Paper summary - The Standard Definition of Creativity, by Mark A. Runco and Garrett J. Jaeger

What I read

In this paper, the authors walk through a history of efforts to define creativity, starting in the 1800s (although briefly referencing Shakespeare from many years before that), and ultimately landing on work from the 1950s and 60s as a seminal and appropriate place to consider as the foundation of creativity definition.

First, the authors explain that this writing is an attempt to address other authors who tend to start their creative definition citations in the 1980s, and fail to ground their current research and claims in more appropriate foundational definitions. They also describe that most papers in the journal (Creative Research Journal) start, appropriately, by defining creativity as it is to be used in their paper.

Then, the authors offer a historic walkthrough of a variety of perspectives, but start with a definition that they consider broadly accepted: that creativity must be both “effective” and “original.” It is stated early in this writing that originality is “undoubtably required.” But original things are not always creative, as randomness is not creative.

The authors cite themselves in adding the idea of utility (as “fit” or “appropriateness”) to the required definition, and then further unpack that. This is an initial acknowledgement that utility is case or domain specific, with appropriateness in product design being different than in art. The reference to utility or appropriateness as art is grounded in statements by Bethune from 1839; Bethune’s domain-specific discussion that grounds creativity in art discusses it as a form of Genius, and the authors use the word “conflate” when describing how creativity was perceived in that time period, implying that they disagree with equating the two ideas.

Next, the authors describe how Royce, in the late 1890s, introduces the notion of a variation into the emergent definition of creativity – that creativity can be incremental. Royce’s addition of value is mentioned as being an important introduction.

Hutchinson’s work introduces that a creative idea must be practical, and that word and idea is then unpacked into something that changes the world around us, in the way we live our lives. This idea is closest to the notion of appropriateness that was referenced early, where creativity was grounded in product creation, but again, the authors consider this an incomplete definition; they then switch from progressing from early years in the 1800s to working backwards from the 1960s, starting with Bruner’s work that references an accepted two-attribute definition of creativity, presumably the one indicated at the beginning of the paper – that creativity must be effective and original.

Bruner uses the word “surprised” tied to effective, and the authors then briefly mention definitions from other contributors of worthwhile, compelling, appropriate, and relevant.

As the authors continue to work backwards, they describe that Barron’s work, adding a criterion of adaptation to reality, as being a formative part of their current definition. They feel that his 1955 definition of uncommonness and adaption to reality was “on target” but lacking an explicit connection to creativity, which, earlier, can be credited to Guilford, with an emphasis on novel idea generation.

Guilford’s work describes that restraint is important during a creative act, but too much constraint doesn’t allow a new idea to have the ability to grow into something valuable. He uses the word acceptable, and the authors feel this is incomplete, because Guilford never mentions to whom an idea is acceptable.

Finally, the authors identify the individual to whom they credit the initial definition of creativity: Stein, in 1953, who explicitly says “Let’s start with a definition.” That definition says that a creative output must be novel (deviating from the status quo), and contextual, in that the type or amount of novelty is related to the type of creative work being created. The authors cite an important part of Stein’s work as being a three-point set of ideas that were “ahead of their time”:

• A creative work is useful to some group
• A creative work integrates existing things in new ways
• Personal and historic creativity are different

The “to some group” acknowledges domain differences in creativity, that a creative work in art is materially different than a creative work in science.

Stein also described that creative people are uncomfortable or unhappy with gaps existing in the environment, and select problems to focus on that work to close those gaps.

Stein’s work is, effectively, the summary and point of this article that is titled as a “correction”: the authors are correcting journal submissions that they feel inappropriately ground creativity definition in work from the 1980s and 1990s, rather than acknowledging the foundational work of Stein in the 1950s.

What I learned and what I think

I’m really perplexed and confused by the claim that a standard and accepted definition of creativity is one that claims creative work must be “effective” and “original.” While unpacking these words is necessary, at some point, it’s just splitting hairs; but what does “effective” mean for a Jackson Pollock painting, or a Jackson Pollock painting that no one ever sees? What about a Braun coffee maker – does “effective” mean that it functions well and makes great coffee, or do we mean some sort of broad effectiveness, like it is effective in making the world a better place?

Similarly, what does original mean? I’m writing something right now that is original-ish; objectively, it’s original in that no one has ever written this precise text. But this is hardly original in a practical sense, because mostly what I’m doing is summarizing what the authors wrote.

I also wonder about the grandiosity (is that a word?) of the creativity that is mentioned throughout the paper, as if creativity must be a big fundamental Thing. When I run a workshop for a corporate client, we have them make things. The things are pretty rudimentary, but are on the way towards formalizing a new product or service. They rarely provide the idea that’s necessary for us to prescribe a strategy, because we’ve probably already figured out (at least unconsciously) what we are going to go do. But the workshops and creative artifacts that are created are, well, created. They serve no real purpose in the world, but are effective in aligning teams, and created because they are new.

I think I’m having difficulty with how design, which is its own discipline with its own needs and boundaries, plays with what may be an academically standard definition of creativity as effective and original. Most design work, particularly in modern software, is not original at all: it’s reusing established UI patterns and embedding them in flows that serve use cases that are often shared in an industry. But I’m pretty confident that the person doing the design work, and the company that hired that person, would call their work creative.

I like Stein’s definitions a lot, and that will be on the list of papers I will try to track down to read next.

I also wonder how it’s possible that creativity, which has played such a critical role in periods like the Renaissance and other historic timeframes of great human progress, has only been “defined” in the 1950s. This seems highly unlikely, although earlier definitions were likely not presented in academic journals, or formalized. I don’t think it’s useful or valuable to cite Plato or Aristotle, who surely touched on these topics (although I’m terribly unfamiliar with this), because it probably would have little pragmatic value. But there’s a huge gap between historic periods of great creativity and the roaring or furious 50s.