The Science of Creativity

Everyone who works in television and movie comedy knows Charna Halpern. She’s trained thousands of actors, writers, and producers at her Chicago theater, founded in 1981, called the iO theater. In this episode, Charna tells personal and funny stories about actors from Chris Farley and Neil Flynn to Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. Along with actor and director Del Close, Charna invented modern improvisational theater in the 1980s. The art form known as long form improvisation—a 20 or 30-minute fully improvised one-act play—was developed at the iO theater, and is still found on their stage at seven nights a week at 1501 N. Kingsbury Street in Chicago.

Charna is one of the best-known and best-loved people in comedy because she developed a system for training actors how to improvise together. Her training takes a full year and it’s so effective that TV producers, like Lorne Michaels, regularly visit iO theater to audition the actors who’ve graduated from the program. Sometimes on Saturday Night Live, every actor was once at the iO theater.

Charna created a family, a community, that she lovingly calls “my people.” Here are just a few of the famous actors and writers who we talk about in this episode (in order of mention): Lorne Michaels; Cecily Strong; Tina Fey; Amy Poehler; Mike Myers; Vanessa Bayer; Adam McKay; Brian Stack; Stephen Colbert; David Koechner; Rachel Dratch; Chris Farley; Sarah Silverman; Stephanie Ware; Neil Flynn; Larry David; Seth Myers; John Lutz; Matt Walsh; Tim Meadows. She even tells a story about how she let Adam McKay sleep on her couch before he was famous because he couldn’t afford to stay in Chicago.

When I was doing my research on improvisation in the early 1990s, the theater was called “Improv Olympic” and only later renamed “iO.” Don’t tell anyone I said that. 

For more information:

• iO theater. https://ioimprov.com/
• Truth in Comedy. Charna Halpern, Del Close, Kim Howard Johnson.
• Art by Committee. Charna Halpern.

Music by license from SoundStripe:

• "Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ
• "Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ
• "What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich
•  

Copyright (c) 2025 Keith Sawyer

Dr. Mark Runco is a professor and is the Director of Creativity Research and Programming at Southern Oregon University. Over 35 years ago, he founded an influential scientific journal called The Creativity Research Journal and he was the editor of that journal until 2020. He’s published books that are widely read by creativity researchers such as his college textbook, Creativity: Research, Development, and Practice (three editions), The Creativity Research Handbook (1997, 2011, 2012), and the very first Encyclopedia of Creativity in 1999. He’s known for his studies of core topics in creativity research including problem finding, assessment, and divergent thinking. His recent writings are critical of the widespread claim that Gen AI is creative. He argues that creativity is unique to humans, and we’re going to talk about that today.

Mark developed and still teaches seminars on creativity, including "Creativity: What It Is and What It Is Not," "The Assessment of Creativity," "Creative Cognition," and "Social Contexts for Creativity." He is past president of Division 10 (Psychology, Art, Creativity, and Aesthetics) of the American Psychological Association. Episodes 23 and 24 of this podcast are about the annual conference of Division 10.

Additional information:

Mark Runco’s web site

First edition of Encyclopedia of Creativity, 1999 (with Steven Pritzer)

Second edition, 2011 (with Steven Pritzker)

Creativity: Research, Development, and Practice (third edition, 2023)

The Creativity Research Handbook (third edition, 2012)

Music by license from SoundStripe:

"Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ

"Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ

"What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich

Copyright (c) 2025 Keith Sawyer

Steve Heller is arguably the world’s best-known design educator, with over 200 books on graphic design, illustration, and political art. I interviewed him for my 2025 book Learning to See. His books include Design Literacy: Understanding Graphic Design; Teaching Graphic Design; and The Education of an Illustrator (with Marshall Arisman). He’s spent most of his career at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, where he’s now the Special Assistant to the President and the Co-Founder and Co-Chair Emeritus of the MFA Design Department. He’s won numerous awards including Cooper-Hewitt’s National Design Mind Award; Smithsonian Design Museum; National Endowment for the Arts; AIGA Medal for Lifetime Achievement; and many others. For 33 years, he was an art director at the New York Times and the New York Times Book Review. In this interview, he gives amazing insights about how to teach graphic design and illustration.

For more information: 

• Steve Heller’s web site
• Book: Teaching Graphic Design
• Book: The Education of an Illustrator
• Sawyer's book Learning to See

Music by license from SoundStripe:

• "Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ
• "Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ
• "What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich

Copyright (c) 2025 Keith Sawyer

The much-anticipated art and design book Learning to See was just published by MIT Press! In this episode, author Keith Sawyer talks with Amy Climer about his new book. Learning to See is an engaging and profound account of how professional artists and designers create and how they teach others to do it. Keith spent over ten years interviewing a hundred professors who’ve taught in 50 different colleges, universities, and institutes. He also interviewed students to learn about the personal transformation they go through as they learn to see and think like successful creative professionals. Learning to See describes project assignments and studio class sessions in over 20 different disciplines, revealing the shared essence of art and design.

Learning to See tells the stories of the professional artists and designers who teach in BFA and MFA programs throughout the U.S., including top schools in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. These articulate and experienced educators share their insights about how to guide younger artists and designers to realize their full creative potential. In the best BFA and MFA programs, students learn to see things they couldn’t see before, and they learn to think in new ways. In Learning to See, you meet professors and students in over 20 different art and design disciplines—from painting and sculpture to graphic design and architecture. By reading what they say in their conversations and their classrooms, you learn that becoming an artist or designer is not about learning to draw or sew or weld—it is about learning to see.

This book is for anyone who wants to better understand how professional artists and designers see, think, and make.

Notes

Book web site: Learning to See

Keith Sawyer's web site: www.keithsawyer.com

Amy Climer's web site: www.climerconsulting.com 

Music by license from SoundStripe:

"Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ

"Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ

"What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich

Copyright (c) 2025 Keith Sawyer

We're going to leave the podcast studio and travel to Yale University for the 2025 creativity research conference! This is the second of two episodes bringing you cutting-edge research from the conference. This episode has five interviews with leading-edge creativity researchers. There were over two hundred researchers at Yale, from around the world, including Japan, India, Europe, and South America. This is the official American Psychological Association creativity research conference. In this episode, you'll hear about research that is SO NEW that it hasn't even been published yet. Top creativity researchers attend this conference each year so that they can find out about the latest research findings, and now you can hear about it, too. This episode takes you to the conference room floor. Listen to this episode and also the last one, because there is too much great research for just one episode! Dr. Sawyer invited five researchers to tell us about their latest research findings, and there are six more in the last episode.

Chapters

0:00 Intro

0:35 Paul Silvia - Co-organizer of the conference

8:04 Hansika Kapoor - Dark creativity

17:41 Takeshi Okada - Living with art

27:00 Interlude

27:51 Angie Miller - Strategic National Arts Alumni Program

36:48 Taylor Worley - Slow looking

51:45 Outro

55:58 Closer

Resources

Conference web site

Conference detailed schedule of presentations

Music by license from SoundStripe:

• "Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ
• "Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ
• "What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich

Copyright (c) 2025 Keith Sawyer

We're going to leave the podcast studio and travel to Yale University for the 2025 creativity research conference! This episode has six interviews with leading-edge creativity researchers and the next episode has five more. There were over two hundred researchers at Yale, from around the world, including Japan, India, Europe, and South America. This is the official American Psychological Association creativity research conference. In this episode, you'll hear about research that is SO NEW that it hasn't even been published yet. Top creativity researchers attend this conference each year so that they can find out about the latest research findings, and now you can hear about it, too. This episode takes you to the conference room floor. Listen to this episode and the next one, because there is too much great research for just one episode! Dr. Sawyer invited six researchers to tell us about their latest research findings, and there are five more in the next episode.

Chapters

1:49 Conference welcome from Roni Reiter-Palmon

2:49 Kristin Lamb: Imagination and Creativity

9:40 Ahmad Rahimi: Using Large Language Models to Assess Student Creativity with Games

13:43 Interlude

14:41 Shoshi Kesari: Improv Theater with Adults

20:34 Denis Dumas: Children and the balance between originality and appropriateness

31:15 Michael Mumford: Creativity research from the 1970s to today

42:11 Outro

43:19 Closer

Resources

Conference web site

Conference detailed schedule of presentations

Music by license from SoundStripe:

• "Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ
• "Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ
• "What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich

Copyright (c) 2025 Keith Sawyer

Dr. Leidy Klotz is a professor at the University of Virginia, and the author of the book Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less. In this episode, we talk about how his research contributes to our understanding of how to approach and solve problems and how to change and innovate. This is an insightful conversation between two psychologists who really love to study how people think and act! Dr. Klotz's research is about so much more than creativity, but his research is linked to a lot of creativity topics, including editing during the process, architectural design, and education. Please take a look at Dr. Leidy Klotz’s book, which is called Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less, and visit his web site at leidyklotz.com.

Music by license from SoundStripe:

• "Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ
• "Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ
• "What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich

Copyright (c) 2024 Keith Sawyer

Dr. Amy Climer is a thought leader in creativity and innovation. She argues that creativity emerges from a deliberate process. Creativity can be learned, practiced, and repeated. Researchers have discovered a lot about how to teach this effectively, and this is the theme of her new book, Deliberate Creative Teams. In Dr. Climer's view, creativity is an intentional, structured process. For over 20 years, she’s been facilitating creativity workshops with teams and organizations. She helps companies learn how to foster an innovative culture through her company Climer Consulting. She’s the developer of the Deliberate CreativeⓇ Team Scale and the ClimerⓇ Cards, both powerful tools for enhancing team creativity.

For more information:

Amy’s company: Climer Consulting

Amy’s book: Deliberate Creative Teams 

Music by license from SoundStripe:

"Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ

"Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ

"What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich

Copyright (c) 2024 Keith Sawyer

Dr. Yoed Kenett studies the types of thinking and knowledge that support creativity. His research helps us understand the core mental processes of creativity, including associative thinking and question formulation. In this episode, we talk about the practical implications of his research and we show how that research can be used to enhance your creativity. He’s done research at the Hebrew University at Jerusalem; Bar-Ilan University; Brown University; and the University of Pennsylvania. Since 2020, he’s been a Senior Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the Faculty of Data and Decision Sciences at The Technion: Israel Institute of Technology. 

How can leaders foster creativity in their teams? How can you inspire people to reach their potential? Today's guest, Dr. Adam Galinsky, has spent decades studying these questions, doing research in social psychology, leadership, and organizational behavior. His latest book, Inspire: The Universal Path for Leading Yourself and Others, gives research-based advice for how to increase motivation, creativity, and collaboration. These are important skills for leaders but also for everyone in their daily lives. Adam is also the co-author of Friend & Foe: When to Cooperate, When to Compete, and How to Succeed at Both.

Adam Galinsky is a professor at Columbia Business School.

For more information:

Adam's web site

Inspire: The Universal Path for Leading Yourself and Others

Friend & Foe: When to Cooperate, When to Compete, and How to Succeed at Both

Music by license from SoundStripe:

"Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ

"Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ

"What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich

Copyright (c) 2025 Keith Sawyer

Dr. Robert Sternberg, a professor of psychology at Cornell University, is one of the best-known psychologists in the United States. He’s done groundbreaking research on the most important issues in psychology, including scientific studies of wisdom, love, hate, leadership, and of course, creativity. Dr. Sternberg is known for reforming college admissions requirements to include measures of creativity, which he did while a dean at both Tufts University and at Oklahoma State University. He’s published literally thousands of books and scientific articles and his research has been cited by other scholars over 250,000 times. Dr. Sternberg’s research represents the best that we have in The Science of Creativity.

For more information:

Robert J. Sternberg, 2007. Wisdom, Intelligence, and Creativity Synthesized.

Robert J. Sternberg, 2002. Defying the Crowd: Cultivating Creativity in a Culture of Conformity.

Music by license from SoundStripe:

"Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ

"Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ

"What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich

Copyright (c) 2025 Keith Sawyer

Dr. Anna Abraham is a neuroscientist, a leading creativity researcher, and a professor at the University of Georgia. In addition to her cutting-edge research, Professor Abraham is the Director of the Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development, a research and outreach center at the University of Georgia. Dr. Abraham is doing cutting-edge research in some of the most important aspects of the human experience. She’s studied creativity, imagination, the reality-fiction distinction, and mental time travel. In this episode, we talk about her new book, The Creative Brain: Myths and Truths. The book helps us understand what science tells us about controversial topics. For example, is creativity connected to mental illness, psychedelic drugs, or autism? Listen to our interview to find out.

For more information:

Professor Anna Abraham's web site

Her book The Creative Brain: Myths and Truths

The Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development at the University of Georgia

Music by license from SoundStripe:

"Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ

"Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ

"What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich

Copyright (c) 2024 Keith Sawyer

John Hendrix is a New York Times bestselling author and illustrator. His latest book is a graphic novel called The Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. In this episode, John and I talk about his new book and about his own creative process. John’s work has appeared in numerous publications, such as Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Esquire, The New York Times, Time Magazine, National Geographic, among many others. His images also appeared in advertising campaigns for ESPN/ABC, AT&T, Pfizer, and Target.

I interviewed John about his creative process for my 2025 book Learning to See: Inside the World's Leading Art and Design Schools.

John is the Kenneth E. Hudson Professor of Art and the founding Chair of the MFA in Illustration and Visual Culture program at the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis.

For more information:

John Hendrix Illustration: www.johnhendrix.com

The Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C. S. Lewis & J. R. R. Tolkien

Sawyer's new book Learning to See will be published in April, 2025.

Music by license from Soundstripe:

"Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ

"Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ

"What's the Big Deal"

by Ryan Saranich

Copyright (c) 2024 Keith Sawyer

The perfect podcast for the Christmas season! This is a special Christmas episode of The Science of Creativity. Many of the traditions that we love—gift-giving, Santa Claus, kissing under the mistletoe—were invented across the generations, and are always evolving. This special holiday episode gives you the creation story of the secular, non-religious traditions that we celebrate at Christmas. The collective creation of these Christmas traditions is what I call social innovation, a kind of collective creativity where everyone plays a role. Five hundred years ago, Christmas was a wild party, where young men got drunk and roamed in packs around town. Children didn’t start getting gifts until about 200 years ago. In the late 1800s, the Santa Claus myth was invented, along with the elves and the sleigh and the workshop at the North Pole. It started two thousand years ago, in Ancient Rome, it picked up steam in the 1800s, and we’re still creating new Christmas traditions today.

Chapters

0:00 Teaser

1:11 Introduction to the Special Episode

2:12 Tradition and Invention

5:28 Wassailing

12:23 Toys

16:06 Santa Claus

21:25 The War on Christmas

25:24 The Holiday for Everyone

27:54 Closer

28:44 Outro

Music by License from Soundstripe:

• “Blues for Oliver” by Cast of Characters
• “Silent Night” by Cast of Characters
• “O Christmas Tree” by O Christmas Tree Jazz Trio
• “Just Walkin’” by Ryan Saranich
• “Uptown Lovers” by AFTERNOONZ 

Notes

The Pagan Origins of Christmas: Saturnalia, Yule, and Other Pre-Christian Traditions | History Cooperative

Wikipedia entries: “The war on Christmas” and “Wassailing” and “Syncretism” 

Copyright (c) 2024 Keith Sawyer

Kit White is the author of the international best-selling book 101 Things To Learn In Art School, which is based on his experience as a professor of art for 21 years at the Pratt Institute in New York. Many of the original drawings from the book are in the collection of the Luther W. Brady Art Gallery at the Corcoran School of Art and Design, George Washington University. He’s had more than 25 solo exhibitions of his artworks in galleries and museums. His artworks are in the permanent collections of the Guggenheim Museum, New York, and many others. He's frequently featured in magazines, newspapers, and television, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Nation. In addition to Pratt, he’s taught at Vanderbilt, McGill, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Frick Collection. His work is the subject of a monograph by Carter Ratcliff, Line Into Form.

For more information:

101 Things To Learn In Art School

www.kitwhiteart.com

Music by license from SoundStripe:

• "Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ
• "Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ
• "What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich

Copyright (c) 2024 Keith Sawyer

Ellen Winner is a retired Professor of Psychology at Boston College and Senior Research Associate at Harvard's Project Zero. She’s one of the world's leading experts in the psychology of art. She's studied the development of artistic abilities in childhood; how to teach art in high school; and what goes on in the mind when people are making art and perceiving art. She's also studied giftedness, dyslexia, left brain and right brain differences, and Alzheimer’s. 

She's the author or co-author of ten books, including three that we talk about in the episode: Invented Worlds: The Psychology of the Arts (1982), and How Art Works: A Psychological Exploration (2019). She's probably best-known for her 2007 book Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education (2007). 

For more information: 

Ellen Winner’s website

Keith Sawyer’s review of Ellen Winner’s career

Music by license from SoundStripe:

"Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ

"Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ

"What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich

Copyright (c) 2024 Keith Sawyer

Dr. Erica Halverson is one of the world’s leading experts in arts education. She’s a trained actor who’s founded two successful acting programs for school children, one in Chicago and one at her current home, the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She’s an expert in helping children realize their creativity. Her research shows that children learn much more from the arts than just painting or acting. They learn profound skills like collaboration, how to translate ideas into reality, and—most profound of all—they learn who they are. We’ll talk about her book called How the Arts Can Save Education.

For more information:

Dr. Halverson’s book How the Arts Can Save Education

Dr. Halverson’s website

Music by license from SoundStripe:

"Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ

"Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ

"What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich

Episode notes and content Copyright (c) 2024 Keith Sawyer

Dr. Mike Sharples has been studying computers and creativity for over 40 years. He’s an expert in education, technology, and innovation. In the 1970s, he was one of the first people to argue that computers might someday be able to write stories. We talk about his 2022 book Story Machines: How Computers Have Become Creative Writers. He’s a psychologist who studies how people create stories and how readers understand stories. His 2002 book How we write: Writing as creative design tells us how (human) authors do their work. In 1993, he told a journalist that a computer would write a novel within twenty years. (Yes, it has happened, but you probably won’t enjoy reading it!) In this interview, Dr. Sharples gives us a refreshing perspective on artificial intelligence and generative AI.

For more information:

Mike Sharples web site: www.mikesharples.com

The book Story Machines: 

The book How we write

Music by license from SoundStripe:

"Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ

"Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ

"What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich

Copyright (c) 2024 Keith Sawyer

Today’s episode is about creativity and entrepreneurship. Our guest, Dr. Kenan Sahin, founded several companies that are known for their technological innovation. His first company, Kenan Systems, sold in 1999 for $1.54 billion in stock. When he founded it in 1984, he was a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, and many of the early employees were MIT graduates with expertise in artificial intelligence and in decision support systems. Our conversation ranges widely over topics that will be of interest to both creativity researchers and to aspiring entrepreneurs. Dr. Sahin’s companies have developed innovations in cutting-edge fields including artificial intelligence and battery technology. He is an expert in managing R&D organizations. Dr. Sahin has just published a book called Lean Startup to Lean Company to Rich Exit.

For more information

https://books.forbes.com/books/lean-startup-to-lean-company-to-rich-exit/

Dr. Sahin’s Wikipedia page

Music by license from SoundStripe

"Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ

"Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ

"What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich

Copyright (c) 2024 Keith Sawyer

Messier is a smartphone app designed with input from a team of scientific advisors including one of today’s guests, Dr. Zorana Ivcevic Pringle, and also Dr. James Kaufman, who was the guest in episode 6 of “The Science of Creativity.” In this episode, I interview Dr. Zorana Ivcevic Pringle and co-founder Josh Seidenfeld. We talk about ways you can enhance your creativity through daily practice.

Dr. Zorana Ivcevic Pringle is a Senior Research Scientist at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. She is the Director of the Creativity and Emotions Lab. She’s an expert in the psychology of art, creativity, and emotions.

Josh Seidenfeld is the Chief Executive Officer of Messier. Josh has his MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. He’s been a consultant on business development, fundraising, and corporate climate policy, including at both Meta (formerly Facebook) and Apple.

For more information:

Messier’s web site

Dr. Zorana Ivcevic Pringle’s web site

Music by license from SoundStripe:

• "Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ
• "Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ
• "What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich Copyright

(c) 2024 Keith Sawyer