Why Creativity is Sexy: A Review of the Evidence of Sexual Selection for Creative Abilities in Humans

Abstract

Creativity is an essential human trait, yet there is no consensus among scholars as to why our species have developed creative abilities. Most evolutionary explanations rely on the survival value of such abilities, but generally fail to explain why other species have not evolved similar capacities or why so many human products of creativity have little to no practical value. Sexual selection is an evolutionary force which has the potential to shed new light on this investigation by regarding creativity as a fitness indicator that has evolved for the purposes of courtship and mating. The paper at hand reviews the empirical evidence in support of this hypothesis.