Scott Barry Kaufman, James C. Kaufman (Eds.) The Psychology of Creative Writing: None of 31 contributors cites “The Illusion of Independent Agency”

John Baer               Jane Piirto

Michael V. Barrios      Jonathan A. Plucker

Genevieve E. Chandler   Samaneh Pourjalali

James C. Kaufman        Steven R. Pritzker

Scott Barry Kaufman     Mark A. Runco

Adele Kohanyi           Sandra W. Russ

Aaron Kozbelt           R. Keith Sawyer

E. Thomas Lawson        Pat Schneider

Martin S. Lindauer      Janel D. Sexton

Todd Lubart             Dean Keith Simonton

David Jung McGarva      Jerome L. Singer

Sharon S. McKool        E. M. Skrzynecky

Daniel Nettle           Robert J. Sternberg

James W. Pennebaker     Ai-Girl Tan

Susan K. Perry          Grace R. Waitman

                        Thomas B. Ward

It is not just that none of these eminent scholars cited that specific article—“The Illusion of Independent Agency” (2) (and see earlier post today)—but that none of them discussed the kinds of things reported in that article; i.e., the kinds of things that fiction writers commonly say about how their mind works in their creative writing process.

Why do these 31 brilliant scholars have this blindspot? Probably because they have no theory or framework—like Multiple Identity Literary Theory (the theory of this blog)—within which “the illusion of independent agency” makes sense.

Indeed, the authors of the article I’m praising evidently did not fully appreciate that what they call “the illusion of independent agency” is the essence of multiple personality, and that what they found in 92% of fifty fiction writers is a normal version of that.

1. Scott Barry Kaufman, James C. Kaufman (Editors). The Psychology of Creative Writing. Cambridge University Press, 2009.

2. Marjorie Taylor, Sara D. Hodges, Adele Kohanyi. “The Illustion of Independent Agency: Do Adult Fiction Writers Experience Their Characters as Having Minds of Their Own?” Imagination, Cognition and Personality, Vol. 22(4) 361-380, 2002-2003.

http://imaginarycompanions.uoregon.edu/files/2014/07/TaylorHodgesKohanyi-130mpe0.pdf

http://socialcognitionlab.uoregon.edu/files/2013/03/Taylor-Hodges-Kohanyi_2003-2b6wdel.pdf