Creativity Defined: Implicit Theories in the Professions of Interior Design, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Engineering

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine implicit theories of creativity in related fields through a mail survey of 3 1 3 professors randomly selected from accredited programs in interior design, architecture, landscape architecture, and engineering. To describe a highly creative practitioner in their respective fields, the respondents completed the Gough Adjective Check List (ACL), scored with the Domino creativity scale (Cr). The interior design professors generated a profile of the creative practitioner that obtained a significantly higher mean score than did the architecture or engineering groups on the ACL–Cr scale. No other significant differences on the creativity scale appeared between groups. Exploratory analyses of individual ACL–Cr items found considerable agreement as to what constituted creativeness in implicit theories. At least 75 percent of the respondents in each group described the creative practitioner in their respective fields as imaginative, inventive, and adventurous. Disciplinary differences among groups surfaced in 21 traits on the ACL–Cr scale that were statistically significant in areas of artistic creativity, scientific creativity, intelligence, self–confidence, and task orientation. Further, the creative interior design practitioner was perceived as significantly more individualistic and original than in the other three fields, and sixteen other traits significantly differentiated interior design profiles from those posited in architecture, landscape architecture, or engineering. By promoting a scholarship of integration, findings reveal perceived traits of the creative practitioner in allied fields and advance interdisciplinary understanding. Design educators are encouraged to reflect on their own implicit theories of creativity and those of their students to acknowledge underlying assumptions about creativity that can influence innovation and collaboration.