Risk Taking

Investment Theory

Robert Sternberg described investment theory as six interrelated resources: intellectual abilities, knowledge, styles of thinking, personality, motivation, and environment. All of these themes may have relevance in describing how an individual may be more or less creative. The creative individual is able to cope with novelty. Intellectual abilities refers to synthetic, analytic, and practical-contextual abilities. Knowledge is an ability to recognize which ideas are worth pursuing, and not be hindered by this knowledge. Personality refers to a willingness to overcome obstacles, take sensible risks, tolerate ambiguity, use self-efficacy, and defy the crowd. Thinking styles refers to the ability to think in new ways. Motivation involves receiving satisfaction from engaging in a creative act instead of focusing on the potential rewards. The environment needs to be supportive and rewarding of creativity so that creative ideas can be disseminated without stifling the individual. To take advantage of the market, the creative person must “buy low” and “sell high.” Buying low is defined as investing in unpopular ideas with growth potential. Selling high refers to leaving the idea to others and moving on to new unpopular ideas.

Psychologists and philosophers who study the creative person, process, and product are in consensus that creativity requires novel and adaptive solutions to problems. It appears that openness to experience and a lack of conventionality are consistent characteristics of creativity in all domains. However, the creative person is always operating within a domain, discipline, or craft.

Domains

James Kaufman and John Baer with other authors discussed how creativity is demonstrated differently among domains, even among similar domains within the sciences and within the arts. Few people may be creative in two or more domains: One may have spatial skills and abilities in art and engineering, but it seems likely that there may be different requisites for being creative in engineering design versus in the fine arts. People may be more likely to take risks within their own domain where they have a higher comfort level.

Scientific creativity and artistic creativity have been explored separately as well in comparison with each other. Christine Charyton and Glenn Snelbecker investigated general, scientific, and artistic creativity among engineering students versus music students. Their research revealed differences but also some interesting similarities between engineers and musicians. Through studying scientific and artistic creativity, researchers may gain a clearer picture of what creativity entails in personality, processes, products, and [Page 741]fostering environments. For example, it may be that the risk of trying something new may involve similarities as well as differences across domains.

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