Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Creativity and interdisciplinarity: one creativity or many creativities?

  • Original Article
  • Published:
ZDM Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Psychologists and educators frequently debate whether creativity and problem solving are domain-general—applicable to all disciplines and tasks—or domain-specific—tailored to specific disciplines and tasks. In this paper, we briefly review the major arguments for both positions, identify conceptual and empirical weaknesses of both perspectives, and describe two relatively new hybrid models that attempt to address ways in which creativity and innovation are both domain-general and domain-specific.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Interestingly, lists of polymaths rarely include women, although many lists are quite multicultural. However, the lists tend to focus within dominant cultures at specific points in time. For example, the lists are heavily populated by Renaissance Italians, Revolutionary-era Americans, Ninth Century Arabs, and Eleventh Century Chinese. When perusing these lists, it appears important to keep in mind that the victors write history.

  2. Ceiling effects, in this context, represent the fact that bright students tend to score at the top end of the scale on many cognitive assessments, whereas their scores show greater variance when the “ceiling” is higher on specific intellectual tests. By placing an arbitrarily low ceiling on test scores, the appearing lack of variance can lead to questionable conclusions about test performance.

References

  • Achter, J. A., Lubinski, D., & Benbow, C. P. (1996). Multipotentiality among the intellectually gifted: It was never there and already it’s vanishing. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 43, 65–76.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Achter, J. A., Benbow, C. P., & Lubinski, D. (1997). Rethinking multipotentiality among the intellectually gifted: A critical review and recommendations. Gifted Child Quarterly, 41, 5–15.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baer, J. (1993). Creativity and divergent thinking: A task-specific approach. Hillsdale: Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baer, J. (1994). Why you shouldn’t trust creativity tests. Educational Leadership, 51, 80–83.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baer, J. (1998). The case for domain specificity of creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 11, 173–177.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barab, S. A., & Plucker, J. (2002). Smart people or smart contexts? Talent development in an age of situated approaches to learning and thinking. Educational Psychologist, 37, 165–182.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chi, M. T. H. (1997). Creativity: Shifting across ontological categories flexibly. In T. B. Ward, S. M. Smith & J. Vaid (Eds.), Creative thought: An investigation of conceptual structures and processes (pp. 209–234). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1988). Society, culture, and person: A systems view of creativity. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), The nature of creativity: Contemporary psychological perspectives (pp. 325–339). New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). The domains of creativity. In M. A. Runco & R. S. Albert (Eds.), Theories of creativity (pp. 190–214). London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dollinger, S. J., & Shafran, M. (2005). Note on consensual assessment technique in creativity research. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 100, 592–598.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ericsson, K. A. (1996). The acquisition of expert performance: An introduction to some of the issues. In K. A. Ericsson (Ed.), The road to expert performance: Empirical evidence from the arts and sciences, sports, and games (pp. 1–50). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gardner, H. (1988). Creative lives and creative works: A synthetic scientific approach. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), The nature of creativity (pp. 298–324). New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gardner, H. (1993). Creating minds. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Guilford, J. P. (1967). The nature of human intelligence. New York: McGraw-Hill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Helson, R. (2008). One surprise after another. Journal of Personality Assessment, 90, 205–214.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hocevar, D. (1976). Dimensionality of creativity. Psychological Reports, 39, 869–870.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holland, J. L., & Nichols, R. C. (1964). Prediction of academic and extracurricular achievement in college. Journal of Educational Psychology, 55, 55–65.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Holland, J. L., & Richards, J. M., Jr. (1965). Academic and nonacademic accomplishment: Correlated or uncorrelated? Journal of Educational Psychology, 56, 165–174.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hu, W., & Adey, P. (2002). A scientific creativity test for secondary school students. International Journal of Science Education, 24, 389–403.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kaufman, J. C., & Baer, J. (2004). Hawking’s haiku, Madonna’s math: Why it is hard to be creative in every room of the house. In R. J. Sternberg, E. L. Grigorenko & J. L. Singer (Eds.), Creativity: From potential to realization (pp. 3–19). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Kaufman, J. C., & Baer, J. (2005). The amusement park theory of creativity. In J. C. Kaufman & J. Baer (Eds.), Creativity across domains: Faces of the muse (pp. 321–328). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaufman, J. C., Baer, J., Cole, J. C., & Sexton, J. D. (2008). A comparison of expert and nonexpert raters using the consensual assessment technique. Creativity Research Journal (in press).

  • Kerr, B. A. (1985). Smart girls, gifted women. Dayton: Ohio Psychology Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kerr, B. (1991). A handbook for counseling the gifted and talented. Alexandria: American Association for Counseling and Development.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kogan, N. (1994). Diverging from divergent thinking (Review of the book Divergent thinking and creativity: A task specific approach). Contemporary Psychology, 39, 291–292.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kruger, J., & Dunning, D. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one’s own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 1121–1134.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Legree, P. J., Pifer, M. E., & Grafton, F. C. (1996). Correlations among cognitive abilities are lower for high ability groups. Intelligence, 23, 54–57.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lim, W., & Plucker, J. (2001). Creativity through a lens of social responsibility: Implicit theories of creativity with Korean samples. Journal of Creative Behavior, 35, 115–130.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lin, C., Hu, W., Adey, P., & Shen, J. (2003). The influence of CASE on scientific creativity. Research in Science Education, 33, 143–162.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lubinski, D. & Benbow, C. P. (2000). States of excellence. American Psychologist, 55, 137–150.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lubinski, D., Benbow, C. P., & Ryan, J. (1995). Stability of vocational interests among the intellectually gifted from adolescence to adulthood: A 15-year longitudinal study. Journal of Applied Psychology, 80, 90–94.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Milgram, R. M., & Hong, E. (1999). Multipotential abilities and vocational interests in gifted adolescents: Fact or fiction? International Journal of Psychology, 34, 81–93.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Milgram, R. M., & Livne, N. L. (2005). Creativity as a general and a domain-specific ability: The domain of mathematics as an exemplar. In J. C. Kaufman & J. Baer (Eds.), Creativity across domains: Faces of the muse (pp. 187–204). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

    Google Scholar 

  • Olszewski-Kubilius, P. (2008). The role of the family in talent development. In S. I. Pfeiffer (Ed.), Handbook of giftedness in children: Psycho-educational theory, research, and best practices (pp. 53–70). New York: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pask-McCartney, C., & Salomone, P. R. (1988). Difficult cases in career counseling: III. The multipotentialed client. Career Development Quarterly, 36, 231–240.

    Google Scholar 

  • Piirto, J. (2005). The creative process in poets. In J. C. Kaufman & J. Baer (Eds.), Creativity across domains: Faces of the muse (pp. 1–22). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

    Google Scholar 

  • Plucker, J. A. (1998). Beware of simple conclusions: The case for content generality of creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 11, 179–182.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Plucker, J. A. (1999). Reanalyses of student responses to creativity checklists: Evidence of content generality. Journal of Creative Behavior, 33, 126–137.

    Google Scholar 

  • Plucker, J. A. (2005). The (relatively) generalist view of creativity. In J. C. Kaufman & J. Baer (Eds.), Creativity across domains: Faces of the muse (pp. 307–312). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

    Google Scholar 

  • Plucker, J., & Barab, S. A. (2005). The importance of contexts in theories of giftedness: Learning to embrace the messy joys of subjectivity. In R. J. Sternberg & J. A. Davidson (Eds.), Conceptions of giftedness (2nd ed., pp. 201–216). New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Plucker, J., & Beghetto, R. (2004). Why creativity is domain general, why it looks domain specific, and why the distinction does not matter. In R. J. Sternberg, E. L. Grigorenko & J. L. Singer (Eds.), Creativity: From potential to realization (pp. 153–167). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Plucker, J., & Stocking, V. (2001). Looking outside and inside: Self-concept development of gifted adolescents. Exceptional Children, 67, 535–548.

    Google Scholar 

  • Plucker, J. A., Beghetto, R. A., & Dow, G. T. (2004). Why isn’t creativity more important to educational psychologists? Potential, pitfalls, and future directions in creativity research. Educational Psychologists, 39, 83–96.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Plucker, J. A., Kaufman, J. C., Temple, J. S., & Qian, M. (2008). Do experts and novices evaluate movies the same way? Psychology & Marketing (in press).

  • Renzulli, J. S. (1978). What makes giftedness? Reexamining a definition. Phi Delta Kappan, 60, 180–184, 261.

  • Renzulli, J. S. (1988). Technical report of research studies related to the Revolving Door Identification Model (2nd ed., Vol. II). Storrs, CT: Bureau of Educational Research and Service. The University of Connecticut.

  • Renzulli, J. S. (1994). Schools for talent development: A practical plan for total school improvement. Mansfield Center, CT: Creative Learning Press.

  • Renzulli, J. S., & Reis, S. M. (1985). The schoolwide enrichment model: A comprehensive plan for educational excellence. Mansfield Center: Creative Learning Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robinson, N. M. (1997). The role of universities and colleges in educating gifted undergraduates. Peabody Journal of Education, 72, 217–236.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Runco, M. A., & Bahleda, M. D. (1986). Implicit theories of artistic, scientific, and everyday creativity. Journal of Creative Behavior, 20, 93–98.

    Google Scholar 

  • Runco, M. A., & Vega, L. (1990). Evaluating the creativity of children’s ideas. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 5, 439–452.

    Google Scholar 

  • Runco, M. A., Johnson, D. J., & Bear, P. K. (1993). Parents’ and teachers’ implicit theories of children’s creativity. Child Study Journal, 23, 91–113.

    Google Scholar 

  • Runco, M. A., McCarthy, K. A., & Svenson, E. (1994). Judgments of the creativity of artwork from students and professional artists. The Journal of Psychology, 128, 23–31.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rysiew, K. J., Shore, B. M., & Leeb, R. T. (1999). Multipotentiality, giftedness, and career choice: A review. Journal of Counseling and Development, 77, 423–430.

    Google Scholar 

  • Simonton, D. K. (2002). Great psychologists and their times: Scientific insights into psychology’s history. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

    Google Scholar 

  • Simonton, D. K. (2005). Creativity in psychology: On becoming and being a great psychologist. In J. C. Kaufman & J. Baer (Eds.), Creativity across domains: Faces of the muse (pp. 139–151). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associated Publishers

  • Sternberg, R. J. (1985). Implicit theories of intelligence, creativity, and wisdom. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 607–627.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sternberg, R. J. (2005). The domain generality versus specificity debate: How should it beposed? In J. C. Kaufman & J. Baer (Eds.), Creativity across domains: Faces of the muse (pp. 299–306). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sternberg, R. J., & Davidson, J. E. (Eds.). (1995). The nature of insight. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tardif, T. Z., & Sternberg, R. J. (1988). What do we know about creativity? In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), The nature of creativity (pp. 429–440). New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Torrance, E. P. (1974). Torrance tests of creative thinking: Norms-technical manual. Lexington: Ginn.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weisberg, R. Q. (1993). Creativity beyond the myth of genius. New York: Freeman.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Evaluation and Education Policy, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, 47406-7512, USA

    Jonathan Plucker

  2. North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, USA

    Dasha Zabelina

Authors
  1. Jonathan Plucker
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Dasha Zabelina
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jonathan Plucker.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Plucker, J., Zabelina, D. Creativity and interdisciplinarity: one creativity or many creativities?. ZDM Mathematics Education 41, 5–11 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-008-0155-3

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-008-0155-3

Keywords

Search

Navigation