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TWO DIMENSIONS OF CREATIVITY: INNOVATION AND VALUE
Psychology remains one of the few disciplines to have paid serious attention to the meaning of creativity. Creativity is an important topic in psychology because the ability to generate new concepts is one of the main characteristic that distinguishes human beings from smart machines (Boden, 1992, pp. 270–284); if we can understand creativity, we can go some way towards solving the riddle of consciousness itself.
In the creativity literature, most standard definitions of creativity contain two components. Firstly, creativity requires that we make or think something new; the idea should be new to the individual and perhaps even new to the world. Boden calls these two levels of innovation “P-creativity”, the ordinary everyday variety which allows us to solve our own daily problems, and “H-creativity”, the creativity behind great artistic and scientific discoveries (Boden, 1994, pp. 75–76). “H-creativity” obviously demonstrates greater social significance and higher economic potential, but the principle in both cases is the same and the distinction may, in part, be a matter of good luck – having the right idea in the right place at the right time (Novitz, 1999).Whilst the outcome is different in social and economic terms, in psychological terms the thought process is the same. Consequently, most of the psychological literature focuses on “P-creativity”.
However, Boden emphasises that mere novelty is not enough. To be creative, the idea must also be useful, or valuable (Boden, 1994, pp. 75–79; c.f.Weisberg, 1993, pp. 4–5). This second part of the definition is more contentious than the first because value and usefulness depend upon social context or subjective judgement. Some psychological studies resort to a definition of value as defined by a panel of experts within the appropriate field, so that Picasso’s painting is “creative” because art experts and art historians agree that his innovations are valuable. The pictures by a three-year-old child would (probably) not meet this criterion, so they remain merely “innovative” or “different”. Whether we accept the panel’s judgement is, of course, another matter.
Other definitions of value centre on process, not product. A child’s drawings are random or incompetent, whereas Picasso’s drawings are driven by a purpose or vision and executed by an experienced, trained artist with a historical knowledge of his field. This author-centred definition of value as “innovation with a purpose;” is re?ected in the emphasis on “problem-solving” in psychological creativity tests and in the argument that creative ideas must demonstrate “fitness for purpose” if an innovative idea is a deliberate response to a problem, from a P-creative perspective it has purpose and therefore value. This method of measuring value is less specific than the first because creative problem-solving tests tend to overlook the relative merits of one solution over another, emphasising quantity of new ideas, not quality.
“Fitness for purpose” is a relative measurement of value; the criterion is dependent upon the external circumstances within which the problem is set rather than upon any inherent quality. Over and beyond any assessment of the process or product, criteria like “aptness” and “timeliness” are also used to measure creativity. Here the measure depends upon the wider social context and refers to the circumstances surrounding the idea’s reception as much as its production. Chance has a role to play here too; timeliness may be a deliberate aim, or it may be down to luck. “Aptness” and “timeliness” lend themselves to the “systems” theories of creativity discussed in the next section; for example if we consider why certain historical periods have been especially productive in terms of artistic and scientific achievements, it is clear that the cultural and social context may have provided a fertile creative climate or have been unusually receptive to certain innovations (or both). Here value is dependent upon the prevailing needs, interests and attitudes at the time of a work’s reception (Simonton, 1988, pp. 394–395).
Because the “value” component of creativity is difficult to prove or measure, it is often ignored or postponed. When managers use “brainstorming” sessions to generate new ideas value judgements are deliberately avoided since they may “block” the ?ow of ideas (Adams, 1979). Critics argue that the lack of a “quality filter” means that whilst brainstorming may result in more ideas, there is no evidence that it produces better ideas (Weisberg, 1993, pp. 62–67).
The question of value is deferred, to be resumed at a later meeting (and perhaps in a different department); here value judgements are separated from the creative process, delegated as a separate managerial task outside the creative team’s remit.
The managerial separation of “creative” and “decision-making” functions is a radical departure from the two-part definition of creativity (new and useful) advanced in the psychological literature. Returning to the question, “what is creativity?”, the managerial definition of creativity as innovation derives from a tendency to consider the question in terms of people rather than process, and consequently to focus on certain aspects of that process rather than treating it “holistically” as a unified, multidimensional whole.