Conceptual Combinations and Subsequent Creativity

Conceptual combination has been advocated as an important component of creativity, but relatively little research has investigated its importance. Two experiments were designed to extend previous research on the relationship between performance on conceptual combination tasks and subsequent performance on creativity tasks. Both experiments involved the generation of category exemplars and manipulated the type of conceptual combination experience and whether the items presented were related or unrelated to one another. In the first experiment, this was followed by a brainstorming task (divergent thinking) and in the second experiment by a creative problem solving task (convergent thinking). Contrary to expectations, the condition that required conceptual combinations did not enhance the generation of the number and originality of exemplars. As predicted, exposure to unrelated items led to more original products than related ones. The conceptual combination task with related items was predictive of performance on the creative problem solving task but not the divergent thinking task. Performance on the divergent task was related to the generation of exemplars for unrelated items. These results suggest that the conceptual combination task taps creative problem solving rather than divergent creativity.     

Effects of Novel Conceptual Combination on Creativity

Two experiments revealed that solving novel conceptual combination problems could enhance performance in a subsequent test of creativity. The evidence also showed that the beneficial effects of solving novel conceptual combination problems were mediated in part by the use of novel conceptual combination strategies. However, the positive effect of the novel conceptual combination training on divergent thinking was found only among males, probably because the creativity measure used in the experiment was biased against female participants. These findings were discussed in terms of their theoretical significance and implications for teaching creativity.     

Conceptual Convergence in Creativity: Incubation and Brain Disease State

Fifty years have passed since Guilford presented his seminal presidential address to the American Psychological Association. Those years have been dominated by 2 parallel paradigms: the cognitive and the psychodynamically influenced. The differences between these 2 paradigms emerges both on a theoretical and methodological basis. Guilford made lasting contributions to the construction of links between the 2 paradigms. Three of these links are dealt with in this article: (a) the notion that certain people tend to lean more toward visual thinking, whereas others utilize more verbal thinking; (b) the necessity for more research on the phenomenon of incubation; and (c) the growing relevance of implicating brain structure and function constellations in, and their relevance to, categories of abilities.     

Efficient Creativity: Constraint‐Guided Conceptual Combination

This paper describes a theory that explains both the creativity and the efficiency of people's conceptual combination. In the constraint theory, conceptual combination is controlled by three constraints of diagnosticity, plausibility, and informativeness. The constraints derive from the pragmatics of communication as applied to compound phrases. The creativity of combination arises because the constraints can be satisfied in many different ways. The constraint theory yields an algorithmic model of the efficiency of combination. The C³ model admits the full creativity of combination and yet efficiently settles on the best interpretation for a given phrase. The constraint theory explains many empirical regularities in conceptual combination, and makes various empirically verified predictions. In computer simulations of compound phrase interpretation, the C³ model has produced results in general agreement with people's responses to the same phrases.     

具有创造成就的科学家关于创造的概念结构

运用Q分类及多尺度分析方法,研究具有创造成就的科学家关于创造成就的概念结构。被试是30名来自物理、化学、数学、地学和生命科学领域的具有创造成就的科学家。研究发现,具有创造成就的科学家关于创造成就的概念结构由“成就取向/内心体验取向”、“主动进取/踏实肯干”两个维度构成;取得科学创造成就的重要特征是“成就取向”和“主动进取”。作者进一步讨论了主动进取对于取得创造性成就的意义     

Sexual Passion in Committed Relationships: Measurement and Conceptual Issues

The purpose of this study is to discuss the need for a new triadic model of sexual passion in relationships and to present the preliminary psychometric properties of a scale designed to measure these three approaches to passion (harmonious, obsessive, and inhibited) for use in clinical and scholarly work. Existing theory and measures of general passion are based on a dualistic model of passion that includes the harmonious and obsessive approaches to passion. We added the inhibited approach to passion from the sexuality research and develop measures for assessing sexual passion in relationships. We utilized an Amazon Mechanical Turk sample of 1,421 individuals in committed relationships to test this measure. Reliability analyses and confirmatory factory analyses evinced that these three approaches to sexual passion were unique constructs and distinct from sexual satisfaction. Sexual passion showed predictive validity above and beyond relationship length, sexual desire toward a partner, and a broader variable of sexual drive. Harmonious sexual passion robustly predicted higher sexual satisfaction and relationship satisfaction, and inhibited sexual passion moderately predicted lower sexual satisfaction and relationship satisfaction. Obsessive sexual passion had minimal associations with either outcome. These new constructs, especially harmonious and inhibited sexual passion, may help scholars and practitioners improve their understanding of sexual satisfaction and overall relationship satisfaction.     

Sexual Abuse and Eating Disorders: A Test of a Conceptual Model

To provide a better conceptual understanding and to stimulate further research, A. Kearney-Cooke and R. H. Striegel-Moore (1994) proposed several theoretical models concerning the relationship between sexual abuse and eating disorders. In this study, we tested the model that hypothesized an indirect relationship between sexual abuse and eating disorders, with the effects of sexual abuse being mediated through bodily shame and body disparagement. Three hundred thirty female undergraduates from a large southwestern public university participated. The women represented the social class of the university, which is predominantly middle to upper-middle class. Race/ethnicity of the participants was 69.8% Caucasian, 15.9% African American, 5.8% Latino/Mexican American, 4.9% Asian American, and 0.9% Native American; the remainder did not indicate their race/ethnicity. Of the total sample, 60% reported having been sexually abused at some point in their lives; 21% had experienced abuse prior to age 14. Almost 8% were categorized as having a diagnosable eating disorder, whereas another 72.7% were symptomatic. To test the hypothesized model, structural equation modeling with LISREL 8.3 (K. G. Joreskog & G. Sorbom, 1999) was used. Results indicated that the model fit the data well and the hypothesized relationships among the variables were in the expected directions. Sexual abuse predicted higher levels of bodily shame that, in turn, predicted increases in body disparagement. As expected, only body disparagement directly predicted eating disorder symptoms. Directions for future research are discussed.     

Exploring Normative Creativity: Testing the Relationship Between Cognitive Flexibility and Sexual Identity

Brown (1989) proposed that lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals possess greater “normative creativity” and flexibility than heterosexuals because they have fewer norms for living in heterosexually dominated society. In this article we explore one possible individual difference between heterosexuals and nonheterosexuals in the domain of normative creativity by examining the relationship between cognitive flexibility and sexual identity among 358 university students. Participants with sexual identities not directed toward one gender exclusively (e.g., bisexual, biaffectionate, or queer) scored significantly higher on a measure of cognitive flexibility than did heterosexual and gay/lesbian participants; the latter two groups did not differ from each other. These results suggest that it is having a nonexclusive sexual identity, rather than a lesbian or gay identity, that is related to greater cognitive flexibility.     

Rewards,Intrinsic Motivation,and Creativity: A Case Study of Conceptual and Methodological Isolation

Three decades of research have failed to produce general agreement concerning the effects of reward on creativity. We believe that the problem stems not from any great complexity of research findings, but primarily from the clash between romantic and behaviorist worldviews concerning basic human nature. Isolation of these research camps has produced narrow perspectives and failures to correct persisting methodological flaws. Research correcting these flaws suggests that rewards for novel performance increase intrinsic motivation and creativity, whereas rewards for conventional performance decrease intrinsic motivation and creativity. Creative motivational orientation, enhanced by rewards, strongly affects innovative performance.     

Creativity to Sexual Values as Factors of Importance,Frequency, and Feeling Ratings

Factor analyses identified one General and 23 Primary factors, grouping independently the dimensions of importance (attitudinal), frequency (of experiences), and pleasantness-unpleasantness (of bodily feelings) for 48 items that broadly reflect human values, activities, and feelings such that they are applicable cross-culturally. This Specific Value Scale was self-rated by 296 college students whose 13 “Values” (incorporating the three dimensions) ranged from Social Activities and Ethical Beliefs to Sexual Activities and Significance (importance feeling), these values being also reflected in factors. The importance of self-understanding and the pleasantness of clothes grooming and of friendship were emphasized. Deemphasized were rebelling, arguments, and negative feelings. No significant differences were found between the sexes.     

On the Conceptual Overlap between the Fluency Contamination Effect in Divergent Thinking Scores and the Chance View on Scientific Creativity

The equal odds baseline is a parsimonious model that describes the relationship between quantity and quality of output in scientific creativity. Specifically, it is posited that quality is a linear function of quantity, and therefore, strong positive correlations between these two variables are expected. Strong positive correlations also play a crucial role in a recurring issue in divergent thinking research: the fluency contamination effect. This effect refers to the problem that any other summative scoring of divergent thinking tests such as the number of original responses (i.e., quality of responses) is confounded by fluency (i.e., quantity of responses). The current work sheds further light into the conceptual overlap between the equal odds baseline, and the fluency contamination effect by demonstrating that a recent formalization of the fluency contamination effect can be used to derive the equal odds baseline. This result is then utilized within a structural equation modeling approach with simulated datasets to thoroughly examine the equal odds baseline. The findings of the structural equation modeling approach are discussed with respect to their potential to better understand the relationship between quantity and quality of productions in creativity research.     

Transliminality and Creativity

Using 50 psychology undergraduates, an attempt was made to find positive correlations between, on the one hand, transliminality (psychological material crossing thresholds into or out of consciousness), and on the other hand, (item‐corrected) creative personality, and figure‐complexity preference (as given by the Revised Barron‐Welsh Art Scale: a measure of creativity). Only the correlation between transliminality and creative personality was significant. There was also a significant and high test‐retest reliability coefficient for the Transliminality Scale, as well as a significant positive correlation between creative personality and paranormal belief.     

Creativity and Lawbreaking

Lawbreaking and creativity are often conceptualized as alternative, almost competing, expressions of the general psychological disposition of deviance. Where the 2 occur together, they are mainly discussed in terms of lawbreaking by acknowledged creative people that is irrelevant to their creativity or is a byproduct of outspoken, reckless, or unbridled creativity. The deliberate application of creativity in the direct service of intentional lawbreaking is rarely discussed, possibly because of the positive connotations associated with creativity. In fact, although psychological studies mainly conceptualize it in terms of deficits, some lawbreaking involves generation of highly effective—even admirable—novelty, and some lawbreakers display psychological characteristics typically associated with creative individuals, so that a deficit model is inappropriate. Creative lawbreakers and law enforcers can be conceptualized as competitors in much the same way as businesses are competitors, and this suggests a fresh way of looking at law enforcement.     

Education and Creativity

ABSTRACT: The hypothesis that the effects of positive and negative mood on creative problem solving may differ as a consequence of the degree of constraint on the solution space of the task was tested. Sixty-eight participants were divided into positive mood, negative mood, and control conditions. Mood was experimentally induced by showing selected film clips, and performance on four different idea production tasks was recorded across a time interval of 4 min for each task. Results showed a significant mood-production time interaction. Positive mood led to the highest number of scores in early idea production and the lowest number in late production, whereas both control and negative mood led to relatively superior task performance in late production. Alternative interpretations of the results are discussed, and suggestions for further studies are offered.     

Creativity and Values

ABSTRACT

Barron (1997 Barron , F. ( 1997 ). Introduction . In F. Barron , A. Montuori , & A. Barron (Eds.), Creators on creating (pp. 1 – 21 ). New York : Tarcher/Putnam . [Google Scholar]) and Helson (1990 Hall , W. B. , & MacKinnon , D. W. ( 1969 ). Personality inventory correlates of creative accomplishments . Journal of Applied Psychology , 53 , 322 – 236 .[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) independently have suggested that a central element in all forms of creativity is the desire or goal to be creative, implying creativity as a core value. Based on these assertions and Schwartz's (1992 Schwartz , S. H. ( 1992 ). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries . In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology ( Vol. 25 , pp. 1 – 26 ). San Diego , CA : Academic Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) theory, we tested the prediction that creative individuals will hold a different values system than their less creative counterparts. University students (N = 278) completed the Schwartz Values Survey (Schwartz, 1992 Schwartz , S. H. ( 1992 ). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries . In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology ( Vol. 25 , pp. 1 – 26 ). San Diego , CA : Academic Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), as well as a behaviorally-based self-report measure of creative accomplishments. At separate occasions, 134 of these participants also devised three creative products rated by the consensual assessment method. In keeping with prediction, creative accomplishments and products correlated significantly not only with the self-direction value composite (both including and excluding the individual item creativity), but also universalism and stimulation. Accomplishments and products correlated negatively with the value composites of tradition, security, and power. These results support the view that creativity is grounded in values, and support Schwartz's model of the dynamic structure of values as a predictor of behavior.