Abstract
Positive creativity is creativity that makes the world a better place—that makes a positive, meaningful, and potentially enduring difference to the world. Positive creativity can be a bit of a slippery concept in that, what is positive to one person or one group may be neutral or even negative to another group. Much of teaching young people for positive creativity, therefore, involves providing the tools to decide what positive creativity means to them, and teaching them how to defend their decision. This essay focuses especially on alternative conceptions of what positive creativity means. It considers a variety of approaches, such as definitional models—objective and subjective betterment; ratings, including from layperson and experts; philosophical models—utilitarian and categorical-imperative models; decision-theory models—minimax, maximin, and maximax models; psychologically based models—a Four-C model and a model based on wise creativity. The essay also discusses steps toward teaching explicitly for positive creativity.
Highlights
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations
As we started to design a study on positive creativity, we discovered, as perhaps have others before us, that neutral creativity is something of a misnomer
Neutral creativity was supposed to encompass innovations that neither had much of a positive effect nor much of a negative effect on the world; what we discovered was that the mean of ratings was deceptive
Summary
The world is full of concepts that, at first, seem fairly simple, and that turn out to be fairly, very, or even maddeningly complex. The innovations that seem most likely to be received in a uniformly positive way would seem to be in the humanities, except that many great novels were criticized when they first were published [20] Artwork, such as Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, seems only to be viewed positively, but there are works of modern art that evoke, at best, mixed reactions, with some people saying that they could have painted a particular work too and that the work contributes nothing positive or even meaningful to the field of art. The human rights violations of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 were negatively creative regardless of whether one particular person or group thought them to be positive or not Does it matter who the person or group was, how many agreed with them, or how their evidence could be critically evaluated? Mini-c, little-c, Pro-C, Big-C approach Approach based on the notion that positive creativity seeks a common good over the long as well as the short term through the infusion of positive ethical values
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
