The Nature of Creativity: Contemporary Psychological Perspectives

by Robert J. Sternberg (Editor)

Originally published in 1988, this book provides sixteen chapters by acknowledged experts on the richness and diversity of psychological approaches to the study of creativity. Addressing various aspects and levels of analysis, together they constitute a broad survey of the understanding of what it is to be 'creative'. In the first part of The Nature of Creativity, the role of the environment is discussed. In the second part, the role of the individual is viewed - first from a psychometric perspective; and then from a cognitive or information-processing perspective. In the third part, the role of interaction between individual and environment is examined, first through studies of creative lives; and then through studies of creative systems. The final part consists of an integration and comparison of these various approaches to creativity. A broad audience of psychologists, educators, students and general readers will welcome this lively and thought-provoking investigation.

Genres: Psychology, Reference

466 pages, Paperback

First published May 27, 1988

About the author

Robert J. Sternberg's spectacular research career in psychology had a rather inauspicious beginning. In elementary school he performed poorly on IQ tests, and his teachers' actions conveyed their low expectations for his future progress. Everything changed when his fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Alexa, saw that he had potential and challenged him to do better. With her encouragement, he became a high-achieving student, eventually graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Yale University. In a gesture of gratitude, Dr. Sternberg dedicated his book, Successful Intelligence to Mrs. Alexa.

Dr. Sternberg's personal experiences with intelligence testing in elementary school lead him to create his own intelligence test for a 7 th grade science project. He happened to find the Stanford-Binet scales in the local library, and with unintentional impertinence, began administering the test to his classmates; his own test, the Sternberg Test of Mental Abilities (STOMA) appeared shortly thereafter. In subsequent years he distinguished himself in many domains of psychology, having published influential theories relating to intelligence, creativity, wisdom, thinking styles, love and hate.

Dr. Sternberg's Triarchic Theory of (Successful) Intelligence contends that intelligent behavior arises from a balance between analytical, creative and practical abilities, and that these abilities function collectively to allow individuals to achieve success within particular sociocultural contexts. Analytical abilities enable the individual to evaluate, analyze, compare and contrast information. Creative abilities generate invention, discovery, and other creative endeavors. Practical abilities tie everything together by allowing individuals to apply what they have learned in the appropriate setting. To be successful in life the individual must make the best use of his or her analytical, creative and practical strengths, while at the same time compensating for weaknesses in any of these areas. This might involve working on improving weak areas to become better adapted to the needs of a particular environment, or choosing to work in an environment that values the individual's particular strengths. For example, a person with highly developed analytical and practical abilities, but with less well-developed creative abilities, might choose to work in a field that values technical expertise but does not require a great deal of imaginative thinking. Conversely, if the chosen career does value creative abilities, the individual can use his or her analytical strengths to come up with strategies for improving this weakness. Thus, a central feature of the triarchic theory of successful intelligence is adaptability-both within the individual and within the individual's sociocultural context.

Reviews

[Nathan Albright · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me a long while to read this book after having purchased it on the recommendation of a coworker of mine.  After having read it, I have a rather mixed opinion on it.  In general, I find creativity deeply interesting, and thought provoking, but I tend to find that a lot of people have some definite ulterior motives and axes to grind when it comes to researching and writing in the field to celebrate novelty for the sake of novelty and to support rather strident and misguided views of creation that seek to honor human creators as well as unintelligent processes that are purported to create information and to deny the creator His proper due.  From what I have found so far, and this book is no exception, reading on creation typically and even inevitably involves serious questions of morality and religion as part of the legitimacy of the field, and to its credit at least some of the authors of these various essays are able to wrestle honestly and openly with some of the ambiguities that are involved in creativity and in how it is to be justified and supported.  That is not to say that this book is perfect, but while it is uneven it does have much that is worthwhile.

With seventeen papers that take up more than 400 pages, this book is certainly a large one and seeks to provide a broad perspective of issues of creativity as they relate to psychology.  The first part of the book contains an essay that looks at the conditions of creativity (I, 1).  After that there are eight papers that discuss the role of the individual in creativity (II), with three psychometric papers that look at the nature of creativity shown in testing (2), putting creativity to work (3), and approaches to and definitions of creativity (4) as well as five essays that have cognitive approaches to creativity that look at problem solving and models and issues of process and freedom and constraints.  The third part of the book contains seven essays that look at the role of the interaction between individual and environment in creativity (III), three of which look at case studies of creative lives, and four of which look at creative systems.  Finally, the last paper discusses what we know about creativity, dealing with issues of integration, after which there is an author and subject index.

It is pretty easy to see both positive and negative aspects of this particular book.  For example, some of the researchers recognize that human creativity consists in combinations of existing phenomena that may be novel, but that novelty is far more limited than has sometimes been stated.  Others recognize the importance of diligent effort and the need to create a lot in order to create something that is worthwhile and lasting, while others point out the moral aspects of creation and that not all creativity can be considered to be "good," and to the fact that creativity requires institutions and cultures that are able to recognize and legitimize what is created by someone.  These are all on the better side of the papers here.  Unfortunately, far too many papers fail to recognize the contradiction between celebrating design (even, in the case of language, unintentional design without a central authority) and believing in the design capacity of unintelligent processes, as is so often the case here.  Ultimately, the proper study and celebration of design requires a moral worldview to judge novel content as being good or evil as well as proper respect and honor given to the Creator of the universe and of ourselves, and by those standards there is a lot that needs to be done before creation can be properly situated as a field of study.