As the prominence and expressed need for creativity grows across multiple facets of society, so too do interests in understanding and enabling individuals’ own creative potential. These notions extend broadly to individuals living in myriad communities and contexts, highlighting the need to develop insights on creativity within the general population. To provide foundational insights, this study examines the general public's perspectives on what “creativity” is and the prevalence of conceptualizations of creativity from psychology and sociology literatures in these perspectives. We utilize a nationally representative sample of 3,298 adults living in the United States and code their open-ended responses to the question, “When you hear the word ‘creativity’, what do you think of?” Responses relate creativity to the generation of new thoughts and ideas (31.56%) and to art, artistry, and artistic practices (27.5%) with highest frequency, but only weakly correlate these conceptualizations of creativity. For further examination, this study uses logistic regressions to test for differences across socio-demographic characteristics and the degree to which they explain perceptions of creativity as artistic. Perceptions of creativity as artistic are more likely among White adults, women, and individuals with a college education; the strongest predictor is direct engagement in arts-making activities. This study reorients inquiry about creativity toward understanding the meaning that creativity has within the general population and speaks to the prevalence of persistent links between creativity and the arts.

随着对创造力的突出和表达需求在社会的多个方面不断增长，理解和激发个人创造潜力的兴趣也在增长。这些概念广泛延伸到生活在无数社区和环境中的个人，突出了在普通人群中发展对创造力的洞察力的必要性。为了提供基本的见解，本研究考察了公众对什么是“创造力”的看法，以及心理学和社会学文献中创造力概念化在这些观点中的普遍性。我们利用居住在美国的 3,298 名成年人的全国代表性样本，并对他们对以下问题的开放式回答进行编码，“当你听到‘创造力’这个词时，你怎么看？” 回应将创造力与新思想和新观念的产生（31.56%）以及与艺术、艺术和艺术实践（27.5%）相关的频率最高，但与这些创造力概念化的相关性很弱。为了进一步检查，本研究使用逻辑回归来测试社会人口特征之间的差异以及它们在多大程度上解释了创造力作为艺术的感知。白人成年人、女性和受过大学教育的个人更有可能将创造力视为艺术；最强的预测因素是直接参与艺术创作活动。这项研究重新定位对创造力的探究，以理解创造力在普通人群中的意义，并说明创造力与艺术之间存在持续联系的普遍性。