Creativity and Intelligence in Applied Educational Psychology - Reflection 3

Module 3 – Creativity and Personality, Knowledge, Alternative viewpoints

1. Societal & Interpersonal factors for creativity (focus on 8 dimensions)
2. Bloom’s 3 markers in lives of creative people – comparing creativity & outstanding talent
3. Insight skills in creative people, and role of knowledge.
4. Correlation’s effect, does klg inhibit creativity?
5. Social & non-social personality traits of creative people
6. Mental illness, learning disabilities, and creativity (focus: Georg Cantor as example)
7. Cross-cultural views of creativity (Western and Eastern)

During the first few modules, I felt skeptical about the value of eminence assigned to the opinions of judges, though it was easy to overlook while exploring the individualist version of creativity.  In this module, the counterpoint to that approach was exemplified by the point of view of collectivist cultures that value accommodation of precedent and deny the measurable differences that individualists would have emphasized as representational of the depth of their creativity.  The historical oral tradition of poetry was the starting point for my studies in that domain.  Reading about the Serbo-Croatians who refused to acknowledge “that they represented significant differences” (Sawyer, 2021, p 275) when presented with measurable differences in their presentations of the same traditional material illustrated the contrast between individualism and collectivist cultures.  Another great example was how the value of patents may be the same across the world, but the attribution of the success will be shared by more contributors in a collectivist culture, whereas a more individualist culture would reclassify those contributors as participants, allocating the recognition to a smaller group of people.  In short, a first finding was that eminence is understood so differently by cultures that prioritize adherence to tradition, valuing age and experience such as Asmat the wood carvers (Sawyer, 2021, p 276) and the example of markets for creative facades that spread south along the Nile, measurably, during the 20th century.
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This mental model of creativity through sharing and repetition, still original but differently understood than the “originality” being measured by the standardized tests in Module 2, was well described by the evolution of the PC – as email processor and through the development of the mouse.  Today, we may not have any equally valuable creative products as the mouse and email, but neither require eminence to judge.  Both are so widely adopted, frequently used, and required by so many people.  Because “tracing sole authorship is nearly impossible” (Sawyer, 2021, p 251) these extremely creative solutions to communication challenges (interpersonal and technological) are ontologically valuable creative artifacts of the 20th century, though not in the same was as the decorative facades. 

The Sawyer reading began with a quote about Edison’s 14-man team who helped him realize his inventions.  It reminded me of the artist Andy Warhol, and the evolution of “fine arts” in the last few hundred years because they are additional examples of creative collectives – even though they existed in an individualistic culture and sometimes to the much greater benefit of one person.  I have been deeply concerned with the need “to organize groups so that they’ll be maximally creative” (Sawyer, 2021, p 232) in my work life for the last twenty years.  Both effects described in Chapter 12 – Input/Output and Process – elaborate mechanisms to inspect the work being done by groups and the larger organization.  A balanced approach to diversity leads to better results.  Superstars are a necessary challenge that require transparency across the group, an awareness that I have tried to establish by sharing with my management teams a wonderful TED Talk by Margaret Heffernan about a “Super Chickens” experiment.  I have extensive first-hand experience of the benefit of the nominal group prior to larger brainstorming sessions.  Individual inputs to the group activity are greater and more independently developed, which create intuitive gaps that are filled when the group shares their ideas.  The approach to group design and to brainstorming described by Sawyer are familiar tools that I plan to transplant to my new toolbox when I am a teacher; a solid second finding among many in this module.
 
References

• Heffernan, Margaret (2015) Forget the pecking order at work. TED.  https://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_heffernan_forget_the_pecking_order_at_work?language=en