Most investigations of creativity tend to take one of two directions: everyday creativity (also called "little-c"), which can be found in nearly all people, and eminent creativity (also called "Big-C"), which is reserved for the great. In this paper, the authors propose a Four C model of creativity that expands this dichotomy. Specifically, the authors add the idea of "mini-c," creativity inherent in the learning process, and Pro-c, the developmental and effortful progression beyond little-c that represents professional-level expertise in any creative area. The authors include different transitions and gradations of these four dimensions of creativity, and then discuss advantages and examples of the Four C Model.
Research on gender differences in creativity, including creativity test scores, creative achievements, and self-reported creativity is reviewed, as are theories that have been offered to explain such differences and available evidence that supports or refutes such theories. This is a difficult arena in which to conduct research, but there is a consistent lack of gender differences both in creativity test scores and in the creative accomplishments of boys and girls (which if anything tend to favor girls). As a result, it is difficult to show how innate gender differences in creativity could possibly explain later differences in creative accomplishment. At the same time, the large difference in the creative achievement of men and women in many fields make blanket environmental explanations inadequate, and the explanations that have been proposed thus far are at best incomplete. A new theoretical framework (the APT model of creativity) is proposed to allow better understanding of what is known about gender differences in creativity.
If one takes a domain-specific approach to studying creativity, 1 key question is to determine the most important domains to measure. One approach is to look at common perceptions of creativity. Building on past studies that used self-report questionnaires, this study presents a new instrument, the Kaufman Domains of Creativity Scale. A factor analysis of 2,318 college student responses led to 50 items and 5 broad domains: Self/Everyday, Scholarly, Performance (encompassing writing and music). Mechanical/ Scientific, and Artistic. Coefficient alphas and coefficients of congruence were generally strong. Correlations between the 5 creativity domains and the Big Five personality factors were consistent with past research, lending evidence of convergent validity.
This article reviews recent developments in the assessment of creativity using self-report scales. We focus on four new and promising scales: the Creative Achievement Questionnaire, the Biographical Inventory of Creative Behaviors, the revised Creative Behavior Inventory, and the Creative Domain Questionnaire. For each scale, we review evidence for reliability, validity, and structure, and we discuss important methodological features for users to consider. We then present new analyses of each scale based on a large, diverse sample. We evaluate each scale's item-level and scale-level psychometric features, using both classical test theory and item response theory, and we examine how the scales converge. All four scales performed well and covaried highly with each other. Based on the latest generation of tools, self-report creativity assessment is probably much better than creativity researchers think it is.
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