Simulating Creativity from a Systems Perspective: CRESY

Psychological research on human creativity focuses primarily on individual creative performance. Assessing creative performance is, however, also a matter of expert evaluation. Few psychological studies model this aspect explicitly as a human process, let alone measure creativity longitudinally. An agent-based model was built to explore the effects contextual factors such as evaluation and temporality have on creativity. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s systems perspective of creativity is used as the model’s framework, and stylized facts from the domain of creativity research in psychology provide the model’s contents. Theoretical experimentation with the model indicated evaluators and their selection criteria play a bearing role in constructing human creativity. This insight has major implications for designing future creativity research in psychology.