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Abstract: The paper is focused on social facets of creativity that were investigated in CEVIT studies. The term positive deviance is applied in considerations of a) creativity in interpersonal contents and processes, b) dilemmas of creator's otherness and motivation, and c) creativity little and creativity big. The analysis of benefits and costs of creativity is related to the contents that were either designed by researcher or inferred from participants' reports. The concept of little and big creativity is introduced within the frame of dynamic model of creativity and its implications for value-led research of creativity are considered.
Key words: positive deviance, interpersonal conflicts, humor, androgynous self-concept, otherness, social openness, motivational dilemma, creativity little, creativity big
Belief in benefits of creativity permeates theorizing and research in psychology. Such an inclination can be found regardless of authors' background - be it phenomenological, cognitivist or currently developing approaches. Starting with the pioneering works of C. Rogers (1954, 1957), where creativity was associated with human uniqueness and changeability, through J.P. Guilford's (1959, 1970) challenging ideas, which triggered an ava- lanche of research interest in the field, up to the recent studies (see review Runco, 2004), positive views of creativity seem to be deeply ingrained in psychological thinking of creativity.
The question then arises: do benefits of being creative correspond to the term positive deviance? Such a question implies a controversy lying in one's uniqueness on the one hand and a recognition of this uniqueness in the eyes of beholders on the other. Since "unique" can be interpreted as "deviant" (and so "out of norm"), the term conveys the meanings that oppose one another and connotes both negative and positive interpretations. In this way, however, positive deviance seems to express controversial nature of creativity - the one that likely contributes to its attractiveness.
Turning attention to social benefits of creativity, the attempts to identify components of creativity that play the role in social functioning will be presented. To show creative people as social beings, the studies were framed by the idea of interpersonal nature of humans, the notion that "most of the essential human characteristics cannot be manifested by a person in isolation" proposed by M. Argyle (1994, p. 309). As will be summarized below, present findings seem...