ABSTRACTResearch on the relationship between creativity and age has been based on two seemingly incompatible sets of assumptions. The deficit approach maintains and has demonstrated that creative productivity and age have a linear relationship—that is, creativity declines over the life‐span. The alternate approach, upon which the present paper is founded, maintains that creative productivity and creative ability are not identical. Further, this life‐span developmental approach posits that supposed declines in creativity actually may reflect qualitative changes in the underlying creative process. Thus, different stages of the life‐span are characterized by different kinds of creativity. Empirical and theoretical literature on wisdom and mature forms of thinking will be used to further answer the central questions of this paper: what might creativity in the second half of life lo