What motivates us to be creative

br What Motivates Us to be Creative 1

What Motivates Us to be Creative

Introduction

Alexander Graham Bell showed to the public in 1876 during the Philadelphia Centennial

Celebration the first electric speaking telephone ( ieee .org . 1993 Alexander Graham Bell , 3rd

paragraph ) which in effect officially declared the invention of the telephone . The invention was

widely acclaimed by the people in the United States which at that time is having problems with

communication and never imagined that talking to people in a far away distance by use

of

telephone can be possible . The invention started when Bell showed to Joseph Henry , his friend and

known induction and magnetism expert his discovery that intermittent current passing through a

helix of insulated copper can produce a pitch but not an audible sound (ieee .org . 1993 . The

ieee .org further revealed that the discovery was followed by painstaking experiments which

involved sleepless nights , isolation and lots of sacrifices . Bell was about to surrender the idea but

was encouraged endlessly by his friend Joseph Henry until completion of the invention . Dr . Martin

Cooper , a general manager of a systems department of Motorola in 1973 or 97 years after the

invention of wired telephone ) made the first cell phone call cellular .co .za . n .d ) The call was made

to his rival , Mr . Joel Engel of Bell Laboratories , the research arm of AT T in New York

Dr . Martin Cooper was encouraged to invent the cell phone by his company . Bell was

encouraged by his friend to invent the first wired telephone . In both of these novel inventions , a

question can be asked . Are they motivated to be creative by an outside force or their being creative

intrinsic to them or combination of both . Is creativity inherent within the gene make up of only a

few person or creativity is an option open to all persons to satisfy more higher level human needs

Let us examine what motivates a person to be creative and why only a select few has done so . What Motivates Us to be Creative 2

Abraham Maslow and his Hierarchy of Needs

Abraham Maslow is an American humanist psychologist . Humanists do not believe that human

beings are pushed and pulled by mechanical forces , either of stimuli and reinforcements (behaviorism ) or of unconscious instinctual impulses (psychoanalysis Simons , Irwin and

Drinnien , 1987 , 2nd paragraph . This provided the reason for the fact that humans can never be

satisfied and always strive for satisfaction of higher level needs . A fully functional human strive to

reach the self -actualizing level , the highest in the hierarchy of needs . Maslow believe that humans

exist and live to satisfy the five basic needs . The first need is Physiological or the biological needs

This consists of water , oxygen , food and clothing to ensure constant body temperature . This the

strongest need because if a person is deprived of all needs physiological need comes first in search

for satisfaction . Maslow considered Safety needs as second in hierarchy This need arise when...