EXPLAINING CREATIVITY This page intentionally left blank Explaining Creativity The Science of Human Innovation R. Keith Sawyer 1 2006 3 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright © 2006 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sawyer, R. Keith (Robert Keith) Explaining creativity: the science of human innovation/R. Keith Sawyer p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13 978-0-19-516164-9; 978-0-19-530445-9 (pbk.) ISBN 0-19-516164-5; 0-19-530445–4 (pbk.) 1. Creative ability. I. Title BF408.S284 2006 153.3'5—dc 22 2005012982 135798642 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I have been studying and teaching creativity for more than ten years, and have published several academic books on the topic. But when you write a book like this one, summarizing an entire field for the interested general reader, it’s like learning the material all over again. It’s been a wonderful experience! I begin by thanking Mike Csikszentmihalyi for introducing me to the field of creativity research. Then, I owe a debt to my students, who have helped me discover how best to explain creativity. I’d like to thank all of the musicians, actors, and art- ists who I’ve observed and interviewed through the years, for sharing with me their perspectives on creativity. I am grateful to Oxford University Press; the idea for this book was born in a conversation with Joan Bossert, and my editor Catharine Carlin ably managed the process. And I’d like to thank my wife, Barb, who made this book possible; I started working on it soon after our wedding, and finished it just after our son Graham was born. This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS Conceptions Part I Chapter 1 Introduction 3 Chapter 2 Conceptions of Creativity 9 interlude 1 Defining Creativity 35 Individualist Approaches Part II Chapter 3 Personality Psychology 39 Chapter 4 The Second Wave: Cognitive Psychology 57 Chapter 5 Biology 77 Chapter 6 Computational Approaches 97 interlude 2 From Individual to Context 113 Contextualist Approaches Part III Chapter 7 Sociology 117 Chapter 8 Culture 137 Chapter 9 History 155 interlude 3 Applying Individualist and Contextualist Approaches to Creativity 173 vii contents Artistic Creativity Part IV Chapter 10 Visual Creativity 177 Chapter 11 Writing 205 Chapter 12 Music 223 Chapter 13 Acting 243 interlude 4 Goodbye to Our Creativity Myths 259 Everyday Creativity Part V Chapter 14 Science 263 Chapter 15 Business Creativity 281 Chapter 16 How to Be More Creative 295 Epilogue 315 References 319 Index 347 viii Pa r t I Conceptions This page intentionally left blank CHAPTER 1 Introduction Genius. Invention. Talent. And, of course, creativity. These words describe the highest levels of human performance. When we are engaged in the act of being creative, we feel we are performing at the peak of our abilities. Creative works give us insight and enrich our lives. Creativity is part of what makes us human. Our nearest relatives, chimpan- zees and other primates, are often quite intelligent but never reach these high levels of performance. And although advanced “artificially intelligent” computer programs hold the world title in chess, and can crunch through mounds of data and identify patterns invisible to the human eye, they still cannot master every- day creative skills. In spite of its importance, creativity has not received much attention from scientists. Until very recently, only a few researchers had studied creativity. Most psychologists instead study what they believe are more fundamental mental properties—memory, logical reasoning, and attention. But in recent years psy- chologists—along with increasing numbers of sociologists, anthropologists, musicologists, theater experts, and art critics—have increasingly turned their attention to creativity. Because creativity is not a central topic in any of these fields, these scholars work without big research grants, and without a lot of at- tention from the leaders of their fields. Even so, their research findings have gradually accumulated, and our knowledge about creativity has now attained a critical mass. Perhaps for the first time, we hold in our grasp the potential to explain creativity. 3 conceptions By the 1990s, the science of creativity had converged on the sociocultural approach, an interdisciplinary approach that explains creative people and their social and cultural contexts. The sociocultural approach brings together psy- chologists, sociologists of science and art, and anthropologists who study art, ritual performance, and verbal creativity in different cultures. Scientists have discovered that explaining creativity requires understanding not only individual inspiration but also social factors like collaboration, networks of support, edu- cation, and cultural background. In this book, I explain creativity by bringing together psychological studies of individuals, sociological studies of individu- als creating in groups, and anthropological studies of how people from differ- ent cultural and social backgrounds perceive and value creative products differently. Why Explain Creativity? Years ago, when I began to teach “the psychology of creativity” to college stu- dents, I discovered that the scientific study of creativity made some of my stu- dents nervous. Students often asked, “Isn’t the whole project just a mistaken attempt to impose the analytic worldview of science onto the arts? Isn’t creativ- ity a mysterious force that will forever resist scientific explanation?” Some of the artists who take the class are worried that if they are too analytic, this new approach will interfere with their muse. We’ll see that these worries are un- founded, and that explaining creativity is important for many reasons. Explaining creativity can help us identify and realize every person’s unique creative talents. Without explaining creativity, it’s easy to fail to recognize and nurture individuals with important creative abilities. If we hope to solve all of the pressing problems facing our society and our world, we must take advan- tage of the creative talents of everyone. Explaining creativity can help our leaders to respond better to the challenges facing modern society. Researchers have discovered that creativity is an essential skill for effective leadership (Bennis & Biederman, 1997; Simonton, 1994). Cre- ative leaders have much more impact because they can motivate their teams more effectively. Creative leaders are especially effective at handling novel chal- lenges that force them to go outside the typical routines. Changes in the mod- ern economy have made creativity economically more important than ever (Florida, 2002). Increasing competition—due to deregulation and increased international trade—requires companies to innovate more rapidly. Rapid ad- vances in technology demand more frequent and more substantial innovation. Technology and competition synergistically feed off each other; for example, 4 Introduction the technology of the Internet makes it easier for companies to compete across national boundaries. Before the 1980s, creativity was thought to be only occa- sionally important to a corporation; but today most business leaders believe that creativity is critical to the survival of their organization. Explaining creativity can help us all to be better problem solvers. We each face problems in our everyday lives that require creative responses. Our society faces challenges like pollution, poverty, and terrorism. Some of these problems can be solved simply by a single individual having a good idea; others will require groups of individuals to work together creatively as a unit. Explaining creativity helps us realize the importance of positive, peak experi- ences to mental health. During peak experiences known as flow, people are at their most creative. Researchers studying positive psychology have discovered that flow and creativity contribute to a happy, fulfilling life (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990b). A better explanation of creativity can help people to achieve these positive, healthy experiences. Explaining creativity can help educators teach more effectively. Educational psychologists are increasingly discovering the role that creativity plays in de- velopment and learning (Sawyer et al., 2003). In recent decades, psychologists have identified the step-by-step creative processes that underpin learning (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 1999; Olson & Torrance, 1996). Creativity is not only important to classroom learning but also to the critical informal learning that occurs in the preschool years—how to speak a first language, how to be- have at the dinner table,