Saturday, October 18, 2008

Creativity questionnaire.

In 1930, Yeats received a "Questionnaire on Creative Effort," from a researcher interested in creativity, Elliot D. Hutchinson, who also sent the same questionnaire to about 250 other thinkers and writers. (Hutchinson later published a book, How to Think Creatively, and also became a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester in New York.)

The questionnaire goes a little something like this:
Do you at first experience a period of general productive inclination, a ill-defined, uneasy desire to produce something?

Always . . . . . Usually . . . . . Seldom . . . . . Never . . . . .

Is this productive inclination a permanent state of mind? . . . . . or only a mood . . . . . ?

What are your intellectual activities during this period? Are they

(a) active and definite search for material related to the topic in hand?

Always . . . . . Usually . . . . . Seldom . . . . . Never . . . . .

(b) Vague daydreaming along the lines determined by the nature of the work?

Always . . . . . Usually . . . . . Seldom . . . . . Never . . . . .

(c) Passive attitude of waiting for 'inspiration'?

Always . . . . . Usually . . . . . Seldom . . . . . Never . . . . .

(d) Absorption in other interests?

Always . . . . . Usually . . . . . Seldom . . . . . Never . . . . .
[For more of this questionnaire, look here, although you'll have to look around for "Creativity Questionnaire."] But I really just want to point out that Yeats, like me, when in the period of 'general productive inclination'--and let me just digress to point out that I am always inclined, generally, to be productive: absolutely always!--he
  • usually deliberately looks for material (although it "depends on the nature of the work')
  • always vaguely daydreams
  • never sits around waiting passively for inspiration, and
  • usually gets absorbed in (wait for it) detective stories.
Hey, W.B. (and you know he can hear me--he's perning in a gyre somewhere, but he can hear me, all right.): Ditto!

3 comments:

  1. It's good to know that we're following in creative footsteps when we daydream and get absorbed in mysteries.
    My dad brought us some Yeats/castle coasters, btw.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Also, btw, have you read the Gladwell piece on Creativity in this week's New Yorker? Totally fascinating.

    ReplyDelete

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