Creativity

Teacher helping a student in a wheelchair paint an art project.

The ability to produce or develop original work, theories, techniques, or thoughts. A creative individual typically displays originality, imagination, and expressiveness. Analyses have failed to ascertain why one individual is more creative than another, but creativity does appear to be a very durable trait.

Adapted from the APA Dictionary of Psychology

Resources from APA

Why it takes courage to be creative

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle, PhD, discusses the many forms of creativity

What happens in the brain when we experience art

Unleashing the power of neuroaesthetics for health, well-being, and social change

Special section: Arts-based phenomenological research can evoke rich, sensual insight into the essence of human experience

Spotlight: Arts-based phenomenological research

A special section in this APA Journals Article Spotlight in Qualitative Psychology introduces arts-based phenomenological research as an innovative methodology for doing psychological research.

How to fail successfully

Amy Edmondson, PhD, and Samuel West, PhD, talk about some of commerce’s biggest flops and how individuals and organizations can learn from their mistakes

More resources about creativity

What APA is doing

children riding on skateboards pretending they are airplanes

Divisions

Society for the Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts

APA’s Division 10 is committed to interdisciplinary scholarship, both theoretical and empirical, encompassing the visual, literary, and performing arts.