The Springs of Creativity by

The purpose of this study is to describe conditions conducive to the cultivation of creativity.
Please refer to the Bibliography for the authors/experts quoted.

Kilby states that creativity is "tied closely to the whole nature of man." Anderson recognizes creativity as "a characteristic of development" and that creativity therefore is in everyone.

A teacher may then ask, if creativity is inherent, why then be concerned with its development? Won't it develop naturally? Unfortunately the answer is no. As Torrance states, creative behavior is not likely to flourish in an environment which is hostile or indifferent to creative achievement. His studies further reveal that ''. . .pupils of teachers with high creative motivations made greater gains in their growth than those ... whose teachers had weak creative motivations." The attitude of the teacher concerning the value of creativity is of extreme importance in the cultivation of creativity. Taylor refers to the experience as that "which quickens the human consciousness to a greater sensitivity of feeling and a higher level of discrimination among ideas and emotion." Kubie's comparison between preconscious root of intuitive thinking and conscious level as a relatively slow vehicle of mentation where on the preconscious level of dealing with ideas and realities, there a "swift condensations of their multiple allegorical and emotional import."

The teacher of creativity must accept a different approach to teaching than has been the practice. Learning through the workings of the subconscious and intuition are now recognized as a valid approach. In discussing the creative arts, Taylor refers to the experience, as one "which quickens the human consciousness to a greater sensitivity of feelings and a higher level of discrimination among ideas and emotions." Professor Ullch warns, "If our colleges and universities forget about this Intuitive center of the human mind, their instruction however accurate and diligent, .may bury creativeness.

The general social conditions for the cultivation of creativity'' are those attitudes which encourage self-respect, self-confidence, self-reliance, and self-motivation. A situation in which the individual can learn to know himself deeply and accept his person. The atmosphere must be one which encourages individuals to search through new realms of experience" and not through "extrapolation of the present."
The atmosphere must be one that encourages in allowing the different to blossom into maturity rather than pulling it quickly out by the roots because it varies from the accepted and safe. Fromm viewed society's fear of the different as a threat to supposed equality, expressing further "I am sure that if this point of view is overcome, if sameness is replaced again by equality, individual worth, "can creativity develop."

The general environmental conditions should be stimulating, peaceful, and cooperative. A stimulating environment would be one that presents challenges and recognizes that differences do not necessarily lead to conflict, but can lead rather to growth. As Fingarette point out, even such inner conflicts as estrangement from environment or depersonalization are positive because it is a "feeling that something is absent," thus presenting a challenge. "Tension is maintained raft than reduced.

"When a teacher, parent, therapist, or other facilitating permits the individual a complete freedom of symbolic expression, civility is fostered." Thus Rogers stresses a need for environmental freedom of expression. The individual must feel free and secure in expressing so that he will "Do something, even if it is wrong."
It is only through risk-taking and variation that growth can occur.

The Individual needs to be at peace and not defensive or uncooperative. It is this state which facilitates an openness to all experience and the individuals "behavior will be creative," and flexible. Anderson believes that defense mechanisms are only called into play when the environment has interfered with positive creative growth processes.

The internal (below consciousness) conditions which are appear to be needed to the cultivation of creativity are a purpose, goal or idea, and a longing for self-knowledge and personality integration. The purpose or must be one of intense passion, rising to the state of being a need Novelist priestly recognized this. When asked how he had achieved superior ability above contemporary writers of an ability apparently equal to his own, he answered,

"Whatever difference there was, lay simply in the fact that at the heart they didn't care much about being out-going and creative. They merely toyed with the fascinating idea of writing, I care like blazes. The very passion of the heart, gentlemen, draws power."

The intensity of purpose is not sufficient however, there must be an intellectual clarity concerning the means for fulfilling the goal. Kopf states that by de-emotionalizing intellectuality . . we suffocate creativity. It appears that there must be a purposeful balanced combination of intellect and emotion. Concerning the purpose Shahn says with "certainty that the form which does emerge cannot be greater than the content which went into it."

It seems to imply that the content (purpose or goal) must be one of a higher order. Dow refers to these goals as Truth and Principle.

" If we are going to grow into the creative people we must become in order to maintain our standard of living, we must actively express our beliefs in truth and principle."

The striving for self-knowledge and personality integration believed by many psychologists as a healthy inherent need, usually referred to as self-actualizing. It is in the act of self-actualizing ths man strives to bring order where there is disorder and find meaning where there is none. W. H. Auden recognized the inner nature: "Disorder, lack of meaning are spiritual, not physical discomforts; order and sense are spiritual and not physical satisfactions. This search inner satisfaction leads man into creative activity. Rank prophesied that when men give up artistic expression in favor of the formation of personality, they would enjoy a greater happiness. ) The reasoning seems to suggest that man will then be satisfying the need for self-actualization directly.

The conditions or mental attitudes which foster self-actualization are "faith in the wonderful potentialities of the individual human being courage and self-acceptance. It is thus that the individual can fulfill what Rogers believes to be the most fundamental condition of creativity, "that the source or locus of evaluative judgment is internal." The individual must emotionally believe that man has unlimited potential. As Coleridge wrote in 1801 . . "deep thinking is attainable only by a man of deep feeling. . ."

Getzel and Jackson In their study of gifted adolescents found a correlation with those creatively oriented in thinking and high morals in contrast to those with an intellectual approach in problem solving, and their preference for immediate social adjustment regardless of their concepts of right and wrong." It would seem from these n that the creative adolescent is indeed determining his own behavior on his own evaluation of right and wrong. He is the "outsider" but is morally true to himself, allying himself with his highest ideals himself and mankind.

The approaches of the mind are a relaxed concentration, quiet contemplation, inquiring nature, flexibility, and aesthetic appreciation. The concept of relaxed concentration is a difficult one for the western mind.

As Rugg explains:

"The truly quiet mind is passive, but only in an active sense." Relaxation is not merely "letting go.'' It is relaxation with control that we seek. It is truly "dynamic" and purposive, marked by an intense condition of peace through designed tension; its "repose is the result of stress."

In summarizing methods for enhancing functional intelligence, Murphy listed the necessity for quiet contemplation as his third condition. He explains that:..

"by the art of withdraw from the pressures of immediate external tasks in order to let the mind work at its own pace and in its own congenial way. We have already stepped over the threshold into the room where creativeness lives. unknown, the mysterious, the puzzling that they were often' positively attracted by it." The cultivation of curiosity. Murphy supports as his second condition for enhancing functional intelligence.

In his study of creative adults, Maslow found an inquiring mind, characteristic of these individuals. He found them "unfrightened by the unknown, the mysterious, the puzzling." The cultivation of curiosity, Murphy supports as his second condition for enhancing functional intelligence.

The quality of flexibility seems to be generally accepted as one of the most important intellectual approaches for the developer of creativity. Without the open, receptive mind, new concepts and find no resting place. Hilgard believes ''We lose flexibility because we have a course of action that is plausible, and no longer look around." ' Shahn discloses this also in his suggestion to the artist that "he must never fail to be involved in the pleasures and the desperations of mankind, for in them lies the very source of feeling upon which the work of art is registered.

Gough's studies of the personality and motivational factors that predispose to originality resulted in a list of five factors which lead to aesthetic sensitivity. The importance of the fulfillment of the need reach for and be sensitive to beauty, Stoddard believes of extreme importance for: In the long run, whatever man accomplishes along enduring lines, will be a by-product of his devotion to the beautiful.''

In summation: the conditions which are conducive to the cultivation of creativity are:

1. A sympathetic teacher is important. She must be interest in creativity and allow it freedom of expression. She must recognize creativity flows from an intuitive source and not hinder its natural development.

2. The general social attitudes of a society needed are those which encourage self-respect, self-confidence, self-reliance and self-motivation. These attitudes develop through respect and appreciative acceptance of differences.

3. The immediate environmental conditions are those which allow freedom to explore and question accepted standards, conditions which are stimulating, accepting tension as positive in that it presents a challenge for eliciting a response, and peaceful cooperation.

4. Needed on the internal subconscious level, conditions which promote an intense desire for a goal of high value, a striving for self-knowledge, and self-integration. The drive is subconscious but it is put into action through the judgment of the Intellect, and outward activity.

5. The mental attitudes or mental conditions are courage and faith in man, that he can and will reach a higher level of understand and behavior. The mental approaches require a relaxed concentration, periods of quiet contemplation, inquiring nature, flexibility, and aesthetic appreciation.

It would seem that Western man must, in order to harness his inborn creativity, learn to turn deeply within for sources of creative sparks, rather than to turn solely to the external conscious world. He must be willing to stand courageously with and encourage inner responses and convictions, striving always upward in ideals and ideas.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allport, Gordon W. Becoming. New Haven: Sale University-Press, 1963. 106 pp.

Anderson, Harold H. Creativity and Its Cultivation. Interdisciplinary Symposia on Creativity.
New York: Harper & Row, 1959. 293 pp.

Garter, Mary Ellen. Creative Man. Virginia; A.R.E. Pre 1964. 6l pp.

Fingarette, Herbert. The Self in Transformation . New York Basic Books, 1963. 356 pp.

Getzels, Jacob W. and Philip W. Jackson. Creativity and Intelligence. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1962, 293 pp.

Kilby, Clyde S. Christianity and Aesthetics, Chicago; Inter-Varsity Press 1961, 43 pp.

Kubie, Lawrence S. Neurotic Distortion of the Creative Process. Kansas: Noonday Press, 1965 152 pp.

Large, John Ellis. God Is Able. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1963. l72 pp.

Murphy, Gardner. Human Potentialities. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1958. 340 pp.

Stein, Morris I. and Shirley J. Heinze. Creativity and the Individual. Illinois: Free Press, 1960. 428 pp.

Shahn, Ben. The Shape of Content. New York: Vintage Books 1957. 151 pp.

Rugg, Harold. Imagination. New York: Harper & Row, 1963. 36l pp.

Harold Taylor, Art and the Intellect. Lecture sponsored by B. de Rothschild Foundation for the Arts and Sciences, New York: Museum of Modern Art, I960. 60 pp.

Torrance, E. Paul. Rewarding Creative Behavior. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1965. 353 pp.

Westman, H. The Springs of Creativity. New York: Atheneum, 1961. 269 pp.