essay 8 pagess

definitions and theories I four Ps and mysterious

mental happenings

[Scene: Austrian courtroom. Judge Heinrich Hangum is reading the charges against defendant Sigmund Freud.]

Judge Hangum: Herr Doktor Freud, you bin charged mit using schmutty ideas in your creativity theory und offendink the sensitivities of delicate folks. How do you plead, you guilty rascal?

Sigmund Freud: Not guilty, Herr Judge. I bin writin' und speakin' only die truth!

Judge: But die truth is, you bin saying' we're bein' creative because we got a big sexy sex drive! You bin guilty as Cain!

Freud: But Herr Judge, dot isn't schmutty! We're bein' creative' cause our id got sex needs, our superego got a clean conscience, und so our ego-dot's our "self' -puts the sex needs into creative fantasies!

Judge : Schmutty fantasies?

Freud: Nein, nein! Creative idea fantasies-poetry und painting, nice tings like dot.

Judge: Sounds fischy to me! Herr Doktor Freud, are you sure?

Freud: I am not die world's greatest psychoanalyst for nothink, you know.

Judge: I sink I vill give you six months in das schlammer to clean up your theory.

Freud: I sink you love your mama, hate your papa, und so you bin pickin' on defenseless psychoanalysts!

Judge: Make dot a year.

The creative writer does the same as the child at play. The writer creates a world of phantasy which he or she takes very seriously ...

while separating it sharply from reality. Sigmund Freud

39

40 Chapter Three

Definitions Sometimes Are Theories, and Vice Versa

"Model" Often Means "Theory"

Models Are Analogical

Test Manuals Include Theories Definitions and Theories Simplify Complex Phenomena

The Creativity Question

Lombroso: Creativity Related to Insanity

The Creative Process

T

There are many definitions and theories of crea.tivity. To complicate matters, defi- nitions sometimes are considered theories and some theories are just definitions. Elaborate definitions are especially likely to be called theories.

And then there is the word model, which often is used interchangeably with theory. Traditionally, the word model implies an analogical relationship, a point- for-point correspondence between one phenomena and a different one. For exam- ple, we might say an attractive home with a well-manicured yard "looks like a million dollars." The description is analogical. As we will see, the investment the- ory of creativity is an analogical model. Investment terms and relationships are used to clarify aspects of creativity.

Also, every creativity test manual must explain what the test purports to measure. Therefore, creativity test manuals are another source of definitions and theories, most of which will duplicate definitions and theories in this chapter.

The commonality among definitions, theories, and models of creativity is that all seek to simplify and explain a complex phenomena. To impose some structure, this chapter will briefly review:

• Four categories of definitions of creativity, which focus on the creative per- son, process, product, and environment (press)-known collectively as the "four Ps."

• ''Mysterious mental happenings," familiar especially to artists, writers, and composers.

Chapter 4 will continue with definitions and theories by examining:

• Three classical theoretical approaches to creativity-psychoanalytic, behav- ioristic, and self-actualization.

• Seven contemporary "theories" (definitions, ideas)-Stemberg' s three-facet model; Amabile's three-part model; Csikszentmihalyi's (and Gardner's) person, domain, and field model; Simonton's chance-configuration theory; in- vestment theory; an interactionist model of creativity that describes interrela- tionships among everything; and a common-sense, almost tongue-in-cheek viewpoint, implicit theories of creativity. Finally, we will look briefly at the new field of interdisciplinarity-scientific studies of aesthetic experiences.

For a more extensive review of creativity theories and definitions, the reader might begin with the old-but-excellent The Creativity Question (Rothenberg & Hausman, 1976), which includes, for example, Plato (inspiration from the gods through the Muses); behaviorist Burrhus Frederick Skinner (his friends called him "Fred"; reinforcement of creative responses); Paul Torrance (the creativity man himself); Frank Barron (creative personality); and Joseph Bogen and Glenda Bogen (creativity and brain hemispheres). The book also presents a selection by my favorite classic scholar, Cesare Lombroso, who in 1895 related creativity to insanity-and therefore to brain degeneration-because both the creative and the insane tend to be original. 1

The Creative Process (Ghiselin, 1952), another anthology, presents original writ- ings by historically creative persons, for example, Einstein, Mozart, van Gogh, Wordsworth, and Neitzsche. A more recent volume by Gardner (1993) describes relevant parts of the lives of seven creatively eminent persons-Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, T. S. Eliot, Martha Graham, and Gandhi. Other books covering

1Lombroso would have loved Rosanne Barr, Steve Martin, Jim Carrey, and Howard Hughes.

. .

Many Definitions and Theories

What's Creativity? Experts Disagree

The Ninja View

Creativity Is Complex, Multifaceted

Four Interrelated Ps

Simonton's P: Persuasion

Definitions and Theories I: Four Ps and Mysterious Mental Happenings 41

creativity theory are by Arietti (1976), Runco and Albert (1990), and Sternberg (1988b).

To set the tone, there are about as many definitions, theories, and ideas about cre- ativity as there are people who have set their opinions on paper. As a few pertinent quotes, Freeman, Butcher, and Christie (1968) concluded that "there is no unified psychological theory of creativity" and that we freely use such terms as imagination, ingenuity, innovation, intuition, invention, discovery, and originality interchangeably with creativity. Nicholls (1972) added that "the term creativity is used with something approaching [reckless] abandon by psychologists ... and people in general."

Tardif and Sternberg (1988b, p. 429), in an attempt to review commonalities and differences among the theoretical explanations in Sternberg's (1988b) anthology on creativity, concluded that "Different levels of analysis were used to address the concepts; within levels, different components were put forth; and even when simi- lar components were discussed, differences were seen in how these components are defined and how crucial they were claimed to be for the larger concept of creativity." Translation: Gee whiz, even experts have different ideas about what's important for creativity! After reading this chapter and Chapter 4, you will agree .

An Asian viewpoint explained Ninja Secrets of Creativity (Petkus, 1994). A state of emptiness (Ku; e.g., having a problem) leads one to draw from four bipolar centers: chi (earth; stability [ +] versus resistance to change [-]); sui (water; flexi- bility [ +] versus over-emotionalization [ - ]); ka (fire; dynamic vitality [ +] versus fear[-]); and fu (wind; wisdom and love [+]versus over-intellectualization [- ]). One's personality, cognitive style, and situational requirements are said to influ- ence the selection. Western tastes may find excess terms and concepts in this view, but it illustrates the complexity issue.

A main problem in pinning down "creativity'' is its complexity and multifac- eted nature. We can choose to examine, theorize, or conduct research about any minuscule or global part of creativity, and we do. Said Carl Jung (1959), "the creative aspect of life ... baffles all attempts at rational formulation." Well, not entirely. Two traits of creative people are attraction to complexity and tolerance for ambiguity, which also seem to characterize anyone interested in pursuing this topic.

DEFINITIONS Of CREATIVITY

It's convenient and conventional to organize creativity around the "four Ps. As mentioned above, these are the creative person, the creative process, the creative product, and the creative press-the environment. Many people skip the confusing word "press" and just say environment (e.g., Hasirci & Demirkan, 2003), even though it does not begin with "p." For example, sections of Arietti's (1976) classic book are organized around the creative person, process, product, and environ- ment. In the final chapter of their anthology, Tardif and Sternberg (1988b) re- viewed each author's chapter in regard to its contributions to clarifying each of the four P areas. Long-time creativity leader Calvin Taylor (see Chapter 11) already had organized his chapter around the four Ps. Person, process, product, and press remain a sensible and popular way to classify creativity research, definitions, theo- ries, and other discussions of the topic (e.g., Hasirci & Demirkan, 2003).

Simonton (1988a, 1990), incidentally, added a fifth P, persuasion, to emphasize the role of leadership in impressing others with one's creativity. "A creator [must] claim appreciators or admirers to be legitimatized as a true creator" (p. 387). We also will see this social-interpersonal part of creativity in the theories of Csikszentmihalyi (1988; pronounced "Smith") and Gardner (1993). For now, we will sample defini- tions included under the first four Ps-person, product, process, and press.

42 Chapter Three

4 Ps Are Related

Creative Persons Possess Particular Traits

Lombroso's Signs of Degeneracy in Creative People

Rank's Creative Type

Emphasis on Personality

The four Ps are interrelated in the obvious way: Creative products are the out- come of creative processes engaged in by creative people, all of which are sup- ported by a creative environment. Torrance (1988) relates the creative process, person, product, and press with these words: "I chose a process definition of cre- ativity for research purposes. I thought that if I chose a process as a focus, I could then ask what kind of person one must be to engage in the process successfully, what kinds of environments will facilitate it, and what kinds of products will re- sult from successful operation of the processes" (p. 47).

In addition to the four Ps, this section will include discussions of mysterious mental happenings, a pesky category that cannot be ignored despite the best strug- gles of contemporary objective thinking.

CREATIVE PERSON In Chapter 5 we will review many recurrent personality and biographical traits

of creative people, for example, confidence, energy, risk-taking, humor, and a his- tory of creative activities. Definitions with a person orientation respond to the question "What is creativity?" with an answer such as, "Well, a creative person is someone who ... (possesses particular traits that increase the person's likelihood and level of creativeness)."

This section will briefly review three classic and more-or-less amusing defini- tions (descriptions, theories) regarding the nature of the creative person.

Cesare Lombroso

At the top of our list is Cesare Lombroso's (1895) degenerate brain theory . Naming specific famous and creative people, Lombroso noted that "signs of degeneration in men of genius" include stuttering, short stature, general emacia- tion, sickly color, rickets (leading to club-footedness, lameness, or being hunch- backed), baldness, amnesia/forgetfulness, sterility, and that awful symptom of brain degeneration-left-handedness! While rating high in entertainment value, the characteristics are not related to creative potential, except possibly the left- handedness. 2

Otto Rank

While most psychoanalysts of the time assumed artists were neurotic, Otto Rank (1945) described his creative type-also referred to as the artist or the man of will and deed-as well-adjusted and self-actualized. The creative person has a strong, positive, integrated personality and "is at one with himself ... what he does, he does fully and completely in harmony with all his powers and ideals." Rank's creative type contrasts with his "average man" and his "conflicted and neurotic man."

Rank also wrote that creating art is "a spontaneous expression of the creative impulse, of which the first manifestation is simply the forming of the personality itself" (Rank, 1932, p. 37). And again, "The creative impulse itself is manifested first and chiefly in the personality'' (p. 38). A former glass blower, Rank himself probably was an artist .

2As elaborated slightly in Chapter 5, the suggestion is that left-handers, most of whom are ambidextrous, have superior access to both brain hemispheres, which helps creativity. The jury is still out.

Jealousy of Female Procreation?

Jung's Psychological 'fype

Jung's Visionary Type

Definitions and Theories I: Four Ps and Mysterious Mental Happenings 43

Perhaps influenced by Freud, in many books Rank argued that "male creators are motivated by jealousy of female procreation" (Rothenberg & Hausman, 1976, p. 114). (Creativity exercise: What reasoning and thoughts could lead to this idea? Your suggestions can be amusing and preposterous also.)

Carl Jung

Carl Jung was a colleague of Freud. He was a regular guest at the weekly meet- ings of Freud's Wednesday Psychological Society. In 1909 Freud and Jung trav- eled together to Clark University in Massachusetts to promote psychoanalysis, and in 1910 Freud offered Jung the presidency of his new International Psychoan- alytic Association (Gardner, 1993).

Jung (1933, 1959, 1976) described the creative works of novelists and poets, partic- ularly Goethe, and identified two types of artistically creative people, the psychological type and the more imaginative visionary type. The psychological type of creator draws from the realm of human consciousness--lessons of life, emotional shocks, and experiences of passion and human crises. For example, said Jung, the poet's work is an interpretation of conscious life that raises the reader to greater clar- ity and understanding. Novels about love, crime, the family, or society, along with didactic poetry and much drama, also are of the psychological type. According to Jung, the material is understandable, based in experience, and fully explains itself.

More interesting and mystical is his visionary type. ''It is a strange something that derives its existence from the hinterland of man's mind .... It is a primordial experience which surpasses man's understanding" (Jung, 1933). This "primordial

"I got primordial archetypes and you-au don't. I got primordial archetypes and you-ou don't!" gloated Harpo. "They're probably in that stupid hat!" replied Zeppo. (Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research.) ("Animal Crackers", 1930. Courtesy of Universal Studios Licensing LLLP.)

44 Chapter Three

Primordial Archetypes

Thin Evidence!

Torrance's Definition

Wallas Stages

Six CPS Stages

experience" is said to be an activation of one's "archetypes" or "primordial im- ages." Jung claimed that "The archetypal image .. . lies buried and dormant in man's unconscious since the dawn of culture ... they are activated-one might say 'instinctively'-[in the] visions of artists and seers." When exposed to such archetypes, said Jung, we may be astonished, taken aback, confused, and perhaps even disgusted. They remind us of nothing in everyday life, but they may remind us of dreams, nighttime fears, and "dark recesses of the mind" about which we have misgivings.

The visionary creative person, due to dissatisfaction with current circum- stances, is said to reach out to this collective unconscious. "The creative process, in so far as we are able to follow it at all, consists in an unconscious animation of the archetype, and in a development and shaping of this image till the work is completed" (Jung, 1976, p. ·125-126).

Is there evidence for this eyebrow-raising explanation of the creative person? Said Jung (1976), the assumption that an artist has tapped his collective uncon- scious for an unfathomable idea can be derived only from a posteriori analysis of the work of art itself. That is, the material seems not to be reflection of the poet's personality, experience, or psychic disposition. However, noted Jung (1933), "we cannot doubt that the vision is a genuine, primordial experience, regardless of what reason-mongers may say."

The critical reader, presumably a reason-monger, might place Jung's arche- types alongside Plato's Muses and the tooth fairy.

CREATIVE PROCESS

E. Paul Torrance

Torrance's (1988, 1995) definition of creativity describes a process that resem- bles steps in the scientific method: "I have tried to describe creative thinking as taking place in the process of (1) sensing difficulties, problems, gaps in informa- tion, or missing elements; (2) making guesses or formulating hypotheses about these deficiencies; (3) testing these guesses and possibly revising and retesting them; and finally (4) communicating the results. I like this definition because it de- scribes such a natural process" (Torrance, 1995, p. 72). Torrance's process defini- tion is unique in including the entire creative episode, from detecting a problem to presenting the results. We noted earlier that Torrance's process definition includes the creative person (someone who can do this), the creative product (the success- ful result), and the creative press (the environment that facilit~tes the process).

Graham Wallas

In Chapter 6 we will look at several proposed sets of stages in creativity, each of which has been described as "the creative process." For now, we will mention just briefly Wallas' (1926) ancient-but-still-healthy four steps of preparation, incu- bation, illumination, and verification. The terms are almost self-defining, but you may peek at Chapter 6 if you wish.

Creative Problem Solving (CPS) Model The currently most useful set of stages, in the sense of helping one to creatively

solve real problems, is the Creative Problem Solving (CPS) model (e.g., Osborn, 1963; Parnes, 1981; Treffinger, Isaksen, & Dorval, 1994a). To anticipate Chapter 6, the six thought-and-work guiding stages are entitled (1) Mess Finding (locating

Or Five

How Can Something Come from Nothing?

Generation, Selection, Preservation of Ideas: Perkins

Koestler: Bisociation of Ideas

Definitions and Theories I: Four Ps and Mysterious Mental Happenings 45

a problem needing solution), (2) Fact Finding (examining what you know about the problem) , (3)Problem Finding (selecting a specific problem definition) , (4) Tdea Finding (e.g., through brainstorming), (5) Solution Finding (evaluating ideas), and (6) Acceptance Finding (implementing the ideas). The CPS model sometimes is pre- sented without the first step, that is, as a five-stage model (e.g., Parnes, 1981).

Combining Ideas

Many process definitions assume that a creative idea is a combination of previ- ously unrelated ideas, or looking at it another way, a new relationship among ex- isting ideas. The creative process, therefore, is the process of combining the ideas or perceiving the relationships.

To note a few notables;

"It is obvious that invention or discovery, be it in mathematics or anywhere else, takes place by combining ideas" (Hadamard, 1945).

"The ability to relate and to connect, sometimes in odd and yet striking fash- ion, lies at the very heart of any creative use of the mind, no matter in what field or discipline" (Seidel, 1962).

''The intersection of two ideas for the first time" (Keep, cited in Taylor, 1988). ''The integration of facts, impressions, or feelings into a new form" (Porshe,

1955). ''That quality of the mind which allows an individual to juggle scraps of

knowledge until they fall into new and more useful patterns" (Read, 1955). "The creative process is the emergence in action of a novel relational product,

growing out of the uniqueness of the individual" (Rogers, 1962, p. 65). "Creativity is a marvelous capacity to grasp two mutually distinct realities

without going beyond the field of our experience and to draw a spark from their juxtaposition" (Preface to Max Ernst Exhibition, cited in Fabun, 1968).

David Perkins: Selection, Generation, Preservation

Perkins' (1988) explanation of creativity focused on how one deals with idea combinations. Perkins began by posing the hypothetical question of whether in- vention is possible: How can something come out of nothing? His solution, in brief, includes a process analogous to natural selection-the generation, selection, and preservation of ideas. Unlike natural selection, the generation process is not random. The potential "combinatorial explosion" of possibilities is "mindfully di- rected" by creative people, who are motivated, have creative "patterns of deploy- ment" or "personal maneuvers of thought," and have raw ability in a discipline. Such people mentally represent and "operate on" traditional boundaries, produc- ing practical innovations (e.g., the light bulb) and impractical ones (e.g., poetry- his example).

Arthur Koestler: Bisociation Arthur Koestler's (1964; see also Mudd, 1995) bisociation of ideas theory of cre-

ativity is an over-eloquent statement that elaborates the popular notion that cre- ativity involves combining ideas. Said Koestler, "Let me recapitulate the criteria which distinguish bisociative originality from associative routine ... The first [is] the previous independence of the mental skills or universes of discourse which

46 Chapter Three

The More Unlikely the Combination, the More Creative It Is

Highly General

Who Smokes 'Em?

High Intuitive Appeal

Creative Combinations Require a Creative Person

Many creative ideas are the product of combining previously unrelated ideas. In this historic photo Winchester Arms inventor Wally Boome com- bined the idea of "big oaf" with the idea of "cannon" to produce the first self-propelled, self-aiming artillery piece that runs on a daily fuel supply of five chickens and 25 pounds of potatoes. "A little rhubarb pie, too," adds Olaf Oaf, carefully taking aim. (From Why Worry, Starring Harold Lloyd. Copyright © 1923 by Harold Lloyd Trust. Reprinted by permission.)

are transformed and integrated into the novel synthesis of the creative act ... [Creativity is] the amalgamation of two realms as wholes, and the integration of the laws of both realms into a unified code of greater universality ... The more unlikely or more 'far-fetched' the [idea combination], the more unexpected and impressive the achievement."

Koestler's broad theory emphasizes the commonality of creativity processes in jokes, artistic representations, and intellectual insights generally. He applied it to genetic codes and amino acids, on one molecular hand, and to aesthetics and or- ganizational behavior, on the other much larger other one. If it helps the reader's visualization, a "realm" (domain) is conceived as a two-dimensional plane--a flat matrix containing coded ideas, rules, and action sequences-whose intersection with another plane sparks the creative combination . Said Koestler (1967, p. 36), "The creative act . .. always operates on more than one plane," and "The bisocia- tive act connects previously unconnected matrices of experience" (p. 45).

Woody Allen once combined a religion plane with a cigarette plane to create a catchy commercial for New Testament cigarettes . A priest proclaims, "I smoke 'em, He smokes 'em."

Defining creative ideas as new combinations of existing ideas has strong intu- itive appeal. For example, virtually any consumer product, from bread makers and roller blades to Chinese pizza and glowing golf balls, easily can be dissected into the parts that were combined into the innovative wholes. The same usually applies to scientific, medical, technological, and-perhaps with more difficulty- to artistic and literary creations.

Assembling high quality creative combinations normally requires experience, highly-developed technical and stylistic skills, high energy, a lively imagination,

Product and Process Related

Originality

And Social Worth

He's a Good Egg!

Barron: Newness, Purposefulness, Aptness

Definitions and Theories I: Four Ps and Mysterious Mental Happenings 47

and a polished aesthetic taste to know when the idea combination is good. The final creation may be complex, such as Beethoven's Ninth or your student union building, or simple, such as chocolate worms.

CREATIVE PRODUCT

Some definitions of creativity in the process category are a hair-width (or less) from definitions in the creative product category and easily could appear in this section.

Definitions that focus on the creative product typically emphasize originality, a word sometimes used interchangeably with creativity. If the person penning the definition thinks a few seconds longer, he or she usually will include some notion of correctness, appropriateness, value, usefulness, or social worth. Such terms ex- clude the bizarre, off-the-wall-but unquestionably original-scribblings of a chimpanzee or babblings of a child, mentally deranged person, or politician. Said Briskman (1980), "The novelty of a creative product clearly is only a necessary condition of its creativity, not a sufficient condition; for the man who, in Russell's apt phrase, believes himself to be a poached egg may very well be uttering a novel thought, but few of us, I imagine, would want to say that he was producing a creative one" (p. 95).

Some definitions emphasizing just originality are:

"Creative ability appears simply to be a special class of psychological activity characterized by novelty'' (Newell, Shaw, & Simon, 1962).

Creativity is "the process of bringing something new into birth" (R. May, 1959). "Creativity ... is a noun naming the phenomenon in which a person commu-

nicates a new concept (which is the product)" (Rhodes, 1987).

Adding a dash of appropriateness, value, or social worth we get:

"Creativeness, in the best sense of the word, requires two things: an original concept, or 'idea,' and a benefit to someone" (Mason, 1960).

"To be considered creative, a product or response must be novel ... and appro- priate" (Hennessey & Amabile, 1988).

"Creativity is the occurrence of a composition which is both new and valu- able" (Murray, cited in Fabun, 1968).

"Creativity is the disposition to make and to recognize valuable innovations" (Lasswell, cited in Fabun, 1968) .

''The creative process is any thinking process which solves a problem in an original and useful way'' (Fox, cited in Fabun, 1968).

"A creative person, by definition, .. . more or less regularly produces outcomes in one or more fields that appear both original and appropriate" (Perkins, 1988).

Emphasizing both originality and worth, Barron (1988) wrote that "Creativity is an ability to respond adaptively to the needs for new approaches and new products. It is essentially the ability to bring something new into existence pur- posefully" (p. 80). Expanding on the purposefulness of innovations, Barron emphasized "their aptness, their validity, their adequacy in meeting a need ... The emphasis is on whatever is fresh, novel, unusual, ingenious, clever, and apt" (p. 80).

48 Chapter Three

Environment Has Central Role

Press May Repress Creativity

Or Support Creativity

Responses to Social Needs: Rhodes

And Sufficient Technology

Environment Provides Judges

Things That Go Bump: Shulz

Creativity Eludes Understanding: Jung

Drew Repeatedly Until One Had Feeling and Life

CREATIVE PRESS

A fourth category of definitions of creativity emphasizes the creative press, the social and psychological environment. 3 We do not find definitions or theories that are based solely on the presence or absence of a creative environment. We do find continual reference to the role of colleagues, society, or culture in most thoughtful writings on creativity.

We know that the environment may repress imagination and innovation, for example, as described in our cultural barriers section of Chapter 2. We saw that organizations or nations can squelch creativity by stressing conformity, tradition, duty, obedience, role obligations, inflexible rules, and the status quo in general. To anticipate Freud's theory (Chapter 4), he combined virtually all social pressures into his word superego, which usually translates social conscience.

We find an emphasis on a favorable creative press in brainstorming, with its defining principle of deferred judgment (no criticism, no evaluation; Chapter 8), in Carl Rogers' (1962) emphasis on psychological safety, and in any classroom or corpo- rate setting where a creative climate encourages creative thinking and innovation. Isaksen (1987, p. 14) noted as "necessary conditions for the healthy functioning of the preconscious mental processes which produce creativity: The absence of serious threat to the self, the willingness to risk, ... [and] openness to the ideas of others."

Rhodes (1987) mentioned two aspects of the environment that are important for creativity. First, many innovations are in response to social needs-the world needed a cotton gin, a telephone, a Xerox machine, good Broadway shows, heart transplants, CAT Scans, microcomputers, the Internet, and awful-tasting TV dinners. Current highly visible needs-such as a cure for AIDS and fewer guns, gangs, and joints in the elementary school-are motivating near-frantic levels of creative problem solving and innovation. Second, for most creations, especially those based in technology, the environment must offer "a sufficiently advanced state of culture and a prop .er technical heritage" (Rhodes, 1987, p. 220).

In Chapter 4, in the theories of Csikszentmihalyi, Gardner, and Simonton we will see a perhaps surprising, but to them essential, role of society in the provi- sion of sophisticated judges to decide what products, and therefore what people, truly are creative.

MYSTERIOUS MENTAL HAPPENINGS

Lively descriptions of mysterious mental happenings come from people best qualified to examine the process of creativity-eminently creative people them- selves. Peanuts cartoonist Shulz, for example, claimed that many of his ideas came from "things that go bump in the night." Despite his own strange sugges- tion of drawing ideas from one's unconscious, primordial archetypes, Carl Jung (1933) admitted that "Any reaction to a stimulus may be causally explained; but the creative act, which is the absolute antithesis of mere reaction, will forever elude human understanding."

In Art

Wrote Vincent van Gogh (1952) in a letter to a friend:

I seldom work from memory .... When I have a model who is quiet and steady ... then I draw repeatedly till there is one drawing that is

3Mnemonic device: Think of social pressure.

Did Not Understand His Own Creative Processes

Mozart Heard Completed Compositions "All At Once"

Sleeplessness

Definitions and Theories I: Four Ps and Mysterious Mental Happenings 49

different from the rest ... [which] are just studies with less feeling and life in them . . .. The first attempts are absolutely unbearable ... , I do my best not to put in any detail, as the dream quality would then be lost. (p. 54).

Zervos (1952) wrote the following from a conversation with Picasso. Note Picasso's reactions to people who try to understand his creative processes.

What misery for a painter who detests apples to have to use them ... because they harmonize with the table cloth! I put in my pictures everything I like ... they'll have to get along with one another .... The picture is not thought out and determined beforehand, rather while it is being made it follows the mobility of thought ... A picture comes to me from far off ... I divined it, I saw it, I made it, and yet the next day I myself don't see what I have done .... How can one penetrate my dreams, my instincts, my desires, my thoughts ... above all seize [understand] in them what I brought about, perhaps against my will? ... Why is there no attempt to understand the song of birds? (pp. 56-60)

In Music

In a letter, Mozart (1952) described unconscious processes in creativity:

When I am ... entirely alone and of good cheer-say traveling in a car- riage ... or during the night when I cannot sleep-it is on such occa- sions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence and how they come, I know not; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory, and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself .... it soon occurs to me how I may turn this ... to the peculiarities of the various instruments, etc. All this fires my soul, and ... my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodized and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it, like a fine picture or a beautiful statue, at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts succes- sively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once ... All this inventing ... takes place in a pleasing lively dream ... the committing to paper is done quickly enough, for everything is ... already finished; and it rarely differs on paper from what it was in my imagination. (pp. 44-45).

Beethoven, as with Mozart, also heard symphonies in his head. The reader probably knows that Ludwig composed his Ninth Symphony, probably his great- est work, while stone deaf.

In Science

French mathematician Jules Henri Poincare (1952) wrote:

One evening, contrary to my custom, I drank black coffee and could not sleep. Ideas rose in crowds; I felt them collide until pairs inter- locked, so to speak, making a stable combination. By the next morning I had established the existence of a class of Fuchsian functions .... I had only to write out the results. (p. 36)

50 Chapter Three

Thought with Signs, Images, Muscle Movements

Does Not Know How Poems Are Made

We Keep Saying, ''It Came To Me!"

Unconscious, Night- Time Inspiration

Inspiration During the Writing

Intense Thrill

Rewrites, Rewrites

Albert Einstein (1952) did his remarkable thinking without words, but- curiously-with muscle movements:

The words in the language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought. The psychical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are certain signs and more or less clear images ... and some of muscular type .... combinatory play seems to be the essential feature in productive thought. (p. 43).

In Literature

Poet Amy Lowell (1952) wrote:

In answering the question ''How are poems made?" my instinctive an- swer is a flat '1 don't know." It makes not the slightest difference that the question ... refers solely to my own poems, for I know as little of how they are made as I do of anyone else's .... The truth is that there is a little mystery here, and no one is more conscious of it than the poet himself .... A common phrase among poets is, '1t came to me." So hack- neyed has this become that one learns to suppress the expression ... but really it is the best description I know of the conscious arrival of a poem. (pp. 109-110)

Playwright Jean Cocteau (1952) suggested that ideas lie within ourselves, and that conscious effort can harness the unconscious inspirations. Easy for him.

The poet is at the disposal of his night. His role is humble, he must clean house and await its due visitation. [My play] The Knights of the Round Table was a visitation of this sort. I was sick of writing, when one morning, after having slept poorly, I woke with a start and witnessed, as from a seat in a theater, three acts which brought to life an epoch and characters about which I had no documentary information. (p. 82)

In a conversation with John Hyde Preston (1952), author Gertrude Stein said:

Think of writing in terms of discovery, which is to say that creation must take place between the pen and the paper, not before in thought or afterwards in a recasting ... It will come if it is there and if you will let it come .... you have to know what you want to get; but when you know that, let it take you. (p. 159-160)

Dorothy Canfield (1952) confessed:

I have no idea whence this tide comes, or where it goes, but, when it be- gins to rise in my heart, I know that a story is hovering in the offing .... I get simultaneously a strong thrill of intense feeling, and an intense de- sire to pass it on to other people. (p. 169)

When the story is complete, Canfield described a process familiar even to text- book writers:

After this came a period of steady deskwork, every morning, of rewrit- ing, compression, ... and the mechanical work of technical revision ... to try to catch clumsy, ungraceful phrases. (p. 174).

Involuntary Inspiration Is Impetuous or Slow

Challenge: Find a Helpful Demon

Intriguing Combinations

Definitions and Theories I: Four Ps and Mysterious Mental Happenings 51

Philosopher Friedrich Nietsche (1952) defined inspiration as when:

Something profoundly convulsive and disturbing suddenly becomes visible and audible with indescribably definiteness and exactness ... I have never had any choice about it .... There is an ecstacy . . . during which one's progress varies from involuntary impetuosity to involun- tary slowness. There is the feeling that one is utterly out of hand .... Everything occurs quite without volition. (p. 202).

Rudyard Kipling (1952), following Aristotle and others, attributed inspiration to his "Personal Demon":

I learned to lean upon him and recognize the sign of his approach. If ever I held back ... I paid for it by missing what I then knew the tale lacked .... My Demon was with me in the Jungle Books, Kim, and both Puck books, and good care I took to walk delicately, lest he should withdraw. (pp. 157-158)

In an often-cited and colorful description of mental creative processes, John Liv- ingstone Lowes (1927) described Samuel Coleridge's writing of Kubla Khan. Co- leridge had reported that he composed over two hundred lines while in a deep opium sleep and published it almost without modification . Lowes proposed that Coleridege's prior readings and writings filled his mind with the ideas and images that combined into the poetic Kubla Khan. Lowes-but not Coleridge himself- wrote:

Facts which sank at intervals out of conscious recollection drew together beneath the surface through almost chemical affinities of common elements .. . there in the darkness moved phantasms of fishes and animiculae and serpentine forms of his vicarious voyages, thrusting out tentacles of association and interweaving beyond disengagement .

Samuel Coleridge probably would have said the same thing.

SUMMARY Definitions, theories, and models try to clarify complex phenomena. Many

attempt to shed light on "creativity." Most definitions focus on the 4 Ps: the creative person, the creative product, the

creative process, or the creative press (environment). They interrelate. Simonton suggested a fifth P, persuasion .

Person definitions emphasize characteristics of creative people. Lombroso pro- posed that the creative and the insane have mental degeneration in common .

Contrasted with his average man and neurotic man, Rank's creative type is self-actualized .

Jung's visionary type of creative person, who contrasts with his psychological type, is said to draw ideas from primordial archetypes, a collective unconscious . Evidence is thin .

Process approaches include Torrance's definition (sensing problems, forming hypotheses, testing them, communicating results); stage approaches such as Wallas' four-step and the CPS six-step models; plus numerous one-sentence defi- nitions based on combining ideas.

52 Chilpter Three

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Also addressing the creative process, and resembling natural selection, Perkins proposed the generation, selection, and preservation of ideas, with the "combina- torial explosion" of ideas "mindfully directed" by creative people. Koestler re- ferred to the bisociation of ideas-the intersection of two planes (domains) of ideas.

Product definitions emphasize originality ("I am a poached egg"), but usually combined with value, appropriateness, usefulness, or social worth.

Definitions and theories tend not to focus solely on the creative press, but the environment is included in many thoughtful creativity writings. The "press" ap- pears in discussions of barriers, brainstorming, Roger's psychological safety, and the creative climate.

Rhodes noted two aspects of the environment important for creativity: Social needs and an appropriate state of technology.

"Mysterious mental happenings" emphasizes the complexity of creativity and our frequent inability to explain creative inspiration.

Van Gogh drew the same subject repeatedly until one showed feeling and life. Picasso questioned why others tried to understand his creative processes when

he himself did not. Mozart described the involuntary mental flow of musical ideas, later devel-

oped and quickly written. Mathematician Poincare described ideas rising in crowds and interlocking

during a sleepless night. In the morning, as with Mozart, Poincare quickly wrote the results.

Einstein thought not in words, but in signs, images, and muscle movements . Poet Amy Lowell insisted ''It came to me." After a sleepless night, playwright Jean Cocteau awoke to witness three acts of

a play. Gertrude Stein emphasized discovery-"creation ... between the pen and

paper ." Dorothy Canfield admitted to having no idea where her ideas come from, but

she experienced intense feeling and a desire to write, followed by revision. Nietsche also admitted to an ecstacy during writing, and again ideas were

involuntary. Rudyard Kipling claimed inspiration from a personal demon. Lowes presented a colorful description of combining ideas.