• Creativity is a characteristic of someone (or some process) that forms something novel and valuable. The created item may be intangible (such as an idea, a scientific theory, a musical composition, or a joke) or a physical object (such as an invention, a printed literary work, or a painting). Creativity enables people to solve problems in new or innovative ways.
• Scholarly interest in creativity is found in a number of disciplines, primarily psychology, business studies, and cognitive science. However, it is also present in education, the humanities (including philosophy and the arts), theology, and the social sciences (such as sociology, linguistics, and economics), as well as engineering, technology, and mathematics. These disciplines cover the relations between creativity and general intelligence, personality type, mental and neural processes, mental health, and artificial intelligence; the potential for fostering creativity through education, training, leadership, and organizational practices; the factors that determine how creativity is evaluated and perceived; the application of creative resources to improve the effectiveness of teaching and learning; and the fostering of creativity for national economic benefit. According to Harvard Business School, it benefits business by encouraging innovation, boosting productivity, enabling adaptability, and fostering growth.
• The English word "creativity" comes from the Latin terms creare (meaning 'to create') and facere (meaning 'to make'). Its derivational suffixes also come from Latin. The word "creates" appeared in English as early as the 14th century—notably in Chaucer's The Parson's Tale to indicate divine creation.
• The modern meaning of creativity in reference to human creation did not emerge until after the Enlightenment.
• In a summary of scientific research into creativity, Michael Mumford suggests, "We seem to have reached a general agreement that creativity involves the production of novel, useful products." In Robert Sternberg's words, creativity produces "something original and worthwhile".
• Authors have diverged dramatically in their precise definitions beyond these general commonalities: Peter Meusburger estimates that over a hundred different definitions can be found in the literature, typically elaborating on the context (field, organization, environment, etc.) that determines the originality and/or appropriateness of the created object and the processes through which it came about. As an illustration, one definition given by Dr. E. Paul Torrance in the context of assessing an individual's creative ability is "a process of becoming sensitive to problems, deficiencies, gaps in knowledge, missing elements, disharmonies, and so on; identifying the difficulty; searching for solutions, making guesses, or formulating hypotheses about the deficiencies: testing and retesting these hypotheses and possibly modifying and retesting them; and finally communicating the results."
• Ignacio L. Götz, following the etymology of the word, argues that creativity is not necessarily "making". He confines it to the act of creating without thinking about the end product. While many definitions of creativity seem almost synonymous with originality, he also emphasized the difference between creativity and originality. Götz asserted that one can be creative without necessarily being original. When someone creates something, they are certainly creative at that point, but they may not be original in the case that their creation is not something new. However, originality and creativity can go hand-in-hand.
• Creativity in general is usually distinguished from innovation in particular, where the stress is on implementation. For example, Teresa Amabile and Pratt define creativity as the production of novel and useful ideas and innovation as the implementation of creative ideas, while the OECD and Eurostat state that "Innovation is more than a new idea or an invention. An innovation requires implementation, either by being put into active use or by being made available for use by other parties, firms, individuals, or organizations."
• There is also emotional creativity, which is described as a pattern of cognitive abilities and personality traits related to originality and appropriateness in emotional experience.
• Theories of creativity (and empirical investigations of why some people are more creative than others) have focused on a variety of aspects. The dominant factors are usually identified as "the four P's", a framework first put forward by Mel Rhodes:
• Process
• A focus on process is shown in cognitive approaches that try to describe thought mechanisms and techniques for creative thinking. Theories invoking divergent rather than convergent thinking (such as that of Guilford), or those describing the staging of the creative process (such as that of Wallas) are primarily theories of the creative process.
• Product
• A focus on a creative product usually attempts to assess creative output, whether for psychometrics (see below) or to understand why some objects are considered creative. It is from a consideration of product that the standard definition of creativity as the production of something novel and useful arises.
• Person
• A focus on the nature of the creative person considers more general intellectual habits, such as openness, levels of ideation, autonomy, expertise, exploratory behaviour, and so on.
• Press and place
• A focus on place (or press) considers the circumstances in which creativity flourishes, such as degrees of autonomy, access to resources, and the nature of gatekeepers. Creative lifestyles are characterized by nonconforming attitudes and behaviours, as well as flexibility.
• In 2013, based on a sociocultural critique of the Four P model as individualistic, static, and decontextualized, Vlad Petre Glăveanu proposed a "five A's" model consisting of actor, action, artifact, audience, and affordance. In this model, the actor is the person with attributes but also located within social networks; action is the process of creativity not only in internal cognitive terms but also external, bridging the gap between ideation and implementation; artifacts emphasize how creative products typically represent cumulative innovations over time rather than abrupt discontinuities; and "press/place" is divided into audience and affordance, which consider the interdependence of the creative individual with the social and material world, respectively. Although not supplanting the four Ps model in creativity research, the five as model has exerted influence over the direction of some creativity research, and has been credited with bringing coherence to studies across a number of creative domains.
• Honing theory, developed principally by psychologist Liane Gabora, posits that creativity arises due to the self-organizing, self-mending nature of a worldview. The creative process is a way in which the individual hones (and re-hones) an integrated worldview. Honing theory places emphasis not only on the externally visible creative outcome but also on the internal cognitive restructuring and repair of the worldview brought about by the creative process and production. When one is faced with a creatively demanding task, there is an interaction between one's conception of the task and one's worldview. The conception of the task changes through interaction with the worldview, and the worldview changes through interaction with the task. This interaction is reiterated until the task is complete, at which point the task is conceived of differently and the worldview is subtly or drastically transformed, following the natural tendency of a worldview to attempt to resolve dissonance and seek internal consistency amongst its components, whether they be ideas, attitudes, or bits of knowledge. Dissonance in a person's worldview is, in some cases, generated by viewing their peers' creative outputs, and so people pursue their own creative endeavours to restructure their worldviews and reduce dissonance. This shift in worldview and cognitive restructuring through creative acts has also been considered as a way to explain possible benefits of creativity on mental health. The theory also addresses challenges not addressed by other theories of creativity, such as the factors guiding restructuring and the evolution of creative works.
• A central feature of honing theory is the notion of a potential state. Honing theory posits that creative thought proceeds not by searching through and randomly "mutating" predefined possibilities but by drawing upon associations that exist due to overlap in the distributed neural cell assemblies that participate in the encoding of experiences in memory. Midway through the creative process, one may have made associations between the current task and previous experiences but not yet disambiguated which aspects of those previous experiences are relevant to the current task. Thus, the creative idea may feel "half-baked.". At that point, it can be said to be in a potentiality state, because how it will actualize depends on the different internally or externally generated contexts it interacts with.
• Honing theory is held to explain certain phenomena not dealt with by other theories of creativity—for example, how different works by the same creator exhibit a recognizable style or "voice" even in different creative outlets. This is not predicted by theories of creativity that emphasize chance processes or the accumulation of expertise, but it is predicted by honing theory, according to which personal style reflects the creator's uniquely structured worldview. Another example is the environmental stimulus for creativity. Creativity is commonly considered to be fostered by a supportive, nurturing, and trustworthy environment conducive to self-actualization. In line with this idea, Gabora posits that creativity is a product of culture and that our social interactions evolve our culture in way that promotes creativity.
• Information intersection is to seek creative conception from various combinations and connections of information elements such as structure, function, and material through systematic decomposition of the information elements of things. It includes different forms of information intersection such as autosomal intersection, heterosomal intersection, multibody intersection and multi-system intersection. The extent to which this ability is applied includes the steps of identifying the object of study, introducing the information response field, breaking down the constituent elements, conducting the information intersection, and evaluating the choices.
• The information intersection competence has applications in many fields. In the field of innovation and design, it can help people find new ideas and solutions. In product development, it can help teams combine different technologies, materials and features to create more competitive and innovative products. In planning and management, it can help integrate different resources and elements to develop effective planning and management strategies. In education and training, it can help students and trainers to intersect different knowledge and concepts to facilitate learning and understanding. In entrepreneurship and business development, it can help start-ups and entrepreneurs to intersect different business models, market trends, and consumer needs to identify business opportunities and create competitive advantages. In scientific research, it can help scientists to intersect different theories, experimental results and data to drive scientific development and innovation.
• Examples of information intersection capabilities include innovative design, interdisciplinary research, cross-industry collaboration, educational innovation, and business entrepreneurship. By intersecting different elements of information, people can create new ideas, solutions, and innovations.
• The ability to intersect information is an important capability that helps people think and create from different perspectives and domains when faced with complex problems and challenges. By nurturing and developing this capability, individuals and organisations can better adapt to change and innovation, and achieve sustained growth and success.
• In everyday thought, people often spontaneously imagine alternatives to reality when they think "if only...". Their counterfactual thinking is viewed as an example of everyday creative processes. It has been proposed that the creation of counterfactual alternatives to reality depends on similar cognitive processes to rational thought.
• Imaginative thought in everyday life can be categorized based on whether it involves perceptual/motor related mental imagery, novel combinatorial processing, or altered psychological states. This classification aids in understanding the neural foundations and practical implications of imagination.
• Creative thinking is a central aspect of everyday life, encompassing both controlled and undirected processes. This includes divergent thinking and stage models, highlighting the importance of extra- and meta-cognitive contributions to imaginative thought.
• Brain network dynamics play a crucial role in creative cognition. The default and executive control networks in the brain cooperate during creative tasks, suggesting a complex interaction between these networks in facilitating everyday imaginative thought.
• The neuroscience of creativity looks at the operation of the brain during creative behaviour. It has been addressed in the article "Creative Innovation: Possible Brain Mechanisms". The authors write that "creative innovation might require coactivation and communication between regions of the brain that ordinarily are not strongly connected." Highly creative people who excel at creative innovation tend to differ from others in three ways:
• • they have a high level of specialized knowledge
• • they are capable of divergent thinking mediated by the frontal lobe
• • they are able to modulate neurotransmitters such as norepinephrine in their frontal lobe
• Thus, the frontal lobe appears to be the part of the cortex that is most important for creativity.
• This article also explored the links between creativity and sleep, mood and addiction disorders, and depression.
• In 2005, Alice Flaherty presented a three-factor model of the creative drive. Drawing from evidence in brain imaging, drug studies, and lesion analysis, she described the creative drive as resulting from an interaction of the frontal lobes, the temporal lobes, and dopamine from the limbic system. The frontal lobes may be responsible for idea generation, and the temporal lobes for idea editing and evaluation. Abnormalities in the frontal lobe (such as depression or anxiety) generally decrease creativity, while abnormalities in the temporal lobe often increase creativity. High activity in the temporal lobe typically inhibits activity in the frontal lobe, and vice versa. High dopamine levels increase general arousal and goal directed behaviours and reduce latent inhibition, and all three effects increase the drive to generate ideas. A 2015 study on creativity found that it involves the interaction of multiple neural networks, including those that support associative thinking, along with other default mode network functions.
• Similarly, in 2018, Lin and Vartanian proposed a neuroeconomic framework that precisely describes norepinephrine's role in creativity and modulating large-scale brain networks associated with creativity. This framework describes how neural activity in different brain regions and networks like the default mode network track utility or subjective value of ideas.
• In 2018, experiments showed that when the brain suppresses obvious or "known" solutions, the outcome is solutions that are more creative. This suppression is mediated by alpha oscillations in the right temporal lobe.
• Vandervert described how the brain's frontal lobes and the cognitive functions of the cerebellum collaborate to produce creativity and innovation. Vandervert's explanation rests on considerable evidence that all processes of working memory (responsible for processing all thought) are adaptively modelled for increased efficiency by the cerebellum. The cerebellum (consisting of 100 billion neurons, which is more than the entirety of the rest of the brain) also adaptively models all bodily movement for efficiency. The cerebellum's adaptive models of working memory processing are then fed back to especially frontal lobe working memory control processes where creative and innovative thoughts arise. (Apparently, creative insight or the "aha" experience is then triggered in the temporal lobe.)
• According to Vandervert, the details of creative adaptation begin in "forward" cerebellar models which are anticipatory/exploratory controls for movement and thought. These cerebellar processing and control architectures have been termed Hierarchical Modular Selection and Identification for Control (HMOSAIC). New, hierarchically arranged levels of the cerebellar control architecture (HMOSAIC) develop as mental mulling in working memory is extended over time. These new levels of the control architecture are fed forward to the frontal lobes. Since the cerebellum adaptively models all movement and all levels of thought and emotion, Vandervert's approach helps explain creativity and innovation in sports, art, music, the design of video games, technology, mathematics, the child prodigy, and thought in general.
• Vandervert argues that when a person is confronted with a challenging new situation, visual-spatial working memory and speech-related working memory are decomposed and re-composed (fractionated) by the cerebellum and then blended in the cerebral cortex in an attempt to deal with the new situation. With repeated attempts to deal with challenging situations, the cerebro-cerebellar blending process continues to optimize the efficiency of how working memory deals with the situation or problem. He also argues that this is the same process (only involving visual-spatial working memory and pre-language vocalization) that led to the evolution of language in humans. Vandervert and Vandervert-Weathers have pointed out that this blending process, because it continuously optimizes efficiencies, constantly improves prototyping attempts toward the invention or innovation of new ideas, music, art, or technology. Prototyping, they argue, not only produces new products, it trains the cerebro-cerebellar pathways involved to become more efficient at prototyping itself. Further, Vandervert and Vandervert-Weathers believe that this repetitive "mental prototyping" or mental rehearsal involving the cerebellum and the cerebral cortex explains the success of the self-driven, individualized patterning of repetitions initiated by the teaching methods of the Khan Academy.
• The model proposed by Vandervert has, however, received incisive critique from several authors.
• Creativity involves the forming of associative elements into new combinations that are useful or meet some requirement. Sleep aids this process. REM rather than NREM sleep appears to be responsible. This may be due to changes in cholinergic and noradrenergic neuromodulation that occurs during REM sleep. During this period of sleep, high levels of acetylcholine in the hippocampus suppress feedback from the hippocampus to the neocortex, and lower levels of acetylcholine and norepinephrine in the neocortex encourage the spread of associational activity within neocortical areas without control from the hippocampus. This is in contrast to waking consciousness, in which higher levels of norepinephrine and acetylcholine inhibit recurrent connections in the neocortex. REM sleep may aid creativity by allowing "neocortical structures to reorganize associative hierarchies, in which information from the hippocampus would be reinterpreted in relation to previous semantic representations or nodes."
• Some theories suggest that creativity may be particularly susceptible to affective influence. As noted in voting behaviour, the term "affect" in this context can refer to liking or disliking key aspects of the subject in question. This work largely follows from findings in psychology regarding the ways in which affective states are involved in human judgment and decision-making.
• According to Alice Isen, positive affect has three primary effects on cognitive activity:
• 1. It makes additional cognitive material available for processing, increasing the number of cognitive elements available for association.
• 2. It leads to defocused attention and a more complex cognitive context, increasing the breadth of those elements that are treated as relevant to the problem.
• 3. It increases cognitive flexibility, increasing the probability that diverse cognitive elements will in fact become associated.
• Together, these processes lead positive affect to improve creativity.
• Barbara Fredrickson in her broaden-and-build model suggests that positive emotions such as joy and love broaden a person's available repertoire of cognitions and actions, thus enhancing creativity.
• According to these researchers, positive emotions increase the number of cognitive elements available for association (attention scope) and the number of elements that are relevant to the problem (cognitive scope). Day-by-day psychological experiences including emotions, perceptions, and motivation significantly impact creative performance. Creativity is higher when emotions and perceptions are more positive and when intrinsic motivation is stronger.
• Various meta-analyses, such as Baas et al. (2008) of 66 studies about creativity and affect support the link between creativity and positive affect.
• Creativity can be expressed in a number of different forms, depending on unique people and environments. Theorists have suggested a number of different models of the creative person. One model suggests that there are four "creativity profiles" that can help produce growth, innovation, speed, etc.
• 1. Incubate (Long-term Development)
• 2. Imagine (Breakthrough Ideas)
• 3. Improve (Incremental Adjustments)
• 4. Invest (Short-term Goals)
• Mark Batey of the Psychometrics at Work Research Group at Manchester Business School suggested that the creative profile can be explained by four primary creativity traits, with narrow facets within each:
• 1. "Idea Generation" (Fluency, Originality, Incubation and Illumination)
• 2. "Personality" (Curiosity and Tolerance for Ambiguity)
• 3. "Motivation" (Intrinsic, Extrinsic and Achievement)
• 4. "Confidence" (Producing, Sharing and Implementing)
• This model was developed in a sample of 1000 working adults by using the statistical techniques of Exploratory Factor Analysis followed by Confirmatory Factor Analysis by Structural Equation Modelling.
• The creativity profiling approach must take into account the tension between predicting the creative profile of an individual, as characterized by the psychometric approach, and the evidence that team creativity is founded on diversity and difference.
• One characteristic of creative people, as measured by some psychologists, is what is called divergent production—the ability of a person to generate a diverse assortment of, yet an appropriate amount of, responses to a given situation. One way to measure divergent production is by administering the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. The Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking assess the diversity, quantity, and appropriateness of participants' responses to a variety of open-ended questions.
• Other researchers of creativity see what distinguishes creative people as a cognitive process of dedication to problem-solving and developing expertise in the field of their creative expression. Hardworking people study the work of people before them in their milieu, become experts in their fields, and then have the ability to add to and build upon previous information in innovative and creative ways. In a study of projects by design students, students who had more knowledge on their subject on average had greater creativity within their projects. Other researchers emphasize how creative people are better at balancing between divergent and convergent production, which depends on an individual's innate preference or ability to explore and exploit ideas.
• The aspect of motivation in a person's personality may predict their creativity levels. Motivation stems from two different sources: intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is an internal drive within a person to participate or invest as a result of personal interest, desires, hopes, goals, etc. Extrinsic motivation is a drive from outside a person and might take the form of payment, rewards, fame, approval from others, etc. Although extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation can both increase creativity in certain cases, strictly extrinsic motivation often impedes creativity in people.
• From a personality-traits perspective, there are a number of traits that are associated with creativity in people. Creative people tend to be more open to new experiences, are more self-confident, are more ambitious, self-accepting, impulsive, driven, dominant, and hostile, compared to people with less creativity.
• From an evolutionary perspective, creativity may be a result of the outcome of years of generating ideas. As ideas are continuously generated, the need to evolve produces a need for new ideas and developments. As a result, people have been creating and developing new, innovative, and creative ideas to build our progress as a society.
• In studying exceptionally creative people in history, some common traits in lifestyle and environment are often found. Creative people usually had supportive, but rigid and non-nurturing, parents. Most had an interest in their field at an early age, and most had a highly supportive and skilled mentor in their field of interest. Often the field they chose was relatively uncharted, allowing for their creativity to be expressed more. Most exceptionally creative people devoted almost all of their time and energy into their craft, and after about a decade had a creative breakthrough of fame. Their lives were marked with extreme dedication and a cycle of hard-work and breakthroughs as a result of their determination.
• Another theory about creative people is the investment theory of creativity. This approach suggests that many individual and environmental factors must exist in precise ways for extremely high levels of creativity opposed to average levels of creativity to result. In the investment sense, a person with their particular characteristics in their particular environment may see an opportunity to devote their time and energy into something that has been overlooked by others. The creative person develops an undervalued or under-recognized idea to the point that it is established as a new and creative idea. Just like in the financial world, some investments are worth the buy-in, while others are less productive and do not build to the extent that the investor expected. This investment theory of creativity asserts that creativity might rely to some extent on the right investment of effort being added to a field at the right time in the right way.
• Although everyone shows some levels of malevolent creativity under certain conditions, those that have a higher propensity towards it have increased tendencies to deceive and manipulate others to their own gain. While malevolent creativity appears to dramatically increase when an individual is placed under unfair conditions, personality, particularly aggressiveness, is also a key predictor in anticipating levels of malevolent thinking. Researchers Harris and Reiter-Palmon investigated the role of aggression in levels of malevolent creativity, in particular levels of implicit aggression and the tendency to employ aggressive actions in response to problem solving. The personality traits of physical aggression, conscientiousness, emotional intelligence, and implicit aggression all seem to be related with malevolent creativity. Harris and Reiter-Palmon's research showed that when subjects were presented with a problem that designed to trigger malevolent creativity, participants high in implicit aggression and low in premeditation expressed the largest number of malevolently-themed solutions. When presented with the more benign problem designed to trigger prosocial motives of helping others and cooperating, those high in implicit aggression, even if they were high in impulsiveness, were far less destructive in their imagined solutions. The researchers concluded premeditation, more than implicit aggression, controlled an individual's expression of malevolent creativity.
• The current measure for malevolent creativity is the 13-item Malevolent Creativity Behaviour Scale (MCBS).