Sociocultural context of individual creativity: A transhistorical time-series analysis.

Abstract

Hypotheses were stated which specify individual creativity as a function of developmental and productive period variables. It was then argued that these hypotheses could be better tested by examining generational fluctuations in creativity. Information from cultural and political archival sources was thus aggregated to form time series spanning 127 generations of European history. Data quality checks, control variables, data transformations, time-lagged comparisons, and trend analyses were used to improve the validity of the causal inferences. While the results varied according to the type of creativity (discursive or presentational) and the degree of achieved eminence, creative development was found to be affected by the following: (a) role model availability, (b) political fragmentation, (c) imperial instability, and (d) political instability.