decentring the creative self: how others make creativity possible in creative professional fields

Decentring the Creative Self: HowOthers Make Creativity Possible inCreative Professional Fields

Vlad Petre Glaveanu and Todd Lubart

Since its inception, the psychology of creativity has been concerned primarily with the studyof individual creators. In contrast, this research is dedicated to an exploration of (a) who has asignificant impact on a creative professional’s activity and (b) what the contribution is thatothers make to creative outcomes. The research included interviews with 60 professionalsworking in science and creative industries in France. The following categories of othersemerged: family and friends, peers and students, clients and funders, critics and gatekeepers,and the general public – and they were related to themes depicting the interaction betweenthese different others and the creator. Findings reveal both similarities and differences acrossthe five domains in terms of the specific contribution of others to the creative process. Socialinteractions play a key formative, regulatory, motivational and informational role in relationto creative work. From ‘internalized’ to ‘distant’, other people are an integral part of theequation of creativity calling for a de-centring of the creative self and its re-centring in a socialspace of actions and interactions.

Introduction

Starting from the Renaissance and itsemphasis on ‘great creators’ (Banaji, Burn

& Buckingham, 2006), continuing with thelate eighteenth and nineteenth century ‘eleva-tion of the individual self’ (Weiner, 2000, p.78), culminating in today’s focus on creativityand cognition, creativity has consistentlybeen ‘located’ inside individuals and theirparticular attributes (mental, neurological,genetic, etc.; see Glaveanu, 2010). And yet,‘social and environmental factors seem toplay a crucial role in creative performance’(Amabile, 1996, p. 6; also Miettinen, 2006),particularly in organizational settings, but weare still struggling to understand this roleand, moreover, to theorize it. The presentarticle aims to address this gap and provideinformation related to: (a) who contributesto the creative expression of individual crea-tors; (b) how this contribution is made, and(c) why others are an integral part of thecreative process.

From Self to Other(s) in thePsychology of Creativity

Alongside a mainstream interest in creativityas an individual phenomenon, there has beena growing concern, largely since the 1980s, forthe social aspects of creative production. Mostnotably, entire collections started to be dedi-cated to the topic of social creativity (see, forinstance, Montuori & Purser, 1999) and a‘social psychology of creativity’ formulated assuch (Amabile, 1996). Despite the latter beingan expanding branch, little work has beendone to systematize its findings and actuallyintegrate the multiple ways in which otherpeople contribute to creativity (for a review,see Glaveanu, 2011) as well as the kinds ofothers involved by creative activity in variousprofessional settings. What is attempted belowis a brief synthesis of the different instances of‘otherness’ required by creative acts. Theseinstances, based on a review of relevant litera-ture, are less focused on which particularothers play a part in creative acts (e.g., friends,

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collaborators, etc.), but consider the natureof their relationship with creators (being partof their familiar environment, immediate ordistant, connected through institutionalarrangements or simply internalized by thecreator). An attempt to map such differences(without aiming to exhaust all possibilities) isuseful for locating our findings, something wewill consider later in the final discussion.

The Familiar Other

An important social element in the life of anycreator is represented by the people whosurround him or her from early childhoodonwards. This ‘familiar’ other, made up offamily members but not exclusively, caught theinterest of scholars, especially those preoccu-pied with psychobiography. Freud offers awell-known example in this regard (see theLeonardo da Vinci case study; Freud, 1989)through his fundamental assumption thatchildhood experiences, usually shaped byinteractions with significant others, leave theirmark on later creative production. This ethoswas taken forward by subsequent studiesfocused on parental influences on creativity(see, for example, Deborah, 1993) without nec-essarily adopting a psychoanalytic perspec-tive. Indeed, other explanations for whyfamiliar others are indispensable for thegenesis of creativity are possible, and wecan be reminded here of Vygotsky’s (1978)influential concept of zone of proximaldevelopment.

The Immediate Other

In a sense all familiar others are also ‘immedi-ate’, considering the strong connectionsbetween them and creators usually spanninga long period of time. However, familymembers, for example, might play a great rolerelative to the formation of the creative self buthave little impact on creative work directly. It isclose collaborators who are necessarily presentwhile the creative product is being shaped. Theinterest for this kind of direct social interactionis embodied today in two growing fields ofstudy: group creativity and collaborative crea-tivity. The former, mostly experimental innature, recently developed a series of cognitivemodels in an effort to unpack the features ofgroup interactions (see De Dreu, Nijstad & VanKnippenberg, 2008). Collaborative creativityresearch tended on the whole to adopt asocio-cultural paradigm (John-Steiner, 2000),emphasizing the long-term nature of collabo-rative encounters.

The Institutional Other

Whereas the previous two types of othernessconsidered mostly one-to-one interaction or

collaboration in dyads and small groups, thereis another, macro-social aspect to creativitythat is addressed primarily by systemicmodels. Scholars like Csikszentmihalyi (1988)and Gruber (2005) are usually associated withthe study of creators in relation to formallyestablished groups represented by thenetwork of experts or ‘gatekeepers’ of a certaindomain. Csikszentmihalyi emphasized in hisperson–field–domain framework the fact thatcreativity can never be the act of a single indi-vidual but requires the existence of culturaldomains and their ‘guardians’, e.g. museumcurators, art critics, reviewers, etc. Gruber’sevolving systems perspective contributes tothis view by considering the relation betweencreators and experts in their transformationover time. As such, the institutional other,although not directly involved in acts of crea-tion, makes them possible by legitimizingtheir existence and validating their finaloutcomes.

The Distant Other

With institutionalized social relations wemoved already from the intimacy of familiarand immediate connections to the broadersphere of society and culture. The notion of adistant other continues this dimension andpoints to the fact that otherness is not onlyrepresented by identifiable family members,collaborators or institutions, but also consti-tutes the background element: collectiveothers defining a certain Ortgeist and Zeit-geist. In this regard, Simonton’s use ofhistorometry illustrates current efforts toinvestigate how broader environmental vari-ables impact the activity of celebrated creators.For Simonton, creative expression and itshistorical variations can be ‘attributed tochanges in cultural, social, political, and eco-nomic circumstances’ (Simonton, 2003, p. 306).His detailed analyses demonstrated, forinstance, an effect of political fragmentationand instability on entire generations (seeSimonton, 1975), revealing the fact that distant,macro-social others need to be present in an‘expanded’ equation of creativity.

The Internalized Other

Finally, we need to come full circle in ourgradual movement from closer to more distantothers and consider a fruitful line of researchthat argues for the existence of others withinthe creative self. This idea has been developedprimarily by socio-cultural scholars who workon dialogicality and related issues. Indeed, forMarková, dialogicality is an essential attributeof the human mind: its capacity ‘to conceive,create and communicate about social realities

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in terms of the Alter’ (Marková, 2003, p. xiii). Inother words, our thinking processes areshaped by the positions of others (the ‘alter’),positions we internalize and integrate in theway we talk and act on a daily basis. In termsof creativity, this basically means that creatorsare always in dialogue with a series of others,even while working in complete solitude. Forauthors like Barrett (1999), creativity thusbecomes a social-dialogical process.

The Present Research

The study reported here employed thematicinterviews with French professionals fromthe following domains: art, design, science,scriptwriting and music composition.1 Multi-ple domains were chosen in order to allow notonly a domain-specific analysis (Baer, 1998),but also to achieve a comparative perspective.Moreover, relatively little is yet known aboutself–other relations in each of these five fieldsof creative production, and usually differentauthors focus on different social aspects foreach professional setting.

For instance, much has been written aboutartistic expression and the networks of col-laboration that support it (see Becker, 2008); inthis regard, Freeman (1993) offered a compre-hensive account of the various social dimen-sions of art from cultural images to the relationbetween artists and the market. In the case ofdesigners, perhaps the most prominent type ofsocial relation is that between creators, clientsand users, the latter two establishing visibleconstraints on creative work (Löfqvist, 2010).Even in science, a domain traditionally associ-ated with the image of lone geniuses, currentliterature tries to correct an individualistic biasand points to the collective efforts requiredby all great discoveries (see Collins, 2007).Scriptwriting, on the other hand, has been con-sidered more consistently as a social type ofpractice (Conor, 2010), a practice born out ofconversations with a series of others (Redvall,

2009). Finally, music composition is an equallysocially embedded type of activity, especiallyin its improvisational forms; among them, jazzimprovised performances have received con-siderable attention in recent decades (Sawyer,2003).

In relation to all these domains, the presentstudy, exploratory in nature, aims to answerthe following questions: (a) who are the otherscontributing to creative work?; (b) whatexactly is the nature of this contribution?; and(c) how can the role of others be explained andconceptualized? The first two objectives willbe addressed in the results section whereas thethird, more general (and ambitious) goal, willconstitute the focus of the final discussion.

Method

Participants

The sample for the present study consisted of60 professional creators, living and working inFrance, 12 from each of the five domains: art,design, science, scriptwriting and music.2

These domains belong to the general fieldof Creative Industries because they areconcerned with the generation and use ofknowledge and information; although not for-mally part of the Creative Industries group(Department of Culture, Media and Sport,2006), science also has an important part toplay in the process of generating new knowl-edge. The main criterion for selection wasexpertise, most creators in the sample havingbetween 10 and 20 years of professionalexperience. The actual selection of creators thatcorresponded to these criteria was conveni-ence based. Over two-thirds of the participantswere male; however, the distribution betweensexes depended on domain and is indicated inTable 1. Age also varied, most respondentsbeing between 40 and 50 years of age.

All participants had received higher educa-tion, usually in the domain of their currentprofession. Artists in the sample included

Table 1. Gender and Age of the Participants

Art Design Science Scriptwriting Music Total

Male 7 S 11 6 10 42Female 5 4 1 6 2 18Mean age* 47 41 42 49 53SD age* 9.02 12.06 9.31 6.81 8.97Total 12 12 12 12 12 60

* Missing values for age: 3 for design, 4 for science, 5 for music.



painters and sculptors, a few of them workingalso with film and photography. Designerscovered a greater range, from the productionof decorative objects, interior design and fur-niture to visual communication, designinglogos and packaging. Finally, scientists camefrom diverse scientific fields and the subsetused for the analysis comprised six physicists(and astrophysicists), three mathematicians(theoretical and applied), two information andtechnology specialists and one chemist.

Material

The method used for data collection was semi-structured interviews using a similar topicguide across domains. Usually interviewslasted between one and two hours andcovered a series of areas starting from ageneral presentation of the participant, adetailed description of his/her work, andending with reflections on the creative processand the place of the creator in society. Theanalysis presented in this article focuses onthose sections of the interviews that made ref-erence to other people and how they contrib-ute to the creative process. It was consideredthat semi-structured interviews represent anideal method for data collection in this case asthey can provide actual information but also,most importantly, the creator’s own perspec-tive on what is essential for his/her work andown reflections about the role played by othersin creative expression (for the benefits of usingthis method, see Kvale, 1996; Gaskell, 2000). Inthe end, all interviews were transcribed verba-tim for data analysis.

Data Collection

All participants were fully informed aboutthe project and agreed to participate in theresearch. Anonymity was guaranteed andrespondents are referred to below using codenames (reflecting domain and order number).Interviews took place in 2010 either at theirusual workplace or another location of theirchoosing; different research teams coordinateddata collection in the five domains. No finan-cial compensation was given for participation.

Data Analysis

All interviews were subjected to thematicanalysis (Boyatzis, 1998; Attride-Stirling, 2001)by the first author. Initially the scripts of all theinterviews were read and any mentioning of asocial other (e.g., friend, colleague, the public,etc.) was highlighted. These instances werethen grouped into five main categories: familyand friends (the familial universe), peers andstudents (colleagues, including students in the

case of university work), clients and funders(people who offer financial support andmonitor the project), critics and gatekeepers(people who evaluate the creation and have asay in its distribution), and members of thegeneral public (generally users and otherpeople who are in contact with the finalproduct). The sentences that referred to thesecategories of people were then selected andcoded in terms of type of interaction. Thisresulted in a number of general themesdefined and illustrated in the Appendix. Thesethemes reflect actions directed by otherstowards the creator or joint activities. Theywere derived in a data-driven fashion byreading the relevant sentences and abstractingthe main type of action using Atlas.ti. Quota-tions included under the same category werethen read together to check whether themescould be merged or ‘split’ into different sub-themes. After establishing the final list ofthemes and their definition, a secondresearcher coded the whole art group (the firstsample to be analysed) and agreement wasfound in over 90 per cent of the cases (discrep-ancies were them discussed in light of defini-tions and theoretical considerations). Thethemes, once coded, were finally associated toone of the five categories of others mentionedabove and this allowed building the visualdepiction of thematic networks presented inthe next section.

Results

Family and Friends

In interviews with creators from all fivedomains, there were passages referring tofamily and friends and the kinds of interac-tions they have with the participants. In mostcases creators mentioned showing their workto family and/or friends and even discussingit with them (especially scientists, designers,but also artists). A visual depiction of the the-matic networks resulting for this category ofothers is presented in Figure 1. It can benoticed how some respondents, in particulardesigners and music composers, also rely onclose friends for general feedback, checking ifthey ‘like’ the work. Often the creative productis shown not only when finished but whilework is still in progress, which emphasizes theimportance of getting another opinion or‘view’ from significant others. Interestingly,one scriptwriter mentioned as well howshowing work in progress can sometimes help‘un-block’ (L7), and it is rare that one wouldask a colleague or peer for this kind of support(L4); trusted friends are most likely to give a‘honest opinion’ (L1, L5). Sometimes great



ideas come from these interactions and thecloseness of family relations fosters the trustnecessary to present one’s work and ask foranother perspective.

One of the best illustrations concerning therole of close friends and family is found in theinterview with artist A1. She discussed atlength the great contribution her partnerbrings to her work through sharing ideas and‘inspiring’ new developments. A1 said she‘detests the solitude of the atelier’ and, aftershe has an initial ‘vision’ of the work to come,it is her partner who ‘questions’ this vision,helps clarify ideas and give them a certain‘shape’. In the end, final artworks are the resultof their ‘combined sensibilities’ and this ismostly because A1 and her partner have‘common existential interests’, ‘the same crea-tive values’. ‘And we decided to share thesevalues in a creative domain. It is a little as ifour creations are our children finally, becausepeople share the same values in order to createa couple or have children’ (A1). Interestingly,these shared interests do not preclude friction.Indeed, A1 mentioned there is ‘a dimension ofrebellion’ in her work and disagreement with

her partner and close others plays a great rolein formulating ideas, there is value in the ‘vio-lence of the confrontation’. Similarly S4, amathematician, commented on how close con-nections helped him build a ‘taste for math-ematics’, the driving force behind his currentactivity. In the end, family and friends seem tobe positioned between internalized andimmediate others as their influence extends intime well beyond concrete moments of inter-action and collaboration.

Peers and Students

Relations with peers (and, to a smaller extent,students) are widely discussed by creatorsfrom all domains, in particular scientists,scriptwriters and music composers. In mostinstances, creators acknowledged the fact thattheir work is an outcome of collaboration withpeers and colleagues. Figure 2 lists some of theways in which the latter impact on creativework from offering ideas, discussing currentprojects and sharing knowledge to testing con-cepts and dividing tasks. Often the beginningof a project is marked by an encounter (A4)and some creators clearly state they hate

Figure 1. Themes Related to the Category ‘Family and Friends’

Figure 2. Themes Related to the Category ‘Peers and Students’



working alone (L4) because one cannotknow or do everything (M6). For example,scriptwriting is fundamentally a team effortand ‘a scenario is not personal, it is sharedwork’ (L5). As such the typical way of creatinginvolves constant interactions with co-writers(as well as the director and producer), a typeof activity compared by some with a game ofping-pong (L2), a form of ‘back and forth’(L10). In the end, this makes everythingco-produced: ‘we don’t know anymore whowrote what’ (L8). A similar dynamic is estab-lished among some of the musicians. Workingwith peers is stimulating (M3), although often-times marked by harsh criticism (M7). In theircase, colleagues are not only fellow composersbut also singers, members of the band ororchestra who will eventually play the piece,etc. Their feedback and contribution is oftencrucial because music essentially needs ‘coor-dination between writing and playing’ (M6),as well as ‘testing’ new ideas with instrumen-talists (M7).

As the findings indicate, perhaps for noother domain are interactions with peers andstudents emphasized more than science. Col-leagues are the ones with whom creatorsdiscuss (S4), and they have a crucial role inboth getting and formulating ideas (S6, S8, S9).Indeed, they orient one’s work and, moreessentially, conversations with peers areusually the starting point for new projectsbecause ‘what attracts colleagues attracts oneas well’ (S3). In this regard, S1 mentioned:‘When I became faculty, and started having myown projects, over 95 per cent of the time Ispent discussing with others in a friendly,general manner, with colleagues who hadsimilar interests meeting over a coffee. . . . Andso, most of the projects develop this way,thanks to completely informal discussionswith colleagues’. Work itself thus ‘advancesthrough meetings’ (S4), through going and

presenting at conferences and seminars (S7).Just like in the case of scriptwriters, the finalproduct of scientific work is necessarilyco-authored and it is hard to say ultimately‘who had the initial idea for something’ (S7).In the end, a career in science is built by thechance of meeting certain people (S5), workingin teams (S12) and complementing eachother’s areas of expertise (S11). Because of theusually close nature of these collaborations,peers (and students) can potentially be situ-ated between familiar and immediate types ofothers.

Clients and Funders

A key ‘ingredient’ of any professional creativeactivity is represented not only by exchangeswith peers but also the contributions made byclients and funders. These are essential in alldomains but the ones who commented onthese relations most were designers, script-writers and composers (respondents whoregularly work with clients directly). Fundersare more important for scientists and artists,especially those connected to the academicenvironment. As Figure 3 depicts, clients andfunders play a series of roles in relation tocreative production, most commonly givinginstructions and feedback, proposing andclarifying ideas and setting deadlines. Theyalso frequently decide when the project is‘done’. Clients impose a series of constraints,and respondents need to conform to thesebecause, in the words of one designer, ‘we alsoneed to eat’ and earn a living (D1). But oftenconstraints actually make the work easier (M6)and a collaborative effort is needed to under-stand what clients want, while bringing insomething ‘personal’ (D3, M7, L6). It is regu-larly the case that the creator has to work ‘inreaction to propositions’ (M7).

This ‘tension’ between constraints and crea-tive freedom is stressed mostly by designers

Figure 3. Themes Related to the Category ‘Clients and Funders’



(e.g., D1, D2, D8, D9) who need to conform tothe wishes of the client and this requires a lotof back and forth exchanges (D1, D8) espe-cially at the start when the client gives adetailed account of what he or she wants.Designers, however, combine these guidelineswith their own ideas and usually clients decidethe content, whereas designers work on theform (D1). There is always room for creativityin the end because ‘even when we respond toa request . . . there are millions of possibleanswers and so unavoidably inspiration andcreativity play a part in one moment oranother’ (D4). Scriptwriters experience similarwork relations. In this case, the client is usuallythe film director and producer and writershave to understand the resulting script andmovie ‘is not theirs’ alone (L5). In the words ofone of the participants, ‘in this job there is noother way than to take the comments given toyou [by the director] into account’ (L10). Dia-logue at the start to establish a ‘commonground’ is essential and writing itself ismarked by constant interchanges (L1, L8, L9).In the end, one needs to reflect on criticism(L12) and the director ultimately decides whenthe work is ready to go (L1, L4; similar fordesign, D1, D7). It is important to understandtherefore that, for many respondents, clientsand funders are not only instances of institu-tionalized self–other relations, but also denoteimmediate and, at times, ‘intimate, devouring’creative collaborations (L10).

Critics and Gatekeepers

Going further inside the domain of institution-alized relations, we find a creator’s connectionto critics and experts (‘gatekeepers’ of thedomain) – people who are more ‘distant’ andoften less identifiable than clients and funders.These relations were noted by participantsfrom all five groups, mostly by scientists,

followed by artists, scriptwriters and compos-ers and finally by designers. It is interestingthat, for designers, clients they work withdirectly seem to play a more significant role.Figure 4 outlines the ways in which criticismand evaluation from other professionals arereceived and responded to by our participants.To begin, there is a clear need for recognitionon the part of creators. This need makes themsensitive to the opinion of experts and evalu-ations are capable of stirring emotions (bothpositive and negative), sometimes leading to ablocking effect (L7). Most of all, participantsacknowledged that one is expected to promoteone’s work, and external appraisal can serve asmeans of gaining ‘capital’, both financial andsymbolic, and establishing a name for oneself.Some do not appreciate this ‘marketing’ gamevery much and one of the artists lamented, forinstance, the fact that the world of art is one of‘connections, a real mafia’ (A4).

The situation is not much different forscience, where success is regularly measuredin terms of awards and funding. S1 mentionedin this regard the fact that scientific workrequires others to be interested in it, the ‘realreward’ one gets and a criterion for success(S1). Moreover, the greater scientific commu-nity plays a part not only in evaluating projectsbut also in guiding a scientist’s efforts (S4, S5,S7). In the end, scientific work is always scru-tinized and judged (S5, S8) and ‘the look ofothers is very important’ (S8). There are ofcourse other dimensions as well to criticalappraisal and scriptwriters, for instance, dis-cussed the joy or suffering brought by externalevaluation (L1). Recognition is very good but itcan also bring a lot of envy, especially in thefilm industry (L6). Interestingly, several script-writers (and artists) mentioned the fact that, atthe end of the day, ‘movies are not made to beliked by critics’ (L6). However, participantsfrom this group also expressed the need to be

Figure 4. Themes Related to the Category ‘Critics and Gatekeepers’



valued more by both critics and larger audi-ences, and for their contribution to be recog-nized: ‘It is a great challenge of this profession,a real lack, as any scriptwriter would tell you.It is a question of place: we all need a place inthe process of making a film’ (L10). It ismembers of the larger audience creators wantto address in this regard, and this particularaspect is developed in the following section.

The General Public

The last category of others is represented bythe general public. As mentioned from thebeginning, creators from all domains acknowl-edged the fact that creative products are madefor others to see and appreciate (A2), use andenjoy (D6). Ultimately, there is ‘a bit of narcis-sism’ (M1) in creating and presenting one’swork. The need for social recognition, intro-duced above, extends to lay audiences. There isno surprise that this topic was discussed byparticipants from all five groups, as shownin Figure 5. The general public’s evaluationcan represent a source of feedback, stir emo-tions and offer creators some form of capital,again recalling the role played by critics andgatekeepers. However, unlike the former,members of the audience provide a differenttype of recognition because they are supposedto receive and actually ‘use’ the creative work,especially in design, music and cinema.

It is important to note as well a somewhatambivalent attitude towards the generalpublic, depending on the domain. Designers,for instance, openly admit their ‘need forapproval’ (D6). Artists and music composers,while considering this type of feedback ‘veryimportant’ (A2), are more likely to say they‘don’t make works to seduce other people’(A7) or ‘please them’ (M8). However, appre-ciation by others is part of being a successfulmusician (M3, M9), being recognized as an

artist (A9) and it ultimately makes one feelgood and motivated to continue (A7). In thewords of one participant, ‘I think it is difficultto make a piece that is not listened to. And forme this would be painful. But I think this is notjust me, I mean when we make such a product,we want it to be understood’ (M10). Thisdimension is particularly important for thosecategories of creators frustrated by what theysee as a lack of social recognition. This is thecase for designers (D7) and, to a greater extent,scriptwriters. L10 talks in this regard about afeeling of ‘humiliation’, of not finding one’splace in the process of making a movie, ‘a posi-tion that would be fair and acknowledged byall’. In the end, members of the general publicappear to stand between distant and internal-ized others because of their capacity to estab-lish systems of recognition based on criteriainternalized by the creators themselves.

Discussion: How and Why OthersMatter in Creativity

The findings above reflect the multiple ways inwhich professional creators interact withothers in order to produce their work. One ofthe main benefits of conducting this researchrests with the fact that recognized creatorsfrom science and creative industries wereinterviewed and their answers analysed usingthe same conceptual framework. This allows acomparative approach, relatively rare in the lit-erature (with some exceptions; see Gardner,1993; John-Steiner, 2000). Table 2 tries tocapture similarities and differences betweengroups by summarizing, in the five domains,the number of themes for each of the fivecategories of others identified in this study.The greater the number of themes, the morediversified the role that particular type ofother played for the creative process and,

Figure 5. Themes Related to the Category ‘General Public’



presumably, the more significant the contribu-tion to creativity in that specific professionaldomain. When reading the table what needs tobe taken into account is the qualitative natureof the research and the fact that number ofthemes is used here to indicate certain tenden-cies and not to show what type of social rela-tions are more ‘important’; they are rather amarker of significance, one that needs to becorroborated by further research.

Table 2 also tentatively tries to integrateinformation about the instances of others iden-tified as part of the theoretical review (see thefirst section), with the five different types ofothers emerging from the data. Based on thepresent findings, we can potentially situateFamily and Friends between internalized andfamiliar others, Peers and Students betweenfamiliar and immediate others, Clients andFunders between immediate and institutionalothers, Critics and Gatekeepers between insti-tutional and distant others, and the GeneralPublic between distant and internalizedothers. These associations are preliminary innature and their aim is to make us reflect onthe relationship between self and other andnot to suggest that certain others (e.g., friends)represent exclusively and in all circumstancesa certain type of relationship with the creator(e.g., familiar and internalized, etc.).

In essence, Table 2 indicates that slightlymore themes related to Family and Friendswere found in interviews with artists anddesigners; scientists and scriptwriters gavemore elaborate accounts concerning Peers andStudents; designers referred in more detail toClients and Funders (followed by script-writers and composers); scientists discussedCritics and Gatekeepers (and so did artists andscriptwriters); and the General Public wascommented on ‘equally’ by almost all creators.This table indicates that, unlike the profes-sional domains within the Creative Industries,scientists discuss more extensively both therole of their peers and gatekeepers of theirdomain, showing the importance of thesystem of peer review for their creativity andits validation. Within the Creative Industries,designers, but also scriptwriters and compos-ers, deal with clients and funders moresignificantly than artists. Interestingly, thesetendencies resonate to a large extent with find-ings from studies using other methodologies.The art world (Becker, 2008) is shaped to asignificant degree by critics, gatekeepers andthe lay public. The connection between design-ers and their clients has been scrutinized espe-cially in relation to web design, where authorslike Chevalier and Ivory (2003) linked exper-tise and constraints set by clients with design-ers’ cognitive functioning. The literature onT

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scientific creativity and, in particular, scien-tists’ relations with peers and critics, is quiteextensive and illustrated by studies of greatcreators (Gardner, 1993; Gruber, 2005), andscientific networks (Collins, 2007). Script-writers are equally marked by collaborationswith peers and producers, and Redvall, forexample, insisted in her work on ‘the impor-tance of a detailed account of a highly collabo-rative way of working that challenges thetraditional, more compartmentalized view ofthe filmmaking process’ (Redvall, 2009, p. 35).Finally, music composers relate frequently intheir activity to peers, clients and the generalpublic, although literature on this topic isscarce.

If the discussion above focused on who andhow others contribute to the creative process,as friends and collaborators, clients, critics orgeneral audiences, there is still the importantquestion of why their role is significant. This isthe third and last question of the study, onetentatively answered here based on an integra-tion and final interpretation of the results.What the data seem to suggest is four maintypes of contributions others make to the crea-tivity of an established creator, independent ofdomain: formative, regulatory, motivationaland informational. Before proceeding to a dis-cussion of each, in turn, it is important to notethat these roles are not mutually exclusive andsuccessful creative collaborations, for instance– often at the root of notable achievements inscience and creative industries – probablyengage all of these functions in an optimalform of interplay.

To start, other people, in particular what wereferred to here as family, friends and peers,have a formative role by contributing greatly tothe development of the creator and his/hercreative attitudes and aptitudes. This is themost basic function social relations play withreference to creativity and it has been repeat-edly noted by participants from differentdomains: ‘ultimately, one doesn’t learn any-thing alone, completely alone’ (S10), ‘compo-sition is not taught, it is learned in encounters’(M11), etc. This resonates with the Vygotskianapproach outlined in the introduction, claim-ing the importance of social interaction for theformation and development of psychologicalprocesses. Indeed, creative achievement isinconceivable outside of an environment thatfosters the gradual formation of abilities andaccumulation of knowledge and, throughdeliberate practice, of expertise (Ericsson,1998). This environment is composed of otherpeople, the ones who support the creator,including by establishing apprenticeships(Rogoff, 2003). As knowledge is fundamentallysocial by means of its construction and

transmission (Jovchelovitch, 2007), the sourceof all creation – largely based on the transfor-mation of existing knowledge – can be foundin social interactions and here is where theformative role played by others becomesobvious. It is important to note that theseformative influences are internalized in timeand support creative production years aftertheir assimilation (see also the theory ofdialogicality).

In addition, others also have a regulatoryfunction based on setting up constraints andguiding creative expression. This role is pri-marily associated with clients, funders andcritics, even peers. Indeed, for scientists, peersand funders can orient creative work (S2), giveit a new direction (S10) and guide one’s crea-tivity by focusing it on what interests othercolleagues as well (S3). Clients, on the otherhand, are not always easy to handle but an‘intelligent request’ can make a designer workbetter on any project (D7). In music too, havinga good client brief can make things a lot easierbecause composition ‘becomes more struc-tured’ (M6). This is also acknowledged byauthors like Kaschub (1997, p. 27), who madethe following observations: ‘inexperiencedmusicians may simply be overwhelmed whenasked to compose without guidelines or rules’.However, this is not only the case for musi-cians or ‘inexperienced’ creators. Constraintsand rules are broadly recognized to constitutethe basis for creative production (Rickards,1993) and when they do not come from the‘outside’, they are self-imposed (see Stokes,2007). By setting initial guidelines, others arecapable of directing the creative process and,while reducing the number of possibilities,increase creativity inside the ‘space’ of theproject.

What becomes transparent from the above isthe fact that social influences are not externalto the creator but shape the dynamics of crea-tivity from ‘within’. This is further illustratedby the motivating role other people play in rela-tion to creative work. The presence of othersand interaction with them, from family tomembers of the general public, has the capac-ity to energize creators and give them a senseof purpose. The need for social recognitionwas strongly felt by participants from all thefive domains. In the words of one of the musi-cians, ‘when you feel appreciated you have adesire to continue’ (M8). The issue of motiva-tion has been widely studied in the psychol-ogy of creativity by scholars like Amabile(1996), who formulated the ‘intrinsic motiva-tion principle’ and considered intrinsicmotives to foster creative expression in con-trast to extrinsic ones. Is the need for recogni-tion an extrinsic type of motivation?



Presumably so; however, we argue that socialmotivation can and does interact with, evenstimulate, task-oriented motivation. This isalso illustrated by recent group creativitymodels such as the ‘Motivated InformationProcessing in Groups Model’ (De Dreu et al.,2011) postulating that creativity is higherwhen group members combine epistemic andpro-social motivation. Important to note,others exert a motivational role not only bymeans of encouraging collaboration and offer-ing recognition, but also through competition.Indeed, scientists were the first to acknowl-edge the importance of creating within avery competitive environment (marked by‘fierce competition’, S8). Reflecting again amotivational law, one of the scriptwriters men-tioned in this regard that ‘too much praise andtoo much criticism can be equally blocking’(L7).

Finally, others also play an informational rolein relation to creative production. This is argu-ably one of the most significant contributionsmade to the actual generation of a creativeoutcome, and it has been studied widely byscholars focused on both group and collabora-tive creativity (see the notion of immediateothers). What is the kind of support impliedhere? To begin, ‘seeing how others look atthings helps one perceive them as well’ (A5)and provides a kind of ‘third eye’ (A8) indis-pensable for gaining a new perspective on theproduct being created. These observationsmade by artists are highly significant. Theypoint to what Bakhtin (1984) called a ‘surplusof vision’ others have, helping creators under-stand themselves and their work. Respondentsexplained the mechanism by which this‘surplus’ becomes incorporated and facilitatestheir activity. One of the designers mentionedthe fact that others ‘allow you to distance your-self a bit from your work and reflect on it’ (D3);similarly a scriptwriter said ‘I wrote all thesescenarios with someone else. I need someoneelse to open perspectives for me, to preventme from turning around in my own madness’(L3). This is indicative of the possible traps ofworking in complete solitude: one can easilybecome ‘obsessed’ with one’s initial ideas,thus eliminating possibilities for divergentthinking. The detachment provided by interac-tion with others (A11) and the reflection theirfeedback stimulates (M10) are therefore essen-tial aspects of the creative process; in thisregard, the types of ‘information’ othersprovide range from knowledge of the projectto knowledge of the self. Position exchangetheory (see Gillespie, 2012) has the potentialto provide new avenues for creativity theoryby stressing the fact that inter-subjectiveexchanges allow the individual actor to adopt

a perspective outside of the immediate situa-tion and thus lift him/herself from it, from aposition dictated exclusively by one’s owninvolvement and relation to the world. In thewords of one scientist (S12), the other cansometimes act like a ‘mirror’, but it is one thatshows you not only what you already see andknow – it reveals your own position and per-spective as one among many.

Concluding Remarks

The present article proposed an integratedframework for considering the social aspectsof creativity and ‘tested’ it using interviewswith creators from science and creative indus-tries. This framework hopes to bring not onlyconceptual clarity but also stimulate furtherinvestigations into types of others and theirrole for creative work. Moreover, the fourmain ‘explanations’ for why others make crea-tivity possible can be more widely used toconceptualize collective creative action thusbuilding a more comprehensive social psy-chology of creativity. It would be useful, infuture research, to identify the function otherpeople play in relation to the different stages ofthe creative process. This has been attemptedbased on interview material (Glaveanu et al.,2013), but should ideally result from a longitu-dinal observation of creative work. Moreover,future studies can also focus more on differentsciences as the present research includedmostly creators from artistic/creative industryfields. In the end, all these efforts aim to ‘de-centre’ creativity from the space of the self and‘re-centre’ it into a space of self–other relations.In Piaget’s (2007) terms, the process ofdecentration marks precisely this transitionfrom an egocentric view of the world to one inwhich the subject becomes capable, throughsocial interaction, of understanding other per-spectives. It is timely for the psychology ofcreativity as a whole to engage in a similarprocess, key for both theorizing and cultivat-ing creative acts.

Acknowledgements

This research was financed by a grant from theFrench national Research agency (ANRCREAPRO). The two authors would like tothank the members of the research team for thisproject: Nathalie Bonnardel, Marion Botella,Pierre-Marc de Biaisi, Myriam Desainte-Catherine, Asta Georgsdottir, Katell Guillou,Gyorgy Kurtag, Christophe Mouchiroud,Martin Storme, Alicja Wojtczuk and FranckZenasni.



Notes

1. In this article code names are used to identifyrespondents in order to respect anonymity: Dstands for designer, A for artist, S for scientist, Mfor musician and L for scriptwriter (the literarydomain).

2. This data is part of a larger dataset from a fundedproject coordinated by the second author andaiming to uncover the stages and processes ofcreativity in different domains (see Glaveanuet al., 2013).

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Vlad Petre Glaveanu ([email protected]) isAssociate Professor at Aalborg University,Denmark. He gained his PhD from theLondon School of Economics with a thesisthat elaborates a cultural psychology ofcreativity applied to the context of folk art.He has written articles on different aspectsof creativity (creativity and culture, creativ-ity development, creativity in groups, etc.)in various journals, including Review ofGeneral Psychology, Creativity ResearchJournal, Journal of Creative Behavior, ThinkingSkills & Creativity, Culture & Psychology,New Ideas in Psychology and Theory & Psy-chology). He is also editor of an open accesspeer-reviewed journal, Europe’s Journal ofPsychology (EJOP).

Todd Lubart ([email protected]) is Professor at the Univer-sity Paris Descartes where he directs theactivity of the Laboratoire AdaptationsTravail Individu (LATI). His work on crea-tivity is extensive and includes publica-tions, articles, books and book chapterscovering various aspects of the phenom-enon: creative process, individual differ-ences, role of cognition and emotion,environmental and cultural factors, etc. Hisco-authored books include Defying theCrowd: Cultivating Creativity in a Cultureof Conformity (1995, with R. Sternberg),Psychologie de la créativité (2003, with C.Mouchiroud, S. Tordjman and F. Zenasni)and the co-edited volume Models of Intelli-gence: International Perspectives (2003, withR. Sternberg and J. Lautrey).



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decentring the creative self: how others make creativity possible in creative professional fields

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