The Nature of Creativity UNCW Faculty and （创造力的本质UNCW教职）.pdf

Creativity Research Journal Copyright © 2006 by 2006, Vol. 18, No. 1, 87–98 Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. The Nature of Creativity Robert J. Sternberg Tufts University ABSTRACT: Like E. Paul Torrance, my colleagues for the pretensions to which less-distinguished aca- and I have tried to understand the nature of creativ- demics can be so susceptible. ity, to assess it, and to improve instruction by teach- There are a number of different approaches one can ing for creativity as well as teaching students to think take to understanding creativity. Torrance preferred a creatively. This article reviews our investment theory psychometric approach to understanding creativity. of creativity, propulsion theory of creative contribu- My colleagues and I (e.g., Sternberg, Kaufman, tions, and some of the data we have collected with re- Pretz, 2002; Sternberg Lubart, 1995, 1996) have gard to creativity. It also describes the propulsion chosen to use a confluence approach as a basis for our theory of creative contributions. Finally, it draws work on creativity. I will discuss two of the theories un- some conclusions. derlying our work and some of the empirical work we have done to test our ideas. These theories are part of a The field of creativity as it exists today emerged largely more general