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The Mad Genius is a recurring stereotype of contemporary cultural expression. However, starting with Lombroso's investigation of genius and madness in 1888, recent decades have seen an increasing number of empirical studies suggesting that there really is an association between creativity and psychopathology. Still, taken together, the empirical support is unconvincing - largely due to a heavy reliance on biographical data and small cohorts. The primary aim of this thesis is therefore to investigate the question of a possible association between creativity and psychopathology using large scale population based epidemiological methods. The proposed association of creativity and psychopathology has often been placed in an evolutionary context, where the burden of psychopathology is compensated for by the advantage of increased creativity. The secondary aim of this thesis is to elucidate if a putative association between creativity and psychopathology may be mediated through genetic factors under positive selection. In our first study (study I), based on Swedish national registries, the likelihood of holding a creative profession (artistic and scientific occupations) in individuals (n~300 000) with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or unipolar depression and their healthy relatives was compared to that of controls. Results demonstrated that individuals with bipolar disorder and healthy siblings of people with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder are overrepresented in creative professions. We followed up these findings in study II using a dataset with a considerably larger sample of patients (n~1 200 000) to survey other psychiatric diagnoses and to validate previous findings. Study IV investigated the notion that bipolar disorder is common in prominent historical leaders, e.g., Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, and Napoleon Bonaparte. Results showed that individuals with bipolar disorder without comorbidity and their healthy siblings were overrepresented in the highest strata of officer suitability, a rating of leadership potential. The siblings were also overrepresented in executive professions, specifically in the subgroup of political professions. In study III we addressed the evolutionary framework by investigating the fertility of individuals with psychiatric disorders and their healthy siblings. A total of ~ 2.3 million individuals were included. With the exception of women with depression, patients had significantly fewer children than the general population. The evolutionary hypothesis was further investigated in study V , where we systematically reviewed the genetics of creativity and estimated the heritability of creativity in two new original studies. Results support a genetic component in creativity, and for the first time suggest that this is contingent on sex. In conclusion, this thesis provides support for a familial cosegregation of both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder with creativity, and suggests that this may be mediated through a genetic mechanism. Results do not support, however, that any psychiatric disorder per se is under positive selection.

Abstract 'A bit of this and a bit of that; that is how newness enters the world', according to Salman Rushdie. In Ulf Hannerz's varied and voluminous work on cultural creolization, creativity and cultural 'newness' are often described. Examining this view of creativity, the essay contrasts processual and hybrid aspects of culture with its stable and structural aspects, showing how each implies a particular view of creativity. The contrast is developed through three very different kinds of examples: postcolonial literature, information technology and minority youth in Western Europe.

Statistical data, showing percentages of creativity in the various arts and philosophy among different nations during the history of Western civilization, can now be presented. This covers the ground quantitatively which Kroeber's Configurations of Culture Growth covered qualitatively. The study not only reveals different patterns among nations, but indicates the nature of the problem to be overcome if mankind is to achieve a universal maximum release of creativity for all in the future.

The article discloses creativity in developing brand assets and explores the relationship between creativity, distinctive brand assets, and divergent thinking. The scientific novelty of an article that explores the combination of distinctive brand assets and divergent thinking might lie in its potential to shed new light on how branding strategies can be used to foster creativity. By examining how certain visual and auditory cues associated with a brand can activate divergent thinking, the study could provide insights into how marketers can design more effective branding campaigns that not only increase brand recognition but also inspire consumers to think outside the box. Distinctive brand assets are unique visual and auditory cues that help consumers identify and differentiate a brand from its competitors. Divergent thinking is generating multiple ideas and solutions to a problem. The article argues that successful distinctive brand assets could result from divergent thinking and creativity, as they enable brands to create assets that are not only distinctive but also emotionally resonant and memorable. Ultimately, the article demonstrates how divergent thinking and creativity are critical components in the development and success of distinctive brand assets, which are an essential part of a brand's overall marketing strategy.

"Creativity is playing an ever more important role in the success or failure of organizations in the global competitive economy. The field of engineering is no exception. The objective of this book is to satisfy this vital need, which has been covered very little elsewhere. The book, which assumes no prior knowledge, will be useful to many people including all kinds of professional engineers, engineering managers, graduate and senior undergraduate students of engineering, and researchers and instructors in engineering, psychology, and business administration. At the end of each chapter there are numerous problems to test readers' comprehension. The book also includes a comprehensive list of references directly or indirectly related to creativity in engineering."

The author, Dr. Nahid Ramzi, introduces her study by pointing out that women, on account of their relative seclusion, are more closely tied to their community and more liable to receive its influence than men . They are less free to think or to act differently from traditional patterns. In the field of creativity they are consequently affected by their cultural environment to a higher degree than their brothers.

Alexandre Lefebvre develops a particularist critique against this account of application discourses, arguing that it lacks creativity in two main ways. Lefebvre maintains that application discourses fail to show, first, how relations between norms can change in selecting the appropriate norm for a particular situation and, second, how norms may be modified - and new norms generated - in their application to cases. This essay argues that Lefebvre has mischaracterized Habermas' and Gunther's account of application discourses, which actually accommodates Lefebvre's particularist concerns. It shows that application discourses, properly understood, are sensitive to the particularity of cases and creatively modify norms in the course of application. Adapted from the source document.

After presenting a critique of both negative and positive freedom this essay pursues the relation between creativity and freedom, drawing upon Foucault, Deleuze and Nietzsche to do so. Once you have understood Nietzsche's reading of a culturally infused nest of drives in a self, the task becomes easier. A drive is not merely a force pushing forward; it is also a simple mode of perception and intention that pushes forward and enters into creative relations with other drives when activated by an event. You can also understand more sharply how the Foucauldian tactics of the self work. We can now carry this insight into the Deleuzian territory of micropolitics and collective action by reviewing his work on flashbacks and "the powers of the false." If a flashback in film pulls us back to a bifurcation point where two paths were possible and one was taken, the powers of the false refer to the subliminal role the path not taken can play in the formation of creative action. As you pursue these themes you see that neither old, organic notions of belonging to the world nor do negative notions of detachment as such do the work needed. Deleuze's notion of freedom carries us to the idea of cultivating "belief" in a world of periodic punctuations. The latter are essential to creativity and incompatible with organic belonging. They are also indispensable supports of a positive politics today.

What does »creativity« mean in the context of IT and what happens when ITacts in its name? Jan Sebastian Zipp examines the concept of creativity in large IT companies in times of digital change, including new ways of working or potential artificial creativity with no human interaction. Drawing on constitutive elements like Silicon Valley or its connection to counterculture, his analysis of the representation and organisation of creativity as a social practice provides insights into the inherent logic of the creativity narrative of IT. This study contributes vital foundations for a critical engagement with today's prevailing understanding of the concept of creativity

AbstractThe first principle of cognitive linguistics is to look for the origins of linguistic powers in robust mental operations not specific to language. For millennia, language science has assumed that human beings possess mental operations for unifying, combining, and merging patterns to create expressions, and that, conversely, they can analyze expressions they encounter to recognize patterns that were combined to produce them. The third section of this article reviews some of the literature concerned with these powers to combine patterns into expressions and to analyze expressions into patterns that were blended to create them. Any assumption about such a linguistic power takes out a loan on theory that must be cashed out with a non-language-specific explanation if the theory is to count as cognitive. One can stipulate to the existence of some unexplained power that is needed for linguistic performance, but that stipulation is insubstantial until it is grounded in a demonstrated non-language-specific operation. An assumption or stipulation about a linguistic power is cashed out when we locate and model the non-language-specific cognitive operations that make that linguistic power possible. The first section of this article presents the proposition that the non-language-specific mental operation that accounts for these linguistic powers is blending, otherwise known as conceptual integration. The second section provides a topical review of blending in specific communicative form-meaning pairs and their combination. Blending is the foundation of creativity in communication, or, more specifically, in the creation and combining of form-meaning pairs, also called "constructions."

Rapid technological change, global competition, and economic uncertainty have all contributed to organizations seeking to improve creativity and innovation. Researchers and businesses want to know what factors facilitate or inhibit creativity in a variety of organizational settings. Individual Creativity in the Workplace identifies those factors, including what motivational and cognitive factors influence individual creativity, as well as the contextual factors that impact creativity such as teams and leadership.The book takes research findings out of the lab and provides examples of these findings put to use in real world organizations