1st Edition
The Psychology of Creative Performance and Expertise
This much-needed book introduces readers to the related fields of expertise, creativity, and performance, exploring our understanding of the factors contributing to greatness in creative domains.
Bringing together research from the fields of creativity and expertise, it provides fresh insights for newcomers and seasoned scholars alike with its approachable guide to the multidimensional complexities of expertise development. It transcends traditionally studied fields such as chess, sports, and music, instead exploring the intersection of expertise with creativity and the performing arts. Dedicated applied chapters cover eight fields, including mind-games, music, dance, creative writing, acting, art and STEM. The book also examines the facilitators of creative performance, including aesthetic sensitivity, creativity, and mental imagery as well as the obstacles to performance such as burnout, procrastination, and gender-related challenges. The book concludes by engaging with pressing issues facing expertise, including the impact of AI. Student-friendly pedagogy is featured throughout, including 'Spotlight on...', 'Check it out...', and 'Consider this...' boxes to position material within context and engage student's learning.
Whether revealing how an actor brings their part to life, how writers conjure up their storylines and vibrant characters, or what lies behind scientific invention, The Psychology of Creative Performance and Expertise offers a fascinating insight into the multifaceted journey towards achieving creative excellence. This is a valuable resource for final-year undergraduates, postgraduate students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including expertise or skill acquisition, the psychology of performance, and creativity.
Part 1: Background chapters: Issues, Methodologies, and Creativity 1. Introduction to Performance and Expertise 2. Key methodologies in exploring performance expertise 3. Expertise and Creativity - an Overlooked Dimension? Part 2: Expertise in Applied Areas 4. Expertise in Chess and Other Mind-Games 5. Expert Memory and Extreme Memory Performance 6. Musical Expertise 7. Expertise in Dance and Choreography 8. Expertise in Theatre and Film 9. Expert Performance in Creative Writing 10. Aesthetics and Expertise in Visual Art 11. Expertise in Science Part 3: Facilitation and Handicapping in Performance Expertise 12. Sensitivity and Imagination 13. Passion or Grit? Facilitators of Performance 14. Navigating Obstacles: The Roadblocks to Success 15. Performance anxiety 16. Performance enhancement: How Far is too Far?
Biography
Kathryn Friedlander (PhD, CPsychol.), is a psychology lecturer at the University of Buckingham, where her research interests focus upon expertise development, visual imagery, and motivational drivers in cognitive and creative performance domains.
‘Who becomes an elite performer in complex domains, especially those that demand both skill and creativity? This question is the subject of what is perhaps the oldest debate in the field of psychology, and one of enduring fascination to scientists, practitioners, and lay people alike. In The Psychology of Creative Performance and Expertise, Kathryn Friedlander synthesizes findings from decades of research on this topic. This is a landmark contribution to the field of expertise--a textbook that will be as useful for undergraduate students learning about this area of research for the first time as it will be for scientists doing empirical research. The Psychology of Creative Performance and Expertise is a first-rate piece of scholarship. I look forward to using it in my own course on expertise and skill acquisition.’
Zach Hambrick, Professor at the Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, USA, and Co-Editor of Journal of Expertise
‘A richly informative resource on the varieties of expertise, from the advanced skills of scientists, to the mastery of dancers, musicians, artists and writers. The Psychology of Creative Performance and Expertise offers an accessible and captivating exploration of the intricacies of elite performance in creative fields.’
William Forde Thompson, Professor at the Faculty of Society & Design, Bond University, Australia, and Author of Music, Thought and Feeling: Understanding the Psychology of Music (2014)
‘This unique textbook on Creative Performance and Expertise combines both a high-level and detailed understanding of a wide range of research on creativity performance and expertise with reader-friendly content ensuring that those new to the subject can quickly grasp key concepts and methodologies. I thoroughly recommend this for undergraduate and graduate students as well as serious researchers in the field.’
Wendy Ross, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, London Metropolitan University, UK
