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Over the years, researchers have focused on ways to facilitate creativity in the workplace by looking at individual factors and organizational factors that affect employee creativity (Woodman, Sawyer, & Griffin, [Woodman, R.W., 1993]). In many cases, the factors that affect creativity are examined independently. In other words, it is uncommon for researchers to look at the interaction among individual and organizational factors. In this study, it is argued that to get a true understanding of how to maximize creativity in the workplace, organizational researchers must look at the interaction between organizational factors and individual factors that affect employee creativity. More specifically, the current study looked at an individual's perceptions about his or her ability to be creative (i.e., individual factor) and perceptions of requirements for creativity in the workplace (i.e., an organizational factor). The results indicated that individuals who have a high belief about their ability to be creative (an individual factor) were most creative when they also perceived requirements for creativity in the workplace (an organizational factor). Furthermore, individuals who had low perceptions of creative ability were still able to perform creatively when they had high perceptions of requirements for creativity. This suggests that, to maximize creativity, organizations should focus on both individual and organizational factors that affect employee creativity.

The "Learn to Think" (LTT) Intervention Program was developed for raising thinking abilities of primary and secondary school students. It has been implemented in more than 300 schools, and more than 200,000 students took part in the experiment over a 10"year span. Several longitudinal intervention studies showed that LTT could promote the development of students' thinking ability, learning motivation, and learning strategy as well as raise academic performance in primary schools. This article describes a study of the influence and the delayed effects of LTT on the scientific creativity of secondary school students. One hundred and seven students were selected from a secondary school, 54 of them participated in the LTT every 2 weeks and the rest had not. The intervention lasted 2 years, and the delayed effect was explored half a year after terminating the intervention. The Scientific Creativity Test for Secondary School Students was used four times from pre-test to delayed post-test. The results indicated that the LTT did promote the development of scientific creativity of secondary school students, and the effects on the scientific creativity were not necessarily immediate, but tended to be long-lasting. (Contains 7 tables and 7 figures.)

The article integrates the seven papers of the two special issues with a special focus on discussing the differences in people's beliefs about creativity between the Chinese and American cultures: How it is conceived, evaluated, and nurtured. It uses three metaphors to capture major differences in these aspects, and highlights areas with profound cultural variations in conceptions and creative education for future research.

Creativity has become a hot topic in education. From President Barack Obama to Amazon's Jeff Bezos to "Newsweek" magazine, business leaders, major media outlets, government officials, and education policy makers are increasingly advocating including student creativity in the curriculum. But without a clear understanding of the nature of creativity itself, such well-meaning advocacy may do more harm than good; educators may experience calls for teaching creativity as just another guilt-inducing addition to an already-overwhelming set of curricular demands. Here are five fundamental insights that can guide and support educators as they endeavor to integrate student creativity into the everyday curriculum. (Contains 4 resources.)

Organizational innovation involves reconciling many contradictions or paradoxes. Dividing the process of innovation into phases ranging from Activation to Validation and examining each phase in terms of the six Ps of creativity offers a framework for making sense of these contradictions. The Innovation Phase Assessment Instrument (IPAI) was designed to assess organizations according to such an approach. The scale was administered to 454 student volunteers and an analysis of their responses indicated that the IPAI is highly reliable and has substantial construct validity. At a practical level, it can be used for assessing the strengths/weaknesses of organizations in a differentiated way and for making recommendations for improving their capacity for innovation. It is also a source of research questions for examining creativity and innovation in an organizational context.

Creativity researchers typically focus on the who, what, why, where, and how of creativity. A noticeable omission is when. The when is not completely ignored in the field; it surfaces in developmental and evolutionary perspectives, the study of eminent creators, and other avenues of scholarship. In this paper, we assert that for the concept of when to be fully addressed researchers need to more actively consider the past, present, and future and how they interact. More specifically, we propose an expanded way of thinking about the when of creativity by introducing a temporal dimension to the definition of creativity. Our definition offers a broader lens for researchers to consider the temporal dimensions of originality, meaningfulness, and impact of creativity. After introducing our definition and describing its unique features, we discuss how researchers can use our definition to trace creative phenomena across a full temporal trajectory and thereby provide more nuanced and dynamic representation of how the features of creativity change across time and contexts. Finally, we apply this temporal definition to the Four Cs Model of Creativity to illustrate how considering the when can help resolve lingering questions about this perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Context: Creativity is an indispensable force in intellectual, social, cultural, and economic development. Yet societal forces conspire to erode it. Educators have despaired for many years over how schools often fail to encourage creativity, but society as a whole is just as guilty. But how do schools and society fail to encourage, or actually even erode, creativity? This essay addresses this question. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: The goal of our research was to specify the specific societal forces that erode creativity. We have labeled these forces ERODE: Education, Resources, Opportunities, Diffusion, and Exaggeration. The bottom line is that, although our society claims to want creativity, it most wants it when no one is negatively affected. Because creativity almost always negatively affects some people and groups, society tends to be much more supportive of creativity in theory than in practice. We show why. Research Design: Our research design is an analysis of the forces in society that erode creativity. We used historical analysis, media analysis, and analysis of educational practice to draw our conclusions.

It has been argued that creativity evolved, at least in part, through sexual selection to attract mates. Recent research lends support to this view and has also demonstrated a link between certain dimensions of schizotypy, creativity, and short-term mating. The current study delves deeper into these relationships by focusing on engagement in creative activity and employing an expansive set of personality and mental health measures (Five Factor Model, schizotypy, anxiety, and depression). A general tendency to engage in everyday forms of creative activity was related to number of sexual partners within the past year in males only. Furthermore, schizotypy, anxiety, and Neuroticism were all indirectly related to short-term mating success, again for males only. The study provides additional support for predictions made by sexual selection theory that men have a higher drive for creative display, and that creativity is linked with higher short-term mating success. The study also provides support for the contention that certain forms of mental illness may still exist in the gene pool because particular personality traits associated with milder forms of mental illness (i.e., Neuroticism & schizotypy) are also associated directly with creativity and indirectly with short-term mating success. (Contains 4 figures and 4 tables.)

The Creative Solution Diagnosis Scale (CSDS) is a 30-item scale based on a core of four criteria: Relevance & Effectiveness, Novelty, Elegance, and Genesis. The CSDS offers potential for the consensual assessment of functional product creativity. This article describes an empirical study in which non-expert judges rated a series of mousetrap designs using the 30-item CSDS. A confirmatory factor analysis revealed a simple structure that corresponded closely to the "a priori" theoretical model of functional creativity, resulting in a revised 24-item CSDS. Non-expert judges were able to use the scale with a high degree of reliability and internal consistency. The revised CSDS paves the way for further research into the use of non-expert judges as a possible replacement for more costly, harder-to-obtain experts when measuring product creativity using the Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT). (Contains 7 tables.)

The propulsion theory of creative contributions is a theory that focuses on how a creative act or product builds on and adds to knowledge in various fields. In this article, we apply the propulsion theory of creative contributions not to creative discoveries or inventions, but rather to late-career decisions about future directions in which one can steer one's career. We consider eight different kinds of career decisions one can make--replication, redefinition, forward incrementation, advance forward incrementation, redirection, reconstruction/redirection, reinitiation, and synthesis. Each offers a viable option for closing out a creative career.

Most theories of giftedness include creativity as a central component. Creativity assessment has a key role, therefore, in measuring giftedness. This article reviews the state of the creativity assessment, from divergent thinking tests (including the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking) to the consensual assessment technique to rating scales and self assessments. Despite the many flaws present in every type of creativity measurement, there are compelling reasons for including creativity as part of a gifted assessment battery.

Self-estimated intelligence is a quick way to assess people's conceptions of their own abilities. Furnham (2001) and colleagues have used this technique to make comparisons across culture and gender and different approaches to intelligence (such as "g" or Multiple Intelligences). This study seeks to build on past work in two ways. First, a large, diverse sample (N = 2309) enables the study of self-estimated intelligence across ethnicity. Second, one of the most prominent accepted intelligence theories is the Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) theory. Can laypeople distinguish between general, fluid, and crystallized intelligence? This study finds evidence for a "modesty bias" in Hispanic Americans. In addition, fluid and crystallized intelligences may simply be seen as general intelligence (particularly by Caucasians and males). (Contains 6 tables.)

Self-evaluations or self-perceptions of creativity have been used in the past both as predictors of creative performance and as criteria. Four measures utilizing self-perceptions of creativity were assessed for their usefulness as criterion measures of creativity. Analyses provided evidence of domain specificity of self-perceptions. The scales correlated with self-report measures of creativity, but not with objective measures. Self-perceptions of creativity had strong to moderate relationships with personality and creative self-efficacy. These results suggest that although self-perceptions of creativity may provide some information about creativity, researchers should be cautious when using this measure as a criterion.

The Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT) is a common creativity assessment. According to this technique, the best judges of creativity are qualified experts. Yet what does it mean to be an expert in a domain? What level of expertise is needed to rate creativity? This article reviews the literature on novice, expert, and quasi-expert creativity ratings. Although current research indicates that novices may be poor choices to be CAT raters, quasi-experts may represent a compromise between ideal scientific rigor and practical time and budget restrictions. Certain guidelines are suggested to make the selection of experts more streamlined, including paying attention to which domain is being assessed.

Assessing creative potential using a comprehensive battery of standardized tests requires a focus on "how" and "why" an individual responds in addition to "how well" they respond. Using the "intelligent testing" philosophy of focusing on the person being tested rather than the measure itself helps psychologists form a more complete picture of an examinee, which may include information about his or her creative potential. Although most aspects of creativity are not present in current individually based IQ and achievement tests, one exception is divergent production. Although still poorly represented, some subtests show great potential for tapping into divergent production, and hence provide some insight into creativity. The research on the relationship between measures of intelligence and creativity is discussed in this article. The authors also propose a way to use individually administered cognitive and achievement batteries to extract information about an individual's divergent production and general creative potential. (Contains 2 tables and 2 notes.)

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which non-cognitive constructs (personality, thinking styles, motivation, and psychological well-being) would predict self-reported creativity across different domains among 266 college students. Consistent with hypotheses, openness, legislative thinking styles, and intrinsic motivation were significant predictors of overall self-reported creativity and across several domains. Extraversion was also a key predictor. Some other relationships consistent with past research (such as disagreeableness and math/science creativity) were also noted. (Contains 4 tables.)

Creative polymathy at the very highest levels is rare, but this is largely the result of a long period of training usually necessary to become proficient in any field. We explain why creative polymathy is not ruled out by arguments for the domain specificity of creativity and argue that consideration of multiple levels of creativity (Big-C, Pro-c, little-c, and mini-c) leads to the conclusion that creative polymathy may actually be fairly common. We introduce a hierarchical model of creativity (the APT Model) to help understand some constraints on and possibilities for creative polymathy, suggest different ways creative polymathy may be expressed, and offer guidelines for recognizing and nurturing creative polymathy in students. (Contains 1 table.)

The Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT) argues that the most valid judgments of the creativity are those of the combined opinions of experts in the field. Yet who exactly qualifies as an expert to evaluate a creative product such as a short story? This study examines both novice and expert judgments of student short fiction. Results indicate a need for caution in using non-expert raters. Although there was only a small (but statistically significant) difference between experts' and novices' mean ratings, the correlation between the two sets of ratings was just 0.71. Experts were also far more consistent in their ratings compared to novices, whose level of inter-rater reliability was potentially problematic. (Contains 1 footnote.)

Several thousand subjects completed self-report questionnaires about their own creativity in 56 discrete domains. This sample was then randomly divided into three subsamples that were subject to factor analyses that compared an oblique model (with a set of correlated factors) and a hierarchical model (with a single second-order, or hierarchical, factor subsuming all of the first order factors). After model refinement, both models were then tested on a confirmation sample. The hierarchical model had a better fit with the data than the oblique model, providing support for theories that have proposed a hierarchical structure to creativity, such as the Amusement Park Theoretical Model. The analysis provided evidence of both an over-arching general factor and seven more specific General Thematic Areas of creative performance (Artistic-Verbal, Artistic-Visual, Entrepreneur, Interpersonal, Math/Science, Performance, and Problem-Solving). (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)

Non-cognitive factors represent a chance to learn more about how to help students succeed in early college experiences. This study examined personality and motivation as predictors of first-quarter GPA in a sample of 315 non-traditional undergraduates at a Hispanic-serving institution. Our results provide support for the importance of high levels of conscientiousness, intrinsic motivation, and low levels of extrinsic motivation in first-quarter school success. Implications and possible interventions are discussed. (Contains 2 tables.)

Research on gender differences in creativity, including creativity test scores, creative achievements, and self-reported creativity is reviewed, as are theories that have been offered to explain such differences and available evidence that supports or refutes such theories. This is a difficult arena in which to conduct research, but there is a consistent lack of gender differences both in creativity test scores and in the creative accomplishments of boys and girls (which if anything tend to favor girls). As a result, it is difficult to show how innate gender differences in creativity could possibly explain later differences in creative accomplishment. At the same time, the large difference in the creative achievement of men and women in many fields make blanket environmental explanations inadequate, and the explanations that have been proposed thus far are at best incomplete. A new theoretical framework (the APT model of creativity) is proposed to allow better understanding of what is known about gender differences in creativity. (Contains 4 tables.)

Different cultures have unique perspective on creativity, yet it is usually the American/Western perspective represented in the psychological literature. Here the authors test previous, Western research findings in creativity on Turkish participants. Study One looks at gender and age differences in creativity. Study Two explores the relationship between creativity and motivation, and Study Three examines the factor structure of creativity. In general, the authors were able to validate past research on Western populations. Creativity tended to increase with age, and intrinsic motivation is significantly correlated with creativity. Some gender differences were found (unlike in Western findings), and there were some differences in the factor structure of creativity. (Contains 6 tables.)

The consensual assessment technique (CAT) is a measurement tool for creativity research in which appropriate experts evaluate creative products [Amabile, T. M. (1996). "Creativity in context: Update to the social psychology of creativity." Boulder, CO: Westview]. However, the CAT is hampered by the time-consuming nature of the products (asking participants to write stories or draw pictures) and the ratings (getting appropriate experts). This study examined the reliability of ratings of sentence captions. Specifically, four raters evaluated 12 captions written by 81 undergraduates. The purpose of the study was to see whether the CAT could provide reliable ratings of captions across raters and across multiple captions and, if so, how many such captions would be required to generate reliable scores, and how many judges would be needed? Using generalizability theory, we found that captions appear to be a useful way of measuring creativity with a reasonable level of reliability in the frame of CAT. (Contains 2 figures and 6 tables.)

Creativity is sometimes seen as irrelevant to educational practice. With an increased focus on standardized test scores, creative teachers and those who encourage creativity in the classroom often are accused of being idealists or missing the big picture. But the authors believe instead that creativity brings valuable benefits to the classroom. In this Resource Review, they provide answers drawn from the literature to the four questions most often asked about creativity: (1) What is it?; (2) Is Creativity just for geniuses?; (3) Is creativity an object of study only in psychology?; and (4) Is the study of creativity just a western phenomenon? (Contains 27 resources and 6 online resources.)

The "ten-year rule" suggests that it takes about 10 years of preparation to reach "expert" status. How long does it take, however, for someone to reach a level of creative greatness? Through an analysis of 215 contemporary fiction writers, we found that these writers took an average of 10.6 years between their first publication and their best publication, although there was a high degree of variability. This tentatively suggests that at least for modern fiction writers, a second phase after the first ten years may be crucial for achieving eminence. We discuss these findings in the context of results found in other domains of creativity, along with limitations and future directions. (Contains 1 figure.)

One of the most contentious areas in creativity theory is the question of domain specificity. How we conceptualize creativity--as something that transcends content domains, or as something that varies depending on the domain in question--has important implications for both creativity research and creativity training programs. The Amusement Park Theoretical (APT) model of creativity is the first creativity theory to successfully bridge the gap between these contrasting views of creativity. The APT model uses the metaphor of an amusement park to explore creativity. There are four stages: Initial requirements, general thematic areas, domains, and micro-domains. The first level (initial requirements) is very general, and each subsequent level gets more and more domain-specific. The APT model can provide a powerful framework for creativity assessment, selection of students for gifted education programs, and the development of creativity training programs.

Most studies of writers have focused on Western writers, including studies of personal characteristics and success. The Chinese culture has traditionally had a much different view of creativity. Would a study of modern Chinese writers mirror past Western findings, indicating that Chinese and Western conceptions of creativity may be converging, or would there be different results? This study examined 722 twentieth-century Chinese writers and yielded two main findings, which generally correspond to past, Western-based research. First, female writers, particularly poets and fiction writers, were more likely to suffer a personal tragedy than male writers. Second, writers who were politically persecuted were more likely to eventually receive an award than those not politically persecuted. Explanations and implications for future studies are then discussed. (Contains 4 tables.)

Little research has been conducted on how gifted novices compare to experts in their judgments of creative writing. If novices and experts assign similar ratings, it could be argued that gifted novices are able to offer their peers feedback of a similar quality to that provided by experts. Such a finding would support the use of collaborative feedback in gifted classrooms. We asked gifted high school creative writers and three groups of experts (cognitive psychologists, creative writers, and teachers) to rate a set of 27 short stories and 28 poems for creativity using a scale of 1 to 6. The interrater agreement among the novices was within acceptable standards, and the agreement among the experts was very strong. When the ratings of novices were compared to the ratings of experts, a strong degree of correlation was found, supporting the use of peer feedback among gifted novice creative writers.

The objective of the study reported here was to explore the relationship of Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) General Test scores to selected personality traits--conscientiousness, rationality, ingenuity, quickness, creativity, and depth. A sample of 342 GRE test takers completed short personality inventory scales for each trait. Analyses revealed statistically significant, but slight (positive) correlations of GRE verbal, quantitative, and analytical scores with both creativity and quickness. (Quickness was defined here by, for instance, the ability to handle a lot of information and the ability to understand things.) The results also revealed significant, but very slight (negative) correlations of GRE scores with conscientiousness.

The issue of racial/ethnic and gender differences in intelligence and academic abilities is fiercely and frequently debated, yet the examination of these differences in creativity is less studied. Our goal in this study was to use the Consensual Assessment Technique, in which experts judge a product's creativity, to examine differences in creativity among gender and ethnic groups. We conducted three separate analyses in which 13 experts rated 103 poems, 104 fictional stories, and 103 personal narratives written by Caucasian, African American, Latino/a, and Asian eighth-grade students. There were no significant African American-Caucasian differences on any of the writing tasks and there were no gender differences on all three tasks. The only significant differences in the creativity ratings on any of the tasks occurred in poetry, between the Latino/a-Caucasian groups and Latino/a-Asian groups. Implications and future directions are discussed. (Contains 2 tables and 1 footnote.)