Such personality idiosyncrasies of creative persons
as a preference for disorder and complexity rather than
neatness and simplicity may erroneously have earned them
the nomenclature of maladjusted, emotionally unstable
and eccentric.
This field study explores the conventional approach
to the evaluation of creative behaviour and suggests
that there is an urgent need to revolutionise our
acceptance and encouragement of such behaviour in an
integrated social and educational sense.
Chapter 1 reviews various definitions of creativity
and in particular the sociological discrimination against
creativity in contemporary society. The notion of the
relativity of the predominant social, educational and
psychological research perspective is raised.
The confusion in meaning which the terms "egiftedness"e,
"egenius"e and "ecreativity"e evoke in the context of classical
research efforts is discussed in Chapter 2.
Chapter 3 reviews traditional psychoanalytic,
psychiatric and psychometric research into creativity.
Orthodox methodology which fragments the total human
individual, is seen as detrimental to understanding,
accepting and facilitating research into creativity. It
has only been where total personality has been considered,
that research has proved meaningful.
Chapter 4 attempts to correlate the theoretical
viewpoints of various authors on creativity, in
particular Jung, Barron, Maslow, Assagioli and Hudson.
The empirical chapter 5 is divided into four sections.
Section I explores teacher attitudes towards creative
personality characteristics using Torrance's Ideal
Pupil Checklist. The results of the sample of A.C.T.
teachers surveyed,correspond closely with those found by
Torrance in five other countries, although creativity is
markedly less encouraged in Australia than in the United
States. Section II explores the attitudes of a sample
of Year 10 A.C.T. high school students towards creative
personality characteristics. Results show an alarmingly
low correlation with expert rankings. Section III compares
the teachers' and students' responses on the checklist
and finds interesting discrepancies. Section IV is
concerned with identifying "ecreativity"e in students using
a number of instruments, in particular the Myer-Briggs
Type Indicator. Additionally, results on this instrument
are compared with WL/WQ results and career preferences,
where few trends emerged.
Chapter 6 restates the necessity of adopting a total
personality perspective when considering creativity. The
"epsychosynthesis"e model is suggested as fundamentalising
and facilitating creative growth personally, educationally
and socially. Futuristic aspects of evolution and
creativity are raised. Wholeness as opposed to
separatism and synthesis as opposed to fragmentation are
considered paramount contemporary psychological issues,
as exemplified by the "esoul searching"e associated with
the drug culture. The need to achieve growth and
balance between the different, diverse and complementary,
aspects of the psyche, both in individuals and in society
is seen as being paramount and of increasing sociological
relevance.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/218755 |
| Date | January 1978 |
| Creators | Balgir, Helen Singh, n/a |
| Publisher | University of Canberra. Education |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | ), Copyright Helen Singh Balgir |
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