Book Sawyer 2006 Explaining Creativity The Science of Human Innovation Oxford University (2025)

Explaining Creativity The Science of Human Innovation Oxford University met markeringen

Creativity/Anthropology

Cornell University Press, 1993

"Creativity and play erupt in the most solemn of everyday worlds as individuals reshape traditional forms in the light of changing historical circumstances. In this lively volume, fourteen distinguished anthropologists explore the role of creativity in social life across the globe and within the study of ethnography itself. Dedicated to the memory of Victor Turner, the volume is at once playful and political, bridging innovative theory and practice."

Discussing creativity from a cultural psychology perspective

2015

Each of the forgoing chapters has advanced differing aspects of the cultural psychology of creativity. In this final chapter we aim both to synthesize what has been written and also catalyze future directions for research. To achieve this aim, we are harnessing the creative potential of social processes by jointly writing the chapter as a dialogue. The questions addressed will be first, what is creativity from a cultural standpoint, and second, what implications might this standpoint have for intervention, methodology, and future research. Keith Sawyer: Many people believe that creativity is generated by solitary individuals, a 'lone genius' view of creativity. And yet, all of the research, including historical, biographical, and empirical social sciences research, shows that creativity never comes from solitary individuals. Creativity always emerges from collaborative groups, conversations, and social networks. This is why we need the cultural psychological perspective: to help us explain the social interactions that generate creativity. In particular, the cultural psychological perspective is essential in analyzing and explaining how creative breakthroughs emerge over time, over weeks, months, and years. Brady Wagoner: Keith makes the important point that cultural psychology sensitizes us to social relations and emergence over time as key to understanding creativity. The issue of time makes me wonder if we might do better to talk about the 'creative process' or 'creative action,' than 'creativity' as such. The term 'creativity' encourages us to think of it as a thing, which either resides in individuals or is an end product of their interactions. What we should be focusing on, from a cultural psychology perspective, is creativity as a complex ongoing process, oriented to an open future, in which social others and cultural tools directly participate in and are constitutive of. A similar move was made in another research context by Frederic Bartlett (1932/1995), who began to talk about 'remembering' rather than 'memory.' In other words, he aimed to move away from studying a mental faculty, and instead focused on exploring remembering as a complex activity, occurring in time and incorporating multiple processes, the most important of which are social and cultural.

Handbook of Research on Creativity

Handbook of Research on Creativity, 2013

The Cultural Genesis of Creativity: An Emerging Paradigm

The aim of this paper is to discuss different approaches to creativity and underline the cultural nature of its genesis. Biological genius (the “He-paradigm”) and psychological-individualistic (the “I-paradigm”) standpoints are contrasted with social and cross-cultural ones (the “We-paradigm”) and the cultural psychology of creativity is introduced and positioned. This emerging paradigm, drawing from both social accounts of creativity and the latest developments in cultural psychology and the theory of social representations, emphasises the contextual and generative nature of creative acts and employs a person (creator) – other (community) – object (artefacts) model. Creativity is conceptualized as a complex process that leads to the generation of new artefacts by working with “culturally-impregnated” materials within a representational space. This particular viewpoint highlights the meaning-oriented nature of creativity, its link to personal and group identities, and also calls for ecological research and situational interventions. One of the central issues addressed by the cultural psychology of creativity is the problem of “genesis” or how creativity is developed and manifested within cultural settings. The pioneer in this field is undoubtedly D.W. Winnicott who asserted at the beginning of the 70’s that creativity and cultural experience are twin-born. Children experiment culture creatively and they do so in the “third” or “potential” space, one that we can identify today with the social world of representations. In his view of ontogenesis the origins of creativity are found in the first forms of playing and are shaped by the nature of the mother – child relationship. The final part of the paper will develop further this account and show how creativity emerges from early childhood within a symbolic space where children “play” with artefactual resources, a space of dialogue between self and significant others, constantly alimented by social and collective systems of beliefs and practices, life experiences and communication. Key-words: creativity paradigms, the cultural psychology of creativity, representational space, genetic account, culture, artefacts, play

Creativity: Social Psychology

This encyclopedia entry explore the implications of social psychology for creativity research. Topics include motivation, interactions, collaborations, groups and groupthink, environments conductive to creativity, the role of "gatekeepers" and more.

Discussing creativity from a cultural psychological perspective

2014

Alex Gillespie: Each of the forgoing chapters has advanced differing aspects of the cultural psychology of creativity. In this final chapter we aim both to synthesize what has been written and also catalyze future directions for research. To achieve this aim, we are harnessing the creative potential of social processes by jointly writing the chapter as a dialogue. The questions addressed will be first, what is creativity from a cultural standpoint, and second, what implications might this standpoint have for intervention, methodology, and future research.

Psychology of Art and Creativity, vol.2 , 2015

CREATIVITY IN SCIENCE AND THE ARTS

What is creativity ? Many ideas have been developed about this rather common word, the appearance of which on the scene of knowledge is late, at least later than other words and concepts such as imagination or fantasy, for example. The word « creativity » was introduced in the 1940s by socio-psychologists ; it was used later on in the linguistic field, and is now currently a domain of analysis for neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists. Creativity in a current sense may be applied to many domains : daily life, engineering, financial market… But the two domains which traditionally allow creativity at the purest degree are scientific and artistic productions.

Editorial: Novel Approaches for Studying Creativity in Problem-Solving and Artistic Performance Editorial on the Research Topic Novel Approaches for Studying Creativity in Problem-Solving and Artistic Performance

Frontiers in Psychology, 2019

Creativity can be observed across multiple domains of human behavior including problem solving, artistic and athletic engagement, scientific reasoning, decision making, business and marketing, leadership styles, and social interactions. It has a long history of research in many disciplines, and involves a variety of conceptual and methodological approaches. However, given its multi-faceted character, and the multidisciplinary (though not necessarily interdisciplinary) nature of creativity research, it is perhaps unsurprising that such research has tended to examine discrete areas of study, thereby adopting a focused approach that lacks opportunity for cross-fertilization. It is therefore important to encourage interdisciplinary discourse and novel methodological approaches to investigating all aspects of creativity. This can best be achieved by sharing and integrating research ideas, methods, and findings across multiple domains and disciplines, including but not restricted to psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, linguistics, medicine, education, and performance science.