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'''THEORY OF ORIGINALITY ''' Originality according to website Instructional Design, functions as an instructional design theory which purports the idea that creativity can in fact be engineered and thus postured for increase. It was surmised to be a behavior which occurs relatively at an infrequent fashion, uncommon under given conditions, and bearing relevance only to those conditions. That is, originality is held to come about not as an innate quality but rather a skill which can in fact be taught. (Leonard, 2002, p.229 )

'''THE CREATOR ''' Iriving Maltzman (born May 9th, 1924 and deceased December 5th, 2015) in Brooklyn New York, was an American Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles and the original contributor of the originality theory. He completed his Bachelor of Arts at New York University in 1946 and a Doctorate of Philosophy at State University Iowa in 1949. ("Irving Maltzman's Obituary," n.d.)

He was a member of the University of California Los Angeles faculty since 1949, an associate professor therein from 1957 to 1960, a professor of psychology since 1961, and a department chairman at the same said institution from 1970 to 1977. ("Irving Maltzman's Obituary," n.d.)

Throughout his tenure of life he became a recognized American Psychology Professor, Member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Psychonomic Society, and Australian Society. ("Irving Myron Maltzman," n.d.)

According to his obituary, “In 1964, he traveled to the USSR as part of the first cultural exchange with Soviet psychologists and other scientists. Irv's experiences in the USSR prompted him to sponsor the emigration of several Jewish scientists so they could escape Soviet anti-Semitism and continue their research in the U.S. Based on his research on the orienting reflex and collaboration with Soviet scientists, Irv and M. Cole published A Handbook of Contemporary Soviet Psychology in 1969, introducing Soviet research to Western scientists.” ("Irving Maltzman's Obituary," n.d.)

Additionally, he published “most notably a 1982 paper in Science with co-authors M. Pendry and L. J. West. Their paper detailed significant flaws in a study by Sobell & Sobell which had concluded that controlled drinking was a more successful treatment than abstinence for physically dependent alcoholics. The Science paper contradicted the Sobells' conclusions. This experience sparked Irv's subsequent intense interest in research ethics.” ("Irving Maltzman's Obituary," n.d.)

His studies primarily focused upon learning and behavior, as well his teaching and research interests were alcoholism, the orienting reflex, history and systems. In fact, he published over 20 literary works in 61 publications inclusive of Alcoholism: A Review of its Characteristics, Etiology, Treatments, and Controversies and was responsible for a contribution to the 1960 Psychological Review, 67(4) 229-242 entitled “On the training of Originality”. ("Irving Maltzman's Obituary," n.d.)

HISTORY

Maltzman through conducting a number of studies was able to demonstrate that originality can be increased. His research was held to be distinctive in that he was one of the few behaviorists who sought to deal with creative behavior. He was able to provide a simplified understanding and means by which originality can be studied. Additionally, he assessed the relationship developed between originality and problem solving.

The 1960 article in the Psychological Review stated, “A series of experiments by Maltzman and his associates was reviewed, and a procedure which consistently facilitated originality was described. This procedure involves the repeated presentation of a list of stimulus words in a modified free association situation accompanied by instructions to give a different response to each stimulus. Under these conditions the responses become more uncommon. When presented with new stimulus materials, Ss receiving such training are reliably more original than Ss receiving no training. (Maltzman, 1960, p. 229)

ANALYSIS

It was written within the article Experimental Studies in the Training of Originality,“5 experiments concerned with the problem of training of originality are reported. The 1st was designed to determine whether the facilitation of uncommon responses to new stimuli would occur when different stimuli were presented rather the same word stimulus repeated over and over. The 2nd experiment made an effort to explore possible relevant variables and some alternative methods aiding in the production of originality by exposing Ss to uncommon associations for the purpose of determining whether the production of uncommon responses is necessarily a condition of training in originality. The results, strongly suggested that the standard experimental training procedure of using the same stimuli to evoke different responses is the most successful procedure when compared to the 2 innovational methods used. Experiment 3 was designed to ascertain whether the failure of one of the groups in Experiment 2 was due to the relatively small amount of training it received. The results emphasize that not all materials work in the same manner; and, as a result, the repeated evocation of different responses to the same stimuli can be uniformly attained. The 4th experiment tested whether performance on tests of originality vary as a function of the number of repetitions of the training list, and the 5th experiment sought to test whether or not there is some degree of persistence of originality after training. The results of the latter 2 experiments appear to support the hypothesis that originality is learned behavior and, like other forms of operant behavior, may be expected to vary as a function of the same antecedent conditions.” (Maltzman, Belloni, & Fishbein, 1964, p.493)

Furthermore the 1963 Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior Volume 1, Issue six stated, “Maltzman and his colleagues have devised a word-association training procedure which is designed to raise the operant level of “original” verbal responses, conceived as responses which are both uncommon and relevant to any given stimulus word. The present study represented an attempt to determine whether their procedure does indeed enhance relevant as well as uncommon associations. In particular, the transfer effects of Maltzman's standard training procedure were tested on Mednick's Remote Associates Test, an associative task which has been shown to correlate with other tests of originality and which contains a stricter relevance criterion than the transfer tasks heretofore employed by Maltzman.” (Caron, Unger, & Parloff, 1963, p.236)

This was later built upon in the 1968 Journal of Personality and Social Psychology where L.H. Levy, “proposed that originality is more a form of role-defined behavior than a form of operant behavior, and that the effects of originality training may be understood as due to changes in the person's criterion for an appropriate response rather than to increases in the associative strength of original responses. In an experiment described as being concerned with ability to play a role, 50 male and 15 female students were assigned to treatment groups receiving either: (1) verbal reinforcement for giving uncommon word associations, (2) a symbolic role model in the form of a protocol containing uncommon word associations, (3) instructions describing the role to be assumed, or (4) a combination of reinforcement and instructions. All treatment groups were superior to controls, but the combinations of reinforcement and instructions proved most effective in increasing uncommon word associations. These data, together with evidence of transfer of training and differences in role perception between the treatment and control groups, were interpreted as supporting the proposed conception of originality.” (Levy, 1968, p. 72)

The 1960 article entitled “A Test of Maltzman’s Theory of Originality Training, is quoted as stating “Maltzman has conceptualized originality as an operant behavior which is both uncommon and relevant to any given stimulus condition, and subject to the same learning principles governing other operant forms. The reinforcement for such behavior is held to be its mere occurrence, the amount varying inversely with the initial probability of the response. Reinforcement of one “original” response, moreover, is conceived to increases the tendency to get uncommon responses generally, such nonspecific transfer being thought to occur through ‘complex kind of mediated generalization”. (Caron, Unger, & Parloff, 1963, p.240)

EXAMPLE

Accord to the recorded research done by Maltzman, “In a typical experiment, participants would be asked to give free associations to lists of words. After the first list, the experimental group would receive instructions to give uncommon responses. On the final list (with no instructions), the experimental group gave more unusual responses than the control group. In addition, the experimental group scored higher on a creativity test given at the conclusion of the experiment.("Originality (I. Maltzman) - InstructionalDesign.org," n.d.)

SCOPE

Maltzman focused more upon language creativity as opposed to drawing, sculpting, or musical composition and is applicable primarily to the classroom in that it show that originality can be increase through instrument and practice.

'''REFERENCES ''' Caron, A. J., Unger, S. M., & Parloff, M. B. (1963). A test of Maltzman's theory of originality training. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 1(6), 436-442. doi:10.1016/s0022-5371(63)80029-8

Irving Myron Maltzman. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://prabook.com/web/irving_myron.maltzman/1697787

Leonard, D. C. (2002). Learning Theories, A to Z. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Publishing Group.

Levy, L. H. (1968). Originality as role-defined behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 9(1), 72-78. doi:10.1037/h0025723

Maltzman, I. (1960). On the training of originality. Psychological Review, 67(4), 229-242. doi:10.1037/h0046364

Maltzman, I., Belloni, M., & Fishbein, M. (1964). Experimental studies of associative variables in originality. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 78(3), 1-21. doi:10.1037/h0093837

Originality (I. Maltzman) - InstructionalDesign.org. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/originality/

View Irving Maltzman's Obituary on latimes.com and share memories. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/latimes/obituary.aspx?n=irving-and-diane-maltzman&pid=186778349