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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Creativity | 1/14 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T07:11:10.173371+00:00 | kb-cron |
Creativity is the ability to generate novel and valuable ideas or works through the exercise of imagination. The products of creativity may be classified as either intangible or physical. Intangible products of creativity include ideas, scientific theories, literary works, musical compositions, and jokes. Physical products of creativity include inventions, dishes or meals, pieces of jewelry, costumes, and paintings. Creativity may also describe the ability to find new solutions to problems or new methods to accomplish a goal. Therefore, creativity enables people to solve problems in new ways. Most ancient cultures (including Ancient Greece, Ancient China, and Ancient India) lacked the concept of creativity, seeing art as a form of discovery rather than a form of creation. In the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition, creativity is seen as the sole province of God, and human creativity was considered an expression of God's work; the modern conception of creativity came about during the Renaissance, influenced by humanist ideas. Scholarly interest in creativity is found in several disciplines, primarily psychology, business studies, and cognitive science. It is also present in education and the humanities (including philosophy and the arts).
== Etymology == The English word "creativity" comes from the Latin term creare (meaning "to create"). Its derivational suffixes also come from Latin, such as the etymological root “crescere”, which means “to let things grow”. This aspect of creativity is emphasized more in indigenous and Eastern concepts of creativity. The word "create" appeared in English as early as the 14th century—notably in Chaucer's The Parson's Tale to indicate divine creation. The modern meaning of creativity in reference to human creation did not emerge until after the Age of Enlightenment.
== Definition == In a summary of scientific research into creativity, psychology professor Michael Mumford wrote, "We seem to have reached a general agreement that creativity involves the production of novel, useful products." Similarly, in psychologist Robert Sternberg's words, creativity produces "something original and worthwhile". Authors have diverged dramatically in their precise definitions beyond these general commonalities: social geographer Peter Meusburger estimated that over a hundred different definitions can be found in the literature. One definition given by Dr. E. Paul Torrance in the context of assessing an individual's creative ability is "a process of becoming sensitive to problems, deficiencies, gaps in knowledge, missing elements, disharmonies; identifying the difficulty; searching for solutions, making guesses, or formulating hypotheses about the deficiencies: testing and retesting these hypotheses and possibly modifying and retesting them; and finally communicating the results." Philosophy professor Ignacio L. Götz, following the etymology of the word, argued that creativity is not necessarily "making". He confined it to the act of creating without thinking about the end product. While many definitions of creativity seem almost synonymous with originality, Götz also emphasized the difference between creativity and originality. Götz asserted that one can be creative without necessarily being original. When someone creates something, they are certainly creative at that point, but they may not be original in the sense that their creation is not something new. Creativity in general is usually distinguished from innovation in particular, where the emphasis is on implementation. Academics and authors Teresa Amabile and Michael Pratt defined creativity as the production of novel and useful ideas and innovation as the implementation of creative ideas, while the OECD and Eurostat stated that "innovation is more than a new idea or an invention; an innovation requires implementation, either by being put into active use or by being made available for use by other parties, firms, individuals, or organizations." There is also emotional creativity, which is described as a pattern of cognitive abilities and personality traits related to originality and appropriateness in emotional experience. From an interdisciplinary point a view, creativity can serve to increase neuronal connectivity, cognitive and emotional coherence as well as social cohesion. In this respect, creativity can help to cope with despair, hate and violence.
== Conceptual history ==
=== Ancient === Most ancient cultures, including Ancient Greece, Ancient China, and Ancient India, lacked the concept of creativity, seeing art as a form of discovery and not creation. The ancient Greeks had no terms for "to create" or "creator" except for the expression poiein (to make), which only applied to poiesis (poetry) and to the poietes (poet, or "maker", who made it). Plato did not believe in art as a form of creation. He asks in the Republic, "Will we say of a painter that he makes something?" He answers, "Certainly not, he merely imitates." It is commonly argued that the notion of "creativity" originated in Western cultures through Christianity, as a matter of divine inspiration. According to scholars, the earliest Western conception of creativity was the Biblical story of the creation given in Genesis. However, this is not creativity in the modern sense, which did not arise until the Renaissance. In the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition, creativity was the sole province of God; humans were not considered to have the ability to create something new except as an expression of God's work. A similar concept existed in Greek culture, where the Muses were seen as mediating inspiration from the gods. Romans and Greeks invoked the concept of an external creative "daemon" (Greek) or "genius" (Latin), linked to the sacred or the divine. However, none of these views are similar to the modern concept of creativity, and the rejection of creativity in favor of discovery and the belief that individual creation was a conduit of the divine would dominate the West until the Renaissance and even later.