Ideological diversity and creativity: A re-evaluation of a hypothesis
- Authors
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Dean Keith Simonton
University of California
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- Keywords:
- ideological diversity, creativity, political fragmentation, imperial instability
- Abstract
- Using political fragmentation and imperial instability as indicators, an earlier study was carried out in an attempt to show that cultural diversity has a positive influence on personal creative development. In this paper that hypothesis is reexamined by first introducing ideological diversity as a more direct indicator and then testing for relationships using cross-lagged correlation analysis. With data extending over 122 generations (20-year periods) of Western history, it was found that: (1) political fragmentation, imperial instability, and ideological diversity all correlate with creativity, but the first indicator has no contemporaneous relationship with the last 2; (2) none of the cross-lagged correlations between the 3 cultural diversity indicators and creativity were statistically significant, and hence they may not be developmental influences; and (3) political fragmentation has a significant impact on the emergence of ideological diversity in the next generation. The inference was that the original hypothesis is probably oversimplified.
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- Published
- 1976-08-01
- Issue
- Volume 4, 1976, Issue 2
- Section
- Articles
- License
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