Social Setting       The social setting also effects creative behavior.  There exist social settings in which it is extremely difficult to get the support of other people in doing a particular job unless the job is done in the obvious way.  In large companies there are generally set procedures for doing things.  There are ways of doing things which are known to have worked in the past, and consequently few people are interested in doing them in other ways.  For example, small businesses often send out fliers in the mail to advertise their sales and special events.  Suppose a company had been doing this for the past ten years and it had worked fairly well.  How open would the manager of the company be to the idea of sending out chain letters instead? It would depend on the manager, but the idea is likely to be "just an idea".  Without the action on that idea, the creative process would not be satisfied.  Many times, people produce barriers to creativity through their close-mindedness.  People generally resist change.  However, innovation demands it.  The social setting determines how other people in one's surroundings affect creativity.
    Sometimes, however, there is a more positive situation where other people are more apt to accepting a creative method for accomplishing a task.  Such a setting "stimulates creative ideas, encourages them when presented, . . . rewards a broad range of ideas and behaviors, [and] will surely foster original and nonconformist thinking." (Sternberg & Lubart, 10) There are numerous examples found in the educational system where children are given a poor social setting for creativity.  Yet, recently educators have begun to pay more attention to allowing students to be creative by giving more assignments which require creativity.  Also, educators are, in some cases, becoming more tolerant of the fact that there are multiple ways to solve problems.   Next Page: Psychological Setting