Creativity is one of the most important requirements of innovation (Rietzschel & Caniels, 2013; Williams, Runco, & Berlow, 2016) and, understanding innovation as the successful implementation of creative ideas (Hennessey & Amabile, 2010), creativity is a priority in the present and in the future. It is already common for creative competencies to be referred to as the urge of survival as an individual and of organizations at the beginning of this century, thus asserting a radical importance (Soulé & Warrick, 2015) made “a possibility of escape from stagnation” (Nehardani, Mormoosavi, Sani, Tabarraei, & Ghodrati, 2013, p.1566) and the opportunity for personal growth (Wechsler, Oliveira, & Tonete-Suárez, 2015). Being creative is a key element to the challenge of being in the world today (Miller & Dumford, 2014).

The definition of creativity is considered as complex (Barbot, Besançon, & Lubart, 2011); however, there is a consensus about the simultaneity of originality and effectiveness for something to be creative (Kaufman, 2016; Runco & Jager, 2012). For its part, being creative can be worked out. Meta-analysis studies on interventions in creative competencies have already shown improvement (Ma, 2006; Scott, Leritz, & Mumford, 2004). Many of these interventions are conducted in an academic context, thus appearing as a relevant scenario to foster creative problem solving by addressing the curriculum and pedagogical practices at all levels of education (Cropley, 2015).

Consistent with the modifiability of creative competencies, there is concern about the predominance of a creative climate, which is an environment that promotes such skills and innovation (Miller & Dumford, 2014). The research of characteristics of a creative climate has emerged in the domain of business organizations (Hong, Chang, & Chai, 2014), having had less development in the educational context despite their relevance (Péter-Szarka, 2012; Tan et al., 2015).

Comparing the characteristics pointed at a creative climate in business organizations (Isaksen, 2007) and in educational contexts, namely a school context (Fleith & Morais, 2017; Romo, 2012), great similarities are observed, as one would expect. In a systematization, from these and other authors, an environment that enables creative expression should guarantee psychological security, which is permissive of risk-and-mistake-taking behaviors such as formulating new situations and questioning. This security climate also promotes autonomy, criticism, debate and participation in general. The contents and strategies work in a way not to prevail routine, but contemplating diversity and articulation regarding personal interests. The stimulus to creative responses must also be explicit and achievements must receive continuous and constructive feedback. A creative climate also allows to combine working or learning to playfulness, for example by favoring humor or imagination. It is therefore understandable that this climate gives rise to commitment and engagement.

As for the still ambiguous topic of intrinsic/extrinsic motivation in the face of creativity (Kaufman, Reiter-Palmon, & Royston, 2015), several authors (Hennessey & Amabile, 2010; Jesus, Rus, Lens, & Imaginário, 2013) have affirmed the importance of intrinsic motivation for creative manifestation, even if it can be achieved with rewards, that is, when they are processed as confirmation of competence of the already intrinsically motivated individual. The pressure of deadlines on creating also raises controversy; however, facilitating enough time to perform tasks is one of the most commonly mentioned characteristics for a climate conducive to creativity (Isaksen & Akkermans, 2011). However, these characteristics alone cannot guarantee anything in terms of creativity, but only their co-occurrence and even a “creative blend of these ingredients” allows such “cocktail” to be “a success” as Grainger, Barnes, and Scoffham (2004, p.252) have commented. On the other hand, personal characteristics are underlined in the facilitation of the creative process. For decades, there has been consensus on a set of attributes such as autonomy, self-confidence, willingness to risk-taking, tolerance to ambiguity or persistence (Barbot, Besançon, & Lubart, 2015).

The other side of the coin of creative climate and individual attributes that facilitate creative expression is, naturally, the existence of inhibiting factors. However, as for creativity, there is a dynamic coincidence of individual and contextual factors (Lubart, 2017), also when we talk about barriers, which are often specified as internal or personal, external, social or organizational, they cannot be taken independently (Nehardani et al., 2013). Thus, personal attributes that facilitate or hinder creative expression are reinforced or inhibited in lifelong modeling and under different contexts (Alencar & Sobrinho, 2017).

Some characteristics that illustrate this negative interaction of social influence and personal attributes in relation to creative expression in an educational context are social pressures on those who deviate from the norm, negative attitudes towards behaviors that imply risks, emphasis on conformism, devaluation of fantasy, lack of confidence and cooperation or authoritarianism (Sahlberg, 2011), as well as different expectations of achievement according to the gender of the individual (Mundim & Wechsler, 2015). Amabile (1999) referred to creative murderers an excessive and explicit control of tasks, competition and rewards processed as external.

Standardized procedures, when facing methodologies and content that do not contemplate such individual differences, which in turn are oriented almost exclusively to single response patterns, are denounced as creativity barriers (Sahlberg, 2011). This author even calls such procedures “the worst enemy of creativity” (Sahlberg, 2011, p.341). Also, teaching, learning and evaluation methods that focus on the transmission and reproduction of knowledge, emphasizing passivity and demotivation of the student, are pointed out (Csikszentmihalyi, 2007). Creativity requires curiosity, criticism, ambiguity management, persistence or remote association of knowledge (Lubart, 2017); most of the time, the pressure to perform quickly leads to the fragmentation of work and the lack of focus what is relevant, being impossible to create, but only to (re) produce (Hennessey & Amabile, 2010). If the focus is on the individual, the lack of self-confidence and self-esteem, the fear of questioning, of error, of being criticized (the fear of risking, inhibition), the avoidance of problems, the perception of oneself as incapable of being original, or the internalization of criticism as to being different (Alencar & Sobrinho, 2017) arise associated as a barrier of creative expression. These characteristics can then be read as more internal barriers, which are reinforced throughout the life-course by the presence of the previous procedures.

The research on obstacles to creativity is, however, scarce (Miller & Dumford, 2014) and, in Higher Education, more research on creativity in general is needed (Craft, Hall, & Costello, 2014). However, this level of education appears as an essential scenario for the development of citizens capable of facing the challenges of the future (Deverell & Moore, 2014). There is the responsibility of training students, not only regarding curricular competencies, but to prepare them for risks and opportunities to manage outside the academia (MacLaren, 2012). They should be capable not only of the increasingly fleeting action of learning, but above all of “manipulating, transforming and creating knowledge” (Garcia-Cepero, 2008, p.295), being trained for flexibility, criticism and creativity.

However, difficulties at implementing creative practices at the university have been noted (Deverell & Moore, 2014) and there have been perceptions of students reporting obstacles to their creative expression (Morais & Almeida, 2015). The fear students have of taking risks and being criticized is commented on by Hargreaves (2008). Misconceptions both from teachers and students about creativity may also contribute to institutional and personal barriers to creativity (MacLaren, 2012; Morais & Almeida, 2016). Regarding the students population, stress, shyness or fatigue (Oliveira & Alencar, 2007; Wilcoxson, Cotter, & Joy, 2011) also emerge as obstacles to creativity, being the lack of time and opportunities some of the most common factors (Sathler & Fleith, 2010).

The scarcity of literature about higher education students’ perceptions of creativity (Craft et al., 2014) greatly influences their specific knowledge according to gender. However, some data may help to understand the relevance of this kind of research. The relation between gender and creative achievement has elicited inconclusive results (Prado, Alencar, & Fleith, 2016). Some results show a higher score for one of the genders, while some point to an equality between them (Kemmelmeier & Walton, 2012). As gender is a very influential variable, through the course of a lifetime, by psychosocial dimensions (Caleo & Heilman, 2014), it is expected its influence over representations in general and consequently over creativity in higher education. The female gender is indicated, by influence of stereotypes since childhood, as being more conformist, with less propensity for risk-taking, less professional success, less entrepreneurial skills, with lower self-esteem (Wai, 2013) and, thus, with fewer opportunities relating to the creative expression (Gralewski & Karwowski, 2013).

In education and taking college students, few studies can be found. Alencar (2001) showed that boys perceive the lack of motivation as a major obstacle to creativity, while girls do so by referencing to social repression. In a cross-cultural study, this author and colleagues (Alencar, Fleith, & Martinez, 2003) also found results in which female students, more than their male counterparts, referred to inhibition or shyness as a barrier to creativity in higher education. Both studies relate the data obtained with roles and social expectations that shape attitudes and behaviors differently in both genders. More research on this topic is clearly needed.

Listening to higher education students about creativity becomes a current necessity, as well as knowing more about the barriers they perceive. In this sense, this article aims to analyze differences in university students’ perceptions regarding the obstacles to their creative expression, considering the gender variable.