 20. Creativity and Genius  437
the profile of the creative person (Simonton, 
2008). If intelligence is the primary factor, 
then more than half of creativity may be as -
cribed to genetic influences. But if personal -
ity attributes provide the most critical com -
ponents of the profile, then maybe less than 
one- fourth of the observed individual differ -
ences may be attributed to genetic makeup.
Individual versus  Situational Determinants 
of Creativity
Thus far we have been assuming that creativ -
ity has its locus inside  the person—that it is 
an individual characteristic or behavior. Not 
all researchers accept this viewpoint, how -
ever (e.g., Csikszentmihály, 2014; Gl âveanu 
et al., 2019). Many sociologists and anthro -
pologists have argued that creativity, even 
genius, is more a sociocultural than an in -
dividual phenomenon. There are two main 
arguments for this position, one general and 
the other specific.
The general argument ensues from the 
fact that creative genius is not evenly dis -
tributed across history and geography. In -
stead, exceptional creativity tends to cluster 
into what Kroeber (1944) styled as cultural 
configurations . Typically, there will exist 
long periods in the history of any civiliza -
tion in which creative activity is virtually 
nil (“dark” ages), punctuated by other pe -
riods in which creativity reaches the great -
est heights (“golden” and “silver” ages). 
The Classical Age of Greece or the Italian 
Renaissance are prime examples. Kroeber 
documented the existence of these configu -
rations in every civilization that has ever ex -
isted in the world, so we cannot doubt that 
this is a very general phenomenon (see also 
Murray, 2003; Simonton & Ting, 2010). 
Moreover, Kroeber (1944) and others argue 
from this secure fact that the creative genius 
is basically an epiphenomenon produced by 
the zeitgeist,  or “spirit of the times.” At best, 
the creators are mere spokespersons for the 
culture in which they live.
The specific argument concerns the curi -
ous phenomenon called multiples  (Lamb & 
Easton, 1984). This occurs whenever two or 
more individuals independently, and often 
simultaneously, come up the exact same 
scientific discovery or technological inven -
tion. Classic examples include the creation of calculus by Newton and Leibnitz, the dis -
covery of Neptune by Adams and Leverrier, 
the theory of evolution by natural selection 
by Darwin and Wallace, and the invention 
of the telephone by Bell and Gray. In fact, 
the number of such multiple discoveries and 
inventions runs into the hundreds, if not 
thousands. Furthermore, many social sci -
entists have argued that the very occurrence 
of these events proves that creativity ensues 
from the sociocultural system, and not from 
the individual (Lamb & Easton, 1984). At 
a particular moment in the history of any 
creative domain, certain ideas become abso -
lutely inevitable, so it really makes no differ -
ence who actually makes the contribution. 
The new ideas are “in the air” to be picked 
by anyone. Indeed, some proponents of this 
social-  deterministic account have argued 
that the discoverer or inventor does not even 
need any special intellectual or dispositional 
attributes.
Needless to say, if these arguments are 
correct, then creativity and genius would no 
longer become the proper subject of psycho -
logical analysis, for creative genius would 
become a sociocultural process. Nonethe -
less, scrutiny of both arguments reveals sev -
eral weaknesses that seriously undermine the 
thesis of sociocultural determinism (Simon -
ton, 2010). In the case of cultural configura -
tions, for instance, it has been shown that 
certain political, economic, cultural, social, 
and disciplinary circumstances play an im -
portant part in creative development; thus, 
the milieu is operating through  creative in -
dividuals (Simonton, 2019c). An excellent 
example is the impact of role models on the 
early development of the creative genius. In 
the case of multiples, it is possible to con -
struct combinatorial models of the phenom -
enon that are based on how creativity op -
erates within individual minds (Simonton, 
2010). Not only can these models explicate 
the same phenomenon, but they also lead 
to precise predictions that have so far with -
stood empirical tests. According to these al -
ternative models, the contribution of the so -
ciocultural milieu is limited to the provision 
of the necessary (but not sufficient) condi -
tions for the emergence of certain ideas. The 
creative genius must do the rest.
Although recent research seems to under -
mine a strong-  form sociocultural determin -