The Ecology of Creative Engagement: Patterns of Production, Consumption, and Practice

This study introduces a methodologically novel approach to creativity research by simultaneously exploring creative production, creative consumption, and creative practice within a unified research design. This integration allows for the first systematic analysis of the patterns of creative engagement across these three dimensions, revealing how they co-occur and interact across multiple domains within a university student sample. Participants reported on their creative achievements, time investment, aspirations, comparison standards, and audience orientations across 11 creative domains. Correlation and logistic regression analyses revealed broadly consistent evidence of within-domain alignment: individuals who produced something creative in a given domain were generally more likely to consume creative content from that domain. Domains such as literature, visual arts, and film/video & TV showed stronger cross-domain connections, whereas science and sports were more domain-bound. Creative consumption exhibited a more generalized structure, indicating stronger interrelationships among domains, while creative production clustered into smaller, domain-specific groupings. Engagement in creative practice was positively associated with both production and consumption within domains, underscoring the possible interdependence of these forms of participation. Breadth of creative production and consumption showed limited predictive potential with respect to self-reported creative achievements. Analyses of preference alignments indicated slightly higher coherence in production than in consumption, suggesting that creative production may involve more deliberate and integrated preference structures. Together, these findings illustrate the tight interrelation of creative production, creative consumption, and creative practice as dimensions of creative engagement. This integrative approach broadens the conceptual and empirical scope of creativity research beyond its traditional production-centric focus.