This book presents interdisciplinary research that lies on the crossroads of (a) psychology, specifically, its concept of the creative potential represented by six creativity scores, viz. Originality, Fluency, Flexibility, Elaboration, Creative Strengths and Composite Score, and the concept of creative performance; (b) linguistics, specifically, word-formation focused on the dynamic aspect of the formation of new complex words based on an onomasiological theory; (c) psycholinguistics, represented by a theory of the meaning predictability of potential/new complex words; and (d) sociolinguistics, in particular, the role of age and gender in the formation and interpretation of complex words. These interrelated areas indicate the complexity of the present research and the complexity of relations between the examined variables. This intricate complexity, however, is aimed to be productive rather than destructive, because this book provides both a theoretical account of the word-formation and word-interpretation creativity and an empirical framework with the corresponding results obtained from more than 700 participants.

Our research pursues an answer to the question of the influence of the general creative potential upon the creative performance in coining and interpreting new complex words. This chapter presents fundamental views, theories, and principles of the concept of creativity and because creative potential has been studied and evaluated by various psychological methods, we provide a general overview of various aspects of approaches to creativity from the psychological point of view. Attention is devoted to various methods used for the study and evaluation of creativity. Special focus is on the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking because it is crucial to our research. This is followed by a critical overview of various approaches to the concept of linguistic creativity, and more specifically, to word-formation and word-interpretation creativity. This chapter introduces our approach that relies on (i) an onomasiological theory of word-formation (ii) an onomasiological theory of meaning predictability, and (iii) a theory of competition in word-formation and word-interpretation.

Adulthood holds special promise for creativity. Not only is this developmental period the longest, but it is also the most advanced in terms of maturity of mental and biological structures people achieve. Therefore, adulthood quite naturally forms an arena for creative activities and achievements. However, creativity in adulthood does not only (or even not mainly) refer to test-measured creative potential; rather, it denotes expertise-based, mature, and, in some rare cases, eminent creativity. What are the milestones of creative development in adulthood? Why is it that so many people do not reach the level of mature creativity? What makes adults realize, or not, their creative potential, and invest their time and effort to develop it? We discuss these questions and show some new avenues for future research.