Creativity is a Decision
Robert Sternberg Ph.D. was the latest speaker for Texas A&M’s University Distinguished Lecture Series. Below is a summary of Sternberg’s lecture.
The title of his talk was “Creativity is a Decision: Keys to Developing Creativity in Children and Adults,” and as he mentioned immediately, the main message of the presentation was that being more creative is a decision a person can make at any time in their life. However, just deciding to make a macro decision to be creative would be very difficult, so Dr. Sternberg included a set of micro decisions to help (see all 14 after the break).
Before he did that though he defined creativity using the standard definition, which is that it involves novel solution(s) to problems that are also useful/practical (note: novelty and usefulness are orthogonal).
He also impressed on us that there were definite costs to lack of creativity. For example, in a free-market companies survive through creativity (innovation).
Dr. Sternberg is currently Dean of Arts and Sciences at Tufts University. In his position he is involved in the admissions process. He described one particular project, the Kaleidoscope Project, that they have included in the application process. In addition to standardized test scores, applicants complete essays that “synthesize measures of wisdom, intelligence (academic/analytical and practical), and creativity into the admissions committee’s decision-making process” (link). The program has been a success, it better predicts students’ first year GPAs, leadership, and community involvement. What a nice way to address the old issue of GPA and standardized tests scores not be correlated with college success.
Variety Psychology 