Creative Giftedness: A Multivariate Investment Approach

Robert J. Sternberg and Todd I. Lubart

Yale University

Abstract world that are considered exceptional are more likely to be

creative than purely intellectual in nature. Recognizing the
This article presents an "investment" view of creative
need to move beyond identifying gifted children wholly on the
giftedness. Creatively gifted individuals "buy low and sell
basis of inte(ligence (as conventionally defined), a number of
high." In other words, they propose ideas that initially
seem odd, out of sync with the ideas of others. Over investigators have suggested considering creativity when as-
time, however, these gifted individuals bring these ideas sessing giftedness (see, e.g., Feldhusen. 1986. Renzulli, 1986:
to fruition, convince other people of the worth of their Sternberg & Davidson, 1986; Torrance. 1984).
ideas, and then metaphorically sell the ideas when these Creativity can be integrated with giftedness in at least two
ideas are at a "high price." They then move on to the ways (Treffinger, 1980). First, creativity may be viewed as a
dimension of intelligence that supplements IQ for the identifi-
next novel idea. In order to buy low and sell high, one
cation and education of the gifted. This position concentrates
a combination of six resources that function inter-
needs on the purely cognitive aspects of creativity. Second,
actively: intelligence, knowledge, styles of thinking, per- creativity
can be viewed as a type of giftedness. Creative giftedness
sonality, motivation, and environment. Each of these
resources and its role in creative giftedness is described. contrasts, for example, with academic (or &dquo;schoolhouse&dquo;) gift-
The interaction of resources, domain specificity of gift- edness and bodily-lsinesthetic giftedness (Renzulli. 1986: Siegler
& Kotovsky. 1986).
edness, and identification of creatively gifted individuals
are also discussed.
Putting the Research to Use
The &dquo;investment&dquo; perspective proposed in this article
Creative Giftedness: has implications for identifying and educating creative
A Multivariate Investment Approach giftedness. Creative giftedness is viewed as a distinct type
It time to select children for the gifted program
was of giftedness that stems from a confluence of six resources
in the Mapleuale School. Jack Dumf¡’ey. -

intellectual processes, knowledge. thinking styles, per-

the gifted coordinator, siqlicd and took out his tape sonality, motivation, and environment. These resources
measure, as he had euerv year for the past 20 uears. involve both cognitive and noncognitive elements and
He lined up the Children at each gmde level, mesa- lead to domain specificity in creative giftedness. Based on
sured their height, and then chose for the gifted pro- the nature and scope of the investment resources needed
gram the children. who scored in the top 5’!o of their for creative giftedness, intelligence and achievement tests
grade in terms of height. Another years selection often used to identify the gifted are considered inadequate
process was thus completed. measures for creative giftedness. Identification of cre-

atively gifted children is best accomplished by examining

No one reading this story is likely to believe it. Of course, it two lines of evidence: (a) domain-specific products, such
~s apocryphal. The use of height to assess giftedness. however, as a drawing or story, and (b) an individual s level on all of

[s not a wholly invalid procedure. The Terman study of the the investment resources. The education of Creative
gifted found that gifted children do tend to be a bit taller, on giftedness also requires a set of goals, values, and methods
the average, than other children (Terman & Ode:n, 1959). And that differ from those characteristic of programs for the
the conventional wisdom is that people who are taller are more academically gifted. New directions for educating creative
ikely to be promoted up the ranks in the organizational Ladder giftedness include (a) encour aging children to find, define.
In later life, giving height a bit of predictive value for practical and redefine problems rather than solve presented prob-
as well as academic success. Yet people are likely to be reluc- lems; (b) teaching flexible use of knowledge: (c) encouraging
tant to use height as an indicator of gifted performance be rule-making and global styles of thought rather than rule-
:ause its predictive valuc is presumobly too weak. executing and local styles: (d) teaching children to tolerate
But why are people much licil)l)i(2i- using IQ’? If IQ predicts ambiguity as they str ive for creative solutions to problems.
only 4% of the variance in measures of occupatiunal success persevere, and take sensible risks in their work: (e)
~Wigdor & Garner. 19~2). or even if it predicts two or three i teaching children to focus on their tasks rather than the
times that variance, can educators feel confident making deci- potential rewards: and (f) changing classroom environ-
sions on the basis of such data’-* Adult contributions to the
. ments to encourage and reward students’ creative work.
-
- -
-

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 We support the view that creative giftedness is a distinct type intellectual style. personality, motivation, and environmental
of giftedness for the following reasons : (a) creativity involves context. Now we will turn to a discussion of each.
cognitive, stylistic, personality. motivational and environmen-
tal aspects that differ from those involved in academic gifted- Intellectual Processes
ness ; (b) academic performance is distinct from creative perfor- Creatively gifted individuals are able to see problems in ways
mance, and the latter type is arguably more important for that others do not (Sternberg, 1985), to think divergently about
societal progress; and (c) if educators distinguish the creatively possible solutions (Guilford. 1967; Torrance, 1974), and to
gifted from the academically gifted, then creative children may use insight processes to solve problems or complete
projects
receive programs specifically designed for their development. (Davidson & Sternberg, 1984; Sternberg,1986). Consider, first.
The view of creative giftedness that we will propose in this the importance of problem definition to creative giftedness.
article draws on our investment theory of creativity (Sternberg According to Einstein and Infeld (1938), &dquo;the formulation of a
& Lubart, 1991). The presentation here represents an adapted problem is often more essential than its solution&dquo; (p. 92). In line
and updated theory with specific emphasis on gifted children. with this view. Getzels and Csikszentmihalyi (1976) found that
First, we present an investment view of creative giftedness and art students who produced more original still-life drawings spent
discuss identification of the gifted. Then, we address the re- longer periods of time formulating their compositions than less
sources necessary for creative giftedness. the interaction of creative peers. In particular, the creative artists manipulated and
resources, and the domain specificity of creative giftedness. explored a large number of objects before setting up the still-life
and redefined the still-life scene as they worked on it.
Investment and Creative Giftedness An important part of problem definition is choice of a men-
The investment concept suggests that individuals must at- tal representation for the problem. One study, using the Tower
tempt to &dquo;buy low and sell high&dquo; to achieve creativity. A person of Hanoi problem and isomorphic forms of it, demonstrated
has a &dquo;portfolio’ of cognitive, conative, and environmental that solution time could decrease by a factor of eight if the
resources at his or her disposal. These resources, which will be problem were phrased in terms of monsters who had to move
described in detail below, can be invested in a variety of projects globes between them rather than the traditional problem in-
that eventually lead to products (e.g., a drawing). Pursuing do- volving the movement of disks on pegs (Kotovsky, Hayes, &
mains, projects, or ideas that are novel or out of favor. &dquo;buying Simon, 1985). The &dquo;monster&dquo; representation made the rules
low,&dquo; wilt increase the chance of producing a creative product of the problem easier to learn and apply. Other research, on
and &dquo;selling high.&dquo; This strategy stems from the contrarian creative invention, supports the use of visual mental represen-
investment strategy used in financial markets (Dremen, 1982). tations for combining parts (e.g., cones, handles, wheels) to
An individual s resources for creativity allow that person to buy make useful new objects, such as toys (Finke, 1990).
low, initiate a project, and bring it to fruition. Problem definition (or redefinition) is considered a
Societal efforts to educate the gifted represent a macrolevel metacomponent, or high-level process, in
Sternberg’s (1985)
investment in creativity. Children are part of society’s &dquo;human triarchic theory of human intelligence. The tendency for cre-
capital&dquo; (Rubenson & Runco, in press; Walberg, 1988). The atively gifted people engage divergent thinking reflects
to in
educational system should seek to develop all children rye- another metacomponent, problem-solving-strategy selection.
sources for creativity, especially at the
elementary and second- Divergent thinking refers to the generation of responses from
ary levels of school. Additional efforts are needed to identify given information with an emphasis on variety of output (Brown.
and provide enhanced education for the creatively gifted. 1989) Numerous studies, including longitudinal ones, show a
But how can educators identify the creatively giftcd’~ Financial positive relationship (often r =.20 to r =.30) between the
investors draw on several types of information to choose prom- quantity and quality of divergent thinking and creative perfor-
ising stocks. First, investors can examine trends in a companys mance (Barron & Harrington, 1981; Torrance, 1974, 1988).
stock prices over the past year and the dividends paid to share- We suggest that creatively gifted individuals actively engage in
holders. For identifying creatively gifted children, this strategy divergent thinking as a matter of problem-solving strategy. The
translates into performance-based identification; a child’s previ- hypothesis is that people generate mundane ideas or solutions
ous performance is an indicator of future performance. Second. at first and with effort move to novel responses (Osborn, 1963).
investors can examine the specifics of a firm, such as the types Divergent production also provides a range of alternatives,
of products the company is developing, the level of risk a com- which may each help in a total solution. Our observations of
pany is taking, the level of debt a company has, or the state of Yale undergraduates in our own experiments on creativity have
its managerial-labor relations. For selecting the creatively gifted. suggested that the less creative students tend to have a conver-
this approach leads to testing c:hildren for the resources neces- gent strategy, generating and implementing the first idea that
sary for creative performance. The &dquo;resource&dquo; approach comple- fits the problem at all. People who display intellectual gifted-
ments and can be used together with the &dquo;product&dquo; approach ness for convergent schoolhouse&dquo; problems
may actually find
for identifying the creatively gifted. We posit six resomces that it difficult to employ the creativity-relevant. divergent strategy.
interactively yield creativity-intellectual processes, knowledge. Creatively gifted people also tend to use insight processes

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more effectively, or more often. than less gifted peers. We will tions, produced by 76 &dquo;great&dquo; composers, only 3 pieces were
only illustrate the three basic insight processes here because composed before year 10 of the composers’ career-s. Similar
they have been described in previous reports (Davidson, 1986: findings occurred for 131 painters, although 6 years was the
Davidson & Sternberg, 1984; Sternberg & Davidson. 1982). preparatory period for this sample. The fact that gifted chil-
A selective-encoding insight involves noticing what is poten- dren often spend many hours per week on their area of inter-
est helps them acquire a substantial knowledge base (Bloom &
tially relevant to understand or solve a problem from a stream
of jumbled information, separating the intellectual wheat from Sosniak, 1981).
the chaff. Many cases of creative work in both science and art The knowledge acquired, of course, needs to be stored in a
can be traced to an encoding insight. For example, Monet’s usable form, such as a rich associative network of information
creative style depended. in part. on a selective encoding of the (Mednick. 1962). A child who has a good memory might be
effect of light on objects. able to store numerous isolated facts. But there is a great
A second kind of insight is selective comparison. Extraordi- difference between recalling information and using it to extend
nary selective comparers are able to relate new information to
what is lmown in a creative direction.
old information in ways other people don’t see: They are How does knowledge foster creativity? First, knowledge helps
a person to produce work that is novel for a particular domain;
unusually good analogizers. For examples, the atom as discov-
ered by Niels Bohr was based on an existing model of a min- the ignorant risk rediscovering the wheel. Second, knowledge
iature universe; Johannes Kepler used the workings of a clock helps a person to be contrarian, as successful investors often
to understand the movement of celestial bodies (Rutherford, are in the financial market. If you know where the current

Holton, & Watson, 1975); and Alexander Graham E3ell con- thinking is, you are in a better position to introduce novelty,
ceived of the telephone with help from a selective comparison which is fundamental to creative performance.
to the human ear (Barron, 1969)- The role of knowledge and contrariness in creative perfor-
The third kind of insight is selective combination. Extraordi- mance can be illustrated by &dquo;gifted&dquo; teachers. Many of those

nary selective combiners are able to put together facts or ideas who excite their students to do their best are to some degree
among which other people do not see connections. For ex- contrary -

they challenge traditional beliefs, bend the rules.

ample, Louis Comfort Tiffany revolutionized the art of stained interpret in fresh ways. and present information by novel means.
glass when he selectively combined English Stourbridge glass, Still, in order to challenge students’ minds effectively, a good
the work of Emile Galle, and his own knowledge of producing teacher must be aware of the traditional content and teaching
glass windows. He created &dquo;Favrile&dquo; glass and used its natural methods of his or her field, whether it be chemistry or English
color gradations and texture variations to make his glass win- or music. Then she can supply students not only with estab-

dows, lamps, and other products. Other researchers have linked lished knowledge, but also her own ideas, and by encourage-
specific forms of selective combination to creativity: Koestier ment and example spur them on to their own opinions or
(1964) discusses bisociation, and Rothenberg (1979) focuses discoveries.
on homospatial thinking and Janusian thinking
-

the simulta- Beyond contrariness and novelty, knowledge fosters creativity

neous integration of opposing or antithetical thoughts. in several additional ways. Knowledge helps in the production of
To summarize, creatively gifted people excel in the intellec- high quality work, which is part of most judgments of creativity.
tual processes of problem definition, strategic use of divergent Knowledge, in the form of practice, can allow a person to
thinking, and selective encoding, selective combination, and concentrate mental resources on processing new ideas. And
selective comparison skills, which interact with and to a degree knowledge can help a person to note and use chance occur-
depend upon one another. rences as a source of creative ideas (Rosenman, 1988).

In our view, most conventional intelligence tests do not However, knowledge can be a double-edged sword. Knowl-
measure the cognitive processes involved in creativity and. edge can limit one’s perspective and ability to have fresh ideas.
therefore, are poor selection devices for creative giftedness. B. F. Skinner, for example, has described himself as not very
Furthermore, creative giftedness may be unrelated to intelli- well read in psychology, believing that reading too much can
gence beyond a certain threshold (such as IQ 120) when
=
interfere with having original ideas (Greissman, 1988). Stern-
conventlonal tests are used, but for the intellectual processes berg and Frensch (1989) found that knowledgeable bridge
that we identify above, we hypothesize that creative giftedness players were more impaired than novice players when basic
continues to increase as intellectual processing skills increase rules of the game were changed. And Simonton’s (1984) analy-
over the complete range (see Renzulli, 1986). sis of 192 eminent creators supports an inverted-U relation-
ship between education level and creative achievement. When
Knowledge educating creatively gifted children, teachers need to realize
A second elemcnt of creative giftedness is knowledge. Hayes that each new level of knowledge brings with it some benefits
(1989) has found that several years of knowledge acquisition for creative performance (described above) and some detri-
appear to be necessary before a a creatively gifted person pro- ments (e.g., reduced flexibility). At a certain point, the costs of
duces masterworks. For over 500 notable musical composi- additional knowledge may outweiglt the benefits.

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9
 Intellectual Styles of a project, significant creative giftedness requires at least
An intellectual style, or cognitive style, is a propensity for some desire to process information at a global level: thinking
using one’s ability in a certain way (Kogan, 1973). It is not the abstractly, extrapolating, and generalizing. Without such a
ability itself. Thus, being able to redefine a problem is a matter desire, the individual is likely to lose the forest for the trees.
of cognitive processing, but whether one has the desire to However, dealing only with large issues can leave one floating
redefine a problem at all is a matter of intellectual style. in the clouds. Thus, global thinking tempered with some ground-

Sternberg (1988) has presented a theory of intellectual styles, ing in concrete day-to-day detail is necessary in order to keep
based upon a notion of mental self-government. (Similar styles one’s grander ideas in touch with reality.
can be found in other theorists’ work, e.g.. Kirton. 1976: Although we believe that the creatively gifted will prefer leg-
islative and global styles, we do not believe that these are par-
Myers & McCaulley, 1985.) The basic idea is that people use
their intellectual processes by governing themselves. The prin- ticularly encouraged in schooling, including most programs for
the gifted. On the contrary, in most schooling, the teacher
ciples by which people govern their thinking are analogous to
the principles by which governments oversee nations. specifies what the student is to do, and the student is expected
to do it. The student with an executive style is
One aspect of government is its purpose. Historically, gov- thereby rewarded;
the student with a legislative style is not. Moreover, the level of
ernments can be seen as serving three different functions -

most assignments certainly tends more to the local than to the

legislative, executive, and judicial. Sternberg (1988) argues that
these three functions also need to be served at a mental level. global. Gifted programs that stress acceleration (see, e.g., Stanley
& Benbow, 1986) are no different from regular school curricula,
The legislative function creates, formulates, and plans. A
just faster paced. Thus, they too benefit the executive-local thinker
person with a legislative style enjoys and tends to gravitate
more than the legislative-global one.
naturally toward creating his or her own rules and working on Enrichment programs vary, although those using models
problems that are not prefabricated. A legislative-style student such as the Renzulli (1977) triad model encourage more
likes loosely structured activities and assignments that involve legis-
lative and global expression of style. In this inodel, the most
constructive planning, such as writing original papers and
advanced level of the triad allows students to design and imple-
designing projects. ment their own projects, with only minimal supervision
The executive function carries out the plans created by the by a
teacher of the gifted. Still, our experience is that classes for the
legislative function. Individuals with an executive style like to gifted often tend to be glorified versions of regular curricula
follow rules and to figure out which established ways are best
rather than fundamentally different curricula that prepare stu-
to implement a plan; they prefer to work on and solve prob-
dents for creative endeavor.
lems with a given structure. Students with an executive style
often mesh well with the expectations of a traditional hierarchi- Particularly disturbing is the fact that not only schools but
also the standardized tests used in the schools favor the execu-
cal classroom in which the teacher lectures or directs discus-
tive and local styles almost exclusively. Students receive
sion with a firm hand: they will work best when assignment
prestructured problems and must answer them in a way that
parameters are clear and highlv structured.
The judicial function involves judging. analyzing, and criticiz-
corresponds to the structure that the test-constructor imposes.
The questions, of course, tend to deal with local rather than
ing. People with a judicial style like to evaluate rules and pro-
global levels of processing. Thus, schooling and standardized
cedures, to judge existing structures, and to examine people’s
behavior. Students of a judicial nature enjoy giving their opin-
testing are Mutually reinforcing, identifying probably the same
ions and assessing those of others, and are lihely to enjoy
people as gifted, but not necessarity those people who would
most benefit from instruction for the creatively gifted and who
writing reviews, analyzing events and situations, or serving as
troubleshooters.
might make the greatest contributions to society later on.
We are not &dquo;against&dquo; executive or local or any other styles,
We argue that creatively gifted people are lihely to prefer a
and it is extremely important that style of thinking not be
legislative style. Of course, 110 one follows one style or another confused with quality of mind. Rather. we believe these styles
exclusively, and to some extent, the style that a person exhibits are already highiy rewarded by schools. to the exclusion of
will be situationally determined. Furtherrnore, a propensity for
the legislative style is not in itself a guarantee of creativity, which nurturing in all children other styles that in the long run might
yield greater creativity.
requires a confluence of the elements of the model discussed
here. Still, we are suggesting that creatively gifted people will Personality
seek out situations at work and in schoo) that enable them to use There have been various studies of the personalities of cre-
their preferred legislative style-

to see things in new ways and

atively gifted individuals and a coostellation of personality at-
formulate new problems as well as sotutions. tributes is often correlated with creative accomplishments
The theory of intellectual styles makes another distinction (Barron & Harrington. 1981: Dellas & Gaier, 1970). We be-
between global and local modes of processing information. lieve that in order for creative giftedness to manifest itself,
corresponding to levels of government such as the federal and certain aspects of personality play every bit as important a role
the local. Although one can be somewhat creative in the details as aspects of cognitive
functioning.

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 One personality attribute that is agreed upon as important Nathaniel Wyeth, inventor of the plastic soda bottle, describes
to creative giftedness is tolerance of ambiguity (Golanri, 1963). how he would go back to work every morning for months and
In many enterprises, there is a time during which one is grop- use his failures as a springboard for new ideas; he says, &dquo;If I

ing for the correct, or at least a new, solution to a problem. hadn’t used those mistakes as stepping stones, I would never
More often than not, it is elusive, with the result that some have invented anything&dquo; (Brown, 1988, p. 368).
&dquo;incubation period&dquo; is needed in order for the ideas to work Obstacles come with the turf when one is pushing bound-
themselves out fully (Kaplan & Davidson, 1988). This period aries or challenging existing viewpoints. But it is often hard to
of incubation, however, is likely to be one of emotional dis- be thick-skinned in the face of criticism, particularly for a child
comfort. The thinker worries that perhaps the idea will never who is criticized by a parent or teacher. And standardized tests,
come, or that it will not be the correct idea, or that even if it of course, don’l even present an opportunity to argue for one’s
does come it will be too late. As a result, one is likely to preferred answer or mode of responding. If an answer is in-
pressure oneself to generate a solution and get it all over with. congruent with the test-constructor’s, one simply loses credit.
But often the early solution is only a stopgap rather than an The individual who is determined to be creative must find ways
optimal answer (Simon, 1957): It may be good enough to around the stumbling blocks in the long run.
satisfy the constraints of a problem. but no better. A fourth relevant personality attribute is a willingness to
Thus, in order to produce one’s best work, it is necessary to grow. Adults and even children occasionally get rewarded for
tolerate ambiguity. For the child in school, this means not a creative idea -

but often only after they have gone to great

accepting her first impulse as necessarily the one to follow. lengths to get recognition for it. Once they are rewarded, a
The first idea for a drawing, book report, or science project natural process of inertia seems to set in. Why take the risk of
may not be the best; the child needs to learn to wait, think, and losing what status one has gained? Why risk the next idea
rethink until she finds the best idea of which she is capable. being a bad one? So. it is easy to become complacent or even
Teachers can foster this process by encouraging brainstorming to stagnate intellectually. Perhaps this is why so many people’ss
and by allowing children both to exercise free choice and to creative&dquo; careers consist of just a single exceptional idea. But
take their time making good choices. children and adults who value creativity for its own sake, and
A second relevant personality attribute is moderate risk- not just for the extrinsic rewards it brings, will not be satisfied
with just one creative idea, no matter how good. They must be
taking (McClelland, 1956), which is emphasized in our invest-
ment approach to creativity. During creative work, there is a willing to grow - to admit, if necessary, that their old ideas
were incomplete or even wrong. To continue to succeed they
potential for gain (internal and external rewards) or loss (time, must be brave enough to move on to new problems and be
energy, criticism) and the outcome is uncertain. But children
open to new experiences (McCrae. 1987).
are not always willing to accept the risks of a nonstandard

approach to a task. In fact, Phillips (1984) has found that gifted Finally. creatively gifted people need some degree of self-
esteem (Feldhusen, 1986: Hennessey & Amabile, 1988). They
children, and especially girls, are likely to be risk-averse.
have to believe in themselves and their ideas. This belief does
Clifford ( 1988) examined 233 fourth, fifth, and sixth graders’
not require that they think their ideas are absolutely correct or
tendency to take academic risks by offering students problems immutable. Rather, they need enough independence to believe
suitable for various grade levels. Students showed a tendency,
which increased with age, to choose easy problems. Fourth their ideas are worthy of expression. In the face of criticism,
sometimes there is little but self-esteem to get one through.
graders chose problems rated as 6 to 8 months below their
To summarize, we suggest that there are personality prereq-
ability level: fifth graders chose problems meant for fourth grad-
rated 1.5 years below uisites for the manifestation of creativity. Someone may have
ers : and sixth graders chose prol>lems
their difficulty level. A self-report questionnaire also showed that all the cognitive prerequisites and yet almost never manifest
students’ tolerance for failure decr eased as age increased. creative performance because he or she is unwilling to take

Indeed, the educational system today places so much em- risks or lacks self-esteem. Educators need to create an environ-
ment in which a child can take risks, challenge the instructor,
phasis on good grades that it is scarcely surprising that stii-
dents in general are fearful of taking iWellectual chances, un- and have time to reflect without punishment. Personality traits
are not immutable: Rather, educators can shape the environ-
willing to risk low grades. Because of the ways grades are. used
to make decisions, it is difficult to fault students for making this ment to favor various traits.
practical albeit pedestrian choice. Nonetheless, children who
fear to try oui the novel may be cutting themselves off from Motivation
&dquo;

potentially great successes. In the financial realin. &dquo;money makes the world
go around.’
A third relevant personality attribute is a willingness to sur- Money, however, is of several extrinsic motivators that
one

mount obstacles and persevere. Biographies of creative women often lead a person away from creative giftedness. In our view.
and men virtually always show them to have confronted ob- the crucial aspect of motivation lies with the distinction be-
structions during their careers. sometimes secmingly impass- tween task-focusing and goal-focusing motivators. Other theo-
able ones (Brown. 1988: Ghisetin. 1952). For example, rists, such as Renzulli (1986), have pointed to task comnit-

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ment as part of giftedness. Our view of the motivation for task-focused motivation to achieve high test scores, or even
creative giftedness builds on this previous work. fairly good grades in school; and goal-focused children can be
Task-focusing motivators are any energizing source, drive, labeled as &dquo;gifted° because of the way identification is done
or goal that leads a person to concentrate attention and work today. But the academically successful children of today are
on a task. Goat-focusing motivators, in contrast, lead people to not necessarily the creativefy gifted adults of tomorrow.
see a task as a means to an end; the goal, which can be money,

recognition, or an intangible reward, remains the focus during Environmental Context

task completion. Creatively gifted indlviduals have a task-fo- In the investment world, the importance of the economic
cused orientation. climate is well-known: the bull- or bear-market Zeitgeist, infla-
Several specific motivators are often task focusing. These tion rate, and world events help to determine investment be-
include the motivations to achieve excellence (McClelland, havior. Creative giftedness also stems from an interaction be-
Atkinson, Clark. & Lowell, 1953; Spence & Helmreich, 1983). tween a person and his or her environment (Csikszentmihalyi
to self-actualize one’s potential (Rogers, 1954), and to satisfy & Robinson, 1986; Feldman, 1986; Gruber, 1986). The very
a desire for intellectual novelty (Berg & Sternberg, 1985). person who would show up as gifted in one environment might
Intrinsic motivation, which may stem from a person’s interest appear quite ordinary in another. We believe that the environ-
or general pleasure with a certain subject, also tends to lead to ment affects giftedness in three ways.
a task-focused orientation. Research studies with both children First, the surroundings may spark creativity. Creative people
and adults demonstrate a positive connection between intrinsic often grow up in stimulating home environments (Ochse, 1990).
motivation and creative performance (Amabile, 1983; They may include home libraries, magazine subscriptions, or a
MacKinnon, 1962). Crutchfield (1962) points out, however, variety of hobbies available in the home (Simonton, 1988).
that motivators such as the desire for self-expression, an intrin- Frank Lloyd Wright, one of America’s most creative architects,
sic motivator, can be detrimental to creativity if the desire was introduced to geometric and aesthetic principles at an

becomes too explicit, too consciously apparent, or in our terms, early age by his mother, who used Froebel’s geometric block
too goal focused. set extensively with him (Clements, 1981).
In school, the motivators tend to be goal-focusing ones. One can also see creativity being sparked in some class-
Grades, praise from teachers, the desire to please parents, or rooms. Ideas are batted around, and one idea leads to another.

the desire to appear competent and achieve in front of ones Unfortunately, such classrooms seem to be the exception rather
peers are very salient (Nicholls, 1983). These extrinsic motiva- than the rule. Most, including classrooms for the gifted, involve
tors often lead a person to see a clear separation between task a didactic presentation of dry and fairly isolated facts, the

and goal. The salience of fame, money, recognition, or grades importance of which is never made clear to the students. The
may make it difficult to remain task focused. When a student result is that students come to think of education as the accu-
only sees or cares about the carrot at the end of the stick, mulation of facts, most of which will eventually be forgotten.
creativity suffers. The idea then becomes that the gifted merely learn the facts
Extrinsic motivators are not inherently antithetical to creativ- faster, or remember them better. Along these lines, Marvin
ity, however. There are cases, such as Crick and Watson’ss Camras. inventor of magnetic coatings that formed the basis
discovery of the DNA double helix, in which extrinsic rewards for modern cassettes, videotapes, and floppy disks, said: &dquo;The
appear to have increased the focus on the task itself. This can more education you get, the more the inventive spark is edu-

occur in at least three circumstances. First, external rewards cated out of you&dquo; (Brown, 1988, p. 79).
may motivate a person without drawing attention away from A second important aspect of the environment is the reward
the task. Second, goal-focusing motivators may be helpful if an system for creative ideas. Creativity can be encouraged, but as
adequate level of task-focused motivation is already present often as not, it is discouraged because teachers find it disrupts
(Hennessey, Ainabile, & Martinage, 1989). Third, goal-focus- their plan for the class period. Denno (1977), furthermore.
ing motivation may be beneficial during later portions of cre- pointed to a &dquo;conformity cycle&dquo; at the elementary school level;
ative work, such as the tedious work often involved in the elementary-level teachers were often themselves conforming
realization of an idea (Amabile, 1988). and moralistic, and these teachers seemed to reward confor-
Additionally, we want to note that motivation, like person- mity in their students. A study by Dettmer (1981), however,
ality, can change over tiine. With a good teacher, a child may shows that teachers can be made aware of their personal styles
become interested in something that before was a bore. Many and preferences and become receptive to students’ creative
gifted performers can point to one or more mentors who first behavior. Eighty-seven teachers and educators involved in gift-
showed them how exciting work in a given field can be. Schools, edness courses either received a six-session course on person-
through an emphasis on grades, may turn a child with task- ality and learning styles. conducted field work with gifted pro-
focused motivation into a goal-focused one. grams, or were part of a control group taking a general course
In sum, we argue that creative giftedness has a conative as about educating exceptional children. Torrance s Ideal Child
well as a cognitive and an affective aspect. One need not have Checklist, which measures the extent to which teachers value

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12
creativity-relevant characteristics in students, was completed through eighth graders describe their most creative performance
before and after the treatments. The group that learned about in each of seven domains (e.g., writing, art, music, science,
their own personality style and alternative ones showed a sig- performing art). Two judges rated the creativity level of the
nificantiy greater gain on the Iducii Child Checklist than the performances. Students were moderately domain specific in
field work group, which increased slightly, or control group, their creativity (median r =.19). In another study, Gray (1966)
which decreased sliglotly. presented a list of 2400 eminent creators and their fields of
Finally, the environment evaluates creative products work. Examination revealed that only 17% of the creators (n =

(Csikszentmihalyi & Robinson, 1986: Reis & Renzulli, 1991). 411) produced enduring work in two or more fields and less
The same idea that may be perceived as creative in one setting than 2% of the total sample (n 44) produced creative work in
=

may be perceived as dull elsewhere. As a result, it is essential disparate fields (e.g., painting and writing).
that gifted individuals, to the extent possible, select environ- This domain specificity is explained within the investment
ments that reward the particular kind of giftedness that they theory because several resources tend to be domain specific.
display. A creatively gifted child will not necessarily shine in a For example, people often develop knowledge and show
class that emphasizes acceleration. Nor is this child likely to motivation in one domain more than others. And personality
excel in a class that is essentially a glorified version of a regular characteristics, such as risk taking, have also been found to be
classroom with brighter students in it. He or she needs a place domain specific (Jackson, Hourany, & Vidmar, 1972). Finally,
to exercise the full range of free thinking. the social environment can play a role by rewarding children’s
In sum, educators need to provide environments that help early performances in some domain and setting up a positive
stimulate creative ideas, that encourage such ideas when they feedback loop for further performances in the same domain.
are presented, and that reward a broad range of creative behav-
Conclusions
ior. Such environments are often difficult to create because they
Our conception of creative giftedness has four distinctive
are so different from what currently exists in most classrooms.
(although not necessarily unique) aspects. First, we use the
But without them, teachers will continue to produce children
umbrella of the investment metaphor to understand creativity.
who may be smart, but not particularly creative. Moreover,
Second, we go beyond the cognitive by including intellectual
educators will continue to select students as gifted on the basis
of skills among which creativity does not play a part.
style, personality, and motivation as integral parts of gifted-
ness. Third, we go beyond the individual in suggesting that one

Interacting Resources major determinant of whether a child is labeled gifted does not
Our model is neither strictly additive nor multiple-threshold: depend on the child at all, but rather upon the environment in
it is interactive (see Sternberg & Lubart, 1991). A strictly ad- which the child develops and is evaluated. Fourth, creative
ditive model is one in which scores on a set of measures are giftedness involves interactions among the six resources in our
added up (perhaps in weighted fashion). and if their sum is high model. Although there are several competing theories of gift-
enough, a person is labeled gifted. A multiple-threshold model edness in general, and of creative giftedness in particular, we
is one in which an individual must score above a certain level believe that our theory differs, at least somewhat, from other
on each of a set of measures (such as ability, motivation, and formulations (see Feldhusen & Hoover, 1986: Feldman, 1986;
creativity in Renzulli’s 1986 model) in order to be designated Renzulli, 1986: Tannenbaum, 1986). We hope that the invest-
as gifted. This model excludes people who are below threshold ment theory adds to the understanding of creative giftedness
on any one resource. through each of these four points and through their combina-
In the investment theory, the six resources can interact mul- tion in a single unified model-
tiplicatively to enhance creative performance. For example, a To conclude we return to our analogy with the successful
high level of intellectual processes combined with a legislative stock marlcet investor who buys low and sells high. Society must
style is predicted to enhance cre ativity beyond the additive effect invest aggressively; educators must themselves &dquo;buy low’~ by
of these resources. Other multiplicative interactions may in- encouraging creative behavior and thinking in all children. espe-
volve : (a) intellectual processes and knowledge and (b) personal- cially the gifted. Only then can society net a good return and
ity and motivation, such as perseverance and task-oriented mo- &dquo;sell high&dquo; by sending them out into the world prepared to
tivation. The presence of resource interactions may further change and improve it with the power of their actions and ideas.
depend on the domain of creative work. Creative giftedness is
rare, according to our view. because so many resources must Authors’ Note: The work reported herein was supported
combine interactively to produce it. under the Javits Act Program (Grant No. R206R00001) as
Creative Giftedness and Domain administered by the Office of Educational Research and Im-
Specificity
Although creative giftedness can occurin almost any domain provement, U.S. Department of Education. The findings and
of work, an individual person tends to demonstrate creativity in opinions expressed in this report do not reflect the position or
one or a few related domains. This tendency has been observed policies of the Office of Educational Research and Improve-
ment or the U.S. Department of Education.
in several studies. For example. Runco (1987) had 228 fifth

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13
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