See my aesthetics professor had a lot to say about creativity. It ties in a lot with originality. We argued that there are creative spheres. Some creative spheres encompass other spheres. Often when people talk about being creative it is in the context of their own sphere of creativity. However, people often act like they are being creative in all spheres, though this is almost never the case. And widespreading leaps of inspired creativity are almost never limited to one individual.
Thus we came to the argument of wether or not children are creative. Surprisingly, when examined from a social perspective of looking at the works of children as a whole, children aren't really creative. In fact, children do and think pretty much the same things as other children. However, when you examine it from the child's perspective, they are very creative inside their own sphere. They are doing things and thinking things that they hadn't thought of previously, making them creative in their own minds and often the minds of their parents and care-givers.
The sad truth is that if you desire to be Creative in the eyes of everyone on Earth, well that just isn't going to happen. The chances that someone else hasn't had the same idea are slim to none.
So then we start defining creativity outside of originality. In many ways, creativity is more of a quest for individuality than originality. Course, when you go into markets, this is a bad thing. You want others to relate to your work and if it is wholy something unique to you, well then many people can't relate and won't buy your product. Not to mention that people are social creatures who activily seek acceptence in groups in order to survive. High school students are a good example. If you walk into a high school art class (or even a college one) you might be surprised to see that the students are almost always doing the same them or subject and use simular elements. And there are a lot of reasons for this, mostly being that the desire for acceptence outways the desire for individuality. So creativity for individuality sake has some shaking footings.
It also helps to look at the opposite of creativity, destructivity. Now some argue that the two are one and the same. This poses several problems. It is true that they share many things in common, but if they are the same then neither can really exists--we would just call them both "change." But creativity and destrectivity are characteristics of change that have differing attributes. Destructivity is the process of change that ends, creativity is the process of change that continues. In other words, a destructive act does not produce more results, it just ends or the results that it does produce are so unlike the previous state that they cannot be considered related. Creativity, leads to more creativity.
As for the topic of inhibitions, I tend to agree with those who find that having boundries actually spurs them to be more creative. Those who don't allow those boundries to be set, often have results that are just muddled not suitable to be used by others. If the end result has no meaning or no use to others or even harms others, then it is not creative--it is destructive.
So to weigh in on the "who is more creative: adults or teenagers?" I would say that adults usually are more creative because they have more tools to use than teenagers. Teenagers are usually just creative in their own minds.
This post has gone on too long, I will end there and maybe post more later.
