The subjective nature of creativity judgments

Abstract

Typically, “creativity” has been studied by identifying highly creative individuals and then comparing them with a suitable comparison group. The objective techniques employed in the identification phase have depended either on the judgment of experts or on scores obtained on psychometric tests of creativity. The argument made here is that dependence on these approaches has blinded researchers to the fact that both approaches are based, ultimately, on subjective criteria and that little is known about the subjective theories of creativity held by people. The reported research is an initial attempt at tapping these subjective criteria. People (N = 80) sorted adjectives descriptive of problem solvers under a standard (sort-for-meaning) context or a context that indicated the sorting should be guided by their concept of “creative” problem solving. Hierarchical clustering analyses indicated that the adjectives were sorted to different meaning structures in the two contexts. It appears that a consensually shared notion of creativity is that it is postively related to heightened sensitivity to one’s environment and a lessening of prejudicial thought. © 1982, Psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.