Straight Outta Left Field: Creativity

Learning By Doing

Before we get started, grab something to write with and let's play a game. Here's a brick. Set a timer for 5 minutes and think of as many uses for this brick as possible. This is a safe space, so no bad ideas. Ready? Go wild!

"She's a brick...house." –The Commodores

How many ideas did you generate? Are any of them particularly creative? If so, how did you make that determination? How do you know if something is "creative" or not?

The game you just played is called the unusual uses task in the creativity literature [1]. The experimenter gives the participant a common object (e.g., a brick, paper clip, or knife) and asks the participant to generate as many uses for that object in a constrained amount of time. The experimenter then scores the ideas for their "unusualness." Since this task has been around for a long time, the experimenters have a fairly robust understanding as to what counts as "unusual" [2]. In this context, unusual is synonymous with creative. 

A more formal definition of Creativity has several components. First, for something to be creative, it must be unusual or atypical; however, it can't be so "out there" that it is incoherent, useless, or irrelevant. Second, it is almost always the case that the judgement of a "creative" solution is done by a field of experts in a domain. For example, I might think that using a brick as a door-stop is insanely creative. However, an expert will tell me that my idea has been done so many times before that they have lost count. Thus, for something to be considered "creative" it cannot simply be an incremental change to the status quo. Instead, it must move the field forward.

The Componential Model of Creativity

Now that we have a handle on the definition of creativity, it would be nice to have a model for how people generate creative work. If we had such a model, then we can potentially train people in each of the components so they can become more creative. As it turns out, there are a couple of models of creativity. The next four sections describe the Componential Model of Creativity [3]. It was first introduced by Teresa Amabile, one of the pioneers in the field of creativity research.

Domain-relevant Skills

The first component of the model is the development and acquisition of domain-relevant skills. The general consensus is that it takes 10 years of deliberate practice in a particular domain to become an expert [4]. A precursor for producing truly creative work is a huge warehouse of domain-relevant knowledge, including both declarative and procedural knowledge. To make a creative, novel contribution in a given area, you must first have an expert-level understanding of it.

Creativity-relevant Processes

In addition to an abundance of skills honed over time, the componential model suggests that having a set of creativity-relevant personality characteristics increases one’s capacity to be creative. For example, it helps if the individual can see connections between disparate ideas, sees the value in risk-taking, and does not succumb to authority. The creative individual is also able to fluently generate lots and lots of ideas, while also using her domain knowledge to select ideas that have potential. Finally, creative individuals have a "tolerance for ambiguity" in the sense that they can hold competing thoughts in their mind at the same time [5].

Task Motivation

The creative individual also has task motivation. In other words, a creative person has passion for their work. More specifically, they are intrinsically motivated to work on a challenging project. There seems to be a large amount of variation between individuals in terms of their motivation. For example, I might think that machine learning is the next best thing, but I could care less about the latest fashion trends. In other words, task motivation is largely a fit between the domain and a person’s interests.

The Social Environment

The previous components focus on the internal cognitive and motivation processes that operate within a person. The social environment is an interesting component of the model because it recognizes forces outside the creative individual. As stated in the introduction, a creative work is done within a domain, such as art, science, or engineering, and the field is comprised of other individuals who evaluate the creative output (e.g., art critics, fellow scientists, and other engineers). The social environment can both positively and negatively affect creativity. 

A shining example of an organization that fosters creativity is the design firm IDEO or the animation studio Pixar. Both organizations understand the importance of experimentation. IDEO’s mantra is, “Fail often in order to succeed sooner.”

The perfect example of a soul-crushing organization is Initech. In this fictitious company, the managers care more about enforcing arbitrary rules than letting their employees work on problems that interest them.

The S.T.E.M. Connection

You might be asking yourself, why is it important to study a model of creatively? The short answer is: If you can understand what factors influence creativity, then maybe you can teach people how to become more creative. According to the model, there are several entry points for educational intervention. For example, we know for a fact that we can teach domain-relevant skills. Our educational system is completely built around that goal. 


Teaching creativity-relevant skills could go either way. According to the model, there are some personalities that are more creative (i.e., those who take risks and question authority). We generally think that an individual is born with his or her personality, and it is difficult to change; however, there are strategies that have been developed to help train people to become more fluent in idea generation. If it is possible to teach brainstorming, then at least part of the domain-relevant skills can be taught. 


Task motivation may be a little more difficult to teach. Or it may not be amenable to training at all. Instead, I believe it is more about finding the right fit between the individual and his or her passions. Those who know what they are passionate about are lucky. For those who do not know, they may need extra guidance and other interventions to help them identify what gets them out of bed in the morning. 


Finally, as educators, we can structure the social environment so that it is conducive to creative thinking [6]. For example, we know that rigid deadlines and extrinsic rewards are a motivation killers. We also know that being overly critical, especially early in the creative process, can backfire tremendously. Thus, a creative space is one in which exploration, play, and failure are encouraged, and evaluation is withheld until the later parts of the creative process.


With the componential model of creativity in hand, it is my hope that we can expand each person's creative capacity. Now, if I could just figure out to do with this brick. 


Share and Enjoy!

Dr. Bob

Going Beyond the Information Given

[1] Beaty, R. E., & Silvia, P. J. (2012). Why do ideas get more creative across time? An executive interpretation of the serial order effect in divergent thinking tasks. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 6(4), 309.

[2] Rumor has it that some employers use the unusual uses task to assess the creativity of job applicants. If you aspire to work for one of these companies, it might not be a bad idea to practice thinking of unusual uses for common objects because, as [1] suggests, later ideas are better than earlier ideas. This finding also suggests you can get better at generating novel uses for common objects with practice. 

[3] Amabile, T. (2013) Componential theory of creativity. In E. Kessler (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Management Theory (pp. 135-140). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

[4] Because of the time and energy required, it is an extremely rare individual who can make a creative contribution to more than one domain. They do in fact exist, and they go by the fun name of polymaths. 

[5] Tolerance for ambiguity also goes by the name Janusian Thinking, which I was first introduced to in the article: Rothenberg, A. (1996). The Janusian process in scientific creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 9(2-3), 207-231. Janus is the Roman god who had two faces. One looked toward the past, while the other gazed forward, into the future. 

[6] If design thinking is your jam, then Standard d.school has several materials to get your started, as does IDEO.