Creativity Summary 1

Kelsey Best

Digital Creativity

Summary #1

Paradigms in the

 Study of Creativity: Introducing the Perspective of Cultural Psychology

Summary

         The article begins by introducing three paradigms in the theory of creativity: the He-paradigm, the I-Paradigm and the We-paradigm. All fit underneath the umbrella term that we refer to as “being creative”, but are distinctly different from each other with their own sets of beliefs. First, Glaveanu backs up a bit to say that we most definitely live in a world of change. In response, the population tends to feel anxious and unprepared to meet these changes. However, creativity often pops up in these circumstances and helps us achieve whatever it is we need to. In order to understand the process, Glaveanu operationalizes creativity and explains that the theory is comprised of a variety of domains, including behavioral cognitive approaches as well as dominant cognitive approaches. He states that his article is meant to “unpack” the social and cultural nature that constitutes any creative act, and does so by breaking it into the three paradigms.

         The first, the He-paradigm, is the oldest of the three. It was widely accepted until the renaissance, when this idea was challenged in scientific discoveries. The He paradigm puts a lot of emphasis on exclusivity and disconnection. The creative person is seen as an exclusivist, or even as an outcast, and is therefore heavy in individualistic tone. Here, creativity is highly constricted. Only things that are novel or that have the capacity to generate new schools of thought fit under this description. The consequence of this paradigm is that is isolates the “lone genius” and ignores the creativity that happens in everyday experiences. Detachment of the creator from society can often support the myth that “all good artists are crazy”, which is not a prerequisite for being creative.

         The I-paradigm emerged when psychologists took notice of the phenomenon of creativity. This new idea centered around the normal person in place of the lone genius, using terms such as creative and gifted to describe the person rather than being chosen by God. Similarly to the He-paradigm, a large emphasis is placed on the individualistic tendencies, yet these tendencies are now available to everyone. Therefore, creative acts can be expected of everyone to some degree. Intelligence does not denote creativity, and vice versa. Though the two overlap in a few ways, the creative person is meant to be a cohesive package of difference intelligences. This paradigm has consequences as well; one of them being that it discounts the idea of collaborating.

         Social creativity, the result of human interaction and collaboration followed in the We-paradigm. It claims that creativity happens within a person but is influenced by a larger social connect, and in doing so, adopts a holistic, as well as systemic, way of explaining creativity. Models have been created to represent the connection of individuals and the societal structures, which Glaveanu considers the greatest achievement of the We-paradigm. These models include a person, a field and a domain from which creativity can flow. They also recognize both historical creativity and everyday creativity, which is important for things such as the education of children. One drawback, however, is that this paradigm can mislead people into thinking that the individual is still the most important aspect of creativity. It goes on to say that the focus is not on the individual and society separately, but rather, the connection that exists between them. Glaveanu says that even if the artist is alone when creating, we are not entirely alone as we cannot escape the society that exists in our heads, which in turn affects our creative decisions. In this paradigm, the product is second to the process, which is more indicative of creativity.

         Moving away from the paradigm explanations, cultural psychology appears in the article to support the framework for creativity. Glaveanu says, “creativity from a cultural perspective is a complex socio-cultural-psychological process that, through working with ‘culturally-impregnated’ materials within an intersubjective space, leads to the generation of artifacts that are evaluated as new and significant by one or more persons or communities at a given time.” He gives a tetradic framework model to support his statement, claiming that it is not structural but actually dynamic. This is due to that fact that creativity comes from the tensions between the factors instead of the actual factors themselves.

         The article ends by discussing the possible future of creativity theory. Though the We-paradigm may not be the final answer, the theory as a whole is sure to expand upon itself as more is discovered.