Maciej Karwowski (University of Wrowclaw) (Colloquium)

Creativity is regarded as an essential skill in today’s society and is viewed as the ability to produce both original and useful ’products’. To what extend a product is perceived as creative is not solely determined by its features. Rather, it is influenced by various factors such as the mode of communication, the response of the environment in which it is received, as well as the producer's creative agency. Some people grossly overestimate their creative skills; indeed, the world is full of scribblers. Others harshly underestimate their creativity, attributing it solely to geniuses and great figures from the past. Which of these two perspectives makes more sense, both pragmatically and scientifically? What does the scholarly evidence say? Two decades of research in the psychology of creativity convincingly demonstrate that understanding how we perceive creativity in general and our potential, in particular, plays an essential self-regulatory role in our actions. What we think about the nature of creativity and our creative skills matters tremendously! In this talk, I will synthesize theories and research on creative agency, showing when, how, and why our confidence and centrality of creativity matter when creative activity is considered.

About the speaker
Maciej Karwowski, Ph.D., is a full professor of psychology and education at the University of Wroclaw, Poland. Karwowski is a director of the Creative Behavior Lab and the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Creative Behavior. He is an author or co-author of more than 200 articles devoted to creativity research. In his research, he emphasizes the role of cognitive (e.g., intelligence) and motivational (e.g., creative self-concept) factors in enriching people’s creative activity. He explores new methods of diagnosing creative potential in children and youth, with a particular focus on dynamic methods (experimental samples, behavioral studies, diary studies, micro-longitudinal studies). In addition to that, he designed intervention methods for supporting creativity in children and youth – what works, what doesn't, and why? – and empirically explored the functions of creative self-beliefs, primarily efficacy beliefs in creativity, valuation of creativity, and beliefs about the stability or variability of creativity (creative mindsets).

The lecture will be available as weblecture after the colloquium via BSI weblectures (on Brightspace)