Synopsis
Many creativity research programs are narrowly focused on one aspect of creativity to the exclusion of others; an integrative focus will help move the field forward.
The study of creativity is sometimes classified as focusing on the little c, everyday creativity; or as aiming to entangle the enigma of genius or the big C creativity. In a recent post, I extended this to a middle c research paradigm where the focus is on mechanisms underlying the creative process. I aptly labelled the three paradigms, as focusing on Products, People and Processes. Today I want to extend this further by adding to this mix, a research paradigm that focuses on micro and macro environmental causes or conditions that encourage / inhibit creativity. This is also known as a focus on the environmental Press , thus completing our four P’s.
Products:
[…] Creativity (of Products) = surprise + originality + utility + beauty.
Process:
The middle C creativity, or the study of normal creatives and how they create on a daily basis, shed light on the creative Process. […]
People:
Coming to big C creativity, here the focus is squarely on People and what makes some people eminent or genius or more creative than the rest of us. […]
Press:
Teresa Amabile, amongst others, has studied the conditions conducive/ prohibitive for creativity, a lot. Some of her research paradigm focuses on the effect of environments on middle c normal creative types or little c everyday creative persons- like the employees and managers in an organisation. To some, such an organizational focus, on creativity exhibited in everyday work context, may be trivially useful or attractive, but I think the basic principles of environmental influences on historical creativity can be easily extrapolated from the principles involved in everyday creativity. […]
In the end, it is important to realize that creativity is all things to all people, but still needs desperately, and would benefit from immensely, an integrative research paradigm; otherwise like the proverbial blind men and the elephant, we may end up getting narrow and useless conceptions of creativity and ignore the big elephant in the room.