Dean Keith Simonton Free Pdf Download

Dr. Simonton is a Distinguished Professor and Vice Chair for the Department of Psychology at UC, Davis. He has published numerous books, and over 300 book chapters, encyclopedic entries, and journal articles. Dr. Simonton has received several awards, including the William James Book Award, Society for General Psychology,Division 1-American Psychological Association (APA, 2000), Theoretical Innovation Prize, Society for Personality and Social Psychology,Division 8- APA (2004), the Rudolf Arnheim Award for Outstanding Achievement in Psychology and the Arts, Society for the Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts,Division 10-APA ( 1996) Sir Francis Galton Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Study of Creativity, International Association of Empirical Aesthetics ( IAEA, 1996); and the Award for Excellence in Research, Mensa Education and Research Foundation (1986). He was the Editor of Journal of Creative Behavior, has been a Guest Editor for Leadership Quarterly and Review of General Psychology and is also on several editorial boards.

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A Reflective Conversation with Dean Keith

Simonton

Dean Keith Simonton

University of California, Davis

(interviewed on behalf of NAJP by)

Tammy Lynne Moore

Michael F. Shaughnessy

Eastern New Mexico University

Dr. Simonton is a Distinguished Professor and Vice Chair for the

Department of Psychology at UC, Davis. He has published numerous

books, and over 300 book chapters, encyclopedic entries, and journal

articles. Dr. Simonton has received several awards, including the William

James Book Award, Society for General Psychology, Division 1 –

American Psychological Association (APA, 2000), Theoretical

Innovation Prize, Society for Personality and Social Psychology,

Division 8 - APA (2004), the Rudolf Arnheim Award for Outstanding

Achievement in Psychology and the Arts, Society for the Psychology of

Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts, Division 10 - APA (1996); Sir

Francis Galton Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Study of

Creativity, International Association of Empirical Aesthetics (IAEA,

1996); and the Award for Excellence in Research , Mensa Education and

Research Foundation (1986). He was the Editor of Journal of Creative

Behavior, has been a Guest Editor for Leadership Quarterly and Review

of General Psychology, and is also on several editorial boards.

NAJP: What are you currently working on, writing, or researching?

DKS: I typically work on several different projects all at once. They vary

in their stages of completion, the degree of ambition they represent, and,

of course, the specific subject matter. A partial list would have to include

empirical studies of famous film composers, distinguished women

psychologists, eminent African Americans, and illustrious military

leaders. In addition, I have several book projects in various stages of

research, organization, and writing. These range from an overview of

cinematic creativity and aesthetics to a broad integration of what we

know about the psychology of civilization.

Author info: Correspondence should be sent to: Dr. Michael Shaughnessy, Dept.

of Psychology, Eastern New Mexico University, Portales, NM 88130.

North American Journal of Psychology, 2008, Vol. 10, No. 3, 595-602.

596 NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY

NAJP: How did you first get started or involved in this field?

DKS: It actually started when I was in elementary school. I'm not

joking! My family bought a set of the World Book Encyclopedia because

they were assured by the salesperson – my school teacher – that they

would be essential as I moved through K-12. The volumes are full of

photographs of strange people with odd costumes and funny hair styles.

I also noticed that no member of my family had a photo in any of the

volumes. So as a little kid I wondered what was required to have one's

picture so honored. I eventually came to realize that most of the portraits

were of individuals who made a name for themselves by some

exceptional achievement. Most often they were either outstanding

creators or famous (or infamous) leaders. But not until I became a

psychology major did I realize that researchers actually studied the

factors underlying creativity and leadership. And it was not until graduate

school that I figured out a scientific approach – historiometry – to

comprehend the geniuses of history.

NAJP: What do you mean exactly by the term "historiometric inquiry"?

DKS: Historiometry was a term first invented at the beginning of the

twentieth century to refer to the application of scientific methods to

historical and biographical data to test hypotheses about the nature of

genius. In a sense, it's like psychometrics, only the methods are applied

to historic figures rather than contemporary research participants. The

typical historiometric study collects a large sample of eminent achievers

in a particular domain, assesses those individuals on quantifiable

variables – intelligence, personality, motivation, developmental

experiences, personal development, social context, etc. – and then

subjects those measures to statistical analyses. Interestingly,

historiometry is the earliest scientific approach to the study of genius –

earlier than experiments, surveys, interviews, and psychometric tests.

The first historiometric inquiry was published in 1835 by the same

scientist who gave us the normal distribution. In 1869 Francis Galton

published the first well-known historiometric investigation, Hereditary

Genius.

NAJP: Why study the socio-cultural context of the psychology of

science?

DKS: I'm sure you meant to ask "Why study the socio-cultural context

in the psychology of science?" If so, you must remember that I was

originally trained in social psychology. That's the subject in which I got

Simonton, Moore & Shaughnessy INTERVIEW 597

my doctoral degree. My dissertation had the title of the "social

psychology of creativity." Creativity is not just an individual

phenomenon. It occurs in a specific social context – the cultural,

political, military, and economic milieu. Without taking these

circumstances into account, it would be impossible to explain why some

times and places are more creative than others. Why the Golden Age of

Greece and the Dark Ages of Western Europe? Did everybody in

Western Civilization become genetically inferior? Or were there

conditions in ancient Greece that favored creative activity whereas

different conditions in Medieval Europe discouraged creative activity?

NAJP: Personality and Individual Differences. Why is it important that

we look at these factors when studying scientific genius?

DKS: Or any kind of genius? Genius of any kind is correlated with

specific dispositional variables, and different kinds of genius exhibit

distinctive personality profiles. For instance, creators tend to display

higher rates of psychopathology than do leaders, and within creators the

artists tend to display higher rates than do the scientists. The distinctions

can be drawn still more. Scientists in the paradigmatic disciplines like

physics tend to display lower rates of psychopathology than do those in

the non-paradigmatic disciplines like psychology. In general, the more

constraints on the genius in a particular domain, the lower the rate of

psychopathology. The same principle applies to other variables, such as

openness to experience.

NAJP: Personality vs. motivation - Which is the most important set of

variables in the long run? Or is it I.Q. or something else?

DKS: I don't think it's reasonable at this point in the game to specify

which is "the most important set of variables in the long run." Creative

genius is far too complex and our understanding far too simplistic to

make confident proclamations. Intelligence is crucial. Motivation is

crucial. Without either, there is nothing.

NAJP: What are some developmental antecedents (family background,

role models, formal vs. informal education) that contribute to scientific

genius?

DKS: To answer this question we first have to recognize that the role of

developmental antecedents depends on the type of science in which the

genius is engaged. As I just mentioned earlier, we can distinguish

between paradigmatic and non-paradigmatic sciences, and in the case of

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the former we can distinguish between revolutionary and normal

paradigmatic scientists. In addition, we have to recognize that

developmental factors can be arrayed along a dimension from

conventional, homogeneous, and stable, to unconventional,

heterogeneous, and unstable. At the former end are placed those who are

firstborns from professional families, whose parents are similar in

religious and ethnic origins, whose family life is very uneventful, who do

very well in school and college, and who study under a single eminent

mentor. At the latter end are placed later-borns whose parents are less

well educated and originate from more divergent religious and ethnic

backgrounds, whose family life is often disrupted by economic ups and

downs, by parental loss, or some other unstabilizing event, who do less

well in school and college, and who study under multiple and diverse

mentors. Normal paradigmatic scientists fall on the conventional,

homogeneous, and stable end of this dimension, while non-paradigmatic

scientists fall on the unconventional, heterogeneous, and unstable end.

Revolutionary paradigmatic scientists fall between these extremes.

NAJP: What are the two main characteristics related to scientific genius?

DKS: This question is more complicated than first meets the eye.

Scientific genius shares with all forms two main characteristics: intellect

and drive. That is, intelligence and motivation are crucial to success in

almost all domains of exceptional achievement, whether creativity or

leadership. However, creators differ from leaders in the specific nature

of these characteristics. The intellect of creators concentrates on

imagination, that is, the capacity to come up with new ideas, whereas that

of leaders tends to be more pragmatic and social. Similarly the drive of

creators tends to be more introverted, personal, and idiosyncratic,

whereas that of leaders tends to be more extraverted, social, and

conventional. Creative genius in the sciences, however, differs from that

in the arts two ways: (a) imagination is more restrained by logic and fact

and (b) the drive is a bit less personal and idiosyncratic, conforming a bit

more to social conventions. See! You ask a simple question and you get a

complex answer!

NAJP: In your book "Genius, Creativity and Leadership " (Simonton,

1984) you juxtapose personality and character, aesthetics and charisma

and productivity and influence. Why did you choose these specific

elements to examine?

DKS: The two most interesting parts of this question are the last two. I'll

start with productivity and influence. I argue in the book that the single

Simonton, Moore & Shaughnessy INTERVIEW 599

most important predictor of a creator's long-term influence is his or her

total lifetime output. I give the example of how a scientist's total output

predicts whether or not that person will have an entry in a major

encyclopedia. The connection between aesthetics and charisma is even

more interesting. Aesthetics is connected with creativity, charisma with

leadership. Yet these two sets of phenomena are themselves connected.

In a sense, charisma may be considered an aesthetic experience

associated with leaders. More recent research supports this idea. For

example, the speeches delivered by charismatic US presidents tend to

have a style similar to highly successful poetry.

NAJP: What are some "individual differences" in greatness?

DKS: This question is actually two. The first concerns different ways of

attaining greatness, the second concerns the individual differences that

correlate with the former. For example, creators attain greatness

differently than do leaders or athletes or entertainers, but for creators

there will be certain cognitive and dispositional traits that correlate with

achieved eminence – such as imagination, independence, motivation, etc.

On occasion factors that positively predict one type of greatness will be

negative predictors of another type. For instance, creators tend to be very

introverted, but leaders tend to be very extraverted.

NAJP: What are some longitudinal changes in creativity? In greatness?

DKS: In most of my research I have measured creativity in terms of

productivity – counting either total works or high-impact works. If you

tabulate output across time in consecutive age periods, you obtain a

single-peaked curve. Productivity increases rapidly up to a peak and then

gradually declines. The details of this peak vary according to the

particular domain of creativity. Sometimes the peak occurs earlier, other

times late. Sometimes the decline is steep, other times not.

Now greatness is another matter. It tends to increase over time. That

is, as the creator accumulates more high-impact works, his or her

"greatness" or "eminence" increases. However, the increase is not a

linear function of age. After the career peak, new high-impact works are

added to the cumulative total at a decreasing rate. Creators may even

reach a point where "their best work is behind them" and their

posthumous reputation is not affected by any additional output.

NAJP: What are some personal characteristics that contribute to

greatness as a psychologist?

600 NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY

DKS: This question is also complex because we have to distinguish

among different kinds of great psychologists. First and most obviously,

we have to separate scientists from practitioners. We know a lot more

about the former than the latter. And great scientists in psychology have

pretty much the same characteristics as notable scientists in other

disciplines. However, this last statement must be qualified because there

are two major kinds of scientific psychologists. One views psychology as

a natural science whereas the other views psychology as a human

science. Psychologists in the former group are most similar to physicists,

chemists, and biologists, whereas those in the latter group are most

similar to scholars in the humanities and some social sciences. For

instance, the two groups differ in openness to experience, complexity of

thinking, and tolerance of ambiguity.

NAJP: In terms of the life span development of great psychologists,

why did you focus on family background, career training, and

nature/nurture issues?

DKS: The first two are the topics that have attracted the most research,

and the third represents the most important theoretical issue in

interpreting the results of this research. It was Francis Galton who, in

1874, first studied the role of family background (e.g., birth order,

socioeconomic class) and career training (i.e., education) in the origins of

great scientists, and it was he who first introduced the nature-nurture

issue as the fundamental question in understanding these relationships.

NAJP: The specific combination of various factors seems to be

imperative in producing "genius." How do you deal with the various

permutations and combinations that are "out there" in the real world?

DKS: I don't quite understand what you want to be addressed. I can say

that it takes a distinctive confluence of events and circumstances to

produce geniuses of the highest order. That's why they are so rare.

Moreover, two different combinations of forces have to come together.

The first involve the general set of factors that are common to all

geniuses – their intelligence, imagination, motivation, determination, etc.

The second concern the specific set of factors that make each individual

genius unique – truly sui generis . The top-level geniuses always have

something that sets them apart from their colleagues. Einstein didn't just

do better science than most theoretical physicists of his day. He also did

different science – science that was characteristic of his personality.

Indeed, sometimes the second aspect of genius gets in the way of the first

aspect. Einstein's worldview allowed him to launch one of the most

Simonton, Moore & Shaughnessy INTERVIEW 601

important revolutions in the history of science (relativity). But that same

worldview prevented him from accepting another of the most important

revolutions of his time (quantum theory). A virtue was also a vice. The

failed unified field theory was the monument to his failure.

NAJP: Why use Monte Carlo simulations and what are their

weaknesses? Are there other options for the study of genius?

DKS: I've used Monte Carlo simulations rarely, but they do have some

advantages over all alternative techniques – historiometrics,

psychometrics, case-studies, psychobiography, etc. In particular, they are

useful when you want to test a probability model that is too complex to

formulate in mathematical terms. For instance, I used this strategy to

understanding the complexities of the multiples phenomenon. This is

where two individuals come up with the same discovery or invention

independently of each other. Classic examples include the calculus, the

theory of evolution by natural selection, Mendelian genetics, and the

telephone. It turns out that this phenomenon is far too complex to

comprehend using even the most sophisticated stochastic models. So

instead I simulated the phenomenon using a random number generator. I

was able to show that all of the key features of multiples could be

explained in terms of chance. Contrary to what many had argued,

multiples cannot be taken as evidence for socio-cultural determinism.

NAJP: What exactly is "chance configuration theory"?

DKS: It's the term I used back in the late 1980s to describe my version

of Donald Campbell's (1960) blind-variation and selective-retention

theory of the creativity process. In essence, ideas were subjected to quasi-

random combinations until a stable "configuration" emerged. In more

recent work I have dropped this terminology because it has caused all

sorts of misinterpretations about the fundamental nature of the theory. In

that respect, the term is obsolete. Yet it has managed to survive in the

literature without any effort on my part to promote it. That's probably

because it captures an important concept about the creativity process.

REFERENCES

Simonton, D.K. (1984) Genius, creativity and leadership . Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press.

Simonton, D.K. (1999). Origin of genius: Darwinian perspectives on creativity.

New York: Oxford University Press.

602 NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY

Simonton, D.K. (2002). Great psychologists and their times: Scientific insights

into psychology's history. Washington, D.C.,American Psychological

Association.

Simonton, D.K. (2004). Creativity in science: Chance, logic, genius and zeitgeist .

Cambridge, England, Cambridge University Press.

The study was aimed to explore the differences in personality and social skills in humanities and exact sciences students. The research sample consisted of 93 psychology students and 80 applied mathematics and informatics students who were administrated the Czech version of the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-FFI) and the Czech translation of the Social Skills Inventory (SSI). The results suggest that the psychology students are more open to new experiences and less neurotic than the mathematics and informatics students. The psychology students scored significantly higher on the emotional sensitivity and social control scales, and on the total scales of the emotional and social skills. The mathematics and informatics students were significantly higher on the social sensitivity scale. The significant gender differences were also found, women scored higher than men especially on sensitivity and emotional expressivity. The Czech translation of the Social Skills Inventory appears to be a useful research method.

Dean Keith Simonton

This book comprehensively compiles research on the factors that contribute to a psychologist having a high impact on the discipline. Simonton examines those individuals who have contributed most tot he advancement of psychological science. Moreover, these notables are examined from a scientific perspective--especially from the standpoint of the psychology of science. The book integrates all of the relevant research on the psychology of eminent psychologists, from the pioneering work of Francis Galton to work published in the 21st century. Chapters contain examples drawn from the lives and careers of notable psychologists, examining such issues as birth order, intellectual precocity, mentoring, psychopathology, worldview, and aging. Of particular interest are chapters exploring what aspects of the sociocultural context are most conductive to the emergence of illustrious psychologists and how these sociocultural conditions--including political events, economic disturbances, or cultural values--affect not only the magnitude of achievement but also the very nature of that achievement. The findings reviewed lead to suggestions about how best to educate and train both undergraduate psychology majors and graduate students in psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Dean Keith Simonton

This article assesses and extends Campbell's (1960) classic theory that creativity and discovery depend on blind variation and selective retention (BVSR), with special attention given to blind variations (BVs). The treatment begins by defining creativity and discovery, variant blindness versus sightedness, variant utility and selection, and ideational variants versus creative products. These definitions lead to BV identification criteria: (a) intended BV, which entails both systematic and stochastic combinatorial procedures; and (b) implied BV, which involves both variations with properties of blindness (variation superfluity and backtracking) and processes that should yield variant blindness (associative richness, defocused attention, behavioral tinkering, and heuristic search). These conceptual definitions and identification criteria then have implications for four persistent issues, namely, domain expertise, ideational randomness, analogical equivalence, and personal volition. Once BV is suitably conceptualized, Camp-bell's theory continues to provide a fruitful approach to the understanding of both creativity and discovery.

Creativity in science: Chance, logic, genius and zeitgeist