ABSTRACT

For many years, creativity research had been yielding contradictory results. More recently, these results have come to be regarded as creativity paradoxes. This research reviews a growing body of evidence that highly creative people tend to operate, either simultaneously or dynamically, at extremes along continuums, where the extremes are considered at odds with one another. More highly creative people, it seems, tend to find a middle way, not by operating at a mid-point along a continuum, but by operating at and blending two more-extreme positions. An argument is presented that this is consistent with complexity theory, particularly the order-chaos dynamic characteristic of Complex Adaptive Systems (CASs), and that the number of paradoxes discovered in creativity research provides evidence for creativity being a characteristic of CASs. Understanding creativity as a characteristic of CASs leads to a new view of creativity and innovation, which could result in better creativity enhancement and innovation management approaches while also leading to improved tools to identify highly creative individuals.

摘要

多年来，创造力研究一直产生矛盾的结果。最近，这些结果已被视为创造力悖论。这项研究回顾了越来越多的证据表明，极富创造力的人倾向于在连续体的极端同时或动态地进行操作，在极端情况下，极端被认为彼此矛盾。似乎，更有创造力的人往往会找到中间路线，而不是通过在连续体上的中点进行操作，而是通过在两个极端位置上进行混合来进行操作。有人提出这与复杂性理论是一致的，特别是顺序混沌动力学复杂自适应系统（CAS）的特征，以及在创造力研究中发现的悖论数量为创造力是CASs的特征提供了证据。将创造力理解为CAS的特征会导致创造力和创新的新观点，这可能会导致更好的创造力增强和创新管理方法，同时也会导致用于识别具有高度创造力的个人的改进工具。