The Multivariate Approach and Design of the Creative Process

Creativity is often described as an essential aspect of the innovative design process. As such, many authors have proposed models aiming to describe existing creative practices, both at the macro level—i.e. the stages involved in a creative process—and at the micro level—i.e. the underlying cognitive processes. Conversely, many other models are of a prescriptive nature: their goal is not to describe existing practices, but to structure them in order to help professionals deal with the uncertainty that is inherent to creativity. Whatever the type, such models aim to answer the following question: how can creative work be structured in order to ensure the optimal deployment of creative potential? The multivariate approach posits that creative behaviour is made possible by interactions between multiple resources including cognitive, conative, emotional and environmental factors. Like existing models, the multivariate approach has shown potential for both descriptive and prescriptive modelling of the creative process. In this chapter, we will review existing research on the multivariate approach of creativity. We will begin by describing the theoretical and methodological background of such models. We will then go on to describe some of the results obtained by multivariate modelling of the creative process in recent years. Finally, we describe some prospects for future research, specifically concerning prescriptive modelling—that is, the design of the creative process.