Creativity from Start to Finish: A “Straight‐A” Model of Creative Process and Its Relation to Intelligence

This article describes a “straight‐A” model of the creative process. It characterizes the creative process in five overlapping phases, with the variables most affecting those phases characterized as: (1) activators, (2) abilities, (3) amplifiers, (4) appeal to audience, and (5) assessment by audience. The creative process does not complete itself often, in part because all five phases rarely work in the right direction. For example, at Phase 1, there are deactivators as well as activators and at Phase 3, there are attenuators of creativity as well as amplifiers. I further discuss in the article the implications of the model for the relation between creativity and intelligence. In particular, whereas aspects of intelligence (according to the triarchic theory of successful intelligence) involve some degree overlap among creative, analytical, and practical skills, true creativity involves a true conjunction of these skills and is therefore much rarer.