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Publications
Hennessey, B.A., & Amabile, T.M. (2005). Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. In N. Nicholson, P. Audia, & M. Pillutla (Eds.), Blackwell Encyclopedia of Management, Second Edition, Organizational Behavior (121-122). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Hennessey, B.A. (2004). Creativity, classrooms, culture, and communication. Review of The
Educational Psychology of Creativity by John Houtz (Ed.). Contemporary Psychology: APA Review of Books, 49, 761-763.
Hennessey, B.A. (2004). Developing creativity in gifted children: The central importance of motivation and classroom climate (RM04202). The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented Senior Scholar Series. Storrs, CT: NRCG/T, University of Connecticut.
Researchers and theorists have long been interested in discovering the roots of creative behavior. Implicit in much of this work has been a focus on the internal determinants of creativity, to the exclusion of external factors such as the environmental circumstances conducive to creativity. Yet creativity does not come about in a vacuum. Empirical work carried out by investigators trained in social psychology tells us that there is a direct link between the motivational orientation brought by a student to a task and the likelihood of her being creative at that task, and it is the environment that in large part shapes that motivational orientation. It is argued that, while the two research traditions have remained fairly separate, there are many important parallels between work being done in the field of gifted and talented education and the social psychology of creativity. In particular, both areas of inquiry emphasize the interface between person and context. Giftedness can be nurtured if conditions are right for an appropriate interaction to take place between the individual and the environment. And intrinsic motivation and creativity flourish in situations free of extrinsic constraints. Taken together, these two research paths lead to the conclusion that close attention must be paid to school climate if student motivation, creativity and special talents are to be developed. The influential effects of classroom environment on motivation and creativity of performance are staggering. Research is reviewed which reveals that the typical American classroom is fraught with killers of intrinsic interest and creativity. Nowhere is this situation more dire than in the gifted and talented classroom or "pull-out" program where the promotion of students' intrinsic motivation and creativity of performance is a top priority. Particular attention is given to the impact of these extrinsic constraints on the motivation and performance of linguistically and culturally diverse students and concrete suggestions are made as to how policy makers, administrators, and teachers can work together to create an inclusive school and classroom atmosphere that will promote the development of creativity and an excitement about learning among all gifted students.
Hennessey, B.A. (2004). The Social Psychology of Creativity: The Beginnings of a Multi-Cultural Perspective. In S. Lau (Ed.), Creativity: When East Meets West (pp. 201-226). Hong Kong: World Scientific Publishing.
Over 25 years of research conducted in Western settings reveal that motivation plays a central role in the creative process. It is not enough to have deep conceptual understanding or unusually high levels of skill. Numerous empirical studies have demonstrated that if individuals working and learning in the West are to reach their creative potential, they must approach a task with intrinsic motivation--they must engage in that task for the sheer pleasure and enjoyment of the activity itself rather than for some external goal. Psychological theorists now propose that there is a direct relation between the motivational orientation brought to a task and the likelihood of creativity at that task; and it is particular features of the environment that in large part determine that motivation. The present paper outlines investigations grounded in a social psychological tradition that reveal that the typical American educational setting, from kindergarten to high school, is characterized by teaching practices and curricular features that kill intrinsic motivation and creativity. New data collected in a Saudi educational environment are also presented. It is argued that findings from this, one of the first empirical investigations into the impact of the classroom environment on the motivation and creativity of students in a non-Western setting, call into question the universal applicability of the Social Psychology of Creativity. A framework for the multi-cultural study of creativity in the schools, particularly in Asian classrooms, is suggested.
Hennessey, B.A. (2003). Is the Social Psychology of Creativity Really Social?:
Moving Beyond a Focus on the Individual. In P. Paulus, & B. Nijstad (Eds.), Group creativity: Innovation through collaboration (pp. 181-201). New York: Oxford University Press.
Creativity does not come about in a vacuum. Throughout history, there have been numerous instances of collaborative efforts that resulted in significant creative breakthroughs. As a young man, Albert Einstein and some friends formed a club they called The Olympia Academy. Each week, Academy members would take long walks through the mountains near Bern, discussing topics in physics and the philosophy of science and offering support and inspiration. In their race against Linus Pauling to uncover the mysteries of DNA, James Watson and Francis Crick also drew inspiration from one another; and it was a collaborative effort between Picasso and Braque that led to the initiation of the Cubist movement in art. Even when working alone, it is almost always the case that the individual creator is in some kind of influential relationship with others. Paul Gaugin and Vincent van Gogh shared a flat and painted side-by-side in Arles, and many of their Impressionist comrades drew their support from nightly meetings in the cafes of Paris.
The dedication of this volume to the phenomenon of group creativity speaks to our deep appreciation of the important role played by group interaction and group composition in the creative process. Yet curiously, with the exception of research that focuses specifically on small group creativity, the empirical study of creativity has often failed to include a consideration of anyone or anything beyond the individual doing the creating. Investigators interested in the psychology of creativity have typically chosen to decontextualize creativity. They have concentrated their efforts on the creative process, the creative person or the creative product, but relatively little attention has been given to the creative milieu, to the environmental factors beyond the creator herself, that contribute to creativity of performance.
Hennessey, B.A. (2003). The Social Psychology of Creativity. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Psychology, 47, 253-271.
Motivation plays a crucial role in the creative process. It is not enough to have unusually high levels of skill or a deep conceptual understanding. In order for students to reach their creative potential, they must approach a task with intrinsic motivation; they must engage in that task for the sheer pleasure and enjoyment of the activity itself rather than for some external goal. Researchers and theorists now understand that there is a direct relation between the motivational orientation brought to a task and the likelihood of creativity at that task. And it is particular features of the school environment and students' daily routine that in large part determine that motivation. The present paper outlines investigations revealing that the typical classroom is fraught with teaching practices and program features that kill intrinsic motivation and creativity. Research designed to immunize students against the negative effects of these damaging classroom elements is reviewed. The argument is made that the undermining of intrinsic motivation and creativity of performance may be largely driven by an affective, rather than a cognitive, mechanism; and recent cross-cultural data gathered in a non-western educational setting are reviewed.
Hennessey, B.A. (2002). The Social Psychology of Creativity in the Schools. Research in the Schools, 9, 23-33.
Motivation plays a central role in the creative process. It is not enough to have unusually high levels of skill or deep conceptual understanding. In order for students to reach their creative potential, they must approach a task with intrinsic motivation--they must engage in that task for the sheer pleasure and enjoyment of the activity itself rather than for some external goal. Researchers and theorists now understand that there is a direct relation between the motivational orientation brought to a task and the likelihood of creativity at that task and that particular features of the environment in large part determine that motivation. The present paper outlines investigations revealing that the typical American school is fraught with teaching practices and program features that kill intrinsic motivation and creativity. Research designed to immunize students against the negative effects of these damaging classroom elements is reviewed. A three-component model of creative performance is presented, and concrete suggestions are made as to how teachers can help all students, whether "gifted," "typically developing," or "special needs," to realize their own creative potential.
Hennessey, B.A. (2001). Attending to the Details. In S. Harkins (Ed.), Multiple perspectives on the effects of evaluation on performance: Toward an integration (pp. 173-188). Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Details. We must now pay closer attention to the details. This is the underlying message behind each of the initial five chapters contained in this volume. Most of the theoretical traditions outlined in these pages have been around for quite some time: 25 years, 35 years or even longer. As Tubbs explains, there is voluminous empirical research to support the traditional goal setting paradigm, and the same could be said for social loafing, social facilitation, cognitive evaluation theory, or the social psychology of creativity. Years ago, when these models were just being developed, it made sense to make sweeping generalizations about the effect of evaluation on motivation and performance. Out of necessity, researchers and theorists exploring these relatively uncharted waters began at the macro level and sought to develop general "laws" of behavior that would apply to the majority of persons the majority of the time. But now our level of understanding is much more sophisticated, much more in depth. We have advanced to the point where we must refine our models and look at the subtleties behind the impact of evaluation.
Hennessey, B.A. (2001). The Social Psychology of Creativity: Effects of Evaluation on Intrinsic Motivation and Creativity of Performance. In S. Harkins (Ed.), Multiple perspectives on the effects of evaluation on performance: Toward an integration (pp. 47-75). Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
In this chapter, I will describe research and findings resulting from the study of the social psychology of creativity. Rather than attempting to specify the personality traits that distinguish creative persons or the steps of the creative process, social psychologists have focused their attention on the impact of situational factors on creative performance. Investigations carried out over the past two decades clearly demonstrate that there is a direct link between the motivational orientation brought by an individual to a task and their creativity of performance on that task; and it is the environment, or at least certain aspects of the environment, that in large part determine that motivational orientation. Researchers working within this tradition have identified a number of environmental factors that kill intrinsic motivation and creativity. These include expected reward, competition, surveillance and time limits. But often the most deleterious extrinsic constraint of all has been found to be expected evaluation. Perhaps because situations of evaluation often combine aspects of each of the other "killers," the expectation of evaluation has been shown to severely undermine the intrinsic motivation and creativity of performance of persons across the entire age span, individuals from all walks of life, from preschoolers to professionals whose very livelihood depends upon the creativity of their work.
Hennessey, B.A. (2000). Self-determination Theory and the Social Psychology of Creativity. Psychological Inquiry, 11, 293-298.
Hennessey, B.A. (2000). Rewards and creativity. In C. Sansone & J. Harackiewicz (Eds.), Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation: The Search for Optimal Motivation and Performance (pp. 55-78). New York: Academic Press.
In the November, 1996 volume of the American Psychologist, there appeared a provocative article authored by Eisenberger and Cameron dedicated to the proposition that detrimental effects of reward occur only "under limited conditions that are easily avoided" (p. 1164). The data upon which the authors base their conclusions come primarily from a previously reported meta-analysis (Cameron & Pierce, 1994). Taken together, these two papers have generated a great deal of interest-- and on occasion, some heated exchanges. Two major aspects of the controversy regarding their conclusions have been: criteria for study selection and the method used to combine investigations. The investigations entered into the analysis were often aggregated without regard for crucial factors such as task or reward type, interpersonal context, or intrinsic motivation measure. In addition, many carefully executed and well-known studies were excluded; and an explicit decision was made not to procure unpublished data from individuals known to be doing intrinsic motivation/overjustification. Termed the "file drawer problem" (Rosenthal, 1984), this failure to look beyond published materials poses an important threat to the validity of meta-analytic research.
In essence, the controversy boils down to a conflict between researchers and theorists trained in the behaviorist tradition (Eisenberger, Cameron and colleagues) and those espousing a more social psychological viewpoint. In October of 1997, Eisenberger had the opportunity to debate the issues with some social psychologists at the annual meeting of The Society for Experimental Social Psychology (SESP) in Toronto. Seemingly overnight, there was in the academic community renewed interest in the reward literature. Published in the June, 1998 volume of the American Psychologist were three comments (authored by Hennessey and Amabile; Lepper; and Sansone and Harackiewicz) on the Eisenberger and Cameron (1996) piece. Also in that same issue there appeared a response from the authors (Eisenberger and Cameron, 1998). The present chapter expands upon some of the issues raised in these exchanges and focuses, in particular, on the impact of reward on creativity.
Hennessey, B.A. (1999). Intrinsic motivation, affect, and creativity. In S. Russ (Ed.), Affect, creative experience, and psychological adjustment (pp. 77-90). Philadelphia: Taylor and Francis.
A perusal of the chapters in this volume would suggest that special talents, psychopathologies, a playful perspective, affective processes, and feelings of tension and disequilibration all play an important role in the creative process. Yet, in addition, many social psychologists would add one more essential ingredient, intrinsic motivation, to this list. In essence, people have been found to be most creative when they feel motivated primarily by the interest, enjoyment, satisfaction, and challenge of the work itself--not by external pressures. The present article explores the research on intrinsic motivation and proposes a theoretical explanation for the impact of motivation on creativity that is based on an individual's affective response to the task at hand. Two lines of research, one designed to "immunize" children against the usually deleterious effects of reward and the other an investigation of young children's concepts of work and play, are highlighted. The argument is made that it is not negative affect per se but the specific type of negative affect engendered by the imposition of extrinsic constraints that undermines intrinsic motivation and creativity of performance.
Hennessey, B.A., & Amabile, T.M. (1999). Consensual assessment. In M. Runco & S. Pritzker (Eds.), Encyclopedia of creativity (pp. 347-359). New York: Academic Press.
Creativity is a concept that is difficult to define and even more difficult to measure. The majority of creativity researchers and theoreticians believe that the key to understanding this phenomenon lies in the study of individual difference variables and the unique constellation of traits that make up the creative person. Others focus their attention on the creative process. A third group has chosen to concentrate on the fruits of that process - the creative product. But how are we to decide whether one product is more creative than another? Is it appropriate for such creativity criteria to be laid out by the researcher? Or perhaps the creators themselves should have the final say? The Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT) for assessing creativity is based on the assumption that a panel of independent expert raters, persons who have not had the opportunity to confer with one another and who have not been trained by the researcher, are best able to make such judgments.
Hennessey, B.A., & Amabile, T.M. (1998). Reward, intrinsic motivation, and creativity. American Psychologist, 53, 674-675.
Eisenberger and Cameron's provocative article (November, 1996) reiterates the points made in Cameron and Pierce (1994), with one important addition--an examination of the impact of reward on creativity. The claim is made that any detrimental effects of reward on creativity can be avoided and that creativity can be easily increased by the use of rewards (p. 1153). However, Eisenberger and Cameron overlook or fail to adequately explain several demonstrations of lower creativity on rewarded activities as compared to non-rewarded activities. Moreover, the evidence that they provide of increased creativity under reward is more informative about relatively simple human behaviors (e.g., filling in circles, word generation) than about actual creative performance. Thus, the operationalization of creativity is key to our critique.
Hennessey, B.A. (1996). Teaching for creative development: A social-psychological approach. In N. Colangelo & G. Davis (Eds.), Handbook of Gifted Education (2nd ed.) (pp. 282-291). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
A social-psychological approach to the study of creativity is especially useful to those seeking answers to the question of how best to foster creative behavior in the gifted classroom. Educational and personality psychologists have tended to investigate only the largely innate or at least immoveable differences between creative and uncreative or gifted and less academically talented persons. Social psychologists, on the other hand, concentrate on "creative situations"--i.e., the particular social and environmental conditions that can positively or negatively impact the creativity of most individuals. The present article explores this social psychological research tradition and demonstrates how the special case of the gifted child can be readily integrated into existing theoretical models of the creative process. Drawing from over 20 years of empirically-based research, specific suggestions are offered as to how programs targeting gifted populations can be structured so as to optimize students' creativity.
Hennessey, B.A. (1995). Comment and reflection. Educational Psychology Review, 7, 209-213.
Hennessey, B.A. (1995). Finding (and Solving?) the Problem. Contemporary Psychology, 40, 971-972.
Hennessey, B.A. (1995). Social, environmental, and developmental issues and creativity. Educational Psychology Review, 7, 163-183.
Parents and teachers alike have been led to believe that the motivation that stems from wanting to earn a good grade or receive a gold star or do better than the person sitting at the next desk is a positive force. However, in the case of open-ended, creative tasks--tasks for which there is more than one possible solution--extrinsic constraints have frequently proven harmful. A social-psychological approach to the study of creativity is especially useful for answering the question of how best to foster creativity in the classroom. Rather than focus on the (largely innate or at least immalleable) differences between creative and uncreative persons, social psychologists concentrate on "creative situations" (i.e., the particular social and environmental conditions that can positively or negatively impact the creativity of most individuals. The present article explored this research tradition and proposed a theoretical explanation for the impact of motivation on creativity that is based upon children's conceptions of work and play.
Hennessey, B.A. (1994). The Consensual Assessment Technique: An examination of the relationship between ratings of process and product creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 7, 193-208.
For over two decades, researchers have employed a consensual assessment technique in their investigation s of creativity. Formally articulated by Amabile in 1982, this subjective rating procedure is based upon a consensual assessment of creativity: A product or response is creative to the extent that appropriate observers agree that it is creative. Although there exists a wealth of data on the reliability and construct validity of this approach, very little is known about what judges are responding to when they make assessments of product creativity. The four studies described here represent a preliminary exploration of the mechanisms underlying the consensual assessment procedure. Findings were that: (a) judges were able to reliably assess not only the creativity of a finished product but also the creativity of the process that went into producing that product; (b) ratings of process and product creativity (as well as a variety of other dimensions) tend to be highly correlated; and (c) information about the age of a creator can also significantly affect judges' subjective assessments.
Amabile, T.M., Hill, K., Hennessey, B.A., & Tighe, E. (1994). The Work Preference Inventory: Assessing intrinsic and extrinsic motivational orientations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 950-967.
The Work Preference Inventory (WPI) is designed to assess individual differences in intrinsic and extrinsic motivational orientations. Both the college student and the working adult versions aim to capture the major elements of intrinsic motivation (self-determination, competence, task involvement, curiosity, enjoyment and interest) and extrinsic motivation (concerns with competition, evaluation, recognition, money or other tangible incentives, and constraint by others). The instrument is scored on two primary scales, each subdivided into two secondary scales. The WPI has meaningful factor structures, adequate internal consistency, good short-term test-retest reliability, and good longer term stability. Moreover, WPI scores are related in meaningful ways to other questionnaire and behavioral measures of motivation, as well as personality characteristics, attitudes and behaviors.
Hennessey, B.A., & Zbikowski, S.M. (1993). Immunizing children against the negative effects of reward: A further examination of intrinsic motivation training techniques. Creativity Research Journal, 6, 297-307.
An investigation was conducted to extend previous research on the effect of intrinsic motivation focus sessions on children's subsequent motivational orientation and creativity in an expected-reward situation. Numerous earlier studies have demonstrated the overjustification effect: Initially interested in an activity, an individual who is led to engage in that activity in the presence of some salient extrinsic constraint will judge him- or herself to be motivated by the constraint and not by his own interest. This phenomenon has been demonstrated across the life span. Even very young children who work on an interesting task in order to obtain a reward evidence lower subsequent intrinsic motivation than do children not working for a reward. Other research has shown similar negative effects on creativity. However, two recent investigations indicated that the usual overjustification effect need not always occur. These studies demonstrated that the undermining of school children's intrinsic motivation and creativity may be counteracted by means of videotaped modeling and directed discussion sessions that explicitly (a) deal with ways to cognitively distance oneself from reward contingencies and (b) focus on intrinsic reasons for doing work in school. The present study incorporates important refinements of these earlier immunization attempts and provides particularly strong evidence for the hypothesis that children participating in sessions designed to focus on intrinsic reasons for doing things in school will later treat reward as an actual augmentation of intrinsic motivation. Theoretical and practical implications of this phenomenon are discussed.
Amabile, T.M., & Hennessey, B.A. (1992). The motivation for creativity in children. In T. Pittman & A. Boggiano (Eds.), Achievement and motivation: A social developmental perspective (pp. 54-74). New York: Cambridge University Press. (Chapter has also appeared in Bulgaria as Motivation and Creativity in Children. Translated and published by Leucho Zdravchev, Mladost I, bl 2A, vh. A, 1784, Sofia, Bulgaria.
Hennessey, B.A. (1989). The effect of extrinsic constraints on children's creativity while using a computer. Creativity Research Journal, 2, 151-168.
Two studies were conducted to examine the impact of extrinsic constraints on children's performance while using a computer. Open-ended tasks were presented and possible differential effects of rewards and evaluations imposed by human (experimenter) and non-human (computer) sources were explored in relation to product creativity, motivation, and affective response. Both studies provide support for the hypothesis that reward and evaluation will undermine creativity and motivation, even when a computer serves as the source of these constraints. In addition, a developmental trend emerged with older children being far more adversely affected than their younger counterparts. The theoretical and applied significance of these results are discussed.
Hennessey, B.A., Amabile, T.M., & Martinage, M. (1989). Immunizing children against the negative effects of reward. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 14, 212-227.
Two studies were conducted to examine the effect of intrinsic motivation training on children's subsequent motivational orientation and creativity in an expected reward situation. Past research has demonstrated the overjustification effect: Children who work on an interesting task in order to obtain a reward demonstrate lower subsequent intrinsic motivation than do children not working for a reward. Other studies have shown similar negative effects on creativity. The primary hypothesis of the present research was that the usual overjustification effect would be counteracted by directed discussion sessions focused on intrinsic reasons for working in school and explicitly dealing with ways to cognitively distance oneself from the reward contingency. Both studies provide partial support for this hypothesis. In fact, children receiving the intrinsic motivation training seemed to later treat reward as an actual augmentation of intrinsic motivation. Possible mechanisms for this phenomenon are discussed, including the role of individual difference variables such as self-esteem.
Hennessey, B.A., & Amabile, T.M. (1988). The conditions of creativity. In R. Sternberg (Ed.), The nature of creativity (pp. 11-38). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Hennessey, B.A., & Amabile, T.M. (1988). Story-telling: A method for assessing children's
creativity. Journal of Creative Behavior, 22, 235-246.
Hennessey, B.A., & Amabile, T.M. (1987). Creativity and learning: What research says to the teacher. Washington, DC: National Education Association Professional Library.
Amabile, T.M., Hennessey, B.A., & Grossman, B. (1986). Social influences on creativity: The effects of contracted-for reward. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 14-23.
Three studies were conducted to examine the effects of reward on children's and adults' creativity. The primary hypothesis was that explicitly contracting to do an activity in order to receive a reward will have negative effects on creativity, but receiving no reward or only a noncontracted-for reward will have no such negative effects. All three studies provided support for this hypothesis. Moreover, this support appears to be strong and generalizable across different subject populations, reward types, reward presentations, and creativity tasks. Possible mechanisms for the phenomenon are discussed.