What is creative self-concept?

Creative self-concept is your long-term, foundational, “this-is-the-type-of-creative I-am-or-am-not” self-perception.

In their 2017 paper, “Toward untangling creative self-beliefs”, Beghetto and Karwowski define creative self-concept as your “general cognitive and affective judgment of your creative ability.”

If creative self-efficacy and creative metacognition are self-beliefs that apply to specific creative situations, we can think of creative self-concept as how we perceive ourselves across a number of situations.

But why does this matter?

Because it seems that creative self-concept is all up in the ear of your day-to-day internal dialogue. When you’re not actively doing or planning something creative, CSC is still hanging around quietly steering you towards or away from creative actions.

And if you like or think you’re good at something creative, it’s a boon to your creative self-concept. Same thing if others say they like something you’ve done, or see you as creative in a particular way.

But careful, because that works in the negative direction too.

In other words, internal and external narratives can slow cook how you see yourself creatively over time.

This micro-article was part of The Okrēo “Learning in Public” series, where I explored questions and topics related to creativity in theory & practice.

Reference

Beghetto, R. A., & Karwowski, M. (2017). Toward untangling creative self-beliefs. In M. Karwowski & J. C. Kaufman (Eds.), The creative self: Effect of beliefs, self-efficacy, mindset, and identity (pp. 3–22). Elsevier Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-809790-8.00001-7