On judging creativity: By one's acts shall ye be known (and vice versa)

Abstract

Abstract The aim of this study was to examine how people decide whether or not to classify a given person as being creative. Presumably creative people perform creative acts; the more prototypically creative the act the greater likelihood the actor is deemed creative. In Study 1, a set of everyday creative acts was generated by one sample, and rated by a second sample for the degree each act was seen as prototypical of the concept “creative.”; In Study 2, a third sample was provided with some of these acts and asked to provide descriptors of the person who would perform such an act. Here the attribution of the actor as being creative varied directly with the prototypicality ratings. Study 3 examined whether or not the performer of a creative act was deemed to possess the core characteristics associated with an ideal creative person. Once again, attribution of creative characteristics depended on the prototypicality of the act performed, at least for some of the core characteristics. Studies 2 and 3 indica...