Recent Trends in Creativity Research: An Analysis of Keywords in Four Prominent Creativity Journals

Although there have been several analyses of creativity scholarship and its changing emphases over time, these patterns and their trajectory over time have not been analyzed at a journal-by-journal level. Yet creativity journals are not interchangeable, and understanding how they differentially cover core topics can offer insight into the growing field of creativity studies. This study analyzed the listed keywords for articles published in four major creativity journals based on fifty coded thematic areas. Overall, education/K-12, creative problem-solving/creative cognition, research methodology, analytic thinking/reasoning, and cognitive flexibility/divergent thinking were the most common keyword themes. Several differences in the twenty most common keywords emerged across the four journals; some were expected (e.g. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts was high on aesthetics/psychology of art and Thinking Skills and Creativity was high in education/K-12) and others were not (e.g. Journal of Creative Behavior was high on creative products/outcomes and Creativity Research Journal was high on business/organizations). Regression analyses revealed several weak keyword trends across time (e.g. increases in research methodology and creative self/self-beliefs). Together, these results provide researchers a view of what has been recently been published in the field and how specific journals vary, albeit with the caveat that journal leadership often changes.