Evaluation is Creation: Self and Social Judgments of Creativity Across the Four-C Model

Abstract

Who should evaluate the originality and task-appropriateness of a given idea has been a perennial debate among psychologists of creativity. Here, we argue that the most relevant evaluator of a given idea depends crucially on the level of expertise of the person who generated it. To build this argument, we draw on two complimentary theoretical perspectives. The model of domain learning (MDL) suggests that, for novices in a domain, creativity is by-necessity self-referenced, but as expertise develops, more socially referenced creativity is possible. Relatedly, the four-C model posits four forms of creativity that fall along a continuum of social impact: mini-c, little-c, Pro-c, and Big-C. We show that the MDL implies a learning trajectory that connects the four Cs because, as socially referenced creativity develops, greater societal impact becomes available to a creator. Then, we describe four sources of evaluations that become relevant as an individual learns: judgments from the creators themselves, their local community, consumers of the idea, and finally, critics in the domain. We suggest that creators’ judgments are of essential importance for mini-c, community judgments are paramount for little-c, Pro-c requires either positive evaluations from consumers or critics, and Big-C requires both consumers and critics to evaluate an idea positively for an extended time. We identify key insights and imperatives for the field: aligning our measures (both human and AI scored) with the most relevant evaluations of ideas to support the reliability and validity of our measurements, using evaluations as feedback for learners to support the development of creative metacognition, and the importance of considering domain differences when evaluating ideas.