I maintain that there is a desperate social need for the creative behavior of creative people. ~ Carl Rogers (1954).
In my teaching of the psychology of creativity, I stress two forces that stand between us and a fuller realization of our creative potential. One force is fear and the other is habit. The two share a common deference to social opinion. Creativity
demands bold action under uncertainty. There is no guarantee of
success. Others may not like what we do when we experiment with
divergent behavior. By and large, others prefer us to be predictable
because it is convenient to them. To some extent, it is also good for us
to be predictable, because we too benefit from mutual trust and
efficient interaction. Creative behavior disrupts all that because it
involves exploration and experimentation with options of unknown value.
There may be profits waiting for us at the end of the road, but we (and
our others) can’t be sure. This triggers anxiety and reinforces the retreat into the safe haven of habit.
I was recently reminded of the play-it-safe heuristic
when preparing for a workshop on creativity. The organizers prepared a
flyer to announce the event and they included a photo that I had sent
them upon request. The photo showed me in profile, enjoying a Chilean
sugary treat (a “churro”) while holding it as if it were a cigar. In the
editing stage, the organizers asked me to consider “a less informal”
photo because the audience might prefer that. The audience was to
consist mainly of the parents
of young children, and what kind of message would we be sending? Fair
enough, I thought, and sent a conventional photo, so conventional in
fact, that it was taken by the widow of the Ex-Governor of the State of
Rhode Island, a lady who runs a successful photography business in the
neighborhood. She took that photo a few years ago when I co-authored a
paper published in the American Psychologist, a journal that
routinely includes authors’ photos. This indeed is the definition of
conventional. The point is that this mini-episode catches the two
creativity-limiting forces in the act. The event organizers are worried
about (afraid of) the audience and I am worried about (afraid of) the
organizer (and perhaps the audience too). We all retreat to the haven of
habit and the audience will never know that they missed a cool picture
and story – unless I use this story in the workshop, which I probably
will.
This anecdote may serve as a prolegomenon to a brief review of
Rogers’s (1954) theory of creativity. The words of Carl Rogers (“I
maintain”) ring true today. Our creative potentials are not realized,
and that is to our personal and society’s detriment. What to do? Rogers,
it may be recalled, was a pioneer in clinical and counseling
psychology. He developed the theory and practice of client-centered therapy (and social intercourse in general). This is the lens through which he viewed the problem of stunted creativity.
Rogers’s (1954) begins by asserting – rightly so, I believe – that
American culture, in spite of its ideological celebration of
individualism, is highly conformist. “In the clothes we wear, the food
we eat, the books we read [or our not reading at all], and the ideas we
hold, there is a strong tendency toward conformity,
toward stereotypy” (p. 249). Creativity is one – perhaps the – way to
break out of this group mindset. Rogers suggests that the creative
process has three elements: [1] It must produce an observable result,
which “must be acceptable to some group at some point in time” (p. 250).
This point seems self-evident to Rogers because he does not defend it.
Yet, as will become evident in a moment, this point actually conflicts
with other axioms of Rogers’s theory. [2] The product has to be novel
and “this novelty grows out of the unique qualities of the individual in
his interaction with the materials of experience” (p. 250). The element
of novelty is standard in definitions of creativity. The unique linkage
of the person is inspiring, though difficult to test. [3] “There is no
fundamental difference in the creative process” (p. 250) across
different fields of activity. There is only one general psychology.
The core of Rogers’s argument concerns the question of why humans
would want to be creative in the first place. After Rogers’s initial
diagnosis that people need to be creative to keep up in a fast-changing
world, he adds that they also want to be creative because creativity is
the way to realize their potential. Man wants to “become his
potentialities” (p. 251). So why doesn’t he? Rogers submits that “the
tendency to express and activate all the capacities of the organism [. .
.] may become deeply buried under layer after layer of encrusted
psychological defenses” (p. 251), which is his way of saying that fear
and habit stand in the way. Rogers is careful to point out that lack of
creativity is not necessarily a sign of psychopathology but that it can
result from rational caution. Although society needs novelty for its own
evolution, most individual proposals for creative change are resisted,
at least at first.
What then is the incentive to engage in creative activity? Rogers,
now generalizing full throttle from his clinical practice, suggests that
all people have the capacity to drop their defenses and be open to
their own organismic processes. When they are, ideas flow freely,
germinate, and blossom into action. In Rogers’s theory and practice, an
attentive, empathic, and non-judgmental person can create the conditions
that liberate the creative potential. Being non-judgmental, this person
(the therapist, counselor, teacher, or swami) evaluates neither the
soon-to-be-creative individuals nor the products they bring forth. It is
essential that they do the evaluating themselves. “The most fundamental
condition of creativity is that the source of evaluative judgment is
internal” (p. 254).
This is where Rogers’s theory scrapes along the iceberg. Social
evaluation is ubiquitous and always potentially threatening – as Rogers
notes early on. Yet, social evaluation is also necessary if a creative
proposal is to become a reality. As in his other writings, Rogers
navigates within the safe world of his consultation room, where the
creation of an accepting atmosphere is entirely up to him. Arguably,
this is an excellent setting in which individuals can gain the self-confidence
to fully express themselves. What is missing is a view of how they can
then transition back into the real world, which can be quite punishing
indeed, and remain creative.
I have struggled to convey this dilemma to my students. We read and
discuss in the safe haven of the seminar room. When I ask them to go out
and perform actions that trigger their fears and violate their habits,
they are at their most creative when finding ways not to do these
exercises. I log this as a partial victory.
Note. This dilemma is also a dialectic. To be creative, we need social evaluation and we need to overcome it.
Rogers, C. (1954). Toward a theory of creativity. A Review of General Semantics, 11, 249-260.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/one-among-many/201601/mr-rogers-creativity
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