Psychological Sources of Creativity*

An Interactionist Model of Creative Behavior*

“…(2) investigations regarding the personality and biographical cheracteristics ofeminent creative individuals and/or creative activity in a variety of fields; and (3) more narrowly focused work that examines one or a few specific personality dimensions for possible relationships to creative behavior. First, creativity as a construct has seemed to 'present a special challenge for personality theory, and many well·known personality theorists have made attempts to incorporate an explanation for creative behavior within their theoretical positions (Taylor, 1976;Woodman, 1981). The need for personality theory to explain creativity stems from its role as a general theory of behavior.…”

An Interactionist Model of Creative Behavior

“…First, creativity as a construct has seemed to present a special challenge for personality theory, and many well-known personality theorists have made attempts to incorporate an explanation for creative behavior within their theoretical positions (Taylor, 1976;Woodman, 1981). The need for personality theory to explain creativity stems from its role as a general theory of behavior.…”

Creativity: The interaction condition

“…(1976), whose central thesis is that, "the essential nature of the organism is to shape or design its environment rather than to be shaped or designed by it" (p. 198) Taylor's, I.A. (1976) writings tend to support the idea that the influence of the individual overrides the influence of the environment.…”

“…(1) Personality theorists have tried to explain creativity in terms of 'comprehensive theories of personality': These theorists' different perspectives (Taylor, I.A., 1976;Woodman, 1981) regarding the nature of human beings and their behaviour involve various theories with regard to explanations of creativity such as: the cognitive, humanistic, psychoanalytic, and behaviouristic theories of personality. Theorists within the cognitive tradition view individual creativity in terms of people's tendencies to process, interpret, and make sense out of the world they encounter (e.g., Kelly, 1970); within the humanistic orientation (e.g., Rogers, 1954;Maslow, 1970) are likely to relate creativity to the individual's striving for self-actualization; within the psychoanalytic tradition (e.g., Freud, 1925) view creativity as stemming from the unconscious or preconscious; and within the behaviouristic tradition view creativity as novel or unusual behaviour that is nevertheless learned, that is fundamentally no different from other behaviour which can be explained in terms of stimulus-response or contingencies of reinforcement (e.g., Skinner, 1974;Staats, 1975).…”