Wednesday 11 February 2015

Creativity in low-Psychoticism people (i.e. creativity in average and normal people)

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Although creativity is strongest in those high in the personality trait of Psychoticism (P), it is not restricted to those of high-P personality: probably, everyone is creative to some extent.

How then does creativity show itself in low-P individuals? - given that the distribution of Psychoticism within the population is 'positively-skewed' - in other words a majority of people are low in psychoticism, and only a small proportion high in P.

http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/the-rarity-of-creativity.html

Furthermore, Psychoticism trait has a higher average in men than women, and a lot more men are high in P than women. This shows itself both in terms of the typical creative interests of 'normal' boys-men and girls-women - and also in the much higher proportion of men among the most creative people: the geniuses.

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In people low in Psychoticism, creativity is there but weak, seldom activated, not-dominant, short-lived and - as a rule - subordinated to social (including sexual) imperatives which are the primary drive for most people.

Of course, almost by definition, creativity in the normal majority of people is not necessarily impressive or rare. So this creativity tends to be private, and almost invisible at a societal level (especially in large modern societies).

The easiest way to see creativity is perhaps in children - especially in older but pre-pubertal children, and their 'crazes' and hobbies.

Boys often have very creative hobbies in which they become mini-experts and avid dissenters of subjects like cars, aeroplanes, sports, crafts etc - also in reading particular books (on favourite themes or by favourite authors), or TV series. These children often live chunks of their leisure time psychologically-inside a very intense parallel 'fantasy world'.

Girls may also have crazes on particular books; also they may become passionate about horses, or fashion, or hairdressing, or pretending to be a teacher.

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Aside - It is noticeable that girls crazes tend to be more socially-inflected and less abstract; and this follows through to adult life, and high achievement. The highest frequency of genius, or near-genius, level achievement among women is focused on the most social and human aspects of the arts and sciences - and much rarer in abstract areas.

For instance, there are many and well known women novelists in the front rank - the novel being the most 'social' of art forms. And in science, the highest achievements of women are in the human sciences rather than the physical sciences - and within biology women have been very prominent in social areas like primatology and anthropology.

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But to return to the theme, normal and average creativity is seen in hobbies, and how people use their discretionary time; and the fact that hobbies are for most people subject to work, relationships and daily life is due to the low-P, low creativity personality.

Normal people are creative, to some subordinate extent; and they fit creativity into their lives.

But geniuses fit their lives around their hobbies, and geniuses make their hobbies (avocations) into their life (their vocations).

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Thus Robert Frost (a poet of genius) expresses the difference:

Two Tramps in Mud Time

Out of the mud two strangers came
And caught me splitting wood in the yard,
And one of them put me off my aim
By hailing cheerily "Hit them hard!"
I knew pretty well why he had dropped behind
And let the other go on a way.
I knew pretty well what he had in mind:
He wanted to take my job for pay.

Good blocks of oak it was I split,
As large around as the chopping block;
And every piece I squarely hit
Fell splinterless as a cloven rock.
The blows that a life of self-control
Spares to strike for the common good,
That day, giving a loose my soul,
I spent on the unimportant wood.

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You're one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you're two months back in the middle of March.

A bluebird comes tenderly up to alight
And turns to the wind to unruffle a plume,
His song so pitched as not to excite
A single flower as yet to bloom.
It is snowing a flake; and he half knew
Winter was only playing possum.
Except in color he isn't blue,
But he wouldn't advise a thing to blossom.

The water for which we may have to look
In summertime with a witching wand,
In every wheelrut's now a brook,
In every print of a hoof a pond.
Be glad of water, but don't forget
The lurking frost in the earth beneath
That will steal forth after the sun is set
And show on the water its crystal teeth.

The time when most I loved my task
The two must make me love it more
By coming with what they came to ask.
You'd think I never had felt before
The weight of an ax-head poised aloft,
The grip of earth on outspread feet,
The life of muscles rocking soft
And smooth and moist in vernal heat.

Out of the wood two hulking tramps
(From sleeping God knows where last night,
But not long since in the lumber camps).
They thought all chopping was theirs of right.
Men of the woods and lumberjacks,
The judged me by their appropriate tool.
Except as a fellow handled an ax
They had no way of knowing a fool.

Nothing on either side was said.
They knew they had but to stay their stay
And all their logic would fill my head:
As that I had no right to play
With what was another man's work for gain.
My right might be love but theirs was need.
And where the two exist in twain
Theirs was the better right--agreed.

But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future's sakes.

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