RESEARCH_FILE
Pamela Tierney
Portland State University
Known for:Introducing creative self-efficacy — the belief in one's capacity to be creative — and showing it predicts creative performance beyond general competence
SEE THE PRACTICE
Turn a thought this research explains into one clear move.
THE THOUGHT
“I'm not actually creative”
YOUR RECORDED RESPONSE
“Creative is a practice I do, not a credential someone grants me.”
ONE PRIVATE MOVE
Reopen an unfinished project and make one small, deliberate change—add a line, rewrite one sentence, adjust one color. Document it (photo, note, screenshot) without sharing. That change is evidence.
Key findings
- 2002
With Steven Farmer, defined creative self-efficacy and showed in two firms that it predicted employees' creative performance beyond job self-efficacy, with job tenure, job self-efficacy, supervisor behavior and job complexity shaping the belief. Creative Self-Efficacy: Its Potential Antecedents and Relationship to Creative Performance ↗
- 2011
In a longitudinal follow-up, showed that creative self-efficacy develops over time — and that increases in creative self-efficacy were accompanied by increases in creative performance, supporting the belief's causal relevance rather than it being a fixed trait. Creative Self-Efficacy Development and Creative Performance Over Time ↗