We performed an inductive study to advance theory on how a crisis can inspire individuals to be persistently creative in successive cycles. We draw from rich data of 17 volunteer projects in the Tech4Covid movement, a Portuguese organization of entrepreneurs who gathered online to develop digital solutions to help society during the COVID-19…

Functional fixedness involves difficulty with conceptualizing creative object uses. When it obstructs problem-solving, individuals must reframe their approach. We examined how different training techniques--chunk decomposition (i.e., considering an object's basic parts and physical properties) and constraint relaxation (i.e., considering an…

Although people attempt many creative problem solutions, in general, most creative problem-solving efforts, at least real-world efforts, fail. In the present effort, we examine the reasons creative problem-solving efforts typically fail. We argue that creative problem-solving efforts fail, in part, due to the fundamental nature of the kinds of…

Models of creative problem solving are predicated upon mental states to explain everything from the outcome of problem-solving experiments to the emergence of artistic creativity. We present two converging perspectives that describe a profoundly different ontological description of creativity. Our analysis proceeds from a distinction between…

For more than one hundred years, students of creativity, including seminal efforts published in the "Journal of Creative Behavior," have sought to identify the key processes people must execute to produce creative problem solutions. In recent years, we have seen a consensual model of key creative thinking processes being accepted by the…

While the scientific investigation into creativity is a recent phenomenon, creative thinking has always been a crucial feature of humanity. The ability to creatively solve problems enabled early humans to survive and laid the foundation for the creative imagination that has resulted in our modern society. While most humans no longer face physical…

Too often, psychological debates become polarized into dichotomous positions. Such polarization may have occurred with respect to Campbell's (1960) blind variation and selective retention (BVSR) theory of creativity. To resolve this unnecessary controversy, BVSR was radically reformulated with respect to creative problem solving. The reformulation…

Creative achievements are the basis for progress in our world. Although creative achievement is influenced by many variables, the basis for creativity is held to lie in the generation of high-quality, original, and elegant solutions to complex, novel, ill-defined problems. In the present effort, we examine the cognitive capacities that make…

Many studies of design fixation ask designers to work in controlled laboratory or classroom environments, but innovative design work frequently occurs in dynamic, social environments. The two studies reviewed in this paper investigated how three independent variables likely to be present in many design environments affect design fixation. The…

Incubation has long been proposed as a mechanism in creative problem solving (Wallas, 1926). A new trial-by-trial method for observing incubation effects was used to compare the forgetting fixation hypothesis with the conscious work hypothesis. Two experiments examined the effects of incubation on initially unsolved Remote Associates Test (RAT)…

The purpose of this study was to explore and develop a conceptual model for how individuals unlock insight. The concept of insight--the "out of the box" or "aha!" solution to a problem--offers a framework for exploring and understanding how best to enhance problem solving skills due to the cognitive shift insight requires. Creative problem solving…

The relationships of teachers' epistemological beliefs, motivation, and goal orientation to their instructional practices that foster student creativity were examined. Teachers' perceived instructional practices that facilitate the development of multiple perspectives in problem solving, transfer, task commitment, creative skill use, and…

This article presents a problem-solving model of variability and creativity built on the classic Reitman and Simon analyses of musical composition and architectural design. The model focuses on paired constraints: one precluding (or limiting search among) reliable, existing solutions, the other promoting (or directing search to) novel, often…

This study investigates the relationship between creative personality composition, innovative team climate, and team innovation based on an input-process-output model. We measured personality with the Creative Person Profile, team climate with the Team Climate Inventory, and team innovation through team-member and supervisor reports of team…

Originality is a necessary part of creativity, but creative things are more than just original. They also solve a problem, or more generally are somehow fitting or appropriate. Yet previous research found an inverse relationship between ratings of originality and ratings of appropriateness. The present investigation employed a different…