Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Talented Teenagers is a fascinating and absorbing examination of what makes adolescents tick: what roles personality traits, family interactions, education, and the social environment play in a young person's motivation to develop his or her talent. Vivid descriptions in the students' own words bring the material to life. Parents, teachers, psychologists, and counselors will find in these pages concrete information abou the conditions that foster the cultivation of mental abilities in adolescence, for both the gifted and the average student.

In this volume three of the key figures in the field set out to establish some parameters for the study of creativity. After examining the earlier works on the subject, they present their current research findings, and then attempt to project where the field is likely to go in the decade ahead. Gardner, the proponent of biological aspects of creativity, ranges widely as he examines Freud's Vienna and the features of medicine that both constrained and challenged his revolutionary idea. Csikszentmihalyi, with his exploration of genes and memes, examines individual issues as well as broader contextual concerns. Feldman concentrates on the notions of coincidence and the transformational imperative. These essays point to the rejuvenation of the field of creativity research, and suggest where the field is likely to move in the future. This work is a major synthesis of value to advanced researchers as well as students and all those concerned with creativity.

In this volume three of the key figures in the field set out to establish some parameters for the study of creativity. After examining the earlier works on the subject, they present their current research findings, and then attempt to project where the field is likely to go in the decade ahead. Gardner, the proponent of biological aspects of creativity, ranges widely as he examines Freud's Vienna and the features of medicine that both constrained and challenged his revolutionary idea. Csikszentmihalyi, with his exploration of genes and memes, examines individual issues as well as broader contextual concerns. Feldman concentrates on the notions of coincidence and the transformational imperative. These essays point to the rejuvenation of the field of creativity research, and suggest where the field is likely to move in the future. This work is a major synthesis of value to advanced researchers as well as students and all those concerned with creativity.

To find out what teenagers lives are like, two psychologists gave beepers to seventy-five adolescents, signaled them at random, and asked them to record their thoughts and feelings as they sat in classrooms, socialized with friends, and ate dinner with their families. The result is a unique and detailed portrait of the day-to-day world of the average American teenager that offers valuable new insights for parents, psychologists, and educators.

This is a study of the significance of material possessions in contemporary urban life, and of the ways people carve meaning out of their domestic environment. Using theories of the relationship between people and things as a base, the authors compare and contrast four case studies.