Creativity: The Psychology of Discovery and Invention

by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, Sean Pratt (Reading)

The classic study of the creative process from the national bestselling author of Flow Creativity is about capturing those moments that make life worth living. Legendary psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi reveals what leads to these moments-be it the excitement of the artist at the easel or the scientist in the lab-so that this knowledge can be used to enrich people's lives. Drawing on nearly one hundred interviews with exceptional people, from biologists and physicists, to politicians and business leaders, to poets and artists, as well as his thirty years of research on the subject, Csikszentmihalyi uses his famous flow theory to explore the creative process. He discusses such ideas as why creative individuals are often seen as selfish and arrogant, and why the "tortured genius" is largely a myth. Most important, he explains why creativity needs to be cultivated and is necessary for the future of our country, if not the world.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Self Help, Science, Art, Personal Development, Business

Audiobook

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

A Hungarian psychology professor, who emigrated to the United States at the age of 22. Now at Claremont Graduate University, he is the former head of the department of psychology at the University of Chicago and of the department of sociology and anthropology at Lake Forest College.

He is noted for both his work in the study of happiness and creativity and also for his notoriously difficult name, in terms of pronunciation for non-native speakers of the Hungarian language, but is best known as the architect of the notion of flow and for his years of research and writing on the topic. He is the author of many books and over 120 articles or book chapters. Martin Seligman, former president of the American Psychological Association, described Csikszentmihalyi as the world's leading researcher on positive psychology.

Csikszentmihalyi once said "Repression is not the way to virtue. When people restrain themselves out of fear, their lives are by necessity diminished. Only through freely chosen discipline can life be enjoyed and still kept within the bounds of reason." His works are influential and are widely cited.

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good if not a great book. Its greatest strength lies in the thesis introduced early on and supported throughout that the kind of creativity that leaves a trace in the cultural matrix rests not in the personal creativity of the individual, but in what Csikszentmihalyi tags the “systems approach “ to creativity. To have any effect, a creative idea must be couched in terms that are understandable to others, pass muster with the experts in the field (i.e. the gatekeepers to the domain), and be included within the cultural domain (the set of symbolic rules or procedures) to which it belongs. In this systems view, the definition of a creative person is someone whose thoughts or actions change a domain or establish a new domain (pp. 27-28). This is no easy task, especially since he or she needs to learn the existing domain or domains first, and almost always necessitates being in the right place at the right time (e.g. studying quantum physics at the beginning of the 20th century or women seeking academic opportunities when WWII broke out).

Having established this in the first 30 pages, if you didn’t read the remaining 350 you wouldn’t miss much. But I still enjoyed reading the stories and thoughts of selected individuals whom the author deemed as “creative” according to the definition above (However, I disagreed with the selection of a few of these and would have chosen at least one more person of faith in addition to the Quaker who was briefly highlighted. Also on the issue of faith, I found the author's grouping on page 371 of studying the bible with addictive behaviors such as cruising the internet and betting on horse races to be rather laughable!).

Some additional personal nuggets I gleaned from this book include the following:

1. Those who persevere and succeed must be creative not only in their manipulation of symbols but maybe even more in shaping a career and a future for themselves that will enable them to survive while continuing to explore the strange universe in which they live (p. 199).

2. When seeking to allow your mind to make new connections in a beautiful setting, just sitting and watching is fine, but taking a leisurely walk seems to be even better. The shaping of one’s personal space is also important. The Greek philosophers settled on the peripatetic method, preferring to discuss ideas walking up and down in the courtyards of the academy. When we participate in this kind of “semiautomatic activity” that uses a certain amount of attention, we allow the rest of it to be free to make connections among ideas, often from different domains, well below the threshold of conscious intentionality. “Devoting full attention to a problem is not the best recipe for having creative thoughts. “(p. 138)

3. Both creativity and innovation on the one hand and conservation and traditionalism on the other are both equally important. “Neither uncritical acceptance nor wholesale dismissal of human creativity will lead us far. “ (p. 322)

The final section deals with how to enhance personal creativity. Some of these ideas were helpful (e.g. to seek to be surprised and to seek to surprise another person at least once every day, to seek to look at problems from multiple perspectives instead of assuming you see the issue clearly from one perspective, etc.) but others just seem to be taking up space on the page. I’m afraid the phraseology of how to use psychic energy more effectively on page 356 and a few other places lost my interest almost completely.

[Johnny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Creativity isn’t really a “how-to” book. Rather, it is an exploration of outstanding individuals who have impacted those around them such that they have influenced significant change within or understanding of the endeavors in which they work. It is not a quantitative investigation of those outstanding individuals, but a qualitative consideration of similarities and dissimilarities between those generally thought to be “genius” or “innovative.”

Csikszentmihalyi considers interdisciplinary environmentalist Barry Commoner, heroic polio vaccine discoverer Jonas Salk, young adult fantasy author Madeleine L’Engle, prolific biologist E. O. Wilson, Great Books editor Mortimer Adler, the late muckraking journalist Jack Anderson, physicist and inventor Freeman Dyson, Nobel prize-winning chemist Linus Pauling, and jazz pianist and composer extraordinaire Oscar Peterson (among others). These interviews provide plenty of insightful moments for the one who struggles through the roughly 600 pages of the text’s body (it is supplemented by an appendix with biographical information on the interviewees and an appendix which delineates the interview protocol used in the study (though the author admits that he didn’t follow the script by rote because he didn’t want to insult brilliant and creative people with whom he had great respect and, because of their heavy work schedules, less time than is available in some studies).

Even without the bulk of statistical analysis, Creativity’s interviews are sufficient to do some “myth-busting” on certain ideas about what incites creativity. One word of caution, however, note that Csikszentmihalyi isn’t really interested in personal creativity as much as “…the kind of creativity that leaves a trace in the cultural matrix.” (p. 79—but note that I was using a horizontal orientation to my eBook which almost doubles the page count) In order to cover that aspect of creativity, he sees creativity as the interrelations between a tripartite system: domain (symbolic rules and procedures), field (authorities who act as “gatekeepers” to the domain), and person (the individual who expresess a new idea or pattern while still using the symbols and methodologies of a given domain) (pp. 29, 82). Creativity certainly emphasizes both the need for mastering the foundational knowledge within a domain (“…memes must be learned before they can be changed: …” (p. 33)) and interdisciplinary/intercultural ferment (“…centers of creativity tend to be at the intersection of different cultures, where beliefs, lifestyles, and knowledge mingle and allow individuals to see new combinations of ideas with greater ease.” (p. 35)

One of the myths that is busted is the idea that one must have a privileged childhood in order to learn and experiment enough to be truly creative (p. 35 and especially, p. 446). While that may have some modicum of truth in it, there is also the fact that many people attribute their creativity to having had to go through devastating, sometimes tragic times. Csikszentmihalyi presents both sides in Creativity as he observes, “Creative individuals are remarkable for their ability to adapt to almost any situation and to make do with whatever is at hand to reach their goals.” (p. 143) Certainly, being born into a wealthy or sophisticated family offers a certain amount of what sociologist Pierre Bourdieu calls “cultural capital,” but some individuals “fight” their way to the right schools and opportunities while more privileged peers stay behind (p. 149). To be honest, this was a chapter that I personally needed to read because I have often believed that I could have been more influential if I had been born with more “cultural capital.” Now, I just rejoice that I managed to get as far as I did (and it’s, of course, debatable how far that is).
Another myth that is busted would be the perpetually energized and vital creative individual. Actually, Creativity suggests that creative individuals are those with “…the ability to move from one extreme to the other as the occasion requires.” (p. 159) There does seem to be a great deal of physical energy involved, but the complexity of their personality balances that with times of quiet and rest.

Indeed, Freeman Dyson stated, “I am fooling around not doing anything, which probably means that this is a creative period, although of course you don’t know until afterward. I think it is very important to be idle.” (p. 269) This resonates with my limited personal experience (corresponding with my limited creativity), especially when one considers a later observation in the book: “Cognitive theorists believe that ideas, when deprived of conscious direction, follow simple laws of association. They combine more or less randomly, although seemingly irrelevant associations between ideas may occur as a result of a prior connection.” (p. 276) This was suggested another way when Csikszentmihalyi cited an old Italian saying, “Impara l’arte, e mettila da parte (learn the craft, then set it aside).” (p. 247)
One of the interesting aspects which Creativity points out is the need for strong parental support particularly when the family is not wealthy or privileged One of the most I decline in their later years, “…if anything, it increased in the later years.” (p. 550)

As for insights (some of which I had seen in other sources), I liked one of the respondents’ definition of creativity as consisting of anticipation and commitment (p. 213). I also liked the suggestion that the creative process usually takes five steps (although they may overlap): 1) period of preparation or immersion in the subject (pp. 218-219), 2) period of incubation (p. 219), 3) breakthrough of insight (the “Aha” or “Eureka” moment) (pp. 219-220), 4) evaluation as to whether the insight is worth pursuing (p. 220), and 5) elaboration (Thomas Edison’s “99 percent perspiration.”—p. 221).

Another insight I enjoyed was Csikszentmihalyi’s observation about a “muse” within the creative individual: “If the artist were not tricked by the mystery, he or she might never venture into the unexplored territory.” (p. 312) Or, did you ever assume that you could write, paint, or think better if you were just in a wonderful, natural space? Creativity assures us, “A great view does not act like a silver bullet, embedding a new idea in the mind. Rather, what seems to happen is that when persons with prepared minds find themselves in beautiful settings, they are more likely to find new connections among ideas, new perspectives on issues they are dealing with. But it is essential to have a ‘prepared mind.’” (p. 362) Another major point that I had never thought about was the awareness of how much biology has changed since the 1960s. There is a great line in the book that reads: “To paraphrase Karl Marx, the point of biology shifted from studying life to actually changing it.” (p. 693)

I told my wife that Creativity was some 600 pages long and I had some 200 pages worth of highlighted notes. This is a book that inspires me at the same time it reminds me of my failings. Let me close with Csikszentmihalyi’s warning about a purely scientific worldview: “With the glorious advance of science in the last few centuries, these intuitions of a network of causes and effects binding on individuals [ie. religion and morality] were discredited as superstition. The human species was seen as all-powerful, its actions above the laws of nature.” (pp. 809-810)

Or, maybe one should take away the wise words of Madeleine L’Engle: “Human beings are the only creatures who are allowed to fail. If an ant fails, it’s dead. But we’re allowed to learn from our mistakes and from our failures.” (p. 663) That’s one of the biggest takeaways from this book for me.

[Troy Blackford · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd give this book six stars, if I could. This is a sprawling and masterful objective analysis of input from dozens of luminaries in various fields and domains, and Csikszentmihalyi assesses the commonalities, differences, and important disparities between them. No matter what kind of a life you are trying to lead, you can gain a lot of useful insight from the material covered here. What makes this such an important book is the way that Csikszentmihalyi tries to be objective and scientific about the endeavor, instead of engaging in 'New Age-y,' feel-good crap. This isn't a self-help book, it's a deep analysis of survey results, and as such, it is actually meaningful.

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a good book about creativity. He cites that creativity needs to be in a specific domain, vetted by specific people in a particular field, and of course it needs to be someone who is "creative."

Creativity is important b/c most of the things that are interesting, important, and human are the result of creativity and creativity allows us to live a fuller life. Creativity is the act of imposing our desires on reality. Mihaly describes the creative process as having 3 elements: 1) a culture that contains symbolic rules 2) a person who brings novelty into the symbolic domain 3) as field of experts who recognize and validate the innovation. He likens creativity to evolutionary change in which random mutations get transmitted if it makes the individual and thus the gene pool more advantageous. Creative people act on memes and if enough people see value in them, then the creative product becomes part of the culture.

Creative products are built from what is known in the past. It takes effort to change tradition b/c rules of a meme must be learned before it can be changed. Wealth is a prerequisite for people who look to think creatively since attention has to focus on things other than survival and specialization can be readily had in city. Also centers of creative activity tend to be at the intersection of different cultures, where beliefs, lifestyle, and knowledge mingle and allow individuals to see new combinations of ideas with greater ease.

Creative types are seen as selfish and ruthless b/c of the single-minded pursuit of their goals that lead them to flow. Studying creativity is important since its results enrich the culture and so they indirectly improve the quality of all our lives. We may also learn how to make our lives more interesting and productive. All of us have need for security and expansive excitement. Creative types focus on risk and expansion of self. Mihaly has biased skewed to people who are happy with their lives and have the benefit of positive hindsight of 60 yrs Olds who have made it.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Creativity happens b/w a person's thoughts and a socio-cultural context. Creative individuals can be people who are interesting and stimulating with unusual thoughts, or people who experience the world in novel and original ways. These people are fresh, insightful, and make discoveries they alone know how to make. Finally, there are creative people who have changed the culture in some important respect.

He focuses on people who impact the world/culture. In Mihaly definition of a creative person, is someone whose thoughts or actions change a domain or create a new domain. It was wealth and uncertainty that made Florence dedicate themselves to being the "new Athens" of the arts. It was the people prioritizing the Arts that led Florence to be the artist capital. Support and competition forced artist to outperform each other.

Creative individuals choose domains of expertise b/c of a powerful calling to do something in that domain. "For them the match is so perfect that acting within the rules of the domain is rewarding in itself; they would keep doing what they do even if they were not paid for it, just for the sake of doing the activity.". A quantifiable domain with sharp boundaries and well-defined rules is taken more seriously. Culture is conservative by nature so any innovation that is introduced into it needs to be vetted by"experts" in that
field.

Creativity are properties of systems rather than of individuals. Creativity needs conducive environments to thrive. A person skills need to match the environment where they live to thrive. Creativity is the convergence of individual skill, luck, and an environment conducive towards creativity in that specific domain. A creative individual must learn the rules of a domain before one be innovate in that domain. They must be very good @ whatever skill they are trying to foster then one can play and innovate within that specific domain. After the creative person must be able to discriminate b/w a good idea and a bad idea.

THE CREATIVE PERSONALITY

While productivity is the only thing that ensures creativity, Mihaly says a genetic predisposition in specific domain facilitates the creative process. A genetic predisposition allows the person a greater early interest in a specific domain that allows a good dose of curiosity, wonder, and interest in that domain. Openness to experience, a fluid attention that constantly process events in the environment, is a great advantage for recognizing potential novelty. Curiosity and love for the subject is a must in the creative process.

Luck comes into play in having access to a specific domain thus richer children are better off than others b/c they have access to more domains. Also connections in a specific field is need for the world to take notice of once talents/creative potential. Connections in a specific field can only be had through random connections or networking.

Creative individuals embrace all facets of their personality without inner-conflicts:
1) They have great physical energy but also often quiet and @ rest. They control their activities. A period of focused concentration interchanges with a period of rest is important for their creativity. They have a high libido mixed with a period of celibacy.

2) Creative individuals tend to be smart and naive at the same time. After an IQ of 120, IQ and creativity do not have a high correlation. Someone who is a genius might get complacent and not have the necessary curiosity to do creative work. People who bring acceptable change in a given domain bring both convergent and divergent ways of thinking. While divergent ideas are necessary in generating ideas, convergent thinking is necessary in using good judgment in seeing which ideas are worth pursuing and which ones are a waste of time.

3) They are both playful and discipline in approaching a task. While playfulness is easy enough to understand in playful individuals, discipline takes the form of seeing the project through in a timeless fashion.

4) Creative individuals alternate b/w imagination and a rooted sense of reality. Art and science create new
realities in the present. The novelty they see is rooted in reality. Banking like science is an evolutionary process in that nothing changed but the perception.

5) Creative people are both extroverted and introverted simultaneously. Extrovertion is needed for crosspollination of idea while introversion is needed to master the skills of a specific domain.

6) Creative individuals are proud and humble @ the same time. They look to future accomplishment instead o dwelling on the past. They focus on family @ the same time their achievement gives them a self-assurance that they can accomplish more. They are both ambitious and selfless. While ambition is necessary to accomplish big things, selflessness is needed to accomplish a goal without the ego being involved.

7) They tend to be psychologically androgynous.

8) They tend to start from a traditional and conservative base and later become rebellious/iconoclastic (Pope Francis).

9) They are both passionate and objective about their work. To be passionate is necessary in the creative process while being objective is necessary in order to separate good ideas from bad ones.

10) Openness and sensitivity exposes them to great pain and enjoyment. They enjoy the creative process for its own sake without any external rewards. Conflicting traits are important for creative types b/c one has to be both able to change a system while being part of the system.


THE WORK OF CREATIVITY:

The first phase of the creative process involves immersion and preparation in a problem that is interesting and arouse curiosity. Insights usually come to those who have thought long and hard about a given set of
problematic issues. 3 main source from which typically arise: personal experience, requirements of the domain, and social pressures. Artist find inspiration in "real life". Curiosity is key. Early experience predisposes a young person to be interested in a certain range of problems. Without a burning curiosity, a lively interest, we are unlikely to make a significant new contribution. The problem could be based on the domain itself as it relates to the creative person. The best ideas come from interdisciplinary thought. It is
often dissatisfaction with the rigidity of domains that makes great creative advances possible but this presupposes familiarity with a specific domain. One cannot transform a domain unless one first thoroughly understand how it works. One cannot be creative without becoming dissatisfied with that knowledge and rejecting it for a better way. Also, stimulation by colleagues or some sort of public need can create a tension that starts the creative process. Discovered problems are superior to presented or "pre-formed"problems in changing a specific domain.

2) The idea is incubated below the threshold of consciousness being churned around. It is during this time that unusual connections from the norm are found. People who keep themselves occupied all the time are generally not creative. Despite the subconscious nature of the incubation period, the foundation is still built upon a specific domain.

3) Insight to the problem is then found. It occurs when the subconscious connections b/w ideas fits so well that it is forced to pop out into awareness.

4) evaluation whether the insight is worth pursuing.

5) Elaboration or execution of the task. 4 main conditions are important in this process: 1) the person must remain open to new insights and flexible in how he views the work 2) one has to pay attention to one's goals and feelings to ascertain its progress 3) keep in touch with domain knowledge so one can us the best methods and theories out there 4) listen to colleagues out there who will check ones work

THE FLOW OF CREATIVITY:

Although creative individuals differ in their personality, they are united in the fact that they are passionate about the work they do and would do it even if they were not paid. Creative people describe what they like most about their work the process of "designing or discovering something new." While the vast majority of people are conservative in conserving their energy, we also feel a dopamine high from discovering new things.

Enjoyment consists of flow the feeling when things are going well as an almost automatic, effortless, yet highly focused state of consiousness.

Flow consists of:
1) clear goals every step of the way
2) there is immediate feedback to one's actions
3) there is balance b/w challenges and skills - we feel that our abilities are well matched to the opportunities for action
4) action and awareness are merged - our concentration is focused on what we are doing.
5) distractions are excluded from consciousness
6) there is no fear of failure as though we are in total control
7) self-consciousness disappears - we feel "one with the universe" yet after the event we feel stronger sense of self.
8) sense of time gets distorted
9) the activity becomes autotelic - the activity is done for its own sake
A scientist or a writer has to internalize the feedback mechanism so they know if their work is good or not. What they felt fortunate about was that they could get paid for something they had such fun doing and that in the bargain they could feel that what they did might help the human condition along. The link b/w flow and happiness depends on whether the flow producing activity is complex, whether it leads to new challenges and hence to personal as well as cultural growth.

CREATIVE SURROUNDINGS:

Creative individuals tend to gravitate toward centers of vital activity, where their work has a chance if succeeding. The great centers of learning and commerce are such places. The place where one lives is important for 3 main reasons: 1) one must be in a position to access the domain in which one plans to work. Domains are clumped into specific areas. 2) novel stimulation is not evenly distributed. Certain environments have a greater density of interaction and provide more excitement and a greater effervescence of ideas; therefore, they prompt the person who is already inclined to break away from convention to experiment with novelty more readily than if he had stayed in a more conservative, more repressive setting. Science have certain hot spots where people congregate. Texas oil was able to make UT a first rate public institution. But being in the nexus of your domain also means one has to perform or perish.

A beautiful environment is key for creativity. "When persons with 'prepared minds' find themselves in beautiful settings, they are more likely to find new connections among ideas, new perspective on issues they are dealing with." Creative pondering seems to be greater when the person is involved in a semiautomatic activity that takes up a certain amount of attention, while leaving some of it free to make
connections among ideas below the threshold of conscious intentionally. Life-threatening situation also has the same effect as beautiful natural surroundings to stimulate creative thinking.

For the day-to-day work, the macroenvironment needs to be a crossroad of culture, where information from different traditions are exchanged and synthesized. Microenvironments needs to make the individual comfortable and in control. A home needs to have personal touch to be comfortable for a creative person to do their job. "What helps to preserve and develop individuality, and hence creativity, is an environment that we have built to reflect ourselves, where it is easy to forget the outside world and concentrate completely on the task at hand." Creative types impose their own routine and stick by it outside external time constraints. They have to master their environment and their own time. Whereas in preparation, evaluation, and elaboration a stable routine environment is preferable, the incubation and epiphany moments need to be in a novel beautiful setting that allows one a creative process.


CREATIVE INDIVIDUALS: THE EARLY YEARS

What allows certain individuals to shape their lives to suit their own goals instead of letting external destiny forces rule their destiny. Creativity involves changing a way of doing things, or a way of thinking, and that in turn requires mastering the old ways of doing or thinking about things. Myths are born out of our need to explain genius precociousness with consistency. So when someone becomes a genius at something, we tend to emphasize things that relate to that genius and deemphasize any contradiction to
the main storyline.

The only consistent theme of creative geniuses in early childhood is "a more than usually keen curiosity about one's surroundings." "Practically every individual who has made a novel contribution to a domain remembers feeling awe about the mysteries of life..." Initial childhood interest in a specific domain, gets reinforced by adult adulation for that specific skill. If a child has a competitive advantage in relation to other children in a specific domain then he is more likely to pursue it. It seems the only thing that is hereditary is musical and mathematics skills.

Parental influence in shaping a creative individual domain of choice. Parents should maximize exposure to the greatest opportunity possible. Also to minimize sibling rivalry each child should be good @ something that the other is only ok in. Parental influence becomes more important the more disadvantage the child is especially setting moral and intellectual standards to live by. Parents were most influential in shaping a person's character especially honesty. Honesty is important to have long-term success in a specific domain. Extreme home environments seem to stimulate creativity from being orphaned to being raised in a loving family.

Also there is a disproportionate percentage of people who came from upper middle class and lower middle class who become creative but not from thr vast American middle class. 30% of creative children who made an impact in their specific domain come from lower middle class but the family never identified with their lower class position but instead had high aspirations for their children's academic achievement. 60% of creative individuals that impact their domain come from the professional classes.

A successful individual remembers their past with warmth so the past is consistent with the present. What matters more for people is their subjective interpretation of an objective past not what actually happened.
Great teachers stimulate a child curiosity in a given study. The teacher influence creative by noticing the student, believed in his ability, and cared. Furthermore, the teacher showed care by giving the child extra work to do, greater challenges than the rest of the class.

Popularity makes kids want to conform instead of developing their unique talents. "Nostalgia for the teenage years is almost entirely absent. Marginality---the feeling of being on the outside, of being different, of observing with detachment the strange rituals of one's peers---was a common theme." The common denominator to creative-types in relation to their early years is that instead of being shaped by events, they shaped events to suit their purposes.

CREATIVE INDIVIDUALS: THE LATER YEARS

For many creative professional, college was the high point in their lives when they found their voice and their vocation became clear. While they had come from small provincial settings where they felt odd and disoriented, college provided place where people found their uniqueness.

"After curiosity, the quality of concentrated attention is what creative individuals mention

most often as having set them apart from their peers. Curiosity and drive are the yin and

yang that need to be combined in order to achieve something new." While curiosity is playful and deals with objects for its own sake, drive is competitive and achievementoriented. Luck plays a role being in the right place at the right time meeting with the right people.

The individuals had stable satisfying marital relationships. While sexual drive certainly fuels the creative process, the majority conformed to a more sedate sexual pattern. Perhaps due to the age of the respondents, the majority mentioned family and children as part of their greatest accomplishments. Spouse is key to accomplish what creative want to accomplish. Stability in family life is key if one wants to fight external demons.

Women also have to be supported to thrive in their careers. Sometime being married to an equally ambitious woman can strain family life. Creative individuals are aware that a lasting, exclusive relationship is the best safeguard of that peace of mind they need in order to focus on their creative pursuits. Most creative achievements are part of long-term commitments to a domain of interest. Creative individuals are forced to invent jobs they will be doing all through their lives. Creative individuals don't have careers; they create theIr own path. For example, Yalow parlayed her physics degree into founding the field of nuclear medicine. Creative career path is similar in that " a new way of doing things is discovered b/c the person is always open to new learning and has the drive to carry through the new idea that emerges from the learning.

[John Orman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mihaly's book "Flow" told us that the way to happiness involves mindful challenges.

The author studied creative people, and tells us what he found. But more importantly for the reader, he gives us his ideas for making our lives as creative as his interviewees.

10 Dimensions of Creativity

Physical Energy
Smart
Playfulness & Discipline
Fantasy & Reality
Extrovert & Introvert
Humble & Proud
Escape Rigid Gender Role Stereotyping
Traditional & Rebellious
Passionate
Suffering and Enjoyment


For those who have seen the recent movie Divergent, I came across this quote in the book:
"Divergent thinking is often perceived as deviant by the majority, and so the creative person may feel isolated and misunderstood."

Tips for Creative Activity

Curiosity & Interest
Try to be surprised every day
Try to surprise someone every day

Cultivate Flow in Everyday Life
Specific Goal every day
Enjoy Activity through increasing complexity

Habits of Strength
Scheduling
Reflection and Relaxation
Shape your space
Find What you like and hate
Do more what you love, less what you hate

Internal Traits
Aim for Complexity

Problem Finding
Differing Viewpoints
Implications/Solutions to problems

Divergent Thinking
Produce many ideas
Unlikely Ideas

Choose a Special Domain


Some of the creative people interviewed for the book include Hans Bethe, Freeman Dyson, Stephen J. Gould, Eugene McCarthy, Linus Pauling, Jonas Salk, and Benjamin Spock.

So Go Forth and Create!

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I believe this is a seminal book for anyone interested in the psychology of the creative process.

I first read Creativity in 1998-1999 and enjoyed it then, but recently picked it up again to take on a trip with me. This time, some 11 years later and after a major career change, the books means so much more to me. I think that is because the first time I read it, I was looking for ways to bring more creativity into my life. Now, after a few years of focusing on art as my career, the content deeply resonates with me: I really understand what Csikszentmihalyi is describing (through his words and through the words of the interviewees that led him to his conclusions). Right now I am at the Helsinki airport and have a long day of flying ahead of me, and look forward to digging in again to the discourse with hours to sink into it. I can hardly wait to get back to my routine of creating and observing anew what Csikszentmihalyi has described as the process, and with a new consciousness, seeing if I can use my newly clarified understanding of the process to further it. I think this is a seminal book for anyone interested in the psychology of the creative process.

The organization of the material makes the subject matter easy to follow, and builds from context of creativity to process, to specifics and eventually to conclusions -- though he delivers enough conclusory info all along so one doesn't have to wait too long to get the important punch lines. That he regularly supports his discourse with long quotes from the interviewees makes it all the more credible and specific. (The interviewees are creative types of all sorts -- physicists as well as artists, psychologists, mathematicians, and a broad spectrum of others.)

That being said, I believe there is a bit of contradiction in his introductory chapters regarding context in which he defines creativity as what is accepted by experts in a given field (among other defining criteria)--and later describes many situations in which the artists' (or other creatives) own assessment of the work as being the ultimate test. While it may be that he was, in this latter part of the discourse, referring to one specific type of creativity he defined in the introduction, he doesn't make that clear and thusly it seems contradictory. I am sure this book could have been way longer, for it is a complex subject and apparently he had quite a lot of meat from the substantial number of interviews conducted; it may be that to condense it to a length readable by the general public, he glossed over that inconsistency.

Anyway, I appreciate this book very much, both as an artist who constantly seeks to enhance my process and as a general curious reader.

[Dilyana Deneva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Когато чух, че на българския пазар се задава „Креативност“ (изд. „Хермес“) от Михай Чиксентмихай, ме обзе вълнение, което само един страстен читател с интерес към психологията може да разбере. Нека още от самото началото бъде ясно, че тук става въпрос за сериозен научен труд и не бива да подхождате към книгата като към леко и увлекателно притчово четиво. Ако обаче сте от хората, които се осланят на науката, за да разберат механизмите на човешкото съзнание, и търсите начини да се усъвършенствате посредством ново знание, имам прекрасна новина за вас – „Креативност“ е перфектният инструмент за вас.

Изданието е финалният продукт на мащабно изследване, проведено от Михай Чиксентмихай и неговия екип между 1990 и 1995 г. в Чикаго. Направени са видеозаписи на интервюта с 91 изключителни личности, подбрани по строги критерии. Всяка една от тях е внесла промяна във важна област на обществения живот – науката, изкуството, бизнеса, държавното управление или благосъстоянието на обществото като цяло. Имената им са включени в едно от приложенията в края.

Книгата е много добре структурирана и се състои от три части – описание на творческия процес, конкретни примери с творчески личности и изводи, базирани на предходните две части, които могат да бъдат приложени от читателя.

Вероятно първата асоциация, която правите при прочитане на заглавието, е свързана с хората с творчески способности, обикновено притежаващи умения в някоя област на изкуството. В труда на Чиксентмихай терминът "креативност" има специфично значение и то е много подробно обяснено в първата част. Хората, които авторът определя като креативни, са тези, които създават нещо наистина ново (в която и да е област), оценено достатъчно високо, за да стане част от културата. В този смисъл индивидуалните способности и усилия са от ключово значение, но не са достатъчни, за да се стигне до постижение.

За да се стигне до прогрес в дадена област, е необходимо и признаване на иновацията от съсловието. Това означава, че не стига просто да си талантлив, нито дори гениален, ако не успееш да комуникираш своите идеи така, че да бъдат приети. В крайна сметка креативността трябва да се разглежда не като нещо, присъщо само за индивида, а като плод на взаимодействие в дадена система.

В първата част подробно са разгледани и характеристиките на креативната личност, както и тези на творческата среда. Оставям на читателя удоволствието сам да открие кои са те. Само ще подскажа, че тук се намесва популярната теория "поток" на знаменития учен, основоположник на позитивната психология. На нея е отделена цяла друга книга, която също горещо препоръчвам – "Поток" (изд. “Хермес”).

Втората част беше най-интересна за мен, защото теорията среща практиката. Дадени са конкретни примери с част от интервюираните. Избрани са представители на различни области, така че да се откроят общите черти и характеристики на средата на креативната личност. Тук срещаме и писателката Маделин Ленгъл, авторката на романа "Гънка във времето", превърнал се в успешен филм.

Докато изследва живота, начина на мислене и средата на включените в изследването личности, читателят може да си направи много ясни изводи и да извлече насоки, които да следва. А за да бъде максимално улеснен, последната част съдържа съвсем конкретно формулирани съвети. Разбира се, те не са универсални, но са толкова всеобхватни, че стига да иска, всеки може да намери подходящите за себе си.

Извадих си толкова много цитати от "Креативност", че сякаш пренаписах книгата. Тук обаче включвам само един и отново призовавам всички, стигнали до края на това ревю – запознайте се с научните трудове на Михай Чиксентмихай. Те имат силата да ви разкрият познание, което, попаднало в ръцете на интелигентен и имащ желание да се развива човек, е способно да промени живота му.

"Ако искаме да повишим креативността, трябва да се уверим, че материалните и интелектуалните ресурси са широко достъпни за всички талантливи и заинтересовани членове на обществото. Но също би трябвало да сме наясно, че определено ниво на трудност, на предизвикателство, може да има положителен ефект върху тяхната мотивация."

Ревюто е публикувано в сайта "Аз чета": https://azcheta.com/kreativnost-mihaj...

[Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

If taken as a collection of anecdotes from interviews with well-recognized elderly 'creative' persons of western european descent who generally were somehow affected by World War II with interspersed observations, Creativity provides several interesting insights that one could incorporate into any practice that has some kind of public recognition as a discipline (i.e. western poetry, painting, music, science, not dinosaur fart impersonation or whatever): 1) The realization that your best ideas generally present themselves when you are doing something entirely different that allows your mind to wander freely (i.e. on a bus, going to sleep, taking a walk). 2) You do what you want. No, really. Do what you want. If you're doing something not because it's what you want to be doing, you are unlikely to do create something remarkable. 3) If you want to be a laser, you must remove all attention-diffusing obstructions, in particular toxic people and/or environments that will zap you of your energy. You need that energy to direct to your goal.

Some problems with the above conclusions:

1) At times reads like a deification of creative persons while 'claiming' that the intention of the study is to help 'ordinary' persons (visions of author pushing up glasses with finger pointed at the non-creative non-privileged)

2) Mind-numbingly narrow range of creative domains for a mind-numbingly narrow chronological period. Because of the bizarre age restriction (which I can understand for limiting purposes to the scope of the study), nearly all of the mentioned interviews included some way in which WWII influenced the outcomes of the creative work. I think while some of the conclusions about attention/flow are perhaps universals when it comes to creativity, the scope and range of experiences described is at times disappointingly repetitive.

3) No room for fun. Reeks of workaholism, LinkedIn influencers will get off on this book, while people who just want to enjoy their lives will be puzzled by the author's implied imperative that places an extremely narrowly-defined creative laser-like-focused elite on a pedestal.

[Stephbencin · Rating 4 out of 5]

If and when I begin my Oprah-esque empire, in addition to constantly touting Fizzy Lizzy's (best drink ever!!!) I will also employ this brilliant man as my guru. Fortunately for my fan base, this man is an actually intellectual who has devoted himself to the study of psychology and not some quack that believes if you just imagine that you have a refrigerator with a DVD player, one will materialize. Also, Csikszentmihali never did a match.com commercial.

[Anastasiia Mozghova · Rating 5 out of 5]

какие-то идеи устарели, какие-то вызывают у меня несогласие (например, то, что "настоящая креативность" обязательно подразумевает изменения в сфере деятельности), но это всё равно бесспорные пять звёзд.

небанальная подборка участников для интервью, на основе которых написана эта книга. безграничное уважение и даже обожание к людям, занимающимся творчеством и наукой. множество наблюдений, выводов и советов, которые будут полезными каждому, кто хочет чуть меньше плыть по течению и получать чуть больше удовольствия от своей повседневности.

пока читала, было ощущение, что кто-то обо мне заботится.

Чиксентмихайи недавно умер, но его работа продолжает помогать тем, кто жив!

[Brent]

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience is great book full of fascinating information. This one didn't seem to be of the same caliber. I made through about the first 100 pages.

[Brian Clegg · Rating 3 out of 5]

With a name that will always be associated with the concept of 'flow', Mihaly Csiksgentmihalyi was a likely choice for a book giving a scientific view of creativity. The way this has been achieved is primarily to identify a large number of people that Csiksgentmihalyi considered highly creative and to ask them if they will be interviewed. There are a number of problems with this approach - would Einstein have said yes, for instance? But there is no doubt that the popular psychologist is able to winkle out a few interesting thoughts on the matter.

We are first introduced the the creative process, through a little bit about the nature of creativity, the creativity personality, how they go about the creative act and the inevitable link in with the concept of 'flow'. Perhaps the most interesting thing in this section is the suggestion that creativity can never be solely about the creative individual. Csiksgentmihalyi tells us that we need three components: an existing domain - an area of knowledge that that the creative individual knows, the act by the individual, which often involves coming at some aspect of the domain in a novel way, and the field, which are the creative person's peers. Csiksgentmihalyi's argument is that without the field's recognition, the creativity isn't 'real'. So, for instance, he suggests that Bach's work only became creative once it was recognised as great after a couple of centuries of being dismissed.

The next part of the book takes us through the creative lives of his interviewees. I find this kind of thing somewhat tedious to read, as it doesn't really add much to the discussion. We then move on to 'domains of creativity', looking for differences and similarities between, for instance, the 'domain of the word' and 'the domain of life'. This, frankly, was also fairly hard work with little concrete scientific analysis provided.

A final section, protestingly (as Csiksgentmihalyi doesn't want this to be a self-improvement book particularly) adds ways to enhance personal creativity. Although what's here isn't bad, it tries hard to ignore most of the work that has been done on enhancing creativity, so skirts around the kind of techniques espoused by the likes of de Bono and Osborn without really acknowledging them, which is a shame and makes it relatively weak in practical terms.

The book is worth reading for the first 150 pages, which make up the section on what creativity is and how it works. These are genuinely fascinating. But the rest of the book lacks the same level of scientific focus or interesting content, so sags by comparison.

[Rana Habib · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rating: 10/10. Top 5 for 2022, top 10 for best books read ever

Incredible, incredible, INCREDIBLE. I devoured and loved every second of this book.

I loved how honest Mihaly was from the start about the sample group for his study. I loved how it challenged my own perception and beliefs about creativity. I love how fluid and poetic Miahly's writing style is. I loved the incorporation of Flow (I loved that book too). There's honestly not a single thing about this book that I didn't enjoy. He not only explains the findings of his research but at the end, he uses his findings to teach the readers how to embrace and incorporate more creativity into their lives.

Great book, I would recommend it 1000 times over.

[Alexandra · Rating 1 out of 5]

rambles. 15 hours of rambles.

a couple good quotes. some interesting history snippets.

still not sure what was meant by creativity as it was spelled out differently like 14 times.

I feel like this book was "the random stuff I learned writing about flow that I wanted to put in a book so I made another book loosely about 'creativity'"

[Monzer ۞ مُنذِر · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐
Review soon..

[Lina Slavova · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Life is nothing more than a stream of experiences - the more widely and deeply you swim in it, the richer your life will be.”

The book is a thorough study of creative individuals. The author, renowned psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, set out to interview scientists, inventors and artists who have made a major contribution to humanity by either changing a domain or creating a new one. He wanted to understand creativity on the larger scale and he succeeded in gathering some extremely interesting material about the lives of these individuals.

The author’s conclusion is that creative people have complex personalities. They contain contradictory extremes-instead of being an individual they are a multitude. They can be aggressive and cooperative either at the same time or at different times depending on the situation. Creative people are able to express the full range of traits that are potentially present in the human repertoire but usually atrophy because we think that one or the other pole is good, whereas the other extreme is bad.

Basically, creative people are "shape shifters" and can move from one extreme to the other as the occasion requires and that, without any inner conflict. Creative people express psychological androgyny: they have the ability to be at the same time dominant and submissive aggressive and nurturant, sensitive and rigid, regardless of their gender thus doubling their repertoire of responses and as a result of that they interact with the world in a richer way.

I enjoyed this book enormously and I recommend it to all, especially chapters 3 (The Creative Personality) and Chapter 14 (Cultivating Flow in Everyday Life).

The overall message is that creativity is a way for us to find purpose and enjoyment in the chaos of existence; that creativity makes life interesting and fulfilling. And most importantly, that we all have the potential psychic energy that we need to live a creative life on a personal level.

The first step towards creativity is the willingness to be curious. “The process of gathering creative energy, the rebirth of curiosity that has been atrophied in most of us since childhood.”

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi suggests the followings activities to awaken your personal creativity:

1. Try to be surprised by something every day or notice something creative done by someone else.
2. Try to surprise at least one person by saying or doing something that you don’t usually do or allow yourself to do.
3. Keep a diary in which you write down each day what surprised you and how you surprised others.
4. When something strikes a spark of interest, follow it. Don’t censor. Don’t limit yourself to what you think is possible or reasonable.

As for cultivating a sense of flow in your everyday life the author suggests the following:

1. Wake up in the morning with a specific goal to look foreword to – believe that there is something meaningful to be accomplished each day. Before going to sleep visualise the next day’s task that compared to the rest of the day is relatively interesting and exciting.
2. Take charge of your schedule as much as possible.
3. Make time for reflection and relaxation.
4. Shape your space, harmonize yourself with your surroundings as much as possible.

Some of the people that were interviewed for this study on creativity lost their fathers at an early age. Just as Pamela L. Travers, the author of Mary Poppins, my personal obsession, and the subject of my blog project. I notice lately that somehow everything I read is connected in some way to the subject of my blog. Probably because my mind is so immersed in it that it can’t help but make links. Pamela used to say that thinking is linking…Any how I will use these psychological insights in my writing project: themarypoppinseffect.com

Again, this book is a must read, especially chapters 3 and 14.

[Robby · Rating 2 out of 5]

[deep breath] So, first off, I have to keep in mind this was written in 1997 (I'll keep reminding myself throughout this review). Its treatment of sex and race, while not ignoring it completely, failed to explore in any meaningful way how either impacts what Mihaly considers "Capital C Creativity".

Which, brings me to my first issue with the book: Mihaly (going against what he considered to be the "Zeitgeist") decided to only pursue research on creative folks who had made a dent in history - that is to say, he specifically chosen subjects who had received recognition for their creative works. This could have very easily been a book about everyday creativity, or the creativity of metalworkers, carpenters, painters, writers, and craftsfolk who labored in quiet without praise or acceptance from the masses. His explanation for not doing so is because of the fact that it would be hard to measure their creativity in any meaningful way (his thesis is essentially that people need to first understand a domain, master the domain, do something different/meaningful in said domain, and prove its meaning to a panel of experts). While this may be true, none of it would be necessary to measure the things that his respondents expose: Mainly that hard work, perseverance, and a willingness to explore the unknown are features of a creative person (nothing new there).

Instead, Mihaly chose established professionals, ALL OVER THE AGE OF 60, most of them well into their 80s at the time of the interview. And, goshdarnet would you know, most were white men. Again, 1997. And, yes, he gives a tiny bit of explanation for us in his notes at the end that it was harder to find diversity, yada yada yada (which sounds an awful lot like recruiters who just can't seem to find a diverse candidate for their software engineering department).

And while he admits to this selection bias, it is a passing notion (a sentence or two) and quickly dismissed. When, in reality, this provides the framework for the entire book: Talking to baby boomers about their successful careers. Yes, sure, they all say how important family is to them (and, a reminder here that Mihaly says he takes everything they say as fact) and their children are the future, but the subtext of every interview is about personal fame and self discovery.

I just couldn't help think that this would have been such a better book had he interviewed a wider range of people of different ages, cultures, race, gender, and sexual identity (again, 1997). In addition, the focus on this particular generation leads to anyone reading feeling like they have lived a life of comparative ease and luxury, given many were raised during the great depression, or fought in World War II, or survived the horrors of the holocaust. All of these things are important - and I don't wish to minimize those experiences. But I have to imagine those life moments are so dramatically different than our current experience as to render the exploration into their creative lives more or less useless to anyone born after 1970.

All of the above stated, there are some interesting interviews and roughly twenty pages at the end talking about how you can apply this in your daily life. But those pages come after much drudgery and cognitive dissonance (nearly every discovery on the part of Mihaly is dulled by his alternate consideration that "hey, actually, the reverse could also just as well be true).

So, if you are interested in hearing about how Jonas Salk got booted from his own Institute, or learn how CEO's stay up nights worrying about the stock exchange... this might be your book.

[KAUSHIK · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book describes the character traits of 'creative' people, and tries to extrapolate common character traits and habits of creative individuals. Some of the 'creative' individuals interviewed are leading pioneers in their field, these include several Nobel laureate scientists.
The author discusses creativity in the context of 'flow', the state where we become one with the process of creation.
The book is structured so that there are actual interview snippets of creative individuals interspersed with the author's findings and theories about creativity.

The book uses these interviews to dispel the myth of the 'creative genius', the myth being that creativity is a gift from above,not something the individual can cultivate. The author proposes that while individual talent plays a role, the convergence of talent,luck,hard work and more importantly, being born at the right time and place in history is necessary for the creative individual to bring those talents to fruition and make a meaningful contribution.

And the message being, while we cannot change the circumstances, if we develop our talents, then ,we will be ready to make the most of a favorable circumstance,when it does reveal itself.

The other important theme running through the book is that creativity is worth pursuing as a goal in itself, even if it never brings fame and fortune.

While we are creating, be it a piece of art, a musical score or a mathematical model of something, if the challenge at hand matches our level of skill, then we enter a state of 'flow', and that in itself justifies our effort. This is what makes the pursuit of skill in a domain(art,music,math) so important, because it enables us to create and enter 'flow' states. Without this capacity, 'leisure' is usually consumed by dark,anxious thoughts that makes people reach out for passive sources of entertainment.

The book is a very good follow up read to the author's classic work 'Flow and the psychology of optimal experience'.

[Wouter · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am very glad I've read it, as it fundamentally altered my person-based creativity view into a more systemic version where interactions are placed central. I've read other literature related to that idea but until now somehow could not connect them.
Still, it's not worth four stars: after page 200, you can safely stop reading. Instead, I had to power my way through 272 more pages of repetition, diverging chatter and irrelevant interview details to reach the end (I read the Dutch translation, which was excellent). I simply don't get why so many academics like walls and walls upon text to convey their idea, while my neatly summarized version isn't longer than 10 pages. What's more, instead of clearly structurizing the ideas (you know, enumerations, numbering of subsections, figures, anything that breaks that wall), the gist has to be read between the lines by the attentative reader.
Please stop making 400p+ books if your idea can be wrapped up in 200 including interviews and examples, which of course add a lot of value. Luckily, academic prose wasn't as bad as I'm getting used to.

[Julijona · Rating 4 out of 5]

"But by this time a person aspiring to wisdom knows that the bottom line of a well-lived life is not so much success but the certainty we reach, in most private fibers of our being, that our existence is linked in a meaningful way with the rest of the universe."

[Teo · Rating 4 out of 5]

2018.10.16–2018.10.27

Contents

Csikszentmihalyi M (1996) (15:33) Creativity - Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention

Acknowledgments

01. Setting the Stage
• evolution in biology and in culture
• attention and creativity
• what’s the good of studying creativity?
• how the study was conducted
• too good to be true?

Part I: The Creative Process

02. Where Is Creativity?
• the systems model
• creativity in the renaissance
• domains of knowledge and action
• fields of accomplishment
• the contributions of the person
• internalizing the system

03. The Creative Personality
• the ten dimensions of complexity

04. The Work of Creativity
• the writing of a story
• the emergence of problems
• • life as a source of problems
• • the influence of past knowledge
• • the pressures of the human environment
• presented and discovered problems
• the mysterious time
• • the functions of idle time
• • the field, the domain, and the unconscious
• the “aha!” experience
• the 99 percent perspiration

05. The Flow of Creativity
• programmed for creativity
• what is enjoyment?
• the conditions for flow in creativity
• • the clarity of goals
• • knowing how well one is doing
• • balancing challenges and skills
• • the merging of action and awareness
• • avoiding distractions
• • forgetting self, time, and surroundings
• • creativity as autotelic experience
• flow and happiness
• flow and the evolution of consciousness

06. Creative Surroundings
• being in the right place
• inspiring environments
• creating creative environments
• patterning activities

Part II: The Lives

07. The Early Years
• childhood and youth
• • prodigious curiosity
• • the influence of parents
• • missing fathers
• • the mirror of retrospection
• • on to school
• • the awkward years
• threads of continuity
• what shapes creative lives?

08. The Later Years
• college and profession
• supportive partners
• • the women’s view
• the making of careers
• the task of generativity
• taking a stand
• • beyond careers
• • the question of succession
• • the matter of time
• the slings and arrows of fate

09. Creative Aging
• what changes with age?
• • physical and cognitive capacities
• • habits and personal traits
• • relationships with the field
• • relationships with domains
• always one peak more
• the sources of meaning
• facing the infinite

Part III: Domains of Creativity

10. The Domain of the Word
• to be a witness
• the haven of words
• • struggles with the field
• • telling it as it is
• released by style
• a joyful responsibility
• • the survival of the human spirit
• • everything in the universe is interrelated
• • risking failure
• adding to the world
• • the conversion of the negative

11. The Domain of Life
• a passion for order
• • a naturalist with steely ambition
• • dodging bullets
• • hunting for patterns
• the life of cancer cells
• • a sunny pessimism
• • the synergy of arrogance and modesty
• the immense journey
• • making visible the invisible
• • the human side of science
• • patterns of meaning

12. The Domain of the Future
• the science of survival
• • at war with the planet
• • science and politics
• • struggling with reality
• splicing the cultural DNA
• • the blindness of nations
• • the real wealth
• • midwife of change
• • making high mischief
• steps to peace
• • no safe place left
• • grounding
• releasing potentialities
• • the excellence of plumbers
• • reaching the people
• • living with a sense of responsibility
• the domain of global responsibility

13. The Making of Culture
• creativity and survival
• • creativity in the context of human evolution
• ways to increase creativity
• • more creative individuals
• • what the field contributes
• contributions of the domain
• • the accessibility of information
• • the organization of knowledge
• • flow and learning

14. Enhancing Personal Creativity
• the acquisition of creative energy
• • curiosity and interest
• • cultivating flow in everyday life
• • habits of strength
• internal traits
• the application of creative energy
• • problem finding
• • divergent thinking
• • choosing a special domain

Appendix A: Brief Biographical Sketches of the Respondents Who Were Interviewed for This Study
• Adler, Mortimer J
• Anderson, Jack
• Asner, Edward
• Bardeen, John
• Baskin, Leonard
• Bethe, Hans
• Blackwood, Easley
• Booth, Wayne
• Boulding, Elise
• Boulding, Kenneth
• Burbidge, Margaret
• Butler, Margaret
• Campbell, Donald
• Chandrasekhar, Subrahmanyan
• Coleman, James
• Commoner, Barry
• Davies, Robertson
• Davis, Natalie
• Domin, Hilde
• Dyson, Freeman
• Eigen, Manfred
• Faludy, György
• Franklin, John Hope
• Galvin, Robert
• Gardner, John W
• Gordimer, Nadine
• Gould, Stephen Jay
• Gruenenberg, Nina
• Harris, Irving Brooks
• Hart, Kitty Carlisle
• Hecht, Anthony
• Henderson, Hazel
• Holton, Gerald
• Holton, Nina
• Honig, William
• Johnson, J. Seward, Jr
• Karle, Isabella
• Karle, Jerome
• Klein, George
• Konner, Joan Weiner
• Kurokawa, Kisho
• Lanyon, Ellen
• Lederberg, Joshua
• L’Engle, Madeleine
• Levertov, Denise
• LeVine, Robert A
• LeVine, Sarah
• Livi, Grazia
• Loevinger, Jane
• MacCready, Paul
• Mahfouz, Naguib
• Mahoney, Margaret
• Maier-Leibnitz, Heinz
• Mayr, Ernst
• McCarthy, Eugene
• McNeill, William
• Milner, Brenda
• Murphy, Franklin
• Neugarten, Bernice
• Noelle-Neumann, Elisabeth
• Norman, Donald A
• Offner, Frank
• Pais, Abraham
• Pauling, Linus
• Peterson, Oscar
• Prigogine, Ilya
• Rabinow, Jacob
• Randone, Enrico
• Reed, John
• Riesman, David
• Rubin, Vera
• Salk, Jonas
• Sarton, May
• Schuler, Gunther
• Sebeok, Thomas
• Shankar, Ravi
• Smith, Bradley
• Snow, Michael
• Spock, Benjamin
• Spock, Mary
• Stern, Richard
• Stigler, George
• Strand, Mark
• Trachinger, Robert
• Weisskopf, Viktor
• Wheeler, John A
• Whitman, Marina
• Wilson, Edward O
• Woodward, Comer Vann
• Yalow, Rosalyn
• Zeisel, Eva
• Summary of Interviewees
• • Arts and Humanities
• • • Historians
• • • Media
• • • Performers and Composers
• • • Philosophers and Critics
• • • Poets
• • • Visual Artists and Architects
• • • Writers
• • Sciences
• • • Biologists and Physicians
• • • Chemists
• • • Economists
• • • Physicists and Astronomers
• • • Psychologists and Social Scientists
• • Business and Politics
• • • Activists
• • • Business and Philanthropy
• • Inventors
• • Politics

Appendix B: Interview Protocol Used in the Study
• Part A: Career and Life Priorities
• Part B: Relationships
• • Peers and Colleagues
• • Family
• Part C: Working Habits/Insights
• Part D: Attentional Structures and Dynamics

Notes
References
Searchable Terms
About the Author

[Matt Hutson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Analysis coming soon.

[Rachael Shipard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thorough and detailed breakdown of the traits of creative people in different domains of society, as well as the importance of creativity for healthy civilisations. Being written in the 90’s it did feel a little dated, both in terms of the selection of creative individuals, and the approach to information access/dissemination (the rapid rise of the internet has permanently altered our ability to create, both positively and negatively). Unfortunately it was also clear that the author is deeply suspicious of religion (especially Christianity) beyond its historical significance. Also a high proportion of the individuals studied and mentioned were ethnically Jewish…

[Artyom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Наверное, это самое полное и достоверное исследование природы креативности из всех, которые можно найти. Автор излагает материал структуровано, без "воды" и с множеством ссылок на релевантные исследования и литературу. Одна из тех научных книг, читать которую вообще не скучно, а едва добравшись до середины, уже хочется перечитывать.

[Matt Mackey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite the intriguing read.

If you care at all about creativity (and you should), this book is at least worth flipping through.

A lot of what I got from the book can be surmised from chapter titles and skimming through reading topic sentences. It often reads like something of a textbook--it's not a narrative, but draws upon interviews with hundreds of creative individuals (including nobel prize winners, CEOs, writers, poets, and more), offering insights based on trends and with copious excerpts from the individuals themselves, some of which are very worthwhile.

The money sections of the book are the earlier parts that discuss what most all creative people tend to have in common--my favorite was the apparent paradox of contrasting traits (e.g., childlike curiosity tempered by an ability to single-mindedly focus on a creative task), and the later parts of the book where Mihaly discusses ways to make one's own life more personally creative (to be distinguished from the big-C Creativity, which also requires one's creative works to be recognized by others and to, in some fashion, make a difference in one's given field).

Frankly, I need to go back through the book and cull a bit more actionable info from it--there's a fair bit to be gotten there if you're enterprising enough and are looking to increase the creativity in your life (note: creativity generally means happiness, as well).

[Kate Arms · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of the classic books on creativity and it is worth reading, but is has some fundamental flaws. The bulk of the book is based on research into people whose creative contributions to their fields created paradigm shifts. In fact, Creativity with a capital c is defined for the purposes of the book as creating paradigm shifts. The stories of individual people and the analysis of what contributed to their success are fascinating if erudite.

The final chapter makes a claim that creativity (little c) that doesn't change the world is still of value in how it impacts an individual's experience of the world and then sets forth a prescription, ostensibly culled from the research presented in the earlier part of the book for how to cultivate creativity. This section of the book feels tacked on and unrelated to the rest of the book.

[Untitled · Rating 5 out of 5]

"This book which attempts to bring together 30 years of research on how creative people live and work is an effort to make more understandable the mysterious process by which men and women come up with new ideas and new things."

What makes people creative? that's his question that he wants to answer. And at the same time he wants creativity that makes the change. He is looking at it from the psychology side. The scientific approach he took made it strong for me.

He mentioned all the things that he thinks you should have so it lead you to creativity. For example, mastery comes before creativity. Curiosity, love of subject, and etc.. Also, talked about the myth about creative people. For example: tortured soul, arrogant, and inborn skill. Moreover, happiness related to creativity.

Hope you find it helpful comments :)

[Nikhil Krishnan · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are a number of reasons why I found that this book didn't measure up to what I expected and learn, but one of them is that it really reads like a textbook. Having studied a number of psychology books, the resemblance was uncanny. And that's not the kind of read I go for. Another reason would be that while Flow provided almost something of a guide to master the experience, this really left me hanging. It's not straightforward or concise when it comes to information, which is usually subjective and all encompassing. I think it's okay to have expectations to learn practical information about a concept when it's literally a book on it and this just doesn't hit the mark.

[Chrisanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll unabashedly admit to mega-skimming this one. I didn't expect a patchwork biography of people I didn't really recognize. The chapter, around pg 111, where he details the circumstances necessary for flow was interesting(I thought about my friends and family who struggle with ADHD... it's SO hard for them to find that. All too often they find that in addictive-type pursuits. But they're not necessarily addicted, just looking for flow.)

The end, where he talks about creating a life where you can be creative, was also interesting. But I mostly bypassed the middle. I'm sure, if I had been more cognizant of life in my 4th year I would have a better idea of who they were. 😬

[Christie Bane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mihály Csíkszentmihályi is best known for putting into popular usage the term "flow." Flow is an extremely desirable state of being in which you're performing a challenging activity with such confidence and grace that it feels effortless. If you can reach this state a few times in your life, you'll spend all the rest of your life trying to get back to it. Creative people search for flow on a regular basis. This book is about what defines creativity as well as how you can become more creative. It's pretty readable for a book written for a not-quite pop audience.