Humanistic Theories: Carl Rogers

Marcelo Valderrey

24 Jun, 2024 02:52 PM

To seriously study creativity, it is useful to know something about the first scientific efforts to define and explain it, attributable to psychology.

1. Step 1: Small doses...visuals!

   The idiosyncrasies, concepts and language of mechanical engineering are somewhat distant from the psychological approach and it is easy for the reader to lose the thread of the explanations by becoming entangled with its specific terminology and its forms of expression.

   For this reason, I have preferred to extract small fragments of the theories of creativity and make an effort to create my own graphic image for them.

   My graphics involve the risk of biasing and/or distorting the original ideas, which also exists when trying to paraphrase them, but it brings the will to understand them and translate them into engineering language in the hope of bringing both approaches closer together.

   To this end, I have relied on research works that compile and summarize these theories. In particular, the work of authors Busse & Mansfield that appears in the quotes in the next step of the tutorial.

2. Step 2: Humanistic Theories: Carl Rogers

   Busse & Mansfield (p. 50) mention Abraham Maslow's theory in their works (Creativity in selling actualizing people, 1959) and (The creative attitude, 1967) but only describe Carl Rogers' theory (Toward a theory of creativity, 1959) . What is notable in this theory is the recognition of the importance of the individual's context for the creative process in which, in turn, little importance is given to "the usefulness of the product." It is illustrated with a simple diagram.

   References:

   • Busse, T. V., & Mansfield, R. S. (1984). Teorías del proceso creador: revisión y perspectiva. (©. 2.-2. reservados, Ed.) Studies in Psychology = Estudios de Psicología, nº 18 (traducido del Journal of Creative Behavior, num. 2, vol. 14, 91-103, 1980), 47-57. Recuperado el 18 de diciembre de 2020, de https://dialnet.unirioja.es/ejemplar/7049
   • Maslow, A. H. (1959). Creativity in sell actualizing people. En H. H. Anderson (Ed.), Creativity and its cultivation. Harper.
   • Maslow, A. H. (1967). The creative attitude. En R. L. Money, & T. A. Razik (Edits.), Exploration in creativity. Nueva York: Harper.
   • Rogers, R. C. (1959). Toward a theory of creativity. En H. H. Anderson (Ed.), Creativity and its cultivation. Nueva York: Harper.

   
   

3. Step 3: My graphic interpretation

   Humanistic Theory: Carl Rogers (1959)

   

   Note. The usefulness or appropriateness of the creative product is not what is relevant. Source: illustration by the author.

   
   

   Texts of the figure in Spanish, translated:

   Individual:

   Game with elements

   Play with concepts

   Internal evaluation locus

   Openness to experience

   
   

   Context:

   Circumstances

   People

   Events

   Materials

   
   

   Creative Process

   
   

   Emergence in action of a new relational product

   
   

   Reference: all texts and images in this tutorial were extracted from the doctoral thesis cited below,

   
   

   • Valderrey, M.E. (2021), “Catalizadores Creativos en Ingeniería Conceptual: Evaluación de Habilidades Visuales y Verbales para Diseño Mecánico”. Propuesta de tesis doctoral, UNINI-México.

   
   

4. Step 4: Links

   This tutorial comes from:

   Perceptual Theories: Ernest Schachtel

   and continues in:

   Theories of Cognitive Development: David Feldman