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30 - Creativity’s Role in Everyday Life

from Collaborative Creativity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2019

James C. Kaufman
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
Robert J. Sternberg
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
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Summary

The growing field of scholarship on “everyday creativity” sorts into two strands: (1) studies of “little-c” and “mini-c” creativity – the many products and ideas people create in their everyday lives and (2) studies of the natural ecology of creativity – how creative products, both eminent and humble, come about in their creators’ natural environments. This chapter considers these strands of work in light of the growth of interest in ecological assessment methods, which allow researchers to examine the creative process as it occurs naturally in people’s everyday environments. We review ecological momentary assessment techniques (e.g., daily diary and experience sampling approaches) and describe several illustrative lines of research that examine what creativity looks like in everyday life. New developments in ecological methods allow creativity researchers to ask nuanced questions about people’s everyday creative pursuits and to capture how real-world creativity is idiosyncratic, variable, and situated.
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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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