What is the Nature of the Creative Person?

Is creativity reserved for geniuses? If you’re a creative writer, can your originality transfer to other domains like business? What about creativity at different levels, like a gymnast who’s developed a new routine and won at the college level versus someone who’s won the Olympic gold? And then there’s the question of whether you use creativity to help others, help yourself, or outright hurt others. The nature of a creative person seems to be riddled with paradoxes and dichotomies, prompting us to understand the creative actor better. In this chapter, we aim to provide an overview of the creative person and how they may interact with and be shaped by their circumstances. Using classic theories and debate in scholarship, we examine how individuals choose to be creative and express their originality, under what circumstances, in what domains, and at what levels. We will also discuss the challenges and barriers to sustaining one’s creativity, including pressures to conform to societal expectations, across cultures. The chapter concludes with a proposal toward understanding the general nature of creative people, employing a multidimensional, multifaceted, and multicultural view, as opposed to the nature of a creative person.