Creativity (53 page)
Authors: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Shankar, Ravi.
Male. b. 4/7/20. Sitar player, composer. Indian. Director of All-India Radio’s instrumental ensemble (1949-1956); toured extensively around the world; founder of Kinnara School of Indian Music, Los Angeles. Recipient, honorary degrees from the University of California and Indira Kala Sangeet University; Indian National Academy of Music, Dance, and Drama (1962); National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (1966); UNICEF; the Presidential Padma Bhushan Award. Composer, two concertos for sitar and orchestra (1970, 1976). Several ballet and film scores. See
Raga
(full-length film on his life and music, 1972);
My Life, My Times
(autobiography, 1978);
The Great Shankars: Uday, Ravi
(1983). Interviewed by Grant Rich (5/2/94). Age 73.
Smith, Bradley.
Male. b. 6/30/10. Photojournalist, author. American. Exhibitions of his photographs by the Museum of Modern Art; others. Freelance photographer for
Life, Paris Match, Time
, and other magazines (1942-1965). Author,
Japan: A History in Art
(1964);
Erotic Art of the Masters
(1974); France:
A History in Art
(1984); others. Interviewed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (4/17/91). Age 83.
Snow, Michael.
Male. b. 10/10/29. Artist, jazz musician, cinematographer. Canadian. Professor of advanced film at Yale University (1970). Recipient, Guggenheim fellowship (1972); honorary degrees from Brock University, Ontario (1976), and Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (1987); Order of Canada (1983). Paintings exhibited at the World Exposi
tion of 1967, The Ontario Gallery of Art, The National Gallery of Art; others. Piano solos and band performance recorded on CCMC label, others. See
The Michael Snow Project
(1993);
Presence and Absence: The Films of Michael Snow, from 1956 to 1991
(1995). Interviewed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (5/11/94). Age 64.
Spock, Benjamin.
Male. b. 5/2/03. Pediatrician, psychiatrist, author, activist. American. Recipient, Gold medal (crew) 1924 Olympic Games; Family Life Book Award (1963); Thomas Paine Award, National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee (1968). Author,
The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care
(1946; 6th rev. ed., 1992 [with Michael Rothenberg]);
A Better World for Our Children
(1994); others. Presidential candidate, P
eoples Party (1972). See his
Spock on Spock: A Memoir of Growing Up with the Century
(with Mary Morgan Spock, 1989). Interviewed by Kevin Rathunde (7/13/91). Age 88.
Spock, Mary Morgan.
Female. b. 11/27/43. Author, activist. American. Author,
Stepparenting
(1986);
Spock on Spock: A Memoir of Growing Up with the Century
(with Benjamin Spock, 1989). Interviewed by Kevin Rathunde (7/13/91). Age 47.
Stern, Richard.
Male. b. 2/25/28. Writer, teacher. American. Recipient, National Institute of Arts and Letters Fiction Award (1968); American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Medal of Merit for the Novel (1985). Author,
Golk
(1960);
Natural Shocks
(1978);
Noble Rot
(1990); others. See
Richard Stern
, by James Schiffer (1993). Interviewed by Nicole Brodsky, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and Sean Kelley (2/11/94). Age 65.
Stigler, George.
Male. b. 1/17/11; d. 12/1/91. Economist, teacher. American. Professor of economics, University of Chicago. Recipient, Nobel Prize in economics (1982) for work on the economic theory of information and theory of public regulation; National Medal of Science (1987). Author,
The Organization of Industry
(1968);
Essays in the History of Economics
(1965); others. See
his Memoirs of an Unregulated Economist
(1988). Interviewed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Kevin Rathunde (6/7/90). Age 79.
Strand, Mark.
Male. b. 4/11/34. Writer. American (b. Canada). U.S. Poet Laureate, Library of Congress (1990-1991). Recipient, Edgar Allan Poe Award, Academy of American Poets (1974); Bollingen Prize in Poetry (1993). Author,
Sleeping With One Eye Open
(1964);
The Continuous Life
(1990); others. Interviewed by Kevin Rathunde (7/4/91). Age 57.
Trachinger, Robert.
Male. b. 11/26/23. Broadcast executive, educator. American. Vice president, ABC-TV (1978-1985). Winner of Emmy Awards for documentaries (1966-1968). Responsible for the development and first broadcast use of slow-motion videotape, hand-held and underwater cameras. Professor of communications at UCLA for twenty-three years.
International lecturer and consultant. Fulbright scholar (1985-1986). Interviewed by Kevin Rathunde (11/20/90). Age 67.
Weisskopf, Viktor.
Male. b. 9/19/08. Physicist, author, teacher. American (b. Austria). Recipient, Max Planck Medal (Germany, 1956); National Medal of Science (1980); Enrico Fermi Award (1988). Director General, European Organization for Nuclear Research (1961-1966). Author of many scientific publications. Author (general science),
Knowledge and Wonder
(1962); others. See his
The Joy of Insight
(1991). Interviewed by Kevin Rathunde (2/22/91). Age 82.
Wheeler, John A.
Male. b. 7/9/11. Physicist, professor. American. Known for his work on black holes. Guggenheim Fellow (1949-1950). Recipient of the Morrison Prize (1947); Albert Einstein Prize (1965); Enrico Fermi Award (1968); Franklin Medal (1969); National Medal of Science (1971); Herzfeld Award (1975); Niels Bohr International Award (1982); Oersted Medal (1983); Oppenheimer Memorial Prize (1984). In addition to numerous professional papers, some of his publications include:
Geometrodynamics
(1962);
Spacetime Physics
(1966);
Gravitation
(with C. Misner and K. Thorne, 1972);
Frontiers of Time
(with W. Zurek, 1979); and
Quantum Theory and Measurement
(1983). Interviewed by Carol A. Mockros (11/17/92). Age 81.
Whitman, Marina.
Female. b. 3/6/35. Economist, teacher. American. Vice president and chief economist (1979-1985) and vice president and group executive (1985-1992), General Motors Corporation. Recipient, Catalyst Award (1976); Columbia University Award for Excellence (1984). Member, Council of Economic Advisers (1972-1973). Author,
Government Risk-Sharing in Foreign Investment (1965); Reflections of Interdependence: Issues for Economic Theory and U.S. Policy
(1979); others. Interviewed by Jeanne Nakamura (5/25/94). Age 59.
Wilson, Edward O.
Male. b. 6/10/29. Biologist, teacher. American. Recipient, National Medal of Science (1976); Crafoord Prize, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (1990); Gold Medal, World Wide Fund for Nature (1990); Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction (1979 and 1991). Author,
Sociobiology: The New Synthesis
(1975);
On Human Nature
(1978);
The Ants
(with Bert Hölldobler, 1990); others. See his
Naturalist
(1994). Interviewed by Grant Rich (12/2/94). Age 65.
Woodward, Comer Vann.
Male. b. 11/13/08. Historian, writer, professor. American. Leading historian of the American South. Recipient, the Bancroft Prize (1951); National Academy Institute Arts and Letters Literature Award (1954); Pulitzer Prize (1982); Life Work Award, The American Historical Society (1986); Gold Medal for History (1990). Member, the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Author of numerous scholarly articles and eleven books, including,
Tom Watson, Agrarian Rebel
(1938);
Origins
of the New South
(1951);
The Strange Career of Jim Crow
(1955). Editor,
Mary Chestnut’s Civil War
(1981). Also see M. O’Brien, “C. Vann Woodward and the Burden of Southern Liberalism,”
The American Historical Review
(1973). Interviewed by Carol A. Mockros (3/15/93). Age 84.
Yalow, Rosalyn.
Female. b. 7/19/21. Medical physicist. American. Recipient, Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine (1977, with Roger Guillemin and Andrew Schally) for contributions to the discovery and the development of the radioimmunoassay procedure; National Medal of Science (1988). President, Endocrine Society (1978-1979). Author of many scienti
fic publications. Interviewed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (3/14/92). Age 70.
Zeisel, Eva.
Female. b. 11/11/06. Ceramic designer. American (b. Hungary). Recipient, NEA senior fellowship (1983); The Order of the Star Award (Hungarian People’s Republic, 1987). Traveling retrospective exhibition through the United States and Canada organized by Le Château Dufresne and the Smithsonian Institution (1984). Castleton dinnerware set exhibited by MoMA (1946). Ceramic design instructor, Pratt Institute (1939-1953); artistic director, A. T. Heisey [glass factory] (1953); industrial design instructor, Rhode Island School of Design (1959-1960). See
Eva Zeisel: Designer for Industry
, by Martin P. Eidelberg (1984). Interviewed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Kevin Rathunde (1/28/91). Age 84.
S
UMMARY OF
I
NTERVIEWEES
(Several persons could have been listed under more than one heading)
Arts and Humanities
Historians
Davis, Franklin, McNeill, Woodward
Media
Anderson, Gruenenberg, Konner, Noelle-Neumann, Trachinger
Performers and Composers
Asner, Blackwood, Hart, Peterson, Schuler, Shankar
Philosophers and Critics
Adler, Booth, Sebeok
Poets
Domin, Faludy, Hecht, Strand
Visual Artists and Architects
Baskin, N. Holton, Johnson, Kurokawa, Lanyon, Smith, Snow,
Zeisel
Writers
Davies, Gordimer
*
, L’Engle, Levertov, S. LeVine, Livi, Mahfouz
*
,
Sarton, Stern
Sciences
Biologists and Physicians
Commoner, Gould, Klein, Lederberg
*
, Mayr, Salk, B. Spock,
Wi
lson, Yalow
*
Chemists
Eigen
*
, I. Karle, J. Karle
*
, Pauling
**
, Prigogine
*
Economists
K. Boulding, Stigler
*
, Whitman
Physicists and Astronomers
Bardeen
**
, Bethe
*
, Burbidge, Butler, Chandrasekhar
*
, Dyson,
G. Holton, Maier-Leibnitz, Pais, Rubin, Weisskopf, Wheeler
Psychologists and Social Scientists
Campbell, Coleman, R. LeVine, Loevinger, Milner, Neugarten,
Norman, Riesman
Business and Politics
Activists
E. Boulding, Henderson, Honig, M. Spock
Business and Philanthropy
Galvin, Harris, Mahoney, Murphy, Randone, Reed
Inventors
MacCready, Offner, Rabinow
Politics
Gardner, McCarthy
*Denotes recipient of Nobel Prize.
P
ART
A: C
AREER AND
L
IFE
P
RIORITIES
1.
Of the things you have done in life, of what are you most proud?
- a. To what do you attribute your success in this endeavor? Any personal qualities?
2.
Of all the obstacles you have encountered in your life, which was the hardest to overcome?
- a. How did you do it?
- b. Any that you did not overcome?
3.
Has there been a particular project or event that has significantly influenced the direction of your career? If so, could you talk a little about it?
- a. How did it stimulate your interest?
- b. How did it develop over time?
- c. How important was this project/event to your creative accomplishments?
- d. Do you still have interesting, stimulating experiences like this?
4.
What advice would you give to a young person starting out in [subject’s area]?
- a. Is that how you did it? If not how is your current perspective different from the way you started?
- b. Would you advise [concerning importance of field]:
few social contacts or many? Mentors, peers,
colleagues?establish your own identity early or late?
work with leading organizations?
- c. Would you advise [concerning importance of domain]:
specialize early or late?
focus on leading ideas or work on periphery?
- d. Would you advise [concerning importance of person]:
intrinsic versus extrinsic reasons?
tie work to personal values or separate?
5.
How would you advise a young person on why it is important to get involved in [subject’s area]?
- a. Is that why it was important to you? If not, how is your current perspective different?
6.
How did you initially become involved or interested in [subject’s area]? What has kept you involved for so long?
7.
Have there been points when what you were doing became less intensely involving
—
seemed less interesting or important to you? Can you describe a time that stands out?
- a. What were the circumstances?
- b. What did you do?
P
ART
B: R
ELATIONSHIPS
1.
If there has been a significant person (or persons) in your life who has influenced or stimulated your thinking and attitudes about your work
…
- a. When did you know them?
- b. How did you become interested in them (e.g., did you actively pursue them)?
- c. How did they influence your work and/or attitudes (e.g., motivation, personal or professional values)?
- d. In what ways was he/she a good and/or bad teacher?
- e. What kinds of things did you talk to this person about (e.g., personal, general career-related, specific problems)?
- f. What did you learn from them? How to choose what problems to pursue? Field politics and marketing yourself?
2.
Is it important for you to teach and work with young people?
- a. Why?
- b. What are you interested in trying to convey to them? Why?
- c. How do you do this?
3.
When you interact or work with a young student, can you assess whether they will be likely to leave the field or become successful in the field?
- a. Do you recognize people who are likely to be creative in their future work? How? What characteristics do they have?
4.
Do you notice differences between men and women students/young people and male and female colleagues in the field? If so
,
- in interests?
- in ability? creativity?
- in the way they approach learning?
- in the way they interact with other people/colleagues?
- in how they define success and achievement?
- in their personal goals and values?
- in their professional goals and values?
5.
What advice would you give a young person on how to balance their private life (i.e., family, other concerns not related to work) with [subject’s area]?
- a. Is that how you did it? If not, how is your current perspective different?
importance of other kinds of life skills?
relative importance of career in early or later life?
Peers and Colleagues
1.
At any time in your life, have your peers been particularly influential in shaping your personal and professional identity?
2.
In what way(s) have colleagues been important for your personal and professional identity and success?
Family
1.
In what way(s) do you think your family background was special in helping you to become the person you are?
2.
How did you spend most of your free time as a child? What kinds of activities did you like to do? With peers? parents? siblings? alone?
3.
In what way(s) have your spouse and children influenced your goals and career?
P
ART
C: W
ORKING
H
ABITS
/I
NSIGHTS
1.
Where do the ideas for your work generally come from?
- a. From:
reading?
others?
your own previous work?
life experiences?
- b. What determines (how do you decide) what project or problem you turn to when one is completed?
- c. Have there been times when it’s been difficult to decide what to do next? What do you do?
2.
How important is rationality versus intuition in your work? Describe
.
- a. Are there two different styles in your work (e.g., one more “rational” and the other more “intuitive”)?
- b. Do you think it’s important to “go with your hunches” or “trust your instincts”? Or are these usually wrong/misleading?
- c. Do you have better success with a methodical, rigorous approach to your work?
- d. Do you think about work during leisure time? e.g., did you ever have any important insights during this “off” time?
- e. How many hours of sleep do you usually get? Do you tend to d
o your best work early in the morning or late at night? - f. Have you ever had a useful idea while lying in bed, or in a dream?
3.
How do you go about developing an idea/project?
- a. Do you write rough drafts? Outlines? How often do you rewrite?
- b. Do you publish your work right away or wait awhile?
4.
Can you describe your working methods?
- a. How do you decide what mail to answer, interviews to do, etc.?
- b. Do you prefer to work alone or in a team?
5.
Overall, how is the way you go about your work different now from the way you worked twenty years ago?
- a. What if any changes have there been over the years in the intensity of your involvement in [subject’s area]?
- b. What about changes in the way you think and feel about it?
6.
Have you experienced a paradigm change in your work? Describe.
P
ART
D: A
TTENTIONAL
S
TRUCTURES AND
D
YNAMICS
1.
At present, what task or challenge do you see as the most important for you?
- a. Is that what takes up most of your time and energy? If not, what does?
2.
What do you do about this? [probe for field/domain/reflection]
3.
Do you do this primarily because of a sense of responsibility, or because you enjoy doing this? Describe.
- a. How has this changed over the years?
4.
Are you planning to make any changes in how actively you work i
n [subject’s area]?
5.
If we had spoken to you thirty years ago, what different views of the world and yourself would you have had?
6.
Have there been some personal goals that have been especially meaningful to you over your career? If yes, could we talk about some of the most significant?
- a. How did your interest in this goal begin?
- b. How did it develop over time? (Now?)
- c. How important was this goal to your creative accomplishments?