How Can We Foster a More Creative Society?

There has been long lasting interest in researching creativity. For the purpose of expressing my main topic of inquiry, I decided that it would be more advantageous to center on the generalized research and findings of creativity. The results of my research have led me to find that there has been a substantial amount of previous research on creativity and the role of creativity in the academic world. I have conducted research on the properties of creativity and what the scholarly community has shared in terms of defining creativity. The paper will transition into exploring studies which address whether creativity can be taught or if it is an innate quality. Being that I plan on becoming an educator, the implications of creativity in schools are of interest to me. It is of great importance to investigate how education can play a role in building creativity in individuals. Nancy Andreasen, M.D., PhD is an American neuroscientist who is the Andrew H. Woods chair of psychiatry at the University of Iowa Ray J and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine. She is recognized for her pioneering contributions to research on schizophrenia. In 2000, President Clinton awarded Andreasen the National Medal of Science, which is Americas most prestigious award for scientific achievement. In an NPR program recorded in 2006, Andreasen discussed the topic of whether creativity is learned or whether it is an innate quality. Andreasen discussed several aspects of the nature of creativity. She mentions that there is some controversy when it comes to defining creativity. One position claims that an individual is considered creative if peers in the field of endeavor view the person as being creative. The main issue with this train of thought is exemplified by historical accounts of creative people. Vincent Van Gogh was an extraordinarily talented artist who never received recognition in his lifetime for his creative abilities. The opposing position claims that a person is creative when they

are able to view things and relationships in an unconventional manner. It involves the ability to create novel things and is especially seen in the domains of the arts and sciences. There have been parallels between how various individuals in the scholarly community have defined creativity. This is a key factor in being able to confirm that there is validity in my research findings. There are many different ways in which a person can study creativity just as there are variations in the meanings of creativity. Both Kaufman and Andreasen stated similar key components of being creative in their definitions. They mention that a crucial aspect of being creative lies in the capacity to produce something of use. In the book titled, Changing the World: A Framework for the Study of Creativity, Feldman, Csikszentmihalyi, and Gardner center their focus on one meaning of creativity. The authors devoted their studies to creativity in the sense of the development of something new that has the ability to revolutionize and existing area of enthusiasm. Without undermining the aspects of small creativity, they choose to pay particular attention to what they refer to as big creativity. In order to differentiate between the two types of creativity I will provide examples of both. Small creativity can refer to utilizing everyday objects in other ways than they were intended. For example, a person may think to use an egg carton or a wooden palate as a planter. Another individual could carve an arrangement of fruit to resemble an animal. Big creativity is researched in terms of the formation of a fresh concept or the development of a product. The creation of an innovative safety feature for a car can serve as an example of big creativity. The majority of the research of creativity that has been conducted has focused on other meanings of creativity. The personality characteristics of individuals who are considered creative compared to their peers as well as the connections between intelligence test scores and scores of tests designed to measure creative abilities have been the concentration of most of the research. Researchers have been interested in determining the effects of different intervention

techniques on increasing levels of individuals divergent thinking. Feldman and his colleagues have made it clear that they are more concerned with gaining an overall sense of the nature of creativity, how it happens, as well as gaining a general understanding of existing data from previous studies.

Works Cited Ambrose, Donald. How dogmatic beliefs harm creativity and higher-level thinking. New York: Routledge, 2012. Print. "Creativity, Learned or Innate?." Flatow, Ira. Talk of the Nation. NPR. 15 Dec. 0200. Radio. Feldman, David Henry, and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Changing the world: a framework for the study of creativity. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1994. Print.