Creativity Quotes: An Expansive Analysis of Condensed Wisdom.

Inspiring statements about creativity from eminent figures circulate on social media and beyond but their psychological impact is unexplored. This research identifies the most popular quotes on creativity, investigates how they relate to individual beliefs about the creative process (role of spontaneous and deliberate ideation) and person (fixed and malleable mindset), and explores their specificity with respect to beliefs beyond creativity. First, through data mining of social media content, study 1 identified 445 unique creativity-tagged quotes attributed to 318 eminent creators like Albert Einstein, Maya Angelou, or Pablo Picasso. Second, study 2 (N = 304) revealed that laypeople show little discrimination between nuanced creativity concepts within quotes but demonstrate general endorsement tendencies, especially when viewing creativity as central to the self, believing that creativity is a malleable skill that can be learned, and preferring flexible thinking in creativity. Finally, study 3 (N = 304) established that creativity quote agreement demonstrates domain-specificity between broad conceptual domains (creativity versus spirituality), reflecting creative self-beliefs more than spirituality-beliefs alongside a domain-general tendency to endorse profound-seeming statements. Findings suggest that creativity quotes may not distinguish specialized creativity beliefs but rather represent the broader perceived value of creativity and thereby serve to reinforce positive beliefs about creativity.