Below is a collection of recent presentations that convey the diversity of topics addressed on different occasions from 2003 on. Within each category the powerpoints are listed in alphabetical order by title. The presentations are converted into pdfs and the links provided.
Invited/Keynote/Award/Presidential Addresses
Aging and creative productivity. Max Planck International Research Network on Aging, Hotel Döllnsee-Schorfheide, Germany, 2005. [MxAgCrProd (1)]
Creative geniuses as causal agents in history: Free will, creativity, and sociocultural change. American Psychological Association, Honolulu HI, 2013. [CreativityFreedom]
Creative scientists, artists, and psychologists: Modeling disposition, development, and achievement. Master Lectures Program, Board of Scientific Affairs, American Psychological Association, Toronto, Canada, 2009. [Earlier versions given in Taipei and Berlin and updated versions given at the Western Psychological Association meeting in Cancun, Mexico, 2010, and the International Centre for Innovation in Education at Istanbul, Turkey, 2011]. [ScientistsArtistsPsychologists]
Creativity and discovery as blind variation: Donald Campbell’s BVSR theory after the half-century mark. American Psychological Association, San Diego, 2010. [Division1addressAPA]
Creativity and madness: The myth and truth. Psychology Forum, The Commonwealth Club, San Francisco, CA, 2006. [CommonwealthClub]
Creativity, automaticity, irrationality, fortuity, fantasy, and other contingencies: An eightfold response typology. Western Psychological Association, Sacramento CA, 2017. [SacWPA2017]
Creativity in the arts and sciences: Contrasts in disposition, development, and achievement. Victor M. Bearg Science and Humanities Scholars Speaker Series, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, 2010. [Earlier version given at Center for Values in Medicine, Science, and Technology, School of Arts and Humanities, University of Texas at Dallas, 2010; revision given at the Creativity Up Close Lecture Series, Rice University, Houston TX, 2019] [CarnegieMellon]
Defining creativity: Personal versus social definitions. E. Paul Torrance International Roundtable on Creative Thinking, Philadelphia, 2021 (virtual presentation due to COVID-19 pandemic). [TorranceRoundTable]
Diversifying experiences and creativity: Correlational and experimental research. Keynote, Lamar Bruni Vergara & Guillermo Benavides Z. Academic Conference, Office of Graduate Studies and Research, Texas A&M International University, 2013. [Revised versions given at the Belin-Blank Center, College of Education, University of Iowa, 2013, the International Creativity Conference, Torrance Creativity Center, College of Education, University of Georgia, 2014, and Creativity and Problem Solving course at Mississippi State University, 2021]. [TAMIUdiversifying]
Film as theater versus flick as circus: Creativity and aesthetics in the narrative feature film. American Psychological Association, Washington DC, 2005. [N.B.: The title of presentation differs from that in the program because of a change of emphasis between invitation and convention.] [Cinema]
The genetics of talent development: Putting the gift back into giftedness. E. Paul Torrance Lecture, College of Education, University of Georgia, Athens, 2005. [TorranceUGA]
Genius, creativity, and their place within a positive psychology. International Positive Psychology Summit, Gallup Organization, Washington DC, 2003. [GallupDC]
Giftedness: The gift that keeps on giving. Keynote, National Association for Gifted Children, Minneapolis, 2007. [NAGC]
The history of psychology and the history of science: An instructive integration. Presidential address, Society for the History of Psychology (Division 26), American Psychological Association, Washington, DC, 2023. [SHPpresidentialaddress]
Is psychological science a STEM discipline? Field attributes and researcher characteristics. Presidential address, Society for General Psychology (Division One), American Psychological Association, Orlando FL, 2012. [PsychologySTEMdiscipline]
Little-c creativity, Big-C Creativity: Formal definitions and implications. Invited address, Research on Giftedness, Creativity, and Talent SIG, American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, 2013. [Little-cBig-CCreativityAERA]
Multiple- and single-case studies of significant samples: Using empirical nomothetic baselines to gauge idiographic uniqueness. Murray Award Address, Association for Research in Personality, St. Louis, 2015. [MurrayAwardAddress]
The other IQ: Historiometric assessments of intelligence. International Society for Intelligence Research, San Francisco, 2006. [ISIR]
Scientific creativity: Discovery and invention as combinatorial. Creativity Conference, Southern Oregon University, Ashland, OR, 2019. [ScientificCreativityCombinatorialCCSOU]
Scientific creativity, logic, and chance: The integration of product, person, and process research traditions. Western Psychological Association, Vancouver, Canada, 2003. [WPAaddress]
Teaching and the Big Five. Teaching Personality and Social Psychology Pre-Conference, Society of Personality and Social Psychology, Los Angeles, 2003. [SPSP]
Varieties of creativity: Types and levels. Keynote, International Conference on Creativity Education, Taipei, Taiwan, 2008. [Revised and enlarged version of preceding] [TaipeiKeynote]
What is a creative idea? Formal definitions and cognitive implications. Keynote, Creativity: The Inspired Mind, California Cognitive Psychology Conference, University of California, Berkeley, 2014. [cssa]
Why creativity cannot be sighted: Blind variation as a philosophical proposition and psychological hypothesis. Distinguished speaker series, Cognitive Sciences Program, Michigan State University, 2012. [BVSRatMSU]
WPA presidents from antiquity to the present day: Biographical, historical, and historiometric moments. Western Psychological Association, San Francisco, 2020 (virtual presentation due to COVID-19 pandemic). [WPApresidents2020]
Symposia
Big-C Creativity or tiny-c creativity? The question gives the answer. In J. C. Kaufman (Chair), Debate–Which is more important to study: Eminent or everyday creativity? American Psychological Association, San Diego, 2010. [BigCcreativityAPA]
Cinematic creativity and aesthetics: Impact criteria and component predictors. In S. R. Pritzker (Chair), Creativity and the movies. American Psychological Association, San Francisco, 2007. [APAfilmSymposium]
First, best, and last: Creative landmarks across the career course. In S. B Kaufman & L. Smith (Chairs), Can creativity change? American Psychological Association, Toronto, 2009. [LifeSpan]
Is fame fickle, fleeting, fluff? The reliability and validity of individual differences in eminence. In S. Vazire (Chair), Reputation matters: New research on an age-old concern. Society for Personality and Social Psychology, New Orleans, 2005. [ReputatonSPSPNO1]
Little-c and Big-C creativity: Toward a scientific definition. In G. J. Feist (Chair), The study of creativity as a general psychological science. American Psychological Association, Orlando FL, 2012. [Little-cBig-C]
The muse and the clockwork in the Clockwork Muse: A retrospective review of Colin Martindale’s magnum opus. In J. M. Kwiatkowski & O. A. Vartanian (Chairs), Colin Martindale-A tribute to the arbiter. American Psychological Association, Toronto, 2009. [Colin]
An outsider’s expressed ignorance in the form of six big questions. F. C. Worrell (Chair), Insider knowledge for high performance. American Psychological Association, Minneapolis, MN, 2022. [DeansDiscussionPresentation]
Versatility in genius: A history of historiometric studies of historic creators. Polymathy: An interdisciplinary panel on human versatility and creativity. Creativity Conference, Southern Oregon University, Ashland, OR, 2019. [VersatileCreativeGenius]
Creativity as blind variation and selective retention: Campbell’s BVSR as philosophy and psychology. Webinar, Applied Evolutionary Epistemology Lab, Lisbon, Portugal, 2021. [BVSRcreativityUpdate]
Conferences
Cinematic success criteria and their predictors: The art and business of the film industry. Economics of Art and Culture, European Science Days, Steyr, Austria 2009. [CinematicSuccessCriteria]
Creative genius: Two Darwinian perspectives. Conflict, cooperation, and creativity in complex systems, co-presented by the Santa Fe Institute and the Chief of Naval Operations Strategic Studies Group, Washington DC, 2007. [SFIdarwiniancreativity]
Creative problem solving as variation-selection: The blind-sighted continuum and solution variant typology. “Darwinian” and post-Darwinian models of creativity and innovation: Prospects and problems, University of Nevada, Reno, 2011. [LeonardConferenceWorkshop]
Creativity and discovery as blind variation and selective retention: Multiple-variant definitions and blind-sighted integration. International Society for the Psychology of Science and Technology, University of California, Berkeley, 2010. [BVSRispstUCB]
Creativity and sightedness: Why creative solutions cannot be sighted … or, why blind solutions must maximally vary in creativity. Summit on Creativity and Innovation, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, 2013. [SimontonSummit]
Genius, creativity, and talent: Definitions and manifestations. Learning and the Brain Conference, San Francisco, CA 2010. [Also given in a slightly revised version at the 13th Annual Undergraduate Conference, Psychology Students’ Association, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada 2011.] [GeniusCreativityTalent]
Genius 101: A book prospectus. Genius Week, Positive Psychology Center, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 2007. [Genius101]
Hierarchies of creative domains: Disciplinary constraints on blind-variation and selective-retention. Philosophy of creativity, Barnard College, NY, 2010. [ComteanBVSR]
Origins of genius: Creativity in science and the arts. Culture and Brain symposium, Karolinska Institute, Sweden, 2019. [Revised version scheduled for Research on Giftedness, Creativity, and Talent SIG, American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, 2020, but cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic] [OriginsOfGeniusKI]
Scientific creativity as a combinatorial process: The chance baseline. “Milieus of Creativity” symposium at Villa Bosch Studio, Heidelberg (organized by the Department of Geography, University of Heidelberg and supported by the Klaus Tschira Foundation), 2006. [Earlier version given at the New Ideas about New Ideas Conference, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, 2006.] [ScientificCreativity]
Scientific creativity as blind variation: Campbell (1960) after the half-century mark. Psychology of science: Implicit and explicit reasoning, Second Purdue Symposium on Psychological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, 2010. [Updated version of 2009 Harvard psychology colloquium; see below.] [Purdue]
Scientific creativity: Discovery and invention as combinatorial. Metascience symposium, Stanford University, 2019. [A 30-minute version of the 60-minute keynote given at the 2019 Creativity Conference.] [ScientificCreativityCombinatorialMS]
Scientific genius, creativity, and insight. Learning and the Brain Conference, San Francisco, CA 2013. [ScientificGeniusCreativityInsight]
Colloquia
Creative problem solving as Campbellian BVSR: Quantitative creativity measure and blind-sighted metric. Department of Psychology, University of California, Merced, 2012. [CreativityDefBVSR]
Creativity and discovery as blind variation (and selective retention): Tautological identity, heuristic metaphor, or patent absurdity? Department of Psychology, Harvard University, 2009. [HarvardPsych]
Creativity and leadership: How much are they the same? How much are they different? Technology and Operations Management Seminar Series, Harvard Business School, Harvard University, 2005. [Originally given at the Organizational Behavior and Industrial Relations Colloquium Series, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, 2003; updated versions given at the Stern School of Business at New York University, 2006, and as an invited address for the International Leadership Association, Chicago, 2006.] [TOM-HBS]
Creativity in science: Dispositional and developmental correlates. Personality Lab, Department of Psychology, Stanford University, 2004. [SocEmStan]
Defining creativity: Don’t we also need to define what’s not creative? School of Education, University of Georgia, 2016. [TorranceCenter2016]
Great psychologists: The scientific analysis of psychology’s past and present to predict and control its future. Annual Harold Basowitz Memorial Lecture, Department of Psychology, University of Alabama, 2006. [BamaPsych]
Is genius born or made? Refinements and complications in the nature-nurture controversy. Department of Psychology, Florida State University, 2006. [FSUnvn]
Scientific talent, training, and performance: Intellect, personality, and genetic endowment. Institute of Personality and Social Research, University of California, Berkeley, 2008. [ScientificTalentUCB]
Papers
Creativity as blind variation and selective retention: Philosophy, psychology, or both? In M. Tissaw (Chair), At the inevitable intersection of psychology and philosophy. American Psychological Association, Orlando FL, 2012. [BVSRcreativity]
Workshops
Cinematic sex doesn’t sell – nor even artistically impress! Content ratings, box office, critical reviews, and movie awards. Economics of Art and Culture, European Science Days, Steyr, Austria 2009. [CinematicSexDoesntSell]
Creativity in the sciences: Creative ideas, scientists, processes, and disciplines. Panel presentation, Innovation inventors forum: Can Cleveland Clinic staff become more inventive – A forum on creativity in science. Cleveland Clinic Management Track, 2010. [ClevelandClinicTalk]
Creativity measurement: Big, medium, and little. International Conference on Creativity Education, Taipei, Taiwan, 2008. [TaipeiWorkshop]
Personal and situational factors predicting greatness ratings of US presidents: A quarter-century quest. International Leadership Association, Chicago, 2006. [PresidentialGreatness]
Studying creative genius: An overview of historiometric methods. Center for Complex Network Research, Northeastern University, 2021. [IntellectualImpact]
Miscellaneous
Creative thoughts as acts of free will: A two-stage formal integration. Ida Cordelia Beam Lecture, University of Iowa, 2013. [IowaDeltaCreativityFreedom]
More method in the mad-genius controversy: A historiometric study of 204 historic creators. Teacher-Leader Center, College of Education, University of Iowa, 2013. [revsion given for the course Creativity Up Close, Moody Center, Rice University, Houston TX, 2019] [IowaDeltaMadGenius]
Presidential personality and performance. Davis Senior Center, Davis, CA 2009. [PresidentialPersonalityPerformance]
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