Creativity: A New Psychology

Robert B. MacIntyre is head of the Psychoeducational Clinic at the
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

This book of 18 short chapters on aspects of creativity skims over a
wide range of topics. The author, a poet and psychology professor, draws
from his teaching lectures to provide this introduction for the general
public. Though he writes in an easy and accessible style, the research
he cites and summarizes is taken from a limited set of sources, most
extensively The Journal of Creative Behavior.

The author contributes a fourfold classification system to describe
creativity. It is based on whether the creative act is an individual or
a collaborative effort; and on whether the outcome is novel only to the
individual (personal creativity) or to a large number of people
(universal creativity). This structure allows a perhaps overly inclusive
definition of creativity, one that covers everything from creative
animal behavior to the use of computers in creative production.

The author differentiates intelligence (as measured by standard tests)
from creativity, and also critiques the existing formal tests of
creativity. In general, he seems to be demystifying the concept and
showing that creative behavior is possible for almost anyone. He also
explores such topics as brain-wave functioning, hemispheric roles in
creativity, and educational practices in the field.

Some of Swede’s ideas are interesting, but few are carried through to
a convincing conclusion; this limitation may be due to the brevity of
the chapters or to the scattered range of the topics. The book serves as
a general survey of topics associated with creativity, not as “a new
psychology.”