Proposal for the categorization of the factors related to creativity, from Guilford to these days.
This study investigated what it meant and continues to mean for the creativity scientific field, J. P. Guilford´s research on the need to eradicate genius theory in order to give rise to the idea of creativity as an adaptive and projective human quality. The field of creativity as it exists today, emerged largely as a result of Guilford´s theoretical model of the structure of intelligence, a pioneer contribution to the measurement and possible development of creative potential. To these days, Guilford´s and E. Paul Torrance´s (1962) factors related to creativity remain the most widely used in the design of creativity tests. This paper presents a complication of the creativity factors that have been added to Guilford's original list since 1950 until these days, by diverse and relevant authors in the field. A grouping process is performed to eliminate repetitions, similarities or redundancies, and to obtain a list of clearly differentiated attributes. Every attribute is defined in the creativity context in order to examine how they could be related under R. Estarda (2005) theory of creativity, that categorize creativity´s factors in the following triad: affection, cognition and volition. Same factors that J. Lamberth (1980) defined in social psychology, as the essential components in any measurement of behavior. The validity in the selection of Estrada's theory as a merging point comes from its commonality with the theories of Urban (1995), Saturnino de la Torre (2003), Kurtzberg & Amabile (2001) and Arieti (1976). This study supports the view of creativity as a systemic process that considers both the contextual and the individual contribution, and contemplates the potential interplay among the three behavioral components. Concluding that factors related to creativity play an essential role on the identification and the development of creative potential. Both attributes and their categorization remain as fields for a future research´s quantitative validation.