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All You Need Is Love: The Importance of Partner and Family Relations to Highly Creative Individuals’ Well‐Being and Success
Author(s) -
Lebuda Izabela,
Csikszentmihalyi Mihaly
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
the journal of creative behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.896
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 2162-6057
pISSN - 0022-0175
DOI - 10.1002/jocb.348
Subject(s) - perception , obstacle , psychology , social psychology , romance , grounded theory , family life , sociology , qualitative research , gender studies , social science , psychoanalysis , political science , neuroscience , law
The aim of the article was to investigate how the family life of highly creative individuals—mainly marriages or romantic relationships—is related to their sense of success and well‐being. Previous studies have led to conflicting conclusions. The predominant finding has been that marriage and family constitute an obstacle to creative potential development. Other studies have demonstrated that, regardless of gender, creators lead satisfying family lives, which contributes to their well‐being. The study presented in this paper is based on the grounded theory methodology and triangulates two sources: interviews with prominent creators from the USA conducted years ago (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996, N = 91) and interviews with recognized contemporary Polish artists and scientists ( N = 34). Based on interactions between the interviewees’ perception of themselves as creators and their perception of gender and family roles, the authors identify and discuss five types of relationship between creators’ family life and work. They also discuss the factors that hinder or facilitate creators’ satisfactory functioning in both areas in each of the five types of relationship.