Social Representations Theory in Creativity Research

Abstract. Due to the difficulties of understanding all the aspects of creativity, the study of this complex phenomenon has been placed at the crossroads of various disciplines. Among these, social psychology has been interested in this exploration. Incidentally, various approaches in creativity research highlighted the importance of social factors in the production, judgment, and acceptance of creative ideas. Contributions adopting such a social perspective naturally convoked different social psychological theories, among which is the Social Representations Theory. This theory focuses on the collective construction of shared knowledge and beliefs (social representations) within social groups. Interesting perspectives about the contribution of social representations to the study of creativity have been described in previous works. Nevertheless, these works remain rare despite the many possibilities offered by the theoretical and methodological framework of social representations. Consequently, the present contribution recalls briefly the main objectives that these previous works have pursued in order to highlight several unexplored lines of research that could promote theoretical, methodological, and applied advancement. These lines could enrich research related to the evaluation of creativity, the study of creativity as deviance, the stimulation of group creativity, and promote interdisciplinary work. This contribution aims to draw the attention of researchers to these under-exploited perspectives and stimulate the creation of many others to understand better the complex phenomenon of creativity.