COGNITIVE STYLES AND CREATIVITY

The study is drawing attention to the developing research orientation of psychology of creativity differentiating the cognitive style from hitherto mostly level-approach to the creative abilities. The cognitive styles in the context of creativity represent the different ways how man can express his creativity. By this, they differentiate from the level of abilities where the extent, the degree is determining. The advantage of the style-approach compared to the level-approach is the fact that it is linking up the static and isolated abilities to the personality noncognitive traits, which are important for the way the creativity is expressed. Except of the general differentiating traits of the style-approach and the level-approach the study deals in detail with those dimensions of cognitive styles, which were by now investigated in the most intensive way in the connection with creativity: convergent vs. divergent style, adaptive vs. innovative style, the connections of creativity with the dimensions of the in/dependence on the fieid, and complexity vs. simplicity. In the context of creativity, the cognitive styles are connected above all with the following approaches: 1. the creative style is differentiated from the noncreative style, 2. the styles are considered to be the two different poles of the same dimension, both the poles are contributing to the creativity, but in the different way, 3. the creativity is defined according to the other criteria (e. g. the tests) and the correlates of the creative achievement with the dimensions of further cognitive styles are searched for. Although there is an effort to prove that the style and the level are orthogonal, respectivelly that they differentiate in a sharp way, the majority of researchers agrees to the fact that these two concepts are mutually connected - some dimensions are connected with the abilities by the common characteristics closer while others are little dependent. Cognitive styles in the framework of psychology of creativity require the further intensive empirical research. Many interesting implications for the area of social and educational psychology indicate that it is well-founded.