Creativity: From Potential to Realization

by Robert J. Sternberg (Editor), Elena L. Grigorenko (Editor), Jerome L. Singer (Editor)

Who is creative... and why? And what does it mean to be creative? Is a creative individual a master-of-all trades or a master of one? In other words, is creativity a generalized attribute or is it a domain-specific attribute? In From Potential to Realization , authors ponder these questions and discuss the attributes that lead people to be creative in various fields such as the arts and letters, the sciences, and business. The emphasis of this volume is on the theoretical issue of whether the attributes that lead to creativity in one domain are the same as those that lead to creativity in another domain. Researchers and students alike will find these discussions delightfully intriguing. The study of creativity is burgeoning and multidisciplinary, in that it involves approaches of social, personality, cognitive, clinical, biological, differential, developmental, and educational psychology. The book will be of interest a wide range of psychologist, researchers and students.

232 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 2004

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.