An Examination of the Personality Constructs Underlying Dimensions of Creative Problem‐Solving Style

This study investigated the personality facets that underpin the construct of problem‐solving style, particularly when approaching more creative kinds of problem‐solving. Cattell's Sixteen Personality Factors Questionnaire and VIEW—An Assessment of Problem Solving Style were administered to 165 students from the Norwegian Business School. We explored relationships through correlational and regression analysis. Personality profiles were derived for each of VIEW's three dimensions and were in generally expected directions. Those with an Explorer preference were more imaginative and idea oriented, open to change, unconventional, freethinking, and flexible than Developers. Those with a Developer preference were more practical and solution oriented, more traditional, rule conscious, conservative, and respecting of traditional ideas. Those with an External preference were more group oriented, affiliative, socially bold, warm, and attentive to others than those with an Internal preference. Those with a more Task‐oriented preference were more impersonal, detached, utilitarian, and tough minded than those with Person‐oriented preference. We outlined implications and suggestions for further research.     

The Effects of Zhongyong Thinking Priming on Creative Problem‐Solving

Zhongyong thinking is a common approach adopted by Chinese people to solve problems encountered in life and work. Based on the four modes of zhongyong thinking proposed by Pang (Social Sciences in China, 1, 1980, 75), this study chooses the “neither A nor B” form, which represents the “mean” (中) characteristics of zhongyong thinking, called eclectic thinking, and the “both A and B” form, which reflects the “harmony” (和) feature, called integrated thinking. This study primed eclectic thinking and integrated thinking, respectively, through self‐compiled problem situations, and 150 college students and postgraduates students were the participants. Experiment 1 explored the role of the priming of zhongyong thinking in three classic creative thinking tasks: a divergent thinking test, remote association test, and insight problem‐solving test. Experiment 2 further examined the effect of priming of zhongyong thinking on “market investment problems” with higher ecological validity. The findings show that priming integrated thinking can improve remote associates test performance and promote creative solutions to market investment problems, but there is no significant impact on the scores of divergent thinking test and insight problem‐solving; priming eclectic thinking has no significant impact on any of the subsequent creative tasks. This study shows that integrated thinking primes cognitive processing related to information association and information integration, promoting subsequent creative tasks.     

Creative Problem Solving in Small Groups: The Effects of Creativity Training on Idea Generation,Solution Creativity,and Leadership Effectiveness

This investigation evaluated the degree to which creativity training, idea generation instruction, and creative process impacted idea production, creativeness of solutions, and leadership effectiveness. Three sets of hypotheses were tested with a 114 groups of adults. First, groups whose members had some (i.e., one CPS course) or advanced training (i.e., graduate-level study in creativity or creativity professionals) were significantly more effective at idea generation than groups without training. Furthermore, leaders with some and advanced training were perceived to be significantly more effective than those with no creativity training. With respect to creativeness of solutions, the advanced training groups outperformed all others. The second set of hypotheses focused on the effectiveness of idea generation instruction (i.e., instructions without brainstorming, brainstorming, and brainstorming with criticism). Analysis revealed no significant difference for idea generation instruction relative to idea production or creativeness of solutions. The final set of hypotheses examined the use of a simple process structure for groups without prior creativity training (i.e., distinct phases for idea generation and solution development). Analysis revealed that those meetings that followed a simple process structure out performed groups that did not follow a process for both idea generation and creativeness of solutions. Further results are presented and implications discussed.     

The Interactive Effects of Self‐Perceptions and Job Requirements on Creative Problem Solving

Over the years, researchers have focused on ways to facilitate creativity in the workplace by looking at individual factors and organizational factors that affect employee creativity (Woodman, Sawyer, & Griffin, 1993 ). In many cases, the factors that affect creativity are examined independently. In other words, it is uncommon for researchers to look at the interaction among individual and organizational factors. In this study, it is argued that to get a true understanding of how to maximize creativity in the workplace, organizational researchers must look at the interaction between organizational factors and individual factors that affect employee creativity. More specifically, the current study looked at an individual's perceptions about his or her ability to be creative (i.e., individual factor) and perceptions of requirements for creativity in the workplace (i.e., an organizational factor). The results indicated that individuals who have a high belief about their ability to be creative (an individual factor) were most creative when they also perceived requirements for creativity in the workplace (an organizational factor). Furthermore, individuals who had low perceptions of creative ability were still able to perform creatively when they had high perceptions of requirements for creativity. This suggests that, to maximize creativity, organizations should focus on both individual and organizational factors that affect employee creativity.     

Regressive Imagery in Creative Problem‐Solving: Comparing Verbal Protocols of Expert and Novice Visual Artists and Computer Programmers

We applied computer‐based text analyses of regressive imagery to verbal protocols of individuals engaged in creative problem‐solving in two domains: visual art (23 experts, 23 novices) and computer programming (14 experts, 14 novices). Percentages of words involving primary process and secondary process thought, plus emotion‐related words, were tabulated. Visual art protocols were higher in primary process thought and emotion‐related words; those from programming were higher in secondary process thought. Almost no main effects of expertise or interactions were found. Correlations between the measures (particularly those involving emotion‐related words) also varied as a function of task. This pattern suggests cognitive processes vary considerably across different creative problem‐solving tasks or domains, and that a more domain‐specific approach to creative cognition may be advisable. Further implications for integrating and consolidating some extant lines of creativity research are discussed.     

A Self‐Report Measure of Productive Thinking in Solving Insight Problems

There is broad agreement among executives on the importance of innovation and creativity in organizations. The paper aimed to provide information on the effectiveness of a new cognitive style inventory, the Productive‐Reproductive Thinking Inventory (P‐R), in identifying people with creative problem‐solving potential. Participants completed the P‐R Inventory, Kirton's Adaption‐Innovation Inventory (KAI), the Assimilator‐Explorer Inventory, self‐rating of insight problem‐solving, and a battery of insight problem‐solving tasks under controlled conditions. The P‐R scale was a significant predictor of problem‐solving performance and insight self‐ratings and correlated significantly with KAI and AE scores. In addition, the results supported distinguishing two types of reproductive thinking which are differentially associated with insight performance. The distinction was supported by confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation models. Using controlled conditions may limit the generality of the findings and further research should be carried out in applied settings. The P‐R inventory is short and easily administered and may provide HR professionals with a useful screening tool for assessing creative problem‐solving potential. The measure differs from the KAI in several ways that may offer advantages for creativity researchers in that it is non‐proprietary, based on well‐established psychological constructs, and is more particularly applicable to insight problem‐solving.     

Positive and Negative Affects Facilitate Insight Problem‐Solving in Different Ways: A Study with Implicit Hints

This study investigates the influence of affective states on the use of implicit hints when solving insight problems. To examine this, two experiments were conducted, both with Duncker's (1945) radiation problem as an insight problem. When primed with a hint, positive affect inhibited the number of incorrect solutions generated in Experiment 1 and increased the number of correct solutions in Experiment 2. In contrast, negative affect enhanced the participants’ performance regardless of the presence of hints across the two experiments. These results indicate that positive and negative affect facilitate insight problem‐solving in different ways. It seems that positive affect implicitly prompts the acceptance of cues and broadens people's search of a problem space, and negative affect encourages people to intensively focus on solving the insight task. The results suggest a resolution of a long‐standing debate on the effectiveness of positive versus negative affect in solving a problem.     

Problem‐Solving Phase Transitions During Team Collaboration

Multiple theories of problem‐solving hypothesize that there are distinct qualitative phases exhibited during effective problem‐solving. However, limited research has attempted to identify when transitions between phases occur. We integrate theory on collaborative problem‐solving (CPS) with dynamical systems theory suggesting that when a system is undergoing a phase transition it should exhibit a peak in entropy and that entropy levels should also relate to team performance. Communications from 40 teams that collaborated on a complex problem were coded for occurrence of problem‐solving processes. We applied a sliding window entropy technique to each team's communications and specified criteria for (a) identifying data points that qualify as peaks and (b) determining which peaks were robust. We used multilevel modeling, and provide a qualitative example, to evaluate whether phases exhibit distinct distributions of communication processes. We also tested whether there was a relationship between entropy values at transition points and CPS performance. We found that a proportion of entropy peaks was robust and that the relative occurrence of communication codes varied significantly across phases. Peaks in entropy thus corresponded to qualitative shifts in teams’ CPS communications, providing empirical evidence that teams exhibit phase transitions during CPS. Also, lower average levels of entropy at the phase transition points predicted better CPS performance. We specify future directions to improve understanding of phase transitions during CPS, and collaborative cognition, more broadly.     

合作学习小组的认知风格对其问题解决的影响

本研究以认知风格为依据,将合作学习小组分为场依存同质组、场独立同质组及异质组,通过小组对开放问题以及逻辑问题的解决,考察不同认知风格个体、不同类型小组的问题解决水平。结果表明:(1)个体认知风格的作用依任务性质不同而不同。(2)异质组中存在的个体之间的差异会成为有效沟通合作的障碍,进而影响异质组的问题解决水平,影响程度受到问题本身对沟通合作要求程度的影响。(3)异质分组能更好解决开放性问题。     

Gender Differences in the Measurement of Creative Problem‐Solving

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 explore this possibility, we empirically tested assumptions of multiple‐group measurement invariance using samples borrowed from four recent studies that assessed creative problem‐solving (J.D. B arrett et al., 2013; K.S. H ester et al., 2012; D.R. P eterson et al., 2013; I.C. R obledo et al., 2012). Across the four samples, apparent gender differences emerged on all three components of S.P. B esemer & K. O 'Q uin's (1999) three‐facet model of creativity (i.e., quality, originality, and elegance) such that, on average, females appeared to exhibit higher baseline levels of creativity. However, in light of violations of measurement invariance assumptions across genders found in these samples, comparisons such as these may not ultimately be appropriate. Although the underlying factor structure and factor loadings on a unitary creativity factor were consistent across gender (i.e., weak factorial invariance), measurement in‐equivalence assumptions were violated at the subfacet level (i.e., strong factorial invariance). Implications of these findings for understanding gender differences in creative problem‐solving are discussed.     

Transformational Leadership and Creative Problem‐Solving: The Mediating Role of Psychological Safety and Reflexivity

Previous research has pointed to the importance of transformational leadership in facilitating employees' creative outcomes. However, the mechanism by which transformational leadership cultivates employees' creative problem‐solving capacity is not well understood. Drawing on theories of leadership, information processing and creativity, we proposed and tested a model in which psychological safety and reflexivity mediate the effect of transformational leadership and creative problem‐solving capacity. The results of survey data collected at three points in time indicate that transformational leadership facilitates the development of employees' creative problem‐solving capacity by shaping a climate of psychological safety conducive to reflexivity processes. However, the findings also indicate that psychological safety is related both directly and indirectly, through reflexivity, to employees' creative problem‐solving capacity. This study sheds further light on the ways in which transformational leaders help to develop and cultivate employees' capacity for creative problem‐solving.     

A Visual Representation to Quantitate,Diagnose, and Improve Creativity in Insight Problem Solving

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 number of problems solved and the time to solve the problems. These coarse measurements do not reveal the intricate dynamics of solving insight problems. Furthermore, four commonly used creativity measures (i.e., fluency, originality, flexibility, and elaboration) are often not applied to insight problems. This new visualization permits the easy application of all four creativity measures. I challenge creativity researchers to help determine which of the 22 proposed quantitative measures are the most diagnostic for insight problem solving in isolation and, in a weighted linear combination, which might yield an effective quotient (i.e., overall measure) of insight problem solving ability.     

Learning Problem‐Solving Rules as Search Through a Hypothesis Space

Learning to solve a class of problems can be characterized as a search through a space of hypotheses about the rules for solving these problems. A series of four experiments studied how different learning conditions affected the search among hypotheses about the solution rule for a simple computational problem. Experiment 1 showed that a problem property such as computational difficulty of the rules biased the search process and so affected learning. Experiment 2 examined the impact of examples as instructional tools and found that their effectiveness was determined by whether they uniquely pointed to the correct rule. Experiment 3 compared verbal directions with examples and found that both could guide search. The final experiment tried to improve learning by using more explicit verbal directions or by adding scaffolding to the example. While both manipulations improved learning, learning still took the form of a search through a hypothesis space of possible rules. We describe a model that embodies two assumptions: (1) the instruction can bias the rules participants hypothesize rather than directly be encoded into a rule; (2) participants do not have memory for past wrong hypotheses and are likely to retry them. These assumptions are realized in a Markov model that fits all the data by estimating two sets of probabilities. First, the learning condition induced one set of Start probabilities of trying various rules. Second, should this first hypothesis prove wrong, the learning condition induced a second set of Choice probabilities of considering various rules. These findings broaden our understanding of effective instruction and provide implications for instructional design.     

The Future Problem Solving Program International: An Intervention to Promote Creative Skills in Portuguese Adolescents

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 intended to analyze the effects of the program on creative skills evaluated by the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (Figural Version). The participants’ perceptions of the efficacy of the program were also assessed. This intervention was carried out with 131 adolescents over a period of 7 months in an extra‐curricular context. The evaluation of the program takes into account periods both before and after interventions, using similar experimental and control groups. The results showed significant statistical differences for the all skills studied and very positive perceptions of the efficacy of FPSPI. Two significant gender differences in creative performance were also found. The results are described and discussed in order to promote awareness for future research concerning this program.     

A Test of the Testing Effect: Acquiring Problem‐Solving Skills From Worked Examples

The “testing effect” refers to the finding that after an initial study opportunity, testing is more effective for long‐term retention than restudying. The testing effect seems robust and is a finding from the field of cognitive science that has important implications for education. However, it is unclear whether this effect also applies to the acquisition of problem‐solving skills, which is important to establish given the key role problem solving plays in, for instance, math and science education. Worked examples are an effective and efficient way of acquiring problem‐solving skills. Forty students either only studied worked examples (SSSS) or engaged in testing after studying an example by solving an isomorphic problem (STST). Surprisingly, results showed equal performance in both conditions on an immediate retention test after 5 min, but the SSSS condition outperformed the STST condition on a delayed retention test after 1 week. These findings suggest the testing effect might not apply to acquiring problem‐solving skills from worked examples.     

FOCUS on the Family Caregiver: A Problem‐Solving Training Intervention

Problem‐solving interventions have documented effectiveness in treating distress among a variety of clientele. The authors discuss the application of training in social problem solving with family caregivers of persons who have incurred severe physical disabilities. Specifically, the authors outline training procedures (i.e., Project FOCUS) that enable counselors to assist family caregivers in developing effective problem‐solving skills that may translate to increased wellness for each caregiver, and by extension, their care recipients.     

工作记忆对顿悟和分析型问题解决的影响

摘要 采用顿悟-分析自我报告范式,以远距离联想任务为实验材料,从工作记忆容量和工作记忆负荷两个角度考察了工作记忆对顿悟和分析型问题解决的影响。结果表明,高工作记忆容量个体分析型问题解决的表现优于低工作记忆容量者,但在顿悟表现上无显著差异;工作记忆负荷较小时个体分析型问题解决表现更佳,但对顿悟表现没有影响。说明通过分析解决创造性问题的表现依赖于工作记忆的支持,而通过顿悟解决问题的表现与工作记忆无关。     

Productive and Re‐productive Thinking in Solving Insight Problems

Many innovations in organizations result when people discover insightful solutions to problems. Insightful problem‐solving was considered by Gestalt psychologists to be associated with productive, as opposed to re‐productive, thinking. Productive thinking is characterized by shifts in perspective which allow the problem solver to consider new, sometimes transformational, approaches. Re‐productive thinking, on the other hand, involves the application of familiar, routine, procedures. This article reports a study which investigated how self‐reported productive and re‐productive thinking are related to an individual's ability to solve insight problems. Our measures were tested against the Kirton Adaption‐Innovation Inventory (KAI), and a battery of spatial insight problems. The results indicated that productive and re‐productive thinking and the KAI were successful in predicting performance on spatial insight problems. Furthermore, the measures of productive and re‐productive thinking accounted for spatial insight performance independently of scores on the KAI. In addition, the results suggested that re‐productive thinking consists of two different components—one based on group conventions and the other on personal experience. Each contributed differently to solving insight problems.     

Defining and Assessing Problem‐Solving Style: Design and Development of a New Tool

VIEW: An Assessment of Problem Solving Style (Selby, Treffinger, & Isaksen, 2002) is a new instrument for assessing problem‐solving style, for use with individuals from ages 12 through adult. It measures three dimensions of style relating to creative problem solving and change management. In this article, we discuss the construction of the instrument, the initial evidence supporting the instrument's reliability and validity, and a very brief overview of the instrument's foundations. Our reliability data involve both stability and internal consistency. We report evidence for the criterion‐related validity, based on correlational studies with relevant measures of learning style, cognitive style, and psychological type. We also conducted principal components factor analyses that support our three‐factor structure. Researchers and practitioners studying and applying Creative Problem Solving and change management methods can use VIEW in several ways. Finally, we identify several research directions that will contribute to the refinement and development of the instrument as well as to a better understanding of the “problem‐solving style” construct.     

中学生问题解决策略的基本特征研究

实验通过人—机界面,对中学生解决几何问题策略的基本特征进行探讨。对学习成绩优、差学生,在解决问题的程序上和解决问题结果的正确与错误上的差异比较后显示：学习成绩优、差学生在解决问题的程序上,尤其在问题解决的思考推理方向上没有类似专家和新手之间的显著差异;学习成绩的优、差对解决问题结果的正确与错误上具有直接的影响;问题解决规则的选择对问题解决过程具有间接影响;对问题解决规则的掌握对问题解决的结果具有重要影响。