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…

Although many scientific discoveries were frequently reported as kinds of insightful breakthrough that suddenly illuminated in one's mind, we can never exactly know whether these afterward reports were reliable or not. In this study, subjects were asked to solve a list of Remote Associate Test problems and got both subsets of the insightfully and…

Since the introduction of brainstorming as an idea-generation technique to address organizational problems, researchers have struggled to replicate some of the claims around the technique. One major concern has been the differences in the number of ideas generated between established groups as found in industry versus the non-established groups…

Seventy-five participants from one suburban high school formed 21 teams with 3-4 members each for the Future Problem Solving Program International (FPSPI). Students were selected to participate in either the regular FPSPI or an enhanced FPSPI, where multiple group training activities grounded in problem-solving style were incorporated into a…

A new visual representation for insight problems permits 22 new quantitative measures; which leads to a detailed diagnosis of a person's (or team's) creative weaknesses; which then leads to prescribing targeted, effective counter-techniques for each weakness. Currently, only two measures are consistently used for insight problem solving: the…

Empirical studies of creativity emphasize the importance of ambiguity advantage in idea generation and creative problem-solving. This study examined whether ambiguous figures could directly induce a mind-set that would transfer to the creative problem-solving. In Experiment 1, we examined whether presentation of ambiguous figures would influence…

Despite significant scholarly attention, the literature on the existence and direction of gender differences in creativity has produced inconsistent findings. In the present paper, we argue that this lack of consensus may be attributable, at least in part, to gender-specific inconsistencies in the measurement of creative problem-solving. To…

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…

The "Future Problem Solving Program International" (FPSPI) is an internationally applied educational program that involves young people. Its theoretical foundation is both the Creative Problem Solving Model and the Futurist Thinking. It aims to promote creative and critical thinking through a futurist approach to problems. This study…

This paper examines the contrast and distinction between divergent and convergent scientific creativity, and the paradoxical relationship of scientific creativity with cultural factors in elementary students. With a newly developed measure of potential for scientific creativity, EPoC Science (Lubart et al., in press), students produce ideas in…

FourSight theory contends that individuals show preferences for the mental operations rooted in the creative process. The four fundamental preferences measured by FourSight are Clarifiers, Ideators, Developers, and Implementers. The present study examined the extent to which certain occupations reflect a proclivity for these four creative-process…

This study examined the influence of different mood states on Creative Science Problem Finding (CSPF). CSPF was measured in terms of Fluency, Flexibility, and Originality. Imagery techniques were used to induce positive or negative mood states in participants, with results suggesting that positive mood led to a significant increase in CSPF…

Prior studies examining imitation of exemplar solutions have produced a mixed pattern of findings with some studies indicating that exemplar imitation contributes to creative problem-solving and other studies indicating that it may inhibit creative problem-solving. In the present effort, it is argued that the effects of exemplar imitation on…

Prior research has used many variants of "be creative" or brainstorm instructions to enhance creativity in a variety of tasks. However, differences in instruction wording may lead to differences in instruction interpretation, and varying the placement of instructions before or after a written problem description may lead to differences…