14 Creativity in Psychology

Finding Its Niche in the Sciences

Dean Keith Simonton
University of California, Davis

Abstract
Although creativity in psychology involves the same processes and pro-
cedures discussed in the earlier chapter on domain-general creativity,
sufficient differences arise in their application that it becomes important
to distinguish psychology’s various subdisciplines as well as discern the
discipline’s overall placement in the hierarchy of the sciences, a placement
that determines the amount of field consensus regarding the most creative
contributors to the domain. Discussion then turns to the four major ways of
assessing creativity in the domain, namely, peer evaluations, research
citations, professional recognition, and historical eminence. This then
sets the stage for reviewing key creativity studies regarding individual
differences (including both general personality characteristics and specific
theoretical and methodological orientation) and longitudinal changes
(viz. early development and career trajectories). The chapter closes with
recommendations regarding future research on creativity in the domain of
psychology.

Writing this chapter was not very easy. Like probably most of the chapter authors for
this edited volume, I am a psychologist by training. This comes as no surprise
because the majority of creativity researchers are likely psychologists of one kind
or another, whether they be cognitive, developmental, personality, social, educa-
tional, or organizational psychologists. Hence, I am implicitly writing about the
creativity of most creativity researchers as well as the creativity of most chapter
authors, including myself. I suppose, too, that many readers of the present chapter
will also be psychologists who think themselves creative – or desire to be so – and
perhaps have already developed their own views about what it takes to be creative in
psychology. Hence, right from the start I may have a delicate task at hand. So, please,
let nobody take offense! My profile of the creative psychologist reflects statistical
averages only, not a deterministic equation. You, my reader, may be an outlier, and in
a positive sense!
I start by defining creativity in the domain of psychology. From there, I discuss
how creativity is measured within the domain and then illustrate this discussion by
describing key findings from representative studies of creativity in the domain.
I close with speculations about where future researchers might go in understanding
creativity within the domain of psychology.

247

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 248 dean keith simonton

Defining Creativity in the Domain

Because in Chapter 4 of this volume I have already argued that all creativity
adopts the same generic form regardless of domain, I am not about to repudiate that
argument here. So, indeed, all creativity in the domain of psychology involves the
contribution of original, useful, and surprising combinations. Moreover, the “weak
methods” discussed in Chapter 4 can be easily documented in the creativity of
psychologists (see ch. 6 in Simonton, 2002). The only modification on this general
assertion is relatively minor: The combinatorial products in psychology are almost
without exception ideational. Psychologists work with psychological ideas rather
than improvise at the piano or choreograph new dance movements. In line with this
restriction, creative ideas in psychology are almost invariably communicated via the
publication of journal articles and books. It is largely by reading these documents
that other psychologists decide whether the ideas contained therein are creative or
not (cf. Kaufman & Beghetto, 2009; Simonton, 2013). Admittedly, some creative
psychologists may opt for alternative ways to communicate their ideas, such as
offering workshops or posting presentations on YouTube. But for the most part, the
communication of creative ideas in psychology still adheres closely to the
Gutenberg Era, whether actual paper in print journals, electronic files (especially
in Portable Document Format), or web pages in online journals (particular those that
are open access). Even eminent therapists from Sigmund Freud to Carl Rogers
published such articles. So creativity in psychology differs not one iota from that
in physics, chemistry, biology, sociology, etc.
At this point, however, the discussion must get more complex. Once a potentially
creative idea is communicated to the field, who decides on its creativity? It is
certainly not the entire field of psychologists but rather that subset who represent
the same general specialty area. The size of this field varies according to the
specialty, but Wray (2010) has estimated that for scientific specialties in general
the figure ranges from 205 to 600 colleagues or peers (as in “peer review”). These are
the actual persons most often responsible for judging a psychologist’s creativity.
These colleagues both subscribe to and publish in the same journals. Hence, it is
perfectly possible for a psychologist to become well-known in one field while
remaining virtually unknown in other fields. As a consequence, the field as
a whole may not exhibit any consensus on the creativity of the ideas that psychol-
ogists are contributing to the domain.
To be sure, almost all creative domains can be partitioned into specialties that
undermine the overall consensus. An astrophysicist could not easily judge a solid-
state physicist’s work. Nonetheless, the consensus problem is much more severe in
psychology than in the natural sciences, especially physics, chemistry, and biology
(Simonton, 2004, 2015; cf. Cole, 1983). Psychologists appear to be much more
divided than physicists, chemists, and biologists. The relative degree of domain
consensus is suggested by Figure 14.1, which shows the hierarchical arrangement
for the three natural sciences, psychology, and sociology (which falls even lower).
Although this configuration incorporated other features of the five domains
besides field consensus, the same overall pattern results when only consensus

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 Creativity in Psychology: Finding Its Niche in the Sciences 249

Composite
score

1.5 Physics
1.4
1.3
1.2 Chemistry
1.1
1.0
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5 Biology
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1 Psychology
0.0
–0.1
–0.2
–0.3
–0.4
–0.5
–0.6
–0.7
–0.8
–0.9
–1.0 Sociology
–1.1
1 2 3 4 5
Rank in hierarchy

Figure 14.1 The disciplines of physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, and

sociology placed in a Comtean hierarchy of the sciences.
Figure taken from Simonton (2004).

measures are used (Simonton, 2004, 2015; cf. Fanelli, 2010; Fanelli & Glänzel,
2013).
It is not difficult to understand why psychologists differ so much in their appraisals
of the creativity of other psychologists. Psychologists represent a very diverse group.
The most obvious and often divisive split is that between research psychologists
(scientists) and clinical psychologists (practitioners). When Kimble (1984) surveyed
members of the American Psychological Association (APA) just a few years before
many scientists broke away to form the American Psychological Society (now the
Association for Psychological Science), he found that psychologists who belonged
exclusively to Division 3 (experimental psychologists) differed from those who
belonged exclusively to Division 29 (psychotherapists). The former were far more
strongly committed to scientific rather than human values, determinism rather than
free will, objectivism rather than intuitionism, laboratory investigations rather than
field studies, nomothetic rather than idiographic explanations, and elementism rather
than holism (cf. Simonton, 2000). Even psychologists who consider themselves
scientists rather than clinicians can disagree dramatically along theoretical and

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 250 dean keith simonton

methodological lines. A classic example is Cronbach’s (1957) “two disciplines of

scientific psychology,” namely, the experimental versus correlational researchers.
Even research psychologists belonging to closely related specialties might as well
belong to totally different fields. For instance, personality and social psychologists
share a major APA publication (the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, or
JPSP) as well as an APA division (viz. Eight) with its own two journals (Personality
and Social Psychology Bulletin and Personality and Social Psychology Review), yet
in theory and methodology they might be considered to define different disciplines
(Tracy, Robins, & Sherman, 2009). So great have been the tensions between these
two groups that JPSP ended up splitting so that the personality psychologists could
have their own section on Personality Processes and Individual Differences, plus in
2001 the personality psychologists founded the Association for Research in
Personality that in 2009 held its own standalone conference separate from the
Society for Personality and Social Psychology. Hairs are split ever thinner.
Nor can such within-domain differences be simply attributed to divergent areas of
expertise. The conflicting views of psychology often reflect deep-rooted personality
differences. For instance, psychologists who favor mechanistic approaches differ
from those who prefer organismic approaches with respect to cognitive and inter-
personal style, personality, and occupational interests (Johnson, Germer, Efran, &
Overton, 1988). In a comparable fashion, scientists and practitioners have distin-
guishable personalities (Zachar & Leong, 1992; see also Conway, 1988). As people,
psychologists may represent a psychologically more heterogeneous group than do
physicists, chemists, or biologists (cf. Chambers, 1964; Roe, 1953; Suedfield, 1985).
Perhaps there are almost as many psychologies as there are psychologists.

Assessing Creativity in the Domain

Typically, research on psychologists does not explicitly measure creativity.
Instead, researchers focus on various indicators of a psychologist’s impact on the
domain of psychology. These measures are also used in scientometric and historio-
metric studies in general and thus are not unique to research on psychology. In any
case, these indicators can be assigned to the following four categories:
1. Peer Evaluations – One approach to creativity assessment is to survey fellow
psychologists with the inquiry about who are the top contributors to the discipline
(e.g., Annin, Boring, & Watson, 1968). The targets of these judgments may involve
either living contemporaries or deceased figures of the past or even both simulta-
neously (e.g., Coan & Zagona, 1962; Davis, Thomas, & Weaver, 1982).
Occasionally, too, the peer evaluations will be applied to individual creative pro-
ducts rather than the creators themselves (e.g., Heyduk & Fenigstein, 1984).
Sometimes these peer evaluations are more properly called “superior” evaluations,
as when a future psychologist’s creativity is assessed by supervisors at research
institutes or mentors at graduate schools (e.g., Kuncel, Hezlett, & Ones, 2004).
2. Research Citations – Even more widespread than the above are citations that
psychologists receive in the research literature (Rushton, 1984; e.g., Simonton,

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 Creativity in Psychology: Finding Its Niche in the Sciences 251

2000). Again, these citation counts may be applied to either the researcher’s
collective publications or single publications (e.g., Lee, Vicente, Cassano, &
Shearer, 2003; Shadish, 1989). These citation counts can adopt a wide variety of
forms as well (Ruscio, Seaman, D’Oriano, Stremlo, & Mahalchik, 2012). Probably
the most popular citation measure recently is the h-index, where h indicates the
highest number of publications that have been cited at least h times (Hirsch, 2005).
This indicator has the advantage that it combines both quantity and quality of
creative output (cf. Platz & Blakelock, 1960). One-hit wonders who staked their
reputations on a single publication (most often the doctoral dissertation) cannot have
an h greater than one no matter how often it is cited, while a mass-producer whose
work is seldom if ever cited by others will also have a low h, especially if self-
citations are excluded from the calculations (but see Ruscio et al., 2012).
3. Professional Recognition – Presumably psychologists who receive strong peer
recognition and high citation rates will also earn more conspicuous forms of
validation, including various awards and honors (e.g., Lyons, 1968; Over, 1981;
Simonton, 1992). Most professional organizations feature prestigious prizes, from
early career awards to awards for career contributions. Again, prizes are often
accorded to individual creative products as well, such as various “best article” and
“best book” awards (e.g., Lee, Vicente, Cassano, & Shearer, 2003).
4. Historical Eminence – The culmination of the preceding three assessments
would correspond closely with a psychologist’s posthumous reputation, as gauged
by reference works such as encyclopedias, biographical dictionaries, disciplinary
histories, and introductory textbooks (e.g., Simonton, 1992; Zusne, 1985, 1987;
Zusne & Dailey, 1982). However, historical eminence provides the ultimate mea-
sure, based as it is on the assessment of posterity, not just contemporaries. Although
it is rare, sometimes the “test of time” does not agree with a psychologist’s standing
in his or her own time (cf. Over, 1982a).
Ideally, research on creativity in psychology should use all four sets of measures
(see, e.g., Simonton, 1992). But often methodological considerations cause research
to rely on just one or two (cf. Diener, Oishi, & Park, 2014; Haggbloom et al., 2002).
For instance, personality assessment is most often applied to living psychologists
(e.g., Helmreich, Spence, Beane, Lucker, & Matthews, 1980; Wispé, 1963), an
application that is far more easy to execute than to use at-a-distance measurements
on deceased luminaries (e.g., Overskeid, Grønnerød, & Simonton, 2012; see Song &
Simonton, 2007). In contrast, historical eminence often becomes a useful criterion
when the goal is to examine the entire life and work of creative psychologist, a goal
that necessarily requires that the individual be deceased anyway (e.g., Simonton,
1992; Zusne, 1976). A career may not end until a life ends.

Key Creativity Studies in the Domain

Because the biggest, most ambitious book I have ever written was
devoted to what it takes to exert a major impact on psychological science
(Simonton, 2002), I cannot hope to review that extensive literature here (see

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 252 dean keith simonton

Table 14.1 Complete contents for Great Psychologists and Their Times (Simonton, 2002)

Part I: The Scientific History of Psychology

Chapter 1: Eminence in Psychology
Chapter 2: History and Science
Part II: Lifetime Output of Psychologists and Their Impact on the Field
Chapter 3: Individual Differences in Productivity and Eminence
Chapter 4: Longitudinal Changes in Creativity
Chapter 5: The Creative Product in Psychology
Part III: Personal Characteristics that Contribute to Greatness as a Psychologist
Chapter 6: Cognition
Chapter 7: Disposition
Chapter 8: Worldview
Part IV: Life-Span Development of Great Psychologists
Chapter 9: Family Background
Chapter 10: Career Training
Chapter 11: Maturity and Aging
Chapter 12: Nature versus Nurture
Part V: Sociocultural Context of Psychological Science
Chapter 13: Internal Milieu
Chapter 14: External Milieu
Chapter 15: Genius versus Zeitgeist
Part VI: Implications for the Field of Psychology
Chapter 16: Research and Teaching

Note: Also includes a preface, 48 pages of references, and 19 pages of index entrees.

also Simonton, 2005). May it suffice to just provide the complete contents
outline in Table 14.1 and then offer the mere highlights in the current chapter.
Furthermore, because the literature is so vast, I must focus on creative psychol-
ogists. Readers interested in detailed comparisons between psychologists and
creators in other domains, whether the arts or sciences, should consult Simonton
(2002; also see Simonton, 2009, 2014a). By the same token, I will necessarily
ignore creativity in pure practitioners – primarily psychotherapists whose impact
seldom goes beyond their clients.
I start with a look at individual differences associated with creative contributions
in psychology, and then turn to longitudinal changes across the life and career.

Individual Differences
The goal is to examine the creativity of psychologists from the standpoint of
differential psychology: Do the most creative differ from the less creative regarding
some variables or factors on which people vary? Here such variables can be assigned
to two major groupings – those applicable to all people and those that are only
relevant to creative psychologists.

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 Creativity in Psychology: Finding Its Niche in the Sciences 253

General Personality Characteristics. Not surprisingly, creative achievement as

psychology requires a high degree of motivation (Wispé, 1963). For example, both
the number of publications and the number of citations those publications receive are
positively correlated with assessed achievement strivings (Helmreich, Spence, &
Pred, 1988) and with orientations toward work and mastery (Helmreich et al., 1980).
Although achievement has been associated with the coronary-prone Type
A personality, it is the achievement, mastery, job involvement, and self-efficacy
components that are relevant, not the competitiveness, irritability, and impatience
(Helmreich, Spence, & Pred, 1988; Matthews, Helmreich, Beane, & Lucker, 1980;
Taylor, Locke, Lee, & Gist, 1984). Predictably, given these motives, creative
psychologists enjoy their research activities far more than holds for less creative
psychologists (Chambers, 1964). Somewhat related to this achievement drive are
certain personality traits (Cattell & Drevdahl, 1955). Notable psychologists tend to
be highly dominant, self-sufficient, and schizothymic, where the latter indicates the
tendency to “withdrawn, skeptical, internally preoccupied, precise, and critical”
(Cattell, 1963, p. 121).
Unlike dominance and self-sufficiency, schizothymia sounds somewhat patholo-
gical, and indeed can very well be at extreme levels. So do creative psychologists
have any inclinations toward mental illness, or at least subclinical traits shared with
mental illness? Some empirical evidence suggests a connection. In the first place, the
rates at which psychologists tend to seek psychotherapy are comparable to those
seen in creative writers and artists, groups that are highly prone to need therapeutic
interventions (Wispé & Parloff, 1965). Although this particular investigation did not
find that the rates correlated with productivity, a second inquiry using two different
samples, and defining the criterion in two different ways, found that a psychologist’s
research creativity was positively correlated with the score received on psychoti-
cism, a measure of subclinical levels of psychopathology (Rushton, 1990). Highly
creative psychologists are not necessarily mentally ill, but they are not totally normal
either (cf. Grosul & Feist, 2014).
Specific Theoretical and Methodological Orientation. Because psychology is
such a heterogeneous domain of creativity, psychologists differ immensely in their
theoretical and methodological orientations (Coan, 1968, 1973). Of special impor-
tance is the distinction between psychologists who view the domain as a natural
science and those who see it as a human science (Simonton, 2000; cf. Coan, 1979).
These alternative perspectives differ on the following six bipolar dimensions: (1)
Objectivistic versus Subjectivistic (emphasis on observable behavior versus
emphasis on subjective experience); (2) Elementaristic versus Holistic (emphasis
on molecular or atomistic analysis versus emphasis on molar analysis); (3)
Impersonal versus Personal (emphasis on the nomothetic, deterministic, abstract,
and tightly controlled versus emphasis on the idiographic, emotional, and the
unconscious); (4) Quantitative versus Qualitative (emphasis on mathematics,
statistics, and precision versus emphasis on qualitative attributes and processes);
(5) Static versus Dynamic (emphasis on the normative and stable versus emphasis
on motivation, emotion, and the self); (6) Exogenist versus Endogenist (emphasis

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 254 dean keith simonton

on environmental determinants and social influences versus emphasis on biologi-

cal determinants and heredity).
Interestingly, psychologists with the highest long-term citation rates represent the
extremes on this general bipolar factor (Simonton, 2000). In contrast, those who
attempt to balance the two – such as by integrating both nature and nurture – tend to
suffer in influence. Even more interesting, perhaps, psychologists who advocate
psychology as a human science boast higher citation rates than those who advocate
psychology as a natural science (cf. Campbell, 1965; Suedfeld, 1985). The work of
the former is probably more broadly accessible.

Longitudinal Changes
Here the research concentrates on lifespan development rather than individual
differences, albeit sometimes the two perspectives are connected. Once more, the
literature can be divided into two parts, the first dealing with early development and
the second with career trajectories.
Early Development. Some researchers have focused on the family experiences of
highly creative psychologists. An example is the research showing that high-impact
researchers in psychology tend to be first-born children (Helmreich et al., 1980;
Simonton, 2008; Terry, 1989). In addition, eminent psychologists tend to grow up in
professional homes where one or both parents had higher than average formal
education (Chambers, 1964; Simonton, 2017; Wispé, 1965).
Other investigators have concentrated on the formal education and training
necessary to acquire the appropriate domain-specific expertise. For instance, not
only are highly creative psychologists more likely to have earned their doctoral (or
medical) degrees at highly prestigious universities (Kinnier, Metha, Buki, & Rawa,
1994; Rodgers & Maranto, 1989; Simonton, 1992; Wispé & Ritter, 1964), but they
are also more likely to have studied under one or more mentors who were themselves
highly creative (Boring & Boring, 1948; Simonton, 1992).
All told, highly creative psychologists tend to emerge from very propitious
circumstances, albeit these circumstances are often of their own making, such as
performing very well scholastically in college and thus getting into a high-quality
graduate program (Rodgers & Maranto, 1989). Future high-impact psychologists
usually got superlative grades and received scholastic honors upon graduation.
Career Trajectories. Consistent with the foregoing findings, high-impact psy-
chologists earn their highest degree at earlier ages than the average, typically in the
mid- to late 20s (Lyons, 1968; Simonton, 1992) in contrast to the general mean in the
early 30s (Clark, 1954; Vance & MacPhail, 1964; but see Kuncel, Hezlett, & Ones,
2004). Just as expected, too, their productive output begins early and their first
highly cited articles appear early as well, usually around age 30 (Simonton, 1992; cf.
Horner, Rushton, & Vernon, 1986). Moreover, they maintain a prolific level of
productivity throughout their careers, not ceasing after receiving tenure and still
producing cited publications well into their 60s (Bridgwater, Walsh, & Walkenbach,
1982; Horner, Rushton, & Vernon, 1986; Simonton, 1992; see also Helmreich,
Spence, & Thorbecke, 1981). Because highly creative psychologists start early,

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 Creativity in Psychology: Finding Its Niche in the Sciences 255

end late, and maintain high output and citation rates throughout, they define
a productive elite, a small percentage accounting for the bulk of the research
literature: Those in the top decile in lifetime output usually account for between
36 and 47 percent of all research (Dennis, 1954; White & White, 1978). Needless to
say, the cross-sectional distribution of output is highly skewed (Platz, 1965; Simon,
1954), as is the corresponding distribution of eminence in the field (Zusne, 1985).
The link connecting productivity and eminence is defined almost entirely by the
citations received (Myers, 1970; Simonton, 1992).
A more complex issue concerns the peak of the career trajectory: When do
creative psychologists produce their best work? In general, the career peak appears
in the late 30s and early 40s (Cole, 1979; Dennis & Girden, 1954; Horner, Rushton,
& Vernon, 1986; Lehman, 1966). However, a more accurate answer to this question
requires that we more precisely define what we mean by the career peak. Are we
talking about the age for the highest output rate, the highest level of citations, the
single most-cited journal article, the most-cited publication of any kind, or the
contribution that has received a “best book” or “best article” award? Although
psychologists publish mostly journal articles, books often receive the most citations
(Heyduk & Fenigstein, 1984; Simonton, 1992), where the latter appear about
a decade later in the career (Christensen & Jacomb, 1992; Simonton, 1992).
Complicating matters all the more, we have to consider whether the career peak
should be defined in terms of chronological age or career age (e.g., Lyons, 1968;
Simonton, 1992). Hence, the safest conclusion is simply that a psychologist’s most
creative work tends to appear about mid-career (see also Zusne, 1976). Seldom is the
best saved for last.
Finally, it should be manifest that those psychologists who have the biggest
impact on the domain in terms of the quantity and quality of their work will start
to earn recognition in the form of awards and honors (Simonton, 1992). Not counting
early career awards, which by definition must occur early, this disciplinary endorse-
ment begins about a quarter century into their careers, or when the psychologists are
in their 50s in chronological age (Lyons, 1968; Wispé & Ritter, 1964). Various
lifetime achievement honors will appear about a decade later, in the 60s or even 70s.
Most critically, recognition most likely occurs after the psychologist has produced
their single most important contribution to the domain, thereby providing the
maximally valid foundation for bestowing suitable honors.

Future Research on the Domain

One final reminder: I’ve only skimmed along the surface of a vast literature
on the subject of this chapter. Back in 2002 I was able write a book more than 500
pages long, but were a new edition that same book to come out more than a dozen
years later, it would have to be about 100 pages longer! Furthermore, many research
questions remain so that, if suitably addressed, a third edition a decade or so from
now should easily reach 700 pages. Although I’m not particularly inclined to make
forecasts, I am willing to venture two main suggestions.

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 256 dean keith simonton

First, future research should deal with a fundamental shift in the discipline of
psychology: Female researchers have gone from being a tiny minority to rapidly
approaching the majority of all creative psychologists (cf. Simonton, 2002).
Although some investigations have examined the creative contributions of women
to the field, these are very few and far between (e.g., Bachtold & Werner, 1970;
Guyter & Fidell, 1973; Over, 1982b; Simonton, 2008, 2017; Stevens & Gardner,
1985). Moreover, we already have reason to expect gender differences to emerge.
For example, although the prominence of first-born children among eminent psy-
chologists has been well established, that prominence becomes even more conspic-
uous for eminent female psychologists (Simonton, 2008). Apparently, women need
special status in the home to provide support for overcoming any sexist obstacles
that might be thrown in their path (see also Simonton, 2017). A first-born daughter is
more likely to become an “honorary son.”
Second, additional research should be devoted to filling out the details regarding
psychology’s placement in the hierarchy of the sciences depicted in Figure 14.1.
This placement concerns more than just contrasts in consensus between the natural
and social sciences (Simonton, 2015). We already have sufficient empirical evidence
that scientists creating at different locations on this hierarchy will also tend to differ
with respect to both dispositional traits and developmental experiences (Simonton,
2009, 2014a). Additionally, we already have some empirical rationale for extending
this hierarchy beyond the social sciences into the humanities and arts (Simonton,
2009). For instance, placement closely reflects the likelihood that a creative con-
tributor will exhibit some traits associated with subclinical levels of psychopathol-
ogy (Ludwig, 1998; Simonton, 2014b). That said, we need more empirical data to fill
in the details of what now can only be considered a highly schematic sketch.
The upshot of these future studies should be a better understanding of what makes
psychologists creative. We might even learn how to become more creative. Who
among us would not want that?

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