Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-74656f9884-2dmjx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-10T13:40:41.706Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

16 - Creative Self-Beliefs: Their Nature, Development, and Correlates

from SECTION THREE - CREATIVITY AND REASON: INTERACTIONS AND RELATED CONSTRUCTS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2016

Maciej Karwowski
Affiliation:
Academy of Special Education, Warsaw, Poland
Baptiste Barbot
Affiliation:
Pace University and Yale University
James C. Kaufman
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
John Baer
Affiliation:
Rider University, New Jersey
Get access

Summary

People's convictions about their own abilities and psychological characteristics are of crucial significance in regard to their actual functioning, including creativity. Historically, self-beliefs (which include aspects of self-efficacy, self-concept, and self-esteem) have most frequently been conceptualized from two different perspectives in psychology: (1) humanistic and neo-humanistic positive psychology and (2) cognitive and social-cognitive psychology. The first approach is strongly grounded in the works of Maslow (1958), Rogers (1954), and Fromm (1959) and was continued by Csikszentmihalyi (1997) and others (e.g., Richards, 2010). This approach often conceptualizes the formation of identity as a creative process, or, reciprocally, posits that creativity represents a mechanism of self-understanding, self-fulfillment, or self-actualization. The second approach, which encompasses Bandura's (1997) classic work, considers the process of acquiring knowledge about one's self as an activity that is largely cognitive and is conditioned by interactions with the social world. Other established approaches include educational perspectives focusing on the structure of self-concepts (e.g., Marsh, 1990), developmental approaches (Eccles, 1983), and cultural psychology approaches within the field of creativity (Glăveanu & Tanggaard, 2014).

The present chapter reviews and summarizes key data about the role and significance of self-beliefs about one's creativity (creative self-beliefs [CSB]), with a focus on the sociocognitive approach. Specifically, the purpose of this chapter is to articulate theories and research on CSB, and to outline possible relationships that may exist between a wide and heterogeneous range of facets of both CSB and creativity. We focus our review principally on little-c and mini-c creativity in children and adolescents, rather than on professional (Pro-C) or eminent (Big-C) creativity (Kaufman & Beghetto, 2009). Indeed, the significance of self-beliefs for “everyday” creativity (e.g., a child's creative thinking, solving everyday problems, tackling issues that require individual inventions) is truly intriguing: to what extent do children's, adolescents’, and adults’ convictions about their creative abilities influence their motivation to undertake creative activities? How are CSBs formed? How can CSBs be strengthened and why should they be supported? This chapter addresses these questions, among others.

Although we focus on everyday creativity, it is worth noting that eminent creativity may also suggest and inform inquiries about CSBs. For example, eminent individuals tend to be strongly convinced about their own creative abilities (Barron & Harrington, 1981), as a result of their successes and the feedback they obtain from their fields.

Information

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×