The Meaning and Measurement of Creativity

Abstract

Creativity researchers are often accused of not knowing what they are talking about. The definition and assessment of creativity have long been a subject of disagreement and dissatisfaction among psychologists, creating a criterion problem that researchers have tried to solve in a variety of ways. Some have proposed that creativity can be identified with particular, specifiable features of products or persons or thought processes. Others have suggested that creativity be defined by the quality of the response that a product elicits from an observer. And there are those who suggest that creativity cannot be defined— that it is unknown and unknowable. I will argue in this chapter that, in different ways, each of these approaches can be useful for solving the criterion problem in creativity research.