UNIT 10 CREATIVITY*

Structure
10.1 Objectives
10.2 Introduction
10.3 Nature and Aspects of Creativity
10.3.1 Stages of Creativity
10.4 Approaches to Creativity
10.5 Correlates of Creativity
10.5.1 Creativity and Intelligence
10.5.2 Creativity and Personality
10.6 Assessment of Creativity
10.7 Ways to Enhance Creativity
10.8 Let Us Sum Up
10.9 Key Words
10.10 Answers to Self Assessment Questions
10.11 Unit End Questions
10.12 References
10.13 Suggested Readings

10.1 OBJECTIVES
After reading the Unit, you will be able to :
define creativity;
describe the variousaspects of creativity;
elucidate the approaches to creativity;
explain the relationship between creativity, intelligence and personality;
know the measurement of creativity; and
discuss the ways of enhancing creativity.

10.2 INTRODUCTION
Mina studies in class IX. In the science class, her teacher asked the students to do
an experiment on water as given in the book. Mina, always curious about things,
did the experiment in a different way. The teacher, though said that it is correct,
but still gave less marks as it was not as per the syllabus.
The drawing teacher of Arpit, who is in Class VI, asked him to draw a human
body. He drew the human body with all internal organs. The teacher told that he
needs to draw the external outline of body only.
What do you think about Mina and Arpit in the above examples? Are they creative?
What do you think of the response of the teachers? Creativity, like intelligence and
personality, is a commonly used term in our day-to-day life. But do we really understand

* Prof. Swati Patra, Faculty of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, IGNOU, New Delhi 191
Motivation and what constitutes creativity? Though we have some ideas about it, let us see in this Unit
Creativity how creativity is defined in a scientific way and how does it correlate with other aspects
of our behaviour. We all say, that person is so creative or she/he is not creative at all.
What do we mean when we say so? Are we referring to the personality of that individual
or her/his intellectual abilities or motivational aspects?
Creativity is important for the progress of any nation and this will depend on the extent
of development of creativity among its citizens. A creative individual will not only deal
with situations effectively, adapt successfully and function well in different contexts, but
also contribute to the society in significant ways. Hence, it is required that we understand
the nature of creativity and the various processes involved in it. In this Unit, we will
know the meaning and aspects of creativity. Approaches to explain creativity will also
be discussed. Further, barriers to creativity will be pointed out and you will learn various
ways to encourage creativity among the individuals.

10.3 NATURE AND ASPECTS OF CREATIVITY

Do you see the two dots below?

Now, you take a pencil/pen and connect these two dots. How did you join it? Most
probably, you would have drawn a straight line between the dots to join it. But, can you
think of alternative ways to join the two dots? Try and see.
What is creativity? We all are creative to various extents. We have exhibited creative
thinking at some point or other when faced with life’s varied situations and challenges.
It can be called as a special kind of problem solving. Usually when we are faced with a
problem, we have the problem situation (the original state), we have a goal state (the
desired outcome), and then we have rules using which we reach the desired state. But
creativity goes beyond the conventional ways of thinking and addresses the problem in
a novel way. It reflects a uniqueness in the person and in the approaches used by him/
her.Thus, in the above task of joining the two dots, one can do so by a straight line, and
also by drawing zigzag lines, wavy lines, or even extended lines.
Creativity can be described in reference to people, the inventive acts or products, a
new creation like a composition or an art/sculpture, or a scientific theory. In other
words, we mainly refer creativity to the person or to some tangible product or new
creation of that individual. We also describe the creative persons in terms of various
specific characteristics. Thus, creativity can be considered (a) from the point of view of
the person who creates, (b) in terms of the mental and emotional processes such as
perception, motivation, learning, thinking and communication; and (c) in terms of its
products such as inventions, theories, poems, paintings etc.
Creativity has been described and defined in various ways. It is the ability to come up
with or generate creative ideas and possibilities. It involves thinking in new and original
ways to reach a solution. Creativity thus entails originality, but originality is not always
creativity. For instance, in case of people diagnosed with schizophrenia, their thinking is
characterized by originality and uniqueness, but can it be called as creative? No, because
having unusual and new thoughts does not always make sense or are appropriate and
relevant to the society. Hence, novelty/originality must go alongwith relevance or
usefulness or practicality.
Newell, Shaw and Simon (1963) have suggested four criteria for creativity. One or
more of these criteria must be satisfied for an answer to be considered creative:
192 It has novelty and usefulness, either for the individual or the society
 It demands that we reject ideas we had previously accepted Creativity

It results from intense motivation and persistence.

It comes from clarifying a problem that was originally vague.
MacKinnon (1963) has emphasized the adaptiveness of creativity as well as its originality.
According to him,
“true creativeness fulfills at least three conditions. It involves a response or an
idea that is novel or at the very least statistically infrequent. But novelty or
originality of thought and action, while a necessary aspect of creativity, is not
sufficient...it must to some extent be adaptive to, or of, reality. It must serve to
solve a problem, fit a situation, or accomplish some recognizable goal. And, thirdly,
true creativeness involves a sustaining of the original insight, an evaluation and
elaboration of it, a developing of it to the full.”
Other researchers (Runco & Jaeger, 2012) have also supported this when they point
out that originality is vital for creativity, but not sufficient. Creativity requires both originality
and effectiveness (in the form of usefulness, fit or appropriateness). This ‘standard
definition’ of creativity including originality (alternately known as novelty or uniqueness)
and usefulness (also called effectiveness, relevance, value, appropriateness, utility etc.)
has been extended by others (Borden, 2004; Simonton, 2012c) from two criteria to
three-part definition which includes surprise as the third criteria. The creative idea must
be surprising or nonobvious.
However, even with these three criteria, still creativity has been difficult to define precisely
and it helps to first define what constitutes noncreative ideas. Nevertheless, we can say
that creativity includes the following similar words such as novelty, originality, unique,
unusual, useful, relevant, appropriate, fit the context, practicality, and makes sense in
the light of the demands of the situation.
Let us now focus on different aspects of creativity so that the concept becomes more
clear.
Aspects of Creativity
What does creativity involve? Knowing the aspects of creativity can help to design
tests for measuring or assessing creativity in people. According to Guilford (1950),
creativity involves divergent thinking in contrast to convergent thinking. The latter
refers to thinking in conventional set pattern whereas divergent thinking refers to thinking
out of the box. Divergent thinking is having divergent ideas and possibilities, e.g., think
of how many ways you can use a brick. Our education system usually encourages
convergent thinking more than divergent thinking, requiring students to provide “correct”
rather than “unique” answers (Chamorro-Premuzic, 2015).The importance of divergent
thinking can be exemplified by the ‘Nine-dots’ problem shown in Figure 10aF below. It
requires one to join all the nine dots with the help of ‘four’ straight lines, the lines going
through all the dots, without lifting the pencil from the paper and without retracing.

Figure 10aF: The Nine Dots Problem 193

Motivation and As you would see, it requires divergent thinking to reach the solution for it. Usually, we
Creativity do not think beyond the instructions. The instructions have not mentioned that one
cannot extend beyond the dots. If one thinks in this line, it can be solved. You can see
the solution at the end of the Unit under section 10.10.
Thus, one of the key aspects of creativity is divergent thinking. Itconsists of four
processes/aspects such as,
Fluency: refers to how rapidly the person comes up with ideas. It can be in
respect of words, ideas, expression or associations. For example, write words
containing a specified letter like p, ‘pot’, ‘hop’, ‘option’ etc. (word fluency); tell
the fluids that will burn (ideational fluency); and write words similar in meaning
(associational fluency).
Flexibility: refers to the ability to produce a large variety of ideas such as thinking
of varied uses of a particular object, e.g., list the different ways of using a rope or
a newspaper. It also includes activities to make objects, e.g., drawing specified
objects using a set of given figures.
Originality: refers to the uniqueness or novelty of ideas. It is the ability to produce
ideas that are unusual, statistically infrequent and not obvious.
Elaboration:involves the ability to develop and describe an idea, such as,
consequences of a hypothetical event, e.g., what would happen if no sleep is
required?
We all exhibit these aspects of creativity in our day-to-day life in various degrees.
There are also people like artists or designers, for example, who engage in creative
work as their profession and are publicly acclaimed. This marks a difference between
the ordinary every day little c creativity and the high creativity or big C creativity.
The little c creativity is marked by personal effectiveness, thinking in terms of possibilities,
facing and coping with daily challenges, a ‘can do’ attitude, and focusing on getting
solutions and overcoming challenges. It highlights the resourcefulness and the agency of
the ordinary people; whereas the big C creativity is focused more on the significant
contributions of selected people who have excelled in various fields. They have shown
remarkable achievements and influenced the society and the field of knowledge in a
major way.

10.3.1 Stages of Creativity

Creativity is a complex process. It does not come all of a sudden. It takes time but
creative ideas appear all of a sudden, like a flash of lightning. According to Graham
Walls (1926), there are four main stages in creativity:
Preparation:The person in this stage tries to understand the problem. As Einstein had
said, “the formulation of a problem is often more essential than its solution”. Thus, focus
needs to be more on knowing about the problem in detail. Mackworth (1965) views
that problem finding is more important than problem solving. It is crucial to discover the
right problem that needs to be solved. For this, one needs to collect all the information
about the problem that will help identify the problem, analyze it and understand it.
Further, it involves setting the goal and generating ideas towards the solution of the
problem.
Incubation: This is the time out phase where the individual does not engage in any
activity. At least there is no overt activity, but the processing of all the information
194 gathered during the preparation stage goes on in this stage. The person does not
consciously or actively think about the problem, but the creative processes carry on Creativity
within the individual at an unconscious level.
Inspiration: After the incubation stage, the person suddenly gets an insight about the
solution of the problem. In other words, it results in an ‘Aha’ experience. A new idea or
new possibilities emerge and the individual is more active and conscious in this stage.
She/he may also reformulate the problem based on the illumination or inspiration obtained
in this stage. It may be noted that this ‘eureka’ moment involves a lot of thinking and
effort in the preparation stage.
Verification: The person then tries to evaluate and verify the ideas and solutions in this
stage. It may result in some modifications of the solution. In some cases, the person
may also need to go back to the first stage to gather or generate more information
about the problem, thus more ‘preparation’ is required.
The process is cyclical. However, sometimes, if the person has good knowledge of the
problem area, the stages may appear in a different order, directly proceeding to the
stage of incubation or inspiration or even to the verification stage.
Self Assessment Questions I
1) The aspects highlighted in the standard definitions of creativity are .......................
and ....................... .
2) ....................... thinking focuses on ‘correct’ answers, whereas .......................
thinking focuses on ‘unique’ answers.
3) Creativity shown by the significant contributions of a few eminent people is called
as ....................... .

10.4 APPROACHES TO CREATIVITY

Creativity has been approached differently by various theoretical perspectives.
Psychoanalytic approach of Freud views creativity as sublimation of drives or of
wish fulfillment. It is discussed in the context of day-dreams and play. According to
Freud (1958), unconscious processes play an important role in creativity. He highlights
the defense mechanisms, particularly ‘sublimation’ which leads to creative expressions.
Behaviouristic approach to creativity focuses on forming new or novel connections
and associations between stimuli and responses. Insightful learning is one example of
creative thinking. Learning new associations helps in gaining insights or engaging in
creative thinking. Thus creativity, in line with the behaviouristic principles, is consists of
overt and observable behaviour.
Cognitive approach focuses on the cognitive processes such as attention, memory
and flexibility in learning as playing an important role in creativity. Studies (e.g., Wallach,
1970) have found that broader attention enables the individual to take in a wider range
of stimuli and memory traces than focused attention, and thus, helps in creativity. Cognitive
approach also highlights the role of divergent thinking in creative ideas. It is based on
Guilford’s (1950) exploration of the divergent production of ideas and products. As we
have discussed earlier, divergent production consists of abilities such as fluency, flexibility,
originality and elaboration, which constitutes four significant aspects of creativity.
Information processing approach in the cognitive paradigm emerged in the early 1960’s
and focuses on the processing of information. Weisberg (1986, p.90) states that creative
solutions develop when individuals find their initial solutions to be inadequate or ineffective. 195
Motivation and They, then, try out new ways to solve the problem. Thus, they engage in restructuring of
Creativity the information and the aspects of the problem and arrive at novel solutions.
Humanistic approach views creativity in terms of the self-actualization as proposed
by Maslow. Creativity is reflected in the self-actualizing tendencies of human behaviour.
This perspective can be related to the little c creativity. Rogers (1961) posits that “the
actualizing tendency is the primary motivator for creativity as the organism forms new
relationships to the environment in its endeavor most fully to be itself”. He has identified
three inner conditions for creativity: (a) extensionality: there is openness to experience,
tolerance for ambiguity, and lack of rigidity; (b) an internal locus of evaluation in relation
to one’s own performance:they do not take others’ judgements or criticisms as the
guiding criteria, but their own inner satisfaction from engaging in creative work as the
motivating force for them; and (c) the ability to play (or to toy with elements and concepts):
they try to form new ideas, associations and relationships between various remote
aspects or elements.
Differential approaches to creativity focuses on the four P’s of creativity: the person,
the process, the product, and the press. This is highlighted in the definition of creativity
given by Plucker, Beghetto & Dow (2004). They have defined creativity as “the
interaction among aptitude, process, and environment by which an individual or group
produces a perceptible product that is both novel and useful as defined within a social
context”. This definition consists of the four aspects of creativity, that is, the person,
process, product, and press (environment).
The person approach to creativity focuses on the personality traits of the person relevant
for creative behaviour. It identifies the characteristics of creative people. Here you can
recall the dispositional versus situational approach to personality which you have read
in Unit 1. The person approach to creativity reflects the dispositional approach as it
focuses on the individual rather than on the situation/context contributing to creativity.
The process approach refers to the mechanisms through which creativity occurs. It
focuses mainly on the cognitive mechanisms underlying creative thinking and behaviour,
e.g., Guilford’s divergent production abilities. Thus, the process approach emphasizes
the process of creativity in all the individuals rather than differentiating between creative
and non-creative individuals as in the person approach.
The product approach to creativity puts emphasis on the final creative product which
the individual has arrived at. It tries to identify the criteria or characteristic features of a
creative product. As Simonton (2004) points out, the product approach is largely
concerned with productivity and achievement and focuses on individuals’ creations
rather than their personalities or the processes facilitating creative production.
The press approach focuses on the situation or the context in which the creative person
and the creative process operate and the creative product is generated. Thus it identifies
with the situational approach to personality which highlights the environmental factors
of the person. The press approach aims to identify the situational determinants of creativity.
Runco (2004, p. 662) describes “freedom, autonomy, good role models and resources
(including time), encouragement specifically for originality, (and) freedom from criticism”
as contextual factors affecting creativity.
The Investment and Confluence Theory of creativity was proposed by Sternberg
(2006). The theory states that creativity is a confluence of six resources such as intellectual
skills, knowledge, thinking styles, personality, motivation and environment. This has
implications for teaching the individual to use these resources, thereby, increasing the
creativity.
Intellectual skills: It consists of a confluence of three skills, namely, analytic skill, synthetic
196
skill, and practical-contextual skill. Analytic skill refers to analyzing the ideas and weighing Creativity
their relative values. Synthetic skill involves going beyond conventional thinking and
engaging in new diverse ways of thinking. The practical-contextual skill involves taking
into account the contextual factors and impressing upon others about one’s creative
ideas. All these three skills together are important for creative behaviour.
Knowledge: Knowledge about the problem or a field is important. It can be related to
the preparation stage of creativity. If you do not have enough information about the
problem, how will you see new associations between elements or derive new
possibilities? However, it may also happen that your thinking will be constrained/guided
by the existing knowledge only.
Thinking Styles: It refers to the individual’s ability to think along new ways, and also to
have the local as well as global perspective on the issue/problem.
Personality: Creativity is related to certain personality characteristics such as challenging
the conventional practices/ways of thinking or doing, taking risks, tolerance for ambiguity,
perseverance, courage, belief in oneself etc. These personality attributes help one to be
more creative.
Motivation: Creativity involves intrinsic motivation as the person is internally motivated
to engage in creative ideas and not for any external rewards.You have already learned
in Unit 9 about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation implies enjoying
the work one does and enjoying tackling the challenges.
Environment: The above five factors of intellectual skills, knowledge, thinking styles,
personality and motivation are related to the person. Whereas, environment is an external
factor. This is important in the sense that the five factors need a conducive and supportive
environment for the development as well as expression of these factors.
Thus, the investment and confluence theory emphasizes that we need to invest in
these six resources. Further, all these resources representing the factors related to the
individual and the environment need to come together or confluence, giving rise to
creative ideas. As Sternberg has stated, three points need to be noted regarding this
confluence of resources: (a) a minimum threshold is required in each resource to be
able to contribute to creativity; (b) a low level in one resource may be partially
compensated by a higher level in another resource; and (c) high level in two resources
may complement each other and increase the strength of creativity.

10.5 CORRELATES OF CREATIVITY

“Creativity represents a miraculous coming together of the uninhibited energy
of the child with its apparent opposite and enemy, the sense of order
imposed on the disciplined adult intelligence”.
- Norman Podhoret
So, are creativity and intelligence totally mutually exclusive?
Creativity is associated with a wide range of concepts, such as motivation, imagination,
meta-cognition, social influence, intuition, potential, leadership, humor, and mental illness
(Runco, 2004). Research has explored how creativity is related to different constructs
such as intelligence, personality, mood, learning, achievement etc. Here we will focus
on the relationship of creativity with intelligence and personality.
10.5.1 Creativity and Intelligence
Creativity and intelligence relationship has been widely researched and the ‘threshold
hypothesis’ has been prominent. It states that high intelligence does not guarantee
197
Motivation and creativity; but a certain level of intelligence (a particular threshold level) is required in
Creativity order to be creative. Thus, an above average intelligence is necessary for high level of
creativity (Guilford, 1967). Study by Jauk, Benedek, Dunst, & Neubauer (2013)
supported this threshold hypothesis for the interplay between intelligence and creative
potential. Further, they found that once the intelligence threshold is met, personality
factors become more predictive for creativity. On the contrary, no threshold was found
for creative achievement, i.e., creative achievement benefitted from higher intelligence
even at fairly high levels of intellectual ability.
Sternberg and O’Hara (2000) have proposed five possible relationships between
creativity and intelligence as you can see in the Figure 10bF below.

I
C

a) Creativity as a part of intelligence

C
I

b) Intelligence as a part of creativity

I C

c) Creativity and intelligence viewed as identical sets

I C

d) Creativity and intelligence as independent, but overlapping constructs

I C

e) Creativity and intelligence as completely unrelated sets.

Figure 10bF: Relationship between Creativity and Intelligence

198
Guilford’s structure of intellect model views creativity as a part of intelligence. In his Creativity
model, divergent production ability, which is an important feature of creativity, is one of
the several abilities he has proposed. Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences also
views intelligence as the superset with creative contributions reflected in various areas
such as music, language etc. On the other hand, Sternberg’s investment and confluence
theory of creativity considers intelligence to be a part of creativity. Here, intelligence is
one of the six resources which together determine creativity.

10.5.2 Creativity and Personality

List the characteristics of a creative person who you think is creative. Now see the box
listing out various characteristics of a creative person. Most likely, you have written
many of the characteristics mentioned.
Personality Traits of Creative Individuals
Verbally fluent, can express ideas well
Values own independence and autonomy
Enjoys engaging in intellectual matters
Has wide variety of interests
Has unconventional thinking, prefers to think in new ways
Has aesthetic values
Bold and courageous
Willingly takes risks and faces challenges
Creativity cannot be explained only with intelligence. It extends beyond intelligence and
relates to various personality attributes. Barron and Harrington (1981, p. 454) have
differentiated between creative and non-creative individuals on the basis of their
personality traits. Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham (2005) have related the Big Five
factors to creativity. They found positive relationship of creativity with openness to
experience, neuroticism and extraversion; and negative relationship of creativity with
agreeableness and conscientiousness.
However, creativity is too complex to be explained only by intelligence and personality.
It also relates to motivation, interest, self-efficacy, and contextual factors. Hence, a
comprehensive approach is required to study creativity.
Self Assessment Questions II
1) According to psychoanalytic approach, ....................... defense mechanism is
more related to creativity?
2) Humanistic approach focuses on ....................... as the primary motivator for
creativity.
3) The four P’s of creativity are ......................., ......................., .......................and
........................

10.6 ASSESSMENT OF CREATIVITY

Assessment of creativity is difficult because it requires evaluating the quality of the
creative product or creative thinking/behaviour. For instance, two persons may agree 199
Motivation and on the novelty or originality of a music composition or a product; but there may be
Creativity differences with regard to the utility/relevance of the creative idea or product.
Nevertheless, the different tests of creativity are often based on the four main
characteristics of creativity namely, fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration. Further,
the tests of creativity also vary in their focus on the product, person or the creative
process.
The most commonly used tests of creativity are Guilford’s (1967) Divergent Production
Test (DPT), in which people make up varied responses to each test item; and Mednick
and Mednick’s (1967) Remote Associates Test (RAT), in which different items must be
linked together with a single word.
The Divergent production test is based on Guilford’s theory of intelligence. You can
refer to Unit 4 for a quick recall of Guilford’s theory of intelligence. The ‘operation’ of
divergent production in his model refers to one’s ability to produce a number of different
yet relevant responses to an open-ended item like: “Name as many uses as you can
think of for a cup”, or “list as many consequences as possible, in one minute’s time, if
normal adult height remained at one metre only”, or “how many pictures of real objects
you can make using a circle, in one minute” etc. Thus tests of creativity aim at assessing
word fluency, ideational fluency, associational fluency, expressional fluency, alternate
uses of objects/things, consequences of hypothetical events, possible jobs symbolized
by a given emblem, making objects from a set of given figure, and so on. A person
providing varied responses to these tests scores high on divergent production, and
thus, have high creativity.
Divergent Production Test battery consists of many tests based on different components
of Guilford’s divergent production. Another widely used test based on many aspects of
Guilford’s battery is Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT). It consists of
seven Verbal tests (thinking creatively with words), and three Figural tests (thinking
creatively with pictures). Baqer Mehdi test is an adopted version of Torrance test of
creative thinking. It consists of four subtests such as Consequences test, Unusual test,
Similarity test, and Product Improvement test.
The Remote Associates Test of Mednicks’ is based on their view of creativity as the
ability to see relationships between ideas that are remote from each other, e.g., what
single word is related to the words ‘square root’, ‘coffee’ and ‘kitchen’? Such
associations between word groups will require the individual to think in a novel and
unique way.
Passi-Usha Test of Creative Problem Solving (PUTCPS) was developed by B.
K. Passi and Usha Kumar (1996). It is a measure of creative problem solving in children
as well as adults. The test consists of seven items and is non-verbal in nature (in drawing
form). It assesses the originality and elaboration aspects of creativity.
Thus, there are various tests to assess creativity. Now let us see what are the various
ways in which creativity can be enhanced in individuals.

10.7 WAYS TO ENHANCE CREATIVITY

Children are generally observed to be more creative than adults. Creativity in children
can be observed in the form of symbolic play or imaginative possibilities they engage in.
However, as children grow, our process of education and socialization focusing more
on conformity, tend to suppress the creativity in them and even punish them for their
expression of creativity. This poses a serious challenge for the development of creative
200
abilities in school children. Torrance (1965), based on his studies on third to sixth grade Creativity
children, has identified five principles that teachers should implement in order to reward
the creative behaviour of students.
Be respectful to unusual questions.
Be respectful of imaginative, creative ideas.
Show your students that their ideas have value.
Occasionally have students do something ‘for practice’ without the threat of
evaluation.
Tie in evaluation with causes and consequences.
Encourage the self-initiated learning and evaluate it.
The expression of creativity can be fostered by activities as simple as child’s play,
which stimulates the imagination. Arieti (1976), a psychoanalyst, has proposed that a
society can promote or inhibit the creativity of its citizens by its values and resources.
He talked about a ‘creativogenic society’, a type of society that promotes creativity.
He specifies nine presumably creativogenic socio-cultural factors for a creativogenic
society. These factors include, 1) the availability of cultural (and certain physical) means
to all citizens without discrimination; 2) openness to cultural stimuli (in different aspects
of human life); 3) stress on becoming and not just on being; 4) free access to cultural
media for all citizens, without discrimination; 5) freedom, or even the retention of
moderate discrimination, after severe oppression or absolute exclusion; 6) exposure to
different and even contrasting cultural stimuli; 7) tolerance for diverging views; 8)
interaction of significant persons; and 9) promotion of incentives and awards. He
suggested that only the first factor is absolutely necessary and that “the other eight,
although important, are not such factors that a tremendous effort on the part of the
creative person could not overcome or remedy their absence” (Arieti 1976: 325)
Thus, the factors related to the socio-cultural environment are important – they may
facilitate expressions of creativity or also act as barriers to creativity in individuals.
Further, personal psychological factors also may affect creativity. A most common factor
is the fear of failure or committing mistakes. People usually want to follow the beaten
path because of their desire for security and the fear of unknown. There is also rigidity
of thinking, lack of drive, difficulty in isolating the problem, failure to use multi sensory
approach in learning, and inability to see remote associations etc.This limits the creative
ideas and exploring new ways of doing things. Thus our emotional and perceptual
blocks may act as barrier to our creative expression. Two more factors that have a
negative impact on creativity are mental set and functional fixedness.
Mental set refers to perceiving things and responding to them in a set pattern, routine
approach or stereotypical way. For instance, if we have solved a problem in a particular
way, we tend to use the same method for solution when we face similar problem later
on. Though it is obvious and practical to use the solution that has worked well in the
past, sometimes it poses a problem as we may miss out on simpler and effective solutions.
Mental set can be helpful as well as a barrier. It is helpful in the sense that it reduces the
cognitive load as some aspects can be addressed/responded in a routine manner, thus
saving our resources for tasks that require it. On the other hand, it poses as a barrier for
creative thinking because of a set pattern of thinking.
Functional fixedness refers to the tendency to perceive things only in terms of their
typical use or function. For example, we have learned that spoon is used to eat food
201
Motivation and with. But can we think of using the spoon in a very different way, may be as a paper
Creativity weight? Functional fixedness can be described as a type of mental set. Here, since the
function of a particular object is fixed in our mind, we usually do not think outside of it,
which hinders creative ideas.
Enhancing Creativity
Creative potential of an individual can be increased through various ways and methods.
But there needs to be a general attitude and atmosphere of supporting or favouring
creativity.
Principles for fostering creativity:
1) Introduce a variety of instructional materials need to be used to facilitate different
forms of student expression.
2) Develop a favourable attitude towards creative achievement.
3) Provide encouragement for creative ideas and creative expression.
4) Foster the creative abilities of children through feedback and support.
5) Provide reinforcement for engaging in creative work.
6) Provide a supportive environment at school and home to foster a creative
personality – being self confident, sensitive, independent, unconventional etc.
We now discuss a few techniques below which can be helpful for enhancing creativity.
Divergent thinking: It includes thinking and behaving in divergent ways. It helps
come up with multiple ideas that aid creativity. Further, the child can be given
opportunities for original expression in many ideas, such as through written language,
rhythms, music, art etc. Thus, fluency, originality and flexibility in producing ideas
need to be encouraged in the children.
Brainstorming: Osborn’s (1957) brainstorming is a group approach to encourage
creativity. It is a technique where people in a group setting are required to come
up with as many ideas as possible without any self-censor or inhibition. Thus, they
speak out whatever comes to their mind on a particular topic/issue without much
thinking about it or postponing it or judging it. There are four basic guidelines for
the group: (i) evaluation of ideas with held until later, thus ruling out criticism; (ii)
the wilder the idea, the better; (iii) the greater the number of ideas, the better; and
(iv) people can combine two or more ideas proposed by others. Osborn emphasizes
that the spirit of the brainstorming session need be maintained by encouragement
of each other, complete friendliness and relaxed mind.
Synectics is a method developed by Gordon (1961) that encourages the use of
analogies in creative thinking. The term Synectics is derived from a Greek word
meaning “the joining together of different and apparently irrelevant elements”. The
method focuses on understanding the emotional and the irrational elements of a
problem, which results in creative solutions. The method involves the use of analogy
or metaphorical process, making the strange familiar; and the familiar, strange. It
uses four kinds of analogies such as:(i) personal analogy, encourages you to place
yourself directly in the situation; (ii) direct analogy, encourages you to find something
else that solves the problem you are examining; (iii) symbolic analogy, uses objective,
impersonal, or poetic images to describe a problem; (iv) fantasy analogy, frees
your imagination from the boundaries of the normal world.
202
 Creativity
10.12 REFERENCES
Arieti, S. (1976). Creativity: The magic synthesis. New York: Basic Books.
Barron, F., & Harrington, D. M. (1981). Creativity, Intelligence and Personality.Annual
Review of Psychology, 32, 439-76
Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2015). Personality and Individual Differences. 3rded. The
British Psychological Society and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Chamorro-Premuzic, T. & Furnham, A. (2005). Personality and intellectual
competence. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
De Bono, E. (1985). Six Thinking Hats: An essential approach to business management.
Little, Brown and Company.
Freud, S. (1958). On creativity and unconscious. NY: Harper.
Gordon, W.J.J. (1961). Synectics: the development of creative capacity. New York:
Harper and Row.
Guilford, J. P. (1950). Creativity. American Psychologist, 5, 444-54.
Guilford, J. (1967). The nature of human intelligence. New York: McGraw Hill.
Jauk, E., Benedek, M., Dunst, B., & Neubauer, A. C. (2013). The relationship between
intelligence and creativity: New support for the threshold hypothesis by means of empirical
breakpoint detection. Intelligence, 41(4), 212-221.
doi: 10.1016/j.intell.2013.03.003
Mackinnon, D. W. (1963). The identification of creativity. Applied Psychology, 12
(1), 25-46. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1464-0597.1963.tb00463.x
Mackworth, N. H. (1965). Originality. American Psychologist, 20 (1), 51-66. http:/
/dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0021900
Mednick, S. A., & Mednick, M. T. (1967). Examiner’s Manual, Remote Associates
Test. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
Newell, A., Shaw, J. C., & Simon, H. A. (1963).The process of creative thinking. In
H. E. Gruber, G. Terrel & Wertheimer (Eds.). Contemporary Approaches to Creative
Thinking. New York: Atherton.
Osborn, A. F. (1948). Your creative power: How to use imagination, New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons.
Passi, B. K., & Kumar, U. (1996). Manual for Passi Usha Test of Creative Problem
Solving Ability. Agra: National Psychological Corporation.
Plucker, J.A., Beghetto, R.A., & Dow, G.T. (2004). Why isn’t creativity more important
to educational psychologists? Potentials, pitfalls, and future directions in creativity
research.Educational Psychologist, 39 (2), 83–96. (
Runco, M. A. (2004). Creativity. Annual Review of Psychology.55, 657-87.
Runco, M.A., & Jaeger, G. J. (2012). The standard definition of creativity.Creativity
Research Journal, 24 (1), 92-96.

205
Motivation and Rogers, C. R. (1961). On becoming a person: A therapist view of psychotherapy.
Creativity Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Sternberg, R. J. (2006). The nature of creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 18 (1),
87-98.
Torrance, E.P. (1965). Rewarding creative behaviour experiments in classroom creativity.
NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc.
Wallach, M.A. (1970). Creativity. In P. Mussen (Ed.). Carmichael’s Handbook of
Child Psychology (pp. 1211-72). New York: John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Weisberg, R. (1986). Creativity: genius and other myths. New York: W.H.Z. Freeman
and company, p. 90

10.13 SUGGESTED READINGS

Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2015).Personality and Individual Differences. 3rded. The
British Psychological Society and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
De Bono E. (1990). Lateral Thinking: A Textbook of Creativity. Harper Perrenial.

206