The Creative Process in Visual Art: A Longitudinal Multivariate Study

The purpose of this research was to study the creative process in real-life settings and in a multicomponential perspective of creativity. Relations between the creative process and other important variables (mood, personality, and the creative product) were investigated. The data analyzed were collected in four applied art schools (n = 41) in Switzerland, during mandatory workshops. The creative process was operationalized through 2 subprocesses: generation (idea production) and selection (idea evaluation), both repeatedly measured across the workshops. The trajectories of theses subprocesses were modeled with a commonly used statistical model for longitudinal data (Latent Growth Models). Results showed that generation had an overall decreasing pattern through time, whereas selection had an inverted U-shaped pattern. Important individual differences in both subprocesses and related variables were also found, many of which had strong predictive validity. Indeed, process and personality variables explained 70% of the variance of the evaluation of the final product.