The Dark Side of Creativity

by Edited by David H. Cropley , Arthur J. Cropley , James C. Kaufman , Mark A. Runco

• ISBN13: 9780521139601
• ISBN10: 0521139600
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-07-12
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

With few exceptions, scholarship on creativity has focused on its positive aspects while largely ignoring its dark side. This includes not only creativity deliberately aimed at hurting others, such as crime or terrorism, or at gaining unfair advantages, but also the accidental negative side effects of well-intentioned acts. This book brings together essays written by experts from various fields (psychology, criminal justice, sociology, engineering, education, history, and design) and with different interests (personality development, mental health, deviant behavior, law enforcement, and counter-terrorism) to illustrate the nature of negative creativity, examine its variants, call attention to its dangers, and draw conclusions about how to prevent it or protect society from its effects.

Author Biography

David H. Cropley is Deputy Director of the Defence and Systems Institute at the University of South Australia, where he is also Associate Professor of Engineering Innovation. Arthur J. Cropley is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Hamburg and previously worked at the UNESCO Institute for Education in Hamburg. James C. Kaufman is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the California State University at San Bernardino, where he directs the Learning Research Institute. Mark A. Runco is E. Paul Torrance Professor of Creativity and Gifted Education at the University of Georgia, Athens.

Table of Contents

List of Contributors	p. ix
The Dark Side of Creativity: What Is It?	p. 1
Creativity Has No Dark Side	p. 15
Positive Creativity and Negative Creativity (and Unintended Consequences)	p. 33
Subjugating the Creative Mind: The Soviet Biological Weapons Program and the Role of the State	p. 57
Imagining the Bomb: Robert Oppenheimer, Nuclear Weapons, and the Assimilation of Technological Innovation	p. 72
The Innovation Dilemma: Some Risks of Creativity in Strategic Agency	p. 91
Early Creativity as a Constraint on Future Achievement	p. 114
Boundless Creativity	p. 134
Reviewing the Art of Crime: What, If Anything, Do Criminals and Artists/Designers Have in Common?	p. 155
Creativity in Confinement	p. 177
Creativity and Crime: How Criminals Use Creativity to Succeed	p. 204
So You Want to Become a Creative Genius? You Must Be Crazy!	p. 218
Both Sides of the Coin? Personality, Deviance, and Creative Behavior	p. 235
Neurosis: The Dark Side of Emotional Creativity	p. 255
Dangling from a Tassel on the Fabric of Socially Constructed Reality: Reflections on the Creative Writing Process	p. 277
Creativity in the Classroom: The Dark Side	p. 297
The Dark Side of Creativity and How to Combat it	p. 316
A Systems Engineering Approach to Counterterrorism	p. 329
Malevolent Innovation: Opposing the Dark Side of Creativity	p. 339
Summary-The Dark Side of Creativity: A Differentiated Model	p. 360
Index	p. 375
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