Robert Keith Sawyer

Creativity is part of what makes us human. Perhaps for the first time, we hold in our grasp the potential to explain creativity.

The Science of Human Innovation

Explaining Creativity

First Published in 1997. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Conversation in the Preschool Classroom

Pretend Play as Improvisation

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Howard Gardner

Robert J. Sternberg

Vera John-Steiner

Jeanne Nakamura

David Henry Feldman

Seana Moran

What is creativity, and where does it come from? Creativity and Development explores the fascinating connections and tensions between creativity research and developmental psychology, two fields that have largely progressed independently of each other until now. In this book, scholars influential in both fields explore the emergence of new ideas, and the development of the people and situations that bring them to fruition. The uniquely collaborative nature of Oxford's Counterpoints series allows them to engage in a dialogue, addressing the key issues and potential benefits of exploring the connections between creativity and development. Creativity and Development is based on the observation that both creativity and development are processes that occur in complex systems, in which later stages or changes emerge from the prior state of the system. In the 1970s and 1980s, creativity researchers shifted their focus from personality traits to cognitive and social processes, and the co-authors of this volume are some of the most influential figures in this shift. The central focus on system processes results in three related volume themes: how the outcomes of creativity and development emerge from dynamical processes, the interrelation between individual processes and social processes, and the role of mediating artefacts and domains in developmental and creative processes. The chapters touch on a wide range of important topics, with the authors drawing on their decades of research into creativity and development. Readers will learn about the creativity of children's play, the creative aspects of children's thinking, the creative processes of scientists, the role of education and teaching in creative development, and the role of multiple intelligences in both creativity and development. The final chapter is an important dialogue between the authors, who engage in a roundtable discussion and explore key questions facing contemporary researchers, such as: Does society suppress children's creativity? Are creativity and development specific to an intelligence or a domain? What role do social and cultural contexts play in creativity and development? Creativity and Development presents a powerful argument that both creativity scholars and developmental psychologists will benefit by becoming more familiar with each other's work.

Creativity and Development

This book is for readers interested in the latest research on creativity in performance. The chapters cover an impressive interdisciplinary scope, and include studies of jazz, African dancing, improvisational theater, situation comedies, children's puppet plays, and Nepalese drumming. Each chapter speaks to broader themes that will be of interest to students and researchers in psychology, anthropology, communication, musicology, and performance studies.

Robert Keith Sawyer

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