In the past decades, the scientific community has paid great attention to creativity, emphasizing both its bright and dark side. As concerns the bright side, creativity is used to support and promote the advancement of knowledge and the individuals’ quality of life and well-being at any age. This means that creativity involves the formation of ideas and tools that underpin the progression at an individual, social, and cultural level.
As for the dark side, creativity can be used deliberately or unintentionally to harm people. When it is used deliberately to harm others, for example employing creative skills to device sophisticated scams, lies, or even aggressive humor, or manipulating people through deceptive advertising, it is called malevolent creativity. By contrast, when it is used unintentionally to harm others, for example by developing technologies that maximize self-benefit without regard for their social and environmental impact, it is called negative creativity.
Both bright and dark sides of creativity have been investigated focusing on both creative processes, namely divergent and convergent thinking (process-oriented approach), and generation of creative production (product-oriented approach). Based on these premises, the key role of personality and individual differences in bright and dark creativity has not been fully disentangled. Factors such as temperament, character, gender, and age differences can all contribute to the different facets of creativity in terms of both process and product. Additionally, individual strategies, cognitive styles, and cognitive and socio-emotional abilities can serve as predictors or even mediating and/or moderating variables in more intricate designs.
This Research Topic encourages submissions focused primarily on research reports and theoretical papers involving healthy and/or clinical populations. Researchers from different fields – including psychology, cognitive science, neurobiology, arts and philosophy – are encouraged to contribute.
Target themes related to creativity are:
• Personality Traits
• Temperament and Character
• Individual Differences
• Cognitive Styles
• Gender Differences
• Differences in Cognitive, Socio-Emotional, and Motivational Mechanisms
• Self-Efficacy and Self-Esteem
Keywords:
Personality and Individual Differences, Cognitive Styles, Positive Creativity, Arts and Performance, Malevolent Creativity, Negative Creativity, Creative Process, Creative Product, Divergent Thinking, Convergent Thinking
Important Note:
All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
In the past decades, the scientific community has paid great attention to creativity, emphasizing both its bright and dark side. As concerns the bright side, creativity is used to support and promote the advancement of knowledge and the individuals’ quality of life and well-being at any age. This means that creativity involves the formation of ideas and tools that underpin the progression at an individual, social, and cultural level.
As for the dark side, creativity can be used deliberately or unintentionally to harm people. When it is used deliberately to harm others, for example employing creative skills to device sophisticated scams, lies, or even aggressive humor, or manipulating people through deceptive advertising, it is called malevolent creativity. By contrast, when it is used unintentionally to harm others, for example by developing technologies that maximize self-benefit without regard for their social and environmental impact, it is called negative creativity.
Both bright and dark sides of creativity have been investigated focusing on both creative processes, namely divergent and convergent thinking (process-oriented approach), and generation of creative production (product-oriented approach). Based on these premises, the key role of personality and individual differences in bright and dark creativity has not been fully disentangled. Factors such as temperament, character, gender, and age differences can all contribute to the different facets of creativity in terms of both process and product. Additionally, individual strategies, cognitive styles, and cognitive and socio-emotional abilities can serve as predictors or even mediating and/or moderating variables in more intricate designs.
This Research Topic encourages submissions focused primarily on research reports and theoretical papers involving healthy and/or clinical populations. Researchers from different fields – including psychology, cognitive science, neurobiology, arts and philosophy – are encouraged to contribute.
Target themes related to creativity are:
• Personality Traits
• Temperament and Character
• Individual Differences
• Cognitive Styles
• Gender Differences
• Differences in Cognitive, Socio-Emotional, and Motivational Mechanisms
• Self-Efficacy and Self-Esteem
Keywords:
Personality and Individual Differences, Cognitive Styles, Positive Creativity, Arts and Performance, Malevolent Creativity, Negative Creativity, Creative Process, Creative Product, Divergent Thinking, Convergent Thinking
Important Note:
All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.