Defining Creativity

First, let’s cover some well-tread ground about what creativity is and how we can methodically define it. This should at least be a definition that majority of domain experts can agree on. This standard definition will be the foundation upon which we can build a universal framework of criteria for creativity. We can then expanding into the further evaluation, examination and measurement of creativity in various contexts.

We must define the tangible and intangible qualities, properties and characteristics of creativity. This can be achieved by starting with what can be observed and recorded with tools and techniques that are available. Thankfully, there exists a wealth of data and a rich literature on this topic. Each definition diverges slightly, considering creativity from such unique angles as a macro-level analysis of historical geniuses or a micro-level analysis of socio-environmental settings.

I’d like to quickly note where creativity as a concept started. Pre-psychology thinkers had a different take on creativity. The way we perceive the creative process today didn’t exist for most of history. However, this concept of creativity might share some common ground with its ancestor concepts.

Divine Inspiration — by Me

For example, the Greeks talked about “techne,” which signified craft-making with applied knowledge and practical arts. This usually referred to written arts at that time and was more specifically a reference to poetry. The Greeks believed that a certain amount of knowledge and skill were required to practice a craft. However, the creative had to be infused divine inspiration as well. As Plato writes in Ion, Socrates used the analogy of Magnetic Rings to describe poets as mediums in the process of writing poetry. The poet is to transmit god’s messages to people, the inspiration comes first, followed by thinking, then knowledge and skills. The creative is only the means of communication between the gods and the people.

Right from the time of medieval Christianity, creation was connoted as “making of new things” and it was, of course, the monopoly of God’s business. Only He can create new things from nothing. Creating anew from their view is not of human capacity. Humans are only capable of making craft with things that already exist. They didn’t even consider art or architecture as a form of creativity, as at that time.

It was the Renaissance women and men who freed creativity from His grasp, returned it to individual artists, and merged it with the human imagination. The Renaissance conceived of the individual as the source of genius. Creativity became known as an attribute of a genius, and a genius was gifted naturally with superior cognitive capabilities.

Galileo observing the universe— by Me

For a long time, this concept of creativity as belonging only to the natural genius reigned supreme. It started to fade out in the second quarter of the 20th century, as more researchers studied the phenomenon. When the Creative Research Journal was founded 25 years ago, it included a 2-part definition to its research. In order for a product to be creative, it stated, for creativity ‘‘Originality is vital, but must be balanced with ﬁt and appropriateness.’’ Originality means that an idea or a solution shouldn’t be conventional or usual. It requires being unique, unusual or novel. Since originality could also be stupid and useless, it’s required to be effective. For an idea to be effective, it needs to be useful, appropriate and fit.

This definition and the journal itself, was the result of the rich literature on the topic that scientists had produced. For example, in 1953, professor Morris I. Stein proposed “originality and effectiveness” as the two criteria required for an idea to be creative in his research study “Creativity and Culture” published in The Journal of Psychology. (This journal publishes double-blind and peer-reviewed research). But there was a missing piece to the puzzle; that is, creativity derived from the context. It doesn’t work in a vacuum. Context means the socio-environmental conditions that leads to creativity at a specific point in time. A creative solution may be evaluated differently in different social contexts. An idea could be creative in some situations, but the same idea could be absurd in another setting.

Later on, many scholars argued about the addition of the third criterion, saying that a product should also be surprising or non-obvious. This “surprising” factor is added so that creativity can be analyzed at different levels and within social and environmental contexts. Surprise criterion evaluates creativity contextually, within specific setting and specific time. Creativity in grade 9 level is very different from creativity in engineering level.

A big advocate of surprise was Prof. Simonton of University of California. With his study of US Patent Office, he firmly argued for adding the third criterion “surprise” (note: ideas that any expert could come up with are considered obvious under patent requirements, therefore, unpatentable). Prof. Simonton also argued for another contextual factor — time. There is time aspect to creativity, “spirit of the time” as he calls it. That’s right, it does sound very Hegelian. But it takes a genius to find the right time for an innovation or a creative idea, and it ties very well with the surprise criterion.

A couple of decades ago people were surprised about the things that can never amuse us again. Google glass failure was one of the issues raised up at a time, it was too soon for the society to accept an eye-wear that has a camera which might be recording you as you’re talking to the wearer. Emanuel West, the collector who founded the Museum of Failure in Sweden says that time is the factor most of the products he collected have in common for failing. Listen to his Interview with Nora Young Spark.

Creativity criteria

So creativity, from the expert’s point of view, is a phenomenon in which an idea or product is created, the output whether tangible or intangible must be measured against the three criterion: originality, effectiveness and surprise. The only problem with this standard definition of creativity is that it doesn’t suggest who the judges for creativity are and who the judges of those judges are. For most reliable creativity tests, judges are domain experts or are selected from a diverse range of disciplines. At the end, it really depends on the subject, and the aspect of creativity being studied.