Conventional wisdom holds that creativity is a mysterious quality present in a select few individuals. The rest of us, the common view goes, can only stand in awe of great creative achievements: we could never paint Guernica or devise the structure of the DNA molecule because we lack access to the rarified thoughts and inspirations that bless geniuses like Picasso or Watson and Crick.

Presented with this view, todays cognitive psychologists largely differ finding instead that «ordinary» people employ the same creative thought processes as the greats. Though used and developed differently by different people, creativity can and should be studied as a positive psychological feature shared by all humans.

传统智慧认为，创造力是一种存在于少数人身上的神秘品质。通常的观点认为，我们其他人只能对伟大的创造性成就心存敬畏：我们永远无法画出格尔尼卡，也无法设计出DNA分子的结构，因为我们无法接触到庇佑毕加索或沃森和克里克等天才的稀有思想和灵感。

当今的认知心理学家在很大程度上对这一观点持不同看法，他们发现 "普通 "人采用的创造性思维过程与伟大人物相同。虽然不同的人使用和发展的方式不同，但创造力可以而且应该作为所有人类共享的积极心理特征加以研究。