Definitions of Creativity

By Arthur Cropley. Encyclopedia of Creativity, 2020

86 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The modern definition of creativity has broadened from a focus on esthetics towards practical products in science, technology, or business, and away from creation of beauty towards overcoming competition. Nonetheless, the idea of novelty is still central, although not sufficient. Also necessary are relevance and effectiveness, as well as morality and ethicality. It is also important to distinguish between creativity in the sublime and in the everyday sense. Although both creativity and intelligence require knowledge and effort, they can be distinguished from each other, and much the same can be said about creativity and problem solving. Creativity can also be defined as a social phenomenon that is defined according to social norms and is facilitated or inhibited by social factors. One important social setting is the place of work, where an interaction between the person and the environment affects the process of innovation. Focusing on the individual person, creativity is defined as an aspect of thinking, as a personality constellation, and as an interaction in a specific environment between thinking, personal properties, motivation, and feelings. This interaction involves a number of paradoxes, in that apparently contradictory elements have to coexist for creativity to emerge. A stage model of the emergence of creative products helps to resolve the paradoxes.

Subfields: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Information Systems

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0c9efa49f97094500ca3f011e9ad471805fe5aa5