John Metz Baer
John Baer is a Professor of Educational Psychology at Rider University in New Jersey. He earned his B.A. from Yale University and his Ph.D. in cognitive and developmental psychology from Rutgers University.
His research on the development of creativity and his teaching have won national awards, including the American Psychological Association's Berlyne Prize and the National Conference on College Teaching and Learning’s Award for Innovative Excellence. His primary research focus is the domain specificity of creativity, which argues that creativity is not a general set of skills but rather that creative-thinking skills vary by domain, making creativity in one domain not predictive of creativity in other domains. He developed the Amusement Park Theory of creativity
His books include Domain Specificity of Creativity, Teaching for Creativity in the Common Core Classroom, Being Creative Inside and Outside the Classroom, Creativity and Divergent Thinking: A Task-Specific Approach, Creative Teachers, Creative Students, Creativity Across Domains: Faces of the Muse, Reason and Creativity in Development ; Are We Free? Psychology and Free Will, Essentials of Creativity Assessment, and Creatively Gifted Students Are Not Like Other Gifted Students. He also collaborated with A. J. Lemaster in the development of the modern shorthand program SuperWrite.
He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, and he has received research grants from the National Science Foundation, the Educational Testing Service, the National Center for Educational Statistics, the Carnegie Foundation, and Yale, Rutgers, and Rider Universities. He serves on the editorial boards of the Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts; the Journal of Creative Behavior; and the International Journal of Creativity and Problem Solving.
