution captures the principle that major bursts in scientific progress
do occur. These revolutions fundamentally revise conceptual frameworks dominating a
domain.22 But revolutionary moments in science are rare and depend on the slow
evolution of knowledge. So, if you want to be a creative success by doing something easy
or by avoiding learning too much, then do not become a scientist. Sadly, many seem to be
heeding this advice. There is shrinking interest in science majors and too many students
fail to recognize science as career for those wanting to be creative. And that is ironic.
The nature of creativity in science applies to creativity in general. Eureka
moments have occurred, but they are extremely rare. Especially with respect to
innovative ideas, the path to achievement is more often one of blood, sweat, and tears. As
supported by the collective insights derived from creativity research, many less exotic
factors beyond Plato’s divine inspiration underlie human creativity.
Another very productive research perspective within the experimental approach is
identified with Teresa Amabile; one of the most highly regarded scholars in the field. She
published the first edition of her The Social Psychology of Creativity in 1983.23 This book
summarized findings and described a conceptual framework for examining creativity as a
social phenomenon. As such, her approach considers a broader perspective; one that
intentionally links personal cognition with social forces that shape and constrain
individual minds. Similar to creative cognition, research in this area relies on
experimental methods, but it also incorporates other social science tools and focuses on
social and cultural variables involved in creativity.
Her more recent Creativity in Context is an excellent foundation for those wanting
to know what science has to say about creativity.24 It also serves as an excellent guide to
the intricacies of both the empirical (e.g., measurement of creativity) and theoretical (e.g.,
models of creativity) aspects of doing research on creativity. Amabile is especially
effective in synthesizing results across a large body of research that has examined such
variables as intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation, birth order, loss of a parent, the
facilitating and inhibiting effects of thinking in groups, and the impact of expectancies
about evaluation.
Her theoretical contribution includes an emphasis on distinguishing three
components of creative performance. Domain Relevant Skills include knowledge
associated with a particular domain and one's talent level in managing that knowledge.
These skills depend upon innate cognitive factors as well as formal education and
informal experience. Creativity-Relevant Skills include cognitive style, facility with using
heuristics pertinent to a given domain, and general work habits; skills that depend on
training, general experience with creative challenges, as well as personality factors.
Finally, Task Motivation encompasses attitudes toward a particular challenge as well as
awareness of one's own motivation. These attributes depend on intrinsic motivation as
well as external forces that induce extrinsic motivation. The model itself emphasizes the
variables pertinent to each component as well as the ways in which the three components
interact in order to explain creative performance.
Yet another stream within the experimental approach to creativity emphasizes
metaphorical thinking. I have already mentioned the work of Lakoff & and Johnson,
Metaphors We Live By.25 The idea of a ‘hot topic’ makes sense to us metaphorically. Our
bodily experiences with temperature, ranging from sweating under a hot sun to grabbing
the handle of a pot from the stove, offer experiences that we can then use to attach
meaning to the abstract idea of a hot topic. Hot ideas, like hot liquids, entail higher levels
of energy, greater activity, more potential to stimulate action. By relying on metaphors
we use the known to imagine the unknown, which is a central aspect of being creative.
A focus on the study of metaphors may afford a good opportunity to overcome a
major challenge for creativity research. Experimental research has focused on personal or
‘Small c’ creativity, whereas the kind of creativity that gains the spotlight is historical or
‘Big C’ creativity. The latter is difficult if not impossible to analyze with any method of
inquiry. Boden actually suggests that Big C creativity may remain forever a mystery.26 It
entails the production of ideas that are so unexpected, surprising, and unpredictable that
the process by which those ideas are generated may not be amenable to scientific
scrutiny. Big C creativity may forever be limited to retrospective explanations and
speculation. Although we might be able to make sense of what has occurred, we may
never be able to predict what will occur.
We should not, however, prematurely accept this limitation. As the mind sciences
progress, and as studies in all areas of creativity forge ahead, unanticipated insights into
Big C creativity may emerge. The embodied cognition perspective in particular may be
sufficiently rich to spawn an understanding of Small c creativity that ultimately captures
insights into Big C creativity.
One extension of the embodied cognition perspective that has considerable
potential to advance understanding of creative thinking of all kinds is the theoretical
proposal offered by Fauconnier and Turner in their book The Way We Think.27 In contrast
to the research emphasis on core mental functions, such as learning, memory, and
problem solving, these authors elaborate a conceptual framework that focuses on
conceptual blending of metaphors especially those that derive from sensory-motor
experience. In contrast to theories of cognition framed in terms of formal structure,
algorithms, and axiomatic approaches to meaning, conceptual blending emphasizes
unconscious processes especially identity (the coffee cup you periodically put to your lips
is the same cup each time you drink from it); integration (the complex matrix of neuronal
activation on your retina instantly coheres into your recognition of your coffee cup as
distinct from the other visual stimulation concurrently available, such as the table and
your hand); and imagination (your seemingly effortless ability to think of your coffee cup
in the teeth of burning giraffe, a thought that has no real world referent). These
unconscious, emergent biological processes percolating in our connectomes undergird
our conscious experience of meaning.
Like other scholars, these researchers assert that “creative thinking is clearly part
of ordinary thinking.”28 All thinking, including creativity, involves a single operation that
is the same across all individuals; i.e., the minds of creative people do not function
differently than the minds of those less creative. Also, our minds are not doing something
uniquely different when creating new ideas than what occurs when we find our way out
of our bedroom and go to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. Creativity is not an App
available only for geniuses. We are all creative, and the process, if not the substance, of
creative thinking emanates from a quite normal process shared by the entire species.
Our capacity to conjure a new idea by combining ideas we already have is an act
of metaphorical blending. Guided by this broad theoretical framework, research on
conceptual blending now concentrates on discovering key principles and developing
appropriate models that have the potential to make sense of the processes that underlie
my simplistic claim that ‘creativity involves generating new ideas by combining old
ideas.’ If successful, this complex area of inquiry may illuminate what currently remains
a mystery, including the very meaning of ideas themselves.
All of the experimental approaches above share a focus on understanding how
minds create ideas. There is yet another experimental perspective that is important to
understanding creativity but one that adopts a very different focus. Rather than analyzing
how minds create ideas, it concentrates on failed creativity: factors that inhibit or obstruct
creativity. A classic phenomenon in this arena is functional fixedness, pioneered by Karl
Duncker.29 In these studies subjects are given problems to solve that do not have obvious
or easy solutions. In the example depicted in Figure 1, you find yourself in a room
containing a table upon which there is a cardboard box of thumbtacks, a candle, and a
book of matches. Your task is to affix the candle to one of the walls and light it before the
room goes completely dark.
Figure 1.
Another example involves a crime scene in which a man is found hanging from a rafter
suspended 3 ft above the floor. There is a small pool of liquid below him. What
happened?
In both situations researches are not interested in whether a subject discovers a
correct solution but rather in the thought process they use in seeking a solution.
Accordingly, participants in these studies are asked to ‘think out loud’ as they go about
trying to solve the problem. Now, when you actually do this kind of experiment with
college students, which I do when teaching introductory psychology, you first hear a lot
of what I would kindly call ‘dumb-ass solutions’ such as “well, I would light the match,
melt the bottom of the candle and stick it on the wall.” Try attaching a long candle to a
wall by melting its bottom surface.
The answer to the candle problem, of course, is that you empty the thumbtacks
from the box, use a couple of tacks to stick the box to the wall creating a small shelf upon
which you place the candle which you then light. And of course, the other problem is
explained as a suicide; a man with a rope around his neck that was attached to a an
overhead beam stood on a large block of ice until it melted. Again, researchers are not
interested in the answers but rather in how people try to get an answer. The classic
finding is that among those who do not solve the candle problem, their primary obstacle
is not seeing the cardboard box as a potential shelf. They become 'functionally fixated' in
seeing the box only as a container or even more concretely, they see thumbtacks but do
not ‘see’ the box as a separate entity. In order to solve the problem, in order to be creative
in this situation, one must escape this functional fixedness and come to see the box as a
potential shelf.
James Adams frames his self-help guidebook to better ideas in terms of this
phenomenon.30 He argues that the path to new ideas, creativity, depends on what he terms
Conceptual Blockbusting, which entails the many perceptual, emotional, cognitive, as
well as cultural and environmental 'blocks’ that inhibit conceptualizing new ideas. The
key culprit is commitment to consistency. "Habits are often inconsistent with creativity.
Creativity implies deviance from past procedure; habits are consistent with it."31 Because
creativity places a premium on being able to break away from normal patterns, you have
to be a bit of a cognitive maverick, somewhat 'abnormal', a nonconformist.
Interestingly, these attributes conflict with core attributes of being a political
conservative, which raises an interesting question: Are conservatives less creative than
liberals? Now there is a friendly question that has no potential to arouse debate! I fear to
say anything here, but I cannot resist mentioning that there actually is some direct
evidence in support of the idea. Stephen Dollinger has reported that among
undergraduates, conservative students scored lower on creativity measures than liberals
even when controlling for openness and verbal ability.32 Admittedly, we could use much
more research on the question, and we especially need to examine real creativity;
thinking that takes place by people in the real world well beyond the confines of a
psychology subject pool. It is also imperative to ask the question with respect to specific
situations rather than general assessment of creativity. I imagine that there are plenty of
successful conservative entrepreneurs who regularly express considerable creativity; the
kind that garners substantial wealth. Humans are especially good at compartmentalizing.
We can be conservative in one aspect of our lives and liberal in another; we can admire
some of our habits while escaping others.
Beyond the experimental psychology of creative thinking, much has been learned
by both historical analysis of idea creation and the natural history of ideas deemed to be
creative. As examples, Steven Johnson’s Where Good Ideas Come From, Richard Ogle’s
Smart World, and Frans Johansson’s The Medici Effect describe general principles of
creativity that have produced innovations.33 The natural history of innovations
emphasizes the importance of structural features of existing knowledge that promote the
development of innovative ideas. The authors above argue that the real action is at the
intersections of domains, fields, or idea spaces. Once again we confront the importance of
knowing; without knowing there is no chance of being creative. To be at an intersection
of domains one needs sufficient knowledge of those domains and the ability to connect
ideas from within them. It is tautological that without domain-specific knowledge, it is
impossible to generate ideas that transcend the boundaries between domains.
Johansson distinguishes new ideas that emerge within fields, directional ideas,
from those that combine ideas between multiple fields, intersectional ideas.34 The latter
are associated with Big Ideas, those that spur highly consequential innovation. Each of
these three books is necessary reading for anyone interested in understanding innovation.
The framework conveyed by these authors is especially pertinent to our need to realign
formal education. To be intentional about innovation is to recognize the vital connections
between learning and creativity, which should inform our curricula and the nature of
teaching and learning. Sadly, that remains but a hopeful aspiration; higher education is
especially immune to the real needs of the thinking world.
Steven Johnson's Where Good Ideas Come From is especially apposite for those
willing to contemplate the big picture of innovation as a topic worthy of scholarly
engagement.35 His scope is broad both in terms of the timeframe and the array of
innovative ideas he examines. I found most valuable his perspective, which far exceeds
the typical analysis of the creative process underlying innovation. For example, Arthur
Koestler's The Act of Creation is heralded as one of the classic books on creativity.36 In
contemplating the shared aspects of the creative enterprise among art, science, and
humor, Koestler points in the direction embraced by modern cognitive science, which
asserts that creativity is creativity regardless of the domain it entails. Unlike Koestler,
however, and more in line with psychologist Tersa Amabile, Johnson importunes us to
extend analysis of the creative process to include the information environment in which
creators function. Both the city and the worldwide web comprise that environment for us
today, and each is intimately linked to the minds of creators. The environment is
therefore responsible, in part, for what those minds create. In my terms, creativity entails
at least one individual mind connected to the public square, and both the mind and the
public square should be credited for the arrival of new ideas. Impressive acts of creation
reflect a creative system more than a creative individual. Smart minds detached from the
world are not that smart and are rarely creative. By placing the emphasis on innovative
systems, Johnson provides an invaluable framework with which to better understand the
variables that influence creativity pertinent to innovation.
There is one final issue I want to mention. Given the extreme, almost desperate,
urgency to promote creativity across the full spectrum of modern work, there is an
understandable desire to find ways to teach creativity. I have participated in formal panel
discussions that have engaged this very question: Can creativity be taught? My answer is
no, which will probably annoy or even enrage many of you. Despite a vast literature in
psychology that represents impressive progress in understanding creative thinking,
despite real advances on the topic shown by other mind sciences, despite the development
of credible techniques for fostering, supporting, and catalyzing creativity, and despite a
robust self-help industry that proclaims differently, I maintain that teaching creativity is
currently beyond our ken.
Let me make my case. Consider what it is to teach content knowledge, say
history. A teacher can select the content to be transferred to the wanting mind of a
motivated student and do things that actually inspire learning; they can actually teach that
content. Perhaps by lecturing, employing Socratic questioning, or merely answering
questions, a teacher can indeed teach history. Such a teacher serves a causal role in
creating knowledge in the mind of a student.
Now consider what it is to teach tennis. A coach can explain the rules of the game
and the basic physical actions used to play tennis; they can demonstrate how to serve, hit
a forehand, approach the net, and use the lob and drop shot, etc. As the student acquires
this procedural knowledge, a coach can also help the student refine her performance. By
providing critical feedback and guidance during careful monitoring of the student's
performance, coaches coach. So, yes one can teach tennis.
The question is can one do anything like a history teacher does or a tennis coach
does to help someone 'learn to be creative'? Consider what is involved in creativity and
compare that to the declarative knowledge accrued in learning history or the procedural
knowledge acquired in learning tennis. When an individual mind creates, it generates an
idea not previously represented in that mind by combining ideas that are already present.
Now, clearly learning is required for creativity to the extent that one must learn the ideas
that end up being combined in forming a new idea. But the accumulation of those ideas is
simply acquisition of knowledge. Any teaching involved in history or tennis entails
attaining knowledge, declarative or procedural, but the creative act itself is something
else. The ideas that are combined to create a new idea can be taught, but the process of
creating a new idea eludes a level of understanding that makes it possible to teach
someone how to create an idea. Knowing variables that might influence creativity and
understanding conditions that promote creativity is useful, but it is not the same as
teaching the process by which an individual actually combines ideas. No one knows how
to do that.
I say that we have no idea of what is actually occurring when we create. When
each of us does it, we simply do it, but trying to introspect and explain to yourself what
you did when you created an idea is a fool’s errand. We do not 'know' what it feels like to
create. I ‘know’ what it feels like to hit a tennis ball, and I can indirectly convey that to
someone as I help him or her learn to play tennis. It may be difficult, but I can put into
words what it feels like to swing a racket in a particular way, what it is to hit a tennis ball.
But I cannot do that for what it is for me to create an idea. It is like trying to explain to
someone what it is like to digest, urinate, or have an orgasm. I can teach you to eat food,
drink, or do those things that often yield an orgasm, but I cannot put into words the
processes that are digestion, urination, or orgasmic pleasure. We do these things naturally
and seemingly effortlessly, similar to S1 thinking, but we cannot describe how we do
these things.
Adding to the obscurantist nature of creativity are the mysterious externalities that
often influence the process. In many of the celebrated acts of creativity, our vaunted
innovations, chance and good fortune have often intervened. For instance, serendipity has
launched many a good creative idea. We go searching for something and stumble on the
unexpected or an answer appears before we have asked a question. Consider the humble
Kellogg’s Cornflake. While working at the Battle Creek Sanitarium in the late 1800s, Dr.
Kellogg, as a good strict Seventh Day Adventist, wanted to ensure that the passions of his
patients remained in check by serving them a steady diet of bland foods. He wanted to
bore their palates in order to render them quiescent. In attempting to remedy some
cooked wheat that had gone stale, he and his brother tried to roll the stale dough but
discovered that it crumbled into flakes instead. Being cheap, they attempted to minimize
their loss by baking the flakes, which they then served to the delight of the their flaccid-
paletted patients.37 And on many a morning I am the beneficiary of this serendipity.
How do we teach serendipity? How do you guide someone toward eureka? How
can we teach incubation? The latter is exemplified by the great mathematician Poincare
who had exhausted himself trying to solve a particularly thorny math conundrum. He
turned to other matters. Suddenly, as if struck by a bolt of lightening, the answer comes
to his mind as he steps onto a bus. While his S2 thinking apparatus was disengaged, a
creative idea pops into his S1 mind.38 The intellectual history of mankind is replete with
similar examples of unintentional problem solving and creativity. For instances, there is
Kekule starring into his fireplace in a dreamlike state, imagining the flames licking their
own tails. From that thought he 'discovers' the ring like structure of benzene, which is a
fundamental achievement in organic chemistry. We can talk about these examples of
incubation, but we certainly cannot teach incubation.
Now, I am not going to disparage the many books that have been proffered to help
promote creativity. These clever contributions include useful general advice as well as
explicit techniques and strategies. Many of these books rely on intriguing exercises that
purportedly teach creativity. In the end, however, these tutorials merely point us in a
direction or talk about creativity. I feel the same way about college curricula that are
being devised to answer the creativity challenge. My own university has as a creativity
requirement as a part of its general education program. The requirement can be satisfied
by an array of courses that includes the arts, the sciences, and many applied domains.
Many of these courses are excellent and of real value, but if we think we are actually
teaching creativity by asking students to be creative, then prepare for disappointment.
Part of the problem is that such curricula imply incorrectly that creativity is a skill
that easily transfers across different domains. Koestler may be correct that there are some
fundamental components of creativity common to such diverse applications as science,
art, and humor. But I would maintain that there is no omnibus skill set that enables
creativity that is domain independent. To be highly creative in one domain does not
imply that one will be at all creative in another. Creativity in painting is distinct from
creativity in biology, design, or engineering. To create in psychology is different from
what it is to create in geology. Of course, there are some general level cognitive demands
shared by diverse domains, but each domain has its own specific cognitive demands as
well. To that extent, creativity is domain specific. A similar constraint applies to
creativity related to the intersection of multiple domains.
Of course there have been some polymaths who have made creative contributions
to multiple domains. These extraordinary individuals, however, are the exception. They
have attained multiple creative skills, the essences of which may, as Margaret Boden
suggests, remain forever hidden from any real understanding. So, by all means go forth
and arrange the conditions conducive to creativity; encourage young minds to fill their
attics with disparate knowledge; assist them in doings things that require connecting idea
spaces; teach them every intellectual app available, from logic to convergent and
divergent thinking; teach them to be mindful as well as disciplined; encourage them to
think, and reward them for any creativity they might exhibit, especially when they are
young before their spirited minds become programmed by the banalities of formal
education. But do not try to teach creativity. It cannot be done. Now, I imagine that this
last statement aggravates or even enrages many of you; see how ideas matter!
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