Creativity

From English 194 Wiki Site

"There is nothing that cannot be achieved by firm imagination." -Japanese Proverb

Contents 1 Mission Statement 2 Defining Creativity 3 Quotes 4 Group Members and Research Reports 5 Our Research

Mission Statement

The creativity team's goal has been to find the closest most accurate way of defining creativity, since the term is so abstract. Through the gathering and collecting of quotes from those who have been deemed "creative", as well as individual studies of how creativity is used and where it can be found, our team has aimed to produce an accurate description and overview of creativity in the past and in the current day and age. The vast array of areas in which our team studied suggests the significance of creativity in our culture today, as it can be found anywhere in the human mind, visual and audible arts, the corporate business world, the government and the military.

Defining Creativity

What is creativity? How do we define it or who decides what is creative versus what is not?

Merriam-Webster's Definition:

Pronunciation: krE-'A-tiv

Function: Adjective

1. marked by the ability or power to create : given to creating
2. having the quality of something created rather than imitated : imaginative
3. managed so as to get around legal or conventional limits; also, deceptively arranged so as to conceal or defraud

From Human Motivation, 3rd Edition, Franklin:

• An ability to formulate ideas that would be useful in communications, entertainment as well as problem solving.

• Franklin defines three reasons as to why people are motivated to be creative:
  1. Necessity for the novel, complicated and/or varied stimulation
  2. Necessity to communicate
  3. Necessity to solve problems

• Creativity involves the ability to not only understand the other perspective, but "generate" another point of view. Creativity tests measure the uniqueness of various perspectives in addition to the number of possible perspectives. Franklin claims that creativity is linked to the satisfaction for the unknown, the ability to tolerate ambiguity and flexibility.

How to categorize "creativity" in a category tree:

• Cognition, knowledge, a mental process
  • Ability, power
    • Creativity
      • Cleverness, inventiveness, conception, design, innovation, imagination, vision, generative, ground-breaking and genius

Quotes

This was our collaborative way of finding different nuances of the word "creativity." The page is a compilation of quotes from prominent, creative thinkers of our time.

Check the Quotes out!

Group Members and Research Reports

Brooke Birrenkott

• "Relationship Between Mental Disorders and Creativity"
• "Autonomous Weaponry"

Christopher I. Gonzalez

• "Hyperconsciousness: Creative Mode"
• "Creativity: A New Social Class"

Daley Tocher

• "Passive Creativity"
• "Web 2.0"

Taylor Whitmer

• "A Knowledge Economy to a Creativity Economy"
• "Fortune Smiles on the Disciplined Innovator"

Our Research

To see a brief synopsis of our research, see our description page. This page also includes our preliminary thoughts to what our group would be interested in studying.

Back to the Home Page

To see other team's work, see Collaboration and Intellectual property.