Psychology of Creativity Quiz # 5 (Chapter 12)

ACTH

(hormone to stimulate a person through motivation.) - when the hypothalamus stimulates the pituitary gland, the hormone ACTH is produced. - ACTH secretion increases in response to stress and other external stimuli. - The presence of ACTH directly affects both biological and mental functions. -High levels of stimulation, higher levels of ACTH is secreted which stimulates communication between the hemispheres of the brain. -ACTH neuropeptides act to facilitate communication between neurons, which result in higher levels of cognition and productivity. -When an individual is in the filtering stage, this is no need for high communication between hemispheres because the person if functioning unconsciously.

Collective Unconscious

(knowledge handed to you) -The unconscious memories that humans share to relate to Guilford's CPS model in an interesting way. - We believe that memories play an important role in the filtering process because they contain many deep fears and anxieties that we wish to avoid. -because thoughts in the first levels of cognition and production are logical and relatively unimaginative, reliance on the collective unconscious is low. It becomes active again as the creative thinker digs deep for understandings and associations in stages 4 and 5.

Courage

- Made up of such characteristics as "having a passionate love for something", "not being afraid to be alone", and " daring to go against the crowd", courage is essential to the creative act. - Because the function of the filter is to avoid conflict, courage will be inactive in Stage 1. - Paul Torrance stated that after all the years he had studied creativity and creative people he found that courage was the most essential quality for a creator's success. - Sternberg and Lubert stated that the person who comes up with an original idea much have the courage to be a minority of one, at least in the earlier stages.

Lateral thinking

- Requires flexibility. - rather than examining a problem from a vertical perspective that simply involves moving between lower- and higher-level concepts, a person using lateral thinking looks for diverse ways of interpreting or solving a problem.

Functional Freedom

- The two string test, a participant stands between two strings hanging from the ceiling. The participants must figure out how to tie the two strings together. -Two items are offered for use in finding the solution - a mousetrap and a wooden spring-type clothespin to be used. -Neither of them is long enough so that a person could use it to reach the second string. Many people are unable to reach this solution because they cannot imagine using clothespin or mousetraps for anything other than their usual purposes. -This inability is called functional fixity, and it frequently blocks creative idea. -Its opposite is functional freedom. -Researchers used the two-string test as one technique to explore the functionally free thinking of thousands of people. = it is necessary to distinguish here between problem solving and creativity.

Nurturing Parenting Style

- democratic parents- most effective. Looks at things as a system, everyone has a voice but has the authorities to make final decisions. When they grow up they following commands. Midway between controlling and permissive. - Nurturing parents- teach kids boundaries. Parenting by means of modeling and effective discussions. Tend to had an advantage at the cognition 2 stage and find a truly creative solution in the production 2. - Authoritarians parents- hover over a child. Tell their child "don't do this" and physically punishes a child. Strict and controlling. The filtering process will most likely be strong because of the fear of making mistakes causes a person to avoid problem situations. -Hands off parent- spoils child, doesn't expect anything from the child. -permissive parents have low control, the person is likely to lack self-control needed to contend with the problem effectively.

Bipolar Activity

- disorders such as bipolar disease (manic depression) provide an example of how creativity many progress in stages that are associated with biopsychosocial factors. -in the 1st stage, the individual's conscious processing is depressed; there may be periods of apathy and lethargy. -it may be "down time" that occurs during periods of depression allows the mind to regenerate and refuel. Depression and mania do not appear to play significant roles in the creative process either during the early stages of cognition and production or in the second phase of cognition. -Hypermanic episodes consist of energy surges, sleepness, high productivity, and fluid interchange of thoughts or ideas. Creative expression may be facilitated by a high level of hypermania. =manic-not thinking of things in claim logical manner.

Ego

- ego strength is active in both conscious and unconscious modes, so it functions at the filtering stage. - the goal of this stage is problem avoidance, however, we can assume that ego strength is low here. -Because of its lower level of cognition and production is to generate acceptable solutions, ego strength is only needed moderately. -Its role is good at stages 4 and 5, concerned with " the primitive, the uncultured, the naive, the magical, the nonsensical".

Flexibility

- refers not only to a lack of personal rigidity but also to the ability to attend to all aspects of a problem, without trying to find the "one right answer". -flexibility is inactive in the filtering stage and is used only moderately in the lower levels of cognition. -The free-ranging mind, the curiosity about each feature of a new problem, the hunger to understand everything.

Convergent thinking

- the right answer for a question that can have only one answer. =occurs when you have an insight of something. -is inactive in the unconscious filtering stage. -it is low in the early stages of cognition and production, as this when rational, more ordinary solutions originate. -the second production stage, convergent thinking returns to a moderate level, serving to select the best solutions.

Divergent thinking

-(generates a large variety of thinking) - is essential in generating a wide range of ideas. -it involves an attempt to think in different directions as one searches for a variety of answers to questions. -is inactive in the filtering stage. -the level in the next four stages is the inverse of the level of convergent thinking, as they have opposite, though complementary, functions.

Regression

-(going back mentally to early stages) - has high status in most filtering functions, for its essence is to keep any unpleasant thoughts away from consciousness. -this defense mechanism is often seen in children, who have not developed self-control skills, -(Kris) regression is used at a high level in stage 4 and 5, levels of imagination, the ability to play around with ideas, to regress in the service of the ego is invaluable. -thinker often reverts to childlike attitudes, forsaking the seriousness of the professional for the naïveté of the novice. -relax regression can often result in brilliant new cognition and the production.

Sublimation

-(to give back to other people) -Freud believed that sublimation comes into play when individuals are unable to fulfill their sex drives. -creativity, they maintain, must be its nature be free to choose any outlet, not just one that is guaranteed instant praise. -Whitebook defines sublimation as a "process through which genetic material, with all its contingency, privacy, and particularly, is transformed into cultural objects such as paintings, political constitutions, mathematical proof, musical composition, scientific theories.

Delay of Gratification (marshmallow)

-The willingness to endure the stress of prolonged effort so as to recap higher pleasures, in the long run, contributes greatly to creative production. -It is also what makes some creative people spend years on a project without recognition or reward. -It is quite common for creators to work for years on the same problem before they are able to create their final product. -1 marshmallow now or wait 5 minutes and get 2. The people who took one did bad (jail, abusive, and dropped out of school)

Generalizations About our biopsychosocial Approach

-This model is designed to reflect the basic biopsychosocial generalizations that we can now make about the creative process: -Being creative is not simply a case of having high intelligence. Although having above-average intelligence is necessary, being an intellectual "genius" is not. -In addition to mental ability, creativity depends on certain physical, personality, and motivational variables, as well as on certain environmental circumstances. -All people are born with the ability to be creative at some level, although whether this ability exists on a continuum or whether it is qualitatively different at the highest level is still a matter of debate. -The "nature versus nurture" debate is over. There is now little doubt that three factors- biological, psychological, and social- play a role in every creative act. -Creativity tends to follow developmental trends over the lifespan and may be most readily cultivated during peak periods of life. -The world is rapidly changing from a knowledge-based to an information processing- based orientation. Creative thinking is essential to the latter. -There is no longer any doubt that creative ability can be purposely enhanced. This is true not only of individuals but also of groups such as industrial units and task forces. -Sophisticated new instruments for measuring creative ability and creative ability and creative potential have been developed in recent years. -Fostering creativity can have many ancillary benefits. For instance, it can help people with psychopathologies deal with their problems more effectively. (Art therapy- children/adults).

Perseverance

=hard work over a long period of time -perseverance having faith in one's plan, in oneself, and possibly in the assistance of some higher power. - plays no role in stage 1 and only a slight part in stage 2 and 3- essential to perseverance. -the individual will feel quite tempted to eschew the hard work of repeatedly reexamining the problem and gathering more unusual solutions. -those with stamina and intrinsic motivation for a creative project are likely to persevere. = internal motivation is better than external motivation. - Many researchers have noted that successful creators are very strong in their perseverance in the face of frustration and even obstacles that might ordinarily be through overwhelming.

Interhemispheric coordination

=men- have a larger right hemisphere which involves creativity and imagination, art awareness, insight, and music awareness. =women- have a larger left hemisphere which involves language, logic, analytic thought, science, and math, written, and numbers skills. - human functions are controlled by one side of the brain more than the other. -during the filtering stage, there is not much interaction between the two hemispheres -the separation of the hemispheres continues throughout the second and third stages, where there is less integration of cognition and production. -during staged 4 and 5, cognition and production interact more as the result of greater hemispheric coordination.