The Cambridge Handbook of Lifespan Development of Creativity

This handbook focuses on the development and nurturance of creativity across the lifespan, from early childhood to adolescence, adulthood, and later life. It answers the question: how can we help individuals turn their creative potential into achievement? Each chapter examines various contexts in which creativity exists, including school, workplace, community spaces, and family life. It covers various modalities for fostering creativity such as play, storytelling, explicit training procedures, shifting of attitudes about creative capacity, and many others. The authors review research findings across disciplines, encompassing the work of psychologists, educators, neuroscientists, and creators themselves, to describe the best practices for fostering creativity at each stage of development.

Sandra W. Russ is Distinguished University Professor at Case Western Reserve University, USA, where she researches how pretend play is involved in creativity and child development. She has developed a measure of pretend play (The Affect in Play Scale) and play intervention protocols.

Jessica D. Hoffmann is Director of Adolescent Initiatives at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, USA, and a research scientist. She is a licensed clinical psychologist and co-developer of two social emotional learning approaches, RULER and inspirED, that reach more than 2,500 schools around the world.

James C. Kaufman is Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Connecticut, USA. He has edited or authored more than 45 books and 300 papers. He's tested Dr. Sanjay Gupta's creativity on CNN and appeared in the hit Australian show Redesign Your Brain.