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Creating Creativity: Reflections from Fieldwork

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Abstract

The present article addresses the question of ‘When can we say something is creative?’ and, in answering it, takes a critical stand towards past and present scientific definitions of creativity. It challenges an implicit assumption in much psychological theory and research that creativity exists as an ‘objective’ feature of persons or products, universally recognised and independent of social agreement and cultural systems of norms and beliefs. Focusing on everyday life creative outcomes, the article includes both theoretical accounts and empirical examples from a research exploring creativity evaluations in the context of folk art. In the end, a multi-layered perspective of creativity assessment emerges, integrating dimensions such as newness and originality, value and usefulness, subjective reception and cultural reception of creative products. Implications for how we understand and study creativity are discussed.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number ES/H/13199/1]. The author would like to thank Sandra Jovchelovitch, Derek Hook, Caroline Howarth and the journal’s reviewers for their insightful comments and the Romanian Peasant Museum for being very supportive of the present research.

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  1. London School of Economics and Political Science, Institute of Social Psychology, St Clements Building, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE, UK

    Vlad Petre Glăveanu

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  1. Vlad Petre Glăveanu
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Correspondence to Vlad Petre Glăveanu.

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Glăveanu, V.P. Creating Creativity: Reflections from Fieldwork. Integr. psych. behav. 45, 100–115 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-010-9147-2

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