Empirical exploration of the 4P theory of creativity using virtual reality

Abstract

In the 4P theory of creativity, Rhodes in 1961 emphasises the importance of different components in human creativity, which arises from the dynamic interplay of four key components: Person, Process, Product, and Press. Following previous studies that focused on relations among the 4P components, we conducted an exploratory empirical study with a sample of 60 participants using virtual reality. In our study we investigated: Person through self-report questionnaires on participants' personality and creativity traits; Process through the registrations of users' interactions during a VR task in which they create artworks; Product through a semi-automated ontological analysis of the artworks' features; Press by altering the virtual environment with contextual auditory stimuli.

Our research contributes to the study of creativity, using Virtual Reality as a platform for an empirical investigation of the relations between the 4P components of creativity. Our findings suggest an intricate network of components, with significant correlations for 5 out of 6 relations. Our findings are in line with previous research about the relation between Person and Process, between Person and Press, and between Process and Product, and show novel insights about the relation between Person and Product and between Press and Process.

We have applied our novel method to the original 4P foundational domains, demonstrating its utility to lay a research ground to formally (via ontological distinctions) and empirically (based on explicit and implicit measures) compare creativity theories that extend 4P components, possibly addressing cognitive abilities, expertise and impact levels, error functionalization, creativity dynamics, etc.