Mark A. Runco

Written by one of the leading scholars in the field of creativity, the mission of this book is to provide instructors teaching courses in creativity with a textbook that provides both comprehensive content coverage and state-of-the-art pedagogy. No other text currently provides both of these elements. Key features of this exciting new text include the following. Author Expertise – A past president of Division 10 of the American Psychological Association, Mark Runco founded and still edits the Creativity Research Journal. In addition to teaching courses in creativity for 20 years, he co-edited the Encyclopedia of Creativity, wrote one book on the topic and contributed to several others. Scholarly and Readable – Although the text is based entirely on research, the writing style is informal and laced with interesting examples and biographies to which students can relate. Pedagogy – Each chapter opens with an advance organizer and questions and concludes with a chapter summary. Other pedagogical features include marginal notes to underscore key terms and ideas, illustrative boxes, pictures of creative persons and products, and exercises that require creative thinking.

Written by one of the leading scholars in the field of creativity, the mission of this book is to provide instructors teaching courses in creativity with a textbook that provides both comprehensive content coverage and state-of-the-art pedagogy. No other text currently provides both of these elements. Key features of this exciting new text include the following. Author Expertise – A past president of Division 10 of the American Psychological Association, Mark Runco founded and still edits the Creativity Research Journal. In addition to teaching courses in creativity for 20 years, he co-edited the Encyclopedia of Creativity, wrote one book on the topic and contributed to several others. Scholarly and Readable – Although the text is based entirely on research, the writing style is informal and laced with interesting examples and biographies to which students can relate. Pedagogy – Each chapter opens with an advance organizer and questions and concludes with a chapter summary. Other pedagogical features include marginal notes to underscore key terms and ideas, illustrative boxes, pictures of creative persons and products, and exercises that require creative thinking.

Creativity: Research, Development, and Practice, Third Edition, summarizes the research on the development, expression, and enhancement of creativity. It draws from the full range of disciplines studying creativity, including psychology, business, education, economics, philosophy, neuroscience, and more. This volume includes exploration of research on the nature/nurture debate, what influences creativity, how creativity is related to personality, how social context may affect creativity, mental health, and its relation to creativity, gender differences, and how creativity is related to and differs from, invention, innovation, imagination, and adaptability. The third edition has been thoroughly updated, with a new chapter on psychometrics and substantial updates on the biology and neuroscience of creativity, politics, and creative cognition. It includes quotations, graphics, boxed controversial issues, and biographical examples from unambiguously creative individuals.

An integrative introduction to the theories and themes in research on creativity, the second edition of Creativity is both a reference work and text for courses in this burgeoning area of research. The book begins with a discussion of the theories of creativity (Person, Product, Process, Place), the general question of whether creativity is influenced by nature or nurture, what research has indicated of the personality and style of creative individuals from a personality analysis standpoint, and how social context affects creativity. This wide-ranging work then proceeds to coverage of issues such as gender differences, whether creativity can be enhanced, if creativity is related to poor mental or physical health, and much more. The book contains boxes covering special interest items, including one-page biographies of famous creative individuals, and activities for a group or individual to test or encourage creativity, as well as references to Internet sites relating to creativity.

An integrative introduction to the theories and themes in research on creativity, this book is both a reference work and text for courses in this burgeoning area of research. The book begins with a discussion of the theories of creativity (Person, Product, Process, Place), the general question of whether creativity is influenced by nature or nurture, what research has indicated of the personality and style of creative individuals from a personality analysis standpoint, how social context affects creativity, and then coverage of issues like gender differences, whether creativity can be enhanced, if creativity is related to poor mental or physical health, etc. The book contains boxes covering special interest items including one page biographies of famous creative individuals and activities for a group or individual to test and/or encourage creativity, as well as references to internet sites relating to creativity.

Eminent Creativity, Everyday Creativity, and Health brings together key past and present cutting-edge papers in the hot area of creativity and mental health. Included are major papers that have attracted interest in the international press (including the New York Ties, Japan's Asahi Weekly, and New Scientist in England). Other emphases include creativity and unhappy childhoods, coping with adversity, and immune function and health. Nowhere else is all this material available in one place, together with helpful integration and synthesis. For anyone interested in creativity and health, this book offers a one-stop shopping approach.

Eminent Creativity, Everyday Creativity, and Health brings together key past and present cutting-edge papers in the hot area of creativity and mental health. Included are major papers that have attracted interest in the international press (including the New York Ties, Japan's Asahi Weekly, and New Scientist in England). Other emphases include creativity and unhappy childhoods, coping with adversity, and immune function and health. Nowhere else is all this material available in one place, together with helpful integration and synthesis. For anyone interested in creativity and health, this book offers a one-stop shopping approach.

The authors of this volume attempt to cohere the field of creativity and affect in a scholarly fashion by categorizing and characterizing some of its major features, including environmental influences; underlying processes; specific affective states; the role of atypical or pathological personalities; unconscious processes; physiological components; proactive and reactive stimuli; intrinsic motivation; eminence versus everyday creativity; and testing of assessing the affective component of creativity. The authors also examine and discuss the role that emotions, feelings and moods play in the creative process. This volume also provides a vehicle for students and psychotherapists, with which they can fully appreciate the feelings generated by the creative process and the various stages of it. How does a creator feel during its more mundane phases? Can he or she tolerate the frustration of failing and being unsuccessful most of the time? What is the real joy of achievement, success, and ultimate acceptance by one's peers in a given field? Do we have to exhibit major psychopathological features in order to achieve eminence in specific fields? What is the role of mind altering substances, mood disorders, and the like? This volume answers these questions and more.

Many individuals studying problem solving consider creativity a special type of problem solving. On the other hand, many individuals studying creativity view problem solving as a special type of creative performance. What is truly the role of creativity in problem solving? What is the role of problem solving in creativity? And how are problem solving and creativity related to problem finding? This book addresses these questions, and fills an obvious need for an overview of the research on problem finding.

The authors of this volume attempt to cohere the field of creativity and affect in a scholarly fashion by categorizing and characterizing some of its major features, including environmental influences; underlying processes; specific affective states; the role of atypical or pathological personalities; unconscious processes; physiological components; proactive and reactive stimuli; intrinsic motivation; eminence versus everyday creativity; and testing of assessing the affective component of creativity. The authors also examine and discuss the role that emotions, feelings and moods play in the creative process. This volume also provides a vehicle for students and psychotherapists, with which they can fully appreciate the feelings generated by the creative process and the various stages of it. How does a creator feel during its more mundane phases? Can he or she tolerate the frustration of failing and being unsuccessful most of the time? What is the real joy of achievement, success, and ultimate acceptance by one's peers in a given field? Do we have to exhibit major psychopathological features in order to achieve eminence in specific fields? What is the role of mind altering substances, mood disorders, and the like? This volume answers these questions and more.

Many individuals studying problem solving consider creativity a special type of problem solving. On the other hand, many individuals studying creativity view problem solving as a special type of creative performance. What is truly the role of creativity in problem solving? What is the role of problem solving in creativity? And how are problem solving and creativity related to problem finding? This book addresses these questions, and fills an obvious need for an overview of the research on problem finding.

The research presented in this volume suggests that divergent thinking is an important component of the creative process. Divergent thinking tests are probably the most commonly used measure of children's potential for creative thinking. There are a number of unanswered questions about children's divergent thinking and creativity which are answered throughout the volume and may be identified as themes in the research. The first theme is that the capacity for divergent thinking may not be normally distributed across all levels of ability (a relevant premise is that creative abilities are not evenly distributed across domains of performance and achievement). A second theme is that divergent thinking is influenced by the conditions under which it is assessed. A third theme of the book is methodological; several chapters explore existing evaluations of divergent thinking tests. A final theme is that divergent thinking is important for both basic and applied research. From the perspective of basic research, the divergent thinking model offers an empirically supported view of a cognitive process. From the applied perspective, divergent thinking can be viewed as one component of giftedness and predictive of several expressions of real-world creativity.

The research presented in this volume suggests that divergent thinking is an important component of the creative process. Divergent thinking tests are probably the most commonly used measure of children's potential for creative thinking. There are a number of unanswered questions about children's divergent thinking and creativity which are answered throughout the volume and may be identified as themes in the research. The first theme is that the capacity for divergent thinking may not be normally distributed across all levels of ability (a relevant premise is that creative abilities are not evenly distributed across domains of performance and achievement). A second theme is that divergent thinking is influenced by the conditions under which it is assessed. A third theme of the book is methodological; several chapters explore existing evaluations of divergent thinking tests. A final theme is that divergent thinking is important for both basic and applied research. From the perspective of basic research, the divergent thinking model offers an empirically supported view of a cognitive process. From the applied perspective, divergent thinking can be viewed as one component of giftedness and predictive of several expressions of real-world creativity.