Looking Inside the Fishbowl of Creativity: Verbal and Behavioral Predictors of Creative Performance

J.  Ruscio; D. M. Whitney; T. M. Amabile

Article | Creativity Research Journal | 1998

Looking Inside the Fishbowl of Creativity: Verbal and Behavioral Predictors of Creative Performance

by J. Ruscio, D. M. Whitney and T. M. Amabile

Abstract

This study set out to identify specific task behaviors that predict observable product creativity in three domains and to identify which of those behaviors mediate the well-established link between intrinsic motivation and creativity. One-hundred fifty-one undergraduate students completed a motivational measure and were later videotaped while engaging in tasks in three different domains: problem solving (a structure-building activity), art (collage making), and a writing (an American Haiku poem). Behavioral coding and think-aloud protocol analysis yielded reliable measures that, when empirically combined form task process indicators, strongly predicted judge-rated product creativity in each domain. One of the indicators, involvement in the task, served as a mediator of intrinsic motivation's positive influence one creativity. Other indicators reflect domain-relevant skills and creativity-relevant processes, lending support to the componential model of creativity. Theoretical and methodological implications for future creativity research are discussed.

Keywords: Creativity; Cognition and Thinking; Behavior;

Format: Print

21 pages

Find at Harvard Purchase

Citation:

Ruscio, J., D. M. Whitney, and T. M. Amabile. "Looking Inside the Fishbowl of Creativity: Verbal and Behavioral Predictors of Creative Performance." Creativity Research Journal 11, no. 3 (1998): 243–263.

In recent years, progress has been made toward AI Creativity, which I define as the production of highly novel, yet appropriate, ideas, problem solutions, or other outputs by autonomous machines. I argue that organizational researchers of creativity and innovation should invest significant energy in studying artificial intelligence and computer-assisted human intelligence, the ways in which they might yield creative breakthroughs, and how those innovations might impact—and be impacted by—workers, consumers, organizations, and society.

Over time, the field of creativity research has seen a gradual shift away from an almost exclusive emphasis on the creative person towards a more balanced inquiry that centers both on individual difference issues and questions about the nature of creative products and the conditions that facilitate the creation of those products. The consensual assessment technique (CAT) allows for the assessment of the relative creativity of products and is based on the assumption that a panel of independent raters, persons who have not had the opportunity to confer with one another and who have not been trained by the researcher, are best able to make such judgments. Over 40 years of research have clearly established that product creativity can be reliably and validly assessed based on the consensus of experts. Although creativity in a product may be difficult to characterize in terms of specific features, it is something that people can recognize and agree upon when they see it.

There have been dozens of high-profile mass shootings in recent decades. This paper presents three main findings about the impact of mass shootings on gun policy. First, mass shootings evoke large policy responses. A single mass shooting leads to a 15% increase in the number of firearm bills introduced within a state in the year after a mass shooting. This effect increases with the extent of media coverage. Second, mass shootings account for a small portion of all gun deaths but have an outsized influence relative to other homicides. Third, when looking at bills that were actually enacted into law, the impact of mass shootings depends on the party in power. The annual number of laws that loosen gun restrictions doubles in the year following a mass shooting in states with Republican-controlled legislatures. We find no significant effect of mass shootings on laws enacted when there is a Democrat-controlled legislature, nor do we find a significant effect of mass shootings on the enactment of laws that tighten gun restrictions.

Faculty & Research

Looking Inside the Fishbowl of Creativity: Verbal and Behavioral Predictors of Creative Performance

Abstract

Citation:

About the Author

More from the Author