The Psychology of Creativity: A Critical Reading

Abstract

Definition Units of analysisThe psychology of creativity is nowadays a thriving field of investigation, but also a discipline in crisis.This is the premise for the critical reading of past and present work within this area proposed here.The presentation follows the typical headings of a research article, beginning with a consideration of research questions, definitions and their operationalization, as well as units of analysis, and continuing with reflections on sample and method, discussion of theory and practical implications.At each step, questions are raised about current practices and implicit assumptions in order to help us develop a stronger psychology of creativity in the decades to come.In the end, six main points are placed on a hypothetical agenda for future (creative) creativity research.In this sense, a critical reading is actually the first step in the process of being constructive and calling for increased awareness and responsibility in relation to the future of the discipline.The psychology of creativity is certainly a discipline that began the new millennium as a blooming area of study, supported by more than a century of theorising and a marked growth in research, particularly after the 1950s.There is a lot of confidence expressed today in the accumulation of findings and the continuous expansion of the field (see Runco & Albert, 2010, for a historical overview).But there are also cautionary voices that warn against increased fragmentation and dispersion (Hennessey & Amabile, 2010), signs of chaotic rather than convergent growth.While we can all agree that creativity studies are certainly developing (and one needs only to consider the number of handbooks and journals emerging in previous years, the present journal subscribing to this ascending trend), a vital question needs to be asked: developing towards what?It is my aim here to raise and explore this central question for our discipline in the form of a critical reading of past and present work.Without trying to overstate my conclusions regarding the current state of affairs, a careful exploration of this area has led me to believe that the psychology of creativity is close to a crisis, although its signs might not be perceived

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 143 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.