Marion Botella

Creativity as action: findings from five creative domains

The present paper outlines an action theory of creativity and substantiates this approach by investigating creative expression in five different domains. We propose an action framework for the analysis of creative acts built on the assumption that creativity is a relational, inter-subjective phenomenon. This framework, drawing extensively from the work of Dewey (1934) on art as experience, is used to derive a coding frame for the analysis of interview material. The article reports findings from the analysis of 60 interviews with recognized French creators in five creative domains: art, design, science, scriptwriting, and music. Results point to complex models of action and inter-action specific for each domain and also to interesting patterns of similarity and differences between domains. These findings highlight the fact that creative action takes place not “inside” individual creators but “in between” actors and their environment. Implications for the field of educational psychology are discussed.

The long-term impact of hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy on survivors treated for peritoneal carcinomatosis: a cross-sectional study

BackgroundHyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) after complete surgical resection is currently accepted as a therapeutic option for peritoneal carcinomatosis. However, considerable morbidity is reported after HIPEC.ObjectiveWe aimed to evaluate the impact of HIPEC on the quality of life (QoL) of survivors without recurrences of disease according to socio-demographic and medical variables. For that purpose, HIPEC was used as a global concept including the surgical procedure effects.Materials and methodsA cross-sectional study was performed by analyzing questionnaires concerning socio-demographic data, the psychological status, and general and specific QoL scores.ResultsSixty-eight patients (86% of those contacted) completed and returned mailed questionnaires. For 19/21 QoL dimensions explored, survivors reported good to very good QoL with a median score ≥67%. The two adversely affected dimensions were future prospects and sexual functioning with a mean score of 57% and 23%, respectively. The burden of carcinomatosis, evaluated by a peritoneal index, was not correlated with statistically identified sequels in QoL. The extent of morbidity due to HIPEC, evaluated by the hospital stay, was statistically correlated with only one score, namely, embarrassment during social activities (p = 0.01) but not during familial life.ConclusionsEven though HIPEC is considered as an aggressive treatment, survivors reported good to very good QoL. However, specific care for the psychological aspect, as reflected by anxiety regarding future prospects and sexual activity, needs to be developed for survivors.

Burnout, empathy and their relationships: a qualitative study with residents in General Medicine

Some studies have shown that burnout may have a negative impact on clinical empathy during internship. However, clinical empathy may also be a protective factor, preventing residents from experiencing burnout. Although several quantitative studies have been conducted to examine these relationships between burnout and empathy, no qualitative studies have been carried out. To examine how residents in general practice evaluate the link between burnout and empathy, 24 of them participated in a semi-structured interview. A thematic analysis was carried out to examine residents’ discourses and answers to closed questions. The results indicated that residents thought that empathy and burnout were clearly related in different ways. They identified five types of relationship: regulation strategy, empathy as protection, psychological balance/imbalance, fatigue and moderating factors.

Creative Processes: Art, Design and Science

Since Wallas (1926), the description of the stages of the creative process concerned creativity in general, including art, science, design or music. But what about differences in the creative process between different fields of endeavor? The objectives of this chapter are to describe creative processes respecting an ecological approach by observing the process in its natural context. Analyses of the transitions between process stages, by domain and across domains, show specific patterns underlying creative work. In this chapter, a new vision of the creative process across fields is offered. Issues of process-related domain specificity are discussed.

Ecological and Dynamical Study of the Creative Process and Affects of Scientific Students Working in Groups

Although creativity has drawn the attention of researchers during the past century, collaborative processes have barely been investigated. In this article, the collective dimension of a creative process is investigated, based on a dynamic and ecological approach that includes an affective component. Dynamic means that the creative process is no longer considered as sequential, and ecological, that the individuals were observed in their normal place of creation. This study was conducted with science students that were required to carry on a research project during 15 weeks in small groups. The results tend to confirm the hypothesis of a nonlinear process, with important variations of the affects depending on the stage. Moreover, each group creative process seems to be specific. The relation between the social functioning of the group and the process is also discussed. Finally, because it is a part of any teamwork, verbalization is proposed as a new powerful tool to investigate creative process.

The Creative Process in Graphic Art

The visual arts have traditionally been treated as a major domain of creative activity and were the subject of some of the first empirical studies of creativity, such as Patrick’s seminal research (Patrick in Archives of Psychology 178:1–74, 1935; Journal of Psychology 4:35–73, 1937). In this chapter, the artistic creative process will be examined through: (1) interviews of professional artists, (2) observations of art students in real contexts, and (3) exercises proposed to art students to develop their creative process; the creative process will be examined with a particular attention paid to the factors involved in artistic creativity using the multivariate approach to creativity. This approach describes four main categories of factors: cognitive, conative, emotional, and environmental factors (Lubart et al. in Psychologie de la creativite. Armand Colin, Paris, 2015).

The Multivariate Approach and Design of the Creative Process

Creativity is often described as an essential aspect of the innovative design process. As such, many authors have proposed models aiming to describe existing creative practices, both at the macro level—i.e. the stages involved in a creative process—and at the micro level—i.e. the underlying cognitive processes. Conversely, many other models are of a prescriptive nature: their goal is not to describe existing practices, but to structure them in order to help professionals deal with the uncertainty that is inherent to creativity. Whatever the type, such models aim to answer the following question: how can creative work be structured in order to ensure the optimal deployment of creative potential? The multivariate approach posits that creative behaviour is made possible by interactions between multiple resources including cognitive, conative, emotional and environmental factors. Like existing models, the multivariate approach has shown potential for both descriptive and prescriptive modelling of the creative process. In this chapter, we will review existing research on the multivariate approach of creativity. We will begin by describing the theoretical and methodological background of such models. We will then go on to describe some of the results obtained by multivariate modelling of the creative process in recent years. Finally, we describe some prospects for future research, specifically concerning prescriptive modelling—that is, the design of the creative process.