RESEARCH_FILE
Teresa M. Amabile
Brandeis University, later Harvard Business School
Known for:Experiments showing expected evaluation and surveillance reduce creativity, and the intrinsic motivation principle of creativity
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
- 1979
Participants who made art collages expecting expert evaluation produced work judged significantly less creative than participants working without evaluation expectations — anticipating judgment alone was enough to lower creativity. Effects of External Evaluation on Artistic Creativity ↗
- 1983
The Social Psychology of Creativity lays out the intrinsic motivation principle: creativity thrives on interest and enjoyment in the work itself, and extrinsic constraints such as expected evaluation tend to undermine it. The book also introduces the consensual assessment technique for measuring creativity. The Social Psychology of Creativity ↗
- 1990
With Goldfarb and Brackfield, showed that surveillance — simply being watched while working — reduces creativity alongside expected evaluation, locating the creativity decrement in the social situation rather than the person. Social Influences on Creativity: Evaluation, Coaction, and Surveillance ↗