Creative Semantics

Posted on January 3, 2014 by knlistman

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 Early psychology was considered a science that dealt with the causes and treatment of mental illness. Famed psychologist such as Sigmund Freud worked with neurotic and psychotic patients. His theories of psychoanalysis and resulting model of mental structure were based on his work with his patients and his own inner struggles. Freud’s own life experiences wielded one of the strongest influences on his theory of personality.

But psychology based on one person’s experiences is not enough. U.S. Air Force Personnel Laboratory became involved in developing a model to show the broad spectrum of people’s personalities in the 1960s. Ernest Tupes and Raymond Christal developed the Five Factor Model of personality. They reviewed other’s research to find a set of traits that would form this model. Still they clung to the idea of psychology showing the differences between healthy and unhealthy traits. The names that they gave each factor–Surgency, Agreeableness, Dependability, Emotional Stability, and Culture–were chosen because they sounded positive.

Surgency refers to a high level of energy, confidence and enthusiastic interaction with others. The opposite would be lethargy, timidity or sadness.  However, surgency was connected with extroverted behavior. The opposite of this would introversion which is no longer considered negative. Extroversion at its high end includes aggressiveness and risky excitement seeking, which are not considered positive traits. The higher scores in sensation seeking of the extrovert was found to correlate with higher creativity, but other traits of the extroverted personality, such as talkativeness, resulted in less creative work.

One of the traits that defines Agreeableness is compliance. But, Noncompliance with authority is a characteristic of the creative people according to many researchers, such as Hans Eysenck and Paul Torrance,  population. So creative people score lower in Agreeableness, even if they are friendly.

Dependability is now named Conscientiousness and describes with how responsible, organized, or hard working a person is. This factor usually correlates negatively with creativity in research. I am reminded of the old saying “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” However people low in creative ability, tend to have more creative accomplishments than one would suspect if they are higher in this factor.

Emotional Stability, which again seems like a positive trait was replaced by the name at the opposite end of the scale, Neuroticism.  Even though the assumption was made that Emotional Stability would enhance creativity, no correlation was found between the two.

Finally Culture is the relation of the person to arts and intellectual pursuits: music, writing, acting, even  gourmet food, high couture dress, and technological advancements. These are what creative people produce.  However, this factor also rate acceptance of liberal political and social ideas. It has been renamed to match what it was meant to measure, Openness to Experience. As this characteristic is described as artistic, original and imaginative, it would be a bit of a shock if a creative person did not score higher in Openness to Experience.

The Five Factor Model of personality now goes by the acronym OCEAN. Each factor is  recognized as a continuum with a wide normal range in the middle and extremes at either end. It is no longer a test of five healthy versus five unhealthy characteristics. It is still the most widely used personality model for psychology studies but even as the names and interpretation of the traits have gone through changes, it will be challenged by new models of human personalities.  Will these simply be another change in semantics?

Resources
Eysenck, H.J.  Creativity and Personality: Suggestions for a Theory, Psychological Inquiry, 1993, Vol. 4, No. 3, 147-178
King, L.A. Walker, L.M. Broyles, S.J.  Creativity and the Five-Factor Model. Journal of Research in Personality, 2013Volume 30, Issue 2, Pages 189-203 
McCrae, R.R and John, O.P. An Introduction to the Five-Factor Model and Its Applications, http://psych.colorado.edu/~carey/Courses/PSYC5112/Readings/psnBig5_Mccrae03.pdf (Viewed Jan. 1 2014)
Tupes, E. C , & Christal, R. E. (1961). Recurrent personality factors based on trait ratings (USAF ASD Tech. Rep. No. 61-97). Lackland Air Force Base, TX: U.S. Air Force.
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
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Creative compared to whom?

Posted on January 2, 2014 by knlistman

Map_students copyIn the twentieth century, experimental psychological shifted from the study of the mentally ill to research on the cognitive and personality development of basically normal people. Soon there was a plethora of  theoretical models on the formation of personality, with different ways of rating personality–too many. In 1961, Ernest Tupes and Raymond Christal  sorted through the major theories to see what factors were used repeatedly and settle on five of these named surgency, agreeableness, dependability, emotional stability, and culture. [1]

This model has been tweaked frequently and the factors renamed; they are typically referred to as Extroversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism and Openness to Experience. [2] But the theoretical model was only the beginning. Other psychologists developed questionnaires to test for these factors, and performed research to determine the norms where the average for a population lies. Then, they started  performing experiments based on the factors. More than half a century later we find many of these experiments cannot be replicated.

This does make sense if you look at how these experiments are constructed. According to a 2013 study conducted by Southern Methodist University in Texas, creative ability and creative accomplishments are higher for people with higher scores in Openness to Experience and Extroversion, and lower for people scoring higher in Agreeableness. So it would seem that you can identify creative people because they enjoy a greater variety of things, but are not necessarily as nice as the average person. Those results are not new and agree with E. P. Torrance’s research in the 1960’s.

But it isn’t that simple. First, you need to know research was based on 75 subjects in Texas universities. Also, creative ability was based on a test measuring verbal creativeness, and creative accomplishments were self-reported, which may have skewed the results to show extroverts as more creative. [3] Creativity based on by personality assessments depends on population being tested, as well as the criteria for being called creative. Would extroversion still have a positive correlation with creativity if ability had been measured by visual creativity rather than verbal? What would occur if creative achievement was judged by peers rather than self-reported?

Recently, I took the Five Factor Model test on a website. My scores on the Five Factor Model have remained fairly stable for decades. When I was compared to other people taking the same test on the internet, rather than existing norms, my score changed. I discovered that I had suddenly become much more extroverted and agreeable and a lot less neurotic. Comparing myself to average person who takes a self-reported psychometric tests on the Internet is not the same as an intentionally random group selected across the United States. However, selecting populations from the internet is a new method to find people for research projects.

I should not be surprised at the fact that I now appeared more extroverted and agreeable. My children did warn me that introverts and trolls tend to hang out on the Internet.

[1] Tupes, E. C , & Christal, R. E. (1961). Recurrent personality factors based on trait ratings (USAF ASD Tech. Rep. No. 61-97). Lackland Air Force Base, TX: U.S. Air Force.
[2] McCrae, R.R and John, O.P. An Introduction to the Five-Factor Model and Its Applications, http://psych.colorado.edu/~carey/Courses/PSYC5112/Readings/psnBig5_Mccrae03.pdf (Viewed Jan. 1 2014)
[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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The edge of psychotic

Posted on January 1, 2014 by knlistman

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Writing synopsis of creativity research has led me to realize how much my spelling has deteriorated.  Mostly I rely on the word processor’s spell check, but sometimes it doesn’t recognize the scientific terms; other times it doesn’t recognize my vague resemblance of the actual word.  But when I keep running into the same word over and over again, I learn to type it right the first time.  So after a week of researching the creative personality I can accurately type out psychoticism even though it is not in my spell checker.

What does this trait, largely associated with mental illness and criminal behavior, have to do with creativity? Hans J. Eysenck developed a personality model based on three dimensions: Psychoticism, Extraversion, and Neuroticism. Using his three dimensional model he found that people with recognized artist achievement typically have a higher score on psychotic scale than non-creative people. These traits include:

  • recklessness
  • disregard for common sense
  • inappropriate emotional expression
  • non-acceptance of cultural norms
  • immaturity
  • anti-authoritative attitudes[1]

Eysenck noted that creativity had its roots in the “over inclusive thought process.” Basically this means that creative people view seemingly unrelated ideas as relevant to each other. This kind of thinking often confuses people with more conventional thinking. However, even though Eysenck compares the thought processes of creative people to that of schizophrenics, he never says they are insane. Rather he says the opposite–an original thinker is “a person high on psychoticism but not really psychotic.” [2]

That is confusing to me. I would really like to know what makes a different between the two. To be fair, others have also found similar connections. E.P. Torrance, psychologist, professor and developer of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, noted that anti-authoritarian attitudes were also linked to creative output.[3] Harvard professor of psychiatry, Albert Rothenburg created a name for the illogical thought processes of creative people that resembled those of the mentally ill, Janusain thinking. This kind of illogical thought is was marked by being able to consider two opposite concepts at the same time; like two objects occupying the same space.[4]

The current emphasis on creative innovation as a key to solving humankind’s most persistent problems or providing unending economic growth unnerve me a bit. Both of these goals ignores the semblance between creativity and psychotic traits. These traits are seen in many great artists, writers and inventors whose lives were often in conflict with society and themselves. I also see these traits in troubled teenagers, who do not give any evidence of exceptional creativity. There is more to creativity than psychoticism, but it may not be possible to remove creative thinking from the kind of thinking that balances on the edge of psychotic.

[1] Porzio, S.K.  A Critical Review of Eysenck’s Theory of Psychoticism and How it Relates to Creativity, http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/porzio.html (viewed 12/31/2013)
 [2] Eysenck, H.J.  Creativity and Personality: Suggestions for a Theory, Psychological Inquiry, 1993, Vol. 4, No. 3, 147-178
 [3] 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
[4] Rothenburg, A. &  Hausman. C., (1976). The creativity question.  Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
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Why create art?

Posted on December 31, 2013 by knlistman

Picture 014 w

Recently I took a hiatus from an almost daily habit of spending an hour or so writing poetry or fiction. It wasn’t really intentional. Mistakenly, I saw the two weeks work shut down at the end of the year as an gleaming opportunity for writing; especially with my husband’s looming project preventing him from taking the same holidays. I could laze until nine in the morning; leisurely dig through items for winter cleaning in my annual ritual of dividing the necessary from the no longer needed. At noon I could call on friends who I had been ignoring, take the dog on extra long walks  photographing whatever caught my eye, and even have a leisurely conversation with my children during the break between semesters.

One of my tasks during this time was gathering new data on creativity, reviewing what I had collected for over a decade after completing my research on creative talent development.  I recalled the professors in the school of education as hailing the development of creativity among gifted students as our best chance to correct the ills of society. A fairly tall order to expect of students I had thought. How could we expect student to become so creative and that they could come up with the solutions to problems we had perpetuated?

But no matter how impossible the task, building creativity for the result of benefiting humankind is more palatable than the current reason for doing it. Companies wan innovative workers to make money for them. Creative has not become the key to growing the economy, and to keep company profits pouring in during uncertain times. [1] I find an increasing embrace of creative destruction, the idea that technological innovation that will disrupt economic structure from within in the attempt to find a new ways to make money. [2]  I am disquieted at creativity being used to promote unsustainable capitalistic expansion. Much more disturbed than I was as an idealistic art student in the seventies worried about being able to make a living with my ability.

However,  I figured that with a couple of weeks break from work, there would be plenty of time for expressing my own originality. But without a tight schedule that required I actually set aside the hour or two, I failed to do creative writing. After a week of this existence I started sensing a kind of bland, bloated feeling that was hard to shake. Somehow I missed the daily exercise of taking my ordinary prose and recreating it as I played with insights, images, and alliteration.

Really, I do not understand all the reasons that I have this insatiable drive to create works of art. It doesn’t seem to be for the fame or solving the latest crisis for humanity or amassing wealth. My daughter says all art in essentially unnecessary, or it would not be art. However, she is constantly sketching, painting, and writing. She is currently majoring in fine arts; hooked on creativity, too. Ultimately I realize that creating makes my life more bearable, and hopefully I add a bit of joy to others by sharing what I have made.

Art by K.N. Listman

[1] Florida, Richard, The Real Reason Creative Workers Are Good for the Economy, Sept. 13, 2013
[2] Schumpeter, Joseph A. (1994) [1942]. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. London: Routledge. pp. 82–83. ISBN 978-0-415-10762-4.
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Pointed view

Posted on November 1, 2013 by knlistman

point Oct sun 060Almost everyone knows about first person and third person narratives in writing. Basically as humans we all see from the familiar, limited first person point of view that allows us only to know what goes on in our presence.  Much traditional literature is written in the third person omniscient view point.  Omniscient in this case is not really all-knowing, but refers to multiple limited viewpoints. The author follows various characters as they interact in the story and informs us not only what is going on around them, but what they are thinking and feeling, too.

So what happened to the second person narrative? The one written from the “you” viewpoint? Although we frequently use this construction in informally, it almost sounds insulting in other forms of writing. Imagine reading:

 You walked slowly towards the front of the school, clutching your backpack  in your hand. You scan the entry way for any sign of Derrick and his gang and notice one of his minions loitering around the trash cans. So you sidle around the side of the building to the cafeteria doors just to be safe. You start knocking on the cold glass door, hoping one of the few lingering students would let you in. In your gut you know you are a coward, and wonder how long you can keep avoiding him.

We tend to take the second person “you” personally.  In which case reading about a fearful  character from that viewpoint might not click, because  you would not behave in that way.

However, it has been done, both in poetry, short fiction and novel form.  The most notable novel is Bright Lights, Big City by the American Jay McInerney which appeared in 1984. The unnamed main character (referred to as you) is tired of entanglement in the New York City rat race of the 1980s and is trying to escape the hectic pace of life in the fast lane.  Maybe there was a lot of people with that same dilemma.

Another attempt to break the mold of tradition point of view narratives is the “absent” third person narrator, who sees and relates all details, but reveals no interior thoughts.  In the novel La Jalousie by French author Alain Robbe-Grillet, the reader sees and hears all events from the position of an unnamed narrator watching the interactions of a woman with her neighbor, Franck. However, as these minutely described events continue the reader becomes aware that every element is from the observation of the jealous husband, who seems like a mere shadow, spying on his wife.  The situations he sees appear concrete and objective but may be his suspicions rather than observations – one cannot tell.

So what new spin on point of view will you dream up?

Photo by S.L. Listman

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Simply unreliable

Posted on October 31, 2013 by knlistman

The_Great_Gatsby_Fashion_(10032906573)Characters who have psychological profiles, also have their own viewpoint – opinions, judgments and prejudices – concerning the world around them. The first person narrator that is a viewpoint character – such as Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby – freely gives his interpretation of other peoples thoughts and actions. F. Scott Fitzgerald provides a wealth of descriptive detail that wrap the reader in the senses of the narrator. Sometimes readers get sucked in to viewing the story from the lens of the viewpoint character and fail to see that not all is as it seems to be. I recalled a relatively bright student who normally comprehended literature that complained “I just don’t get The Great Gatsby.”

“What you’ve got to understand is that the characters are often lying to each other,” I explained.  “As you read try to pick up on who is lying to whom. The narrator, Nick Carraway, is still something of an outsider among the wealthy easterners. You cannot necessarily trust what he thinks he sees.”

Nick is a lovely example of an unreliable first person narrator. He’s a sympathetic character and the reader would never accuse him of intentionally lying. Instead he seems to factually report what he sees and hears, colored by his own views. Nick, is also becoming aware of the fabric of deceit woven into the lives of the uber-wealthy. He even voices his vague suspicions about the illusions of the society around him. What was it that made him a tad uneasy around Jordan, that delectable young woman who seems attracted to him? … He heard rumors that she cheated at golf.

Why does an author create a narrator whose words cannot be trusted? Because uncovering deceit is part of the plot. This occurs not only in traditional mysteries but in a wide range of fiction. The whole point of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, is not an adventure story about surviving the interior of Africa, but discovering that the legendary Kurtz is not what he appears to be. The veneer drops away to expose a man of former power, quaking in fear, but the narrator cannot reveal the truth about him to others.

There are many ways to create an unreliable narrator that readers will still find likable, a child, an outsider, a person returning home after a long absence, are all good candidates.  The characters who rationalize cruel acts and then lie to protect themselves, such as Vladimir Nabokov’s narrator in Lolita, rarely get any sympathy from the reader. However, the most difficult to write unreliable narrator is the one who is mentally ill.

There is always a hard decision to make: should the schizophrenia (or other mental illness) be revealed in the beginning? Should the story start with a dribble of clues that soon become a flood about the use psychotic nature or the person telling the tale. Or should one wait until the end to reveal that not everything was as it appeared, similar to but not quite the same as “it was all a dream.” This last is probably the most difficult to get away with. Readers may feel cheated by a ploy if the narrator fails to reveal questionable the break in sanity soon enough.  Be careful trying too hard to polish the narrator who doesn’t tell the truth because they are hearing voices and seeing things that don’t exist. You just might drive yourself crazy.

Photo By Eva Rinaldi – Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36940224

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Out of character

Posted on October 30, 2013 by knlistman

char1012_imagery“It fits the  perpetrator’s M.O.” … you’ve heard M.O. mentioned in so many police shows, detective novels, any kind of work related to law enforcement. What is it? A profile of a killer who has struck again collection constructed from every detail  of a crime. The victims’ age, gender, race, style of dress; when it occurred: morning,  weekends, undercover of dark, where it took place: country road, back alley and data on type and make of weapon such as ballistic details, and so forth…

What does M.O. really stand for? Modis operandi, a Latin phrase translated as mode of operation. These psychological profiles do not simple belong to criminals. Companies also have a modis operandi, or preferred way to doing business (which should not fall into the domain of criminal activity). And we all have one, although most of our customary behaviors to get what we want remain unwritten, but are well recognized by our friends and acquaintances.

Characters in books need to have an M.O. also. This goes beyond describing external actions, such as ways of moving and talking. The M.O. is set behavior aimed at a goal. For example, a person hoards money – Silas Marner is a good fictional example –  an old man spending all his days working, and stockpiling his earnings. Does Silas really just want to have a lot of gold in a bag around because it is shiny? He is trying to achieve something else by sitting on wealth. In Silas’ case it is to replace the family that he thought he should have had before he was framed for theft and his fiancée married someone else. He craves acceptance and belonging.

As in Silas’s case the true goal is often intangible: love, inclusion, security, importance, fame, control or power. Those kinds of attainments that one can keep chasing after and never obtain. But the exterior method a person has chosen seems promising in delivering these results. Often we create characters that are simply brave, glamorous, brooding or hot-headed, but if we do not consider why they are that way, and what their goals actually are, we risk having our characters act out of character.

Art by S.L. Listman

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The character who saw too much

Posted on October 29, 2013 by knlistman

reading2Writing from the first person point of view routinely goes through periods of popularity only to be followed by a flood of amateurish first person novels. Then, writing “gurus” will advice the beginning writer never to write in first person. However, it is really a matter of whether it fits the story you are telling.

First person is the viewpoint that we as humans are stuck with in real life. Sticking strictly with one person, revealing only what they see, hear and feel actually simplifies the story telling process. This viewpoint works with a strong plot that is driven by character development. Bouncing back and forth between characters tends to increase excitement, but it also increases the number of plot holes.  It is easy to forget that characters possess different bodies of knowledge. 

Recently I was reading a mystery that began in an interesting manner. There were the spooky chase scenes in the fog with shadowy people disappearing around the corner, However, people also disappeared when surrounded by crowds and nobody seemed to notice. 

The villain had to keep feeding the protagonist with clues in an artificial manner to keep the plot going.  To add to the emotion wringer, the hero agonized about not catching the nasty guy rather than buckling down and actually following the clues he had been given. These were clues that even an extremely narcissistic villain wouldn’t have been spreading around so carelessly. 

However the major problem was the characters, who were obviously human and not omnipotent, manage to learn everything that was revealed to the reader.  Of course, this villain’s willingness to give himself away was blamed on the “insane” genius. But the writer was no genius, and seemed to have forgotten which glimpses of the villain were seen only by the readers because the protagonist  became clairvoyant, magically deducing whatever was revealed to us.

Unfortunately, I have read too many similar stories. So I long for the narrow, confined discipline of the first person narrative. I yearn for plots in which the main characters gleans secrets based on their own wit, explaining to the reader how they came to their conclusion. Perhaps imposing the limitations of the first person point of view is a healthy discipline for writers. At least it is a skill they should master before moving on to the more complex view points.

 

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Physiological writing

Posted on October 26, 2013 by knlistman

blush de roses et de roches aWhat exactly are physiological reactions?

Imagine you are a young teenage girl. You are waiting in the math hall, and that handsome senior with an air of indifferent confidence strolls past you on the way to calculus. Normally you are watching unseen, but today he looks you in the eye and says “Hi, how’s your day going?” Your heartbeat increases, you breath faster, you start to feel warm, and your face begins to turn red – otherwise known as blushing  – these are the physiological effects of surprise, even a pleasant surprise.

Now, imagine you are a soldier sent to scope out the number of men guarding an enemy compound. After stealthily scaling the chain link fence, you slide between the fence and building, treading softly, trying to conform to the shadows.  You can hear unintelligible conversation. Then, there is sudden silence followed by the click of a semi-automatic weapon. Your heart races, your breathing becomes rapid, you start to sweat, your face begins to turn red – but it is far beyond blushing.

The physiological changes to in your body are similar for excitement and  fear, the difference is in the intensity.  The amount of a change, such as heart rate, are often used to measure emotions in experiments. These innate responses occur before people have a conscious realization of their emotional state. Some scientist have even proposed that the racing heart beat and clammy skin is a cue that lets a person realize he is feeling strong anxiety, fear and so on.

Recognizing how to describe physiological reactions in writing is the first step to putting the reader into the character at the moment that the unexpected happens.  Simply describing the scene puts the reader in the place of the voyeur, watching other’s lives as we often do, seated safe at home or in the theater in front of the big screen. Knowing what the characters feels inside puts us into their heads. This is something more easily captured in writing than it is by seeing a camera shot from the characters viewpoint, which often leaves the audience dizzy and not too sure of the details.

Cathartic writing, to rid oneself of obsession, stress and anger, has often been prescribed by psychologists. What I think about is not how it works to relieve the pent up emotions of the writer, as much as what it captures within the words.  Are the ardor, zeal and fury still there? I wonder when I write, tears streaming down my face,  or trembling in rage, how  much of it remains to be released when someone else reads it.

 

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Unknown, unnerving

Posted on October 25, 2013 by knlistman

sky storm (6)While watching a military movie, that was unexpectedly full of death in gory detail (i.e. multiple flying body parts) my mind decided I had seen enough gruesomeness I started laughing. Unable to squelch the giggles, I told my husband that I had to use the toilet and left long enough for me to regain composure, and for the film to move onto something less horrifying. Months later I was describing this slightly embarrassing moment at work, giving it as a rational for not having seen but a handful of scary movies. One of my co-workers, a former helicopter pilot in Vietnam, told me that my reaction was normal in real war. He had seen some overwhelmed soldiers start laughing in the midst of the most terrifying situations.

Writers often wonder how they can achieve the heart-pounding, hair raising effects that the sounds and sights of cinema are able to produce. One of the ways to do this is by lightening up. Provide space to breath, so that the impact of horror is more horrible. Passages can continue the move the plot (yes, plot is still a necessity in horror)  that resonate with everyday  concerns and even provide brief humorous moments. The change in intensity is what heightens  the feeling of it. Shakespeare employed this technique of comic relief in his tragedies, carrying on the plot through the humorous conversation of unimportant palace guards, minor officials and grave diggers. And so did Hitchcock, from 39 Steps to Rear Window, he places his hero’s in somewhat embarrassing situations when it comes to the opposite sex that adds humor in between suspense. 

The images and nuances of sound in movies play on the viewers emotions.  But viewers become used to these effects and  their impact is lessened each time they see them again. So the search for the next special effect is never-ending. Watching a 1940’s noir film I sometimes felt like I was trying to peer through a rain of ink wash.  But I was intrigued how the use of the unknown, something lingering just beyond the edge of the grain film, kept my pulse high.  The unknown plays on one’s imagination and is probably as frightening as any concrete scene that a writer, or filmmaker, can conjure up. The difficulty with using the unknown is the inevitable need to provide some sort of the explanation (rational or not) for events. Otherwise the reader/audience tend to be fairly unsatisfied with the work.  But whoever said this kind of writing was easy to do, and still do it well?

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