Defying the Crowd: Cultivating Creativity in a Culture of Conformity [Paperback]

Todd I. Lubart (Author), Robert J. Sternberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 15, 2002

World renowned psychologist Robert Sternberg presents a fresh and compelling picture of the creative process from the inception of an idea to its ultimate success. With illuminating examples, Sternberg reveals the paths we all can take to become more creative and shows how institutions can learn to foster creativity.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Sternberg (psychology and education, Yale) and Lubart propose that creativity, like intelligence, is something everyone has and that it can be developed. Able to generate/intuit new and possibly unpopular ideas and work with determination to make these ideas accepted by others, creative people, the authors state, have the willingness to take sensible risks to go against the crowd in effective ways. These traits may explain why commercial, educational, and political institutions make great overtures to creativity but are seldom truly able to integrate it. Sternberg (editor of Encyclopedia of Human Intelligence, LJ 1/95, among many others) and Lubart also discuss the difference between creative potential and creative performance. They include individual chapters on the six personal, creative resources: intelligence, knowledge, thinking style, personality, motivation, and the environmental context. While not a "how-to" book, their work is accessible and appropriate for general psychology collections in larger public libraries and recommended for academic psychology collections.?Scott Johnson, Meridian Community Coll. Lib., Miss.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Sternberg and Lubart take a decidedly different look at creativity that many will find quite revealing. The subject here is not the Einsteins or Picassos of the world, but average people and their ability to be creative. The biggest hurdle to being creative, the authors argue, is the existence of so much pressure in our society not to be original and different. In spite of their claims to the contrary, many people "just don't want to hear" anything new. Naturally, the book condemns this mentality and discusses ways that people can develop their own creativity. The authors dissect the roles of knowledge, intelligence, environment, and motivation in their analysis of the creative mind. In the larger sense, by asserting that most people can be intellectually inventive at some level, they are in conflict with the belief that only the few possess such powers. Creativity at its democratic best. Brian McCombie --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (January 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743236475
• ISBN-13: 978-0743236478
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #837,176 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Creative book on creativity, November 20, 2001

By 

Coert Visser "solutionfocusedchange.com" (Driebergen Netherlands) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Defying the Crowd: Cultivating Creativity in a Culture of Conformity (Hardcover)

Robert Sternberg is one of my favorite psychologists. This man, who once admitted that, as a school child, he scored low on intelligence tests, later became one of the leading intelligence researchers and theorists in the world (if not THE leading one). He reached this status by applying highly original and unconventional ideas and research approaches (for instance, each day, on his way to work, he once interviewed laymen about how they defined intelligence!). The unbelievably productive Sternberg is probably most famous for his so-called triarchic theory of intelligence, but he also wrote about creativity, widom, love an other subjects in a highly original way.

Defying the crowd, written together with Todd Lubart, is about creativity. The book compares achieving creative success to achieving financial success as an investor. I think, the central idea of the book is reflected in the following quote: "In the realm of ideas, a person who buys low, metaphorically, is willing to generate and promote ideas that are novel and even strange and out of fashion. This is not necessarily easy to do. Other people react to the creative person the way they react to the investor who swims against the tide: 'What's the matter with you?'Others often see him or her as irrational or even stupid: if the investment or idea were any good, other people would already be using it, right?"

One of the reasons I like this book so much, is because Robert Sternberg is perhaps the most credible person to have (co-)written it, being a living example of achieving incredible success by defying the crowd.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars IF Sternberg wont confront this issue, no one will., June 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Defying the Crowd: Cultivating Creativity in a Culture of Conformity (Hardcover)

The issue addressed by Sternberg is never addressed adequately, because no one writing on the topic has enough creativity to provide an adequate account of the phenomenon. Virtually everyone who has written on it in the psychological field has brought a scientific bias; or they have brought a poor understanding of the phenomenon occasioned by the fact that their analyis is highly speculative (based on guess work); or it is an analysis compromised by a sheer lack of creativity. In other words, in order to write about creativity, it is best to have a lot of the phenomenon oneself. Sternberg is quite adequately equipped in this regard. From the perspective of one thus, who is himself a creative person, Sternberg makes the facts, interpretations, and prescriptions come alive in the treatment. This book is an example of an effort to match actual experiences with a social and a scientifically methodological agenda. Thus, I advise the book for anyone who wants wisdom in a pure sense, matched to a social agenda that takes its cues from scientific methods.

14 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a good book, but calm down!, August 29, 1999

By A Customer

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This review is from: Defying the Crowd: Cultivating Creativity in a Culture of Conformity (Hardcover)

Certainly a good book, though somewhat lightweight. People truly interested in creativity will need to look further into Sternberg & Lubart's articles, and into the wider literature on creativity. Furthermore, it is worth noting that the above two reviews are either nonsensical, fanatical, or drivel. Science certainly involves creativity, and often tremendous amounts. Though one review talks about scientific bias, if you ask Sternberg which epistemology he bases his work on it will certainly be science. Don't be scared or dissuaded to try other books - Csikzentmihalyi's is a good intermediate one, and the Sternberg-edited Handbook of Creativity is a comprehensive text at a level both deeper and wider.