Boden P/H Creativity Typology
Updated 2026-08-10
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
Boden's typology separates two kinds of creative achievement. Psychological creativity, or P-creativity, produces an idea that is new to the person who had it, even if others reached it long before. Historical creativity, or H-creativity, produces an idea that is new with respect to the whole of human history, as with the first statement of the Pythagorean theorem. The distinction matters because education and management usually can and should aim at P-creativity, whereas H-creativity is rare and cannot be scheduled.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Set the standard: ask whether the idea is new to the person or new to everyone. - Reward the personal: treat a solution new to the individual as genuine creativity. - Build the ladder: accumulate small personal discoveries as the route toward larger ones.
Anchor fast decisions
Most ideas a person produces have already been thought of elsewhere, but that does not make them less valuable to the person who produced them, because the achievement is relative to what that person knew. Judging every idea by the historical standard therefore suppresses the great majority of learning-relevant creativity. Recognising P-creativity as real creativity keeps people experimenting, and accumulated personal discoveries are the soil in which the rarer historical breakthroughs grow. The typology thus shifts the criterion from fame to novelty relative to the individual.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
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Source support: Explicit
- en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Bodenverified
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