Blogathon - Entry 2
Jul. 26th, 2008 09:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Question by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ratatosk:
"Hey, I never heard what the results of your research project were!
If you can divulge them without compromising further data gathering, you should talk about that. :)"
For those who don't know what I'm talking about, the project in question is the one I collected volunteers for last fall. The premise of it goes something like this:
In his article, Creative Genius and the GAM Theory of Personality: Why Mozart and Not Salieri?, William A. Therivel posits that the origins of creative genius lie in an intertwined combination of three factors: Genes (G), Assistance (A) and Misfortune (M). According to Therivel’s theory, a person who has had a painful childhood, albeit one somewhat mitigated by the support and positive influence of the authority figures around him or her, is likely to become a ‘challenged’ personality, ideal for creative achievement. On the other hand, he presents the individual whose early development is colored by hardship but who in contrast doesn’t receive much support. If the hardship is heavy enough, the individual’s psyche is likely to be broken altogether, precluding any future creative activity, but even if the individual remains psychologically healthy, his or her work is unlikely to achieve the creative renown of his or her ‘challenged’ counterpart. Meanwhile, individuals whose early years are free from strife and who are surrounded by positive influence are likely to grow up productive and well-adjusted, though not particularly creative.
The reason for this, according to Therivel, is that creative geniuses are driven to create, their work becoming a kind of safety valve for the overflow of intense negative emotion which comes from suffering, as well as a device used to frame the misfortune and try to make sense of it. One might argue that the same could be said of intense positive emotion, but then again, positive emotion tends to be more middle-ground and less intense in its nature, and for the most part can be processed without the need to channel it off. Mania, which can present itself at first as an overflow of positive emotion, could serve as counter-argument to this previous statement. And, in fact, studies have proven that individuals with Bipolar Disorder really do show a greater amount of productive creativity, particularly when in their manic stage (Anderegg and Gartner, 2001.) However, mania is a clinically-diagnosed mental health condition, frequently dangerous to the individual’s well-being, and so I would seriously hesitate to include it in the category of pure positive emotion.
The Assistance aspect of Therivel’s theory serves to encourage the individual and give him or her a stable base for his or her work, even if the rest of his or her life is composed of utter chaos. Without it, the individual may get innovative ideas but never have the chance to put those ideas into practice, or worse, the ideas may be stifled altogether, unavailable even to the individual’s own conscious mind.
Genes, of course, play the wild card. While it’s clear that they contribute, often marking the difference between potential and achievement, it’s equally clear that they cannot be the single determining factor. Otherwise, why would extraordinarily talented children be born to parents who are entirely commonplace, or why would gifted parents have children who show none of their promise?
This is the theory I set out to test.
I gave each of my subjects a creativity test, as well as asking them about their creative accomplishments. Additionally, I interviewed them about their best and worst life experiences, as well as the people who've influenced them, to account for Misfortune and Assistance.
(Because of the personal nature of many of the things my volunteers would tell me, I made sure to keep their anonymity as secure as I could.
Going by my results, it seems that the outcomes of both creativity measures correlate fairly well with the GAM model. There were, however, a few examples which clashed quite notably with the theory. One subject, in particular, scored very highly on creative achievement, despite a great deal of misfortune and minimal assistance.
If I were to do an experiment like this again, I think I'd leave out the standardized creativity test and just focus on the creative achievements segment. Fun as the former was for me to run, it seemed to bring out people's insecurity and hamper them more than anything else, and its correlation to the person's creative achievements was shaky at best.
Yes, I did crib some (though not all) of that from my final paper. But hey, I'm working on limited time here.
Question by
ratatosk:"Hey, I never heard what the results of your research project were!
If you can divulge them without compromising further data gathering, you should talk about that. :)"
For those who don't know what I'm talking about, the project in question is the one I collected volunteers for last fall. The premise of it goes something like this:
In his article, Creative Genius and the GAM Theory of Personality: Why Mozart and Not Salieri?, William A. Therivel posits that the origins of creative genius lie in an intertwined combination of three factors: Genes (G), Assistance (A) and Misfortune (M). According to Therivel’s theory, a person who has had a painful childhood, albeit one somewhat mitigated by the support and positive influence of the authority figures around him or her, is likely to become a ‘challenged’ personality, ideal for creative achievement. On the other hand, he presents the individual whose early development is colored by hardship but who in contrast doesn’t receive much support. If the hardship is heavy enough, the individual’s psyche is likely to be broken altogether, precluding any future creative activity, but even if the individual remains psychologically healthy, his or her work is unlikely to achieve the creative renown of his or her ‘challenged’ counterpart. Meanwhile, individuals whose early years are free from strife and who are surrounded by positive influence are likely to grow up productive and well-adjusted, though not particularly creative.
The reason for this, according to Therivel, is that creative geniuses are driven to create, their work becoming a kind of safety valve for the overflow of intense negative emotion which comes from suffering, as well as a device used to frame the misfortune and try to make sense of it. One might argue that the same could be said of intense positive emotion, but then again, positive emotion tends to be more middle-ground and less intense in its nature, and for the most part can be processed without the need to channel it off. Mania, which can present itself at first as an overflow of positive emotion, could serve as counter-argument to this previous statement. And, in fact, studies have proven that individuals with Bipolar Disorder really do show a greater amount of productive creativity, particularly when in their manic stage (Anderegg and Gartner, 2001.) However, mania is a clinically-diagnosed mental health condition, frequently dangerous to the individual’s well-being, and so I would seriously hesitate to include it in the category of pure positive emotion.
The Assistance aspect of Therivel’s theory serves to encourage the individual and give him or her a stable base for his or her work, even if the rest of his or her life is composed of utter chaos. Without it, the individual may get innovative ideas but never have the chance to put those ideas into practice, or worse, the ideas may be stifled altogether, unavailable even to the individual’s own conscious mind.
Genes, of course, play the wild card. While it’s clear that they contribute, often marking the difference between potential and achievement, it’s equally clear that they cannot be the single determining factor. Otherwise, why would extraordinarily talented children be born to parents who are entirely commonplace, or why would gifted parents have children who show none of their promise?
This is the theory I set out to test.
I gave each of my subjects a creativity test, as well as asking them about their creative accomplishments. Additionally, I interviewed them about their best and worst life experiences, as well as the people who've influenced them, to account for Misfortune and Assistance.
(Because of the personal nature of many of the things my volunteers would tell me, I made sure to keep their anonymity as secure as I could.
Going by my results, it seems that the outcomes of both creativity measures correlate fairly well with the GAM model. There were, however, a few examples which clashed quite notably with the theory. One subject, in particular, scored very highly on creative achievement, despite a great deal of misfortune and minimal assistance.
If I were to do an experiment like this again, I think I'd leave out the standardized creativity test and just focus on the creative achievements segment. Fun as the former was for me to run, it seemed to bring out people's insecurity and hamper them more than anything else, and its correlation to the person's creative achievements was shaky at best.
Yes, I did crib some (though not all) of that from my final paper. But hey, I'm working on limited time here.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-07-26 09:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-27 12:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-27 01:38 am (UTC)You say that like it was a bad thing. 8-)
no subject
Date: 2008-07-27 02:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-27 02:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-27 11:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-28 01:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-28 02:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 11:15 pm (UTC)Fits right into that theory about how people focus and work better if they're slightly discommoded in some way. Because happiness does not translate to effort, and extreme discomfort doesn't either, but slight discomfort seems to be the perfect mix.