What Is the Common Thread of Creativity?
Its Dialectical Relation to Intelligence and Wisdom

Robert J. Sternberg
Yale University

Creativity refers to the potential to produce novel ideas
that are task-appropriate and high in quality. Creativity in
a societal context is best understood in terms of a dialec-
tical relation to intelligence and wisdom. In particular,
intelligence forms the thesis of such a dialectic. Intelli-
gence largely is used to advance existing societal agendas.
Creativity forms the antithesis of the dialectic, questioning
and often opposing societal agendas, as well as proposing
new ones. Wisdom forms the synthesis of the dialectic,
balancing the old with the new. Wise people recognize the
need to balance intelligence with creativity to achieve both
stability and change within a societal context.

So many threads, so few clearly emergent patterns.Such might be a characterization of the articles oncreativity that make up this special section of the
American Psychologist. Yet I argue that one common
thread emerges. That common thread is the role of creativ-
ity in the dialectical progression of ideas. The basic idea
underlying this article is that all cultures—including the
cultures that comprise fields of knowledge—generate a
dialectical process (Hegel, 1807/1931) in which intelli-
gence represents a thesis, creativity an antithesis, and wis-
dom a synthesis.

Intelligence
Although definitions of intelligence differ (Sternberg, 2000b),
virtually all of these definitions view intelligence as the ability
to adapt to the environment (see, e.g., "Intelligence and Its
Measurement," 1921; Sternberg & Detterman, 1986, for mul-
tiple definitions of intelligence by experts; and Sternberg,
1985: Sternberg, Conway, Ketron, & Bernstein, 1981, for
multiple definitions of intelligence by laypeople). Intelligent
people are those who somehow acquire the skills that lead to
their fitting into existing environments. Some theorists believe
that such skills are relatively domain-general (see, e.g., Car-
roll, 1993; Jensen, 1998; see also essays in Sternberg &
Grigorenko, in press), whereas others believe that they are
relatively domain-specific (see, e.g., Ceci, 1996; Gardner,
1983, 1999; see also essays in Sternberg & Grigorenko, in
press). Still others believe that such skills have both domain-
specific and domain-general properties (see, e.g., Sternberg,
1997a, 1999d). But these diverse views have in common the
proposition that the skills constituting intelligence lead people,
on average, to be rewarded in terms of whatever the reward
structure of a society is. What is considered intelligent in one

place may not be in another, as cultural psychologists have
appreciated in their studies of intelligence (see, e.g., Serpell,
2000). Intelligent people are rewarded, on average, precisely
because they adapt and often can adapt in multiple
environments.

Contemporary U.S. society is one of many societies
around the world that allocates resources in part on the
basis of the perceived intelligence of its members. People
easily can make the step from the existence of this reward
system to the justification of the reward system (Herrnstein
& Murray, 1994). However, it is important to realize that it
is no coincidence that this system exists: Societies define
intelligence largely on the basis of individual differences to
account for the fact that some people are more successful
than others in school, in life, or elsewhere. As McNemar
(1964) pointed out, a concept of intelligence, at least in the
sense of what has been measured by psychometric tests of
intelligence, might never have arisen in the absence of
individual differences. Experimental psychologists histori-
cally have been less interested in intelligence than have
been differential psychologists, perhaps in part because of
the former's lesser interest in individual differences.

Creativity
Definitions of creativity, like definitions of intelligence,
differ (Sternberg, 1999b), but they have in common their
emphasis on people's ability to produce products that are
not only high in quality but also novel. Products fashioned
by intelligent people are high in quality but not necessarily
novel. Creativity thus seems in some way to go beyond
intelligence.

Editor's note. Robert J. Sternberg and Nancy K. Dess developed this
section on creativity.

Author's note. Preparation of this article was supported by Grant REC-
9979843 from the National Science Foundation, by a grant from the W. T.
Grant Foundation, and by a government grant (Grant R206R00001) under
the Javits Act Program as administered by the Office of Educational
Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education. Grantees
undertaking such projects are encouraged to express freely their profes-
sional judgment. This article, therefore, does not necessarily represent the
positions or the policies of the U.S. government, and no official endorse-
ment should be inferred.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
Robert J. Sternberg, Yale University, The Yale Center for the Psychology
of Abilities, Competencies, and Expertise, 340 Edwards Street, P.O. Box
208358, New Haven, CT 06520-8358. Electronic mail may be sent to
robert. sternberg @ y ale .edu.

360 April 2001 • American Psychologist
Copyright 2001 by the American Psychological Association. Inc. 0003-066X/01/S5.00

Vol. 56. No. 4. 360-362 DOI: 10.IO37//00O3-066X.56.4.36O



Many highly creative individuals "defy the crowd"
(Sternberg & Lubart, 1991, 1995); that is, they produce
products that are good but that are not exactly, and often
not even approximately, what other people expect or desire.
This view implies that creativity is always a person-system
interaction: Creativity is meaningful only in the context of
a system that judges it, and what is creative in one context
may not be in another (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996; Sternberg
& Lubart, 1995). Hence, creativity must be viewed as a
property of an individual as that individual interacts with
one or more systems. For example, painters who originated
the idea of painting Cubist paintings, such as Picasso or
Braque, were highly creative in a given time and a given
place but might be viewed as less creative today because
such an idea is no longer particularly novel. Consider the
individuals whose contributions are reviewed in this special
section.

Linus Pauling's "valence-bond theory transformed
chemistry" (see Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, 2001, p.
339, this issue) and represented a creative breakthrough
that defied contemporary views in the field of chemistry.
Some of Pauling's other ideas, such as with regard to the
structure of DNA (a triple helix) and with regard to the
value of Vitamin C in fighting colds, also were crowd-
defying, but the ideas were simply wrong, and hence their
novelty was not matched by their quality, with the result
that they had a short half-life. Charles Darwin's evolution-
ary proposal turned on their head not only many scientific
ideas but also many religious ideas (see Gruber & Wallace,
2001, this issue). As a result, Darwin was vilified by many
during his lifetime, and he continues to be vilified today by
certain religious and other ideological groups. Thomas
Young's theory of light as a wave was so controversial that,
from the standpoint of the physics of 1910, it might be
viewed as a "negative contribution" (see Martindale, 2001,
this issue). Yet later it would be recognized that this prickly
idea was in large part correct because light has properties
both of a wave and of a particle. Amabile (2001, this issue)
noted how the fiction of John Irving has been described as
" 'wildly inventive' " and as " 'bearing little similarity to
other recent fiction' " (p. 334). In a similar manner, Ste-
phen Donaldson pulled off a unique combination in the
world history of literature when he devised his Thomas
Covenant series on the basis of the combination of ideas of
a character who is a leper and an unbeliever (see Ward,
2001, this issue). Finally, in helping formulate Impression-
ism, Claude Monet changed what were the current con-
straints of the domain of painting by imposing his own
novel ones, for example, in dealing with "how light breaks
up on things" (see Stokes, 2001, p. 357, this issue).

Creative people often feel underappreciated and at-
tacked for their ideas (Sternberg & Lubart, 1995), which is
to be expected because their crowd-defying ideas are in-
compatible with conventional ways of thinking and vested
interests. Many contemporaries are not thrilled to hear that
not only their work but also the assumptions on which their
work is based are being questioned (Kuhn, 1970). The
creative people are correct: Time and again, their work and
even they are attacked. What these individuals may fail to

realize, however, is their own role in producing these
attacks: By serving as an antithesis to one or more societal
theses, they are essentially not only creating their own
work but also generating their own opposition. An antith-
esis is, by its nature, oppositional.

Much of the greatest creative work, including all of
that reviewed in this special section, is paradigm-rejecting
(Kuhn, 1970) or of a kind that has been referred to as
"redirecting" or "reinitiating" a field; however, some cre-
ative work is, in some respects, less novel and basically
forward-increments current ideas (Sternberg, 1998b,
1999c; Sternberg, Kaufman, & Pretz, in press). Such work
is less likely to generate opposition, and its nature is closer
to that of work representing the products of intelligence: It
is adaptive within existing paradigms, whether in science,
literature, art, or elsewhere. Parents, teachers, supervisors,
and others who appreciate creative work are more likely to
appreciate the forward-incremental type of creativity that
builds on existing ideas than they are to appreciate the
redirecting or reinitiating kinds of creativity that defy ex-
isting ideas. On occasion, though, people become known
not for inventing new paradigms (crowd-defying creativity)
but for working extremely well within existing paradigms.
Mozart would probably be a good example of someone
whose creativity was largely within, rather than in defiance
of, existing paradigms.

If much major creativity is defined by its antithetical,
crowd-defying nature, what can be said about the psycho-
logical ingredients of creativity? It is clear that intelligence
is a prerequisite for creativity (see, e.g., Simonton, 1984)
because creative products are high in quality. As pointed
out by Pauling (see Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, 2001,
this issue), creative people not only generate a lot of ideas
but also analyze those ideas and discriminate (intelligently)
between their better and their worse ideas. But beyond
intelligence and other abilities, creativity appears to be in
large part a decision (Sternberg, 2000a): Some people use
their intelligence to please the crowd, others to defy it. The
most traditionally intelligent ones hope to lead the crowd
not only by accepting the presuppositions of the crowd but
also by analyzing next steps in thinking and by reaching
those next steps before others do (Sternberg, 1998b).

Highly creative people decide, among other things, to
redefine problems (e.g., as did Monet), analyze their ideas (as
did Pauling), attempt to persuade others of the value of their
ideas rather than expecting others readily to accept them (as
did Darwin), take sensible risks (as has Irving in defying
modern novelistic conventions), seek bizarre connections be-
tween ideas that others do not seek (as has Donaldson), and
realize that existing knowledge can be a hindrance as much as
it is a help in generating creative ideas (as did Young; Stern-
berg, 2000a). An implication of this view of creativity as
being, in part, a decision is that anyone can adopt a creative
attitude (Schank, 1988) and think creatively. For a variety of
reasons, however, people will not typically reach the heights
of creativity of the individuals whose contributions are re-
viewed in this special section. Among these reasons are dif-
ferent degrees of compatibility between where people's think-
ing is and where a field is at a given time in history (see

April 2001 • American Psychologist 361



Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, 2001, this issue). For exam-
ple, someone who today spontaneously generates the ideas
underlying Impressionism was perhaps born too late to have
the impact that Monet, Renoir, and other great Impressionists
had at an earlier time.

Wisdom
Wisdom represents a synthesis of the thesis of intelligence
(as traditionally defined) and the antithesis of creativity.
Wise individuals balance the need for change (creativity)
with the need for stability and continuity (intelligence) in
human affairs. They thus are more divergent or legislative
in their style of thinking than are many intelligent people,
but at the same time, they are more convergent and even
conservative in their style of thinking than are many highly
creative people (see Sternberg, 1997b). They are perhaps
most effective and sought after in positions of leadership
because they are likely to balance the need for change (or
shaping of the environment) with the need for stability (or
adaptation to the environment; Sternberg, 1998a). Indeed,
in a study of people's implicit theories, it was found that
individuals in business see wisdom and creativity as in-
versely related (Sternberg, 1985), perhaps because of cre-
ative people's refusal, at times, to recognize the need for
stability as well as for change.

People can be intelligent without being wise. For
example, they may do very well in school and on cognitive
tests, but they may make a total mess not only of their own
lives but also of the lives of others (Sternberg, 1997a).
Robert McNamara, a principal architect of the Vietnam
War, was arguably more intelligent than he was wise. As
Gardner (1993) pointed out, many creative people as well
are not wise, and they may even be foolish in their dealings
with other people. The wise person must show, in some
degree, both intelligence and creativity, as well as an emer-
gent wisdom from that intelligence and creativity.

If things go well, wisdom prevails, and some balance
between the old and the new is accepted, moving a field
forward in its quest for knowledge and understanding. But
this forward movement never reaches a final point (Kuhn,
1970). The nature of the dialectic is such that the synthesis
becomes the next thesis, and ideas move forward to the
next step (Hegel, 1807/1931; Sternberg, 1999a). So the fate
of ideas forms a spiral: The ideas of today's intelligence
will be questioned by the ideas of tomorrow's creativity,
only to be synthesized by the ideas of posttomorrow's
wisdom. These ideas, in turn, will become the ideas of later
intelligence, which still later will be questioned by creativ-
ity, and on the spiral will go through time.

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