ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the social conditions that are most conducive to creativity. The reason for developing a social psychology of creativity is more important than the simple dearth of studies in this area: social and environmental factors seem to play a crucial role in creative performance. There is considerable informal evidence that social-psychological factors have a significant impact on the productivity and creativity of outstanding individuals. As a result of the focus on individual differences, some potentially important areas of inquiry into creativity have been virtually ignored. There has been a concentration on the creative person, to the exclusion of "creative situations"— circumstances conducive to creativity. There has been a narrow focus on internal determinants of creativity to the exclusion of external determinants. Within studies of internal determinants, there has been an implicit concern with "genetic" factors to the exclusion of contributions from learning and the social environment.
