Abstract
The dynamic of popcorn popping is used as a model for seeking ongoing patterns of creative inspiration. In creating we work with a series of sudden insights, yet each instant is unpredictable. As with popcorn we can raise the odds of an event—of a sudden Aha!—by turning the heat up. Metaphorically, or more literally, we may be seeking a mental edge-of-chaos, this in phase space, where we are “in the zone,” and creativity can flow. This chapter looks at the delicate balances involved as well as ways of “turning up the heat” including contextual factors and use of brainstorming or divergent thinking.
… as a writer you’re always surprised when you think of the right note or the right word. You think, ‘Oh I didn’t know I could—oh, that’s good!’ You know, writing’s full of surprises for oneself.
Stephen Sondheim
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Notes
- 1.
Minsky in Varela, Thompson, and Rosch, The Embodied Mind, 138.
- 2.
Csikszentmihalyi, Creativity.
- 3.
Kaufman and Gregoire, Wired to Create.
- 4.
Richards, “Everyday Creativity”; Goslin-Jones and Richards, “Mysteries of Creative Process.”
- 5.
Sondheim quote: from interview with Lin Manuel Miranda, Style Magazine, New York Times, 10-22-2017.
- 6.
Osborn, Applied Imagination; Kaufman et al. (Plucker, Baer).
- 7.
Osborn, Applied Imagination.
- 8.
An effective way to produce ideas through spontaneous group offerings; though at times group members can dominate process, there are many advantages to the group.
- 9.
Strogatz, Sync.
- 10.
Mark Runco. “Divergent Thinking, Creativity, and Ideation”; Guilford, Nature of Human Intelligence.
- 11.
Kaufman, Plucker, Baer, Creativity Assessment.
- 12.
Parnes, Creative Behavior Guidebook. One example of uses of the problem solving approach.
- 13.
Torrance, Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking.
- 14.
Guilford, “Creativity.” See also Richards, “Millennium as Opportunity.”
- 15.
Kaufman, James, Jonathan Plucker, and John Baer. Essentials of Creativity Assessment.
- 16.
TTCT needs to be purchased. Guilford’s divergent production and other tests are found in Nature of Human Intelligence.
- 17.
Runco cited in Kaufman, Plucker, and Baer, Essentials of Creativity Assessment, 17.
- 18.
Ibid., 16.
- 19.
Richards, “Comparison of Selected Guilford and Wallach-Kogan Tests of Creative Thinking in Conjunction With Measures of Intelligence.”
- 20.
TTCT prediction for personal creativity spanned fifty years. Runco et al., “…Fifty Year Follow-Up.”
- 21.
Multiple other assessment approaches are listed in Kaufman et al. and in Runco, Creativity.
- 22.
Kaufman, Plucker, and Baer, Creativity Assessment, 16.
- 23.
Yu, Qi, Shun Zhang, and Jinghuan Zhang. “Association of Dopamine D2 Receptor Gene with Creative Ideation.”
- 24.
Kaufman and Gregoire, Wired to Create, 85.
- 25.
Richards, “Millennium as Opportunity.”
- 26.
Abraham, “Dynamics of Creativity…”
- 27.
Dentler and Mackler, “Originality: Some Social and Personal Determinants.” See Wallach and Kogan, “Modes of Thinking in Young Children,” which initiated divergent thinking tests in very relaxed conditions.
- 28.
Vernon, “Effects of Administration and Scoring…”; Gunvor Rand and Per Rand, “Effects of Working Atmosphere on Creativity.” With some exceptions, as in the latter, where a subgroup did better under pressure, the relaxed conditions are overall conducive. Also see Beghetto and Kaufman, Nurturing Creativity in the Classroom (1st and 2nd Eds.), Runco, Creativity and Themes, and Runco, “Divergent Thinking, Creativity, and Ideation.”
- 29.
Ockuly and Richards, “Loving or Fearing Creativity,” showed power of imagined context on confidence about one’s creativity, based on participants’ views of how creativity is defined.
- 30.
Richards, “Chaos, Creativity, and Healthy Change.”
- 31.
Langdon, “Computation at the Edge of Chaos.”
- 32.
Kauffman, At Home in the Universe, 26.
- 33.
Robinson, Out of Our Minds, 285.
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Richards, R. (2018). “Popcorn”: A Model (Ongoing Creative Insights). In: Everyday Creativity and the Healthy Mind. Palgrave Studies in Creativity and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55766-7_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55766-7_8
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