A Winding Road: Teresa Amabile and Creative Process Research

Abstract

In a series of papers spanning nearly four decades, Teresa Amabile (Amabile in The social psychology of creativity. Springer, New York, 1983; Amabile in Creativity in context. Westview Press, Boulder, CO, 1996; Amabile & Pratt in Research in Organizational Behavior 36: 157–183, 2016) updated models of the creative process to reflect developments in social psychology and organizational behavior. In this chapter, we discuss the history of Amabile’s process models of creativity (e.g., Amabile in The social psychology of creativity. Springer, New York, 1983; Amabile in Creativity in context. Westview Press, Boulder, CO, 1996; Amabile & Pratt in Research in Organizational Behavior 36: 157–183, 2016) and how they have informed subsequent research on creative processes (especially in organizations). We identify three areas for future research on creative processes based on recent developments in the field. Finally, we conclude with the first author’s reflections on the process of creating with Teresa Amabile.