The Palgrave Handbook of Social Creativity Research

Izabela Lebuda, Vlad Petre Glăveanu, Izabela Lebuda, Vlad Petre Glăveanu

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9783319954981
• Topic: Psicología
• Subtopic: Psicología social

This Handbook brings together an international cast of experts to explore the social nature and context of creativity studies, focusing on methodology as a key component in advancing the social study of creativity. Two decades on from the pioneering work of Alfonso Montuori and Ronald E. Purser, the authors present a timely appraisal of past and present work in social creativity studies, and look ahead to future developments within this field.

The authors collectively offer a rigorous examination of the methodological and empirical issues and techniques involved in studying social creativity. They examine the phenomenon as a form of communication and interaction within collaborative relationships; contending that creativity happens not within a vacuum but instead from a nexus of personal, social and contextual influences.

This comprehensive work is organized in three parts, focusing first on the various methodological approaches applicable to the social in creativity studies. It secondly turns to empirical findings and approaches relating to the social nature of creativity. In the book's final part, the authors offer reflections on the state of social research into creativity, pinpointing areas requiring further methodological scrutiny and empirical verification, and areas that may inspire further theoretical or applied work. Combining classic ideas with cutting-edge, emerging methods, this work provides a vital methodological 'toolbox' for investigators within social creativity.

© The Author(s) 2019

Izabela Lebuda and Vlad Petre Glăveanu (eds.)The Palgrave Handbook of Social Creativity ResearchPalgrave Studies in Creativity and Culturehttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95498-1_1

Begin Abstract

1. Re/searching the Social in Creativity, Past, Present and Future: An Introduction to the Palgrave Handbook of Social Creativity Research

Izabela Lebuda¹ and Vlad Petre Glăveanu²

(1)

Institute of Psychology, University of Wrocław, Wrocław, Poland

(2)

Webster University Geneva, Bellevue, Switzerland

Izabela Lebuda (Corresponding author)

Vlad Petre Glăveanu

Email: [email protected]

Keywords

Social creativityContextSocietyCultureInteractionMethodsMethodology

End Abstract

The Palgrave Handbook of Social Creativity Research is devoted to the social nature and context of creativity, an area of research that has received little interest traditionally and yet, today, is growing at a fast pace. Following the pioneering book Social Creativity (1999), published in two edited volumes by Montuori and Purser, the present handbook takes stock of past and present work as well as envision future developments within this field, almost two decades later. More specifically, it also focuses on methodology as a critical component in advancing the social study of creativity.

Since the 1970s there has been increasing interest in perceiving creativity in a more holistic, social manner (see Amabile, 1983; Csikszentmihalyi, 1988; John-Steiner, 1989; Simonton, 1975). Although most researchers nowadays would agree that considering the context in which creativity is expressed and received is crucial for understanding creativity itself (e.g., Simonton, 1975, 1976, 1990; Stein, 1953), research in the so-called He and I-paradigms (Glăveanu, 2010), which concern themselves with eminent individual performance and the psychology of individual differences, is still dominant. Despite the fact that decades have passed since the topic of social approaches to creativity was first raised, calls to broaden our knowledge in this area continue to be made (see Glăveanu, 2014; Hennessey, 2003, 2017).

Why is creativity social? A series of arguments have been offered across the decades and many of them are presented, elaborated on and advanced within in this book. A selective review of such arguments includes the following:

1. 1.
   The ‘birth’ of creative expression in early human development would be impossible in the absence of social interaction. It is because the child is gradually introduced by care-givers to the world of symbols and cultural objects that he or she becomes capable of engaging in pretend play – the developmental origin of both creativity and imagination (Gardner, 1982; Winnicott, 1971);
2. 2.
   Creativity is enacted first and foremost in dyads, groups, and communities. Direct or mediated forms of collaboration are pervasive when it comes to creative activity. Group or team creativity is the norm rather than the exception in a variety of contexts, from schools to the workplace (Barron, 1999);
3. 3.
   Beside explicit forms of collaboration, we always create with other people ‘in mind’. We consider the knowledge, views and perspectives of others when generating ideas, objects, or performances. We also internalise their views in the way we evaluate the creativity of what we produced (Bakhtin, 1981);
4. 4.
   Creativity is based on division of labour within society. Even the most individualistic moments of creativity depend on access to tools and technologies (from simple paper and pencil to performant smart phones and laptops) and these are produced by others in a society that accumulates cultural resources (Becker, 2008);
5. 5.
   Creativity requires social validation. Indeed, judgements about what is more or less creative are social in nature and depend on dialogues and negotiations of meaning and value between various people and groups (e.g., gatekeepers, colleagues, critiques, the general public). This doesn’t mean that we need others to always view and judge our products, we ourselves are the first audiences of our own creativity and we appreciate (or not) our productions based on social norms and conventions (Csikszentmihalyi, 1988);
6. 6.
   The evaluation and practice of creativity vary across cultures and historical times. More ‘individualistic’ societies consider creativity as an individual attribute and focus on the novelty of the creative product and its potential to challenge tradition. More ‘collectivistic’ cultures, on the contrary, consider creativity as a relational attribute, appreciate most its value and meaning, and focus on how it renews tradition rather than break away from it (Lubart, 1999);
7. 7.
   Creativity is ever-present in human social interactions and substantiates the formation, maintenance and development of society (Simmel, 1949). In addition, individual and collective forms of creative agency underpin social change and transformation through a variety of means, from creative protests to artivism;
8. 8.
   The creativity of artefacts produced some time ago (i.e., that are not new anymore, one of the definitional conditions of creativity) depends on how these artefacts are appropriated and reinterpreted by future generations. Social transmission, fundamental for cultural participation, is not defined by exact reproduction but by the continuous social transformation of what is being transmitted (Eco, 1989);
9. 9.
   Creativity cannot exist outside of constraints (Stokes, 2005) and some of the most important constraints imposed on it are social in nature, from the pressure to respect certain norms and conventions to the way in which time or budgets are allocated to the creator;
10. 10.
    The creative process depends on being able to develop new perspectives on reality. These new perspectives have a deeply social and embodied origin as they come from us experiencing various positions in the physical and material world and being capable to re-position ourselves and move between positions and perspectives in a highly dialogical manner (Glăveanu, 2015);
11. 11.
    Social interactions are fundamental for life-creativity or the creativity and imagination invested in building a life course. Making life choices, anticipating the future, and creating (and recreating) an identity are, at once, social and creative acts (Zittoun & de Saint Laurent, 2015);
12. 12.
    Creativity is also a material process, but this materiality cannot be understood outside of a social context. Paraphrasing Vygotsky (1978), who said that the road between the child and the object passes through another person, we can say that the connection between creators and their material tools and productions depends on the interactions with others;
13. 13.
    Implicit theories of creativity or personal, lay understandings of what creativity is, are consequential for what we consider creative and whether or not we engage in creative activities ourselves. However, these are not mental schemas constructed, in isolation, by individual minds but social representations, acquired and negotiated within a social context (Glăveanu, 2011);
14. 14.
    Various aspects of the social environment, from family to work colleagues, have a direct impact on how, when, with whom and why we create (Lebuda & Csikszentmihalyi, 2018). These contexts guide creative expression in a more subtitle or direct manner (Bourdieu, 1993);
15. 15.
    The social environment also offers the resources and contents we use to create. The ideas and objects we create combine what already exists and what exists does so because of the system of social relations that generate, maintain and transmit it (Festinger, 1983);
16. 16.
    Creative action is grounded in learning and apprenticeships and these are fundamentally social processes. Either in the form of direct instruction or guided participation, social interactions create a zone of proximal development for individual creativity (Rogoff, 2003);
17. 17.
    Cooperation and competition are both essential for creativity even if their impact (positive or negative) depends on age, domain, stage of the creative process, etc. Fruitful creative collaborations require tension and conflict to advance creative expression, of course as long as the interaction is based on mutual resp...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Re/searching the Social in Creativity, Past, Present and Future: An Introduction to the Palgrave Handbook of Social Creativity Research
• Part I. Methodological Approaches to the Social in Creativity Studies
• Part II. Empirical Approaches to the Social in Creativity Studies
• Part III. Reflections on Social Research into Creativity