June 5, 2025 • 54 mins
This week, Scott welcomes Dr. Zorana Ivcevic Pringle, senior research scientist at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and Director of the Creativity and Emotions Lab.
They dive into Dr. Pringle’s new book, The Creativity Choice: The Science of Making Decisions to Turn Ideas Into Action, which offers research-backed guidance on transforming imagination into reality. The conversation explores the intersection of creativity, emotional intelligence, and motivation, providing actionable insights to help you overcome internal barriers and pursue your goals with clarity and purpose.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
And they also talk about another component that is not
otherwise very often discussed, and that is focus. Okay, you
have this drive and this motivation. That is we can
think of motivation as energy. It's this you are being fueled,
you are being you know, like your whole body is
(00:23):
vibrating to go. You want to go. But now the
question is how do you focus it? How do you
make it so that it becomes productive.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Hello and welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we explore
the depths of human potential. I'm your host, doctor Scott
Barry Kaufman, a Columbia professor, best selling author, and self
actualization coach. Today I speak with doctor Zarana E. Fkevich
Pringle on the show. Doctor Pringle is a senior research
scientist at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, where she
(00:58):
currently serves as the director of the Creativity and Emotions Lab.
She studies the role of emotion and emotional intelligence in
creativity and well being, as well as how to use
the arts to promote emotion and creativity skills. In this episode,
we discuss her new book, The Creativity Choice, The Science
of making decisions to turn ideas into action. In this episode,
(01:21):
you will learn how to make your dreams a reality,
get over stumbling blocks and harness the power of your
emotional intelligence and motivation to reach your goals. I've known
Zarana for many years and consider her an exemplar scientist
and human So that further ado, I bring you doctor
Zorana Evkovich, springle Hey, Professor Zorana, thank you so much
(01:43):
for being on the Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Thank you so much for having me. Scott.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Oh, We've known each other for quite some time now,
and I'm so excited you finally have this book.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
I finally have this book, indeed, wooo.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
And it really is the culmination of so much research
and hard work on multiple topics creativity, emotional intelligence, dare
I say, grits. So it really integrates a lot of things.
Let me ask you why did you write this book?
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Well, I tend to be motivated a lot by frustration.
It seems to be a personality thing with me, and
I started being frustrated with what I saw out there
in research, in communicating creativity, research to do general audiences.
They are handful of really great books. I loved Wuyer
(02:38):
to Create and it was part of my book proposal.
But I also thought they were things missing that we
were not talking in particular about the emotional side of
the creative process, and I took that as a sign
(02:59):
of well, should do that.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Okay, So what's the name of the book.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
The name of the book is The Creativity Choice.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Okay, so you do think creativity is a choice? Now?
A lot of people say, well, only you know, I'm
not creative. Some people don't see it's not a part
of their identity. People obviously change the extent to which
is the part of their identity. I think people that's
not part of their anity, they could make the choice
for it to be relevant in their lives.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
I think they could. It's when people do not have
creativity as part of their identity, they are making this assumption,
essentially that creativity is a trait and you have it
or you don't have it. Oftentimes there are other assumptions
built in there. I oftentimes hear, oh, you talk about creativity, well,
(03:50):
I'm not artistic, So this built assumption that creativity is
about the arts and being artistic, or even they get
more specific of I cannot draw sure, I can't either.
It's fine. So I think that these assumptions we build
in about creativity lead people to, uh, to make a conclusion, Well,
(04:15):
I am not creative myself. But if I wonder what
if we communicated better and told people what creativity really is,
that it's not just about being artistic, that it's not
just about being an Einstein or a Picasso, that it's
something that could be learned, that's something that could be developed.
(04:39):
What would then the picture be what if we started
with those messages early on.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Well, what is well, what is creativity? Though? Can you
tell us what the what are the necessary features? What
counts is creative? What doesn't count as creativity?
Speaker 1 (04:55):
I think that's definitely the first question to start. We
hear the word creative and we all have a sense
that we know what it is, but I oftentimes also here, well, creativity,
we cannot really define it. This isotheric thing. But creativity
researchers really agree on what creativity is. To the point
(05:16):
of the definition of creativity is called the standard definition,
So we really agree what it is, and it includes
two parts. Creativity is something an idea product, something that
we do that is in the same time original in
some way and also effective or appropriate for a particular goal.
(05:43):
Something that is just original can be bizarre, and that
would not qualify for creativity. Something that is both original
and effective is creative.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
There's a lot of people talk about the link between
mental illness and creativity. You don't have to be all
to be creative.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Right, No, you don't have to be meantal little to
be creative. Actually, there is some connection between mental illness
and creativity. It looks like it, especially in the artistic domains.
There's a meta analysis out there of a number of studies.
But in those cases it might be we don't know
(06:23):
why that is, and it might be that it's even
in spite of it, not because of it. So there
are lots of questions about it. But you most definitely
do not need to be mentally ill to be creative.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Okay, But there are some interesting linkages there.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
There are some interesting linkages. Actually, that is those kinds
of linkages where at the very origin of how I
became interested in creativity in the first place, I was
reading once upon a time, long time ago, when I
was an undergrad looking for a thesis topic. I was
(07:03):
reading broadly this research from the nineteen sixties that was
the first big booming creativity research in the US. Really
spurred by the space race between the US and the
Soviet Union, and we knew we wanted to develop creativity.
We knew we needed more of it, but the question was,
(07:24):
you know, how does it work? And I came across
this statement by Frank Barron, who I know that you
know of and yes, both value great deal, and he
said something to the effect that creative individuals are occasionally
crazier yet adamantly saner than the average person. And I
(07:51):
love that quote, and I really wondered what that meant.
And actually, a few years ago I ran a study
that directly tested.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
That go on, go on, go on, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
It's so cool. So I really wanted to he was
He said this based on observations and based on interviews
with creative individuals, and I wanted to do a formal study,
and so I recruited a simple of professional artists. And
these were people who we really just took top art
(08:28):
schools in the country and took all the faculty in
the art schools and email them asking them to take
part in research. And we got bunch back who volunteered
to take part, and then we had a general sample
of population, not saying that these were not creative individuals,
just that they were not specifically selected for their creativity.
(08:52):
And then we gave them measures of psychological strengths such
as atributes of psychological well being like personal growth, meaning
and purpose in life, hope. And then we also give
the measures of psychological vulnerabilities, especially susceptibility to stress, anxiety,
(09:19):
and depression. And we wanted to see, okay, is it
that these artistic people are in the same time more
sane and more insane general population. And indeed that's what
we found that if you don't just take vulnerability and
(09:42):
strength as separate, separate attributes, if you create a profile
that you say, okay, this person has some strengths and
some vulnerabilities, and if you create a profile where you
can see is it the case for some people that
they have both? We find that's much more common in
(10:05):
those people who were professionally creative in this case in
the arts, than those people who are not who are
not professionally creative.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
That's brilliant. Can you send me that paper?
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Yeah, of course I.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Would like to write about it. I have wondered if
anyone in modern day creativity research and creative modern day
creative has actually tried to replicate that Frank Byron research,
so that I'm really excited you did that. I don't
know how I missed that.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
I really dreamed of doing that study for twenty years
and it's finals impossible.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Beautiful. Please I don't have to write about that for
my newsletter. So, the idea of the creative drive has
been talked about a lot among creativity researchers over the years.
And how do you pinpoint that, like, what is that
drive uniquely? You know, compared to all their kind of drives.
You may have a drive to just enable, like you
(11:00):
may have a talent and so you feel driven to
realize that talent. But what is a generalized creative drive?
What is that?
Speaker 1 (11:09):
I love that question because it makes you kind of
do distinction of what does it really mean? And I
really like the work by Giovanni Corazza and his theme
in Italy, and they have developed this theory. They called
it the Da Vinci model of creativity, which I think
(11:31):
it's clever. It's an acronym, but also da Vinci and
they say that they are two parts to the creative drive.
And that model was I think putting different strends of
research together that I found very appealing. And they say
(11:51):
that creative drive includes the motivation for creative work, and
we can ask questions what are the sources of that motivation?
And they also talk about another component that is not
otherwise very often discussed, and that is focus. Okay, you
have this drive and we uh, this motivation. That is
(12:16):
we can think of motivation as energy. It's this you
are being. You're being fueled, you are being you know,
like your whole body is vibrating to go. You want
to go. But now the question is how do you
focus it? How do you make it so that it
becomes productive? Uh? And they have they were the first
(12:41):
ones to put it like that, and I thought that
was very intriguing, says I was writing the book. Yeah,
we have talked in creativity studies a lot about the
motivation side, but not so much about the focus side.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yeah. This is this is your book. This is this
is the that's the central thing about your book is
how do we go from the idea to the reality,
you know, to the enactment of it. Oh man, what
do you think about what do you think make of passion?
Do you think it's something that we have inside of
us as like a seed or like what kind of
(13:18):
metaphor to use in your head when you think about
pasion or do you think it's something that's developed over
the course of putting in the effort and even doing
hard things that you don't want to do. You know,
like a lot of great creative people have enacted their
creativity through a lot of suffering. That it's not like
(13:39):
the passion was there twenty four to seven? Right, m oh, so.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Many important points you're raising there, And I find that
I always found it intriguing the cultural talk about passion
as you have to find your passion, right, and it
seems to say, okay, passion is it's somewhere inside you
are somewhere to be found. You just have to find it,
(14:08):
and and that is that is odd. I always found
that intuitively odd. How do you know that it's already there?
What does that mean? It's already there? And the passion,
It turns out there's some really cool research that shows
(14:29):
it's it's not a trait like that that you either
have or you don't have. You're a passionate personal, you're
not a passionate person. It develops through time, and it
develops through engaging in an activity. There are lots of
people who are passionate about a lot of things that
(14:50):
they couldn't have inherently known that they would be passionate about.
You know, we had rec we done some work on
our house. We have a garden and there's kind of
a retaining wall, so we had to hire somebody to
rebuild the wall that was starting to crumble. And the
(15:12):
person who ended up hiring was really passionate about building walls.
He was Turkish and by background, and he would go
to Turkey every year and go to different archaeological sites
to see how walls were built at different times in history.
(15:32):
I mean, if that's not passion, I don't know what is.
And he really deeply cared about his work. So he
found the mistake in what another worker did in a
previous renovation, and he asked us whether we wanted it
to be corrected. We did not see the need for it,
but he could not not do it. Was just you
(15:56):
could see him saying, I'm gonna do it anyway. So
that is passion. Would we ever see would we ever
say that he had always in him the passion to
build walls that are well built. And I don't think
so I think there's this assumption when people say passion
(16:18):
is a trait to find the seed in you, to
find that there's something artistic again it comes to that
or creative or designery or one of these things, that
it's somewhere in there you just have to find it.
(16:38):
But oftentimes you just need to try out different things,
and oftentimes you can be surprised. Oh, I did not
expect this to be interesting, but it's interesting. I'm intrigued.
Let me learn more, and it becomes a.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Passion so interesting enough. Maybe we really need to in
the field not think of passion as an emotion. It
maybe should be in the demean of cognition. It's like,
maybe we just need to place it in a different
domain than it has traditionally been placed.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Ooh, that's intriguing. We Actually it reminds me of a
study we did a few years ago where we asked
questions about passion at work. We administered a scale of
passion at work, and we had also a lot of
(17:35):
emotions that were assessed at the same time. So what
we were able to do is put passion in the
context of emotions, okay, and the passion scale was not
focused on emotion. It had one component of it focused
on emotion, this desire component, this like burning fire of
wanting to do something that is in accordance to your passion.
(17:58):
But it had other components too that we're closer to commitment,
So components of in the long term, I want to
be engaged in this activity. Uh, it is central to
who I am, to my identity and this realization and
(18:22):
sort of yes, cognitive commitment to the activity itself and
and persistence in the long run. So this desire is
more of an emotional component. Commitment is more of a
cognitive component. And it when you made that comment, it
(18:43):
made me think when we when we did a network
analysis of all the emotions that are related to how
much people are passionate in their jobs before that it
was related to both positive emotions and negative emotions.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Oh wow, isn't that true? Well that is really cool
and just the whole notion as well, that we can
classify emotions in the positive and negative. I are not
I don't love that. How do we our emotions contextual? Like?
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Yeah, emotions are very contextual, and I think that some uh,
some labels that now in this day and age, we
wish that once upon a time, some labels were not
put on particular concepts. I know that you do lots
of research on personality, and I think that now we
(19:48):
wish that we didn't well a century ago name the
traite neuroticism, but we did, and then it kind of stuck. Yes,
I think the same thing is with emotions when we
call them positive and negative. They are these connotations that
people get, meaning positive is good or desirable, negative is
(20:13):
bad or not desirable. It's not really that it's emotions
are not good or bad inherently, but really contextually depends
on the context, and it can be they have different
functions and they can have different effects.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Yes, with that said, it seems like there are certain
skills of emotional intelligence that are beneficial regardless of the context,
such as using your emotions and regulating your emotions. Those
two you've also found are important for creativity. So tell
me a little bit about these skills and how did
(20:53):
you get into the work of emotional intelligence and what
is emotional intelligence?
Speaker 1 (21:00):
I think that's the best place to start. Oftentimes I
find that people have a sense that they know what
emotional intelligence is, but that might be more of a
sense than the true knowledge. So emotional intelligence is a
set of floor abilities. Ability to accurately perceive emotions in oneself. Another,
(21:24):
so be able to tell that you are feeling frustrated
and not just this generalized bad. Then the ability to
use emotions to facilitate thinking and problem solving, Ability to
understand emotions where they are coming from what might be
typical causes or consequences. And the ability to manage or
(21:50):
regulate emotions in ourselves and in others. So those are
the four.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
And how does that differ from like Daniel Goleman's emotional
intelligences components, because that was all the craze in the
eighties and on the nineties and in the nineties, and
we said that was crazy in the nineties. A big
part of why I got into the field of psychologist.
I loved the book Emotional Intelligence. I was in high school.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Yeah, I loved the book too. The book came out
in nineteen ninety five and it was bigger than a
big hit. It was one of the biggest psychology books
of baby all times. And what that book is is
(22:36):
talking about all the different traits and attributes that could
contribute to how well we do in life. It's just
that that book is talking about motivation and self concept
and lots of traits and lots of things on the
(22:58):
personality side of humans, and not so much about abilities
or ways of thinking that that we think of as
emotional intelligence in contemporary research. Okay, so okay, we think
you talked about what was important. It's just not not
(23:18):
how we think of emotional intelligence in the in the
sense of and ability and different kind of intelligence.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
So you see these as abilities or skills that anyone
can develop.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Anyone can develop to a large extent, you know, it's
there are certain things that come easier to some people
than others, and we definitely have to acknowledge that it
will be easier for some people to learn these skills
then it will be to other people for lots of
(23:58):
different reasons. I am five to one. I'm never going
to be a basketball player. You know, there are people
for whom it's going to be difficult to learn them.
But we have now good data teaching these skills to
children through school based programs, to adults through work based programs,
(24:23):
and there are meta analysis showing that yes, they can
be learned.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
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(24:53):
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(25:16):
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(25:37):
Human Potential dot com slash SAC. That's Center for Human
Potential dot com slash sac. Okay, now back to the show. Well,
why do you think that using emotions and regulating emotions
is why are they important for creativity? I don't know
if when people think of creativity they think of the
(26:01):
importance of regulating emotions. I think they think of jumping in,
you know, being impulsive, you know, being crazy so so,
but you're you're kind of like, no, let me, let
me tell you how it really is here. Hmm. Oh.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
I love this question, especially how you put it, because
it gets again to those to those assumptions we have
about creativity. And we have this assumption of creativity being spontaneous, fun, free, flowing,
get messy with colors, wild, wild, and you know there
(26:39):
is something to it that is not fully ridiculous because
and that's why it persists. I think there is a
part of the creative process, especially when we are coming
up with ideas that can be a little bit wild,
that can be things are coming out of the blue,
we are finding connection that other people have not seen before,
(27:03):
and so it is very much like that. But I
in my book, I very specifically talk about creativity in
a broader sense, not just as coming up with ideas,
but doing something with them. So imagine just as a
as a thought experiment. Imagine that you had an idea
(27:30):
and you don't act on it. So maybe you have
invented a great technology. Maybe you had an idea for
social media before it ever existed, or you had an
idea for who knows what else. But if you didn't
develop it, if you didn't build it into a performance
(27:52):
or a product, it is just something that stays in
your head. It it is not creative. It is fantasy,
It is imagination. It is interesting as imagination. But I
want us to talk about creativity that that results in
(28:14):
something new, that it's not just just something that we
talk about over coffee with a friend.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yeah. Well, well, do you think innovation is a different
concept than creativity?
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Hmmm? That is my favorite controversial question. I don't. I
actually think they are the same thing, and that is
very unpopular opinion. And actually, in in organizational behavior research,
(28:54):
there's a very explicit definition of creativity is coming up
with ideas and innovation as doing something with them. But
you know scientists, and you are scientists, you know that
we like parsimony. If there is this simple solution, it's
(29:15):
better than a complicated one. So why have multiple terms
that this distinction only really works in the case of
business or you know, organizational studies, but it doesn't apply
to other areas. So think if you wanted to apply
(29:35):
this distinction of creativity versus innovation to art, right, the
stereotypical domain of creativity, it wouldn't work. You don't say that,
you know, Monet painted this amazing painting, you say that
it's creative. You don't say that it's innovative. Right, it doesn't.
(30:00):
It doesn't apply in different areas. It kind of applies
only in this one specific place. And and so why
then why do we need that?
Speaker 2 (30:11):
It may be just.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Because of these stereotypes of creativity is artistic. Therefore we
are just going to put it on the side of ideas.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Yeah, we have so many stereotypes. Yeah, you're saying all
of these stereotypes are wrong.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
And when you were you know, when you were saying before,
of well, what about managing emotions? Datability comes into play
when we take creativity as not just coming up with ideas.
We are if you're just coming up with ideas, you
can let it flow. But if you and you can
(30:51):
go wild and you don't have to, you don't have
to manage anything. But if you take creativity as a
long term process, then they are going to be things
that are boring.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Right.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
We are scientists. Nobody likes nobody likes revising a paper,
but you have to. And it's boring and it's annoying,
and you don't want to do it, and you have
to make yourself do it, and you have to do
something with these feelings.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Yeah, yeah, I mean these skills sound boring, though, but
you're saying we have to be boring sometimes in order
to be creative.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
We have to deal with those boring things because in
order for that paper to be published. In this case, right,
you submitted the paper, you have written it, and you
think the paper is in great shape. But reviewers say,
how about this question? How about that question? Did you
consider whatever? Right? And you have to deal with those
(31:59):
comments before the paper can be published. We don't like it.
It's unpleasant. In the ideal scenario, the paper really gets
better because of this process and stronger. But even if
that is not the case, and it's not always the case,
we have to jump through these hoops and lots of
(32:22):
dealing with emotions there.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Cool what happens when people experience a creative block? Do
you have any advice for people and how to overcome their blocks?
Speaker 1 (32:37):
I think of the first thing that is really interesting
to me, Scott is when I started writing a chapter
on creative block, I expected that there will be a
lot of research on creative block.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
There wasn't.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
No.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
You know, Joe sell Singer did some of that work.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Yeah, there is. There are few things out today. But
because it is so important and it's such a universal
experience of people who do create the work, that I
expected much more work out there. Wow, And there actually wasn't.
(33:19):
So it was it was a challenging chapter to write,
but it became one of the most meaningful to me.
You know how things are sometimes like that that what
is challenging really stretches you to the end of your
abilities and you end up creating something really really important.
(33:40):
And I thought said, Okay, what happens when we are
experiencing a creative block? And are what are all the
things going on in the mind and cognitively, emotionally, and
if you take it all together, I think we need
(34:03):
to start with that emotional part. I did a study
a few years ago where I asked a group of
people and so called creative industries. I don't like that
term because it implies that other industries are not creative,
so you know that aside. So these were designers and composers, choreographers, sculptors, painters, writers,
(34:32):
you name it. And I asked them whether they ever
experienced creative block, and you could. You could even in
written responses. You could almost hear the chuckle. Yeah, of
course we do. And then I asked them what is
that experience like emotionally? And you know, those word clouds
(34:58):
were the size of the word proportional to how often
it is mentioned. This is a really funny figure because
the word frustrated is gigantic. It is like a cloud
over everything else. And then some people mention also anxious,
(35:23):
having self doubt or self consciousness. Some people say that
they get angry. So other things that happen emotionally in
experience of creative block probably differ by personality of an individual,
but frustration is dominant and it can be overwhelming. So
(35:45):
I think that the first place to start in dealing
with the creative block is self compassion, and I know
that that's something that you would identify with it's And
this is also a technique of emotion regulation. Imagine that
(36:08):
you are talking to a friend and the friend is
telling you that they hit the wall and they're not
making any progress. What would you tell them?
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Yeah, what would you tell them?
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Well, chances are you wouldn't tell them all those things
that you say to yourself and we say to ourselves,
you should have known better, what were you thinking? Why
are you in this place? Come on? Chances are you
would not say any of those things, and that you
would tell them to cut themselves some slack, and maybe
(36:48):
to take a break, to look at it from a
different perspective, maybe to share with it somebody else, to
get a fresh set of eyes on it. And those
all happen to be good tips for what to do
when you are in a state of creative block.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
So you think that that can actually help you get
past the block, like I've seen examples of Like I've
heard things like getting your mind off the task, you know,
like go take a shower or do something else. But
you think showing self compassion can get you out of
(37:30):
a run.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
It's not directly it can It can take the emotional
edge off so that you start being that you start
being able to approach it in a different way. If
we are so overwhelmingly frustrated, we cannot see anything else. Essentially,
(37:57):
we keep hitting a wall, hitting our head against wall,
and doing it continually. Imagine that you are writing, you're
a writer, and the words are not coming. Everything that
you write makes no sense or it seems not to
make sense to you. If you continue doing it, it
(38:17):
really is like banging your head and it becomes it
becomes overwhelming. Right, So the first step is to take
the edge off or those emotional of emotional parts of
the block. Then you can take a break. Then you
can take a break, and then you know, taking a shower,
(38:40):
It actually is that stereotype is actually true. Taking a
shower does help something. And the reaching out to others,
somebody who can provide a fresh perspective. Sometimes even describing
(39:01):
it to somebody else. Describing what you are facing and
what your problem is to somebody else can can lead
to an insight even before they say anything to you,
because you are using different words and describing it to
somebody else than you would in your you know, staring
(39:24):
at the screen yourself.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
That's so valuable. Well, you said earlier that positive and
negative emotions can be correlated with creativity. What are what
are some quote negative emotions that that are conducive to creativity? What?
What can you give me more? Can you be more specific?
Speaker 1 (39:46):
The research shows that it seems they unpleasant. The other
word for for negative is unpleasant. It really is how
that positive versus negative The better labels are unpleasant versus pleasant.
(40:07):
But energized feelings can be beneficial for creativity. So those
feelings might be being frustrated, or being angry, or being
annoyed by something that those could be productive and you
can think of examples. I know that personally, I happen
(40:30):
to be very much aware that I am motivated by
frustration and that frustration can come from you know, I'm
a scientist. So I read something and then I disagree
with it. I think, oh, you shouldn't have done it
like that. It is really wrong question to ask. That's
(40:52):
how we ended up studying creativity and emotions. To be
honest with you, I was reading contemporary research and creativity
and the question being asked was what emotions are good
for creativity and what emotions are bad? For creativity. And
if we set the question like that, and if we
(41:15):
think of creativity and if we study creativity as coming
up with ideas, we get a reliable answer. After thirty
five years of research, it's a very reliable answer that happy,
energized moods are beneficial for creative thinking. But that was
frustrating to me because it seems, and oftentimes it's translated
(41:41):
as advice you have to be happy to be creative,
and that goes against any creative person I know in
real life, not that they are miserable, but it's not
just about being happy. There's something missing here, and so
I started wondering whether that's the right question. I was
(42:02):
frustrated with the state of affairs in this research, and
I came to different questions. I came to a question of, well,
it might not be really about what you are experiencing,
but what you do with the feelings you have, which
is that idea of emotional intelligence and the abilities of
(42:26):
what you do with emotions. So one thing of what
you do with emotions is Okay, you are frustrated, like
in my example, but you can do different things with
that frustration if you use and emotion scientists consider that
emotions are information. They are telling you something about the
(42:48):
state of your mind or the state of the world,
something in the environment around you, and that information can
be used just like we want different information and making
any kind of decisions. This is another kind of information
to use. So you can say, Okay, I'm frustrated. What
(43:12):
is that telling me? Well, I concluded that it's telling
me that this question that was traditional and the research
was not the best one, and I wanted to do
something about it, and I thought of what might be
another question? And then did you know, research about it
and then died up building a career out of it.
(43:33):
That one could say, well, maybe that was creative action there.
But another thing you could do is to say, well,
I don't like feeling frustrated, so I am just going
to distract myself and make myself feel better. Well, you
are going to feel better, but you're not going to
(43:54):
do anything creative.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
Oh darn, darn. Oh. Yeah, there's some tough love here
in your book, isn't there.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
There is a little bit, but.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
It's a really necessary book. I've got to ask you,
what do you think of the concept of grit and
what role does grit play in creativity.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
Oh, I think that the idea of grit is very appealing.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
It's very popular, it's.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
Very popular, it's very appealing, and it's very important because
I think and it's also if you know the history
of the research in grit and how it came to be,
it came from this realization that oftentimes in our culture,
and in particular with children, we sort of support or
(44:53):
give permission for kids to give up. You know, they
try something for a new for a few few weeks
and then they just said, ah, they're gonna give it up.
Try something else, Try something else. And I am all
for having multiple interests and trying different interests, but you
(45:14):
also have to give it some try. You have to
give it a chance to learn something and potentially develop
an interest. So it's a very appealing concept. And the
concept of grit guest has these two parts, one of
persistence in the face of obstacles and also another one
(45:36):
that is more of stay with that interest. You say
you're interested in this, stay with it, don't just let
it go. And it turns out that for creativity, the
persistence part of creativity is super important. It really makes
a difference between just having an idea and doing something
(45:58):
with it you it helps you transform it into performances, products,
whatever it might be. But that consistency of interest aspect
of great actually could potentially hurt creativity.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
Row Uh.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
Yeah, it is interesting because ideas can come from anywhere,
but for the ideas and connections to happen, we need
we need to be exposed to different things. And I
(46:44):
love how in your Buyer to Create you put openness
to experience as the central part of what creative individuals
are like. And why that openness to experience is important.
It's because you will be open to trying different things
and you will then have broad knowledge base. You will
(47:09):
be interested in science but also art. My son is
doing performing arts of all kinds but also robotics. And
we know from research of Nobel Prize winners in the
sciences many of them, a remarkable number of them have
(47:30):
hobbies in the arts and arts and crafts, from playing
musical instruments to staying glass and good working and whatnot.
And it is and if we even look at different
examples of creative individuals, they have really broad interests. So
(47:54):
they don't have this find one thing and then just
stick with it. They there is a little bit of
jumping around that becomes in the service of creative work.
Speaker 2 (48:07):
It seems related to David Epstein's work. Did you have
you read his book? Yes, about the importance of cross specialization.
That's actually a phrase that I think Dean Keith, Dean
Keith Simonton would use cross specialization. But but David Epstein
has you know, shows that that a lot of really
(48:28):
high performers, creative people, high achievers, they did not only
stay in their own lane, so to speak, they really
were very curious and uh, and we're very curious about
many different topics in many different fields.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Yeah, yeah, and I love that work, especially because our
culture is pushing towards hyper specialization is value and the well,
why Zeron.
Speaker 2 (49:02):
I have one more question for you. You talk all
about importance of social networks in your book and different
types of relationships for creativity. Can you can you expound
on that a little bit for our listeners.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
As we are talking about creativity in a way of
not just having ideas but doing something with those ideas.
And if you think of creativity with the goal of
not just doing one thing, you write one book and
(49:36):
then well you don't do anything anymore. If you want
to make creativity more sustainable and reliable, something that repeats.
We have to talk about the social side of creativity. Yeah,
and it creates sort of an infrastructure, ecosystem, whatever analogy
(49:59):
you want to use that makes it possible if we
just go beyond a single thing we create. And it
has two purposes. Really. One is to help us come
up with ideas, new ideas, not just that one that
(50:20):
we already done. And it also is there as support
when we need it, as emotional support, but also support
in developing an idea and saying, Okay, here's an idea.
(50:44):
Now we have it, but how do we build on it,
how do we elaborate on it, how do we move
it along? How do we how do we There was
this wonderful study by Jill Perry Smith at Emory and
(51:08):
her colleagues where they paired people so that some people
were working to generate ideas and some people were working
on elaborating on an idea and developing it, and then
some of them were paired with what they called weak
(51:30):
ties and somewhat strong ties. So weak ties are those
relationships with people that we do not talk often with
the kind of people you connect with on LinkedIn here
and there, but they are not. They are not. They
don't know things that you are working on and you
(51:55):
kind of know them, but only kind of know them.
And this strong ties could be people on your team
or close colleagues, those who you check in regularly with
and who tend to know how you think about something
(52:15):
like I regularly talk to this very close colleague of mine,
like James Kaufman. Yes he knows how I think. I
know how he thinks, and we are kind of on
the same page. So in the study they were able
(52:37):
to see what happens when you are generating ideas and
working with different kinds of relationship, or you are working
to elaborate on ideas and when you are paired with
week or strong ties. And what they found is that
when you are coming up with ideas, talking to somebody
(53:01):
who you haven't talked to in a long time or
who is you know, somebody at the edge of your
social network is great, very helpful. They don't know how
you think, you don't know how they think, and there
could be sparks there because you're going to have different perspectives.
But the flip side happens when you have to develop
(53:22):
an idea, and they found that when you have to
develop an idea, those people who are weak ties just
want to talk about more new ideas. They do not
really pay attention that you already have something that you're
working on, because they don't they don't have the emotional
(53:43):
investment in you or your idea. But those that are
strong ties have the emotional investment and they are saying yes,
and they are saying, oh, that's a great thought. Have
you also considered so there's an elemental support and then
(54:03):
starting with that and building on it.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
I love it. I love it. I don't think a
lot necessarily a lot of things you talked about today,
I don't think people are really thinking about necessarily are
related to creativity. And I think you probably caused a
shift in a lot of people's thinking today. And I
know that was one of your goals. So thank you
so much, Sarana on being on my podcast and Concrat,
huge congratulations on your new book. I hope it does
(54:30):
really really well.
Speaker 1 (54:31):
Thank you so much. And I know we've been thinking
and talking about these issues for a long time.
Speaker 2 (54:36):
And publishing papers together.
Speaker 1 (54:38):
And publishing papers together.
Speaker 2 (54:40):
Yeah, yeah, so it couldn't be more proud of you.
Speaker 1 (54:44):
Thank you so much, Scott
And they also talk about another component that is not
otherwise very often discussed, and that is focus. Okay, you
have this drive and this motivation. That is we can
think of motivation as energy. It's this you are being fueled,
you are being you know, like your whole body is
(00:23):
vibrating to go. You want to go. But now the
question is how do you focus it? How do you
make it so that it becomes productive.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Hello and welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we explore
the depths of human potential. I'm your host, doctor Scott
Barry Kaufman, a Columbia professor, best selling author, and self
actualization coach. Today I speak with doctor Zarana E. Fkevich
Pringle on the show. Doctor Pringle is a senior research
scientist at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, where she
(00:58):
currently serves as the director of the Creativity and Emotions Lab.
She studies the role of emotion and emotional intelligence in
creativity and well being, as well as how to use
the arts to promote emotion and creativity skills. In this episode,
we discuss her new book, The Creativity Choice, The Science
of making decisions to turn ideas into action. In this episode,
(01:21):
you will learn how to make your dreams a reality,
get over stumbling blocks and harness the power of your
emotional intelligence and motivation to reach your goals. I've known
Zarana for many years and consider her an exemplar scientist
and human So that further ado, I bring you doctor
Zorana Evkovich, springle Hey, Professor Zorana, thank you so much
(01:43):
for being on the Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Thank you so much for having me. Scott.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Oh, We've known each other for quite some time now,
and I'm so excited you finally have this book.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
I finally have this book, indeed, wooo.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
And it really is the culmination of so much research
and hard work on multiple topics creativity, emotional intelligence, dare
I say, grits. So it really integrates a lot of things.
Let me ask you why did you write this book?
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Well, I tend to be motivated a lot by frustration.
It seems to be a personality thing with me, and
I started being frustrated with what I saw out there
in research, in communicating creativity, research to do general audiences.
They are handful of really great books. I loved Wuyer
(02:38):
to Create and it was part of my book proposal.
But I also thought they were things missing that we
were not talking in particular about the emotional side of
the creative process, and I took that as a sign
(02:59):
of well, should do that.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Okay, So what's the name of the book.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
The name of the book is The Creativity Choice.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Okay, so you do think creativity is a choice? Now?
A lot of people say, well, only you know, I'm
not creative. Some people don't see it's not a part
of their identity. People obviously change the extent to which
is the part of their identity. I think people that's
not part of their anity, they could make the choice
for it to be relevant in their lives.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
I think they could. It's when people do not have
creativity as part of their identity, they are making this assumption,
essentially that creativity is a trait and you have it
or you don't have it. Oftentimes there are other assumptions
built in there. I oftentimes hear, oh, you talk about creativity, well,
(03:50):
I'm not artistic, So this built assumption that creativity is
about the arts and being artistic, or even they get
more specific of I cannot draw sure, I can't either.
It's fine. So I think that these assumptions we build
in about creativity lead people to, uh, to make a conclusion, Well,
(04:15):
I am not creative myself. But if I wonder what
if we communicated better and told people what creativity really is,
that it's not just about being artistic, that it's not
just about being an Einstein or a Picasso, that it's
something that could be learned, that's something that could be developed.
(04:39):
What would then the picture be what if we started
with those messages early on.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Well, what is well, what is creativity? Though? Can you
tell us what the what are the necessary features? What
counts is creative? What doesn't count as creativity?
Speaker 1 (04:55):
I think that's definitely the first question to start. We
hear the word creative and we all have a sense
that we know what it is, but I oftentimes also here, well, creativity,
we cannot really define it. This isotheric thing. But creativity
researchers really agree on what creativity is. To the point
(05:16):
of the definition of creativity is called the standard definition,
So we really agree what it is, and it includes
two parts. Creativity is something an idea product, something that
we do that is in the same time original in
some way and also effective or appropriate for a particular goal.
(05:43):
Something that is just original can be bizarre, and that
would not qualify for creativity. Something that is both original
and effective is creative.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
There's a lot of people talk about the link between
mental illness and creativity. You don't have to be all
to be creative.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Right, No, you don't have to be meantal little to
be creative. Actually, there is some connection between mental illness
and creativity. It looks like it, especially in the artistic domains.
There's a meta analysis out there of a number of studies.
But in those cases it might be we don't know
(06:23):
why that is, and it might be that it's even
in spite of it, not because of it. So there
are lots of questions about it. But you most definitely
do not need to be mentally ill to be creative.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Okay, But there are some interesting linkages there.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
There are some interesting linkages. Actually, that is those kinds
of linkages where at the very origin of how I
became interested in creativity in the first place, I was
reading once upon a time, long time ago, when I
was an undergrad looking for a thesis topic. I was
(07:03):
reading broadly this research from the nineteen sixties that was
the first big booming creativity research in the US. Really
spurred by the space race between the US and the
Soviet Union, and we knew we wanted to develop creativity.
We knew we needed more of it, but the question was,
(07:24):
you know, how does it work? And I came across
this statement by Frank Barron, who I know that you
know of and yes, both value great deal, and he
said something to the effect that creative individuals are occasionally
crazier yet adamantly saner than the average person. And I
(07:51):
love that quote, and I really wondered what that meant.
And actually, a few years ago I ran a study
that directly tested.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
That go on, go on, go on, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
It's so cool. So I really wanted to he was
He said this based on observations and based on interviews
with creative individuals, and I wanted to do a formal study,
and so I recruited a simple of professional artists. And
these were people who we really just took top art
(08:28):
schools in the country and took all the faculty in
the art schools and email them asking them to take
part in research. And we got bunch back who volunteered
to take part, and then we had a general sample
of population, not saying that these were not creative individuals,
just that they were not specifically selected for their creativity.
(08:52):
And then we gave them measures of psychological strengths such
as atributes of psychological well being like personal growth, meaning
and purpose in life, hope. And then we also give
the measures of psychological vulnerabilities, especially susceptibility to stress, anxiety,
(09:19):
and depression. And we wanted to see, okay, is it
that these artistic people are in the same time more
sane and more insane general population. And indeed that's what
we found that if you don't just take vulnerability and
(09:42):
strength as separate, separate attributes, if you create a profile
that you say, okay, this person has some strengths and
some vulnerabilities, and if you create a profile where you
can see is it the case for some people that
they have both? We find that's much more common in
(10:05):
those people who were professionally creative in this case in
the arts, than those people who are not who are
not professionally creative.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
That's brilliant. Can you send me that paper?
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Yeah, of course I.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Would like to write about it. I have wondered if
anyone in modern day creativity research and creative modern day
creative has actually tried to replicate that Frank Byron research,
so that I'm really excited you did that. I don't
know how I missed that.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
I really dreamed of doing that study for twenty years
and it's finals impossible.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Beautiful. Please I don't have to write about that for
my newsletter. So, the idea of the creative drive has
been talked about a lot among creativity researchers over the years.
And how do you pinpoint that, like, what is that
drive uniquely? You know, compared to all their kind of drives.
You may have a drive to just enable, like you
(11:00):
may have a talent and so you feel driven to
realize that talent. But what is a generalized creative drive?
What is that?
Speaker 1 (11:09):
I love that question because it makes you kind of
do distinction of what does it really mean? And I
really like the work by Giovanni Corazza and his theme
in Italy, and they have developed this theory. They called
it the Da Vinci model of creativity, which I think
(11:31):
it's clever. It's an acronym, but also da Vinci and
they say that they are two parts to the creative drive.
And that model was I think putting different strends of
research together that I found very appealing. And they say
(11:51):
that creative drive includes the motivation for creative work, and
we can ask questions what are the sources of that motivation?
And they also talk about another component that is not
otherwise very often discussed, and that is focus. Okay, you
have this drive and we uh, this motivation. That is
(12:16):
we can think of motivation as energy. It's this you
are being. You're being fueled, you are being you know,
like your whole body is vibrating to go. You want
to go. But now the question is how do you
focus it? How do you make it so that it
becomes productive? Uh? And they have they were the first
(12:41):
ones to put it like that, and I thought that
was very intriguing, says I was writing the book. Yeah,
we have talked in creativity studies a lot about the
motivation side, but not so much about the focus side.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yeah. This is this is your book. This is this
is the that's the central thing about your book is
how do we go from the idea to the reality,
you know, to the enactment of it. Oh man, what
do you think about what do you think make of passion?
Do you think it's something that we have inside of
us as like a seed or like what kind of
(13:18):
metaphor to use in your head when you think about
pasion or do you think it's something that's developed over
the course of putting in the effort and even doing
hard things that you don't want to do. You know,
like a lot of great creative people have enacted their
creativity through a lot of suffering. That it's not like
(13:39):
the passion was there twenty four to seven? Right, m oh, so.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Many important points you're raising there, And I find that
I always found it intriguing the cultural talk about passion
as you have to find your passion, right, and it
seems to say, okay, passion is it's somewhere inside you
are somewhere to be found. You just have to find it,
(14:08):
and and that is that is odd. I always found
that intuitively odd. How do you know that it's already there?
What does that mean? It's already there? And the passion,
It turns out there's some really cool research that shows
(14:29):
it's it's not a trait like that that you either
have or you don't have. You're a passionate personal, you're
not a passionate person. It develops through time, and it
develops through engaging in an activity. There are lots of
people who are passionate about a lot of things that
(14:50):
they couldn't have inherently known that they would be passionate about.
You know, we had rec we done some work on
our house. We have a garden and there's kind of
a retaining wall, so we had to hire somebody to
rebuild the wall that was starting to crumble. And the
(15:12):
person who ended up hiring was really passionate about building walls.
He was Turkish and by background, and he would go
to Turkey every year and go to different archaeological sites
to see how walls were built at different times in history.
(15:32):
I mean, if that's not passion, I don't know what is.
And he really deeply cared about his work. So he
found the mistake in what another worker did in a
previous renovation, and he asked us whether we wanted it
to be corrected. We did not see the need for it,
but he could not not do it. Was just you
(15:56):
could see him saying, I'm gonna do it anyway. So
that is passion. Would we ever see would we ever
say that he had always in him the passion to
build walls that are well built. And I don't think
so I think there's this assumption when people say passion
(16:18):
is a trait to find the seed in you, to
find that there's something artistic again it comes to that
or creative or designery or one of these things, that
it's somewhere in there you just have to find it.
(16:38):
But oftentimes you just need to try out different things,
and oftentimes you can be surprised. Oh, I did not
expect this to be interesting, but it's interesting. I'm intrigued.
Let me learn more, and it becomes a.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Passion so interesting enough. Maybe we really need to in
the field not think of passion as an emotion. It
maybe should be in the demean of cognition. It's like,
maybe we just need to place it in a different
domain than it has traditionally been placed.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Ooh, that's intriguing. We Actually it reminds me of a
study we did a few years ago where we asked
questions about passion at work. We administered a scale of
passion at work, and we had also a lot of
(17:35):
emotions that were assessed at the same time. So what
we were able to do is put passion in the
context of emotions, okay, and the passion scale was not
focused on emotion. It had one component of it focused
on emotion, this desire component, this like burning fire of
wanting to do something that is in accordance to your passion.
(17:58):
But it had other components too that we're closer to commitment,
So components of in the long term, I want to
be engaged in this activity. Uh, it is central to
who I am, to my identity and this realization and
(18:22):
sort of yes, cognitive commitment to the activity itself and
and persistence in the long run. So this desire is
more of an emotional component. Commitment is more of a
cognitive component. And it when you made that comment, it
(18:43):
made me think when we when we did a network
analysis of all the emotions that are related to how
much people are passionate in their jobs before that it
was related to both positive emotions and negative emotions.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Oh wow, isn't that true? Well that is really cool
and just the whole notion as well, that we can
classify emotions in the positive and negative. I are not
I don't love that. How do we our emotions contextual? Like?
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Yeah, emotions are very contextual, and I think that some uh,
some labels that now in this day and age, we
wish that once upon a time, some labels were not
put on particular concepts. I know that you do lots
of research on personality, and I think that now we
(19:48):
wish that we didn't well a century ago name the
traite neuroticism, but we did, and then it kind of stuck. Yes,
I think the same thing is with emotions when we
call them positive and negative. They are these connotations that
people get, meaning positive is good or desirable, negative is
(20:13):
bad or not desirable. It's not really that it's emotions
are not good or bad inherently, but really contextually depends
on the context, and it can be they have different
functions and they can have different effects.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Yes, with that said, it seems like there are certain
skills of emotional intelligence that are beneficial regardless of the context,
such as using your emotions and regulating your emotions. Those
two you've also found are important for creativity. So tell
me a little bit about these skills and how did
(20:53):
you get into the work of emotional intelligence and what
is emotional intelligence?
Speaker 1 (21:00):
I think that's the best place to start. Oftentimes I
find that people have a sense that they know what
emotional intelligence is, but that might be more of a
sense than the true knowledge. So emotional intelligence is a
set of floor abilities. Ability to accurately perceive emotions in oneself. Another,
(21:24):
so be able to tell that you are feeling frustrated
and not just this generalized bad. Then the ability to
use emotions to facilitate thinking and problem solving, Ability to
understand emotions where they are coming from what might be
typical causes or consequences. And the ability to manage or
(21:50):
regulate emotions in ourselves and in others. So those are
the four.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
And how does that differ from like Daniel Goleman's emotional
intelligences components, because that was all the craze in the
eighties and on the nineties and in the nineties, and
we said that was crazy in the nineties. A big
part of why I got into the field of psychologist.
I loved the book Emotional Intelligence. I was in high school.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Yeah, I loved the book too. The book came out
in nineteen ninety five and it was bigger than a
big hit. It was one of the biggest psychology books
of baby all times. And what that book is is
(22:36):
talking about all the different traits and attributes that could
contribute to how well we do in life. It's just
that that book is talking about motivation and self concept
and lots of traits and lots of things on the
(22:58):
personality side of humans, and not so much about abilities
or ways of thinking that that we think of as
emotional intelligence in contemporary research. Okay, so okay, we think
you talked about what was important. It's just not not
(23:18):
how we think of emotional intelligence in the in the
sense of and ability and different kind of intelligence.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
So you see these as abilities or skills that anyone
can develop.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Anyone can develop to a large extent, you know, it's
there are certain things that come easier to some people
than others, and we definitely have to acknowledge that it
will be easier for some people to learn these skills
then it will be to other people for lots of
(23:58):
different reasons. I am five to one. I'm never going
to be a basketball player. You know, there are people
for whom it's going to be difficult to learn them.
But we have now good data teaching these skills to
children through school based programs, to adults through work based programs,
(24:23):
and there are meta analysis showing that yes, they can
be learned.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Hil, I want to take a moment to make a
few important announcements that I'm really excited about. As you
all know, I'm committed to helping people self actualize. In
the service of that, I just had a new book
come out called Rise Above. Overcome a victim mindset, empower
yourself and realize your full potential. In this book, I
offer a science back toolkit to help you overcome your
(24:53):
living beliefs and take control of your life. Are you
tired of feeling helpless? This book will offer you hope,
not by identifying with the worst things that have happened
to you, but by empowering you to tap into the
best that is within you. Rise Above is available wherever
you get your books. Are you a personal coach looking
to take your coaching to the next level. I'm also
excited to tell you there are Foundations of Self Actualization Coaching.
(25:16):
Three day immersive experience for coaches is back by popular demand.
Foundations of Self Actualization Coaching is a course offered to
enhance your coaching practice by offering you evidence based tools
and insights to equip you to more effectively help your
clients unwalk their unique creative potential. You can learn more
about the course and register by going to Center for
(25:37):
Human Potential dot com slash SAC. That's Center for Human
Potential dot com slash sac. Okay, now back to the show. Well,
why do you think that using emotions and regulating emotions
is why are they important for creativity? I don't know
if when people think of creativity they think of the
(26:01):
importance of regulating emotions. I think they think of jumping in,
you know, being impulsive, you know, being crazy so so,
but you're you're kind of like, no, let me, let
me tell you how it really is here. Hmm. Oh.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
I love this question, especially how you put it, because
it gets again to those to those assumptions we have
about creativity. And we have this assumption of creativity being spontaneous, fun, free, flowing,
get messy with colors, wild, wild, and you know there
(26:39):
is something to it that is not fully ridiculous because
and that's why it persists. I think there is a
part of the creative process, especially when we are coming
up with ideas that can be a little bit wild,
that can be things are coming out of the blue,
we are finding connection that other people have not seen before,
(27:03):
and so it is very much like that. But I
in my book, I very specifically talk about creativity in
a broader sense, not just as coming up with ideas,
but doing something with them. So imagine just as a
as a thought experiment. Imagine that you had an idea
(27:30):
and you don't act on it. So maybe you have
invented a great technology. Maybe you had an idea for
social media before it ever existed, or you had an
idea for who knows what else. But if you didn't
develop it, if you didn't build it into a performance
(27:52):
or a product, it is just something that stays in
your head. It it is not creative. It is fantasy,
It is imagination. It is interesting as imagination. But I
want us to talk about creativity that that results in
(28:14):
something new, that it's not just just something that we
talk about over coffee with a friend.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yeah. Well, well, do you think innovation is a different
concept than creativity?
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Hmmm? That is my favorite controversial question. I don't. I
actually think they are the same thing, and that is
very unpopular opinion. And actually, in in organizational behavior research,
(28:54):
there's a very explicit definition of creativity is coming up
with ideas and innovation as doing something with them. But
you know scientists, and you are scientists, you know that
we like parsimony. If there is this simple solution, it's
(29:15):
better than a complicated one. So why have multiple terms
that this distinction only really works in the case of
business or you know, organizational studies, but it doesn't apply
to other areas. So think if you wanted to apply
(29:35):
this distinction of creativity versus innovation to art, right, the
stereotypical domain of creativity, it wouldn't work. You don't say that,
you know, Monet painted this amazing painting, you say that
it's creative. You don't say that it's innovative. Right, it doesn't.
(30:00):
It doesn't apply in different areas. It kind of applies
only in this one specific place. And and so why
then why do we need that?
Speaker 2 (30:11):
It may be just.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Because of these stereotypes of creativity is artistic. Therefore we
are just going to put it on the side of ideas.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Yeah, we have so many stereotypes. Yeah, you're saying all
of these stereotypes are wrong.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
And when you were you know, when you were saying before,
of well, what about managing emotions? Datability comes into play
when we take creativity as not just coming up with ideas.
We are if you're just coming up with ideas, you
can let it flow. But if you and you can
(30:51):
go wild and you don't have to, you don't have
to manage anything. But if you take creativity as a
long term process, then they are going to be things
that are boring.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Right.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
We are scientists. Nobody likes nobody likes revising a paper,
but you have to. And it's boring and it's annoying,
and you don't want to do it, and you have
to make yourself do it, and you have to do
something with these feelings.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Yeah, yeah, I mean these skills sound boring, though, but
you're saying we have to be boring sometimes in order
to be creative.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
We have to deal with those boring things because in
order for that paper to be published. In this case, right,
you submitted the paper, you have written it, and you
think the paper is in great shape. But reviewers say,
how about this question? How about that question? Did you
consider whatever? Right? And you have to deal with those
(31:59):
comments before the paper can be published. We don't like it.
It's unpleasant. In the ideal scenario, the paper really gets
better because of this process and stronger. But even if
that is not the case, and it's not always the case,
we have to jump through these hoops and lots of
(32:22):
dealing with emotions there.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Cool what happens when people experience a creative block? Do
you have any advice for people and how to overcome their blocks?
Speaker 1 (32:37):
I think of the first thing that is really interesting
to me, Scott is when I started writing a chapter
on creative block, I expected that there will be a
lot of research on creative block.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
There wasn't.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
No.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
You know, Joe sell Singer did some of that work.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Yeah, there is. There are few things out today. But
because it is so important and it's such a universal
experience of people who do create the work, that I
expected much more work out there. Wow, And there actually wasn't.
(33:19):
So it was it was a challenging chapter to write,
but it became one of the most meaningful to me.
You know how things are sometimes like that that what
is challenging really stretches you to the end of your
abilities and you end up creating something really really important.
(33:40):
And I thought said, Okay, what happens when we are
experiencing a creative block? And are what are all the
things going on in the mind and cognitively, emotionally, and
if you take it all together, I think we need
(34:03):
to start with that emotional part. I did a study
a few years ago where I asked a group of
people and so called creative industries. I don't like that
term because it implies that other industries are not creative,
so you know that aside. So these were designers and composers, choreographers, sculptors, painters, writers,
(34:32):
you name it. And I asked them whether they ever
experienced creative block, and you could. You could even in
written responses. You could almost hear the chuckle. Yeah, of
course we do. And then I asked them what is
that experience like emotionally? And you know, those word clouds
(34:58):
were the size of the word proportional to how often
it is mentioned. This is a really funny figure because
the word frustrated is gigantic. It is like a cloud
over everything else. And then some people mention also anxious,
(35:23):
having self doubt or self consciousness. Some people say that
they get angry. So other things that happen emotionally in
experience of creative block probably differ by personality of an individual,
but frustration is dominant and it can be overwhelming. So
(35:45):
I think that the first place to start in dealing
with the creative block is self compassion, and I know
that that's something that you would identify with it's And
this is also a technique of emotion regulation. Imagine that
(36:08):
you are talking to a friend and the friend is
telling you that they hit the wall and they're not
making any progress. What would you tell them?
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Yeah, what would you tell them?
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Well, chances are you wouldn't tell them all those things
that you say to yourself and we say to ourselves,
you should have known better, what were you thinking? Why
are you in this place? Come on? Chances are you
would not say any of those things, and that you
would tell them to cut themselves some slack, and maybe
(36:48):
to take a break, to look at it from a
different perspective, maybe to share with it somebody else, to
get a fresh set of eyes on it. And those
all happen to be good tips for what to do
when you are in a state of creative block.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
So you think that that can actually help you get
past the block, like I've seen examples of Like I've
heard things like getting your mind off the task, you know,
like go take a shower or do something else. But
you think showing self compassion can get you out of
(37:30):
a run.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
It's not directly it can It can take the emotional
edge off so that you start being that you start
being able to approach it in a different way. If
we are so overwhelmingly frustrated, we cannot see anything else. Essentially,
(37:57):
we keep hitting a wall, hitting our head against wall,
and doing it continually. Imagine that you are writing, you're
a writer, and the words are not coming. Everything that
you write makes no sense or it seems not to
make sense to you. If you continue doing it, it
(38:17):
really is like banging your head and it becomes it
becomes overwhelming. Right, So the first step is to take
the edge off or those emotional of emotional parts of
the block. Then you can take a break. Then you
can take a break, and then you know, taking a shower,
(38:40):
It actually is that stereotype is actually true. Taking a
shower does help something. And the reaching out to others,
somebody who can provide a fresh perspective. Sometimes even describing
(39:01):
it to somebody else. Describing what you are facing and
what your problem is to somebody else can can lead
to an insight even before they say anything to you,
because you are using different words and describing it to
somebody else than you would in your you know, staring
(39:24):
at the screen yourself.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
That's so valuable. Well, you said earlier that positive and
negative emotions can be correlated with creativity. What are what
are some quote negative emotions that that are conducive to creativity? What?
What can you give me more? Can you be more specific?
Speaker 1 (39:46):
The research shows that it seems they unpleasant. The other
word for for negative is unpleasant. It really is how
that positive versus negative The better labels are unpleasant versus pleasant.
(40:07):
But energized feelings can be beneficial for creativity. So those
feelings might be being frustrated, or being angry, or being
annoyed by something that those could be productive and you
can think of examples. I know that personally, I happen
(40:30):
to be very much aware that I am motivated by
frustration and that frustration can come from you know, I'm
a scientist. So I read something and then I disagree
with it. I think, oh, you shouldn't have done it
like that. It is really wrong question to ask. That's
(40:52):
how we ended up studying creativity and emotions. To be
honest with you, I was reading contemporary research and creativity
and the question being asked was what emotions are good
for creativity and what emotions are bad? For creativity. And
if we set the question like that, and if we
(41:15):
think of creativity and if we study creativity as coming
up with ideas, we get a reliable answer. After thirty
five years of research, it's a very reliable answer that happy,
energized moods are beneficial for creative thinking. But that was
frustrating to me because it seems, and oftentimes it's translated
(41:41):
as advice you have to be happy to be creative,
and that goes against any creative person I know in
real life, not that they are miserable, but it's not
just about being happy. There's something missing here, and so
I started wondering whether that's the right question. I was
(42:02):
frustrated with the state of affairs in this research, and
I came to different questions. I came to a question of, well,
it might not be really about what you are experiencing,
but what you do with the feelings you have, which
is that idea of emotional intelligence and the abilities of
(42:26):
what you do with emotions. So one thing of what
you do with emotions is Okay, you are frustrated, like
in my example, but you can do different things with
that frustration if you use and emotion scientists consider that
emotions are information. They are telling you something about the
(42:48):
state of your mind or the state of the world,
something in the environment around you, and that information can
be used just like we want different information and making
any kind of decisions. This is another kind of information
to use. So you can say, Okay, I'm frustrated. What
(43:12):
is that telling me? Well, I concluded that it's telling
me that this question that was traditional and the research
was not the best one, and I wanted to do
something about it, and I thought of what might be
another question? And then did you know, research about it
and then died up building a career out of it.
(43:33):
That one could say, well, maybe that was creative action there.
But another thing you could do is to say, well,
I don't like feeling frustrated, so I am just going
to distract myself and make myself feel better. Well, you
are going to feel better, but you're not going to
(43:54):
do anything creative.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
Oh darn, darn. Oh. Yeah, there's some tough love here
in your book, isn't there.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
There is a little bit, but.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
It's a really necessary book. I've got to ask you,
what do you think of the concept of grit and
what role does grit play in creativity.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
Oh, I think that the idea of grit is very appealing.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
It's very popular, it's.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
Very popular, it's very appealing, and it's very important because
I think and it's also if you know the history
of the research in grit and how it came to be,
it came from this realization that oftentimes in our culture,
and in particular with children, we sort of support or
(44:53):
give permission for kids to give up. You know, they
try something for a new for a few few weeks
and then they just said, ah, they're gonna give it up.
Try something else, Try something else. And I am all
for having multiple interests and trying different interests, but you
(45:14):
also have to give it some try. You have to
give it a chance to learn something and potentially develop
an interest. So it's a very appealing concept. And the
concept of grit guest has these two parts, one of
persistence in the face of obstacles and also another one
(45:36):
that is more of stay with that interest. You say
you're interested in this, stay with it, don't just let
it go. And it turns out that for creativity, the
persistence part of creativity is super important. It really makes
a difference between just having an idea and doing something
(45:58):
with it you it helps you transform it into performances, products,
whatever it might be. But that consistency of interest aspect
of great actually could potentially hurt creativity.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
Row Uh.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
Yeah, it is interesting because ideas can come from anywhere,
but for the ideas and connections to happen, we need
we need to be exposed to different things. And I
(46:44):
love how in your Buyer to Create you put openness
to experience as the central part of what creative individuals
are like. And why that openness to experience is important.
It's because you will be open to trying different things
and you will then have broad knowledge base. You will
(47:09):
be interested in science but also art. My son is
doing performing arts of all kinds but also robotics. And
we know from research of Nobel Prize winners in the
sciences many of them, a remarkable number of them have
(47:30):
hobbies in the arts and arts and crafts, from playing
musical instruments to staying glass and good working and whatnot.
And it is and if we even look at different
examples of creative individuals, they have really broad interests. So
(47:54):
they don't have this find one thing and then just
stick with it. They there is a little bit of
jumping around that becomes in the service of creative work.
Speaker 2 (48:07):
It seems related to David Epstein's work. Did you have
you read his book? Yes, about the importance of cross specialization.
That's actually a phrase that I think Dean Keith, Dean
Keith Simonton would use cross specialization. But but David Epstein
has you know, shows that that a lot of really
(48:28):
high performers, creative people, high achievers, they did not only
stay in their own lane, so to speak, they really
were very curious and uh, and we're very curious about
many different topics in many different fields.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Yeah, yeah, and I love that work, especially because our
culture is pushing towards hyper specialization is value and the well,
why Zeron.
Speaker 2 (49:02):
I have one more question for you. You talk all
about importance of social networks in your book and different
types of relationships for creativity. Can you can you expound
on that a little bit for our listeners.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
As we are talking about creativity in a way of
not just having ideas but doing something with those ideas.
And if you think of creativity with the goal of
not just doing one thing, you write one book and
(49:36):
then well you don't do anything anymore. If you want
to make creativity more sustainable and reliable, something that repeats.
We have to talk about the social side of creativity. Yeah,
and it creates sort of an infrastructure, ecosystem, whatever analogy
(49:59):
you want to use that makes it possible if we
just go beyond a single thing we create. And it
has two purposes. Really. One is to help us come
up with ideas, new ideas, not just that one that
(50:20):
we already done. And it also is there as support
when we need it, as emotional support, but also support
in developing an idea and saying, Okay, here's an idea.
(50:44):
Now we have it, but how do we build on it,
how do we elaborate on it, how do we move
it along? How do we how do we There was
this wonderful study by Jill Perry Smith at Emory and
(51:08):
her colleagues where they paired people so that some people
were working to generate ideas and some people were working
on elaborating on an idea and developing it, and then
some of them were paired with what they called weak
(51:30):
ties and somewhat strong ties. So weak ties are those
relationships with people that we do not talk often with
the kind of people you connect with on LinkedIn here
and there, but they are not. They are not. They
don't know things that you are working on and you
(51:55):
kind of know them, but only kind of know them.
And this strong ties could be people on your team
or close colleagues, those who you check in regularly with
and who tend to know how you think about something
(52:15):
like I regularly talk to this very close colleague of mine,
like James Kaufman. Yes he knows how I think. I
know how he thinks, and we are kind of on
the same page. So in the study they were able
(52:37):
to see what happens when you are generating ideas and
working with different kinds of relationship, or you are working
to elaborate on ideas and when you are paired with
week or strong ties. And what they found is that
when you are coming up with ideas, talking to somebody
(53:01):
who you haven't talked to in a long time or
who is you know, somebody at the edge of your
social network is great, very helpful. They don't know how
you think, you don't know how they think, and there
could be sparks there because you're going to have different perspectives.
But the flip side happens when you have to develop
(53:22):
an idea, and they found that when you have to
develop an idea, those people who are weak ties just
want to talk about more new ideas. They do not
really pay attention that you already have something that you're
working on, because they don't they don't have the emotional
(53:43):
investment in you or your idea. But those that are
strong ties have the emotional investment and they are saying yes,
and they are saying, oh, that's a great thought. Have
you also considered so there's an elemental support and then
(54:03):
starting with that and building on it.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
I love it. I love it. I don't think a
lot necessarily a lot of things you talked about today,
I don't think people are really thinking about necessarily are
related to creativity. And I think you probably caused a
shift in a lot of people's thinking today. And I
know that was one of your goals. So thank you
so much, Sarana on being on my podcast and Concrat,
huge congratulations on your new book. I hope it does
(54:30):
really really well.
Speaker 1 (54:31):
Thank you so much. And I know we've been thinking
and talking about these issues for a long time.
Speaker 2 (54:36):
And publishing papers together.
Speaker 1 (54:38):
And publishing papers together.
Speaker 2 (54:40):
Yeah, yeah, so it couldn't be more proud of you.
Speaker 1 (54:44):
Thank you so much, Scott
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