Transforming aggression into creativity: Creative thinking training as a new strategy for aggression intervention

Although reducing students' aggressive behaviors and improving their creativity are both important commitments of educators, they are usually treated independently as unrelated tasks. However, cumulative evidence suggests potential links between aggression and creativity, not only from the perspectives of personality traits and psychological development, but also from their shared cognitive mechanisms. This implies that there may be an approach to achieving these two goals through a single intervention. Moreover, this new approach may overcome the limitation of the usually adopted aggression intervention, which is limited in its regulatory effectiveness and might bring about some disadvantageous impacts on creativity that are closely associated with aggression. To test this possibility, the present study implemented a four-session, 2-week creative thinking training (CTT) intervention for students with high aggression scores to examine whether it could simultaneously downregulate aggression and increase creativity. Our results demonstrate that, compared to the control group, the intervention group experienced significant improvements in creativity and a reduction in aggression following the CTT intervention. Furthermore, our findings suggest that this regulatory effect can persist for up to 6 months. The CTT-induced creativity change (increase) could significantly correlate with and predict the CTT-induced aggression decrease, thus suggesting that the CTT could transform aggression into creativity.

Evaluative Skill in the Creative Process: A Cross-cultural Study

Evaluative skill is the ability to accurately judge ideas on creativity (or originality), which is a critical component of creativity. Various aspects of creativity have been examined cross-culturally, but little research has focused on evaluative skill. The first goal of this study was to examine the measurement invariance of evaluative skill assessments, which were based on two types of divergent thinking tests (Line Meanings and Uses), between American (n = 341) and Chinese (n = 345) college students. Multi-group confirmatory factor analyses supported a two-factor model based on two types of evaluation tasks, and this model satisfied configural and weak invariance. However, partial strong invariance was satisfied only for the Uses evaluation task. Based on this evidence, our second goal was to explore the differences in evaluative skill between these two groups. Via latent mean comparisons, we found that American participants had better performance on evaluative skill based on the Uses evaluation task than their Chinese counterparts. Taken together, this study is one of the first to examine the cross-cultural differences in evaluative skill between American and Chinese adults. This study offered preliminary results showing some invariance in evaluative skill assessments across cultures and indicating cross-cultural differences in this ability.

Where is the When of Creativity?: Specifying the Temporal Dimension of the Four Cs of Creativity

Creativity researchers typically focus on the who, what, why, where, and how of creativity. A noticeable omission is when. The when is not completely ignored in the field; it surfaces in developmental and evolutionary perspectives, the study of eminent creators, and other avenues of scholarship. In this paper, we assert that for the concept of when to be fully addressed researchers need to more actively consider the past, present, and future and how they interact. More specifically, we propose an expanded way of thinking about the when of creativity by introducing a temporal dimension to the definition of creativity. Our definition offers a broader lens for researchers to consider the temporal dimensions of originality, meaningfulness, and impact of creativity. After introducing our definition and describing its unique features, we discuss how researchers can use our definition to trace creative phenomena across a full temporal trajectory and thereby provide more nuanced and dynamic representation of how the features of creativity change across time and contexts. Finally, we apply this temporal definition to the Four Cs Model of Creativity to illustrate how considering the when can help resolve lingering questions about this perspective.

A Black Mirror of Bright Ideas: Could Media Educate towards Positive Creativity?

With the media’s omnipresence, beneficial and detrimental effects on human behavior—including creativity—are being widely discussed. This essay presents potential benefits of passive and active media use for enhancing creative thinking and behavior. Based on the classic socio-cognitive theory of observational learning and stressing the importance of creative self-beliefs, certain types of media content and activities are highlighted to demonstrate how traditional and modern media can shape positive creativity—contributing to novel and valuable behavior from both individual and social points of view. The discussion proceeds to link media influence with creative skills, creative self-beliefs, and group creativity, emphasizing the necessity of media education and systematic scientific research on the topic.

The Emperor of Fashion's New Starts: Creativity and Meaning in Life in Karl Lagerfeld

During his lifetime, Karl Otto Lagerfeld (1933-2018) attained such industry renown that he became widely known as the Emperor of Fashion. Lagerfeld ran several fashion houses, such as Chanel and Fendi, leading them to unprecedented profits. He also created his own fashion label. Owing to his unremitting pursuit of excellence through creative expression, Lagerfeld's creativity, energy and intuition for fashion trends seemed only to expand throughout his long career. The authors suggest that, through his creative approach to fashion, architecture, and publishing, Lagerfeld articulated and refined a core set of values-such as "Bildung," "lightness" and "the unexpected"-that served as a Diltheyan "nexus" linking the Prussian-born designer with the global consumer. The authors apply two specific creativity theories to Lagerfeld's life and work, namely the mini-c, little-c, Pro-c and Big-C creativity theory and Sternberg's WICS-model (wisdom, intelligence and creativity). The article uses a psychobiographical case study design formulated according to a research paradigm of modern hermeneutics. First- and third-person data on Lagerfeld were collected and evaluated through a hermeneutically-informed syntho-analysis. Research ethics were followed. The findings demonstrate the interplay of mini-c, little-c, Pro-c and Big-C creativity throughout the subject's lifetime, as well as the subject's application of WICS, both of which led to the subject's worldwide success. Conclusions are drawn and recommendations for future research and practice are provided.

Inspiring Creativity in Teams: Perspectives of Transactive Memory Systems

Team psychological safety — a non-threatening and safe climate — allows team members to express and share each other's opinions freely, and this sharing may produce more useful perspectives to induce team creativity. In a psychologically safe climate, transactive memory systems (TMSs) may be constructed for describing the specialised division of cognitive labour for solving information problems and thereby enabling team members to quickly gain and use knowledge across domains. As a consequence, further ideas may be generated within teams, increasing team creativity. Our research model is assessed using data from a sample of 110 team members from 40 research and development (R&D) teams in a leading technology company in Taiwan and analysed using the partial least squares method. The results of this study reveal that: (1) team psychological safety did not directly affect team creativity, (2) team psychological safety affects TMSs, (3) TMSs affect team creativity, and (4) TMSs fully mediate the relationship between team psychological safety and team creativity. This study also discusses the implications for team creativity.

Signaling Creative Genius: How Perceived Social Connectedness Influences Judgments of Creative Potential

In today's knowledge economy, effectively signaling one's creative potential can be advantageous. Five experiments demonstrate that cues signaling a person's separateness from others (as opposed to social connectedness) boost evaluations of their creative potential. "Lone" targets-engaging in activities alone-were judged more likely to generate creative ideas compared with targets engaging in identical activities with others. This effect was explained by perceived social independence and was unique to creativity judgments-our manipulation did not influence perceptions of other positive attributes, including ability to generate practical ideas (Studies 1a and 1b). The effect of social independence on perceived creativity was not reducible to perceived nonnormativity and was attenuated when creativity was construed as requiring convergent thinking rather than divergent thinking (Studies 2-4). Findings advance our understanding of how individuals of varying degrees of social connectedness tend to be viewed by others, providing insight into observers' lay beliefs about creative potential.

Leveraging Youth: Overcoming Intergenerational Tensions in Creative Production

The sociological literature on creativity would suggest that collaboration between newcomers and more experienced members of an art world results in the fruitful combination of novelty and usefulness, though not without some conflict. Drawing on fieldwork and interviews with workers from the popular recording industry (rock/pop) in New York City, this article extends the literature on creativity as collective action by showing how three types of intergenerational tensions (aesthetic, technological, and career) are embedded in the ways newcomers and experienced workers see themselves and each other as agents of change and stasis. I propose a new variable—leveraging age—a mechanism intergenerational collaborators use to resolve or override these tensions to ultimately maximize creativity in group contexts. Leveraging age, as a form of knowledge extraction, occurs in creative bureaucratic organizations and describes how newcomers and experienced workers dualistically draw on each other’s respective strengths (novelty and tradition). I primarily examine the bottom-up part of this process—how experienced workers draw on the insights of newcomers—by analyzing five leveraging-youth practices, which vary by level of formality and intentionality, but mostly limit the interactional challenges between the two groups.

More Is not Always Better: The Differentiated Influence of Empathy on Different Magnitudes of Creativity

Recently, researchers have argued about the importance of social aspects in creativity. Based on these arguments, one could hypothesize that if creativity is indeed about social aspects, then a social ability, such as empathy, will be relevant for creativity as an “interface” allowing the person to connect with others. A thorough review of the literature suggests that the association between empathic abilities and creativity may not be as straightforward as this hypothesis and also two recent empirical studies have suggested. This could be attributed to the fact that creativity may involve quite different levels such as creative achievement or everyday creativity. We suggest that social interaction, and with it empathy, plays a larger role in creative achievement than in everyday creative activities. Furthermore, we argue that too much empathy hinders everyday creativity. To explore the impact of empathy on different magnitudes of creativity, we applied two different self-report measures of creativity: creative achievement was measured by the Creative Achievement Questionnaire, while everyday creative activity was measured by the Creative Behavior Inventory. We used the Interpersonal Reactivity Index to measure empathy. Empathy had a positive correlation to achievement, but an inverted-U relationship to everyday creativity. We conclude that more connectedness is not always better for creativity. Therefore, the relevance of social aspects for creativity should not be generalized, but may depend on the magnitude of creativity considered.

Emergence of Exploratory, Technical and Tactical Behavior in Small-Sided Soccer Games when Manipulating the Number of Teammates and Opponents

The effects that different constraints have on the exploratory behavior, measured by the variety and quantity of different responses within a game situation, is of the utmost importance for successful performance in team sports. The aim of this study was to determine how the number of teammates and opponents affects the exploratory behavior of both professional and amateur players in small-sided soccer games. Twenty-two professional (age 25.6 ± 4.9 years) and 22 amateur (age 23.1 ± 0.7 years) male soccer players played three small-sided game formats (4 vs. 3, 4 vs. 5, and 4 vs. 7). These trials were video-recorded and a systematic observation instrument was used to notate the actions, which were subsequently analyzed by means of a principal component analysis and the dynamic overlap order parameter (measure to identify the rate and breadth of exploratory behavior on different time scales). Results revealed that a higher the number of opponents required for more frequent ball controls. Moreover, with a higher number of teammates, there were more defensive actions focused on protecting the goal, with more players balancing. In relation to attack, an increase in the number of opponents produced a decrease in passing, driving and controlling actions, while an increase in the number of teammates led to more time being spent in attacking situations. A numerical advantage led to less exploratory behavior, an effect that was especially clear when playing within a team of seven players against four opponents. All teams showed strong effects of the number of teammates on the exploratory behavior when comparing 5 vs 7 or 3 vs 7 teammates. These results seem to be independent of the players' level.

Creativity in Drawings of Geometric Shapes

This study examines whether European Americans and Chinese differ in their creation and evaluation of drawings of geometric shapes. Two hundred ninety-four drawings created by 50 European American and 48 Chinese college students were selected from a larger study of culture and creativity. Drawings were judged by eight Chinese and six European Americans following the Consensual Assessment Technique. The drawings were coded by content to examine what the judges considered creative. Results showed high consensus between European American and Chinese judges and great similarity in the creativity of drawings generated by the two groups. Judges liked best those drawings they judged more creative. The most creative drawings typically involved representations of geometric shapes in contexts (either concrete or abstract). Results run counter to the belief that there are wide cultural variations in the evaluation of and attitudes toward creativity, demonstrate the feasibility of cross-cultural comparisons with the Consensual Assessment Technique, and provide a basis for further cross-cultural research on creativity.

Use of Exemplar Surveys to Reveal Implicit Types of Intelligence

Implicit theories of intelligence were investigated via surveys of exemplars of intelligence. Study 1 was a four-sample survey of famous exemplars. These diverse samples reported a similar set of popular exemplars, which clustered into five groups. These groups represented five types of intelligence: scientific, artistic, entrepreneurial, communicative, and moral intelligence. In Study 2, the minimal overlap of intelligence exemplars with those of fame, creativity, and wisdom refuted the possibility that exemplar reports are indiscriminate or solely a result of availability. In Study 3, knowledgeable judges rated the similarity of 50 famous persons to exemplars representing each type of intelligence. All five similarity ratings predicted exemplar popularities. In Study 4, where exemplar reports were not restricted to famous people, 31% were nonfamous (friends, family members, teachers, etc.). The results indicate that five implicit types of intelligence, each represented by highly available exemplars, play a role in people’s implicit theories.

Are Two Narcissists Better Than One? The Link Between Narcissism, Perceived Creativity, and Creative Performance

The current research examines the link between narcissism and creativity at the individual, relational, and group levels of analysis. It finds that narcissists are not necessarily more creative than others, but they think they are, and they are adept at persuading others to agree with them. In the first study, narcissism was positively associated with self-rated creativity, despite the fact that blind coders saw no difference between the creative products offered by those low and high on narcissism. In a second study, more narcissistic individuals asked to pitch creative ideas to a target person were judged by the targets as being more creative than were less narcissistic individuals, in part because narcissists were more enthusiastic. Finally, a study of group creativity finds evidence of a curvilinear effect: Having more narcissists is better for generating creative outcomes (but having too many provides diminishing returns).

Whoever is influential is creative: how Chinese undergraduates choose creative people in Chinese societies

This study surveyed 994 undergraduates in Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Nanchang, Nanjing and Xian about their nomination and evaluation of the most creative people in Chinese societies as well as their valuation of collectivistic and individualistic goals of creativity. Politicians and scientists/inventors were mostly nominated and were generally rated higher on social contribution than on creativity. Artists/musicians and writers/poets were rarely nominated and were mostly rated higher on creativity than on social contribution. Collectivistic goals of creativity were significantly more valued than individualistic goals of creativity. There appears to be a social validation of creativity such that meritorious salience of creativity and social influence of the creator were greatly emphasized. Merit-based attribution of creators may have a detrimental effect on perception and promotion of general creativity in Chinese societies.