Rate My Professor James Kaufman

James Kaufman is a Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Connecticut's Neag School of Education within the Psychology faculty. He earned his Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from Yale University in 2001. Kaufman's research focuses on creativity across multiple dimensions, including creativity and meaning, creativity assessment, creativity and related constructs or individual differences, and creativity in relation to social justice and equity. He is internationally recognized for his contributions to the field, notably developing the Four-C Model of Creativity with Ron Beghetto and conducting the study that originated the “Sylvia Plath Effect,” which examines gender differences in creative eminence and psychopathology.

Kaufman has authored or edited more than 50 books and published over 300 papers. Key books include Creativity 101 (2nd Edition, 2016), Cambridge Handbook of Creativity (2nd Edition, 2019, edited with Robert Sternberg), Pseudoscience: The Conspiracy Against Science (2018, edited with Audrey B. Kaufman), Nature of Human Creativity (2018, edited with Robert J. Sternberg), Cambridge Handbook of Creativity Across Domains (2017, edited with Vlad Glăveanu and John Baer), and Teaching for Creativity in the Common Core Classroom (2014, with Ronald A. Beghetto and John Baer). Selected recent publications encompass “Creativity is our gig: Focusing on the positive and practical” (in press, Translational Issues in Psychological Science), “Making the CASE for shadow creativity” (in press, Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts), “Explaining standardized educational test scores: The role of creativity above and beyond GPA and personality” (in press, Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts), and “Finding meaning with creativity in the past, present, and future” (2018, Perspectives on Psychological Science). He has received prestigious awards such as Mensa’s research award, the Torrance Award from the National Association for Gifted Children, and the American Psychological Association’s Berlyne, Arnheim, and Farnsworth awards. Kaufman served as past president of APA Division 10 (Society for the Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts) and co-founded two major journals: Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts and Psychology of Popular Media Culture. His broader impact includes media appearances on CNN, the Australian show Redesign Your Brain, narrating the documentary Independents, and creating the musical Discovering Magenta, which premiered in New York City in 2015.