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 Ellis Paul Torrance was born on October 8, 1915 to Ellis and Jimmie Paul Torrance on their farm in rural Georgia. Paul was the first born of two children—his sister, Ellen, was born 4 years later. Paul's grandfather, James Torrance, owned a 700 acres farm, on which his family lived. His father, a sharecropper, grew cotton, peanuts, and fruit trees. Most of the family's income came from selling eggs, chicken, beef, pork, butter, and cream. They were poor and always in debt, but fared better than most of the people in the area. As a young boy, Paul was expected to work with his father and hired hands; however, he proved inadequate at farming tasks, due to a learning problem that today would be labeled a disability. The young Torrance felt the shame of his ineptitudes such as not being able to plow a straight line. In an agrarian setting, this inability was more shameful than not being able to read, write, or do arithmetic. Torrance shared “We were eating supper- daddy, mamma, my sister Ellen and I. I was 13 and shaving already. The mid-June day began before daylight with my helping to milk the cows and turn the separator. It ended after dark, the same way. I had spent the rest of the day chopping cotton. For supper we had delicious fresh English peas from our own garden. The way Mamma cooked the, they had a delicious juice- or gravy. I was eating them with a spoon- a method that still seems sensible to me. Daddy stopped eating, looked at me, and said seriously and calmly, “IT’s plain now that you’ll never be able to make a living on the farm. You’ll have to go to town and you’ll have to get an education. It’s time you learned to eat peas with a fork!” (p. 11 Authorized Biography) 
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 Ruth B. Noller was born on October 6, 1922 in Buffalo, New York. She was a self-taught musician who learned to play the violin at the age of six (Young & Field, 2004). Ruth grew up in Buffalo and received her formal education there. She also married and raised her children there. Dr. Noller a noted mathematician, computer programmer and professor of creative studies is internationally recognized for her work in creativity which includes the formula for creativity. She received her B.A. in mathematics and a minor in science in 1942 at the University of Buffalo. Ruth also gained her master’s degree and Doctoral degree (Ed.D) in secondary education and higher learning, respectively, from the University of Buffalo. Dr. Noller is also widely regarded for combining her love of math and creativity in the development of the Formula for Creativity C = fa(K,I,E). Her Formula for creativity purported that - creativity is a function of knowledge (semantics), imagination (divergence), and evaluation (convergence). Ruth died in Sarasota, Florida on June 3rd, 2008, she was 85 years old (Puccio, 2009). (Kathleen O’garro, 2019)
Significant: Dr. Noller worked with Ken McCluskey at the university of Winnipeg in Canada and integrated her mentorship theories within this program which catered to at-risk and native students. The goal was to create a climate that supported the completion of secondary education, cause a reduction in repeat offences and work more effectively with students with special needs. The lost Prizes program identified dropouts who displayed talent in academic-intellectual, artistic, Interpersonal-social, Vocational-Technical, or other domains (McCluskey et al., 2004). The classes included sessions on conflict resolution, learning styles, non-verbal communication, stages of relationships, career exploration and training in Creative Problem Solving. The second part of the program involved on the job training. An extraordinary effort was made to match the participants interests with their job/workplace. The students were able to gain practical experience in the world of work. The results of the program saw students make great strides. Many were able to reassess their priorities, manage real-life problems, generate new alternatives and then take action. NOTEABLE TIMELINE 1952-54 Research Associate in Education at SUNYAB Millard Filmore College 1957- Professional Lecturer at SUNYAB Millard Filmore College 1965- Attended first CPSI and offered a position by Sid Parnes. At the end of the conference she is noted as saying “I knew that I had found something that I didn’t know I was looking for.” 1966- Ruth is named Associate Director of CPSI until her retirement from the SUNY System. 1967-69 Research Assistant in Creative Education at SUNYAB Millard Filmore College. 1968- Instructor in creative problem solving at the Chautauqua Institution Summer School Program in Chautauqua, NY. 1968- First Woman guest lecturer for the Installation Management course as the US Army Management School; Paper on CPS. 1969- Member of the Advisory Committee division of Continuing Education 1969- Co-director of the Creative Studies Project Late 60’s- Co-founded Master’s of Science in Creativity with a minor in Creative Studies 1973- Workshop in Creativity at the College of the Virgin Islands. 1979- CPS Workshop at the University of the West Indies in St. Augustine, Trinidad. 1980- Acting Director of the International Center for Creative Studies (ICCS); Director of Leadership Development (CSPI) 1981- Retired from SUNY as Professor Emeritus of Creative Studies 1982- Retired as Chairman of the Creative Studies Program 1982- Received Distinguished Service Professor Award 1987- Creative Education Foundation Distinguished Leader Award for Exceptional Service 1992- Honored as one of 5 most outstanding 50th Anniversary graduates of UB class of 1942. 1993-1996- Lost Prizes program. Dr. Noller worked with Ken McCluskey at the university of Winnipeg in Canada and integrated her mentorship theories within this program which catered to at-risk and native students. The goal was to create a climate that supported the completion of secondary education, cause a reduction in repeat offences and work more effectively with students with special needs. The lost Prizes program identified dropouts who displayed talent in academic-intellectual, artistic, Interpersonal-social, Vocational-Technical, or other domains (McCluskey et al., 2004). The classes included sessions on conflict resolution, learning styles, non-verbal communication, stages of relationships, career exploration and training in Creative Problem Solving. The second part of the program involved on the job training. An extraordinary effort was made to match the participants interests with their job/workplace. The students were able to gain practical experience in the world of work. The results of the program saw students make great strides. Many were able to reassess their priorities, manage real-life problems, generate new alternatives and then take action. 2001- E. Paul Torrance Award National Association of Gifted Children PUBLICATIONS · Mentoring: An Annotated Bibliography · Mentoring: A Voiced Scarf · Scratching the Surface of Creative Problem Solving · Guide to Creative Action (with Sid Parnes) · Creative Action Book (with Sid Parnes) · Applied Creativity: The Creative Studies Project (with Sid Parnes) · Toward Supersanity: Channeled Freedom (with Sid Parnes) · Creative Problem Solving in Mathematics · It’s a Gas to be gifted: CPS for the gifted and talented · Unlocking hidden potential through mentoring · Mentoring for Creative Productivity References Frey B. R. & Noller R. B. (1991). Mentoring for creative productivity. Buffalo, NY: Center for Studies in Creativity. McCluskey K. W., Noller, R. B., Lamoureux K., McCluskey A. L. A. (2004). Unlocking hidden potential through mentoring. Reclaiming Children and Youth 13(2), 85-89. Noller, R. B. (1978). Creative problem solving in mathematics. Buffalo, NY: Creative Education Foundation Press. Noller, R. B. (1977). Scratching the surface of creative problem solving. Buffalo, NY: DOK Publishers. Noller R. B. & Frey B. R. (1983). Mentoring: an annotated bibliography. Buffalo, NY: Bearly, Limited. Noller, R. B., Heintz, R. E., & Blaeuer, D. A. (1978). Creative problem solving in mathematics. Buffalo, NY: DOK Publishers. Noller, R. B. & Noller, D. J. (1982). Mentoring: a voiced scarf—an experience in creative problem solving. Buffalo, NY: Bearly, Limited. Noller, R. B., Treffinger, D. J. & Houseman, E. D. (1979). It's a gas to be gifted: CPS for the gifted and talented. Buffalo, NY: DOK Publishers. Parnes, S. J. & Noller, R. B. (1973 ). Toward Supersanity: Channeled freedom. Buffalo, NY: DOK Publishers. Parnes, S. J. & Noller, R. B., & Biondi, A. M. (1977). Guide to Creative Action. New York, NY: Scribner. Parnes, S. J. & Noller, R. B., & Biondi, A. M. (1976). Creative Action Book. New York, NY: Scribner. Parnes, S. J. & Noller, R. B. (1972). Applied Creativity: The creative studies project: part II results of the two-year program. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 6 (3), 164-186. Parnes, S. J. & Noller, R. B. (1972). Applied Creativity: The creative studies project: part I, The development. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 6 (1), 11-22. Donald Wallace MacKinnon was born on January 9, 1903 in Augusta, Maine and died at the age of 84 in Stockton, California. MacKinnon was an American psychologist and professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He was primarily known for his research on the psychology of creativity.
Career After receiving his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1933, he became a professor at Bryn Mawr College, where he remained until 1947. From 1944 to 1946, he went on leave from Bryn Mawr College to direct the United States Office of Strategic Services's Station S during World War II. He joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley in 1947, and became the founding director of the Institute of Personality Assessment and Research there in 1949. He remained the Institute's director until 1970, and used the skills he had learned during World War II at the Institute.[3] He was the president of the Division of Personality and Social Psychology from 1951 to 1952, and of the Western Psychological Association from 1963 to 1964. He retired from Berkeley in 1970. In 1973, he began a one-year stint as a visiting fellow at the Center for Creative Leadership and an adjunct professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Dr. Donald W. MacKinnon, a psychology professor who formulated controversial theories on creativity and helped select Secret Service agents in World War II, died last Tuesday in a hospital here. He was 84 years old. Dr. MacKinnon, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley who was an expert on the creative process, recently found that he had Alzheimer's disease. In World War II, as director of Station S, a remote Maryland farmhouse, he helped single out those he believed would make good spies and leaders of European resistance forces. About 2,500 prospective members of the Office of Strategic Services went through the station. In 1949, he founded the Institute of Personality Assessment and Research. In 1959, he announced that creative writers and scientists resembled sedate business people. He issued a controversial report in 1961, saying engineering students were materialistic, power-hungry and lacking in creativity. PUBLICATIONS MacKinnon's first professional publication in psychology was in 1931, and his last in 1981, with over 100 papers, chapters, and books within that span. All of his writing was characterized by impeccable scholarship and graceful expression. Major themes may be noted, including creativity, personality structure, motivation, hypnotizable, and methodological issues in assessment. Some of MacKinnon’s writings achieved classic status and are now standard reading for contemporary psychologists. Examples are:
He was active in editorial work outside of the University, serving at various times on the editorial boards:
HONORS
While a professorship at Bryn Mawr College, MacKinnon took a leave of absence from 1944-46 to serve as director of Station S in the U.S. Office of Strategic Services in World War II. This organization was originally called the Office of the Coordinator of Information (COI). It was created by President Roosevelt to protect the United States from espionage, sabotage, “black” propaganda, guerrilla warfare, and other “un-American subversive practices.” MacKinnon developed assessments designed to identify persons who were “the best fit” for service within the OSS. In 1949, MacKinnon became the founding Director of the Assessment Center, the Institute of Personality Assessment and Research (IPAR). This research program encompassed the study of the person within cultural, institutional, organizational and societal contexts. The center aim at the time was to apply an intensive, multi-method assessment program intended to gain an understanding of individuals who display outstanding personal effectiveness in their careers and lives. References Baumeister, R. F. (1991). Dialogue. Retrieved from Society for Personality and Social Psychology: http://spsp.org/sites/default/files/dialogue62.pdf MacKinnon, D. W. (1987). Some Critical Issues For Future Research in Creativity. The Creative Educator Foundation, Inc., 120-130. MacKinnon, D. W. (1994). How Assessment Centers Were Started in the United States. Pittsburg: Development Dimensions International, Inc.,. Retrieved on May 31, 2009 from http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=hb6z09p0jh&doc.view=frames&chunk.id=div00028&toc.depth=1&toc.id=  RAVENNA HELSON
Ravenna Helson is an Adjunct Professor Emeritus of the Department of Psychology and former long-time Research Psychologist at the Institute of Personality and Social Research and Director of the Mills Longitudinal Study, which she began. Her current interests are personality processes in life-span context, such as how enduring affective-cognitive styles are associated with life choices, roles, stresses, and satisfactions; how identity processes shape work lives and retirement; changes in the self; and the development of wisdom. Long interested in gender issues, Dr. Helson now works with students on data from the Mills Study, which has followed some 120 women for 40 years, from ages 21 to 61. The Mills Study examines long-term personality components (e.g., attachment, traits), social influences on personality (e.g., work and family roles, social networks, the women's movement, the culture of individualism), and processes of growth and development (e.g., how early marriage affects identity consolidation). A Reflection on the Legacy of Ravenna M. Helson’s WorkSPSP had the opportunity to ask Ravenna M. Helson, the 2017 Annual Convention Legacy honoree, how she believes the field has changed over time, and what she considers to be her greatest professional contributions. Ravenna’s responses are below: Changing Personality “In the 1970s and 1980s there was great controversy about what personality was, whether it existed at all,” Ravenna noted. “Whether personality changes was a question that obsessed psychologists in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, and even since. The Mills Study contributed a steady stream of evidence that personality kept adapting to a changing world. Now we are pretty comfortable about accepting a diversity of traits, situations, and levels of personality.” What are the biggest shifts you’ve seen since the Mills Study began? Developing Attachment “When the Mills Study began in the late 1950s, Freud and psychoanalysis were potent influences in the culture. But about the same time two new approaches to psychology were just getting started, attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969; Ainsworth, 1969) and Self Theory (Mahler, 1968; Kohut, 1971). At the age-43 follow-up of the Mills women we sent questions about their relations to their parents as children that prodded impressive support to Kohut's concepts of mirroring and idealizing, and we used a scale that enabled Klohnen and Bera (1998) to write a paper on attachment patterns in the Mills sample. We began to see the continuing importance of our social clock patterns involving marriage and children as attributable to attachment. These are three big kinds of change that the Mills Study has tried to take into account.” Measuring Femininity ”Over time, the Mills Study has used both the California Psychological Inventory (CPI) and the Big Five, along with other measures. The scale that showed the most change over time in the Mills Study from age 21 to 61 was the CPI Femininity scale, which may be considered a measure of feelings of vulnerability in the feminine role. It increased sharply from ages 21 to 43, and decreased sharply from ages 43 to 61. The Big 5 has no Femininity scale, so I am very glad we used the CPI.” Adding Emotion “When the Mills Study began in the late 1950s, emotion was regarded in terms of disruption of behavior, for example as irritability or self-control that was too high or too low. In the 1980s Extraversion and Neuroticism came to be described as tendencies to experience positive and negative emotion, respectively (Costa and McCrae, 1980), and Tellegen's (1985) model of personality identified its primary personality dimensions in terms of affective experience. In a study of personality change from ages 27 to 61, Chris Soto and I (2006) found the variables associated with most change to be Labouvie-Vief's scales for two strategies of emotional regulation, affective optimism and affective complexity. Eva Klohnen and I wrote an article about the affective coloring of personality from young adulthood to middle age (PSPB, 1998). We were excited to be a part of bringing emotion into personality.” What are some examples of collaboration in your work? “One of the main contributions of the Mills Study was to offer concepts encouraging the integrative study of social and psychological concepts through time. The best example is Neugarten's construct of the social clock, referring to the timing norms that influenced the performance of family and work roles over time, which we made into individual difference variables. Abby Stewart and David Winter brought several of their graduate students and spent a sabbatical with us at Berkeley. Abby and I combined our efforts to call attention to the value and importance of conducting and comparing longitudinal studies. We conducted studies which compared Abby's Radcliffe Study, the Mills Study, the IHD longitudinal studies, Cartwright's longitudinal study of women physicians, and sometimes other samples (e.g., Peterson and Klohnen, Realization of generativity in two samples of women at midlife, Psychology of Aging, 1995). Two studies by Duncan and Agronick concerned the influence of importance attached to the women's movement in Mills and Radcliffe samples, the role of personality and of life stage. We published ten papers that compared longitudinal studies.” Do you have any favorite research? “I have always loved the article Jen Pals (JP, 1999) wrote for her second-year project, on how women changed in ego-resilience from ages 21 to 27 depending on whether they felt their identities were restricted, confused, or consolidated in their relation with their marital partner. I was intrigued by what Brent Roberts and I found about how the culture of individualism (1950-85) seemed to help some women adjust to the radical changes in women's roles in the late 1960s and 1970s (Changes in culture, changes in personality: The Influence of individualism in a longitudinal study of women, JPSP, 1997).” Dr. Jennifer Beer, the 2017 Legacy Award Program Chair, also shared why Ravenna was selected as this year’s Legacy honoree. Her thoughts are as follows: “Who could have guessed the bounty that would result after Ravenna M. Helson was offered a half-time appointment at the Institute of Personality Assessment and Research (IPAR) in 1957? She was asked to take over IPAR’s project on creativity in women, and shortly thereafter, she started what would later become the Mills Longitudinal Project when she conducted a study of creativity in the women of the Mills College classes of 1958 and 1960. Between the years of 1960 and 1980, Ravenna maintained a commitment to personality research during a very difficult time for the field of personality psychology. It was not until 1980 that Ravenna was awarded an NIMH grant to study adult development in the Mills women whom she had first studied 20 years earlier. What followed were three remarkably productive decades for Ravenna, as she, along with her many students and collaborators, developed the Mills Project into one of the premier longitudinal studies of its kind, with assessments of the women in their 20s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. The 100+ articles and chapters that have been published on the Mills Project examine how patterns of personality stability and change over time relate to social roles, socio-historical context, and critical life events. One of Ravenna’s seminal contributions was her concept of the social clock project, which she used to show how personality patterns relate to the timing of work and family role commitments (Helson, Mitchel, & Moan, 1984). Two enduring themes that emerge from Ravenna’s rich and varied body of work are (1) personality is more than “just traits” and must include a conceptualization of the whole person, and (2) personality does indeed change, and it changes in different ways for different people depending on their life experiences and circumstances.” References Barron, F., Jarvik, M. E., & Bunnell, S., Jr. (1964). The hallucinogenic drugs. Scientific American. 210:29-37. Gruber, H. E. (1988). The Evolving Systems Approach to Creative Work. Creativity Research Journal 1:27-51. Gruber, H., & Bödeker, K. (2005). Creativity, Psychology and the History of Science. Vol. 245. CEF (2019). A History of Creative Education Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.creativeeducationfoundation.org/about-cef/a-history-of-cef/ Rutgers. (2019). Rutgers University. Retrieved from https://sasn.rutgers.edu/research/centers-institutes/center-molecular-and-behavioral-neuroscience-cmbn Saxon, W. (2005). Howard Gruber, 82, Expert in Cognitive Psychology is Dead. The New York Times Obituaries Monday, February 14, 2005. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/14/obituaries/howard-ernest-gruber-82-a-scholar-of-cognitive-psychology-is.html Stein, M. (1974). Stimulating Creativity. Volume 1. Individual Procedures. Academic Press. New York. REFERENCES Helson, R. (1965). Childhood interest clusters related to creativity in women. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 29(4), 352-361. Helson, R. (1967). Sex differences in creative style. Journal of Personality 35(2), 214-233. Retrieved May 25, 2008, from the Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection database. Helson, R. (1968). Effects of sibling characteristics and parental values on creative interest and achievement. Journal of Personality. 36(4),589-608. Retrieved May 25, 2008, from the SocINDEX database. Helson, R. (1970). Sex-specific patterns in creative literary fantasy. Journal of Personality. 38(3),344-363. Retrieved May 25, 2008, from the SocINDEX database. Helson, R. (1971). Women mathematicians and the creative personality. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 36(2), 210-220. Retrieved May 18, 2008 from the PsycARTICLES database. Helson, Ravenna. (1973a). Heroic and tender modes in women authors of fantasy. Journal of Personality, 41 (4), pp. 493-512. Retrieved May 18, 2008, from the PsycINFO database. Helson, R. (1973b). The heroic, the comic, and the tender: Patterns of literary fantasy and their authors. Journal of Personality, Vol. 41(2),163-184. Retrieved May 18, 2008, from the PsycINFO database. Helson, R. (1983). Creative mathematicians. In R. S. Albert (Ed.), Genius and eminence: the social psychology of creativity and exceptional achievement (pp. 311-330). Oxford, England: Pergamon. Helson, R. (1988). The creative personality. In K. Gronhaug & G. Kaufman (Eds.), Innovation: A cross-disciplinary approach (pp. 29-64). Oslo: Norwegian University Press. Helson, R. (1990). Creativity in women: Outer and inner views over time. In M. A. Runco; R. S. Albert (Ed.), Theories of creativity (pp. 46-47). Newbury Park, CA: SAGE Publications Incorporated. Helson, R. (1996). In search of the creative personality. Creativity Research Journal, 9(4), 295-306. Retrieved June 2, 2008, from the Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection database. Helson, R. (2008). One Surprise After Another. Journal of Personality Assessment. 90(3), 205- 214. Retrieved May 8, 2008, from the InformaWorld database. Helson, R, Mitchell, V, Moane, G. (1984) personality and patterns of adherence and nonadherence to the social clock. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 46(5), 1079-1096.  Mary M. Frasier, an internationally recognized scholar and researcher in gifted education and founder of the Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development in the College of Education, died on Feb. 3.
For three decades, Frasier, a professor of educational psychology, brought national and international recognition to the college with her pioneering and highly influential work in identifying and teaching students who are underrepresented in gifted education programs. As a researcher, scholar and advocate, she had a profound effect on changing the way children are assessed for gifted services. She designed the Frasier Talent Assessment Profile, a comprehensive assessment system with multiple indicators that is much more effective in assessing the gifts and talents of low-income and minority children than the single-indicator tests previously used. She worked with school districts throughout the nation to implement this assessment. The state of Georgia changed its criteria in large part because of Frasier’s work with the Georgia Department of Education Task Force on the Revision of Rules and Regulations for the Identification of Gifted Students. Within the college, Frasier played many vital roles. In 1984, she founded the Torrance Center for Creative Studies-named for the late E. Paul Torrance, a Distinguished Professor of Education at UGA and a pioneer in gifted education-and served as its director for its first decade, then again from 1995 to 1997. The Torrance Center has served many local children, schools and families over the past two decades with a variety of programs, including the Georgia Future Problem Solving Program and the Challenge programs. It has been host for many international and national visiting scholars. Frasier also served as coordinator of the gifted and creative education program in the College from 1996 to 2000. She was associate director and primary investigator for the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented, a consortium of four universities that received $7.5 million in external funding from 1990 to 1995. MARY FRASIER May 17, 1938 marks the birth of Mary M. Frasier, an internationally recognized scholar, and researcher in gifted and talented education. She was from Orangeburg (a segregated town), in Orangeburg County, South Carolina. Her high level of intelligence led her to skip two grades, and enroll in college in her junior year. 1984: She founded the Torrance Center for Creative Studies (Named for the late UGA Distinguish professor E. Paul Torrance Distinguished Professor of Education at UGA, and the early pioneer in gifted education). The Torrance Center has been of service to many local children, schools and families for the past twenty years, through various programs, such as Georgia Future Problem Solving Program and the Challenge programs. As a researcher, scholar, and advocate, Frasier had insightful influence in altering the way children are addressed for gifted and talented services. She designed the Frasier Talent Assessment Profile (F-TAP), which is an all-inclusive assessment system with several indicators that is more functional in assessing gifted and talented minority and low-income children than those single-indicator tests that were used before. She was of the belief that gifted and talented were not separated, but instead a gifted persons were ones who articulated their talents in diverse areas. She defined gifted individuals as people who have prospective to go to the ultimate in any specific area that best fits their talents or a mixture of talents. Her application of this assessment spanned across school districts in the nation. Frasier was also influential in having the state of Georgia change its criteria for assessment, through her work with the Georgia department of Education Task Force, on the Revision of Rules and Regulations for the Identification of Gifted Students. She admitted that her mission in life was to find a way to pull data together. As such she became involved in the Jahvist legislation and directed a project at the University of Georgia. There she had the opportunity to gain insight into how they could better identify the gifted LE- limited English students and gifted children with disadvantaged family backgrounds. The focus of the project was to look at all factors, such as, behaviors and self-perception ability. This, along with her work in core attributes of giftedness, conveyed the success in supporting the state of Georgia into utilizing the multiple criteria. She expressed that in order to make this happen she had to bring in critical research, but also had to convince individuals that this was the way forward. Howard Ernest Gruber was an American psychologist and pioneer of the psychological study of creativity. A native of Brooklyn, Gruber graduated from Brooklyn College with a degree in psychology, earned his Ph.D. from Cornell University, and went on to a distinguished academic career. He worked with Jean Piaget in Geneva and later co-founded the Institute for Cognitive Studies at Rutgers with Dorothy Dinnerstein. At Columbia University Teachers College, he continued to pursue his interests in the history of science, and particularly the work of Charles Darwin. Gruber's work led to several important discoveries about the creative process and the developmental psychology of creativity.
His work on Charles Darwin entitled Darwin on Man: A Psychological Study of Scientific Creativity, became the groundwork of his methodological approach for the case study of evolving systems. This book was awarded Science Book of the Year for 1974 by Phi Beta Kappa. Key aspects of this approach are a radical focus on individuals as situated in a network of enterprise. The method uses a strong existential perspective as regards the "creative" individual who is said to act at all times with knowledge, purpose and affect. Creativity is purposeful work. Howard E. Gruber was a cognitive psychologist, interested in the history of science and the minds of creative persons. The evolving systems approach to creativity, supported by the case study method, emanated from Gruber’s study of the life of Charles Darwin, which spanned almost three decades (Gruber, 1988). The case study method defined by Gruber was essential to understanding the creative person holistically, including all factors that influenced the creative person’s life and their thought processes. In his 1974 volume entitled Stimulating Creativity, Morris Stein acknowledged the significance of the case study method in obtaining rich and detailed data and made connections between the interest of the investigator and the area of the creative person’s life or work that is emphasized. He referenced Freud, for example, who emphasized da Vinci’s mother when he studied the life history of da Vinci. Because the case study can be influenced by the investigator’s interests, Stein (1974) highlights the need for investigators to be attentive when conducting case studies of creative persons. During the time that Howard Gruber was fine-tuning the case study method as a highly qualitative approach to understanding creative persons, Frank X. Barron was working on objective techniques of assessment. Baron was a cognitive psychologist who, like Gruber, earned a Ph.D. in psychology in 1950. However, Gruber contended that psychometric measures show only poor correspondence to real-world creative achievement and they do not address how creative work is actually done (Gruber & Bödeker, 2005). Stein (1974) articulated the difference between creativity manifested in the real-world compared to creativity manifested in test scores as analogous to a chemist who synthesizes compounds in a laboratory to obtain an optimal product, and the psychologist who uses psychometrics to get pure measures of the factors he believes are associated with creativity. Guilford had been at the fore of the psychometric approach to creativity and developed a battery of psychological tests such as the Guilford Plot Titles Test, Guilford's Unusual Uses Test and Simile Insertions. Stein (1974) makes the distinction that many of the Guilford tests are used for establishing the effectiveness of creativity training rather than as measures of creativity. There were also connections between Stein and Barron, regarding the study of psychedelic drugs (Barron, Jarvik & Bunnell, 1964) and their impacts as stimulants of creativity. Research indicates that the experiences elicited by psychedelic drugs are similar to phenomena reported by creative individuals or in studies of the creative process (Stein, 1974). In 1967 Gruber co-founded the Institute for Cognitive Studies at Rutgers University with Dorothy Dinnerstein. In that same year the Creative Education Foundation, which was founded by Sidney Parnes and Alex Osborne in 1954, launched the Journal of Creative Behavior, the first research publication devoted entirely to the study of creativity. The journal is now published by Wiley-Blackwell, the market leader for academic journals (CEF, 2019). The Institute of Cognitive Studies co-founded by Gruber in 1967 later became the Rutgers Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience with a mission to advance understanding of the brain’s structure and function through excellence in neuroscience research and training (Saxon, 2005; Rutgers, 2019). Bibliography The Howard Gruber World Wide Web Site - http://davidlavery.net/Gruber/ Wallace, Doris and Howard E. Gruber, eds. (1989). Creative People at Work: Twelve Cognitive Case Studies. New York: Oxford University Press. NY Times Obituary - http://condor.admin.ccny.cuny.edu/~hhartman/howie%20gruber%20obit.doc http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-247330/Howard-E-Gruber Darwin on Man: A Psychological Study of Scientific Creativity. 2nd. ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980. http://www.springerlink.com/content/x65246v35x683150/ Gugghenheim Fellowship winner - List of Guggenheim Fellowships awarded in 1974 References Haste, Helen (15 March 2005). "Howard Gruber: Psychologist exploring the creative process". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 November 2012. Science Award Winners". The Phi Beta Kappa Society. 2011. Retrieved 27 November 2012.  Dr. Morris Stein also Known as “Moe” was a well renowned psychologist and seminal scholar of creativity. He passed away in May 2006 at age 84. Dr. Stein, retired as Professor Emeritus in 1991, he was on the NYU faculty since the early1960s and had led the Doctoral Program in Social Psychology. Well known for his work on personality and the nature and encouragement of creativity, he authored over ten books and accrued many honors. He was a NYC native. He was born in the Bronx, and attended Highschool at De Witt Clinton High School, and later to further his education at CCNY, and Harvard University. Dr. Stein taught psychology and creativity at Wheaton College in Chicago and at the University of Chicago before returning to New York City at New York University where he later retired. To learn more about Dr. Morris Stein and his phenomenal contribution to the field of Creativity, please see my timeline which highlights his life’s work. admissions: antecedent and personality factors as predictors of college success. (n.p.): College Board. · In 1974, Dr. Morris Stein published Stimulating Creativity, Individual Procedures Volumes 1 Stein, M. I. (1974). Stimulating Creativity: Individual procedures. United Kingdom: Academic Press. · In 1975, Dr. Morris Stein published Stimulating Creativity, Group Procedures, Volumes 2 Stein, M. I. (1975). Stimulating Creativity: Group procedures. United Kingdom: Academic Press. · In 1975, Dr. Morris Stein published Manual for PCT, The Physiognomic Cue Test: A Measure of a Cognitive Control Principle · In 1980, Dr. Morris Stein published Creativity and the Individual Stein, M. I., Heinze, S. J. (1980). Creativity and the Individual: Summaries of Selected Literature in Psychology and Psychiatry. United States of America: Free Press. · In 1981, Dr. Morris Stein published The Thematic Appreciation Test, An Introductory Manual for its Clinical Use with Adults Stein, M. I. (1981). The Thematic Apperception Test: An Introductory Manual for Its Clinical Use with Adults. United States of America: Thomas. · In 1986, Dr. Morris Stein published Gifted, talented, and creative young people: a guide to theory, teaching and research Stein, M. I. (1986). Gifted, talented, and creative young people: a guide to theory, teaching, and research. United Kingdom: Garland. · In 1991, Dr. Morris Stein published Creativity is People in the Leadership & Organizational Development Journal · In 1991, Dr. Morris Stein retired as Professor Emeritus of the Psychology Department at New York University · In 1994, Dr. Morris Stein helped to organize the idea of The Brazilian Creativity Association in Sao Paulo, Brazil · In 2000, Dr. Morris Stein became a Trustee of the Creativity Centre Education Trust in the UK. · In 2003, Dr. Morris Stein became the Honorary Member of the Creativity Centre Education Trust in the UK. · In May of 2006, Dr. Morris Stein passed away at the age of 84  "Everyone has intelligence, we ask not 'How much?' but, more importantly, 'What kind?'" Dr. Mary Meeker, a psychologist living in Manhattan Beach from 1955 until 1968, died of breast cancer in Vida, Oregon on October 4, 2003. She was 82. She founded the SOI (Structure of Intellect) Institute for testing and training of children's intelligence in 1969. She received her doctorate in educational psychology from USC. She received teacher, school psychology and pupil personnel credentials from California, and a clinical psychology license. She touched thousands of people's lives worldwide because she believed that all children have intelligence and that it can be trained. She was a professor at USC, Loyola-Marymount and Cal State Northridge. She served as a distinguished professor lecturing at Harvard, the University of British Columbia and Toronto, and the University of Belgium. She was perhaps best known as a contributor, and as a board member for 10 years, to the National Association for Gifted Children. A member of the American Psychological Association, Dr. Meeker was awarded Education Leader of the Year in 1981. She was selected by the U.S. Office of Education as one of the five social scientists whose work held promise for education in the next century. In 2003, she was selected by the International Center for Studies in Creativity as one of the 50 most creative professional women in America. Dr. Meeker was included in Who's Who in American Science. She was a relative of Kahlil Gibran so it is not surprising that she loved poetry. She became a watercolorist in her early '70's. She is survived by her husband, Robert Meeker in Oregon; three daughters, Jessica Anderson-Maxwell, a writer, of Eugene Or., Dr. Valerie Maxwell, a psychologist, of Manhattan Beach, and Heather Meeker, an attorney in Palo Alto, Ca. Her two grandchildren, Amber and Jesse Wilson attended Manhattan Beach schools. Pre 1950’s · Born in Louisiana in 1921 · Attended University of Texas at age 15 and graduated with a BSc in Industrial Psychology · Married, moved to California and had two children · Worked for a psychiatrist · Received provisional teaching certification and taught students with severe developmental delays as well as students in grades 2 through 4. This teaching experience was the beginning of her life work to determine the best method to address learning gaps in children and adults 1950’s · Divorced, continued to work as a psychologist in the school system, and began graduate studies in educational psychology at the University of Southern California, ultimately earning a MSc, a MEd and later an EdD · Studied under Dr. J. P. Guilford at USC who recognized her as one of the brightest graduate students he had ever taught · Took a position as a Human Factors Specialist at Systems Development Corporation where she met Robert Meeker, a scientist who would become her husband 1960’s · Published extensively on creativity for the preschool child and evaluation of gifted children · Received an EdD from USC, 1966 · Doctoral dissertation focused on the correlation of memory and school achievement · Publication of her book, The Structure of Intellect: Its Uses and Applications (1969), which was a milestone in school-related assessment and broke new ground. 1970’s · Full professor at California State University in the psychology program · Saw the potential for applying Guilford's SI as this allowed intelligence to be precisely measured, an individual’s aptitude in various areas to be identified, and intellectual abilities to be remediated or improved using specific learning materials that targets a specific ability · She termed this application of Guilford’s theory “SOI” · Developed, normed and validated the SOI-LA (Structure of Intellect - Learning Abilities) · SOI-LA was widely used by school districts for admission into gifted and special education programs – although this approach was very controversial · Designed to target learning disabilities by assessing, identifying specific abilities for remediation and then training the identified abilities so the individual learns to perform more complex tasks · SOI has also been connected to Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences · In 1975 opened the SOI Institute with her husband Robert Meeker. This was a business focused on producing SOI assessment and educational materials, offering training for educators, and conducting research · California Committee for Assessing Disadvantaged, 1970 1980’s · Continued to publish extensively regarding assessment and education for both students who were gifted and those with learning disabilities · Named to the California Commission for Education, 1981 · Named Education Leader of the Year, 1981 1990’s · Selected by the U.S. Office of Education as one of five social scientists whose work held promise for education in the 21st century · Developed the Integrated Practice Protocol (IPP) with her husband. This process incorporated intelligence, vision, and sensory integration assessment and remediation 2000’s · Retirement – sort of! · Became a semi-professional watercolour painter · Continued to consult and run training workshops until a few months prior to her death · Deceased 2003 · 2003 - Selected by the International Center for Studies in Creativity, Syracuse, New York, as one of the fifty most creative professional women in America · After Mary's death, her husband Dr. Robert Meeker continued her work at the SOI Institute and this work is carried on today by her daughter Valerie, who is also a psychologist References https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_N._Meeker Piirto, J., & Keller-Mathers, S. (2014). Mary Meeker: A Deep Commitment to Recognizing Individual Differences. In A. Robinson and J. Jolly (Eds.). Illuminating lives: A century of contributions to gifted education (pp. 277-288). New York, NY: Routledge. (retrieved Mar 25, 2019 from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272416346_Piirto_J_Keller-Mathers_S_2014_Mary_Meeker_A_Deep_Commitment_to_Recognizing_Individual_Differences_In_A_Robinson_and_J_Jolly_Eds_Illuminating_lives_A_century_of_contributions_to_gifted_education_pp_27) http://www.soisystems.com/about.html Dr. Calvin W. Taylor was an important figure in the study of human creativity. During the mid-1950s, in response to the Sputnik launch and other cold war pressures, the United States began to devote increased funding to the development of scientific talent. Taylor led several NSF-sponsored conferences on scientific creativity (i.e., the Utah Conferences) that brought together a diversity of perspectives and expertise to discuss issues related to the development of scientific talent. Taylor edited several important books that emerged from the Utah Conferences, many of which are still widely used today.
Taylor, through his own basic research and educational theory, extended and implemented Thurstone's factor analysis studies on The Vectors of Mind into application by developing and implementing the Multiple Creative Talent Teaching Approach. Taylor stated that not all gifted individuals excelled in the same talents. Gifted students who have been evaluated in one talent area as talented may not be very talented in another talent area, and vice versa. Basing his ideas partially on Guilford's Structure of the Intellect model, Taylor found that typical intelligence tests measure only a small fraction of talents that have actually been identified, 10 percent at most. Taylor proposed that multiple talents should be evaluated in the classroom in order to identify more students as gifted in recognized talent areas. Nine talent areas that Taylor has identified for instructional emphasis include academic, productive thinking, planning, communicating, forecasting, decision-making, implementing, human relations, and discerning opportunities. Several positive outcomes to this approach were postulated:
Publications
Anonymous (2001). Calvin W. Taylor (1915-2000). American Psychologist, 56, 519. Taylor, C. W. (1968). Cultivating new talents: A way to reach the educationally deprived. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 2, 83-90. Taylor, C. W. (1986). Cultivating simultaneous student growth in both multiple creative talents and knowledge. In J. S. Renzulli (Ed.), Systems and Models for Developing Programs for the Gifted and Talented (pp. 307-350). Mansfield Center, CT: Creative Learning Press. Characteristics of Creative Scientific Talent: Dr. Taylor conducted numerous studies to focus on identifying the criteria of creative talent in science. The study comprised of the collection of biographical information for over 2000 NASA scientists. The Biographical Inventory was a 300 item questionnaire which consisted of questions relating to the following areas: values, beliefs, parental information, childhood experiences, academic experiences, interests, self-descriptions and items leadings to satisfaction and dissatisfaction. This information would then lead to identifying the main experiences, self-descriptors and biographical nature to determine distinctions of highly creative individuals with the greatest creative potential in science. Performance criteria for the study with NASA scientists are: criteria for records from NASA research centers, data from publications and number of patents from scientists. Three criteria to measure research were: creativity checklist, productivity checklist and creativity rating scale. Correlation between creativity checklist and rating scale is .69. There was a .59 cross validity correlation for predicting two creativity criteria of the best biographical score. This high score provided valid results for predicting job placement, satisfaction and engagement in a new field at the time. Revised Form B and Form C led to statistically significant cross validity coefficients that indicated professional self-confidence, independence and autonomy, respectively, were most valid predictors from the creativity criteria. It was concluded that the highly creative scientists had similar characteristics of a creative person. They were very confident in their abilities and work. They also held on their personal beliefs even if it meant standing alone. They preferred working with a sense of independence and focusing solely on their work while excluding other things with less priority for them. This study led to the early identification of scientific talent through data driven decisions of developing summer programs and fellowship opportunities for highly creative high school and college students. Taylor, C. & Ellison, R. (1967). Biographical predictions of scientific performance, 155, 3766, 1075-1080. Multiple Creative Talent Approach: Dr. Calvin Taylor designed “Form U” to identify biographical characteristics to include: areas of academics, leadership, creativity and the arts. Additional features of the form include: vocational maturity and educational attainment. This form was useful the for developing the Multiple Creative Talent Approach model in terms of identifying talents as an alternative for IQ. It also has a significant predictive validity than any other single factor predictors. Form U has been proven to measure giftedness for elementary and high school students, alternative for standardized testing given its highly performance in academic achievement and career success. Form U was instrumental to the development of the multiple talent teaching program which led to the improvement of performance on standardized test scores for a district placed within low socioeconomic status. The form would aid in the identification of areas of deficiencies to reduce dropouts and truancies and focus on the development of the individual holistically thereby leading to higher self-concept and self-development as a means for success. The Multiple Creative Talent Approach was a teaching and learning approach for educators. Teachers would use the approach to nurture students into the development of a wide range of talents. This philosophy evolved from the fundamental belief that people have different talents and skills of varying degrees. This approach resulted in a focus of talents which would become useful for the workplace. These talents are: decision making, forecasting, productive thinking and communication. Other talents later identified were: planning, human relations and discerning of opportunities. Dr. Taylor believed that these skills are essential and should be developed simultaneously with academics. These skills are also important for helping to develop thinking skills necessary for evaluating knowledge in order to develop new knowledge or solutions for a problem. As a complex process, the approach would include cognitive, affective and psychometric measures. Utah Scientific Conferences: Led by Dr. Calvin Taylor, the scientific conferences were designed to identify characteristics of creative talent and the research utilize to identify and nurture creative scientific talent. These conferences occurred as a result of Russia’s Sputnik launch in the early 1950’s and the United States’ attempt to respond in student preparedness in the sciences. There were three conferences held consecutively: 1955, 1956 and 1957 at the University of Utah. These conferences were sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The conferences included presentations from major contributors of the field to include: Morris Stein, Brewster Ghiselin, Frank Baron, J.P. Guilford, Joe McPherson and Robert Wilson, to name a few. There were also committee reports and group discussions on the research findings relating to scientific creativity. Several scientists presented research on the following topics: personal characteristics, identification of scientific talent, social and technological influences on creativity, environmental factors and biographical information relating to military personnel and scientists. Dr. Taylor presented preliminary findings relating to verbal fluency and expressional abilities. He presented an understanding of productivity as it relates to creative abilities. One form of expressional ability was ideational fluency. This work was originally started while working in Dr. L.L. Thurstone’s lab in the research areas of verbal fluency and ideational fluency as a doctoral student. The focus of the work was to identify numerous quality ideas to align as creative talent. He also focused on expressional ability based on communication skills and would suggest the need for scientists to improve measures for scientific reporting in order to become more efficient at identifying scientific talent. References American Psychologist (1970). Richardson Creativity Award. pp. 96-99. Shavinina, L.V. (2009). Kim. K. (Ed). The two pioneers of research on creative giftedness: Calvin Taylor and E. Paul Torrance. International Handbook on Giftedness, Quebec, Canada. Taylor, C. (1956). The 1955 University of Utah Conference on the identification of creative scientific talent. Utah University, Salt Lake City. Taylor, C. (1961). Research findings on creative characteristics. Studies in Art Education, 3 (1), 9-17. Taylor, C. & Holland, J.L. (1962). Development and application of tests of creativity. Review of Educational Research, 32 (1), 91-102. Taylor, C. & Ellison, R. (1967). Biographical predictions of scientific performance. American Association for the Advancement of Science, 155, (3766), 1075-1080. Taylor, C. (1956). The 1955 University of Utah Conference on the identification of creative scientific talent. Utah University, Salt Lake City.  FRANK XAVIER BARRON, 1922 - 2002
PIONEER IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CREATIVITY · 1969 Recipient of the APA Richardson Creativity Award. · 1995 Recipient of the Rudolf Arnheim Award. · Frank Barron was born in Pennsylvania, USA in 1922. From 1942 during WWII, he served the U.S. Army in Europe as a medic, and completed his M.A. in Psychology in 1948. · Received Ph.D. at University of California, Berkeley in 1950 and worked for over 30 years at the Berkeley Institute for Personality Assessment and Research (IPAR). Helped to design personality measurement tests. 1950’s articles epitomized IPAR approach emphasizing objective techniques of measurement and concern for the complexity of effective behavior. Contributed to study on the nature of the Creative Person. · Two of Dr. Barron's books, ''Creativity and Psychological Health'' (1963) and ''Creativity and Personal Freedom'' (1968), are considered classics in the field. · 1969 Received the APA Richardson Creativity Award. · Contributed to studies on Essence of Creativity. Stated “All creation is collaboration”. He wrote that creativity manifested itself as the rhythmic alteration and a genuine resolution or synthesis of certain common antinomies (paradoxes). “Apparently contradictory principles of action, thought, and feeling, which usually must be sacrificed one to the other, are instead expressed fully in one sequence, the dialectic leading at special moments to an unusual integration” (1964,1995). (Dialectic: the contradiction between two conflicting forces viewed as the determining factor in their continuing interaction.) · Studied the effects of psychedelic drugs in the 1960s – the decade of the “Hippie Revolution”. · Contributed to philosophical, methodological and cosmological approaches to Creativity. Barron emphasized that psychology gains great strength from its origin in philosophy, and that creativity research reopened "some of the doors that were closed to psychology when it self-consciously separated itself from philosophy" (1975). · 1989 He was president of APA's Humanistic Division from 1989 to 1990. · 1995 Received the Rudolf Arnheim Award. · 2002 Died at age 80. FAMOUS QUOTES by FRANK BARRON: Creativity requires taking what Einstein called “a leap into the unknown.” This can mean putting all your beliefs, reputation and resources on the line as you suffer the slings and arrows of ridicule. Thus the creative genius may be at once naïve and knowledgeable, being at home equally to primitive symbolism and to rigorous logic. He is both more primitive and more cultured, more destructive and more constructive, occasionally crazier yet adamantly saner, than the average person. The creative person plays close attention to what appears to be discordant and contradictory … and is challenged by such irregularities. Books by Barron include: Creativity and Psychological Health (1963); Creativity and Personal Freedom (1968); Creative Person and Creative Process (1969); Artists in the Making (1972); The Shaping of Personality (1979); No Rootless Flower: An Ecology of Creativity (1995); and Creators on Creating (1997). Sources Arons, M. (2003). A tribute to Frank Barron: He helped bend a century. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 43(2), 26- 33. doi:10.1177/0022167802250105 Barron, F., 1922-2002. (1963). Creativity and psychological health: Origins of personal vitality and creative freedom. Princeton, N.J: Princeton, N.J., : Van Nostrand. Barron, F., 1922-2002. (1968). Creativity and personal freedom: [by] frank barron. Princeton, N.J: Princeton, N.J., : Van Nostrand. Barron, F., 1922-2002. (1969). Creative person and creative process: [by] frank barron. New York: New York, : Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Barron, F., 1922-2002. (1972). Artists in the making: By Frank Barron. with the collaboration or assistance in particular chapters of: Wallace B. hall [and others. New York: New York, : Seminar Press, 1972. Barron, F., 1922-2002. (1995). No rootless flower: An ecology of creativity / frank barron. Cresskill, N.J: Cresskill, N.J.: Hampton Press, 1995. Barron, F., 1922-2002, Montuori, A., & Barron, A. (1997). Creators on creating: Awakening and cultivating the imaginative mind / edited by frank barron, alfonso montuori, and anthea barron. New York: New York : G.P. Putnam's Sons, c1997. https://emeriti.ucsc.edu/Obituaries/BarronFrankXavier.pdf https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2190/NXG3-CE9T-2B4R-T4T1?journalCode=arta McCormack, W. A. (2003). Obituary: Frank Barron. Empirical Studies of the Arts, 21(2), 211-213. doi:10.2190/NXG3- CE9T-2B4R-T4T1 Taylor, C. W. 1., Barron, F., 1922-2002, & University of Utah. (1963). Scientific creativity, its recognition and Development. Wiley. |
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