Defying the Crowd: Cultivating Creativity in a Culture of Conformity

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.

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.

This book reveals the we must not always follow societal norms. Nonsycophants will delight in this classic.

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.