Association, Overlap, and Inhibition: A Study of Implicit Theories of Creativity

After more than six decades of systematic study of creativity, there is still no agreement regarding components essential to define creativity. Prior studies of implicit and explicit theories have suggested adding criteria to the standard definition of what creativity is; however, an alternative approach is to explore what creativity is not. The current investigation aimed to study both perspectives. The social validation method was employed in Study 1 (an open-ended questionnaire) to identify laypeople’s notions of creativity using content analysis of participant responses (n = 92). Results from Study 1 were used to build a quantitative questionnaire employed in Study 2 (n = 306). Descriptive statistics and Spearman Rank Correlations were used to analyze participant ratings in Study 2, showing consistent agreement that creativity is highly related to and overlapped with Imagination, Artistic Expression, Innovation, Originality, and Invention, while Knowledge, Ability, Unconventional Behavior, Morality, and Insanity were less related to and overlapped with creativity. Both implicit and explicit theories agreed on Originality and Innovation and disagreed on Artistic Expression, Imagination, and Invention. Usefulness received low ratings, although it is considered in all creativity definitions. Morality was not rated to be closely associated with creativity. Detailed findings are discussed with suggestions for future studies.