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p We have established that the orientation and character of creativity are predetermined by such psychological factors as motives and the person’s individual peculiarities. Consideration 200 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1984/PP246/20090720/246.tx" of these factors has brought us close to certain social problems of creativity. By and large, the requirements for and other motives of a person’s behavior take shape and develop under the influence of social conditions. We’may allude, for example, to the phenomenon of behavioral conformity which plays, as was proven, the negative role in creativity. Such behavior is the result of both the individual peculiarities of the person and of the relationships existing between persons in a creative group, moreover, of the peculiarities of social medium in the broad sense of the word. Therefore, the elaboration of the socio-psychological problems of creativity assumes extremely high significance. In relying on the basic problem of this investigation-the revelation of the intrinsic laws of phantasy, we will focus, mainly, on the results of the socio-psychological studies of creativity we find in literature, which, in our opinion, enable us to examine this key issue more extensively.

p Some of the social aspects of creativity have long been the subject of close attention by writers and critics, i.e. the people who are professionally involved in creativity and whose experience has provided them with the knowledge of society’s attitude towards them as creative persons. It is common knowledge that the life style of many original thinkers was often hard and even tragic under the conditions of antagonistic class society. This explains why social environment is usually presented in a number of fiction and philosophico-critical works as a hostile force directed against creative persons. The hostile attitude of bourgeois society toward manifestations of creative abilities found its vivid reflection in the words of the main hero of Diderot’s Le Neveu de Rameau (Rameau’s Nephew) who declared cynically: "Geniuses are aversive; and whenever a child is born with characteristic signs of this dangerous gift in its forehead, it has to be strangled to death or thrown away to be eaten by dogs.”

p At the beginning of the 20th century, French psychologist Edouard Le Roy was discussing the difficulties confronted by inventors and innovators in general in capitalist society, pointing out that they were often regarded as mindless and dangerous members of society (201, 197-198). The attitude of the overwhelming mass of society, i.e. "non-creative persons", toward innovations and discoveries was discussed in detail in the book El hombre mediocre (Mediocrity) by Jose Ingenieros. The psychology of mediocre people, Ingenieros contends, is characterized by their "inability to perceive perfection and to create the ideal", routine thinking and a desire to adapt "their 201 character to habitual conventionalities" (188, 55). At the same time, Ingenieros tries to determine the positive role of mediocrities which he reduces to consolidating and strengthening what has earlier been achieved by other “creative” persons and “geniuses” who once also had to wage a bitter struggle against similar mediocrities (188, 49).

p By admitting in general terms the hostility of bourgeois society (of “mediocrities”) toward gifted persons, Ingenieros is also justifying this attitude, characterizing it as conservative, hence useful for society.

p In recent studies we may also find an extensive list of "social interferences" confronted by creativity in bourgeois society. In this respect, of special interest are the data provided by foreign psychologists themselves.  [201•*  Bernard Thorsell wrote about the social forces counterposing creativity, and he showed convincingly that "the ability to doubt and to think creatively is very likely to appear as a disturbing and perhaps frightening trait, especially to those who lack the cognitive andtot social flexibility necessary for a tolerance of it" (262, 80). German psychologist K. Heymann believes that creative phantasy is damaged mostly by technicism in the form of multitudes of modern stereotype films, standardized TV programs, advertisements, etc. (183). Alex Osborn insists that urban life is extremely deleterious for the development of creative imagination, for it tends to suppress man’s nature and intimacy (223, 45). Lawrence Kubie names the informational overload among the factors which block creativity (198, 37-38). According to A. Luchins, "factors that may discourage creativity are the growing mechanisation of industry and the specialization and division of labour that have reduced into routine, repetitive tasks many activities that once called for ingenuity and skill" (207, 138).

p Guilford distinguishes the following four planes in which a struggle is waged against new ideas in capitalist society: (1) older scientists resist the ideas of younger scientists; (2) highranking scientists resist the ideas of low-ranking scientists; (3) rival schools of thought resist one other (along with rejecting 202 new ideas); (4) members of one area of specialization look with suspicion upon the ideas of outsiders (170, 447-448).

p Rogers depicts bourgeois society as contributing to the edification of the individual in the spirit of behavioral conformity; according to Rogers, both school and traditional education tend to turn out conformists.  [202•*  In leisure-time activities, passive entertainment and regimented group action, which are overwhelmingly predominant, serve the same purpose. In the sciences there is an ample supply of technicians, but the number of those who can creatively formulate fruitful hypotheses and theories is small indeed, and even in individual and family life to be original or different is felt to be “dangerous” (237, 69-70). In commenting on that, Sidney Parnes maintains that the whole of modern bourgeois culture serves to adapt man to conventionalism, i.e. to conventional standards (225, 134). Maslow made an ironical observation, according to which especially valuable in today’s science are caution, accuracy, procrastination and the ability to avoid errors rather than courage and audacity.

p All of these psychologists emphasized the need to create the prerequisites for the struggle against all forms of social suppression of creativity. One of these prerequisites, in their opinion, would be freedom of the "creative person". Rogers, for instance, mentions "psychological freedom" (237, 80); Luchins speaks about the "freedom of actions and decision-making" (207, 132); Henry Eyring emphasizes the need for freedom from distraction and from an authoritarian society which prevents unbiased inquiry (150, 4); A. Wenkart interprets freedom psychoanalytically, i.e. as (freedom from complexes constraining man’s ego, etc. It is noteworthy that the authors we have mentioned completely ignore not only the political freedom issue which may eventually create all the prerequisites for truly creative activity, but also the need to change the social system presupposing, as was indicated by bourgeois psychologists themselves, a great variety of "social interferences" to creativity.

p At present, we may often come across the collective character of creativity. Remarkably, even though creative problems are solved by individuals, the latter, nonetheless, are linked with social environment, their behavior is usually motivated by the 203 requirements emerging in this medium, they depend on the values and the relationships existing in this medium, and their creativity has been prepared by a great number of preceding generations (132, 267).

p Some time ago Jean Piaget very accurately characterized the immediate favorable effect which interpersonal communication has on the process of phantasy: "We are constantly hatching an enormous number of false ideas, concepts, Utopias, mystical explanations, superstitious, and megalomanic phantasieswhich 4isappear when brought into contact with other people" (Quoted from 214, 168).

p However, contacts with other people not only help us get rid of the negative products of the process of phantasy specified by Piaget, but they also provide the foundation for the activities of special social formations—the so-called creative small groups which S. Mikulinsky and M. Yaroshevsky interpret as "the original subject of scientific activity" (37, 17).

p A number of psychologists assert that the creativity of small groups and collective creativity in general have great advantages over individual creativity. Thus, Gordon, the creator of synectics, categorically stated that in thinking, a properly operating group has advantages over an individual (166, 10). Frank Restle and James Davis speak about "pooling of contributions" as a theory developed to describe the superiority of groups over individuals to solving word puzzles (235, 61). Guy Aznar and Florence Vidal maintain that a group mobilizes the creative power of its members thus helping them overcome all sorts of apprehensions and augmenting the volume of information and the number of different approaches (114, 91-100; 268, 145-153).

p However, would it be reasonable to assert that in accomplishing any creative act a group, irrespective of its composition and the relationships of its members, always has unquestionable advantages over an individual? Obviously right are those psychologists who discuss not the advantages of the group over the individual in general, but the possible advantages of a group provided its activities are properly coordinated [B. Frolov (16, 279)].

p The correct organisation of group creative activities presupposes the solution of a great number of problems. Among these special significance is attributed to the following: the requirements that have to be met by the qualitative composition of the group, the number of members that a group should include, the criteria determining responsibility distribution among the members of the group, the form that has to be 204 chosen to evaluate the activity of the group as a whole and of its members in particular and the selection of group leadership. It would hardly be possible to give direct answers to all these questions since both the creative groups and the problems solved by them are characterized by infinite diversity. However, the experimental data obtained by various authors make it possible to outline some of the general psychological principles for a more rational organization of creative groups.

p In touching upon the problem of the optimal composition of creative groups almost all the authors are unanimous in the conviction that such groups have to be small. L. Hearnshaw emphasizes that on the basis of his experiments he has established that groups are superior to individuals, but large groups are not superior to small groups (179, 56). Restle and Davis arrived at a similar conclusion having summarized the results of many investigations (235, 41, et seq.). Some authors made an attempt at determining exactly the size of a creative group. Thus, Osborn believes that the ideal creative group should comprise from five to ten members (223, 87); Aznar, five to six members (114, 98) and Base, seven to twelve members (cit. from 216).

p The problem of the qualitative composition of a creative group is, essentially, reduced to the question whether the group has to be homogeneous or heterogeneous from the standpoint of, first, the creative orientation of its members and, second, their creative capacities.

p Even the early investigators of the problem of group creativity, such as Slosson and Downey, adhere to the opinion that whenever a group includes persons distinguishable from the bulk of the group by their personal qualities and creative orientation, it has a positive effect on the products of group creativity (249, 57). A number of authors pointed to the expediency of including in creative groups people with different modes of thinking. Osborn and, especially, his French followers emphasized the desirability of the "collision of opinions" which, they maintain, contributes favorably to the emergence of new ideas [Besse (124, 41), Aznar (114, 100)]. In summing up the results of a number of investigations Guilford was categorical about the need for competition (contest, rivalry) in a small group (170, 446). On the other hand, Middleton believes that a group experiences ageing as a result of long cooperation when people become less critical of one another. It is quite clear that we are dealing with the expediency of a purely intellectual rivalry, with intellectual “antagonism” between the 205 members of small groups; meanwhile conflicts occurring between the members of a group may interfere with creative activities [I. Leiman (28), Aznar (114), Vidal (268)]. Leiman, in particular, points out; "Concrete analysis proves that the ‘simplest’ conflicts in a group lead to a sharp reduction of efficiency and sometimes they fully eliminate every opportunity for creativity" (28, 267).

p As to the composition of a small group from the point of view of the level of capabilities of its members, we have to admit that homogeneous groups, obviously, surpass heterogeneous ones. Thus, E. Torrance who conducted experimental studies of collective creativity of schoolchildren showed that the groups composed of children with sharply differing intellectual capacities more often revealed the signs of psychological stress: less capable children were overwhelmed by more, capable children, the latter being apprehensive that they might fail their group since they (the latter) believed that something extraordinary was expected of them. Meanwhile in homogeneous groups the atmosphere was much calmer, all the participants realizing that they could compete on equal terms, which made them feel sure of themselves.

p The distribution of problems among the small group has to be considered most rational when each member of the group realizes that his creative abilities and skills are taken into account, appreciated and utilized to produce the maximum effect. At the same time, the individual peculiarities of the members of a small group may not be neglected and each member has to operate with the optimal rate. For example, N. Israeli who studied various creative groups (artists and critics) arrived at the conclusion that increase in the rate of work stimulates only the most “competent” members and has a detrimental effect on the rest of the group.

p The activity of each member of a creative group has to be evaluated objectively and in good time. For example, judgments concerning intermediate variants, the ideas which have not been fully thought out or preliminary solutions must be withheld. Special emphasis has to be placed on the form of appreciation. The data of the comparative experimental investigation prove that the best effect is achieved by the evaluations expressed as wishes and suggestions rather than the evaluations pointing to drawbacks and errors (170, 446).

p In a creative group an extremely important role is attributed to the leader. The leader’s personality, his capabilities and competence, his creative orientation and his relationship with 206 the members of the small group he controls greatly determine its psychological atmosphere and creative productivity [D. Taylor (259, 120)].

p The leader of a creative group, as well as any other leader, naturally, has to meet a great number of requirements. It is far from sufficient for the leader to be competent in one or another field; he has to possess such features as authority, sense of responsibility, justice, objectiveness, tactfulness.

p Lenin insisted that a leader "must possess a high degree of personal appeal" (5, 600). The personality of a leader has an immediate effect on the atmosphere in the group and on the relations between the members of the group. Each leader should be capable of finding the form of leadership that would both comply with the problems standing before the group and agree with the psychological peculiarities of its members.

p In summing up the results of investigations of collective creative activities, we may offer an approximate characteristic of a successfully functioning small creative group (it goes without saying that numerous socio-psychological problems of collective creativity still call for fundamental study).

p The creative group should have a limited strength (not more than ten or twelve people) and it should be composed of psychologically compatible members with relatively equal abilities, yet inclined to take different approaches to creative problems. Each member of the group should be absolutely convinced that his participation in creative activity presupposes utmost utilization of his skills and creative capacities. The rate of work of a creative group has to be determined by the individual capacities of its members. The evaluation of results should be tactful and benevolent. The leader should show a businesslike approach and possess certain personal features.

p Thus we have considered some of the socio-psychological prerequisites determining creativity. There have never been any attempts made to compare these data with the existing conceptions of productive mental activity. In our opinion, it would be impossible to explain either the favorable or the unfavorable effects of all the socio-psychological factors on successful creativity by the positions of behaviorism, Gestaltpsychologie and other conceptions. For instance, why does a trend for conventionalism hinder analysis and synthesis, improvement of psychological structures, etc.? And why does a minor increase of the numerical strength of creative groups lead to the reduction of the number of variants selected on the trialand-error basis?

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p Let us consider how the data presented in this chapter agree with the proposed conception of phantasy. We could see that the most essential obstacles “blocking” creativity in capitalist society are its conservative tendencies which find their expression in its contempt of innovation, in its standardization of life style, its disposition for conventionalism and hostility toward the people who deviate from the established mode of thinking. Quite understandably these conservative tendencies have to lead to a devaluation of original ideas, new approaches to the solutions of any problem and, at the same time, hightened evaluation of the established verities. In other words, the social circumstances we have mentioned precondition the orientation of anaxiomatization which produces only negative effects.

We believe that our conception of phantasy also explains the social factors promoting creativity. As we have already mentioned, the advantages of group creativity over individual creativity were explained by certain psychologists as a purely mechanical "pooling of individual contributions". This explanation runs counter to the unquestionable fact that the advantage may be enjoyed only by small groups (yet the greater the group, the greater should be the "pooling of contributions"). In our opinion, group activities ensure more favorable conditions for anaxiomatizing old-fashioned or unfounded ideas, since it is much easier to devaluate someone else’s views and opinions than one’s own. This explanation is supported by the fact that the most productive creative groups are those composed of the people who favor different stratagems and approaches to problems, i.e. who are particularly disposed towards “mutual” anaxiomatization of views and opinions. However, in compliance with our conception of phantasy, creation of the new is inseparably linked with the second internal, mechanism, hyperaxiomatization. Obviously, the groups the numerical strength of which exceedes a certain limit will confront enormous difficulties and even may fail in achieving the necessary stabilizing effect, which, in our opinion, stipulates the necessity of forming relatively small groups, recommended as optimal for the most productive creativity.