Psychology
Maria Castro 
CreativeGeniusSocialBackgroundOutlinefornotetaking.pptxCreative Genius (Ochse, 1990)
Social Background
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Creative Genius: Social Background
I. Historical Perspective (Chapter 1)
A. From Greeks to modern day,
genius conceived as something
breathed into a human agent by divine force.
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Creative Genius: Social Background
B. Definition
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Creative Genius: Social Background
Two Types (Kac)
a. Ordinary:
A fellow you and I would be just as good as,
if we were only many times better.
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Creative Genius: Social Background
b. Magicians:
Even after we understand what they have done,
the process by which they have done it is completely dark.
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Creative Genius: Social Background
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Creative Genius: Social Background
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C. Galton's study of Genius and 'productive creators'.
1.
2.
3. Three key ingredients:
a.
b.
c.
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Creative Genius: Social Background
4. Galton's contribution
a.
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Creative Genius: Social Background
b. Two monumental studies of genius published in 1925 and 1926 (Terman).
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Creative Genius: Social Background
II. Social Background
A. Incidence of creativity in societies
1. Since ancient times, it has been realized that clusters of geniuses appeared within relatively short periods.
Golden ages
Dark ages
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Golden ages
(highly gifted people lived in one place at the same time)
Dark ages
(very little progress was made)
2. Golden Ages
a. Age of Pericles (5th c. BC in Athens)
b. Ancient Sumerian and Chinese cultures.
c. Renaissance
d. Italian opera in 18th c.
e. German music during 18th and 19th c.
f. latter half of 20th c.: electronic technology in America and Far East.
2. Questions:
a. Are regional and temporal clusterings determined purely by chance? (William James)
b. If not, what determines the incidence of creativity in a culture?
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Creative Genius: Social Background
3. Havelock Ellis (1904) –
studied British geniuses depicted in National Portrait Gallery.
a.
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b. Concluded:
-. Golden ages represented periods in which gene pools of civilized nations are relatively favorable and pure.
-. Intellectual foundations of civilizations become undermined when brilliant races interbreed with inferior ones.
5. Alfred Kroeber (1944) - American Anthropologist (and later researchers).
a. Sample: 5000 creative individuals
living between 700BC and AD1900.
b. Regional and temporal fluctuations due to chance?
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c.
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Creative Genius: Social Background
6. Other factors
a.
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Creative Genius: Social Background
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b. Creativity increases with
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Creative Genius: Social Background
B. Position of creative achievers within the society.
1. Over the ages and in modern times,
in different societies and in various disciplines,
creators have come from
a. Especially from a segment of that class –
b. Why?
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2. Why?
a. roles models.
b. appropriate values.
c. encouragement
d. access to information and materials.
e. financial status? probably not.
f. intellectual ambition. most likely.
2. Religious Denomination
General
Population (U.S)
Nobel
Laureates (U.S.)
Catholic
Jewish
Catholics are
Jews are
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Creative Genius: Social Background
The remaining slides contain information that is no longer covered on exams, but that you might find useful for your Creative Individual paper.
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6. Importance of role models.
a. Previous generation acts as role models and inspires others to greatness.
b. Simonton (1978): Creative works created by a specific generation is significantly related to amount of work in only two preceding generations.
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Creative Genius: Social Background
6. Society must recognize important work by members of the same and neighboring disciplines.
Cultural leaders must be sufficiently sophisticated to evaluate and monitor new ideas.
7. When the conditions of knowledge, materials, social support and incentives are met, the effects are often noticeable.
8. Certain breakthroughs become almost "inevitable".
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a. Cultural leaders must be sufficiently sophisticated to evaluate and monitor new ideas.
b. If they allow a proliferation of worthless, pretentious products, then the entire cultural domain may be impoverished.
9. Scientific Examples
a. Simultaneous, independent discoveries.
-. Newton and Leibnitz: calculus.
-. Darwin and Wallace: evolution.
-. Joule, Helmholz, Thomson, and Colding: conservation of energy.
b. Simonton (1979) - History of scientific advances.
-. 449 doublets
-. 104 triplets
-. 18 quadruplets
-. 7 quintuplets
-. 1 octuplet
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Creative Genius: Social Background
12. Distribution of creative products is very 'skewed'.
a. A small number of persons create a large portion of valued objects, even when climate is highly favorable.
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Creative Genius: Social Background
b. Moles (1968) - Of the 1000s of composers who have ever lived,
only 250 have their works regularly performed.
-. 36 composers produced 75%.
-. 16 composers produced 50%.
-. 10 composers produced 40%.
-. 3 composers produced 20%
(Mozart, Beethoven, Bach)
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c. Lerner & Triole (2000) – Open source programmers.
-. Less than one-tenth of 1 percent of open source programmers contributed nearly ¾ of all code
-. Nearly ¾ made only one contribution.
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Creative Genius: Social Background
d. Similar patterns hold true for other disciplines as well.
e. "However favorable the cultural climate, only a few people are likely to account for most of the creative products of the society."
"Culture does not make great men. It only offers, to those who meet other conditions, the possibility of becoming great."
Pasteur: “Chance favors the prepared mind.”
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