"Creativity " B.A. Hennessey and T.M. Amabile

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Creativity
Beth A. Hennessey1 and Teresa M. Amabile2
1
Department of Psychology, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts 02481;

email: [email protected]
Harvard Business School, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts 02163;

email: [email protected]
Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2010. 61:56998
Key Words
First published online as a Review in Advance on

October 19, 2009
innovation, intrinsic motivation, divergent thinking
The Annual Review of Psychology is online at

psych.annualreviews.org
This articles doi:
10.1146/annurev.psych.093008.100416
c 2010 by Annual Reviews.
Copyright
All rights reserved
0066-4308/10/0110-0569$20.00
Abstract
The psychological study of creativity is essential to human progress. If
strides are to be made in the sciences, humanities, and arts, we must
arrive at a far more detailed understanding of the creative process, its
antecedents, and its inhibitors. This review, encompassing most subspecialties in the study of creativity and focusing on twenty-rst-century
literature, reveals both a growing interest in creativity among psychologists and a growing fragmentation in the eld. To be sure, research into
the psychology of creativity has grown theoretically and methodologically sophisticated, and researchers have made important contributions
from an ever-expanding variety of disciplines. But this expansion has not
come without a price. Investigators in one subeld often seem unaware
of advances in another. Deeper understanding requires more interdisciplinary research, based on a systems view of creativity that recognizes
a variety of interrelated forces operating at multiple levels.
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Contents

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE:
CREATIVITY AS SEEN FROM
DIFFERENT LEVELS OF
ANALYSIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Denition and Measurement . . . . . . .
Neurological/Biological Basis . . . . . . .
Affect, Cognition, and Training . . . . .
Individual Differences/Personality . .
Groups and Teams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The Social Psychology
of Creativity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Social Environment:
Organizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Social Environment: Schools . . . . . . .
Social Environment: Culture . . . . . . .
CONCLUSION: TAKING A
SYSTEMS PERSPECTIVE . . . . . . .
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INTRODUCTION
Creativity: the
generation of products
or ideas that are both
novel and appropriate
570
Why study creativity? Even if this mysterious

phenomenon can be isolated, quantied, and
dissected, why bother? Wouldnt it make more
sense to revel in the mystery and wonder of it
all? From a purely theoretical standpoint, researchers and scholars are anxious to learn as
much as possible about the distinctively human
capacity to generate new ideas, new approaches,
and new solutions. We strive to understand the
experiences of Picasso, da Vinci, Einstein, and
the like, and we question what, if anything, we
ourselves have in common with these amazing
individuals. On a more practical level, educators, parents, employers, and policy makers realize all too well that it is only with creativity
that we can hope to address the myriad problems facing our schools and medical facilities,
our cities and towns, our economy, our nation,
and the world. Creativity is one of the key factors that drive civilization forward. As he began
his administration in January 2009, U.S. President Obama called for substantial increases in
federal funds for basic research and efforts to
Hennessey
Amabile
boost math, science, and engineering education; he entered ofce with the rst-ever presidential arts platform as well. But it will take
more than money and rhetoric. If we are to
make real strides in boosting the creativity of
scientists, mathematicians, artists, and all upon
whom civilization depends, we must arrive at
a far more detailed understanding of the creative process, its antecedents, and its inhibitors.
The study of creativity must be seen as a basic
necessity.
In fact, scholarly research on creativity is
proliferating; a variety of new publication outlets have emerged. When we started our own
research careers, the Journal of Creative Behavior
was the one periodical dedicated to the study of
creativity. That publication was supplemented
in 1988 by the Creativity Research Journal.
The inaugural issue of Psychology of Creativity,
Aesthetics and the Arts, a publication of APA division 10, came in 2007; in recent years, a variety of additional journals have also proven to be
important outlets for creativity research. These
include the International Journal of Creativity
and Problem Solving and the Journal of Thinking Skills and Creativity. Add to this lineup the
long list of books and general psychology journals publishing research in the area of creativity,
and the prospect of reviewing the creativity literature becomes both daunting and exciting.
Our review attempts to encompass most
of the subspecialties in the study of creativity,
including the social psychology of creativity
our own area of specialization. We followed
a two-part process. The rst step involved
the polling of colleagues, and the second step
involved winnowing through our own search
of the literature. To begin, we brainstormed
a list of active researchers and theorists whom
we believe have made the most signicant contributions to the creativity literature and asked
them to nominate up to 10 papers, published
since about 2000, that they considered must
have references. We contacted 26 colleagues
and heard back from 21. Some of these suggested papers were self-nominations, but most
were by others. In total, we received over 110
suggestions for specic journal articles, book

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chapters, books, or entire volumes of a journal

devoted to a particular topic.
For our own search of the literature, we
conducted a thorough electronic (EBSCO)
reviewsearching for empirical journal articles, chapters, and entire books published between 1998 and 2008 and focused on creativity.
This search yielded over 400 additional citations that we believed were interesting, relevant, and potentially important. This list too
had to be signicantly reduced.
Perhaps our biggest surprise, in examining the suggestions made by colleagues, was
just how wide reaching their recommendations
were. In fact, we came to wonder and worry
about why there was so very little overlap in
terms of material suggested. Of the 110 nominated papers, only seven were suggested by two
colleagues, and only one was suggested by three
colleagues. What did this diversity of opinion,
this lack of consensus, say about the state of the
eld? As we compiled this review, we were consistently struck by what can only be termed a
growing fragmentation of the eld. For the rst
three decades of modern psychological research
into creativity (starting circa 1950), there were
a small number of big questions that most researchers focused on: creative personality and
creative thinking techniques. Then, for many
years, there was an additional focus on the social psychology of creativity. Since the 1990s,
we have seen a virtual explosion of topics, perspectives, and methodologies in the creativity
literature. Yet there seem to be few, if any, big

questions being pursued by a critical mass of
creativity researchers. In many respects, scholars understanding of the psychology of creativity has grown amazingly sophisticated, and we
are excited by the contributions of researchers
representing an ever-expanding variety of disciplines and backgrounds. But this expansion
has not come without a price. It is our rm impression that investigators in one subeld often
seem entirely unaware of advances in another.
This means that research is often done at only
one level of analysissay, the individual or the
groupand within only one discipline at a time.
Of course, some of the work we review does
cross levels of analysis. Where appropriate, we
recognize and emphasize the overlap that already exists between the various subspecialties
and approaches to the study of the psychology
of creativity.
The underlying theme of this review is
the need for a systems view of creativity.
We believe that more progress will be made
when more researchers recognize that creativity arises through a system of interrelated forces
operating at multiple levels, often requiring interdisciplinary investigation. Figure 1 presents
a simplied schematic of the major levels at
which these forces operate. The model is simplied because, as noted, existing research does
cross levels. And, in fact, the whole of the creative process must be viewed as much more than
a simple sum of its parts. Individuals are much
Figure 1
The increasingly large concentric circles in this simplied schematic represent the major levels at which
creativity forces operate.
www.annualreviews.org Creativity
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more than their affect, cognition, or training.

And social environments or groups may be embedded within particular cultures or societies,
but they also crosscut them, as when multiple
cultural or religious groups live together within
a society.
Figure 1 also provides the scheme we use for
organizing this review. We begin with an examination of research directed at the most microscopic levelneurological activity in the brain.
We then work out through ever-broadening
lenses of focus and toward a review of the literature devoted to the impact of classroom or
workplace environments as well as entire cultures on creative behavior. Our review ends
with an overview of some of the more comprehensive theories of creativity and a call for
researchers and theorists to work toward the
development of entire systems perspectives.
REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE:

CREATIVITY AS SEEN FROM
DIFFERENT LEVELS OF
ANALYSIS
Definition and Measurement
Big C (eminent)
creativity: relatively
rare displays of
creativity that have a
major impact on others
Little c (everyday)
creativity: daily
problem solving and
the ability to adapt to
change
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Before exploring the research being done at the

various levels of our concentric circle model, it
is essential to examine the current thinking and
theorizing surrounding the identication of the
creative person or process and the assessment
of the creative product. What is it that contemporary creativity researchers claim to be investigating, and how do they operationalize this
entity they call creativity? Criteria for assessing
persons or products may appear to be straightforward after decades of research. But appearances deceive. Debates surrounding denition
and measurement continue to loom large. Although most researchers and theorists agree
that creativity involves the development of a
novel product, idea, or problem solution that
is of value to the individual and/or the larger
social group, psychologists have had great difculty nding consensus as to denitional components that reach beyond these two criteria of
novelty and appropriateness (value).
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Amabile
But this doesnt mean that researchers and

theorists have given up on trying to rene
their denitions and measurement techniques.
Plucker & Runcos seminal (1998) review
rightly declared that the death of creativity
measurement had been greatly exaggerated; in
fact, a number of researchers are probing issues of denition. Sullivan & Ford (2005) examined the relation between assessments of product novelty and creativity in an organizational
setting. And Gluck

et al. (2002) investigated
whether artists who face strong external constraints differ in their conceptions of creativity from artists who are free in their choice of
topics, materials, and time schedule. Questions
of denition and the experimental paradigms
employed are becoming increasingly complex,
yet our ability to precisely dene what we mean
by creativity remains fairly stagnant. Kaufmann
(2003b) argued that the concept of creativity has
been too loosely dened and inappropriately
driven by a bottom-up operationalist approach.
Kaufmann called for a clear-cut distinction between novelty on the stimulus and novelty on
the response end as well as a new taxonomy of
different kinds of creativity and intelligent behavior, including proactive and reactive creativity. In a follow-up to this proposal, Beghetto &
Kaufman (2007) argued that in addition to the
study of Big C (eminent) creativity and little c (everyday) creativity, it is also essential
to explore what might be termed mini c creativity, or the creative processes involved in the
construction of personal knowledge and understanding. Clearly, a creativity researchers chosen metric and methodology will largely depend
on which of the concentric circles in our model
is being investigated.
The Creativity of Products. The creativity
of products is typically the focus of experimental paradigms that vary the conditions under which one or more individuals creativity
is assessed. Here creativity is seen as a eeting
and largely situation-dependent state (rather
than a relatively stable and enduring personality
trait). Although Runco maintained in his 2004
Annual Review article that the assessment of

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product creativity is rarely used with noneminent individuals, this approach was expressly
developed for and is particularly useful in the
study of everyday (little c) creativity. In the contemporary literature, the identication and assessment of creative products, be they poems,
paintings, scientic theories, or technological
breakthroughs, rests largely on a consensual assessment process. Researchers wishing to assess the creativity of tangible products have
long relied on the consensual assessment of
experts, formalized for nearly 30 years in the
Consensual Assessment Technique (Amabile
1982, Hennessey & Amabile 1999). Because
of its relative simplicity and the consistently
high levels of interrater agreements reached,
this methodology enjoys wide use and continued examination in the creativity literature (e.g.,
Baer et al. 2004, Kaufman et al. 2007). In recent
years, consensual assessment methodologies
have also been extended to far more messy
real-world classroom and workplace environments, including cross-cultural contexts (e.g.,
Amabile & Mueller 2008, Lee et al. 2005).
The Creativity of Persons. The creativity of

persons is typically the focus of experimental
paradigms, case studies, or questionnaire-based
investigations that operationalize creativity as a
relatively enduring and largely stable personality trait. The death of E. Paul Torrance (1915
2003) marked the end of one of the most inuential careers in creativity research of this genre.
Researchers have employed the Torrance
Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT; Torrance
1966/1974) for more than four decades, and
these measures continue to dominate the eld
when it comes to the testing of individuals.
With Torrances passing came a proliferation
of research projects dedicated to his memory
(Fryer 2006, Kaufman & Baer 2006). Some
of this research used contemporary statistical
methods to address the underlying structure,
reliability, and validity of the TTCT (K.H. Kim
2006, Plucker 1999). In addition, Cramond
et al. (1999) and Wechsler (2006) were among
a dozen or more researchers to examine and
rmly establish the cross-cultural application

and validity of the TTCT over the past 10 years.
Despite the wide acclaim accorded to the
TTCT, many question the utility and/or psychometric properties of general tests of creative
ability. Baer (2008) concluded that creativity
is best conceptualized as domain specic and
argued that this domain specicity explains
why divergent-thinking tests have not met with
more success; research by Mumford and colleagues (1998, 2008) also questioned the validity of divergent-thinking tests. However, other
researchers have defended divergent-thinking
measures, such as those used in the WallachKogan Creativity Tests (Cheung et al. 2004, Lee
2008). A host of other researchers and psychometricians have been busy with the close examination of existing creative-ability and creativepersonality measures and the development of
new ones (e.g., Epstein et al. 2008, Nassif &
Quevillon 2008, Silvia et al. 2008). Finally,
Silvia (2008) reanalyzed old data with the use
of advanced methodology to explore the relation of creativity and intelligence. Research
has generally shown these two constructs to be
modestly related; yet, some studies have contradicted this assumption. Silvia found that latent
originality and uency variables signicantly
predicted intelligence. The relations magnitude (r = 0.20) was also consistent with previous research.
Neurological/Biological Basis
The advancement of technology, particularly
functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI),
coupled with increases in access to equipment
for researchers is in large part responsible for
the virtual explosion of information on the
creative brain. How does the brain generate
creative ideas or solutions? At the neurological
level, is there only one creative process or are
there many? Is it possible to look into the brain
and nd evidence of creative thinking in the
same way that modern cognitive neuroscientists
have uncovered some of the neural underpinnings of memory, emotion, and attention? Or
is creativity outside the realm of neuroscience
TTCT: Torrance
Tests of Creative
Thinking
fMRI: functional
magnetic resonance
imaging
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Intrinsic motivation:
the drive to engage in
a task because it is
interesting, enjoyable,
or positively
challenging
Divergent thinking:
spontaneous,
free-owing thinking
with the goal of
generating many
different ideas in a
short period
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understanding? One growing body of research

attempts to uncover information about the neurological basis of creative behavior based on the
study of individuals displaying aphasia or other
brain abnormalities and injuries. Mell and colleagues (2003) traced the progression of aphasia
symptoms associated with frontotemporal dementia in a talented artist. They observed that
language is not required for, and may even inhibit, certain types of visual creativity. Miller
and coworkers (2000, 2004) focused their attention on the emergence of new skills in patients with dementia and found that loss of brain
function in one area may lead to facilitation of
artistic or musical skills.
As early as 1998, Bowden and Jung-Beeman
presented data suggesting that semantic activation in the right hemisphere may help solve
insight problems. And subsequent papers by
these same authors ( Jung-Beeman & Bowden
2000, Bowden & Jung-Beeman 2003) built
on the view that there is a strong association
between semantic activation in the right hemisphere and the Aha! experience when people
recognize solutions to insight-like problems. Using electroencephalographic topography and frequency as well as fMRI, Kounios
and colleagues (2006) went on to suggest that
mental preparation leading to insight involves
heightened activity in medial frontal areas associated with cognitive control and in temporal areas associated with semantic processing.
Noninsight preparation, in contrast, appears to
involve increased occipital activity consistent
with an increase in externally directed visual
attention. Taken together, these investigations
have offered exciting evidence of how behavioral priming and neuroimaging methods can
provide information about neural activity during insight.
In addition to empirical explorations of the
creative process at the neuronal level, there is
theoretical work. For example, Vandervert and
his coinvestigators (2007) cited the centrality of
novelty and originality in creative thought and
argued that, because the cerebellum increases
the rapidity and efciency of memory routines,
it likely plays a central role in the creative
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Amabile
process. However, several authors offered incisive critiques of this model (Abraham 2007,
Brown 2007). In summary, although technological advances have increased exponentially,
scientists interested in the neurological basis
of creative behavior have a long way to go before they can hope to reach consensus. As they
proceed down this groundbreaking and everchanging investigative path, researchers must
make certain that it is sound theorizing and data
that drive their use of new technologies and not
the technologies themselves that dictate future
research questions and directions. The possibilities are promising, but we are not anywhere
near the point of being able to image the creative process as it unfolds in the human brain.
Even cutting-edge instruments mask the order
in which various brain areas become activated
in the massive parallel processing that results in
high-level creativity (Miller 2007).
Affect, Cognition, and Training

Affect. Most experimental studies of affect and
creativity have shown that positive affect leads
to higher levels of creativity. When negative
affect has an inuence, it is generally negative. The bulk of this research indicates that
positive affect facilitates not only intrinsic
motivation (e.g., Isen & Reeve 2005) but also
exible thinking and problem solving even
on especially complex and difcult tasks (see
Aspinwall 1998, Isen 2000). Yet the affectcreativity association is complicated. Kaufmann
(2003a) refutes the mainstream argument that
positive mood reliably facilitates creativity.
Some studies have shown that positive mood
may facilitate productivity but not quality of
ideas (e.g., Vosburg 1998). Other researchers
have found that although positive affect manipulations may enhance mood and reduce state
anxiety, they do not necessarily enhance divergent thinking (e.g., Clapham 2001).
Conicting evidence comes from nonexperimental settings, as well. George & Zhou
(2002) found that, under certain specic conditions within an organization, negative affect can lead to higher creativity than positive

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affect: the work context must call for high levels

of creativity, and the individuals clarity of feelings must also be high. On the other hand, another organizational study (Madjar et al. 2002)
found a generally positive role for positive affect
in the workplace. In this study, positive mood
mediated the signicant positive relationship
between the support that employees received
for workplace creativity and their creative performance at work. Searching for more denitive answers, Amabile and colleagues (2005)
obtained multiple daily measures of affect from
222 employees in seven different companies
over several weeks, as well as multiple measures
of creativity. They found a positive linear relationship, with positive affect an antecedent
of creativity. Another study (George & Zhou
2007) also suggested a primacy for positive affect. In this study of employees in a single company, creativity was highest when both positive
and negative moods were high and the supervisory context was supportive. However, this
study also found a positive main effect for positive mood.
These opposing viewpoints and the data
driving them argue for more nuanced views of
the impact of affect on cognitive activity. In
their mood-as-input model, Martin and colleagues (1993) proposed that positive moods
signal to individuals that they are safe, motivating them to seek stimulation and think expansively, making more exible associations.
Negative moods signal that there are problems at hand, motivating individuals to think
precisely and analytically. Similarly, the dualtuning model proposed by George & Zhou
(2007) asserts that employees should benet
creatively by experiencing both positive and
negative moods over time in a supportive context. Positive mood leads to expansive, playful,
divergent thinking and the generation of new
ideas. Negative mood signals that something is
problematic and pushes employees to try hard
to improve matters through creative ideas
careful, systematic information processing. The
result of both processes is good, well-thoughtout ideas that are really creative. Some recent
experiments support these views of the different
supporting roles that positive and negative affect might play in the creative process (De Dreu
et al. 2008, Friedman et al. 2007). Clearly, the
question of the role of affect in creativity is not
settled. However, it appears likely that, all else
being equal, positive affect is more conducive
to creativity than is negative affect.
Cognition. A review of recent work focused
on the cognitive processes underlying creative
performance reveals that this branch of the literature is also particularly diverse. Recently, an
entire volume of the Korean Journal of Thinking
and Problem Solving (Volume 18, 2008) offered
a representative sample of the wide range of
experimental and theoretical approaches being
taken by researchers. The variety of investigative paths is almost as great as the variety of experimental questions being asked. For example,
Kaufman & Baer (2002) employed both selfreport and case-study methodologies to conclude that the cognitive mechanisms underlying creative performance are domain specic,
with the likely exception of g (a general intelligence factor). Kray and colleagues (2006) explored what they termed a relational processing style elicited by counterfactual mind-sets.
More specically, they asked study participants
to compare reality to what might have been and
in so doing encouraged them to consider relationships and associations among stimuli. They
found that, although such mind-sets can be
detrimental to novel idea generation, they can
improve performance on creative association
tasks. Miller (2007) found a signicant relation
between eld independence and creativity on
a collage-making task. Necka (1999) presented
experimental evidence linking creativity with
impaired functioning of what he termed the
lter of attention. Groborz & Necka (2003)
reported data arguing for the importance of
cognitive control in the attentional process,
and Zhengkui and colleagues (2007) provided
a comprehensive review of the research on
creativity and attention.
A large body of research has pointed to
the importance of conceptual combination in
creative thought. Ward (2001) argued for a
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convergent approach to the study of conceptual combinationincorporating both anecdotal accounts and laboratory investigations of
the creative process. Trefnger & Selby (2004)
presented a rubric intended to characterize individual differences in problem-solving style
involving Orientation to Change, Manner of
Processing, and Ways of Deciding. And Scott
et al. (2005) described an elegant experiment
designed to compare and contrast an analogical
approach to generating combinations (involving feature search and mapping) with a casebased approach (integrating and elaborating on
event models). In summary, the literature linking cognitive processes and components to creative behavior is plentiful but murky. Perhaps
Mumford & Antes (2007) best summarized the
state of the eld when they called for caution
to be applied in any attempt to account for creative achievement based on a single model of
the kind of knowledge or cognitive processes
involved.

ANRV398-PS61-22
Training. Armed with these new investigations of the role of affect and cognition in the
creative process, are we any better equipped
to train persons to be creative? When compared to the ongoing extensive investigative
work on individual differences or affect and creativity, studies of the efcacy of creativity training have been relatively sparse. Svensson and
colleagues (2002) undertook three experimental studies involving high school and university
students in Sweden. In one study, the efcacy
of two creativity-enhancement techniques borrowed from the work of deBono, random word
input and provocation, was investigated. In a
pretest/post-test design, it was found that posttraining levels of uency were lower, in fact, for
the experimental group than for a no-training
control group. The remaining two studies reported in this paper contrasted the effects of
working individually or as a group. In both of
these investigations, group work was found to
produce better results on various measures of
creativity (uency, exibility, and originality),
but total uency was higher for study participants working alone.
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Hennessey
Amabile
Interestingly, many of the more recent training investigations have focused on populations
outside the United States. For example,
Basadur et al. (2002) reported that training methods previously shown to be effective in helping North American and Japanese
adults improve their divergent thinking skills
were also applicable to Spanish-speaking South
American managers. Arguing that training for
divergent thinking skills often involves a large
number of moderated sessions, Benedek and
colleagues (2006) then set out to explore
whether a computer-based divergent thinking
training approach could effectively enhance the
ideational uency and originality of Austrian
adults through the provision of repeated practice. A study comparing computer-based training designed to promote creativity in the verbal
domain (e.g., generating nicknames and slogans) with computer training focused on creative tasks not requiring verbal creativity (e.g.,
coming up with unusual uses for objects) and
a control (no training) group revealed signicant training effects for both computer training
approaches. Study participants receiving training showed signicant gains in what the authors termed intelligent-independent aspects
of ideational uency, but no training effects
were found for originality of ideas.
Focusing on insight problem solving
among American adults, Dow & Mayer
(2004) asked whether problem solution depends on domain-specic or domain-general
problem-solving skills. Across two separate
investigations, study participants who received
training in spatial insight problems performed
better than a verbal-insight-trained group on
spatial problems. However, no other performance differences emerged between subjects
receiving verbal, mathematical, spatial, or
verbal-spatial training who were later asked to
solve insight problems in these four category
groups. Garaigordobil (2006) also explored the
efcacy of training, this time with a sample
of Spanish children. There was a positive
effect of the intervention, with children
making signicant improvements in verbal
creativity (originality) and graphic-gural

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creativity relative to a control/no-intervention

group.
Is it possible to generalize about the efcacy
of well-designed creativity training attempts?
Scott and colleagues (2004) believe so. These
researchers carried out a quantitative, metaanalytic review of 70 prior studies and found
that carefully constructed creativity training
programs typically result in gains in performance, with these benets generalizing
across criteria, setting, and target population.
Delving deeper, these authors found that the
more successful training programs tend to employ realistic exercises that focus on the development of cognitive skills and heuristics for the
application of those skills.
Individual Differences/Personality
The empirical study of creativity was originally
focused at the level of the individual, and many
recent contributions to the literature continue
to explore the question of what distinguishes
highly creative persons from the rest of us.
Research and theorizing in the area of creativity
has much in common with studies of personality, as both elds concentrate on uniqueness.
An extensive literature review focused on the
personality and individual difference variables
common to highly creative persons reveals that
many things seem to be true of at least some
creative people but not necessarily all of them.
In other words, this body of work is especially
difcult to decipher, although a meta-analysis
carried out by Feist (1998) highlighting personality differences between scientic and artistic
creators has proven helpful in this regard.
The Big Five model of personality continues
to shape investigations in this area, and a good
deal of research attention has also been paid
to the traits labeled openness to experience
and latent inhibition. Low levels of latent inhibition, associated with the inability to shut
out the constant stream of incoming stimuli,
have been found to predict trait creativity (e.g.,
Carson et al. 2003). Trait creativity has also
been linked to high levels of openness to experience (e.g., McCrae 1987, Perrine & Brodersen
2005), and at least two investigations have

shown a negative correlation between latent inhibition and openness to experience (Peterson
& Carson 2000, Peterson et al. 2002). Amabile
et al. (1994) were among the rst to explore a
link between creativity and trait-intrinsic motivation, describing it as the drive to engage in
work out of interest, enjoyment, and personal
challenge. Although most of the literature linking motivational orientation with creativity has
focused on intrinsic motivation as a situationspecic state, interesting recent work by Prabhu
and colleagues (2008) conrmed that intrinsic
motivation is also an enduring personality trait
with a positive relation to creativity. There has
also been ongoing interest in the developmental
trajectory of a variety of other personality traits
linked to creativity, with work done by Helson
and colleagues continuing to dominate in this
area (Helson & Pals 2000, Helson & Srivastava
2002).
Case studies published in American Psychologist (April 2001) revealed just how difcult the
attempt to identify individual difference variables essential for creativity has proven to be.
In a follow-up discussion of individual differences and creativity (American Psychologist, May
2002), a second set of papers argued for the central importance of a sense of curiosity (Kashdan
& Fincham 2002) and self-condence for creative behavior. Lower levels of self-condence
may actually predict higher levels of creativity
(Kaufman 2002).
Individual Differences in Intelligence. Individual differences in intelligence were explored
by Feist & Barron (2003) as they traced the
developmental trajectories of creative persons
and placed particular emphasis on the stability/instability of intelligence and intellectual
giftedness. Similarly, James & Asmus (2001) examined the interface between personality and
cognitive ability as they attempted to better
understand sources of creativity within the individual. Although some researchers and theorists have found important parallels between
the investigation of creativity and giftedness
(Hennessey 2004), research tells us that these
Trait creativity:
creativity viewed as a
relatively stable
individual-difference
variable
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two constructs should not be equated. Winner

(2000) and Runco (1999) found that the skills
and personality factors required to be a creator are very different from those typical of
highly gifted children. And taking a different
approach, Sternberg (2001) argued that creativity is best understood in terms of its dialectical
relation to intelligence and wisdom. According to this formulation, intelligence is most often used to advance existing societal agendas,
whereas creative thinking often opposes these
agendas and proposes new ones. Wise people
recognize the need to strike a balance between
intelligence and creativity/the old and the new
to achieve both stability and change within a
societal context.

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Gender Differences. Gender differences also

continued to garner research attention, with
mixed results. Ai (1999) investigated the relation between creativity and academic achievement in Spanish secondary students and showed
that when operationalized by teachers ratings,
creativity was related to academic achievement
for both males and females. For males, exibility was the predominant factor. For females,
elaboration and uency played a signicant
role. In a related investigation again involving
adolescents, Jiliang & Baoguo (2007) found no
gender differences in scientic creativity on ratings of uency or exibility, but on originality,
high school males signicantly outperformed
females. In addition, male scores on gural tasks
were signicantly higher than female scores.
One possible explanation for these gender differences comes from Conti and coinvestigators
(2001), who found that boys and girls react very
differently to situations of extrinsic constraint.
In situations involving competition, boys who
had been segregated by gender reported signicantly higher levels of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation than did girls who had also been
segregated by gender. Finally, Lee (2002) found
that for college students completing problemsolving and problem-nding tasks, neither gender nor education exerted signicant inuence
on creative thinking abilities in real-life
situations.
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Psychopathology. Psychopathology and the

age-old question of whether there exists a
systematic relation between creativity and
mental illness continue to loom large in the
literature. Becker (2001) and Sass (2001)
examined how specic intellectual assumptions
have, over time, transformed into a widely
held belief that precludes the possibility of
total mental health and sanity for the creative genius. Rothenberg (2006) also made
a strong case for the fact that the literature
linking creativity and mental illness is severely
awed. Despite these protestations, there is
substantial research evidence of a link between
psychopathology, most especially schizotypy,
and creative behavior. Prentky (2001) found
a greater-than-chance probability that highly
creative individuals will evidence signs or
symptoms of mental illness and proposed that
certain biologically based cognitive styles that
are peculiar to extraordinary creativity possess
common biological ancestry with another
group of cognitive styles that are associated
with a predisposition to major mental illness.
Other studies, using nonclinical populations,
have found similar associations (e.g., Abraham
& Windmann 2008, Cox & Leon 1999).
However, Chavez-Eakle and colleagues
(2006) observed that highly creative achievers
scored especially low on psychopathology and
that psychopathology was more related to personality than to creativity. In another study focused on psychiatric patients, Ghadirian and
colleagues (2001) reported no difference in the
creative abilities of persons with bipolar illness
as compared to those with other types of psychopathology. In an attempt to synthesize this
work, Nettle (2006) suggested that these ndings might be explained by a sort of hybrid
model whereby schizotypal personality traits
can have tness advantages or disadvantages,
with mutational load and neurodevelopmental
conditions determining which outcome (promotion or hindrance of creativity) is observed.
Groups and Teams

Investigations of creative behavior and the
creative process have, over time, shown a

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progression from attention to the individual to

a focus on the creative performance of groups.
In recent years, much of the theorizing and
research surrounding the creative process has
been targeted at this group level, and there are
many important parallels between this work
and the creativity training literature reviewed
above. Continued and widespread interest in
the question of whether creative thinking and
problem solving can be trained is clearly due
to the fact that in most organizational settings
requiring innovative product development and
problem solutions, workers are expected to become increasingly creative as they collaborate
in project teams. The organizational literature
is presented in a later section. Here the focus is
on more general studies of creativity in groups.
Over the past decade, research on creativity within groups has undergone a signicant
shiftaway from the simplistic conclusion that
individuals can almost always be expected to
outperform groups toward a far more nuanced
understanding of the group process and a netuning of experimental design as well as models
of group interaction, motivation, and disposition. Much remains unknown about the creative
process within groups, but signicant progress
has been made. In two separate investigations,
a comparison of students working alone or in a
group revealed that although group work produced better results on various measures of creativity, uency scores were higher for individuals working alone (Svensson et al. 2002). In fact,
research on creative problem solving (Osborn
1953, 1957, 1963, 1967; Parnes 1966; Trefnger & Isaksen 1992; Trefnger et al. 2006) typically shows that the performance of individuals
is generally superior to that of groups. But some
investigators have speculated that this pattern of
results may have been driven by the specic experimental tasks, concepts, and research methods employed. Brophy (1998a,b) proposed a
tri-level matching theory as a way of integrating and explaining contradictory experimental
ndings. He pointed out that creatively solvable
problems vary considerably in their complexity, requisite knowledge base, and the amounts
of divergent and convergent thinking that are
needed. This model emphasized the fact that a

complete creative problem-solving process entails both considerable convergent and divergent thought in continuing alternation, and it
predicted that individuals, teams, and entire organizations with different preferences and abilities, knowledge, and work arrangements would
be good matches for some problems and poor
matches for others. Brophy (2006) later found
empirical support for this model. In the same
vein, Larey & Paulus (1999) found that brainstorming groups performed better when their
members were assigned to the groups based on
their preferences for working and interacting
in groups. Paulus & Yang (2000) discovered
two important factors that enabled idea sharing
in groups to become more productive: (a) the
extent to which group members carefully processed the ideas exchanged in the group (attention) and (b) the opportunity for group members to reect on the ideas after the exchange
process (incubation).
Increasingly, research, theory, and applied
work on group creativity has merged with and
relied on the use of computers. Brown & Paulus
(2002) argued that group brainstorming can
be an effective technique for generating creative ideas, based on computer simulations of
an associative memory model of idea generation in groups. Also working from a cognitive/computer modeling perspective, Nijstad &
Stroebe (2006) offered the SIAM model (Search
for Ideas in Associative Memory), which they
believe could account for various research ndings on group idea generation. This model assumes that idea generation is a repeated search
for ideas in associative memory, which proceeds
in two stages (knowledge activation and idea
production) and is controlled through negative feedback loops and cognitive failures (trials in which no idea is generated). This formulation showed that turn taking (production
blocking) interfered with both stages of the
process. Ideas suggested by others aided the
activation of problem-relevant knowledge, and
cognitive failures were important negative determinants of brainstorming persistence, satisfaction, and enjoyment. The different ways
Convergent
thinking: more
disciplined thinking,
focused on narrowing
possibilities to a
workable solution
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that computers can be involved in creative work

were further examined in a special issue of the
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies (2007, volume 63), where the contributing
authors concluded that computers may facilitate not only communication between persons
collaborating on creative projects but also
the management of creative work, the use
of creativity-enhancement techniques, and
the creative act through integrated humancomputer cooperation during idea production.

Creativity in Workplace Groups. There has

been a general acknowledgment that most creative work that gets done in organizations is accomplished by two or more individuals working
closely together (see Thompson & Choi 2006).
Thus, although our section on organizational
creativity appears later in this article, we review
this part of the literature here. (As we noted
in the introduction, the neatly nonoverlapping
nature of the concentric circles in Figure 1 is
a convenient artice.) One study in the comic
book industry uncovered evidence that simply
working in a team can, under the right circumstances, produce more creative results than
working individually (Taylor & Greve 2006).
On average, single creators had lower performance than did teams, and the team experience
of working together increased performance.
Hargadon & Bechky (2006) did a qualitative
study of six professional service rms to identify behaviors leading to moments of collective creativity. They identied four sets of interrelated behavior patterns that moved teams
beyond individuals insights: (a) help seeking,
(b) help giving, (c) reective reframing, and
(d ) reinforcing.
Taggar (2002) studied some facilitative team
processes, examining the performance of 94
groups on 13 different open-ended tasks.
At the individual-team-member level, domain
knowledge and performance-relevant behavioral measures of the three components of
Amabiles (1983, 1996) model of individual creativity related in predicted ways to
individual differences. Support was found
for new cross-level processes, labeled team
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creativity-relevant processes. At the group

level, these processes moderated the relationship between aggregated individual creativity
and group creativity.
Work Group Diversity. Research on diversity
has been one of the more active areas in organizational creativity scholarship over the past
decade. Most of this work has focused on diversity in teams. Kurtzberg & Amabile (2001)
suggested that the types and amount of team
conict that arise from the diversity of team
members might be particularly inuential in
affecting outcomes. Two empirical studies exploring diversity (Kurtzberg 2005) compared
and contrasted objectively measured creative
uency and subjectively perceived creativity
in cognitively diverse teams. Results indicated
that, although cognitive diversity may be benecial for objective functioning, it may be
detrimental to team satisfaction, affect, and
members impressions of their own creative
performance.
Indeed, a recent review of the literature on
this topic suggests that team diversity can just as
easily lead to negative as to positive outcomes.
Mannix & Neale (2005) conducted a review of
50 years of research and concluded that the
preponderance of evidence yields a pessimistic
view: Group diversity creates social divisions,
with negative performance consequences. The
authors suggest that more positive effects, such
as creativity, can arise from underlying differences such as functional background, education, or personalitybut only when the group
process is managed carefully.
Polzer and colleagues (2002) studied one
approach to managing group process that can
yield creative benets under team diversity: interpersonal congruence, the degree to which
group members see others in the group as those
others see themselves. This longitudinal study
of 83 work groups revealed that diversity (on
sex, ethnicity, and other dimensions) tended to
improve creative task performance in groups
with high interpersonal congruence but undermined the performance of groups with low
interpersonal congruence. Surprisingly, some
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diverse groups were able to achieve enough

interpersonal congruence during their rst
10 minutes of interaction to enable better group
outcomes four months later.

The Social Psychology of Creativity

Previous research has rmly established that the
social environment can signicantly inuence
an individuals motivation for doing an activity,
which in turn can signicantly inuence creative performance. This is the intrinsic motivation principle of creativity: Intrinsic motivation,
dened as the drive to do something for the
sheer enjoyment, interest, and personal challenge of the task itself (rather than for some external goal), is conducive to creativity, whereas
extrinsic motivation is generally detrimental.
Probing further, experimentalists have determined that a variety of extrinsic constraints and
extrinsic motivators can undermine intrinsic
motivation and creativity, including expected
reward, expected evaluation, surveillance, competition, and restricted choice. Investigators examining the social psychology of creativity have
found that intrinsic motivation for a particular task can be ephemeral and, thus, quite susceptible to social-environmental inuences. In
fact, the undermining effect of extrinsic constraints is so robust that it has been found to
occur across the entire lifespan, with preschoolers and seasoned professionals experiencing the
same negative consequences of expected reward
and other extrinsic motivators and constraints.
(For a review of this research, see Amabile 1996;
see also Hennessey 2003.)
Two recent nonexperimental studies in organizations also support the intrinsic motivation principle of creativity. Shin & Zhou (2003)
found that the intrinsic motivation of Korean
high-tech employees partially explained their
creativity. Another study, using survey data
from 165 employees and their supervisors who
worked in research and development in a large
U.S. organization, assessed employee intrinsic motivation and willingness to take risks,
along with supervisor-rated creativity (Dewett
2007). Results showed that one fundamental
antecedent to employee creativity is intrinsic

interest in ones work (p. 204). Interestingly,
willingness to take risks mediated the effect of
intrinsic motivation on employee creativity.
When investigations of the effects of extrinsic constraints began about 30 years ago,
it was thought that the determinants of taskmotivational orientation were straightforward.
Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation were believed to interact in a sort of hydraulic fashion. High levels of extrinsic motivation were
thought to preclude high levels of intrinsic motivation; as extrinsic motivators and constraints
were imposed, intrinsic motivation (and creativity) would necessarily decrease. Now, many
years and hundreds of investigations later, most
researchers taking a social-psychological approach to the study of creativity have come to
appreciate the many complexities of both motivational orientation and extrinsic motivators,
particularly expected reward. They have come
to supplement the original hydraulic conceptualization with an additive model that recognizes that under certain specic conditions, the
expectation of reward can sometimes increase
levels of extrinsic motivation without having
any negative impact on intrinsic motivation or
performance. Specically, rewards undermine
intrinsic motivation and creativity when they
lead people to feel controlled by the situation
that is, when self-determination is undermined
(see Deci & Ryan 2002, Ryan & Deci 2000).
However, rewards can actually enhance intrinsic motivation and creativity when they conrm competence, provide useful information in
a supportive way, or enable people to do something that they were already intrinsically motivated to do. These boosting effects are most
likely when initial levels of intrinsic motivation
are already strong (Amabile 1993).
Some researchers trained in the behaviorist tradition have offered the strongly contrasting view that creativity can be easily increased by reward and is seldom undermined.
These scholars, most notably Eisenberger,
Cameron, and colleagues (Cameron & Pierce
1994; Eisenberger & Cameron 1996, 1998;
Eisenberger & Selbst 1994), maintain that any
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detrimental effects of reward occur only under

limited conditions that can be easily avoided. A
debate over these issues surfaced in the literature in the mid 1990s, prompting researchers
and theorists on both sides of the argument to
publish a series of heated commentaries, critiques, and replies (see Eisenberger & Cameron
1996, 1998; Hennessey & Amabile 1998;
Lepper 1998; Sansone & Harackiewicz 1998).
At the core of this debate were important differences in the denitions of creativity driving
investigations, the algorithmic or heuristic nature of the experimental tasks employed, and
the instructions given to study participants.
Studies inuenced by the behaviorist tradition have typically used dependent measures
that equate creativity with novelty, and have
often instructed participants to be creative
(sometimes with details on the kinds of responses that would receive high creativity
ratings). As Eisenberger & Shanock (2003)
themselves point out, Behaviorists have been
careful to make sure the reward recipients
understand that reward depends on novel performance (p. 124). OHara & Sternberg (2001)
specically examined the effects of directives
to be creative. Precise instructions to be creative, practical, or analytical resulted in college
students demonstrating higher levels of performance in whichever of the three areas had been
targeted. These ndings suggest that results of
the behaviorist studies demonstrate positive effects of instructions, rather than positive effects
of expected rewards, on creativity. Other experimental research also calls into question the
purported ease of enhancing creativity through
use of reward ( Joussemet & Koestner 1999).
Despite results such as these, inconsistent
with the assertion that expected rewards generally foster creativity, the debate has continued
through much of the past decade. Perhaps as research programs and the theories they generate
become increasingly nuanced, this rift between
the two philosophical camps may narrow. In the
meantime, researchers and theorists studying
the social psychology of creativity have made
good progress in expanding their investigative
paradigms and theoretical perspectives. No

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longer do the variables of interest include only

expected reward or other extrinsic motivators
and constraints. Rather, they have expanded
to include a wide range of social inuences
and processes. In addition, theoretical perspectives have broadened far beyond those of
social and personality psychology. For example,
Mouchiroud & Lubart (2002) studied the development of social creativity (original solutions
to interpersonal problems) in children, and
Perry-Smith (2006) studied the effects of social
networks on creativity in an organizational
setting.
Social Environment: Organizations

Scholars of organizations, many of whom are
trained research psychologists, have increasingly turned their attention to creativity in the
workplace. In the concentric circle rubric presented at the beginning of this review, the study
of organizational creativity falls in the social
environment circle. Although much research
in this arena does focus on the work environment, a meaningful proportion of this literature considers more microscopic levels, including individual-difference studies and even
some physiological studies. In recent years,
a number of good reviews of this literature
have been published, including those by prominent organizational creativity scholars Jennifer
George, Christina Shalley, Jing Zhou, and Greg
Oldham (George 2007, Shalley et al. 2004,
Shalley & Zhou 2008). In addition, two recent
edited volumes address organizational creativity (Thompson & Choi 2006, Zhou & Shalley
2008).
To some extent, the organizational creativity literature mirrors the creativity literature in
general psychology. However, the greatest volume of workand the most signicant work in
terms of applicationconcerns the social psychology of creativity. This work focuses primarily on the impact of the social environment or
the work environment (generally as created by
leaders or managers) on the creativity of individuals, groups, or entire organizations. Some
research has even examined support for work
creativity outside of the workplace.

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Social Behaviors Supporting Creativity. A

few studies have investigated particular behaviors of other people that support (or undermine) individuals creativity in organizations.
Team leader behavior was examined in microscopic detail in a longitudinal eld study by
Amabile and colleagues (2004). This study rst
established that perceived team leader support
positively related to the peer-rated creativity of
211 individuals working on creative projects in
seven companies. Qualitative analyses of the individuals daily work diaries over several weeks
revealed both positive and negative predictors
of perceived leader support, in terms of specic
leader behaviors. Positive predictors included
showing support for the persons actions or
decisions, providing constructive feedback on
the work, and recognizing good performance.
Negative predictors included checking on assigned work too frequently, failing to disseminate needed information, and avoiding solving
problems.
The valuing of creative work is something that leaders of an organization do (or
do not) communicate. Farmer and colleagues
(2003) found that individuals creativity at work
was highest when they both perceived themselves as creative employees and perceived their
organizations as valuing creative work. Creativity at work can even be supported by the
behavior of important others outside of work.
Madjar and colleagues (2002) found that the
creative performance of employees was significantly related to support for creativity from
both work (supervisors/coworkers) and nonwork (family/friends) sources. Positive mood
mediated these relations.
Specific Aspects of the Work Environment.
Of all specic aspects of the work environment, time pressure has perhaps received the
most research attention recently from organizational psychologists studying creativity. Studies searching for simple linear relations have
generally found no relation or weak negative relations (Amabile et al. 1996, 2002), indicating that, overall, time pressure may be
detrimental to creativity at work. However, it
appears that this is an oversimplication. Indeed, the inuence of time pressure may be
one of the most complex in the organizational
creativity literature. For one thing, traits may
play a role in peoples response to time pressure at work, as demonstrated in an experiment
by Madjar & Oldham (2006). Polychronicity
is an individual-difference variable: the number of tasks with which an individual prefers to
be involved at the same time. Participants exhibited higher creativity in the task condition
that matched their individual preference, and
perceived time pressure mediated these effects.
Individuals perceived lower time pressure
in conditions that matched their preference,
which then contributed to higher levels of
creativity.
Baer & Oldham (2006) showed that the
level of time pressure matters, in a somewhat complicated person-by-situation interaction. They discovered an inverted-U relation
between time pressure and creativity for employees who scored high on the personality trait
of openness to experience while simultaneously
receiving support for creativity. This invertedU relation was essentially replicated by Ohly
and coauthors (2006), who controlled for supervisory support for creativity but did not assess personality. Amabile and coauthors (2002)
carried out a longitudinal eld study suggesting that daily workplace creativity may depend
on both the level and the type of time pressure. In general, the effects of time pressure on
creativity were negative. However, the type of
time pressure was important. Most high-timepressure days were marked by fragmentation
in the work and lack of focus on single important problems. But if individuals were protected
from distractions and fragmentation under high
time pressure, and if they believed in the importance of the problem they were trying to
solve, creativity was enhanced. In fact, on such
(relatively rare) high-time-pressure days, creativity could be as high as on low/moderatetime-pressure days.
Psychological safety, an environmental condition in which people believe that others in
their group will respond positively when they
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speak up about concerns, report mistakes, or

propose new ideas, is another work environment aspect that can be important in organizational creativity. Edmondson & Mogelof (2006)
proposed that psychological safety is crucial
for creativity in organizations because creativity involves so much risk-taking, experimentation, and frequent failure. In a study using data
collected at three points in time from teams
working on complex projects, these researchers
found that individual-level and team-level variables at a particular time predicted psychological safety at a later time, but that team-level
variables accounted for considerably more variance. Positive interactions within the team and
with the team leader were important, as was
clarity of goals for the project (particularly toward the end of the project). Another study, involving 43 new product teams composed of diverse functions (e.g., research and development,
marketing, and manufacturing), found that the
effect of task disagreement on team innovativeness depended on how free members felt to
express task-related doubts and how collaboratively or contentiously these doubts were expressed (Lovelace et al. 2001). Gibson & Gibbs
(2006) found that a psychologically safe communication climate can help mitigate several
challenges faced by virtual teams attempting to
produce innovative outcomes.
Autonomy in the work, leading employees
to feel a degree of empowerment, has long
been postulated as an important feature of
the work environment for fostering creativity.
The theoretical argument is that to the extent
that employees feel a degree of ownership
in and control over their work, they will be
more intrinsically motivated and thus more
likely to fully engage their cognitive processes
in solving problems in the work. Alge and
colleagues (2006), in two studies, found a
connection between empowerment and creativity: Organizations that respect the privacy
of employees personal information enhance
employee perceptions of empowerment, which
in turn enhances employee creativity.
Feedback, monitoring of work, and evaluation of work are closely related and can have

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quite different effects on creativity depending

on how they are delivered. In a chapter reviewing a great deal of empirical research, Zhou
(2008) presented a summary of how feedback
can affect creativity. She suggested that supervisors can affect employee creativity positively
by (a) giving positive feedback whenever possible; (b) delivering both positive and negative
feedback in an informational style (with the supervisor suggesting that the goal of the feedback
is not to control the employee, but instead to
help the employee develop creative capabilities
and performance); (c) adopting a developmental orientation when giving feedbackgiving
employees valuable information that will enable them to learn, develop, and make improvements on the job, implying that they can constantly get better; and (d ) focusing feedback on
the task, not the person.
Organizational creativity scholars have also
studied the environmental condition of goal
setting. General studies of the work environment (e.g., Amabile et al. 1996) suggest that
clear overall goals for work projects support
creativity. However, Shalley has carried out a
systematic research program to examine the effects of setting specic creativity goalsa topic
that others have recently investigated as well. In
a review chapter on supervisory goal-setting research, Shalley (2008) suggested, if managers
would like their employees to be more creative,
they need to nd ways to encourage employees
to undertake creative activities. A major way to
do this is by creating role expectations either
by setting goals or making creative activity a
job requirement. Further, organizations need
to make sure that the work context supports
these goals or job requirements. . . (p. 160).
Although goal setting might be viewed as
a kind of constraint on creativity, other researchers have taken up the question of constraints much more directly, by studying the
effects of external demands on workplace creativity. In a review chapter, West and coauthors
(2005) dened external demands on a work
group as crises or severe constraints that come
from the external environment within the organization or the wider society and impinge on

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the individual or team attempting to do creative or innovative work. These authors, like
most in the eld, see creativity as the generation of new and useful ideas, with innovation being the implementation of creative ideas.
They suggest that because creativity requires
a nonconstrained, undemanding environment,
external demands have a negative impact on
group creativity. However, because external demands can positively inuence group processes
such as cohesion, task focus, and clarity of team
objectives, demands can have a positive impact on group innovation. Thus, it is important for managers to understand the stage of
the creativity-innovation process in considering the imposition of demands on a team.
In summary, it appears that constraints and
pressures in the work environment (except for
one rare form of time pressure) are detrimental to creativity, whereas organization-wide
supports, psychological safety, sufcient time,
autonomy, developmental feedback, and creativity goals are facilitative.
Social Environment: Schools

In addition to the workplace, the other obvious setting for the real-world application of the
social psychology of creativity literature is the
classroom. Although creative performance may
not be as central or universal a goal in schools as
it is in the business world, the development of
student creativity is crucial for economic, scientic, social, and artistic/cultural advancement.
It is essential that we come to a far deeper understanding of how teaching techniques, teacher
behavior, and social relationships in schools affect the motivation and creativity of students.
Sternberg (2008) offered a thoughtful paper
arguing for the application of psychological
theories to educational practice, yet a review
of the recent educational literature reveals surprisingly few direct investigations of creativity in the classroom. Plucker and colleagues
(2004) reviewed the literature and concluded
that a preponderance of myths and stereotypes
about creativity as well as a failure to precisely
dene creativity has served to strangle most
research efforts on the part of educators. A recent paper by Sawyer (2006) painted a similarly
bleak picture. Sawyer contended that American
educational researchers have paid very little
scholarly attention to the fact that the majority of the worlds most developed countries, including the United States, have now made a
shift from an industrial economy to an economy
that is knowledge based. According to Sawyer
(2006), many features of todays schools have
become obsoleteto the point that the U.S.
educational system needs to be entirely restructured around disciplined improvisational group
processes and creative collaboration. Essential
to this restructuring will be carefully controlled
empirical research investigations designed to
help educators determine which educational innovations actually promote student creativity
and why.
How are researchers to carry out such investigations? If the results warrant it, how
are they to convince policy makers that the
time has come for fundamental school change?
How are they to convince educators that the
promotion of student creativity is a desirable
goal? A study carried out by Scott (1999) investigated attitudes held by elementary school
teachers and college students about creative
children. Results showed that teachers were signicantly more likely than college students to
rate creative children as more disruptive than
their more average peers. In fact, this bias
against unique answers or problem solutions
was even found in a sample of prospective teachers who had yet to head up their own classroom
(Beghetto 2007). In U.S. schools, creativity is
not always seen as a desirable trait. Yet at least
a small body of research into the psychology of
educational creativity exists.
Ruscio & Amabile (1999) explored the impact of two different instructional approaches
on the creative problem solving of college students. Study participants completed a novel
structure-building task after receiving algorithmic instruction, heuristic instruction, or no
instruction. Type of instruction inuenced students perceptions of the task, their behavior
during the task, and their nal solution to the
Innovation: the
successful
implementation of
creative ideas
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structure problem. Study participants receiving

algorithmic instruction showed greater condence and speed, but they were signicantly
less likely than students receiving heuristic instruction to engage in exploratory behavior or
to produce nal products that deviated from the
sample structure.
Researchers in Great Britain have recently
contributed a small number of important empirical investigations of creativity in the classroom. Focusing on the creativity of young
students, Cremin and collaborators (2006) reported ndings of a 12-month-long investigation of childrens possibility thinking and
their teachers pedagogical practices that foster this important component of creative behavior. In another longitudinal study, Claxton
et al. (2005) followed the developmental trends
in creativity from the period of the so-called
fourth-grade slump through the ninth-grade
year. And in a related paper, Claxton and colleagues (2006) made the argument that British
schools must move from allowing creativity to developing creativity in the classroom. In
support of this position, these researchers offered practical examples from action research
projects designed to develop habits of mind
conducive to creativity.
The fact that, in recent years, relatively few
investigators and theorists in the industrialized
nations of the West have chosen to explore creativity in the classroom stands in striking contrast to the research situation in other parts
of the world. In fact, a review of the literature reveals a virtual explosion of interest in
this areaespecially in Asia. Consider the example of Singapore. For more than 20 years,
the nation of Singapore has made the fostering
of creativity in the schools a top priority (see
Tan & Law 2000). In the past decade, Tan and
colleagues have conducted many empirical investigations of creativity in the classrooms of
Singapore. In a 2000 paper, Tan explored students and teachers perceptions of activities
useful for fostering creativity and found that as
students grow older, their views begin to more
closely reect those of their teachers; these data
were then supplemented with a second paper

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(Tan & Law 2002). Tan & Rasidir (2006) investigated childrens views of the behaviors they
believe make for a creative teacher. Also focused
on students in Singapore was an empirical investigation carried out by Majid and colleagues
(2003). This study contrasted the efcacy of the
Internet and SCAMPER (Eberle 1997), a wellknown technique based on the presentation of
directed questions, in promoting the creativity of primary school children. Results revealed
that students who used Internet resources targeting childrens writing skills demonstrated
improvement in their creative writing in terms
of both uency and elaboration. Children using SCAMPER did not show any obvious
improvements.
Two studies considered Japanese educational approaches and their possible impact on
creativity. DeCoker (2000) looked at U.S. education through the eyes of Japanese teachers.
Twenty-four Japanese teachers visited a U.S.
school for one month. Their unanimous conclusion was that schools in America were far
stricter, discipline was far more punitive, and
classrooms were far more rule bound, than
in Japan. When it came to creativity in these
schools, these visitors worried most about the
strict grading policies in force at the high school
level. In sum, DeCoker (2000) concluded that
although the majority of Americans assume that
Japanese schools are strict (and that American
schools are undisciplined), in the eyes of these
visitors, the American system runs the risk
of being far too rigid, making student (and
teacher) creativity an impossibility.
The research, theory, and applied work
coming out of Mainland China and Hong Kong
have been especially prolic and illuminating.
Hongli (2004) asked the provocative question
of why no Nobel Prize winner has ever been
the product of the Chinese educational system
and extracted from the literature a number of
suggested strategies for nurturing the creativity
of Chinese primary and middle school students.
Huang and collaborators (2005) explored the
implicit theories of creativity held by Chinese
teachers and found that those attitudes played
an important role in how teachers worked to

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develop and train creative behavior in their students. Similarly, Chan & Chan (1999) examined
the implicit theories held by Hong Kong teachers about the characteristics of creative and
uncreative students. Like the results reported
in similar U.S. studies, this investigation indicated that Chinese teachers regard some characteristics of creative students as socially undesirable. A number of other researchers in the
Chinese literature have examined preferred
thinking styles in teaching and their links to
creativity in the schools (e.g., Zhang 2006).
With their focus on 27 primary classrooms
and their teachers in Hong Kong, Forrester &
Hui (2007) utilized a variety of creativity measures developed in the West. These included a
classroom observation form, a measure of classroom climate, an index of behaviors used by
teachers to foster creative behavior, and a creative personality scale. Also employed was a creativity test for students that had been developed
in China. Findings lent support to existing system and componential theories involving both
ow and the impact of environmental factors
on student motivation and creative behavior.
Finally, Dineen & Niu (2008) explored the
effectiveness of Western creative teaching
methods in China. This quasi-eld experiment
delivered the standard Chinese undergraduate
graphic design curriculum to one class of
Chinese students within the framework of a
creative pedagogic model developed in the
United Kingdom. Another class received the
standard Chinese graphic design education.
Visual products produced by the students from
the two classes both before and during the intervention were evaluated for overall creativity,
originality, design quality, and experimental
range. Levels of effort, enjoyment, motivation,
and condence in experimentation were also
assessed. Both quantitative and qualitative data
showed that creative methods developed in
the United Kingdom were highly effective in
encouraging creativity and related constructs,
including intrinsic motivation, among Chinese
university students.
This proliferation of school-based research
in Asia and beyond raises a variety of signicant
questions. In particular is the issue of why more

U.S. researchers and theorists do not appear
to share their non-U.S. colleagues current interest in and concerns about the promotion
of student creativity. One possibility is that
with Americas newfound emphasis on highstakes testing and other manifestations of the
accountability movement has come a general
de-emphasis on creative behavior in favor of
the more easily quantied and assessed mastery of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Without a doubt, this change in focus has made it
far more difcult for U.S. researchers to secure funding for the study of creativity in the
schools. An investigation of creative behavior
in schools in China (Niu & Sternberg 2003)
indicated that high-stakes educational testing
coupled with societal values and school pedagogic approaches has for some time impaired
the creativity of students of that nation. But
now, many Asian educators, policy-makers, and
researchers are calling for a shift of emphasis
away from testing and toward the promotion of
more open-ended, creativity-boosting teaching
techniques.
One concern beginning to surface in the
literature involves the fact that many nonWestern investigators employ Western-based
measures and paradigms when investigating the
creativity of persons living, working, and learning in cultures fundamentally different from
those of the West. As Kim (2005) cautioned,
educational systems are formed based on cultural expectations and ideologies. Of course, the
same can be said of workplace environments
and any other milieus where creative behavior might occur. It is questionable to expect
that research approaches and tools developed in
one cultural context will serve investigators in
another culture.
Social Environment: Culture

Does it make sense to presume that the models,
paradigms, theories, and measures constructed
by scholars in the Western world can adequately
explain or tap the creativity of persons living in
cultures very different from those of the United
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States, Canada, and Western Europe? For example, can the intrinsic motivation principle of
creativity (Amabile 1996) be assumed to apply
to persons in Asia? Can the Consensual Assessment Technique (Amabile 1982, Hennessey
& Amabile 1999) be expected to yield reliable and valid assessments of product creativity across cultures? Baer (2003) argued convincingly that cross-cultural creativity research
can teach us a great deal both about creativity
and about different cultures. Yet the potential
pitfalls and challenges are many. Concrete examples of some of these difculties come from
Chiu (2007) and Leung (2007), who presented
thoughtful and complementary treatises on the
challenges faced by those attempting to construct and promote an Asian social psychology. And in an especially comprehensive review, Lehman et al. (2004) reminded us that
psychological processes inuence culture, culture inuences psychological processes, individuals thoughts and actions have the potential
to inuence cultural norms, and these cultural
norms and practices inuence the thoughts and
actions of individuals.
Another important demonstration of the
complexity of cross-cultural considerations
came from Rudowicz (2003), who made the
case that creative expression is a universally human phenomenon. Yet despite this universality,
Rudowicz argued that methodological and conceptual problems loom large in cross-cultural
investigations. The effects of culture on creativity are complex and highly interactive, and
include historical, societal, and individual crosscultural factors. One obvious concern faced
by investigators wishing to explore creativity
cross-culturally is whether denitions and operationalizations of creativity coming from one
culture can be validly applied in another potentially very different culture. In studying implicit
theories of creativity across cultures, Paletz
& Peng (2008) found that although Japanese,
Chinese, and American university students all
considered novelty to be important in evaluating creativity, appropriateness was more important for the Americans and Japanese than for
the Chinese. Runco and collaborators (2002)

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also investigated implicit theories of creativity

across cultures, examining teachers and parents ideas about childrens creativity in the
United States and India. Across cultures, signicant differences emerged for intellectual and
attitudinal clusters of trait adjectives. Such studies support the contention that implicit theories are inuenced by cultural traditions and
expectations.
Probably no cross-cultural contrast has received more research attention than the collectivist/individualistic distinction. In one investigation involving this dichotomy, Ng (2003)
tested a theoretical model positing cultural
individualism/collectivism as the antecedent
variable, independent and interdependent selfconstruals as the mediating variables, and creative and conforming behaviors as the outcome
variables. Survey responses of white undergraduates from Australia (individualistic orientation) and Chinese undergraduates from
Singapore (collectivist orientation) were compared, and SEM results provided strong overall
support for this theoretical model and the proposed relation between individualism and creativity (as well as collectivism and more conforming, less creative behavior). A subsequent
paper (Ng 2005) then expanded on these ndings with the demonstration of especially high
indices of t. Zha and colleagues (2006) also
explored individualism/collectivism and the impact of culture on creative potential. In this
study comparing highly educated American and
Chinese adults, Americans displayed signicantly higher scores on a measure of creative
potential. Chinese study participants showed
signicantly higher skill mastery in mathematics; as expected, Americans showed greater individualism, whereas the Chinese were more
collectivistic.
Finally, although much of the literature in
this area has been focused on cross-cultural
comparisons of creative behavior, some researchers have chosen to explore directly the
premise that multicultural experience fosters
creativity. Leung et al. (2008) empirically
demonstrated that exposure to multiple cultures can, in and of itself, enhance creative
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behavior. More specically, this investigation

showed that extensiveness of multicultural experience was positively related to both creative
performance and thought processes considered
conducive to creative behavior.

CONCLUSION: TAKING A
SYSTEMS PERSPECTIVE
Clearly, the great variety of research questions
and investigative approaches outlined in this review can signicantly broaden our understanding of the phenomenon of creativity in many
important ways. Yet no single construct, no
one investigative focus, can adequately account
for the emergence of creative behavior. Like
many students of psychology before them, contemporary creativity researchers and theorists
are faced with the daunting task of disentangling the interplay between nature and nurture.
Neurological events in the brain, behavioral
manifestations of mental illness, or individual differences in personality must be studied
not in isolation but in conjunction with the
particular environment in which an individuals physical, intellectual, and social development has taken place. More than two decades
ago, Amabile (1983, 1996) offered a threepronged Componential Model of Creativity incorporating domain skills, creativity skills, and
task motivation inuenced by the social environment; Sternbergs (1988) Triarchic Model
of Intelligence also got us thinking in threes.
The most recent decade brought few new attempts to conceptualize creativity on a broad
scale.
An evolutionary approach based on the
work of Charles Darwin, rst conceptualized
by Campbell (1960) and later modied and
elaborated by Simonton (1999, 2007), has continued to garner a great deal of attention.
Drawing on Campbells blind-variation-andselective-retention theory of creativity, Simonton made the case that the Darwinian model
might actually subsume all other theories of
creativity as special cases of a larger evolutionary framework. Perhaps not surprisingly,
comments on Simontons call for creativity
theorists to adopt a Darwinian perspective came

swiftly. Feist (1999) argued that the application of evolutionary theory to creativity must
be taken as metaphorical rather than literal.
Gardner (1999) countered with the caution that
true blind variation would imply that the creator, consciously or unconsciously, tries out every conceivable approach or idea in the process
of nding an optimal solution or point of completion for a piece of work. Gabora (2007) and
Dasgupta (2004) published particularly negative reviews of Simontons approach and offered
a number of counter examples demonstrating
the essential role played by expertise. Seeking
to strike a balance between these two frameworks, Weisberg & Hass (2007) suggested that
blindness in the context of the creative process could be dened as the individuals inability
to predict the outcome of his or her efforts and
ended with the conclusion that although blindness may be a component of creativity, we need
not assume that creative behavior must include
free-association processes.
Another recent attempt at constructing a
comprehensive model of creativity was also
based on the application of well-established
theory to the specic case of creative behavior. Over the past decade, a small group of researchers has repeatedly made the argument
that the frameworks originated by Jean Piaget
and Lev Vygotsky to explain cognitive development in children could also be fruitfully applied to the creative process. Ayman-Nolley
(1999) challenged the assumption that Piaget
failed to address the phenomenon of creativity in his exploration of the development of the
mind and argued that the mechanisms of assimilation and accommodation can readily be
applied to creative behavior. Von`eche (2003)
applied Piagets notions of invariance and transformations to the creative process, and J. Kim
(2006) reminded researchers and theorists that
Piaget had suggested reective abstraction as
the mechanism for creativity. In this same paper, Kim also explored the work of Vygotsky on
the interrelation between imagination and creativity; Lindqvist (2003) argued that Vygotskys
notion of the zone of proximal development
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might help explain how creative ideas or problem solutions take shape.
J.P. Guilfords research on creativity, particularly his work on creative problem solving, also resurfaced to garner some recent attention. Guilford is perhaps best remembered
for his contention that divergent thinking plays
a central role in creative thought. Reviewing
Guilfords (1967) structure of intellect model,
Mumford (2001) argued for a return to efforts
to take a broad, comprehensive approach to the
study of creativity. Richards (2001) echoed this
call and made a strong case for the infusion of
chaos theory into interpretations of Guilfords
work. More specically, Richards argued that
chaos theory can provide models and metaphors
for rapid, holistic nonlinear creative processes.
Interestingly, theories of organizational creativity have tended to include more levels of
analysis than creativity theories within psychology. This may be because organizational scholars converge from the disciplines of economics,
sociology, organizational behavior, and others,
as well as psychology. The two most frequently
cited organizational creativity theories include
factors in the individual and the organization
(Amabile 1988, 1996) or the individual, group,
and organization (Woodman et al. 1993), as
well as interactions between these levels. Other,

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more recent theories are similarly multilevel

(Drazin et al. 1999, Ford 1996, Mumford
2000, Unsworth 2001). However, even in this
realm, theories lack a truly systemic, dynamic
quality.
Having seen the scholarly rigor underlying much of the contemporary literature on
the psychology of creativity, we are heartened
by the advances in knowledge made in recent years. However, although many theorists
and researchers have broadened our perspective on creativity, their efforts do not extend
far enough. Our review moves us to sound a
cautionary note. The staggering array of disciplinary approaches to understanding creativity
can prove to be an advantage, but only if researchers and theorists work together and understand the discoveries that are being made
across creative domains and analytical levels.
Otherwise, the mysteries may deepen. Only
by using multiple lenses simultaneously, looking across levels, and thinking about creativity systematically, will we be able to unlock
and use its secrets. What we need now are allencompassing systems theories of creativity designed to tie together and make sense of the diversity of perspectives found in the literature
from the innermost neurological level to the
outermost cultural level.
SUMMARY POINTS
1. The creativity literature has seen substantial growth in volume and scope as well as
methodological and theoretical sophistication.
2. With the growth in outlets for publication has come increasing fragmentation in creativity
research.
3. Researchers and theorists in one subeld often seem unaware of work being done in
another.
4. The advancement of technology, especially fMRI, coupled with increases in access to
equipment for researchers have contributed to a virtual explosion of information on the
creative brain.
5. Although creativity in persons has some trait-like (stable) aspects, it is also a state subject
to inuence by the social environment.
6. People are most creative when they are motivated primarily by the interest, enjoyment,
satisfaction, and challenge of the work itselfi.e., by intrinsic motivation.
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7. Scholars of organizations, many of whom are trained research psychologists, have increasingly turned their attention to creativity in the workplace.
8. We cannot presume that the models, paradigms, theories, and measures constructed by
scholars in the Western world can adequately explain or tap the creativity of persons
living in cultures very different from those of the United States, Canada, and Western
Europe.

9. Deeper understanding of creative behavior will require more interdisciplinary research

based on a systems view of creativity that recognizes a variety of interrelated forces
operating at multiple levels.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
The authors are not aware of any biases that might be perceived as affecting the objectivity of this
review.
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wave of
neuro-psychological
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Presents empirical
evidence that creativity
can be enhanced by
social support from
various sources.
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or negative effects of
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Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2010.61:569-598. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

Click here for quick links to

Department of Psychology, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts 02481;

Harvard Business School, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts 02163;

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2010. 61:56998

First published online as a Review in Advance on

innovation, intrinsic motivation, divergent thinking

The Annual Review of Psychology is online at

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2010.61:569-598. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

Why study creativity? Even if this mysterious

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2010.61:569-598. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

chapters, books, or entire volumes of a journal

literature. Yet there seem to be few, if any, big

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2010.61:569-598. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

more than their affect, cognition, or training.

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE:

Before exploring the research being done at the

But this doesnt mean that researchers and

setting. And Gluck

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2010.61:569-598. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

The Creativity of Persons. The creativity of

rmly establish the cross-cultural application

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2010.61:569-598. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

understanding? One growing body of research

Affect, Cognition, and Training

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2010.61:569-598. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

affect: the work context must call for high levels

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2010.61:569-598. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2010.61:569-598. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

creativity relative to a control/no-intervention

2005), and at least two investigations have

two constructs should not be equated. Winner

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2010.61:569-598. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

Gender Differences. Gender differences also

Psychopathology. Psychopathology and the

Groups and Teams

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2010.61:569-598. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

progression from attention to the individual to

needed. This model emphasized the fact that a

that computers can be involved in creative work

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2010.61:569-598. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

Creativity in Workplace Groups. There has

creativity-relevant processes. At the group

diverse groups were able to achieve enough

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2010.61:569-598. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

The Social Psychology of Creativity

antecedent to employee creativity is intrinsic

detrimental effects of reward occur only under

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2010.61:569-598. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

longer do the variables of interest include only

Social Environment: Organizations

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2010.61:569-598. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

Social Behaviors Supporting Creativity. A

speak up about concerns, report mistakes, or

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2010.61:569-598. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

quite different effects on creativity depending

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2010.61:569-598. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

Social Environment: Schools

structure problem. Study participants receiving