September 15, 2025 • 40 mins
The Creativity Advantage: How Creativity Shapes Our Lives with Dr. James C. Kaufman
In this episode of the SuperCreativity Podcast, James Taylor sits down with Dr. James C. Kaufman, one of the world’s leading creativity researchers and a professor of educational psychology at the University of Connecticut. Known for groundbreaking concepts like the 4C Model of Creativity and the Sylvia Plath Effect, Kaufman’s latest book, The Creativity Advantage, explores how creativity impacts our lives far beyond innovation—enhancing our emotional well-being, self-insight, relationships, and sense of meaning.
Together, they explore:
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The science-backed benefits of creativity and how they apply to everyone.
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Why process matters more than outcomes in creative work.
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How AI is reshaping creativity—both its opportunities and risks.
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Practical steps to unlock your creative potential and cultivate openness in everyday life.
Whether you’re an artist, leader, educator, or someone just beginning your creative journey, this conversation will inspire you to see creativity as a powerful tool for growth, connection, and resilience.
Key Takeaways
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Creativity benefits everyone — You don’t have to be a professional artist or innovator to gain its emotional and cognitive rewards.
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Process over product — The act of creating often matters more than the final outcome.
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Openness is key — Trying one new thing a week can significantly expand your creative mindset.
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AI is a collaborator, not a replacement — Use it to augment, not replace, your creative processes.
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Creativity fosters well-being — From journaling to micro-creative habits, small practices can have profound effects on mental health and self-awareness.
Timestamps
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00:00 – Introduction to Dr. James C. Kaufman and his work
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01:08 – How a personal family experience inspired his research on meaning and creativity
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02:58 – Why focusing on process over outcomes changes everything
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05:49 – Writing as a tool for self-insight and healing
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06:43 – Balancing solo and collaborative creative work
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08:47 – The power of creative partnerships
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Today's guest is Dr.
James Kaufman, a psychologist, author, creativity researcher, and professor of educationalpsychology at the University of Connecticut.
James is known for shaping how we think about creativity, from his 4C model to the SylviaPlath effect.
His powerful new book, The Creativity Advantage, asks, beyond being creative, what doescreativity actually do for us?
(00:35):
If you're hungry to understand why creativity matters emotionally, socially, spiritually,you're about to hear why it's not just useful, it's essential.
James, welcome to the Super Creativity Podcast.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for having me.
Now, I know your past research has mapped creativity very widely, from cognition toculture.
(00:57):
I'm interested, what has guided this kind of recent work, which is really about whycreativity matters rather than just how it works?
something I first got interested in with this late to meaning.
And my father had been diagnosed with stage four bladder cancer.
(01:19):
And I kind of had spent the summer with my parents in Athens to say goodbye and had beenreading things like man's search for meaning.
And in the evenings when I was more in my own time, I began working on this piece oncreativity and meaning.
And the nice thing is that
my father actually recovered.
(01:41):
Usually he was given 10 % and he ended up beating it.
He's still around and cancer free.
But my interest in creativity and meaning and kind of the bigger picture of life hascontinued.
And it went from meaning to kind of general positive aspects.
So how it helps heal you, how it can connect you to other people, the whole idea oflegacy, self-insight.
(02:08):
wide variety of different benefits.
redefine creativity across these different dimensions as talked about in the book.
Which one surprised you the most?
um And obviously I know you from your work, this is a fantastic book I highly recommendanyone who's interested in creativity or theory of creativity called the Cambridge
(02:29):
Handbook of Creativity.
I remember reading a few years ago in its absolute Bible.
in world of creativity research and it really helped shape my own thinking aboutcreativity, the importance of creativity and how it works.
But as you wrote this latest book, has your thinking about creativity shifted?
And of those five dimensions that you mentioned, which one has maybe changed the most interms of how you think about it?
(02:58):
would say a lot of the way my thinking in general has changed has been to focus in aprocess instead of the outcome or product.
but not often when you say you're interested in the creative process, people kind ofassume, okay, well, how can I be more creative?
(03:19):
So how can I think of more ideas or how can I make sure I select the best one?
And I'm certainly interested in that, but...
More about the fact that almost all the benefits, it doesn't matter how creative you are.
So it's not like this helps people who are super creative and the people who are only kindof so-so don't benefit.
(03:43):
Pretty much everybody benefits, whether or not they're incredibly creative or whether ornot they're just kind of trying it out.
A lot of the stuff...
I found out more about but wasn't necessarily shocked.
Probably the thing that I knew the least about was the part about stealth insight andunderstanding yourself.
(04:10):
And I'd remembered when I was writing the book, like 15 years ago, I'd heard about thewriting cure, where if you write on a regular basis, kind of in this expressive, emotional
way, that it leads to positive outcomes.
But ever since...
The last 15 years, so much stuff has turned out to not replicate, not really turn out.
(04:32):
And when I did my kind of just seeing what's been done, I was pleasantly surprised to findout that it absolutely is still true and there's been even more work on it.
And it's something that I myself try to do is to as much as I can journal, kind of writedown my thoughts.
(04:55):
Cause
That's something that really does help and any of us can do, whether it's a blog or adiary.
I mean, a lot of times I also do this in my own writing.
So the book I'm writing right now, which is I'm maybe three quarters through is it's kindof a fun book.
It's on creativity in the movies where I'm writing about all this stuff on creativity, butevery single example in case study is about a movie.
(05:24):
And so they're not just movies about creativity, but how they were illustrating a concept.
So I write on a regular basis, things that are, you know, both nonfiction, but also alittle bit personal.
And so not everybody will be writing like a book, but it doesn't matter.
(05:44):
All sorts of regular writing helps and is beneficial.
And so that immediately makes me think of, you know, we hear that Julia Cameron's, themorning pages, I a lot of people have found that very useful in their process as well.
Talking about this idea of moviemaking, and I guess there's an interesting analogy or linkthere with, when we think about movies, um so much of moviemaking and the creativity as a
(06:11):
team.
efforts, it's not an individual, you might have an individual that's had an initial ideafor a concept, but if you think about a writer's room, whether it's a Saturday Night Live
or a movie, there's lots of people that are involved in making that final thing happen.
So I'm interested, like as you're thinking about that, um where did you start seeing thatshift come from the kind of personal side of creativity to more the collective or the team
(06:40):
side of creativity?
I very much think it can be both.
So, I mean, just to give my own self as an example, almost all the work I do iscollaborative.
So any empirical study is me and usually at least one, if not two or three other people.
And a lot of that is that I love the collaborative aspect of research.
(07:05):
love talking around ideas and discussions and brainstorming together, but then alsofiguring out the problems and the
obstacles in the last minute together.
And the older I get, the more I only collaborate with people I really like because life isshort.
If you're going spend time with people, you should like them.
(07:26):
But, and yet there's also the personal because I always like having one book that I'mworking on that's just me.
So,
I like the mix.
most of my work is collaborative.
And certainly even when I'm writing a solo authored book, I'm drawing on conversations andresearch with so many other people.
(07:50):
And even in this one, um I'm reaching out to a lot of friends when I talk about their workto get their favorite movie to kind of keep them in the conversation, so to speak.
And here's what I love about creativity is that there's so many different aspects andangles that
still have some things that are just you, but then an awful lot that are activelycollaborative, really almost regardless of domain.
(08:16):
On the collaboration piece, in terms of your own work, we often hear this idea of creativepairs, two different but complementary individuals helping support each other's work and
stress testing each other's work as well.
your own uh work as a researcher and a writer, is there a key kind of creative pair,another person that you kind of go to that's like that first, you have a concept, an
(08:41):
initial idea, you want to stress test something with, who is that person for you in yourown work?
That's an interesting question.
um
Certainly, if it's just, if I have an idea and I'm curious about it, I'll often bounce itoff first, usually either my wife or my father, so not necessarily a creativity
(09:04):
researcher, even though both have actually collaborated with me.
ah
Probably my most regular collaboration right now, although again, I have many, butcertainly the one that I'm also enjoying among the most is every Wednesday I have a uh
(09:24):
Zoom with a composer named Dana Rowe, who actually composed one of my very favoritemusicals of all time, The Fix, but he's done so many other things.
And we published a book on lessons in creativity from musical theater characters.
And what we're doing right now is we're working on a book called So You Have a TheaterKid, which is advice for people whose kids love theater.
(09:50):
And it's a mix of life experience, research about creativity, and then we've just beeninterviewing all these people who are theater professionals.
So well-known composers, actors, and so on.
And in this case, it's one of those, I don't want to say opposite to track.
(10:11):
But I'm the academic, Dana's the creative, and that's been wonderful.
uh But I also have many, many collaborations with pure creativity researchers where theymay have much more similar backgrounds, but we often will not be thinking the same, and we
will bandy about and discuss different ideas.
(10:32):
I guess that's what's so fascinating about this field.
I creativity is a very, quite a broad term and it means different things to differentpeople and across cultures and countries as well.
You can kind of go in many different directions with the research.
Was there a sense like when you first started getting involved in the work of creativity,was an area of this kind of creativity research pulling you, know, felt like it was a
(10:58):
stronger pull than perhaps another?
So I wanted to be a creative writer growing up.
That was my dream.
My major was creative writing and I added psychology at the last minute.
My parents are both psychologists.
I went to apply to MFA programs and I still remember I got one response, like when you, uhthis is back before the internet made everything right there.
(11:28):
uh But it said, if you can do anything else but this, do that.
And I, and it was probably supposed to be encouraging, like, yes, you must love it.
But I thought, well, I thought I could do something else.
And I kind of just.
applied almost scattershot to a whole bunch of PhD programs in psychology.
(11:51):
I didn't know what I was doing.
And I was very lucky.
I ended up at Yale with Robert Sternberg.
And even though he studied creativity, it never entered my mind that I could do that.
So the first two years I was doing just not very good work and figuring out what I wanted.
And I remember
(12:12):
Finally, I was almost debating, maybe I shouldn't be a graduate student, maybe this isn'tfor me.
And I thought, my passion is creative writing.
What if I were to try to study that?
And I spent the summer in my parents' basement, almost locked in the basement, justreading this whole stack of books that Sternberg gave me.
(12:33):
And that was the first time I ever actually cared about anything that I was reallyreading.
Like, psychology was fine, but in the same way that...
you know, I like watching baseball, whereas all of a sudden this was relevant and it wasvery personal to me.
And that was a turning point.
That was when, this is not just what I can study, but this is what I want to, this is whatI care about and I'm curious about.
(12:59):
And I finally got it because so many of my classmates would say stuff like, oh, I likejust daydreaming about studies I could do.
And I thought, my God, like I don't.
And all of a sudden I got it, which was.
I guess where these these two parts come together creativity, research, psychology as wellis something I think probably one of the first times I heard your name being discussed was
(13:26):
this the Sylvia Plath effect um and I believe you term this this idea as well and and it'sjust it speaks to a lot of especially I would say musicians having conversations and
this idea, they might not term it as this, but this idea often comes up in terms of thelink between psychology and creativity and the challenges that this comes, we had a guest
(13:49):
on recently, he talking about, he worked in the intelligence services and he said a thirdof the people that work in his department in the intelligence services, um you know,
they're neurodiverse, they, ADHD, um
they have synesthesia, they have all this kind of thing and they look at it as this is agreat advantage for us to have these people because they think in a different way.
(14:15):
So I'd love to know first of all the origins of how this kind of the Sylvia Plath effect,first of all tell us what that is, how you kind of got into your kind of aha moment I
guess of like how you kind of came upon this as well.
And what have been the ripples?
Now you put a few many years have gone since you kind of first came out with this concept.
(14:37):
What have been the ripples?
How have people responded to this idea?
It's kind of funny.
In some ways, it's going be a very unsatisfying answer.
um I was in my fourth year of graduate school, and I was at the Strand Bookstore in NewYork.
(14:57):
And I saw big books saying modern um creative writers.
It was like an encyclopedia.
And I had discovered the work of Gene Simonson, who did what's called historiometrics.
where you enter information.
And at the time, um I didn't have any real easy way to collect data.
(15:19):
And I thought, well, maybe I'll try that.
And I just began entering as much information as I could think of from these littlebiographies.
And then when I went to play with it, I found this little hiccup, which was that femalepoets were much more likely to show some signs of mental illness than any other type of
writer.
(15:39):
And I did another study that found that among eminent women, the same thing.
So compared to fiction writers or politicians or actresses or artists, it was the poetswho were much more likely to show signs of mental illness.
And I actually didn't think it was terribly interesting.
Like I published it, it was fine.
(16:01):
um But at my first professor job, they had hired a PR person to try to get
their name out there and the person went through my stuff and he's like, well, this couldbe interesting.
I told him about it.
And two weeks later, the New York Times is calling me and it was very strange.
I was blib, which now I would never be.
(16:25):
And it kind of took off and I realized, A, a lot of people didn't, they kind ofmisinterpreted it.
where it was a very specific, not particularly interesting finding.
And they took it to mean all creative people have mental illness, which isn't really true.
And I guess I also realized.
(16:50):
It affected people and sometimes they felt, thank God, but sometimes they were very sad orhurt.
And to be honest, that was another reason behind the creativity advantage is that I feltthat, you know, yes, I do think that there's probably some type of connection between some
types of creativity and mental health.
(17:13):
But I don't think it's as simple as they're just linked.
I also think.
that perhaps one reason there's this connection is that creativity has so many amazingproperties.
It makes you feel better.
It enhances your mood.
It connects you with people that if somebody's struggling, they may turn to creativity tomake them feel better.
(17:39):
And certainly there's no evidence to suggest that creativity makes your mental healthworse.
um So the Sylvia Plath effect is kind of lingered.
And it's not that I don't think it's true.
It's just I think it's often misinterpreted.
It's overemphasized.
(17:59):
And I don't know if it's a terribly good legacy to have, to be honest.
I'm.
Yeah, I mean, it's because when I've had discussions with, especially artists andmusicians, I would say, about this, some of them feel very strongly on either side of this
topic, because, you know, some of them feel, well, of course, that's the case, because weare open more to emotions, we have to invest ourselves emotionally with the work, and
(18:24):
that's going to maybe create that as well.
And others feel felt very strongly that no, this is, this is just feeding into a
bigger media narrative of this kind of lone creative genius myth of putting something upon a pedestal and it's painting out the contribution of the people that's, were speaking
(18:46):
earlier about teams and having people around you, it kind of paints out that picture.
So I can completely understand why you're a bit conflicted, mean part of your research isgreat because it's been, it's other people have seen it but it's often been taken out of
context.
Yes, and I've come to be closer to the second group of people in terms of.
(19:13):
On one hand...
I do think that there probably is notably more neurodivergence in people who are creative,but not because there's no reason.
I, I just think.
I don't know, most people I know who are neurodivergent are just more interesting um andperhaps open to ideas or willing to entertain kind of weirder thoughts and stuff.
(19:41):
I don't think there's deep or profound necessarily about it.
I don't, and certainly I think...
If it makes people think that they have to have some type of mental health struggle to becreative, then that would be very bad because you don't, you know.
(20:02):
And if anything, I think people who have very severe mental health struggles, that canhurt creativity because it makes it so you may not actually produce things if you're
struggling.
um
And as you mentioned, sorry, as you mentioned other people mentioned, you know, thatcreativity is so nuanced and rich and involving teams and all these different parts that
(20:31):
it's hard to paint it with just one brush.
Obviously, with the creativity advantage, you've kind of taken, you've kind of zoomed outand talking about this sense of uh meaning, which so many people were looking, they want
the sense of meaning in the life and the link that creativity has to that.
As the book has been, as people have been reading the book now as well and giving youthoughts on their feelings from the book and observations of the book,
(21:00):
What have been the things you've been hearing multiple times that have affected people orthey found, you know, this is the thing I got the most from reading the book?
The thing that I love hearing the most is people who've decided to try being creative,sometimes with their kids.
(21:21):
So not necessarily in response to any particular thing, but more of a general gestalt.
I've also heard from several researchers who've begun wanting to study this.
Just again, just positive things in creativity.
And that is to me very exciting because I feel like we so often...
(21:43):
focus on the negative or even if we don't focus on the negative, we focus on, how can yoube more creative and focus on this outcome and product and not, well, why would you want
to in the big picture?
mean, creativity is effort.
Nowadays we have AI, which is kind of threatening to take over everything.
(22:04):
mean, if AI can do creativity better than we can, and I'm not saying it can, but like, whybother doing it unless you're getting something from the process?
So I'm excited to see more work and just more thought and more people trying to becreative based on.
There's the link between AI and creativity and AI is obviously something I speak about alot.
(22:27):
That's kind of really mine how these tools can both augment and actually we're seeing morestudies coming just now potentially damage or cause problems with uh people's ability to
be creative in their work or teams ability to be creative in their work.
uh As you look around, obviously, as I mentioned earlier, the Cambridge Handbook ofCreativity, go and get your copy, but I know you're kind of working on the next version of
(22:48):
this book.
And as you look out there,
in terms of some of the latest research that's being done on creativity and theresearchers out there, who's really inspiring you?
Whose work has kind of just kind of lit you up in terms of what they're doing?
there is a whole younger generation that I think is just doing amazing work.
(23:11):
Everything from people who are assistant or just associate professors to even just somepostdocs and graduate students.
And what's great is they're all over the world.
you have Magic Krawowski who is not early career, but a lot of his lab like Ola Zelinskywho just got her PhD.
(23:34):
You have Matthias Benedict, who again, he's not really career, but then his post-docs andgraduate students such as Simon C.
They're just doing this work.
You got Roger Beatty.
Again, he's the more senior person and Simone Luchini.
And they're doing some creativity stuff.
And it's this team of these leaders and then their graduate students who are going to bepicking up the torch.
(23:59):
And I can't even know the 30 people, but.
people who are so much better than I was when I was in my late 20s, people who are betterwith methods and stats, who are better with just thinking of interesting things and like
looking, well, how about YouTube and Twitter and things like that.
So many of the people who I get to work with, I mean, some of these people plus, know,Hansika Kapoor, Krista Taylor, Alex McKay, so many of these people, so many of my former
(24:28):
students, Sarah Luria, Molly Hollinger, so many of these.
folks and just getting to see them carving new territory.
And a lot of it sometimes in the creativity advantage area, but sometimes doing stuff,creativity AI, it's just, it's exciting.
(24:50):
I think we're in really good hands.
it feels also there's quite a strong generational shift that's going on as well, this wordcreativity which I mean I've even noticed as a speaker speaking to, I primarily speak to
corporate clients around the world and even when I started speaking on this topic 2017there was, you could sense the resistance around
(25:12):
creativity as a term in a business context.
And so I had to spend a little bit of time at the start, just talking about what that isand how it relates to innovation and the benefits and kind of the ROI, I guess, of the
creativity from that perspective.
But now with this younger generation that's coming into the workforce, it feels, and Idon't know what exactly the data is to support this, but it feels like those younger
(25:35):
leaders, those Gen X, those millennials,
are much more comfortable in using that term creativity in a business context.
And I'm wondering if what you're seeing is a little bit of that going on as well.
Certainly, when I first entered the field.
(25:55):
As an academic, there weren't very many people studying this.
really weren't.
Nobody was looking for a creativity person.
When I got my PhD, I sent out 40 job applications and I got nothing.
ah Luckily, I ended up getting a position at educational testing service.
um And similarly,
(26:21):
I always consult here and there and there was just a lot less with both education andbusiness.
um Even if somebody was interested, their superior would often be like, well, who cares?
Why do we want this?
There's less of that now.
There's still sometimes that, but I feel like there's more of a general understanding thatyes, a creative workforce is better.
(26:48):
And I think some of that is, mean,
You need to be willing to think longer term to see real ROI and creativity.
Because if you put a whole bunch of resources into helping train and nurture and supportcreativity, you probably won't make that back the first year.
(27:09):
But over a couple of years, I believe you will see the dividends.
It's just most people aren't willing to wait that long even now, but at least now it's nota dirty word.
the way it was 25 years.
I know we had a recent guest on the podcast, Professor Joseph Gibelli, who wrote a bookcalled The Brain at Rest, talking about the brain on creativity.
(27:33):
the basic these neuroscientists talking about the how our brain what we often think wewere talking about the brain needs to have these periods of rest.
in order to do creative work and many of the things in our society are always on ourhustle culture, our mobile devices that we have with the social media is kind of working
against that and is not necessarily as useful for that.
(27:57):
So in this world that we're in just now, which of the creative advantages that you talkabout in the book do you potentially see as most under siege from this kind of always on
culture and how can we begin to reclaim it?
question.
um
(28:19):
of the benefits come from the actual process of being creative.
Probably the one that comes most to mind is anything involved with healing or improvingyour mood or your mental health.
So much of this stuff, it happens when you are creative.
(28:40):
And I mean, it's my worry with AI that...
m
If you have an idea for a story and you plug it into chat, then for a lot of folks, theoutput may end up being a better story than if they'd written themselves.
But most of us aren't going to be publishing that story anyway, or even if we do, it won'tbe in the New Yorker.
(29:06):
What happens is that if we were to actually write that story or draw that picture.
We get these benefits.
puts us in a better mood.
It just, it does all of these different things from self insight to our own feelings oflegacy.
If we're not engaged in that process, we don't get those benefits.
(29:30):
And.
How do we take that back?
I I feel like with AI, the horse is out of the barn.
You're not gonna be able to change that.
mean, I know a lot of professors that have no idea how to deal with AI out there.
Not like I have any great wisdom on that.
I think to a certain degree, it's just to try to convince people at the very least ifyou're gonna use AI to use it as a collaborator and not as a cheat code.
(30:04):
And it's hard because...
people don't like effort.
And I mean, I'm not saying this condescendingly.
I don't like effort.
I mean, there are many things in my life.
If I could press a button and have done, I would do it.
And now with AI, we have this and I understand why people are using it.
I I generally don't, but some of that is I just, really enjoy writing.
(30:28):
And so I don't necessarily want to give that up, but it's hard to tell people don't dothis easy thing that is everywhere.
and will probably end up being a little better than what you would have done by yourself.
Yeah, kind going back to what you spoke about earlier with Dana talking about how she'syour kind of creative pair.
(30:48):
That's something the way that I think about creativity, I kind of use it as I know what myblind spots are, my weak points from a creative standpoint.
And so I tend to use it as a way to help me see those or strengthen those as well.
You mentioned the editing and you're a skilled editor.
So.
me having someone like that that I can put it into the mind of a great, you know, NewYorker editor or whoever and just say, pretend you are that person.
(31:18):
Now, review this.
what I'm finding interesting about that is making me ask different kind of questions Iperhaps wouldn't have asked if I just can just go on a more straight line and just having
on my own.
And so the thing I'm quite excited about is
many people that maybe live in parts of the world or don't have a community or thosecollaborators maybe around them, this is that potential type of collaborator that they can
(31:45):
use if they can put in the guardrails.
That's one of the challenges.
Certainly, I do see how it could be helpful.
I mean...
I feel like most creativity researchers either are gung-ho excited or a little terrified.
(32:11):
And I'm very much in the latter camp, but I respect the people who I know who are gung-hoto acknowledge that there absolutely are these possibilities.
the fact that, I mean, it's an interesting question because on one hand, what AI
(32:31):
could be for a lot of people who may not have access to other creative types or to.
just the opportunities.
It absolutely could be this thing.
On the other hand, if we're thinking
(32:52):
I would feel better if there wasn't already so much capitalism inherent in it, where thebest versions are pay and the versions you can get for free are notably worse.
One thing that excites me about creativity is there's tremendous capacity for equitythere.
Because if you look at
(33:15):
things like intelligence or academic achievement, find differences by socioeconomic statusand other things for a variety of reasons.
But creativity, you really don't see them.
Almost everybody has the same capacity to potentially be creative.
And...
(33:39):
I just worry about that going away.
I worry that AI could make us value creativity more because now everybody can work on itor could make us value creativity less because we can outsource it.
And so what does it matter if you could do it yourself?
I don't know what's going to happen, you know, but I can see these parts.
(34:01):
I'm guessing maybe I'm in the bit more, I think we'll go through this period where therewill be, you know, the hacks and the cheat code versions of these things as well.
Where I hope we eventually get to is, you've done a lot of work in terms of talking aboutthis idea of small C creativity and big C creativity.
For me, I feel it just, if it helps the general public just push forward towards thatbigger C creativity that you talk about.
(34:27):
that's fantastic.
And I just see it from the sciences where I look at uh researchers, scientists thatworking on protein folding and things like that, where this is unlocking huge potential.
for them to discover new drug discovery, antibiotics and other things as well.
So I see it there.
We're probably a little bit more challenges when we look at maybe marketing and otherfields where there's a slightly different usage that's going on as well.
(34:56):
So we definitely live in interesting times as well.
So if you could, you've got such a breadth and depth of knowledge on creativity.
Someone that's listening to this, maybe this is their very first episode that listens
this show and they're interested in creativity and unlocking their potential, theircreative potential as well.
(35:18):
What is one act or ritual or habit that you've seen people do which has had maybe quite asimple thing for them to do but it's had the most profound impact on enhancing their
creativity?
Maybe it's kind of going back to some of the things that obviously you talk about in thecreativity advantage as well.
(35:41):
The personality trait that's most associated with creativity is openness.
And that can be openness to experiences, openness to ideas.
the simplest thing that people can do is just try to do one new thing a week.
And I don't mean something new that is shockingly new that will make you terrified,although that would be great.
(36:06):
But like, if you have a favorite restaurant,
order something you've never ordered.
Or if you have a favorite meal that you cook, tweak it a bit.
Try finding a new way home from work or school.
mean, maybe not if you're walking, maybe don't get too lost if you're a kid.
Try watching something, reading something you haven't done before.
(36:27):
that pushing yourself a little bit with trying something new, thinking something new,because that's the first step.
And that's something everybody can do.
No matter where you are, you know, that that's.
I think very much along those lines, which frustrates my wife no ends because we'll oftenbe in a restaurant and I'll want to try the one thing on the menu that we haven't tried
(36:52):
before.
And even though she's, that's going to be a terrible decision if you make that decision,we just go for the tried and tested thing.
But I said, well, let's go.
And she is usually right.
I must give a credit for that.
But I just feel it's kind of using that part of my brain as well.
As we start to finish up here as well, just kind of quick fire questions for you.
(37:12):
Is there one quote that you kind of tend to live by or you find yourself returning to thisone quote perhaps more than others?
If I'm honest, the quote that probably comes back to you the most is from a movie calledHouse of Games, which is, we'll deal with that thing then.
(37:35):
And it keeps me from worrying about most things in terms of could this bad thing happen?
Maybe we'll deal with that thing then.
I have no idea if that's the healthy coping mechanism or not, but it's the one that Iactually do.
And is there uh a tool or a habit or ritual that you find is very important for your owncreative work?
(38:03):
I think learning what works best for your headspace based on time of day.
So like when I wake up, I usually will either do calls or emails.
And I find that it's usually around one to 4 PM when I'm at my most creative.
And so I try to time it.
So that's my time that I can do my writing.
(38:26):
If it, to the extent possible, not everybody has the luxury of doing this, but if you knowthere's certain times that
Your brain is just firing at all cylinders and this is when you should, you can be themost creative.
Try as much as possible to allow yourself that time to be creative as opposed to have thattime be when you're stuck in need.
(38:48):
And if there was one book you would recommend to our listeners, not one of your own books,but a book by another author, what would that book be?
that's a good question.
Something that's excited me is that.
A lot of the layperson books on creativity are not by researchers, but recently there havebeen a number of them.
(39:12):
And there's books by Scott Barry Kaufman, books by Zorana Idsivic.
um There's a book on curiosity and on kind of defying the system by Todd Kashtan.
The fact that we're seeing layperson books by people who are actually experts and any ofthose um among others.
(39:34):
Because when I was first entering this field, there were layperson books by like the HollyChick sent me high and Bob Sternberg and Howard Gardner and they were all legit.
And at a certain point, it just got harder and harder for there to be these laypersonbooks by the experts.
And now they're kind of, coming back to that.
And so that would be what I would.
(39:54):
That's great.
I I think it's that thing we're seeing in terms of the academics being, know, learning,relearning storytelling in this form as well, which is, you know, kind of going back to,
were talking about Man's Search for Meaning, I was thinking about Joseph Campbell as well,some of those key things that often kind of come back to us as well.
(40:16):
Well, Dr.
James Kaufman, thank you so much for being a guest on the Super Creativity Podcast.
Today's guest is Dr.
James Kaufman, a psychologist, author, creativity researcher, and professor of educationalpsychology at the University of Connecticut.
James is known for shaping how we think about creativity, from his 4C model to the SylviaPlath effect.
His powerful new book, The Creativity Advantage, asks, beyond being creative, what doescreativity actually do for us?
(00:35):
If you're hungry to understand why creativity matters emotionally, socially, spiritually,you're about to hear why it's not just useful, it's essential.
James, welcome to the Super Creativity Podcast.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for having me.
Now, I know your past research has mapped creativity very widely, from cognition toculture.
(00:57):
I'm interested, what has guided this kind of recent work, which is really about whycreativity matters rather than just how it works?
something I first got interested in with this late to meaning.
And my father had been diagnosed with stage four bladder cancer.
(01:19):
And I kind of had spent the summer with my parents in Athens to say goodbye and had beenreading things like man's search for meaning.
And in the evenings when I was more in my own time, I began working on this piece oncreativity and meaning.
And the nice thing is that
my father actually recovered.
(01:41):
Usually he was given 10 % and he ended up beating it.
He's still around and cancer free.
But my interest in creativity and meaning and kind of the bigger picture of life hascontinued.
And it went from meaning to kind of general positive aspects.
So how it helps heal you, how it can connect you to other people, the whole idea oflegacy, self-insight.
(02:08):
wide variety of different benefits.
redefine creativity across these different dimensions as talked about in the book.
Which one surprised you the most?
um And obviously I know you from your work, this is a fantastic book I highly recommendanyone who's interested in creativity or theory of creativity called the Cambridge
(02:29):
Handbook of Creativity.
I remember reading a few years ago in its absolute Bible.
in world of creativity research and it really helped shape my own thinking aboutcreativity, the importance of creativity and how it works.
But as you wrote this latest book, has your thinking about creativity shifted?
And of those five dimensions that you mentioned, which one has maybe changed the most interms of how you think about it?
(02:58):
would say a lot of the way my thinking in general has changed has been to focus in aprocess instead of the outcome or product.
but not often when you say you're interested in the creative process, people kind ofassume, okay, well, how can I be more creative?
(03:19):
So how can I think of more ideas or how can I make sure I select the best one?
And I'm certainly interested in that, but...
More about the fact that almost all the benefits, it doesn't matter how creative you are.
So it's not like this helps people who are super creative and the people who are only kindof so-so don't benefit.
(03:43):
Pretty much everybody benefits, whether or not they're incredibly creative or whether ornot they're just kind of trying it out.
A lot of the stuff...
I found out more about but wasn't necessarily shocked.
Probably the thing that I knew the least about was the part about stealth insight andunderstanding yourself.
(04:10):
And I'd remembered when I was writing the book, like 15 years ago, I'd heard about thewriting cure, where if you write on a regular basis, kind of in this expressive, emotional
way, that it leads to positive outcomes.
But ever since...
The last 15 years, so much stuff has turned out to not replicate, not really turn out.
(04:32):
And when I did my kind of just seeing what's been done, I was pleasantly surprised to findout that it absolutely is still true and there's been even more work on it.
And it's something that I myself try to do is to as much as I can journal, kind of writedown my thoughts.
(04:55):
Cause
That's something that really does help and any of us can do, whether it's a blog or adiary.
I mean, a lot of times I also do this in my own writing.
So the book I'm writing right now, which is I'm maybe three quarters through is it's kindof a fun book.
It's on creativity in the movies where I'm writing about all this stuff on creativity, butevery single example in case study is about a movie.
(05:24):
And so they're not just movies about creativity, but how they were illustrating a concept.
So I write on a regular basis, things that are, you know, both nonfiction, but also alittle bit personal.
And so not everybody will be writing like a book, but it doesn't matter.
(05:44):
All sorts of regular writing helps and is beneficial.
And so that immediately makes me think of, you know, we hear that Julia Cameron's, themorning pages, I a lot of people have found that very useful in their process as well.
Talking about this idea of moviemaking, and I guess there's an interesting analogy or linkthere with, when we think about movies, um so much of moviemaking and the creativity as a
(06:11):
team.
efforts, it's not an individual, you might have an individual that's had an initial ideafor a concept, but if you think about a writer's room, whether it's a Saturday Night Live
or a movie, there's lots of people that are involved in making that final thing happen.
So I'm interested, like as you're thinking about that, um where did you start seeing thatshift come from the kind of personal side of creativity to more the collective or the team
(06:40):
side of creativity?
I very much think it can be both.
So, I mean, just to give my own self as an example, almost all the work I do iscollaborative.
So any empirical study is me and usually at least one, if not two or three other people.
And a lot of that is that I love the collaborative aspect of research.
(07:05):
love talking around ideas and discussions and brainstorming together, but then alsofiguring out the problems and the
obstacles in the last minute together.
And the older I get, the more I only collaborate with people I really like because life isshort.
If you're going spend time with people, you should like them.
(07:26):
But, and yet there's also the personal because I always like having one book that I'mworking on that's just me.
So,
I like the mix.
most of my work is collaborative.
And certainly even when I'm writing a solo authored book, I'm drawing on conversations andresearch with so many other people.
(07:50):
And even in this one, um I'm reaching out to a lot of friends when I talk about their workto get their favorite movie to kind of keep them in the conversation, so to speak.
And here's what I love about creativity is that there's so many different aspects andangles that
still have some things that are just you, but then an awful lot that are activelycollaborative, really almost regardless of domain.
(08:16):
On the collaboration piece, in terms of your own work, we often hear this idea of creativepairs, two different but complementary individuals helping support each other's work and
stress testing each other's work as well.
your own uh work as a researcher and a writer, is there a key kind of creative pair,another person that you kind of go to that's like that first, you have a concept, an
(08:41):
initial idea, you want to stress test something with, who is that person for you in yourown work?
That's an interesting question.
um
Certainly, if it's just, if I have an idea and I'm curious about it, I'll often bounce itoff first, usually either my wife or my father, so not necessarily a creativity
(09:04):
researcher, even though both have actually collaborated with me.
ah
Probably my most regular collaboration right now, although again, I have many, butcertainly the one that I'm also enjoying among the most is every Wednesday I have a uh
(09:24):
Zoom with a composer named Dana Rowe, who actually composed one of my very favoritemusicals of all time, The Fix, but he's done so many other things.
And we published a book on lessons in creativity from musical theater characters.
And what we're doing right now is we're working on a book called So You Have a TheaterKid, which is advice for people whose kids love theater.
(09:50):
And it's a mix of life experience, research about creativity, and then we've just beeninterviewing all these people who are theater professionals.
So well-known composers, actors, and so on.
And in this case, it's one of those, I don't want to say opposite to track.
(10:11):
But I'm the academic, Dana's the creative, and that's been wonderful.
uh But I also have many, many collaborations with pure creativity researchers where theymay have much more similar backgrounds, but we often will not be thinking the same, and we
will bandy about and discuss different ideas.
(10:32):
I guess that's what's so fascinating about this field.
I creativity is a very, quite a broad term and it means different things to differentpeople and across cultures and countries as well.
You can kind of go in many different directions with the research.
Was there a sense like when you first started getting involved in the work of creativity,was an area of this kind of creativity research pulling you, know, felt like it was a
(10:58):
stronger pull than perhaps another?
So I wanted to be a creative writer growing up.
That was my dream.
My major was creative writing and I added psychology at the last minute.
My parents are both psychologists.
I went to apply to MFA programs and I still remember I got one response, like when you, uhthis is back before the internet made everything right there.
(11:28):
uh But it said, if you can do anything else but this, do that.
And I, and it was probably supposed to be encouraging, like, yes, you must love it.
But I thought, well, I thought I could do something else.
And I kind of just.
applied almost scattershot to a whole bunch of PhD programs in psychology.
(11:51):
I didn't know what I was doing.
And I was very lucky.
I ended up at Yale with Robert Sternberg.
And even though he studied creativity, it never entered my mind that I could do that.
So the first two years I was doing just not very good work and figuring out what I wanted.
And I remember
(12:12):
Finally, I was almost debating, maybe I shouldn't be a graduate student, maybe this isn'tfor me.
And I thought, my passion is creative writing.
What if I were to try to study that?
And I spent the summer in my parents' basement, almost locked in the basement, justreading this whole stack of books that Sternberg gave me.
(12:33):
And that was the first time I ever actually cared about anything that I was reallyreading.
Like, psychology was fine, but in the same way that...
you know, I like watching baseball, whereas all of a sudden this was relevant and it wasvery personal to me.
And that was a turning point.
That was when, this is not just what I can study, but this is what I want to, this is whatI care about and I'm curious about.
(12:59):
And I finally got it because so many of my classmates would say stuff like, oh, I likejust daydreaming about studies I could do.
And I thought, my God, like I don't.
And all of a sudden I got it, which was.
I guess where these these two parts come together creativity, research, psychology as wellis something I think probably one of the first times I heard your name being discussed was
(13:26):
this the Sylvia Plath effect um and I believe you term this this idea as well and and it'sjust it speaks to a lot of especially I would say musicians having conversations and
this idea, they might not term it as this, but this idea often comes up in terms of thelink between psychology and creativity and the challenges that this comes, we had a guest
(13:49):
on recently, he talking about, he worked in the intelligence services and he said a thirdof the people that work in his department in the intelligence services, um you know,
they're neurodiverse, they, ADHD, um
they have synesthesia, they have all this kind of thing and they look at it as this is agreat advantage for us to have these people because they think in a different way.
(14:15):
So I'd love to know first of all the origins of how this kind of the Sylvia Plath effect,first of all tell us what that is, how you kind of got into your kind of aha moment I
guess of like how you kind of came upon this as well.
And what have been the ripples?
Now you put a few many years have gone since you kind of first came out with this concept.
(14:37):
What have been the ripples?
How have people responded to this idea?
It's kind of funny.
In some ways, it's going be a very unsatisfying answer.
um I was in my fourth year of graduate school, and I was at the Strand Bookstore in NewYork.
(14:57):
And I saw big books saying modern um creative writers.
It was like an encyclopedia.
And I had discovered the work of Gene Simonson, who did what's called historiometrics.
where you enter information.
And at the time, um I didn't have any real easy way to collect data.
(15:19):
And I thought, well, maybe I'll try that.
And I just began entering as much information as I could think of from these littlebiographies.
And then when I went to play with it, I found this little hiccup, which was that femalepoets were much more likely to show some signs of mental illness than any other type of
writer.
(15:39):
And I did another study that found that among eminent women, the same thing.
So compared to fiction writers or politicians or actresses or artists, it was the poetswho were much more likely to show signs of mental illness.
And I actually didn't think it was terribly interesting.
Like I published it, it was fine.
(16:01):
um But at my first professor job, they had hired a PR person to try to get
their name out there and the person went through my stuff and he's like, well, this couldbe interesting.
I told him about it.
And two weeks later, the New York Times is calling me and it was very strange.
I was blib, which now I would never be.
(16:25):
And it kind of took off and I realized, A, a lot of people didn't, they kind ofmisinterpreted it.
where it was a very specific, not particularly interesting finding.
And they took it to mean all creative people have mental illness, which isn't really true.
And I guess I also realized.
(16:50):
It affected people and sometimes they felt, thank God, but sometimes they were very sad orhurt.
And to be honest, that was another reason behind the creativity advantage is that I feltthat, you know, yes, I do think that there's probably some type of connection between some
types of creativity and mental health.
(17:13):
But I don't think it's as simple as they're just linked.
I also think.
that perhaps one reason there's this connection is that creativity has so many amazingproperties.
It makes you feel better.
It enhances your mood.
It connects you with people that if somebody's struggling, they may turn to creativity tomake them feel better.
(17:39):
And certainly there's no evidence to suggest that creativity makes your mental healthworse.
um So the Sylvia Plath effect is kind of lingered.
And it's not that I don't think it's true.
It's just I think it's often misinterpreted.
It's overemphasized.
(17:59):
And I don't know if it's a terribly good legacy to have, to be honest.
I'm.
Yeah, I mean, it's because when I've had discussions with, especially artists andmusicians, I would say, about this, some of them feel very strongly on either side of this
topic, because, you know, some of them feel, well, of course, that's the case, because weare open more to emotions, we have to invest ourselves emotionally with the work, and
(18:24):
that's going to maybe create that as well.
And others feel felt very strongly that no, this is, this is just feeding into a
bigger media narrative of this kind of lone creative genius myth of putting something upon a pedestal and it's painting out the contribution of the people that's, were speaking
(18:46):
earlier about teams and having people around you, it kind of paints out that picture.
So I can completely understand why you're a bit conflicted, mean part of your research isgreat because it's been, it's other people have seen it but it's often been taken out of
context.
Yes, and I've come to be closer to the second group of people in terms of.
(19:13):
On one hand...
I do think that there probably is notably more neurodivergence in people who are creative,but not because there's no reason.
I, I just think.
I don't know, most people I know who are neurodivergent are just more interesting um andperhaps open to ideas or willing to entertain kind of weirder thoughts and stuff.
(19:41):
I don't think there's deep or profound necessarily about it.
I don't, and certainly I think...
If it makes people think that they have to have some type of mental health struggle to becreative, then that would be very bad because you don't, you know.
(20:02):
And if anything, I think people who have very severe mental health struggles, that canhurt creativity because it makes it so you may not actually produce things if you're
struggling.
um
And as you mentioned, sorry, as you mentioned other people mentioned, you know, thatcreativity is so nuanced and rich and involving teams and all these different parts that
(20:31):
it's hard to paint it with just one brush.
Obviously, with the creativity advantage, you've kind of taken, you've kind of zoomed outand talking about this sense of uh meaning, which so many people were looking, they want
the sense of meaning in the life and the link that creativity has to that.
As the book has been, as people have been reading the book now as well and giving youthoughts on their feelings from the book and observations of the book,
(21:00):
What have been the things you've been hearing multiple times that have affected people orthey found, you know, this is the thing I got the most from reading the book?
The thing that I love hearing the most is people who've decided to try being creative,sometimes with their kids.
(21:21):
So not necessarily in response to any particular thing, but more of a general gestalt.
I've also heard from several researchers who've begun wanting to study this.
Just again, just positive things in creativity.
And that is to me very exciting because I feel like we so often...
(21:43):
focus on the negative or even if we don't focus on the negative, we focus on, how can yoube more creative and focus on this outcome and product and not, well, why would you want
to in the big picture?
mean, creativity is effort.
Nowadays we have AI, which is kind of threatening to take over everything.
(22:04):
mean, if AI can do creativity better than we can, and I'm not saying it can, but like, whybother doing it unless you're getting something from the process?
So I'm excited to see more work and just more thought and more people trying to becreative based on.
There's the link between AI and creativity and AI is obviously something I speak about alot.
(22:27):
That's kind of really mine how these tools can both augment and actually we're seeing morestudies coming just now potentially damage or cause problems with uh people's ability to
be creative in their work or teams ability to be creative in their work.
uh As you look around, obviously, as I mentioned earlier, the Cambridge Handbook ofCreativity, go and get your copy, but I know you're kind of working on the next version of
(22:48):
this book.
And as you look out there,
in terms of some of the latest research that's being done on creativity and theresearchers out there, who's really inspiring you?
Whose work has kind of just kind of lit you up in terms of what they're doing?
there is a whole younger generation that I think is just doing amazing work.
(23:11):
Everything from people who are assistant or just associate professors to even just somepostdocs and graduate students.
And what's great is they're all over the world.
you have Magic Krawowski who is not early career, but a lot of his lab like Ola Zelinskywho just got her PhD.
(23:34):
You have Matthias Benedict, who again, he's not really career, but then his post-docs andgraduate students such as Simon C.
They're just doing this work.
You got Roger Beatty.
Again, he's the more senior person and Simone Luchini.
And they're doing some creativity stuff.
And it's this team of these leaders and then their graduate students who are going to bepicking up the torch.
(23:59):
And I can't even know the 30 people, but.
people who are so much better than I was when I was in my late 20s, people who are betterwith methods and stats, who are better with just thinking of interesting things and like
looking, well, how about YouTube and Twitter and things like that.
So many of the people who I get to work with, I mean, some of these people plus, know,Hansika Kapoor, Krista Taylor, Alex McKay, so many of these people, so many of my former
(24:28):
students, Sarah Luria, Molly Hollinger, so many of these.
folks and just getting to see them carving new territory.
And a lot of it sometimes in the creativity advantage area, but sometimes doing stuff,creativity AI, it's just, it's exciting.
(24:50):
I think we're in really good hands.
it feels also there's quite a strong generational shift that's going on as well, this wordcreativity which I mean I've even noticed as a speaker speaking to, I primarily speak to
corporate clients around the world and even when I started speaking on this topic 2017there was, you could sense the resistance around
(25:12):
creativity as a term in a business context.
And so I had to spend a little bit of time at the start, just talking about what that isand how it relates to innovation and the benefits and kind of the ROI, I guess, of the
creativity from that perspective.
But now with this younger generation that's coming into the workforce, it feels, and Idon't know what exactly the data is to support this, but it feels like those younger
(25:35):
leaders, those Gen X, those millennials,
are much more comfortable in using that term creativity in a business context.
And I'm wondering if what you're seeing is a little bit of that going on as well.
Certainly, when I first entered the field.
(25:55):
As an academic, there weren't very many people studying this.
really weren't.
Nobody was looking for a creativity person.
When I got my PhD, I sent out 40 job applications and I got nothing.
ah Luckily, I ended up getting a position at educational testing service.
um And similarly,
(26:21):
I always consult here and there and there was just a lot less with both education andbusiness.
um Even if somebody was interested, their superior would often be like, well, who cares?
Why do we want this?
There's less of that now.
There's still sometimes that, but I feel like there's more of a general understanding thatyes, a creative workforce is better.
(26:48):
And I think some of that is, mean,
You need to be willing to think longer term to see real ROI and creativity.
Because if you put a whole bunch of resources into helping train and nurture and supportcreativity, you probably won't make that back the first year.
(27:09):
But over a couple of years, I believe you will see the dividends.
It's just most people aren't willing to wait that long even now, but at least now it's nota dirty word.
the way it was 25 years.
I know we had a recent guest on the podcast, Professor Joseph Gibelli, who wrote a bookcalled The Brain at Rest, talking about the brain on creativity.
(27:33):
the basic these neuroscientists talking about the how our brain what we often think wewere talking about the brain needs to have these periods of rest.
in order to do creative work and many of the things in our society are always on ourhustle culture, our mobile devices that we have with the social media is kind of working
against that and is not necessarily as useful for that.
(27:57):
So in this world that we're in just now, which of the creative advantages that you talkabout in the book do you potentially see as most under siege from this kind of always on
culture and how can we begin to reclaim it?
question.
um
(28:19):
of the benefits come from the actual process of being creative.
Probably the one that comes most to mind is anything involved with healing or improvingyour mood or your mental health.
So much of this stuff, it happens when you are creative.
(28:40):
And I mean, it's my worry with AI that...
m
If you have an idea for a story and you plug it into chat, then for a lot of folks, theoutput may end up being a better story than if they'd written themselves.
But most of us aren't going to be publishing that story anyway, or even if we do, it won'tbe in the New Yorker.
(29:06):
What happens is that if we were to actually write that story or draw that picture.
We get these benefits.
puts us in a better mood.
It just, it does all of these different things from self insight to our own feelings oflegacy.
If we're not engaged in that process, we don't get those benefits.
(29:30):
And.
How do we take that back?
I I feel like with AI, the horse is out of the barn.
You're not gonna be able to change that.
mean, I know a lot of professors that have no idea how to deal with AI out there.
Not like I have any great wisdom on that.
I think to a certain degree, it's just to try to convince people at the very least ifyou're gonna use AI to use it as a collaborator and not as a cheat code.
(30:04):
And it's hard because...
people don't like effort.
And I mean, I'm not saying this condescendingly.
I don't like effort.
I mean, there are many things in my life.
If I could press a button and have done, I would do it.
And now with AI, we have this and I understand why people are using it.
I I generally don't, but some of that is I just, really enjoy writing.
(30:28):
And so I don't necessarily want to give that up, but it's hard to tell people don't dothis easy thing that is everywhere.
and will probably end up being a little better than what you would have done by yourself.
Yeah, kind going back to what you spoke about earlier with Dana talking about how she'syour kind of creative pair.
(30:48):
That's something the way that I think about creativity, I kind of use it as I know what myblind spots are, my weak points from a creative standpoint.
And so I tend to use it as a way to help me see those or strengthen those as well.
You mentioned the editing and you're a skilled editor.
So.
me having someone like that that I can put it into the mind of a great, you know, NewYorker editor or whoever and just say, pretend you are that person.
(31:18):
Now, review this.
what I'm finding interesting about that is making me ask different kind of questions Iperhaps wouldn't have asked if I just can just go on a more straight line and just having
on my own.
And so the thing I'm quite excited about is
many people that maybe live in parts of the world or don't have a community or thosecollaborators maybe around them, this is that potential type of collaborator that they can
(31:45):
use if they can put in the guardrails.
That's one of the challenges.
Certainly, I do see how it could be helpful.
I mean...
I feel like most creativity researchers either are gung-ho excited or a little terrified.
(32:11):
And I'm very much in the latter camp, but I respect the people who I know who are gung-hoto acknowledge that there absolutely are these possibilities.
the fact that, I mean, it's an interesting question because on one hand, what AI
(32:31):
could be for a lot of people who may not have access to other creative types or to.
just the opportunities.
It absolutely could be this thing.
On the other hand, if we're thinking
(32:52):
I would feel better if there wasn't already so much capitalism inherent in it, where thebest versions are pay and the versions you can get for free are notably worse.
One thing that excites me about creativity is there's tremendous capacity for equitythere.
Because if you look at
(33:15):
things like intelligence or academic achievement, find differences by socioeconomic statusand other things for a variety of reasons.
But creativity, you really don't see them.
Almost everybody has the same capacity to potentially be creative.
And...
(33:39):
I just worry about that going away.
I worry that AI could make us value creativity more because now everybody can work on itor could make us value creativity less because we can outsource it.
And so what does it matter if you could do it yourself?
I don't know what's going to happen, you know, but I can see these parts.
(34:01):
I'm guessing maybe I'm in the bit more, I think we'll go through this period where therewill be, you know, the hacks and the cheat code versions of these things as well.
Where I hope we eventually get to is, you've done a lot of work in terms of talking aboutthis idea of small C creativity and big C creativity.
For me, I feel it just, if it helps the general public just push forward towards thatbigger C creativity that you talk about.
(34:27):
that's fantastic.
And I just see it from the sciences where I look at uh researchers, scientists thatworking on protein folding and things like that, where this is unlocking huge potential.
for them to discover new drug discovery, antibiotics and other things as well.
So I see it there.
We're probably a little bit more challenges when we look at maybe marketing and otherfields where there's a slightly different usage that's going on as well.
(34:56):
So we definitely live in interesting times as well.
So if you could, you've got such a breadth and depth of knowledge on creativity.
Someone that's listening to this, maybe this is their very first episode that listens
this show and they're interested in creativity and unlocking their potential, theircreative potential as well.
(35:18):
What is one act or ritual or habit that you've seen people do which has had maybe quite asimple thing for them to do but it's had the most profound impact on enhancing their
creativity?
Maybe it's kind of going back to some of the things that obviously you talk about in thecreativity advantage as well.
(35:41):
The personality trait that's most associated with creativity is openness.
And that can be openness to experiences, openness to ideas.
the simplest thing that people can do is just try to do one new thing a week.
And I don't mean something new that is shockingly new that will make you terrified,although that would be great.
(36:06):
But like, if you have a favorite restaurant,
order something you've never ordered.
Or if you have a favorite meal that you cook, tweak it a bit.
Try finding a new way home from work or school.
mean, maybe not if you're walking, maybe don't get too lost if you're a kid.
Try watching something, reading something you haven't done before.
(36:27):
that pushing yourself a little bit with trying something new, thinking something new,because that's the first step.
And that's something everybody can do.
No matter where you are, you know, that that's.
I think very much along those lines, which frustrates my wife no ends because we'll oftenbe in a restaurant and I'll want to try the one thing on the menu that we haven't tried
(36:52):
before.
And even though she's, that's going to be a terrible decision if you make that decision,we just go for the tried and tested thing.
But I said, well, let's go.
And she is usually right.
I must give a credit for that.
But I just feel it's kind of using that part of my brain as well.
As we start to finish up here as well, just kind of quick fire questions for you.
(37:12):
Is there one quote that you kind of tend to live by or you find yourself returning to thisone quote perhaps more than others?
If I'm honest, the quote that probably comes back to you the most is from a movie calledHouse of Games, which is, we'll deal with that thing then.
(37:35):
And it keeps me from worrying about most things in terms of could this bad thing happen?
Maybe we'll deal with that thing then.
I have no idea if that's the healthy coping mechanism or not, but it's the one that Iactually do.
And is there uh a tool or a habit or ritual that you find is very important for your owncreative work?
(38:03):
I think learning what works best for your headspace based on time of day.
So like when I wake up, I usually will either do calls or emails.
And I find that it's usually around one to 4 PM when I'm at my most creative.
And so I try to time it.
So that's my time that I can do my writing.
(38:26):
If it, to the extent possible, not everybody has the luxury of doing this, but if you knowthere's certain times that
Your brain is just firing at all cylinders and this is when you should, you can be themost creative.
Try as much as possible to allow yourself that time to be creative as opposed to have thattime be when you're stuck in need.
(38:48):
And if there was one book you would recommend to our listeners, not one of your own books,but a book by another author, what would that book be?
that's a good question.
Something that's excited me is that.
A lot of the layperson books on creativity are not by researchers, but recently there havebeen a number of them.
(39:12):
And there's books by Scott Barry Kaufman, books by Zorana Idsivic.
um There's a book on curiosity and on kind of defying the system by Todd Kashtan.
The fact that we're seeing layperson books by people who are actually experts and any ofthose um among others.
(39:34):
Because when I was first entering this field, there were layperson books by like the HollyChick sent me high and Bob Sternberg and Howard Gardner and they were all legit.
And at a certain point, it just got harder and harder for there to be these laypersonbooks by the experts.
And now they're kind of, coming back to that.
And so that would be what I would.
(39:54):
That's great.
I I think it's that thing we're seeing in terms of the academics being, know, learning,relearning storytelling in this form as well, which is, you know, kind of going back to,
were talking about Man's Search for Meaning, I was thinking about Joseph Campbell as well,some of those key things that often kind of come back to us as well.
(40:16):
Well, Dr.
James Kaufman, thank you so much for being a guest on the Super Creativity Podcast.
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