Creativity Research: historical considerations and main lines of development

Abstract

Abstract Creativity research began in earnest in the early 1950s and today it covers a very broad range, with empirical studies in a host of fields. The present paper deals with the main lines of development in behavioural creativity research and contains a description of, and also critical comments on, the lines of approach that over the years have concentrated on personality‐related or cognitive aspects of creativity or that have involved various attempts to stimulate it. Whereas earlier there had been a strong emphasis on inner determinants when it came to describing or explaining creativity, during the 1980s and 1990s there was an ever‐increasing interest in regarding the human capacity for producing new and original ideas and products within a social context, whereby considerably greater account was taken of environmental factors than before. Important tasks for future creativity research would appear to be syntheses of results and the development and testing of comprehensive and integrated models. It is with a discussion of this that the paper concludes.