Local News in Brief : Fullerton : Study Seeks to Answer How People Get Creative

A Cal State Fullerton professor is studying elementary school children to learn possible clues about how people become creative.

The university announced that Mark A. Runco, an associate professor of child development, is conducting the study with a $7,410 grant from the Spencer Foundation of Chicago and a $980 grant from the New York-based Creative Education Foundation.

“How people become creative and how can we identify creative individuals are the basic questions involved,” Runco said. He is conducting his studies among children in the third through sixth grades at the Center for Early Education, a private school in Los Angeles.

“If we better understood children’s creativity and understood how they become creative, then perhaps we can adjust our educational procedures accordingly,” Runco said. “Many of us in psychology would like to see educators look beyond intelligence to such factors as motivation and creativity.”