Characteristics of the components of the general class denominated creative behaviour identified upon the Behaviour Analysis literature

Abstract

A lot of knowledge has already been produced concerning to what is called “creativity”. On the perspective of the Behavior Analysis, “creativity “ has been considered as a behavior, being this understood as a system of relationships that establishes among on what the organism does and its environment. To investigate the phenomenon “creativity” starting from a notion of behavior, it thus requires identifying the characteristics of each component of the general class denominated creative behavior. On such terms, 20 sources of information referring to the creative behavior in general have been selected, the creative behavior related to the behavior of solving problems or verbal behavior. The procedure utilized was consisted upon: (1) reading the information sources, (2) extraction of passages that referred to the definition of creative behavior, creativity, new behavior, or characteristics as originality, ineditism and infrequency, (3) organization of the detached extracts according to the characteristics of each component of the behavior: characteristics of the antecedent stimuli class, characteristics of the responses class and characteristics of the consequent stimuli class, and (4) extract groupings in a same category according to the similarity of the behavioral process in which the extract have been referring to. With such proceedings it was possible to explicit characteristics of the general class denominated creative behavior. As characteristic of the antecedent stimuli class, it is possible to affirm that this category is constituted by “new stimuli”, whose relationship of control is subtle. The responses class of the creative behavior is characterized by infrequent responses, not emitted by others until then. The detected responses are denominated through verbs as “to vary”, “to manipulate”, “to associate”, “to combine” and “to create links of connection not so common”. The consequent stimuli class is characterized by the need in which the response or its products are to be useful, according to some criteria, to the individual or to the society. Such terms as “new” and “subtle” are used to refer to the creative behavior, however, they are vague terms and they do not specify any peculiar property of the stimulus that establishes a relationship with a responses class directly, and thus, insufficient to refer to the creative behavior with more precision and clarity. From the examined works, categories were elaborated in which verbs as “to vary”, “to manipulate”, “to associate”, “to combine” and “to create links of connection not so common”; these verbs denote variation in the response and, consequently, indicate the relevance of the study of the behavioral variability for the understanding of the creative behavior. The usefulness of the response was the utmost consistent aspect in the exam of the selected works, the usefulness of the response or of its products is most probably a defining characteristic of the general creative behavior class. Starting from the characterization of the general creative behavior class, it is possible to plan with more precision the teachings of such behaviors class and thus to increase the creative dimension of the behaviors.