The Art of (Creative) Thought: Graham Wallas on the Creative Process

Teresa M. Amabile

Chapter | The Creativity Reader | 2019

The Art of (Creative) Thought: Graham Wallas on the Creative Process

Abstract

BOOK ABSTRACT: The Creativity Reader is a necessary companion for anyone interested in the historical roots of contemporary ideas about creativity, innovation, and imagination. It brings together a prestigious group of international experts who were tasked with choosing, introducing, and commenting on seminal texts focused on creativity, invention, genius, and imagination from the period of 1850 to 1950. This volume is at once retrospective and prospective: it revisits old ideas, assesses their importance today, and explores their potential for the future.
Through its wide historical focus, this Reader challenges the widespread assumption that creativity research is mainly a product of the second half of the twentieth century. Featuring primary sources interpreted through the lenses of leading contemporary scholars, The Creativity Reader testifies to the incredible richness of this field of study, helps us understand its current developments, and anticipates its future directions. The texts included here, many of them little known or forgotten, are part of the living history of creativity studies. Indeed, an examination of these seminal papers helps the new generation of creativity and innovation researchers to be mindful of the past and unafraid to explore it.

Keywords: Cognition and Thinking; Creativity;

Format: Print

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Citation:

Amabile, Teresa M. "The Art of (Creative) Thought: Graham Wallas on the Creative Process." Chap. 2 in The Creativity Reader, edited by Vlad P. Glăveanu. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2019.

Fixed differences loom smaller when compared to large differences. We propose a model of relative thinking where a person weighs a given change along a consumption dimension by less when it is compared to bigger changes along that dimension. In deterministic settings, the model predicts context effects such as the attraction effect, but predicts meaningful bounds on such effects driven by the intrinsic utility for the choices. In risky environments, a person is less likely to exert effort in a money-earning activity if he had expected to earn higher returns or if there is greater income uncertainty. In intertemporal consumption, relative thinking induces a tendency to overspend and for a person to act more impatient if infrequently allotted large amounts to consume than if frequently allotted a small amount to consume, or especially the greater the uncertainty in future consumption utility.

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.

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The Art of (Creative) Thought: Graham Wallas on the Creative Process

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