Paradigms in the study of creativity: introducing the perspective of cultural psychology

This article identifies three paradigms in creativity theory and research in psychology. The He-paradigm, focused on the solitary genius, has been followed, mainly after the 1950s, by the I-paradigm, equally individualistic in nature but attributing creativity to each and every individual. Extending this view, the We-paradigm incorporates what became known as the social psychology of creativity. The cultural psychology of creativity builds upon this last theoretical approach while being critical of some of its assumptions. This relatively new perspective, using the conceptual and methodological framework of cultural psychology, investigates the sociocultural roots and dynamics of all our creative acts and employs a tetradic framework of self – community – new artifact – existing artifacts in its conceptualization of creativity. The theoretical basis of the cultural psychology approach is analyzed as well as some of its main implications for both the understanding and study of creativity

Are people working together inclined towards practicality? A process analysis of creative ideation in individuals and dyads

Building on a sociocultural approach to creativity, the aim of this article is to examine the creative process in individuals and dyads in relation to the originality and practicality of their ideas and its temporal dynamic. The study reported here used two divergent thinking tasks and randomly allocated 39 participants between an individual condition (13 people) and a social one (13 dyads). The analysis was done in several steps, from a more traditional aggregate-based study of the number and quality of ideas to more complex, process-based comparisons of temporal order and participant interaction. We found that, while outcome-based comparisons showed little differences between the two conditions or placed individuals ahead of dyads – an expected finding for this type of research – temporal series and especially the study of how dyads members respond to creative ideas suggested that people working together might prefer practical ideas. This preliminary evidence of a possible ‘practicality effect’, we speculate, has something to do with the fact that practical ideas are easier to communicate and validate when collaborating. As such, creativity is not necessarily hindered by working with other people but takes on a different orientation (i.e., towards the feasible). Reflections on the importance of this dimension for theory and practice are offered

Creativity and culture: towards a cultural psychology of creativity in folk art

The present thesis aims to explore creativity as representation, action and cultural participation in the context of a traditional folk art. It develops a cultural psychological approach to the phenomenon, one that considers creativity situated between creators, creations, audiences, and a complex background of norms and beliefs. A tetradic framework is thus formulated trying to capture the dynamic between self and other, “new” and “old” in creative production and in particular their inter-relation through processes of integration, externalisation, internalisation and social interaction. This model guided the research design, starting from the three main questions of the thesis: how people attribute creative value to the craft, what makes the activity of decoration creative and how children’s engagement with this practice develops during ontogenesis. The folk art chosen for this study is Easter egg decoration in two socio-cultural milieus in Romania, the urban setting of Bucharest and the village of Ciocăneşti. This craft was selected for its rich symbolism and polyphony of practices that situate it at the intersection between folklore, religion, art and a growing market. In this context, the first research included in the thesis investigates patterns of creativity evaluation in the case of ethnographers, priests, art teachers and folk artists and highlights their relation to the practices and beliefs particular for each of these groups. The second study uses a pragmatist-inspired model to analyse creative action in the case of decorators from the urban and rural setting and outlines the general stages and micro-genetic aspects of creativity specific for both contexts. Finally, the last piece of research considers creativity development in the two settings above as shaped by different practices of socialisation and enculturation. In the end, reflections are offered on the general conception of egg decoration as mastery in ways that bring to the fore the interdependence between tradition and creativity and suggest the existence of habitual forms of creative expression

Image analysis: an interactive approach to compositional elements

This article proposes an interactive approach to the analysis of compositional elements of still visuals. This approach stems from the argument that the rhetorical efficiency of images is related less to their content per se than to how this content is displayed and organised. As such, we start from the premise that images are "active," performing the visual equivalent of speech-acts (i.e., "image-acts") through which they construct the world and its impact upon their viewers. In their turn, the audiences of an image participate in interpreting its meaning and responding to its particular "action." This leads us to formulate a method based on the active engagement of researchers with the image at hand. We suggest a classification of compositional elements and identify ways in which such elements can be analyzed and interpreted, thus casting light on the range of rhetorical and ideological effects that images so often achieve

Boredom, Messianism, and Primordial Broth

The paper presented is a commentary on Prof. Vlad P. Glăveanu's paper published in the previous volume of the journal. In reaction to his inspiring and valuable text, while confirming the vast majority of his detailed observations, I have articulated a different opinion about its main conclusion: the presence of a crisis in the domain of the psychology of creativity. In my opinion such a crisis does not exist. On the contrary: intense, though rather unsystematic, development may be observed within the discipline. This standpoint is explained in detail in my [email protected] of Warsaw, Poland1224024

Societal challenges and big qualitative data require a new era of methodological pragmatism

The qualitative-quantitative debate, that has been a defining feature of social scientific research, has become a hinderance. Alex Gillespie, Vlad Glăveanu, and Constance de Saint-Laurent argue, in their new book ‘Pragmatism and Methodology’ (open access), that addressing our contemporary challenges requires seizing the opportunities of big qualitative data with methodological pragmatism

Pragmatism and methodology: doing research that matters with mixed methods

DescriptionContentsResourcesCoursesAbout the Authors Taking a pragmatist approach to methods and methodology that fosters meaningful, impactful, and ethical research, this book rises to the challenge of today's data revolution. It shows how pragmatism can turn challenges, such as the abundance and accumulation of big qualitative data, into opportunities. The authors summarize the pragmatist approach to different aspects of research, from epistemology, theory, and questions to ethics, as well as data collection and analysis. The chapters outline and document a new type of mixed methods design called 'multi-resolution research,” which serves to overcome old divides between quantitative and qualitative methods. It is the ideal resource for students and researchers within the social and behavioural sciences seeking new ways to analyze large sets of qualitative data. This book is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core

Internet Memes as Partial Stories: Identifying Political Narratives in Coronavirus Memes

This article advances a narrative approach to internet memes conceptualized as partial stories that reflect, capture, and contribute to wider storylines. One key difficulty in studying memes as stories rests in the fact that narrative analysis often focuses on plot at the expense of roles and characters. Building on narrative psychology and, in particular, transactional and linguistic types of analysis, we propose a typology of character roles—Persecutor, Victim, Hero, and Fool—that is useful to uncover scenarios within memes and, thus, reveal their intrinsic narrative structure. We apply this framework to the analysis of political narratives embedded within 241 coronavirus memes systematically sampled from Reddit's r/CoronavirusMemes between January and May 2020. Five main scenarios or storylines emerged from this analysis, the first four depicting a more or less common narrative of protest against the incompetence and/or malevolence of the political class—from Donald Trump and the Republicans in the United States to Boris Johnson and the Conservatives in the United Kingdom and, finally, to politicians in Asia such as Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un—while the fifth scenario brought to the fore social categories made salient by the pandemic and focused especially on the relation between people who respect and don't respect measures. The psychological, social, and political implications of these scenarios in relation to the pandemic are discussed, as well as the broader consequences of studying memes as narrative structures