Recognizability of Individual Creative Style Within and Across Domains: Preliminary Studies

TL;DR

This study provides preliminary evidence that individual creative styles are recognizable within and across domains, supporting the idea that creativity stems from a unique, identifiable worldview that manifests in various artistic expressions.

Contribution

It demonstrates that creative style recognition is possible both within a domain and across different creative domains, highlighting the domain-general nature of creativity.

Findings

Participants recognized peer works above chance

Recognition extended across different creative domains

Supports the idea of a distinctive, recognizable creative worldview

Abstract

It is hypothesized that creativity arises from the self-mending capacity of an internal model of the world, or worldview. The uniquely honed worldview of a creative individual results in a distinctive style that is recognizable within and across domains. It is further hypothesized that creativity is domaingeneral in the sense that there exist multiple avenues by which the distinctiveness of one's worldview can be expressed. These hypotheses were tested using art students and creative writing students. Art students guessed significantly above chance both which painting was done by which of five famous artists, and which artwork was done by which of their peers. Similarly, creative writing students guessed significantly above chance both which passage was written by which of five famous writers, and which passage was written by which of their peers. These findings support the hypothesis that creative style is recognizable. Moreover, creative writing students guessed significantly above chance which of their peers produced particular works of art, supporting the hypothesis that creative style is recognizable not just within but across domains.