Lay conceptions of creativity across cultures

Abstract

There are many methods that psychologists can use to investigate a construct. Asking people (either experts or laypersons) what they think about a construct, or finding the relation of a construct to other constructs are two of the many methods. Some recent research has given attention to the former approach, i.e. by discovering lay or people’s conceptions of a phenomenon. These conceptions are also known as lay theories, subjective theories, everyday theories, and naive theories. They provide additional explanations to present scientific findings and can help understand phenomena within socio-cultural settings. In this paper, lay conceptions of creativity across cultures (e.g., German, Japanese, Malaysians and Singaporean) are presented. It is believed that every individual can be creative and every society has the potential to nurture creative potentials of individuals. There are various types of creativity and different degree of creativeness within a domain. By observing lay conceptions’ of creativity, researchers and educators may propose suitable intervention programs that can help nurture creativity.