Creativity as a Necessity for Human Development

In this paper, we will consider creativity as a necessary psychological property for the individual’s development and survival. This standpoint is definitely in opposition to the empiricist behavioral theory on the one side, and to the innate gestalt theory on the other. As a constructivist, Piaget considered that understanding is a process of invention, or re-construction by invention, and that any knowledge emerging only from the environment’s constraints was not true knowledge even if its owner believed so. Within the theory of equilibrations, what interests us here is spontaneous creativity, when the child discovers new means of interacting with the environment in order to reduce his internal conflicts, thus keeping his thoughts harmonious.