Presentation is loading. Please wait.

Presentation is loading. Please wait.

The case for a Social Psychology of Creativity. Introduction Two basic questions to answer in understanding of creativity How is creative performance.

Similar presentations


Presentation on theme: "The case for a Social Psychology of Creativity. Introduction Two basic questions to answer in understanding of creativity How is creative performance."— Presentation transcript:

1 The case for a Social Psychology of Creativity

2 Introduction Two basic questions to answer in understanding of creativity How is creative performance different form ordinary performance? What conditions are most favorable to creative performance?

3 A Gap in Creativity Research (I) Two reasons for developing social psychology of creativity. The first obvious reason is simply that there previously been no such discipline. Over the past 30 years in creativity research has been on personality studies of creative individuals.

4 A Gap in Creativity Research (II) Personality studies has taken different forms. The study of biographies and autobiographies of well-know creative individuals. To examination of individual differences in creative ability. The most common variety of individual- difference research on creativity examines ordinary individuals.

5 A Gap in Creativity Research (III) A modest number of studies examining the effects of particular social or physical environments on creativity. A concentration on the creative person, to the exclusion of “creative situation.” Within studies of internal determinants that an implicit concern with “genetic” factor. Studies on outstandingly creative individuals’ personality that can accurately describe such individuals.

6 Some Social Psychological Stories Albert Einstein Anne Sexton Sylvia Plath James Watson Thomas Wolfe

7 Albert Einstein : From external to internal control As a youth, he attended militaristic school. When he was 15, he enroll in the Polytechnic in Swiss. There were much emphasis on individual laboratory work, student-initiated, and so on. The firs Gedankenexperiment lead him to the theory of relativity.

8 Resisted External Control Other creators such as Woody Allen, Joyce Carol Oates, and Picasso resisted external attempts to control their behavior. Highly creative individuals must often resist those sources of external control. Charles Dickens pointed out in answer to a friend’s invitation.

9 Anne Sexton : Coping with external constraint Consistently high level of intrinsic motivation, because it was something she loved to do. At the age of 28, she watched an TV program, after that she enjoyed much to write poetry for the rest of 46 years. She struggled to against several types of external constraints-evaluation, competition, and rewards.

10 Sylvia Plath : A losing battle with external constraint Plath has to struggled unsuccessfully for most of her working life against some powerful extrinsic motivations. She struggled with social constraints of many forms. She tried consciously to adopt a more intrinsic orientation.

11 James Watson : A race for success One motive was clear in pursuiting of the correct descriptive model for DNA. Nobel prize was a salient force in their work on the problem. It is possible to estimate the impact that this fierce competition had on their creativity. What are the effects of winning the rewards that many creative people appear to so earnestly desire?

12 Thomas Wolfe : The pressure of success Wolfe’s first book got the positive critical reception that paralyze him. External evaluation was even more difficult for him to put out of mind. Time pressures became part of the burden success had laid on Wolfe. Once the time pressure became explicit, Wolf’s despair and distraction only intensified.

13 A recurrent theme: Intrinsic V.S. Extrinsic motivation A random sample of writers, scientists, and artists, whose explicit and implicit statements about influence of social factors. One general principle : intrinsic motivation is conductive to creativity, but extrinsic motivation is detrimental. Why is the difference between Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton? The intrinsic motivation principle will be the cornerstone of the social psychology of creativity.

14 Update Dean Simonton produced a significant body of work on the social psychology of creativity. Many researchers turned their attention toward the impact of social factor such as Harrington, Csikszentmihalyi, and so on. Two major journals of creativity research : Creativity Research Journal,and Creativity and Innovation.

15 Update First edition : ”largely because they affect motivation, social factors can have a powerful impact on creativity.” Initially focused on individuals in experimental studies. Social psychological perspective has begun to find its way into mainstream research and theory.


Download ppt "The case for a Social Psychology of Creativity. Introduction Two basic questions to answer in understanding of creativity How is creative performance."

Similar presentations


Ads by Google