Arthur Cropley (2006) emphasized the critical place that convergent thinking has in creativity. Although he briefly refers to the blind variation and selective retention (BVSR) theory of creativity, his discussion could not reflect the most recent theoretical and empirical developments in BVSR, especially the resulting combinatorial models.…

In the past decade, the psychological study of creativity has accelerated greatly. To facilitate the teaching of creativity, I provide an overview of the recent literature. The overview begins by discussing recent empirical results and research trends. This discussion specifically treats creativity's cognitive, differential, developmental, and…

Research on the sociocultural context of creative development is reviewed; and external influences on creative development are seen to include Availability of role models, political fragmentation, civil disturbances, and political instability. (CL)

Applied two-step cognitive model to relationship between age and creative productivity. Selected ideation and elaboration rates as information-processing parameters that define mathematical function which describes age curves and specifies their variance across disciplines. Applied non-linear estimation program to further validate model. Despite…

Examined the location of the first, best, and last contributions of creative careers. Hypotheses specified the ways in which these landmarks should vary according to individual differences and interdisciplinary contrasts. Hypotheses were confirmed for scientists and inventors. Results lead to further theoretical constraints, new predictions, and…

This introductory article discusses a blind-variation and selective-retention model of the creative process developed by Donald Campbell. According to Campbell, creativity contains three conditions: a mechanism for introducing variation, a consistent selection process, and a mechanism for preserving and reproducing selected variations. (Author/CR)