Einstein on creativity

History of Creativity Research

  • Jul 11, 1000

    Pre-Christian Views of Creativity

    1500 BC - 479 BC
    Eastern thought was collective versus Western thought of individuality
  • Jul 11, 1100

    Greeks

    Empahasis on individuals guardian spirit brought about the idea of genius graduation led to the individual's destructive and constructive abilities and appetites.
  • Jul 12, 1150

    Aristotle

    Association with madness that reappeared later and first half of 20th century.
  • Jul 12, 1160

    Roman

    Seen as a rnales creative power with the exception of child birth
  • Jul 12, 1170

    Biblical Story

    Creation was the artisan doing God's work on Earth. According to Boorstin, he describes it as as people's kinship with God for their power to create.
  • Jul 12, 1300

    Middle Ages

    A perspective of male's with special talents or unusual ablities arose.
  • Renaissance

    Emphasized that great artists and artisans were recognized that those qualities were of their own abilities and perspective.
  • Hobbes

    He was the first major figure to recognize how important imagination was in human thought and planning.
  • Hobbes and Locke

    During the Enlightenment, they were able to move beyond a concern with imagination, individual freedom and scoiety's authority in human affairs.
  • Copernicus - Galileo - Newton

    They were known for their scientific works of discovery and cultural and religious disruption. After Enlightenment, there was a change in perceiving the laws of the physical world (scientific knowledge) related to human existence and the social purposes it could serve.
  • Doctrine of Individualism

    Four important distinctions about creativity: (1) genius was divorced from the supernatural, (2) genius, although exceptional, was a potential in every individual, (3) talent and genius were to be distinguished from one another, (4) their potential and exercise depend on the political atmosphere at the time.
  • Duff - Rosseau - Romantics

    Spontaneity and genius needed no education
  • Adam Smith -The Wealth of Nations

    Recognized the need for a science of human behavior
  • Bethune

    Felt that creative genius could store away ideas for future combinations.
  • Jevons & Guilford

    Distinction of convergent and divergent thinking
  • Darwin - Origin of Species

    An intellectual breakthrough for understanding creativity due to solving problems through successful adaptation and individual in character.
  • Galton

    The study of differences and the need for eugenics as a deliberate program to scientifically increase British tallent. The selection of eminent persons as subjects of obvious creativity.
  • Sternberg and Lubart

    Creativity was thought to have mystical origins. These athors characteristics were similar to themes in the 20th century:(a) What is creativity?, (b) Who has creativity?, (c) What are the chracteristics of creative people?, (d) Who should benefit from creativity?, (e) Can creativity be increased through conscious effort?
  • William James

    Formulated idea of divergent thinking
  • Period: to

    Creativity Research

  • Binet & Spearman

    They were doing emphirical investigations on intelligence tests with Binet's test, including items he believed requried imagination and what is now called divergent thinking.
  • Terman

    Earliest American psychologis to take a research interest in genius.
  • Helson - Mackinnon - Dudek and Hall

    Researchers on creativity were in the avant-garde of a new version of individualism. Noted history of the concepts of ego and self. Exaggerated less creative person's deficiences.