The origin of originality

Posted on March 4, 2014 by knlistman

026f7386d86f1391f6f184682e8db927Start any discussions on the origin of creativity and you will quickly find the group divided. On one side people claim it is an innate trait. You are either born with or without it. Keep on pressing this faction and most will admit it is not exactly a black or white proposition, rather people are apparently born with varying amounts of creativity. They cite anecdotal examples of young children demonstrating precocious creative ability that grow up to be a great artists, composers, or inventors–such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

On the other hand there are people who see creativity as a skill that can be taught. Now while many of these people are attempting to advance their own curriculum for developing it, not all are. They commonly view the ability to come up with original, useful ideas as our best chance at solving humankind’s problems. They refer to examples of children who grow up in artistic and creative environment that go on to produce great original works–for example Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

In order to test either proposition one must first define creativity and develop a way to measure it. This investigation is already sunk because a single definition of creativity is impossible to obtain. What is original and unique in one culture, may be commonplace in another.  What solves a problems or accomplishes a goal in one society, may be nonsensical to another.  It is not the just the acts or products, but how these compare to others in the same society that is the hallmark of creativity. So psychologists have come up with their own definitions, their own research and their own tests. Actually the definitions may only vaguely relate to the research, and the tests are typically borrowed or build on other’s work.

J.P. Guilford, head of psychological research for U.S. Army,  was one of first to build an elaborate battery of assessments for creativity. He formulated a model called Structure of Intellect, a three dimensional model showing the relationship of mental processes,  products, and content in intellectual ability. His creativity assessments were largely a measurement of divergent thinking–generating a variety of ideas or possible solutions for a task.  [1]

The Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) developed by E. Paul Torrance, were based on J.P. Guilford’s work on tests of divergent thinking. They were originally scored on four scales:

  • Flexibility – the number of different categories of ideas
  • Fluency – the total number of meaningful different ideas that were generated
  • Originality – how different the ideas were from those of peers
  • Elaboration – how well the details of these ideas were developed

The major benefits of this test: it can be taken by children or adults and provides a comparative score for originality. Along with this test Torrance performed long term studies to find out what happened to the creatively gifted students who first took it in 1958. Those students who continued with high levels of creative achievement developed an image of their future career earlier than their peers did. Therefore, they were working towards a specific goal longer. They also had mentors to assist them. [3]

Of course this still does not answer the question of whether the creativity is innate or environmental. Perhaps this should not be the question, but rather it should be “how is creativity encouraged and strengthened?” Knowing the direction in which to pour your original thinking and having someone advise you seems to be the recipe for successful use of creative talents.

[1] Irving A. Taylor, A Retrospective View of Creativity Investigation, in edited by Perspectives in Creativity, eds, Irving A. Taylor, Jacob W. Getzels (1975)Transaction Publishers
[2] Torrance, E. (1999). Torrance test of creative thinking:  Norms and technical manual.  Beaconville, IL: Scholastic Testing Services.
[3] Torrance, E. Paul (1980) Growing Up Creatively Gifted: A 22-Year Longitudinal Study. Creative Child and Adult Quarterly, v5 n3 p148-58,170 Fall 1980
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Time and creativity – friend or foe?

Posted on February 25, 2014 by knlistman

burbn timeWhen working with Odyssey of the Mind teams practicing their problem-solving skills, I discovered an interesting aspect of creativity.  Students had to come up with a large of number of  creative ideas to solve a problem on the spot. However, not all students in a large group could participate in this competition, so we set up a way of scoring ideas as a fair way to choose the competitors. Each student was given the same problem scenario. Within a set time, they listed as many possible solutions as they could. I mistakenly thought that coming up with original ideas would require more time. Therefore, students were judged on two scores: the number of ideas and the originality of ideas. Actually there was a positive correlation between number of ideas and originality. Those students that still clung to the tried and true practical ideas came up with noticeably fewer solutions. These students were running ideas through a filter of practicality.

But without both originality and usefulness creativity is …. useless.  This is where the time pressure wields the greatest effect. According to creativity researcher Teresa Amabile, there is a continued debate on how the pressures of deadlines affect creativity. “Some people are convinced that time pressure stimulates creative thinking, and others are certain it stifles creative thinking.”[1] Amabile has recently completed a long term study  in the corporate world and has noted some of her own surprising findings.

Data in this long term study was collected through a self reported daily electronic diary in order to observe creative work in real time as teams collaborated on projects. The collected data suggest that “overall, very high levels of time pressure should be avoided if you want to foster creativity on a consistent basis.” People can continue to work creatively during a time crunch, but not for extended periods. This of course, is not a  new finding. However, there were contradictions in perception among the participants. Amabile stated that “participants were giving evidence of less creative thinking on time-pressured days, [but] they reported feeling more creative on those days.”[1]

So there seems to be a disconnect between feeling creative and showing evidence of creativity when in a time crunch. Creativity occurs as a thought process first; ideas are stimulated by increased pressures. But, once the idea has been conceived, the refinement and elaboration needed to make into a useful solution require time. When the pressure is on, adrenaline flows. Creative ideas seem to pop up left and right. But turning those ideas into something useful, and working through all the dead ends to find the end of the maze takes extended periods of time. So when it comes to producing creative work, time  pressures appear to be both a friend and a foe.

[1] Silverthorne, Sean (2002) Time Pressure and Creativity: Why Time is Not on Your Side, Working Knowledge, Harvard Business School (Accessed 24 Feb 2014)
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Is creativity a right-brain function?

Posted on February 18, 2014 by knlistman

055 monitor_child copyThe idea of left brain and right brain thinking originated with the work of a number of physicians in the 1800s. Pierre Paul Broca, a French physician studied patients suffering from aphasia, inability to speak due to brain injuries. He pinpointed Broca’s area, a region on the front left side of the brain that functioned in the production speech. A few years later, Carl Wernicke uncovered another area on the back left side also responsible for language processing. Damage to Wernicke’s area would result in inability to comprehend language. Then, an area on the underside of the brain was found essential for recognizing people’s faces, and the scramble was on for mapping brain functions .[1] Enter pop psychology. Soon the task each hemisphere was suppose to perform were drawn down the lines of imagination versus logic. According to Carl Zimmer ” People were tagged as “right brains” if they could draw and “left brains” if they were analytical.”[2]

Roger W. Sperry, awarded the 1981 Nobel Prize for split brain research, discovered that the left and right hemisphere of the brain learned and remembered different events.  When the corpus callosum was cut in epileptic patients, disconnecting the two hemispheres of the brain, the cognitive abilities of these patients changed slightly. They were unable to name objects when viewed with only right eye leading him to propose that language was processed on left side of brain.  However, it turned out that some functions of language, such as intonation, are dependent of the right side of the brain.[3]

Apparently ability to use both sides of brain, with their intricate interdependence, together for a single task is a hall mark of “gifted” ability in math.  For average people the left hemisphere of the brain is better at processing visual “parts,” and the right hemisphere is better at analyzing visual “wholes.” But joint research by psychologists at the U.S. Army and the University of Melbourne found that mathematically gifted teens did better than average teens on tests that required the two hemispheres of the brain to cooperate. Could the same be true for creativity? According to Michael O’Boyle, PhD, “giftedness in math, music or art, may be the by-product of a brain that has functionally organized itself in a qualitatively different way than the usual left/right hemispheric asymmetry.”[4] His findings definitely points to the advantage of being able to perform functions that are typically dominated by one side or the other using both sides of the brain.

O’Bolye’s research is not the only one that shows the right brain, left brain dichotomy between logic and creativity is largely overblown. Dr. Jeff Anderson, director of the fMRI Neurosurgical Mapping Service, says the preference to use one specific brain region more than the other for particular functions can be documented using MRI brain scans. When his team examined brain scans of participants they saw pockets of heavy neural traffic in certain key regions. However on average, both sides of the brain had similar amounts of neural networks and connectivity.  The people examined where not predominantly right brained or left brained. What makes pinpointing the area in which creativity originates so difficult is the fact that creativity is not a single function. Dr. Anderson recently reported that “It is not the case that the left hemisphere is associated with logic or reasoning more than the right… Also creativity is no more processed in the right hemisphere than the left.”[5]

So if someone asks you to concentrate on “right brain” thinking, remember, a whole brain is better than a half a brain, especially when it comes to creativity.

 
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Paul_Broca (accessed Feb 17, 2014)
[2] Zimmer, Carl (2009) The Big Similarities & Quirky Differences Between Our Left and Right Brains. Discover Magazine (accessed Feb 17, 2014)
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Wolcott_Sperry (accessed Feb 17, 2014)
[4] Singh, Harnam, and  O’Boyle, Michael W., Interhemispheric interaction during global-local processing in mathematically gifted adolescents, average-ability youth, and college students” Neuropsychology, Vol. 18, No. 2.
[5] Wanjek, Christopher. Left Brain vs. Right: It’s a Myth, Research Finds (accessed Feb 17, 2014)
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Optimist or pessimist

Posted on February 11, 2014 by knlistman

Eggs_Expressions_Happy_Sad1How does a person’s view of the world –optimistic or pessimistic–affect creativity? Psychologist have noted that the average human has a bias towards optimism. People live with the illusion that most situations will turn out better than they actually do. Unrealistic optimism seems to be the norm. On the other hand. pessimism may result in a darker than actual view of the future. Severely depressed people expect more problems than really do occur. The slightly depressed people tend to have the most realistic view of the future [1].

In the world of the ancient Greeks, the character of authors, artists, and composers was often connected with melancholy, a sense of pervasive sadness. In modern times, philosophical pessimism seems rampant among creative people. Just look at the life and work of Miguel de Cervantes, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Joseph Conrad, Richard Wagner, Edward Munch,  Thomas Mann,  Jorge Luis Borges and Albert Camus. However, philosophical pessimism is a view of the human predicament. Negative outcomes for humankind are seen as the result of a hostile universe. This philosophy counters the view that humans are improving and may upset many people.

The relationship of optimism and pessimism to creativity depends how creativity is determined. One way is to test a people considered creative by their peers using a  personality inventory, such as the study that used the Khatena-Torrance Creative Perception Inventory (Khatena & Torrance, 1976) and the Attributional Style Questionnaire (Seligman, 1990) to determine if people with creative personalities showed more more trust in good outcomes or bad outcomes for the future. This study among college students found optimism had a positive correlation with characteristics such as artistic production, openness to ideas and self-confidence. On the other hand pessimism was correlated with lower scores in inquisitiveness. But overall there was not a significant relationship between the creative personality and either optimism or pessimism.[2] Another similar study showed that both positive and negative emotions contributed to the creative personality, with pessimism enhancing apparent creativity.[3]

However, the idea of the melancholic writer, composer or artist continues to be pervasive. It is possible that this pessimistic view of mankind drives the most notable creators to the solitary task of producing something artistic. It may be that they find some satisfaction in the beauty of producing something unique to show their baleful outlook.

Photo from  http://pdpics.com/

[1] Taylor, S. E. & Brown, J. D. (1988). Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health. Psychological Bulletin, 103, 193—210.
[2] Reffel, J. A. (2010, July). Optimism, Pessimism and Creativity. Paper presented at the 11th Asia Pacific Conference on Giftedness, Sydney, Australia.
[3] Charyton, Christine; Hutchison, Shannon; Snow, Lindsay; Rahman, Mohammed A.; Elliott, John O.Creativity as an Attribute of Positive Psychology: The Impact of Positive and Negative Affect on the Creative Personality, Journal of Creativity in Mental Health, v4 n1 p57-66 2009
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Creative styles – what’s in fashion now?

Posted on February 4, 2014 by knlistman

dec steph 199aDoes creativity equate with keeping up with the latest trends? I wince a bit at this thought and realize how many people assume “early adopter” is same as creativity. I realize that no one comes up with ideas in a vacuum. We must all build on the past and avoid constructing something so disconnected to the current world that it is utterly incomprehensible. However, creativity is really defined by starting trends, rather than following them.

Now that creativity has become a valued ability it seems cruel to for anyone to be left out. It is no longer the domain of the eccentric inventors, impractical daydreamers, and those living in garrets on the edge of poverty. Many claim everyone should have the possibility of being creative. But, if you look at any group some people generate far more unique ideas and original work than others do.

The latest trend in creativity research is not to find who has it, as much as it is to define the various styles, so everyone can share the glory. For example, Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory describes both Adaption and Innovation as styles of creativity. However, but when one looks at how they are defined one will really see that they are levels of creativity.  People fall between working within the system and challenging the system.[1] According to this scale, no one is purely creative or completely non-creative, but somewhere on a continuum between the two.

Another creative style assessment known by its acronym, C.A.R.E., (Fahden & Namakkal, 1995). Describes the different approaches that people use. As in Kirton’s Adapter-Innovator split no one fits completely into any category. Most people use all of these approaches at one time or the other, but they show a definite preference of one type of approach.

Conceptual approach encompasses developing new ideas, different alternatives, describing concepts, and forming an overall plan. This is the creative style of the thinking person.

Spontaneous approach is marked by freedom from constraint and traditions, and an ADHD style that focuses on many things at once, impatiently jumping from one to the other – the feeling approach to creativity.

Normative approach is shown by putting ideas into a familiar context, based on past experiences and similar situations to guide them, with a preference for knowing the consequences and following rather than leading. This play-it-safe style is not particularly creative. Maybe these people follow rather than lead when it comes to producing original ideas and products–like the person who assumed adopting trends early was creative.

Methodical approach is not really creative at all. This approach is demonstrated by focusing on proven solutions, and placing things in order. However, creative people can be methodical during part of their process because if they use a step-by-step, orderly routine to test ideas to see which are practical.[2]

It is still obvious that that creativity is not spread equally across the masses.  However, everyone may not be driven to be unique to the same extent because they may not want to be creative. Many are simply content to keep doing what exactly what has been done.

Photo by Dave Cachero
[1] Kirton, M.J. (1976). Adaptors and innovators: A description and measure. Journal of Applied Psychology, 61, pp. 622 – 629.
[2] Carlson Learning Company, (1995). pp. 8-9
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Creativity and the blame game

Posted on January 28, 2014 by knlistman

Hendrick_ter_Brugghen_blame 4The emphasis on creativity as a way to provide an economic boost has been followed by a plethora of publications on how to be more creative. But taking those ideas to heart may not be the best move. More than one study has shown that expressing creative ideas  hurts a person’s chances of being considered leadership material.

Wharton Business College and Cornell University found that people judged creative by their colleagues were also seen as having less leadership potential than their peers with ordinary ideas. Another study attempted to determine exactly why this occurred. This second study required college students to watch other students pitch solutions to a problem. Some of the proposals were both original and useful, fitting the definition of creative ideas. A second set of students try to sell ordinary, well-known ideas. It really was the creativity of the ideas, not the  personal warmth, or competence of the presenter that correlated with lower perceptions of leadership ability.[1] Why is this?

The novelty of trying a new concept stretches the mind. How exactly will the innovation work? What will the outcome be? Trying new ideas to solve problems leaves us in a haze of unpredictability.  Therefore, innovation is often eschewed because people do not want change. They are comfortable with the “tried and true” even when these fail to work as well as they used to.

Michael Kirton’s long term study compared two different styles of creative problem solving. At one end of the continuum was the Adaptive style manager. This person tried to improve within the current model of the existing organization. They made changes incrementally and were seen as dependable and efficient. Their ideas were more easily accepted by the employees. But most important, if they made a misjudgment, or if one of their solutions turned out to be a mistake, people tended to forgive them. At the other end of the continuum were the Innovators. This group of managers reached for breakthrough changes for the organization. They did not try to conform to the status quo, but were seen as unique, original, visionary and ingenious. They were also criticized, and often fell out of favor if they were mistaken and their novel ideas did not work.[2]

There seems to be a double standard when it comes to “mistake forgiveness.” If a manager proposes new ideas, there is resistance both to the ideas and the individual proposing it. If the ideas fail, the manager receives all the blame. However, if they try traditional solutions without success, there seems to be little recrimination. After all, who would have guessed that the same old thing would not work anymore?

[1] A Bias against ‘Quirky’? Why Creative People Can Lose Out on Leadership Positions http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/a-bias-against-quirky-why-creative-people-can-lose-out-on-leadership-positions/ (accessed Jan 26 2014)
[2] Kirton, M.J. (1976). Adaptors and innovators: A description and measure. Journal of Applied Psychology, 61, pp. 622 – 629.
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Normal people?

Posted on January 21, 2014 by knlistman

571px-Color_discWilliam Moulton  Marston theory published in his book Emotions of Normal People [1] is known by its initials DISC. It bears resemblance to the four temperaments recorded by the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates. Marston even created a diagram connecting the color wheel (with slightly more green) with his four ’emotions.’

  • D – Dominance is exhibited by the desire to prevail over others and exercise control by being aggressive, strong-willed and taking action. It resembles the Choleric  type.
  • I -Inducement is shown when people desire to lead or prevail on others using influence, persuasion or by invoking alliances. A bit like the gregarious Sanguine character without the self-indulgence
  • S- Submission is demonstrated when a person gives up or yields authority to another. It is the passive side of a Phlegmatic.
  • C- Compliance is a technique for adjusting to aggression. The person conforms or is courteous but underneath is indifferent to the attempts of others to predominate, which reflects the cautious but independent Melancholic.

Initial research for this theory was actually done among prison inmates (not exactly a normal population) and then tested among college students. It was a division of four nodal points of primary emotion,  not four different personalities. People exhibited some of all of these responses, but not in equal strength.

Both Dominance and Inducement were primary emotions exhibited by people wanting to be movers and shakers, while Submission and Compliance showed passive acceptance of surroundings. It resembled the extrovert/introvert dichotomy in that extroverts tolerate and even crave stimuli, while introverts seek calmer surroundings.

Dominance and Compliance were both  ways to deal with an antagonistic environment while Inducement and Submission were aimed at favorable environments. For some this is equivalent to thinking which prefers processes, in which one doesn’t deal with people as opposed to feeling in which people’s emotions are the impetus for behavior.

Creativity resulted as a combination of Dominance and Compliance. Marston who thought he supported the feminist ideas of the day, still saw men as creating more in the world of art because of their tendency to value Dominance higher than Compliance. He saw women’s contribution to art being more skillful and intricate based on a Compliance. Leadership on the other hand is seen as a combination of Dominance and Inducement. As Inducement increases, Compliance decreases; the person becomes more of a charismatic leader, but fails to attend to the actual tasks required to put new ideas into concrete form.

Finally Marston attributed overly aggressive exhibitions of Dominance to secretions of glandular substances; it seemed that endocrine system had replaced the Hippocrates’ body fluids in producing the four temperaments.

[1] Marston, W.M.(1928) Emotions of Normal People  https://archive.org/stream/emotionsofnormal032195mbp#page/n7/mode/2up
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Personality per the ancient Greeks

Posted on January 17, 2014 by knlistman

kachina_paper dolls 4 copyMany of the current personality tests are built on older theories—sometimes much older theories. Around 2400 years ago, the physician Hippocrates described his idea that human moods were caused by an excess or lack of basic body fluids. Too much blood and you became giddy and talkative, too little and you would become morose. Feeling lazy? Blame it on too much phlegm. He probably borrowed this ideas from someone before him whose name we no longer know.

Although this was not a sound medical observation, the idea of four different temperaments caught on and has hung on for millennia. The word temperament comes  from the same word as tempera paint and means to mix. So philosophers, physicians and psychologist kept mixing four different factors to obtain their palette of personalities.

According to the ancients Greeks these were:

  • Choleric—ambitious, energetic, aggressive, even tyrannical.
  • Sanguine—charismatic, impulsive, pleasure loving and self-indulgent.
  • Phlegmatic—observant, steady, calm sometimes to point of plain laziness
  • Melancholic—independent, cautious, moody and the most often depressed

Think about modern ways of categorizing human traits—the Five Factor analysis has four “normal” factors and one to determine how “neurotic” a person is. The Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory uses four factors expressed in opposing pairs. There is also the Four Color personality sorter, and DiSC which stands for four dominant traits. That’s the one we will look at more closely.

In the early twentieth century psychologist William Moulton Marston created his own personality theory from observing prison inmates, and he also created a cartoon character (Her name is Wonder Woman). His theory has been changed into one that is known by the initials DiSC. Marston’s four quadrants were originally called Dominance, Inducement, Submissive and Compliance. The last three titles have been changed to more pleasing names—Influence, Steadiness and Conscientiousness—so that a modern company can provide psycho-metrics for businesses with more acceptable descriptions.

Marston’s original theory does have something interesting to say about the creative  personality. He theorized that creativity resulted as a combination of Dominance and Compliance. This would be exhibited by a person alternately showing aggression or compliance to the aggressor. Sounds a bit like the moody melancholic, doesn’t it?

Finally, Marston decided that the extreme aggression of the highly dominant person could be caused by the excess of a substance in the human body, not exactly a fluid, but a hormone transported in body fluids. If you want to find out more about Marston’s theory read his book. Emotions of Normal People is available on Internet Archive—free, a lot cheaper than an original Wonder Woman comic. https://archive.org/details/emotionsofnormal032195mbp

Art work by S.L. Listman
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Do we really want creative leaders?

Posted on January 14, 2014 by knlistman

creative productsLook though recent articles on leadership and you will find that creativity to be the newest rage. A few years back  (in 2010 to be exact) IBM’s Institute for Business Value conducted a survey of 1,500 chief executives and discovered that creativity had risen to top as the most valuable attribute of a leader. The ability to generate new idea, and solve problems creatively became the new competency that was suppose to ensure the success of a business in tight economic times. [1]

More recently a study by London School of Economics, showed that creative employees have more impact on innovation than an industry being part of the creative sector. Findings in this study “raise questions about the dominant perception of the creative industries as an ‘innovative’ sector.”  They also suggest that ” it might be more appropriate to focus on creative workers regardless of the sector in which they work.”[2] So not only are leaders to add creativity to their list of accomplishments, they are to encourage to add creative employees also.

But you cannot keep adding to new competencies without being willing to sacrifice some of the currently expected ones.  Basically any business needs to consider which attributes they are willing do without in order to hire a creative person. Øyvind L. Martinsen of the BI Norwegian Business School  recommends that “An employer would be wise to conduct a position analysis to weigh the requirements for the ability to cooperate against the need for creativity.” [3]

One of those attributes that might have to be sacrificed is leaders who fit the appearance of leadership.  Research from Netherlands indicates that in business, groups expect the leader to conform to the norms. This established a group identity and leaders who are typical of a group tend to be more influential because it appears that their self interests are also the group’s interest. [4] How many times have you been told to learn the company culture to ensure success at employment? Doing so is pretty much the opposite from being original.

In a study in India, employees at a refinery were rated for “leadership potential and creative idea expression.” The result showed  “that perceptions of creative performance did negatively and significantly relate to perceptions of leadership potential.”[5] In other words the more creative the ideas appear to others, the less they are willing to trust in the person’s leadership abilities. Is it the same in the USA as India? Further research conducted in United States universities showed that expressing creative ideas did lower perceptions of leadership ability. However when the person also appeared to be charismatic, their leadership qualities were not questioned as much. [5] Evidently the trait that people connect with  leadership in the United States is the ability to speak well and impress others.

However, as I look through studies on creative people I find scarce mention of the characteristic of charisma. Most indicate creative people in business are like the ones observed by Øyvind L. Martinsen.  They “are obstinate and find faults and flaws in ideas and people.”[3] Apparently, they are more concerned about what they achieve than how much others like them. On the other hand, charismatic people gain their power by drawing others, and they usually appear likable to do this. However, after extensive reading, I found few studies examining the relation of charisma and creativity. As the super “winning” personality rises in estimations of leadership, this relationship is something that needs to be considered.

[1] Kern, F. (2010,  May 18)  What Chief Executives Really Want. Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved Jan 13, 2014 from  http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/may2010/id20100517_190221.htm
 [2] Florida, Richard. (2013,Sep 12) The Real Reason Creative Workers Are Good for the Economy, The Atlantic Cities. Retrieved Jan 13, 2014 from http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2013/09/real-reason-creative-workers-are-good-economy/6804/
[3] BI Norwegian Business School (2013, April 2). The hunt for the creative individual. Science Daily. Retrieved January 11, 2014, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­/releases/2013/04/130402091133.htm
[4] van Knippenberg, D., van Knippenberg, B., De Cremer, D., & Hogg, M. A. (2004). Leadership, self, and identity: A review and research agenda. The Leadership Quarterly, 15(6), 825-856
[5] Mueller, J. S. Goncalo, Jack. Kamdar, Dishan (2011) Recognizing Creative Leadership: Can Creative Idea Expression Negatively Relate to Perceptions of Leadership Potential. Cornell University ILR School.  Retrieved 2014, Jan 13 from http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1342&context=articles
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Creativity and social skills: a chicken and egg question

Posted on January 12, 2014 by knlistman
Bass guitarist for Socials Kills

Bass guitarist for Social Kills

Creative people are known for being  antisocial, hard to get along with, or just plain “crazy.”  Sometimes these epithets occur because these people have a tendency to do something causes much of the population to cringe–criticize authorities. When the criticism is leveled at the artsy crowd it sometimes seems to bounce off of their stubborn heads as if they didn’t care. But do they?

A recent study by Øyvind L. Martinsen, a professor at BI Norwegian Business School, describes seven characteristics that appear significantly more often in creative people. He compared the personality profiles of working actors, musicians, artists and marketing students to those working in  more mundane fields, and found that creative people “have a rebellious attitude due to a need to do things no one else does.” They also “have a tendency not to be very considerate, are obstinate and find faults and flaws in ideas and people.” Marketing students had personality profiles similar to that of the artists, but the artists showed less ambition. The performers (actors and musicians) were the most sociable group, and also the most narcissistic.[1]

A number of other research studies have similar findings. E.P. Torrance, well known for developing tests to measure creative thinking, uncovered the fact that even more creative children tend to have anti-authoritarian ideas and will challenge their teachers more frequently than their conventional peers.[2]

Researchers using the Five Factor Personality model as a basis to study creative students and adults reflect what both Torrance and Martinsen found. Among the population producing original work there is a strong positive relationship with openness to experience, and an inverse (negative) relationship between agreeableness and creativity.  [3]

Martinsen attributed the rebellious attitude as part of the need to be original. Creative people resist imitating others. So if imitation is flattery, what is the refusal to imitate? Often people react as if that individual doesn’t see what they do or say as good enough. They tend to reject those that reject what they have done. Aloofness and secretiveness may be the artists response to this rejection., as it does help. The anti-social and obstinate behavior could very well be a protection for those heading down an unconventional road. So which came first, creativity or anti-social tendencies?

[1] BI Norwegian Business School (2013, April 2). The hunt for the creative individual. Science Daily. Retrieved January 11, 2014, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­/releases/2013/04/130402091133.htm
[2] Torrance, E.P. & Khatena, J. (1970) What Kind of Person Are You? A brief screening device for identifying creatively gifted adolescents and adults. Gifted Child Quarterly, 14, 71-75
[3] King, L.A. Walker, L.M. Broyles, S.J. Creativity and the Five-Factor Model. Journal of Research in Personality, Volume 30, Issue 2, Pages 189-203 (2013)
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