Draft:Social Psychology of Creativity

The Social Psychology of Creativity

The study of creativity is an invaluable research field hat emphasises the role of creativity in the improvement of individual quality of life, enhancement of occupational productivity, and the overall advancement of human knowledge, and an innovative future. Psychologists have aimed to understand the processes that influence creativity to facilitate creative environments and enhance overall creative behaviour. Previously the field of creativity research was populated with trait-based theories, cognitive approaches, and theories suggesting that creativity was a character of individuals. However, very little research considered creativity as a process of social influence and our external environment. Recent research has begun considering the role of social psychology, and the notion that it plays a vital, if not more important role than other factors previously considered.

The social psychology of creativity is the field of research that examines how creativity is influenced, curated, and promoted utilising factors and theories from the field of social psychology. Creativity is defined as a psychological phenomenon where individuals produce an idea or product that is simultaneously novel and useful . The social psychological approach studies a range of topics such as attitudes, social identity, interpersonal relationships and social interaction and in relation to our thoughts, and behaviours. Furthermore, the social psychological approach to creativity studies how various social factors lead to an increase or decrease in creative behaviours, creative thinking and the development of creativity. Research has emphasised the importance of studying creativity as a social process . This has prompted recent research to aim studies towards the examination of group processes and social contexts where creativity is most frequent.

Historical Perspectives

The psychological study of creativity first emerged in the 1950s with the leading figure of JP Guildford. As one of the most influential researchers of creativity, Guildford made a distinction between the types of creativity; creative achievement and creative potential. With this distinction made Guilford further defined the nature of creativity as universal focusing on the traits that make some creative and others not . Further research emerged surrounding the cognitive aspects of creativity. In particular there is evidence to suggest that there are relationships with creativity, defocused attention and cognitive disinhibition. Guilfords research broadened the current knowledge of creativity and how it can be promoted. At the time this research was incredibly influential in occupational settings and led to continued research in the field. Guildford’s research into creativity offered a promising approach for the systematic and scientific study of creativity and was significantly influential in his work, prompting the continuation for this research field.

At the end of his research career Guilford altered the trajectory of creativity research by suggesting we look further into the social psychological principles of creativity and the theories of motivation already established. This shift away from cognition led to “the social psychology of creativity.” The social psychological approach considers many social factors that lead to increases in creative behaviour and thinking. Some of these factors consist of rewards, social context, collaboration, peer interactions, and various other factors. The extensive research behind this field has furthered supported the notion that social psychology is a significant aspect of creativity, confirming the assumption made originally by Guilford.

Social Psychological research

The Environment and Social Groups

The social psychological approach to creativity considers many factors at play in the creative process. However, recent studies have shown a preference towards the social environment and the social groups within them as one of the most significant influences on creativity. More specifically how creativity occurs in classroom environments and the social support of peers and teachers. Lepper and colleagues, undertook research on preschoolers and creative behaviour . This research examined how rewards would influence the occurrence of creativity in a drawing task. Children who were working for a “good player” award saw significant decreases in their enjoyment and interest in the drawing task. Children in this condition also spent significantly less time drawing in their free play time. Most surprisingly, all children were selected for this study due to their enthusiasm for marker drawing. The mere presence of a reward led to a significant change in the creativity of the children. These results prompted discussion concerning how the social environments can affect levels of creativity. More specifically how the presence of social authority figures such as teachers, can prompt the onset of creative behaviour.  Et al., And colleagues noted that traditional teaching methods focus on children finding the correct answer and aim teaching towards this collective goal. However, this study prompts teachers to move away from this and allow children to explore their creative thinking abilities and progress further than the simplicity of correct or incorrect.

Following on from this, evidence provides further support for the idea that the specific social support is the dominant influence on creativity. Research by Crozier and colleagues proposed that creative productivity is a result of adequate social support . More specifically that the support we gain from social relationships with individuals such as peers and teachers contribute significantly to our creative process. Research by Treffinger theorised that in order to be creative we need ‘assitors’ of creativity in our social environment. These are individuals who offer new creative perspectives, or nuanced ideas, and maintain an open environment that promotes creativity. We see evidence of this in the previously discussed classroom studies, where the behaviour of the teacher (an assister in accordance to this theory) significantly predicted the levels of creativity seen in children of that classroom. The comparison of the discussed research effectively demonstrates how a minor change in social support and assisters can significantly disrupt the creative process and decrease creative behaviour.

However, it is important to note that the results produced from these studies may be due to alternative exaltations. Many researchers have theorised that in scenarios such as the. Reward conditions of Lepper, Greene and Nisbetts study , the social environments may not be the dominant influence on creativity. Instead it is suggested that intrinsic motivation theory is resulting in mor creative behaviour. This theory conceptualises that people are motivated by their internal desires as opposed to external sources, like our social environments. Within this theory, social motivation and support from our social environment underlies the internal motivation to be creative and is not the most significant influence on creativity. Research by……

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Alternative research has also considered the alternative support of peers and our interactions within the classroom as a key predictor of creativity. This approach, instead on focusing on an individual assister says that we can influence creativity with whole group interactions. Peer interactions refer to the process of communicating and collaborating with people of a similar age or status. This takes place in many settings such as classrooms, online, workplaces, and in extracurricular environments. It is in these environments that creativity frequently occurs. In a month-long observation on fifth grade classroom in three different countries it was found that different classrooms function in fundamentally different ways (citation). The manner of this functioning thus influences the peer interaction. As previously discussed, it is commonly found that peer interaction nurtures creativity. As a result of this it is suggested that classroom environments facilitate peer relationships, and group work which in turn predicts the level of creativity. Studies on a workplace environment find that employee's acceptance of help is positively correlated with their individual creativity and further, the overall company creativity). It is suggested from this that individual learning plays an intermediary role between receiving help and then formulating creative work. It is inferred from this that independent work can only be creative to a certain extent, and peer help extends this to a new level;.

Culture

Culture is an additional factor argued to facilitate and alter the levels of creative behaviour in an individual. Various cross-cultural research has examined how the priorities of cultures and what they promote as important can lead to differing levels in creativity. It has been suggested that eastern more collectivist/interdependent cultures do not promote creativity to the extent that independent western cultures do. Collectivist cultures promote harmony among individuals and interdependence which leads to higher levels of conformity within the culture. As a result, we observe lower levels of creativity as the high levels of conformity does not facilitate the creation of nuanced or novel ideas from an individual. Research by Chua colleagues illustrates this through the proposal of a new theoretical model of creativity. This proposed that the tightness of a culture significantly predicts creative engagement and success . Cultural tightness refers to the extent to which a culture has strong social norms and low tolerance to deviant behaviours. It was observed that individuals from loose cultures where social norms were more lax were far more likely to engage successfully in a creative task. Recent research by Shao and colleagues further supports this notion in a review of empirical findings across diverse studies of creativity. Results revealed that individuals from individualistic and collectivist cultures show differences in their preferences for creative processing modes when engaged in creative endeavours. This displays the extent to which the level of conformtiy to social norms within a culture influences our levels of creativity and or ability to form novel ideas.

It is also proposed that the different understandings of creativity within cultures leads to differences in the level of creativity. The way a culture understands and perceives creativity will predict how creative their behaviour is. This is shown in a systematic review of nine articles examining the cultural perspective of creativity. This research focused on the lay concept of creativity and what it encompasses. Results suggested that creativity is understood differently across cultures, and the role of culture in creativity differs between types of creative behaviour and activities. This suggests that how a culture collectivist decides to view and perceive creativity influences how the individual within the society will behave, either in a creative manner or in a collectivist manner. Additional research looking at American and Chinese students found that western cultures endorse creativity far more than eastern cultures resulting in indivuals constantly thinking more creatively. In addition to this, when American a Chinese bicultural students were primed with their ‘American’ cultural identity they leaned into far more creative behaviours (Mok and Morris, 2010). Further research into Chinese/American students presents evidence of the difference in perception of versatility between the two cultures. This study asked students to judge a piece of art-work or create one. Overall American students created more visually aesthetic and creative pieces and produced slightly more strict and creative ideas when judging artwork . This suggests that independent cultures are more enduring of the creatvity development process than the collectivist cultures. The cumulation in this research not only demonstrates how culture plays a role in our creativity but how we can later this and prime individuals to act more creatively and produce more creative ideas.

Social Comparison theory

Social comparison process refers to a theory in which individual evaluate their abilities and attitudes comparing themselves to others. This process occur in two different manners, upward and downward social comparison. Upward social comparisons describes where one compares themselves to someone who is perceived to be better than them. Whereas downward social comparison refers to comparing oneself to someone perceived as worse than oneself. Research has revealed that both individual and group creativity are better in a social feedback condition compared to conditions where no feedback is provided . Overall, suggesting that social comparison process has a positive effect on creative levels. Similar research in an online brainstorming session by Michonov annd colleagues examined how social comparison and and individual differences in creativity can influenced levels of creative performance. Forty one psychology undergraduates generated with a partner of either art or science courses. Results revealed that the quality of ideas was greater in upward than downward comparison. However this only occurred for high creativity participants. The results this study provide further support for the notion that social comparison increases creative ideas, more specifically upward comparison. Thus is can be inferred that social comparison theory contributes to overall creative behaviour and is a significant influence in facilitating more nuanced and novel ideas.

Future Implications

Schools- promoting creativity in classrooms with lead to more creative behaviours and thus more creative individuals which benefits individuals greatly in the long term

Work- promoting creativity for work is more economical and produces better result for company’s

Creativity in groups often leads to more efficient work etc.