Creativity: typologies, dimensions and phases of the creative process

What types of creativity exist and what are the hidden aspects of the creative process?

Creativity is a psychological phenomenon of great importance both at the individual and collective level. We need creativity when we seek to solve an everyday problem at an individual level and it is also useful at a collective level in science, art or technology.

Any advance of mankind has its origin in a creative idea.. In the same way, unfortunately, creativity has been present in most of the most despicable and aberrant situations in the history of mankind. For better and for worse, creativity distinguishes us from the rest of beings on this planet, being, perhaps, the most defining characteristic of the human being.

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Some integrative proposals for the definition of creativity

The main obstacle to study creativity at a scientific level is to reach a consensus on a definition that pleases all those who investigate it from different disciplines. One of the most complete definitions that has been achieved so far is perhaps that of Vernon (1989): “Creativity is a person's capacity to produce new and original ideas, discoveries, restructurings, restructuring, and new ideas.Creativity is the ability of the individual to produce new and original ideas, discoveries, restructurings, inventions or artistic objects, which are accepted by experts as valuable elements in the field of science, technology or art. Both originality and usefulness or value are properties of the creative product, even though these properties may change over time.

With a rather more abstract approach, some authors define it as. "the ability to produce new, original and appropriate ideas" (Sternberg and Lubart). (Sternberg and Lubart, 1991). Originality would be understood as something that is relatively infrequent, although it is convenient to speak of degrees of originality, rather than seeing it as something absolute in the sense of "all or nothing". As for something (idea or product) being appropriate, it is considered appropriate when its proposal solves a significant problem or represents a decisive intermediate step towards greater achievements. Usefulness is also a matter of degree.

Creativity as a set of dimensions

Other authors have tried to be more specific in their definitions, approaching creativity from four levels of analysis. This is what has traditionally been known as the 4 P's of creativity.

1. The Process

Creativity understood as a mental process (or set of processes) that results in the production of original and adaptive ideas. This is the perspective adopted by Cognitive Psychology, which has focused on studying different cognitive operations such as problem solving, imagination, intuition, the use of heuristics (mental strategies) and insight. insight (spontaneous revelation).

Some theories that have dealt with the different stages of the creative process are inspired by the initial proposal of Wallas (1926). Other authors have tried to identify the components of creative thinking, such as the studies of Mumford and colleagues (1991; 1997).

2. The Product

Creativity can be conceptualized as a characteristic of a product.A product can be understood as a work of art, a scientific discovery or a technological invention, among others. Generally, a creative product is one that is considered original, i.e., it manages to combine novelty, complexity and surprise. In addition, it is adaptive, which means that it is capable of solving some problem in the environment. Also, depending on the domain in which it is placed, the creative product is related to characteristics such as beauty, truth, elegance and virtuosity, (Runco, 1996).

3. Persona (personality)

Here creativity is understood as a trait, or personality and/or intelligence profile characteristic of a specific person. It is an individual quality or capacity, so that some individuals have more than others (Barron, 1969).

Individual creativity is one of the objects of study of differential psychology.Several traits have been found that seem to coincide in creative people. Among others are: intrinsic motivation (not needing external incentives to create), breadth of interests (high curiosity in different domains), openness to experience (willingness to experiment and high tolerance to failure) and autonomy (Helson, 1972). At present, personality is understood as one of the influences on creative behavior, and not something that fully explains such behavior (Feist and Barron, 2003).

4. The environment (place or press):

The environment or climate in which creativity emerges is determinant.. By combining certain elements of the situation, we can facilitate or block the creative process. Creativity usually appears when there are opportunities to explore, when the individual is given independence in his work and the environment encourages originality (Amabile, 1990).

In addition, the environment is key in the assessment of creativity, as it will ultimately determine whether or not the product can be considered creative.

Interaction between creative elements

Evidently, these four elements of creativity are totally interrelated in practice.. It is to be expected that a creative product is generated by a creative person, applying creative processes, in an environment conducive to the development of such a product and, probably, in an environment prepared for its valuation. Recently, two new P's have been added to the 4 P's, so that nowadays it is usually referred to as the 6 P's of creativity. The fifth P corresponds to Persuasion (Simonton, 1990) and the sixth is Potential (Runco, 2003).

If we rephrase the question "What is creativity?", we will obtain, as we have seen, several answers depending on where we focus our attention: the person, the product, the process, the environment, persuasion or potentiality. We could also refer to the creativity of geniuses, that of young children, or that of any person in their daily life, without giving importance to their age or their genius.

So far, most definitions focus on three components or defining characteristics of the creative act: the originality of the idea, its quality and its appropriateness, i.e., how appropriate it is for the task at hand.that is, how appropriate it is for what it is intended to solve. Therefore, it can be said that a creative response is one that is, at the same time, new, appropriate and relevant.

Creativity as a magnitude

An alternative approach differentiates between different levels of creativity, approaching it as a magnitude rather than as a fixed set of characteristics. The range of the magnitude creativity would extend from minor or mundane creativity "Little-c" (more subjective) to major creativity, mature creativity or eminence "Big-C" (more objective).

The first, the mundane creativity, refers to the everyday individual creativity that any one of us employs to solve a problem. It is part of human nature and takes the form of something new for the individual, or for his or her immediate environment, but it is rarely recognized or of outstanding value at the social level (Richards, 2007). It is a category of great interest in the analysis of factors influencing common creativity at home, at school or in the work environment (Cropley, 2011).

The second has to do with the performances and products of eminent individuals in some field.. They are those characters that show a high performance and/or manage to transform a field of knowledge or social, for example: Charles Darwin, Newton, Mozart or Luther King.

Mini-c and Pro-c

If we consider the magnitude of creativity as something dichotomous (black or white), we will encounter the problem of not being able to identify the nuances that exist between the Little-c and Big-C categories.. That is, to speak of two types of creativity, mundane or eminent, does not represent the real distribution of the characteristic in the population because there is a range of possibilities between the two. In an attempt to overcome the limitations of dichotomous categorization, Beghetto and Kaufman (2009) propose to include two new categories, Mini-c and Pro-c, thus expanding to four the categories that would attempt to frame the phenomenon of creativity.

Mini-c creativity is the most subjective form of all kinds of creativity. It refers to the new knowledge an individual acquires and how he or she internally interprets his or her personal experiences. In research, it is useful for understanding the personal and developmental aspects of creativity, helping to explain it in young children.

The Pro-c category represents a level of evolution and effort that begins at Little-c but falls short of Big-C, helping to understand the area between the two. It corresponds to creativity related to expertise in some professional area. It should be noted that not all professionals who are experts in an area achieve this type of creativity. Those who achieve it require approximately 10 years of preparation in their domain to become "experts". To become Pro we will need to prepare a cocktail containing high doses of knowledge, motivation and performance.

Creativity as a continuum

Although with four categories we can better encompass the phenomenon of creativity, they are still too few to capture its complex nature. For this reason, some authors prefer to treat creativity as a continuum.

Cohen (2011) proposes his "continuum of adaptive creative behaviors". This author considers the interaction between the person and the environment, from an adaptive point of view, to analyze creativity.to analyze creativity. His continuum ranges from creativity in young children to creativity in eminent adults, establishing seven levels or stages. He proposes some influential variables for the development of creativity along the continuum, such as: purpose, novelty, value, speed and structure.

The aforementioned works are but a brief sample of the effort made, especially since 1950, to define creativity from multiple spheres of knowledge, although here we have focused on works in the field of psychology.

Among all the disciplines we are establishing certain points of agreement when it comes to establishing what can be understood as creativity and what is not, although we are still on the way to deciphering the enigma and establishing some truth regarding this phenomenon, which will hardly become absolute, as it usually happens with many other constructs in the field of social sciences, but which will help us to understand a little better what is creativity and what is not, although we are still on the way to deciphering the enigma and establishing some truth regarding this phenomenon, which will hardly become absolute, as it usually happens with many other constructs in the field of social sciences. will help us to understand the world around us and our own inner world a little better..

Bibliographical references:

• Amabile, T. M. (1990). Within you, without you: The social psychology of creativity, and beyond. In M. A. Runco, & R. S. Albert (Edits.), Theories of creativity (pp. 61-91). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

• Barron, F. (1969). Creative person and creative process. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

• Beghetto, R. A., & Kaufman, J. C. (2009). Intellectual estuaries: Connecting learning and creativity in programs of advanced academics. Journal of advanced Academics (20), 296-324.

• Cohen, L. M. (2011). Adaptation, adaptiveness, and creativity. En M. A. Runco, & S. R. Pritzker (Edits.), Encyclopedia of Creativity (2ª ed., págs. 9-17). London: Elseiver.

• Cropley, A. J. (2011). Definitions of creativity. En Encyclopedia of Creativity (págs. 358-369). London: Elsevier.

• Feist, G. J., & Barron, F. X. (2003). Predicting creativity from early to late adulthood: Intellect, potential and personality. Journal of research in personality.

• Helson, R. (1972). Personality of women with imaginative and artistic interests: The role of maculinity, originality, and other characteristics in their creativity. Journal of creative Behavior .

• Mumford, M. D., Baughman, W. A., Maher, M. A., Costanza, D. P., & Supinski, E. P. (1997). Process-based measures of creative problem solving skills: IV. Category combination. Creativity Research Journal .

• Mumford, M. D., Mobley, M. I., Uhlman, C. E., Reiter-Palmon, R., & Doares, L. M. (1991). Process analytic models of creative capabilities. Creativity Research Journal .

• Richards, R. (2007). Everyday creativity and new views of human nature: Psychological, social, and spiritual perspectives. American Psychological Association. Washington, DC.

• Runco, M. A. (2003). Education for creative potential. Scandinavian Journal of Education.

• Runco, M. A. (1996). Personal creativity: Definition and developmental issues. New Directions for Child development.

• Simonton, D. K. (1990). History, chemistry, psychology, and genius: An intellectual autobiography of historiometry. En M. A. Runco, & R. S. Albert (Edits.), Theories of creativity. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

• Sternberg, R. J., & Lubart, T. I. (1991). An investment theory of creativity and its development. Human Development, 34 (1).

• Vernon, P. (1989). The nature-nurture problem in creativity. En J. A. Glober, R. R. Ronning, & C. R. Reynols (Edits.), Handbook of creativity. New York: Plenum.

• Wallas, G. (1926). The art of thought. New York: Harcourt Brace and World.