On the Situational Characteristics of Creativity in the Social Interaction of High School Students

The article examines the results of an exploratory empirical study of creativity in social interaction. The study involved 52 high school students (students of the gymnasium and school with a creative direction). To test the hypothesis of the situationality of social creativity, a block of situations with negative (Hao et al.) and positive connotations was used (the fluency and originality of decisions were calculated), as well as the Shvarts's value questionnaire. According to the results, malevolent creativity and prosocial creativity are not a single construct, although they are used to solve problems in social interaction. The results showing the connection of malevolent creativity and achievement values are analyzed. The results show that adolescents of both sexes produce ideas about harm in anonymity of revenge. Unexpected were the aggressive ideas of some high school students, although concerning involuntary harm, in a situation with a legitimate task. It is concluded that when studying creativity it is important to take into account the situational characteristics and legitimacy of the problem. Further directions of research are suggested.