Creativity. Cognitive, personal, developmental, and social aspects

Although many psychologists have expressed an interest in the phenomenon of creativity, psychological research on this topic did not rapidly expand until after J. P. Guilford claimed, in his 1950 APA presidential address, that this topic deserved far more attention than it was then receiving. This article reviews the progress psychologists have made in understanding creativity since Guilford's call to arms. Research progress has taken place on 4 fronts: the cognitive processes involved in the creative act, the distinctive characteristics of the creative person, the development and manifestation of creativity across the individual life span, and the social environments most strongly associated with creative activity. Although some important questions remain unanswered, psychologists now know more than ever before about how individuals achieve this special and significant form of optimal human functioning.

Predicting presidential performance in the United States: equation replication on recent survey results

For more than 2 decades, researchers have tried to identify the variables that predict the overall performance of U.S. presidents. In 1986, there emerged a 6-variable prediction equation (D. K. Simonton, 1986c, 1987b) that has been replicated repeatedly. The predictors are years in office, war years, scandal, assassination, heroism in war, and intellectual brilliance. The author again replicated the equation on recent rankings of all presidents from George Washington through William Jefferson Clinton according to a survey of 719 experts (W. R. Ridings, Jr., & S. B. McIver, 1997). The original 6-variable equation successfully predicted both the overall rankings as well as the 5 core components of the rankings (leadership qualities, accomplishment, political skill, appointments, character and integrity). The predictive value of the equation was illustrated for the presidencies of Ronald W. Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Clinton.

Creativity. Cognitive, personal, developmental, and social aspects

Although many psychologists have expressed an interest in the phenomenon of creativity, psychological research on this topic did not rapidly expand until after J. P. Guilford claimed, in his 1950 APA presidential address, that this topic deserved far more attention than it was then receiving. This article reviews the progress psychologists have made in understanding creativity since Guilford's call to arms. Research progress has taken place on 4 fronts: the cognitive processes involved in the creative act, the distinctive characteristics of the creative person, the development and manifestation of creativity across the individual life span, and the social environments most strongly associated with creative activity. Although some important questions remain unanswered, psychologists now know more than ever before about how individuals achieve this special and significant form of optimal human functioning.

Mad King George: the impact of personal and political stress on mental and physical health

Both historians and psychiatrists have tried to explain the recurrent attacks of mental and physical illness experienced by King George III of Great Britain. Although the porphyria hypothesis is widely accepted, this diagnosis assumes that the king's breakdowns were not precipitated by extreme stress. This assumption was tested using single-case historiometric methods. Biographical data were compiled to form two extensive chronologies of the monarch's life, one for stressful events and the other for pathological symptoms. From this information 22 independent judges reliably assessed fluctuations in stress (total, personal, and political) and health (total, physical, and mental) across 624 consecutive months between 1760 and 1811. The cross-correlations were then calculated for the raw, first-differenced, and prewhitened time series. A consistent tendency appeared for the king's health to deteriorate after increases in stress, most frequently with a 9-month delay. The current study demonstrates the utility of applying quantitative techniques to a psychobiographical debate hitherto examined solely by qualitative approaches.

Achievement domain and life expectancies in Japanese civilization

Previous studies have found that the expected life span of eminent personalities may vary systematically according to the domain of achievement. The current investigation examines this phenomenon more closely by 1) introducing methodological controls for potential gender and cohort artifacts, 2) adding substantive predictors (e.g., suicide and homicide) that provide clues regarding the substantive basis for the differences, 3) scrutinizing a greater variety of achievement domains in both creativity and leadership, and 4) using a non-Western sample of historical figures (1,632 Japanese born between 450 and 1883 A.D.). Multiple regression analyses revealed domain contrasts in life expectancy (e.g., the shorter life spans of fiction authors and political figures, but the longer life spans of religious leaders and sword makers). In addition, the analyses helped decipher the extent to which these domain differences were due to violent death or to the stress of occupying high positions of power.

Creativity in the later years: optimistic prospects for achievement

Despite the apparent decline in productivity in the final years of life, seven considerations suggest a far more favorable outlook: the actual magnitude of the age decrement; the role of extrinsic influences; the contingency on career age; the impact of individual differences in creative potential; the interdisciplinary variation in the age curves; the virtual absence of an age decrement on a contribution-for-contribution basis; and the resurgence of creativity in the form of the swan-song phenomenon.

Age and creative productivity: nonlinear estimation of an information-processing model

A two-step cognitive model is outlined that explicates the key empirical findings on the relation between age and creative productivity. Two primary information-processing parameters, the ideation and elaboration rates, define a mathematical function that both describes the age curves and specifies how those curves vary across disciplines. To validate the model further, a nonlinear estimation program was applied to previously published tabulations on the longitudinal fluctuations in creative output. The resulting parameter estimates also yield the expected peak age and the creative half-life for each domain of achievement. Despite the prediction of a post-peak decline, the model's implications for creativity over the life span are optimistic.

The swan-song phenomenon: last-works effects for 172 classical composers

Creative individuals approaching their final years of life may undergo a transformation in outlook that is reflected in their last works. This hypothesized effect was quantitatively assessed for an extensive sample of 1,919 works by 172 classical composers. The works were independently gauged on seven aesthetic attributes (melodic originality, melodic variation, repertoire popularity, aesthetic significance, listener accessibility, performance duration, and thematic size), and potential last-works effects were operationally defined two separate ways (linearly and exponentially). Statistical controls were introduced for both longitudinal changes (linear, quadratic, and cubic age functions) and individual differences (eminence and lifetime productivity). Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that composers' swan songs tend to score lower in melodic originality and performance duration but higher in repertoire popularity and aesthetic significance. These last-works effects survive control for total compositional output, eminence, and most significantly, the composer's age when the last works were created.

The swan-song phenomenon: Last-works effects for 172 classical composers

Creative individuals approaching their final years of life may undergo a transformation in outlook that is reflected in their last works. This hypothesized effect was quantitatively assessed for an extensive sample of 1,919 works by 172 classical composers. The works were independently gauged on seven aesthetic attributes (melodic originality, melodic variation, repertoire popularity, aesthetic significance, listener accessibility, performance duration, and thematic size), and potential last-works effects were operationally defined two separate ways (linearly and exponentially). Statistical controls were introduced for both longitudinal changes (linear, quadratic, and cubic age functions) and individual differences (eminence and lifetime productivity). Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that composers' swan songs tend to score lower in melodic originality and performance duration but higher in repertoire popularity and aesthetic significance. These last-works effects survive control for total compositional output, eminence, and most significantly, the composer's age when the last works were created.

Quality, quantity, and age: the careers of ten distinguished psychologists

The longitudinal relationship between quality and quantity of productive output is examined over the careers of ten recipients of the Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award. Four alternative models of this relationship-expertise-acquisition, youthful-enthusiasm, peak-age, and constant-probability-of-success-yield distinctive predictions regarding 1) how the ratio of major contributions to total output changes as a career advances and 2) the developmental association between major and minor works over consecutive time periods. The quality of a publication was assessed by the citations it earned in the professional literature. The results endorsed the constant-probability-of-success model (both across and within careers). Not only does confirmation of this model provide support for Campbell's blind-variation-and-selective-retention theory of creative thought, but it additionally has important implications for understanding the role of age and chance in the careers of successful psychologists.

Intergenerational transfer of individual differences in hereditary monarchs: genetic, role-modeling, cohort, or sociocultural effects?

Individual differences may be transferred across generations through either genetic inheritance, identification with role models, cohort effects, or sociocultural influences. Each of these four possible mechanisms makes different predictions regarding what traits display intergenerational continuities, the pattern of relationships between an individual and his or her relatives, as well as the relative impact of same-sex and cross-sex relationships. A sample of 342 hereditary monarchs was drawn from 14 European nations. These rulers, along with their parents, grandparents, and predecessors, were then assessed on the variables of intelligence, morality, eminence, leadership, life span, and reign span. Theoretically significant interaction effects were also operationalized using such moderator variables as genetic relationship, years of overlap in lives, age difference, difference in reign midpoints, and sex. The intergenerational transfer of intelligence and life span appears to be best explained by genetics, whereas the transfer of morality and eminence seems to be governed by role-modeling processes. The remaining variables were either transferred by more complex mechanisms (viz. leadership) or not transferred at all from one generation to the next (viz. reign span). The results contradict both Woods's (1906) belief that morality is genetically inherited and Galton's (1869) argument that eminence can served as a nearly equivalent proxy variable for intellectual genius.

Intergenerational transfer of individual differences in hereditary monarchs: genetic, role-modeling, cohort, or sociocultural effects?

Individual differences may be transferred across generations through either genetic inheritance, identification with role models, cohort effects, or sociocultural influences. Each of these four possible mechanisms makes different predictions regarding what traits display intergenerational continuities, the pattern of relationships between an individual and his or her relatives, as well as the relative impact of same-sex and cross-sex relationships. A sample of 342 hereditary monarchs was drawn from 14 European nations. These rulers, along with their parents, grandparents, and predecessors, were then assessed on the variables of intelligence, morality, eminence, leadership, life span, and reign span. Theoretically significant interaction effects were also operationalized using such moderator variables as genetic relationship, years of overlap in lives, age difference, difference in reign midpoints, and sex. The intergenerational transfer of intelligence and life span appears to be best explained by genetics, whereas the transfer of morality and eminence seems to be governed by role-modeling processes. The remaining variables were either transferred by more complex mechanisms (viz. leadership) or not transferred at all from one generation to the next (viz. reign span). The results contradict both Woods's (1906) belief that morality is genetically inherited and Galton's (1869) argument that eminence can served as a nearly equivalent proxy variable for intellectual genius.

Creative productivity, age, and stress: A biographical time-series analysis of 10 classical composers

The determinants of creative productivity were specified in the form of six hypotheses. Using a multivariate cross-sectional time-series design with several controls, the lives and works of 10 classical composers were analyzed into consecutive 5-year age periods. Two independent measures of productivity were operationalized (works and themes), with each measure subdivided into major and minor compositions according to a citation criterion. It was consistently found across both productivity measures that (a) quality of productivity is a probabilistic consequence of productive quantity and (b) total productivity, while affected by age and physical illness, is otherwise free of external influences (viz., social reinforcement, biographical stress, war intensity, and internal disturbances). Due to the more selective nature of the thematic productivity measure, the criterion of total themes alone was affected by competition and a time-wise bias. The article closes with a brief discussion of the broad substantive utility of the methodological design.

Biographical determinants of achieved eminence: a multivariate approach to the Cox data

Ranked eminence of creators and leaders was hypothesized to be a function of both substantive (developmental and productive) variables and methodological artifacts. Cox's sample of 301 geniuses was reexamined using multiple-regression techniques. The results indicated that ranked eminence is (a) a curvilinear inverted-U function of education for creators but a negative linear function for leaders, (b) a positive linear function of versatility for leaders only, and (c) a curvilinear U-shaped function of life span for creators but a "backwards-J" function for leaders. Although creators are more intelligent than leaders, the correlation that Cox found between intelligence and ranked eminence was shown to be an artifact of data reliability and, especially, a timewise sampling bias. It was also shown that father's status has no direct impact on ranked eminence.

Biographical determinants of achieved eminence: A multivariate approach to the Cox data

Ranked eminence of creators and leaders was hypothesized to be a function of both substantive (developmental and productive) variables and methodological artifacts. Cox's sample of 301 geniuses was reexamined using multiple-regression techniques. The results indicated that ranked eminence is (a) a curvilinear inverted-U function of education for creators but a negative linear function for leaders, (b) a positive linear function of versatility for leaders only, and (c) a curvilinear U-shaped function of life span for creators but a "backwards-J" function for leaders. Although creators are more intelligent than leaders, the correlation that Cox found between intelligence and ranked eminence was shown to be an artifact of data reliability and, especially, a timewise sampling bias. It was also shown that father's status has no direct impact on ranked eminence.

Sociocultural context of individual creativity: a transhistorical time-series analysis

Hypotheses were stated which specify individual creativity as a function of developmental and productive period variables. It was then argued that these hypotheses could be better tested by examining generational fluctuations in creativity. Information from cultural and political archival sources was thus aggregated to form time series spanning 127 generations of European history. Data quality checks, control variables, data transformations, time-lagged comparisons, and trend analyses were used to improve the validity of the causal inferences. While the results varied according to the type of creativity (discursive or presentational) and the degree of achieved eminence, creative development was found to be affected by the following: (a) role model availability, (b) political fragmentation, (c) imperial instability, and (d) political instability.

Creativity, task complexity, and intuitive versus analytical problem solving

Using 40 Ss the relative effectiveness of intuitive and analytical problem solving was determined as a function of creativity and task complexity. A three-way analysis of variance yielded a significant three-way interaction between thinking mode (intuition or analysis), task complexity, and creativity (as measured by the Barron-Welsh Art Scale). More creative Ss found intuition more effective for a complex task, analysis on the simple task; this relation was reversed for the less creative Ss.

Sociocultural context of individual creativity: A transhistorical time-series analysis

Hypotheses were stated which specify individual creativity as a function of developmental and productive period variables. It was then argued that these hypotheses could be better tested by examining generational fluctuations in creativity. Information from cultural and political archival sources was thus aggregated to form time series spanning 127 generations of European history. Data quality checks, control variables, data transformations, time-lagged comparisons, and trend analyses were used to improve the validity of the causal inferences. While the results varied according to the type of creativity (discursive or presentational) and the degree of achieved eminence, creative development was found to be affected by the following: (a) role model availability, (b) political fragmentation, (c) imperial instability, and (d) political instability.