The following quotations are from R. Keith Sawyer's Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation (2006:18-27):
Myth: Creativity Comes from the Unconscious
“...scientists have discovered that creativity is mostly conscious, hard work . . . Rather, in both the sciences and the arts, the most creative innovators also tend to be the most productive.”
“Creativity can be explained without invoking an unconscious muse. Rather than a mysterious unconscious force, the explanation of creativity lies in hard work and everyday mental processes.”
Myth: Children Are More Creative Than Adults
“This myth originated in the 19th century Romantic-era belief that children are more pure, closer to nature, and that society gradually corrupts them as they grow to learn its customs and ways.”
Myth: Creativity Represents the Inner Spirit of the Individual
“Contemporary artists who simply paint or sculpt because they enjoy the process, or artists who just paint images that look cool to them, nonetheless have to come up with a message-oriented explanation to satisfy the market’s demand for an artist’s statement.”
“We now know that you can’t explain creativity as the expression of a person’s inner spirit. Scientists have discovered that explaining creativity requires us to know a lot about the cultures, society, and historical period.”
Myth: Creativity Is a Form of Therapeutic Self-Discovery
“...researchers have discovered that engaging in creativity is one of the peak experiences in a person’s life . . . Some activities that we call creative are indeed therapeutic . . . therapy is not all there is to creativity; we need to go beyond this myth to explain creativity.”
Myth: Creativity Is Spontaneous Inspiration
“The scientific explanation of creativity shows us that formal training and conscious deliberation are essential to creativity. . .”
Myth: Many Creative Works Go Unrecognised in Their Own Time and Are Only Discovered Decades Later
“There are remarkably few examples of works that were ignored during their creator’s lifetime that are now thought to be works of genius.”
Myth: Everyone Is Creative
“The American ideology of democracy is the deep-rooted belief that everyone is equal . . . This ideology leads us to fear making value-laden distinctions, so we tend to believe that everyone is creative . . .”
“...creative works are evaluated . . . fields decide which works are more creative...”
Myth: Creativity Is the Same Thing as Originality
“In the United States, we tend to equate creativity with novelty and originality. But the high value that we place on novelty is not shared universally in all cultures . . . In most cultures, rituals forbid improvisation.”
“There is no such thing as a completely novel work.”
Myth: Fine Art Is More Creative Than Craft
“Our culture is biased toward the fine arts—those creative products that have no function other than pleasure. Craft objects are less worthy; because they serve an everyday function, they’re not purely creative. But this division is culturally and historically relative. Most contemporary high art began as some sort of craft . . .”
“The shift from craft to art happens over and over through history. It’s always a social process, not a result of individual talent alone.”
