Coda: Creativity in psychological research versus in linguistics – Same but different?

Abstract

Abstract Understanding the very nature of creativity is a hot topic in research across various disciplines and has profound societal relevance. In this contribution, we discuss verbal creativity by highlighting its definition, psychometric measurement, and relations with other personality dispositions. We relate psychological research with findings from linguistics presented in this issue and depict similarities and differences between both approaches. More specifically, we relate the linguistic terminology of F-creativity to fluency and flexibility, whereas we identify E-creativity as akin to originality. We propose latent semantic analysis as a possible approach for evaluating originality and compare this approach with more commonly applied human ratings. Based on contributions in this issue, we discuss creativity as a domain-general process that is (e. g., in applied arts) often driven by the recombination of mental elements. Lastly, we propose several intelligence and personality dispositions as determinants of individual differences in creativity. We conclude that creativity research in linguistic and psychology has many communalities and interdisciplinary work bears strong promises for the future.