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The Nature of Creative Development

Stanford University Press

Contents

Preface.....................................................................................................................................................................ixAcknowledgments.............................................................................................................................................................xiv1 Introduction..............................................................................................................................................................12 Creative Interests and Conceptions of Creative Interests..................................................................................................................363 The Development of Creative Interests.....................................................................................................................................624 Intrinsic Sources of Interest.............................................................................................................................................1075 Extrinsic and Strategic Factors in the Development of Creative Interests..................................................................................................1346 Kinds of Creative Interests...............................................................................................................................................1607 The Distinctiveness and Breadth of Creative Interests.....................................................................................................................1828 Resonances and Connections................................................................................................................................................2249 Creative Responses........................................................................................................................................................24810 Exploration of Creative Interests and Creativity Generation; Creative Expertise..........................................................................................29311 The Role of Conceptions of Creative Interests and Associated Values and Principles in Guidance; Management of Creative Development at the Meta-Level.....................35312 Creativity in Projects...................................................................................................................................................38813 Multiple Interests.......................................................................................................................................................42514 Patterns of Creative Development: Patterns of Projects; Projects and Interests...........................................................................................44415 Patterns of Creative Development: Evolution of Interests and Sequences of Interests......................................................................................46316 Difficulties in Creative Development.....................................................................................................................................50517 Creative Development and Linkages of Cultural Transmission: Modeling Cultural Development................................................................................52218 Epilogue: Modeling Individuals in Social Systems.........................................................................................................................543Appendix....................................................................................................................................................................549Bibliography................................................................................................................................................................561Index.......................................................................................................................................................................562

Chapter One

In this book I describe the nature of creative development of individuals engaged in creative endeavors. I define creative development to be the process of development and creative activities of an individual engaged in a creative endeavor, extending over a period of time, usually several years or longer. Creative development encompasses processes, experiences, and structures that lay the foundation for creativity, as well as the generation of creativity in its myriad forms — including ideas, insights, and discoveries, and the engagement in creative projects, leading to creative contributions.

The organizing principle and central theme of this book is that the creative development of an individual engaged in creative endeavors, across a wide range of fields, has a basic structure, which centers on, is based in, and grows out of his creative interests. More specifically, as I describe it, an individual's creative development is based in, centers on, and grows out of his creative interests, his conceptions of his creative interests, and conceptual structures he builds up in the domains of his interests which guide him in his development, are generative of his creativity, and are the basis for his creative projects, thus a fundamental source and basis of his creative contributions to society. Creative interests, as I describe them, are distinctive domains or topics that individuals define for themselves.

I describe and characterize creative interests and conceptions of creative interests; describe the formation of creative interests; and describe fundamental processes through which individuals develop their interests creatively — processes through which their interests and the conceptual structures they build up in the domains of their interests are generative of their creativity and creative projects, including ways in which they are guided in their development by their conceptions of their interests and associated principles and values. Then I extend my description, describing project work, multiple interests as the basis for creativity, patterns of projects rooted in interests, and longer term processes of creative development, including the evolution of creative interests and conceptions of interests, and sequences of interests. Finally, I discuss difficulties of creative development, and the implications of my description for understanding and modeling cultural development.

Woven through my description I present many examples describing the creative developments of individuals whose developments I have analyzed, illustrating the description and providing evidence in support of it. These include individuals famous for their creative contributions whose creative developments I have analyzed drawing upon biographical and primary sources, including Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, Charles Darwin, Alexander Calder, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Hannah Arendt, Hans Krebs, Galileo, William Faulkner, Ray Kroc, Tim Berners-Lee, Piet Mondrian, Pierre Omidyar, and others; and individuals drawn from several fields, mainly academic but not only so, whom I interviewed about their development, and for whom I also obtained and have drawn upon source materials. In the examples I describe individuals' creative interests and their conceptions of their interests, as they described them or I reconstruct them, and how their interests, conceptions of interests, and...