Creativity Theory - TRaining MAterial in Creativity and InnovaTion ...

3. Individual Creativity
3. Individual creativity:
characteristics of a
creative person
Two major approaches can be recognized
in the study of the creative personality. One
is holistic, that is the study of the person in
its totality; the second is the study of specific
ingredients of a creative personality.
Maslow is representative of the first approach
and according to him creative
people are self-actualizing persons. He
believed that the determinants of creativeness
are literally thousands and that it is
futile to trace them back in an attempt to
develop an easy road to creativity. He says
there is no special button for creativity and
the creative person has to be interpreted
holistically. The trouble is that this approach
does not lead itself to educational pursuits
and does not offer even general directions.
We will therefore turn to the second approach
and list a set of characteristics/
ingredients which can nurture (or not) creativity
in a person. Some of these factors
have no correlation (e.g. gender) or a weak
correlation (e.g. intelligence) with creativity,
while others have a strong correlation (e.g.
knowledge, personality traits, motivation).
Many researchers have investigated
whether there is a correlation between intelligence
and creativity. There is, as yet, no
unanimous consent on the matter. The prevailing
opinion is that the relation is quite
weak: highly intelligent persons are not
necessarily creative. Although creative people
are intelligent persons – intelligence is
required - an exceptionally high IQ is not a
prerequisite for creativity. On the contrary,
intelligence may inhibit the inner resources
of the individual because his self-criticism
becomes too rigid or he learns too quickly
what the cultural environment has to offer.
Certain aspects of intelligence are definitely
required for creativity. At the very
least, creativity involves different aspects
of intelligence: synthetic aspects to
come up with ideas, analytical aspects to
evaluate the quality of those ideas and
practical aspects to formulate a way of
effectively communicating those ideas
and persuading people of their value.
The view of Perkins is that intelligent people
are more likely to be creative than are
people with lower intelligence, but that
high intelligence is neither a necessary
nor a sufficient condition for creativity. Although
many very creative people are also
highly intelligent, it appears that a sizeable
percentage are not and clearly there are
many highly intelligent people who are
not usually creative. Highly intelligent
people may have the potential to develop
higher levels of creativity than less intelligent
people, on average, or to express their
creativity in more spectacular ways, but
this does not preclude the possibility that
many people at all levels of intelligence
have a greater creative potential that
they are likely to develop spontaneously.
Let us briefly mention the influence of
emotional elements on creativity, in contrast
to intelligence. To ignore the impact
that emotions have on creative energy
is to miss an important point. Human
systems are not abstract structures. They
are charged with emotion. If emotions
have healthy avenues for expression,
they elicit and promote creative energy.
If emotions are repressed or negatively
encouraged, people in the organization
will retreat from creativity. They will fail to
be empowered and the organization will
be robbed of their best contributions [19].
Is there a positive relationship between gender
and creativity? Are men more creative than women
or vice versa? No!
There is in fact no biological basis for this
alleged inferiority of women in the field
of creativity. The only part in the organism
that could physiologically explain the
difference would be the central nervous
system. But no differences in the central
nervous system have been detected so far.
The average human brain weighs about
1400 grams, or approximately 2 percent of
the total body weight. Inasmuch as women
generally weigh less than men, their brain
may also weigh less, but the variation is insignificant.
When the ratio of brain weight
is studied, it is found that generally women
have a proportionally larger brain than
men. Nor is there a significant difference in
the number of neurons; estimates indicate
that there are approximately 15 billion
of neurons in the cortex of both sexes.
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THEORETICAL PART