The key issue in human existence is increasing control of the environment - which is to say, the preconscious. The human infant starts in stage one with control of percepts, then in stage two he progresses to control of bodily functions, in stage three to control of intuitive forms of conservation (Piaget), in stage four to formal conservation in the concrete operations period (Piaget), in stage five to control of self, and identity-unity, in stage six to intuitive control of the preconscious through creativity, in stage seven to cognitive control of the preconscious in the psychedelic stage, and finally, in stage eight to full control of all aspects of the self-concept, including the environment. (See Tables III and IV.)
It is interesting to note that there is a parallelism between third column stage three and first column stage four, compared with third column stage six, and first column stage seven. In each case the ratio is intuitive control in the earlier stage versus formal or full cognitive control in the later stage. (The difference between intuitive and cognitive is that the child can operate the function on a spasmodic basis earlier but cannot tell you how or why he does it, whereas in the latter stage he can operate it at will and describe the how and why). The function being controlled is Piaget's conservation in the lower stages, and the preconscious in the higher stages. We may therefore write:
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III - Intuitive conservation control
VI - Intuitive preconscious control
----------------------------------------- = --------------------------------------------
IV - Cognitive conservation control
VII - Cognitive preconscious control
We have called column 3 (Stages three and six) "creative"; we could almost equally have labeled them "intuitive." For those aspects which will come to full rational conscious in the next stages (IV-VII) are now intuited, and seem to "leak" into consciousness as it were without the individual being able to explain why or wherefore they come. This is the very essence of the "Quelle" [spring] quality of creativity.
We tend to create for those we love. The motivational pressures resulting from oedipal love at stage three and heterosexual love at stage six power the creativity surges at these stages. Being different in flavor, each stage gives rise to different kinds of creativity. But once a creative style of life has been established through contact with the preconscious, processes and techniques tend to persist as strategies available to the ego. They may even expand and proliferate at any stage under suitable conditions of mental health and environmental stimulation.
Creative performance is the synthesis of several independent systems:
a. differential abilities and their stimulation as in the Guilford structure
of intellect model,
b. mental and physical health,
c. antiauthoritarian and nurturing tendencies in parents and others
in the environment,
d. the life styles established in the third and sixth stages of development.
The first three can occur at any time in human life. Tendencies toward creative performance, especially those influenced by education, can and do occur at all stages of development.
The shift and reorganization of concepts required as the child goes from one cognitive level to another may demand energy or impose
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strain which temporarily diminishes creative performance. This may explain
why Torrance (1962, 1965) has found that there are drops at fourth and
seventh grade in creativity test scores, since these grades mark the onset
of new developmental stages. Such higher cognitive stages, however, as
"categorizing" in the concrete operations stage and "if then" contingency
in the formal operations stage add new degrees of freedom to ego functioning,
and this escalation gives the possibility of higher and more complex productions.*