Explaining Creativity: The Attributional Perspective

Abstract

Throughout history, laypeople and scientists alike have tended to attribute creative behavior to dispositional rather than situational causes. One result has been a highly skewed research literature in which creativity is studied primarily by personality and cognitive psychologists searching for characteristics of "creative people" and paying comparatively little attention to external influences on creativity. In this article, I argue that the human tendency to attribute creative behavior to dispositional causes does not stem entirely from the actual impact of dispositions on creative behavior but is influenced also by deep-rooted attributional proclivities and biases, which are described herein. I also discuss how dispositional attributions of creative behavior affect the future production, evaluation, and attribution of original creations, and I describe how attributional principles can be used to enhance creativity.