Implicit Theories of Creativity in Computer Science in the United States and China

To study implicit concepts of creativity in computer science in the United States and mainland China, we first asked 308 Chinese computer scientists for adjectives that would describe a creative computer scientist. Computer scientists and non‐computer scientists from China (N = 1069) and the United States (N = 971) then rated how well those adjectives described creative computer scientists using a 5‐point Likert Scale. Factor analysis revealed that the concept of a creative computer scientist had four dimensions: (1) smart/effective, (2) outgoing, (3) creative thinking and (4) unsociable. Differences in the implicit concepts across disciplines, ethnicity, gender, age, and working experience were analyzed. We discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of the domain specificity of creativity.     

Revisiting the “Art Bias” in Lay Conceptions of Creativity

This article explores the art bias—the pervasive association between creativity and art in implicit theories of creativity. It also attempts to connect creativity research in this area with literature on the theory of social representations. The data comes from an online survey completed by 195 participants mainly from the United States and the United Kingdom. The survey included two main tasks: The first asked respondents to generate as many questions as they can to determine whether an object is creative; the second invited them to rate whether creativity is a key requirement for a list of 16 professions from 4 different domains and recorded the creativity score as well as reaction time. In the end, findings offer partial support for the existence of an art bias. Although artistic professions were scored both the highest and fastest in terms of creativity, participants rarely formulated art-related questions and focused more on aspect, utility, and audience features. This discrepancy is discussed in the end in relation to the polyphasic nature of social knowledge.     

Parents' and Teachers' Implicit Theories of Children's Creativity: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

ABSTRACT: A social validation methodology was applied across two cultures to examine the implicit theories of parents and teachers. Adults (N = 150) from the United States and India were rated on 68 adjectives for creativity and desirability. The results indicated that all groups distinguished between indicative and contraindicative aspects of creativity and, for the most part, viewed creative traits desirably. These results were qualified by the adjectives that received high ratings for creativity but significantly lower ratings for desirability. These provided evidence that creativity and desirability are related yet separate constructs and that parents and teachers recognize that some traits associated with creativity may be undesirable. Multiple analysis of variance (MANOVA) revealed significant differences between the United States and India for intellectual and attitudinal clusters of adjectives, p < .001; however, parent and teacher differences were not found, p > .05. These findings support the notion that implicit theories are influenced by cultural traditions and expectations.     

What goes well with physics? Measuring and altering the image of science

Background. In view of the shortage of students majoring in science, we examined the image of physics in terms of students' implicit, automatic associations with physics. Aims. To describe the specific image of physics that might alienate students (difficulty, masculinity, heteronomy) and test an intervention for altering the image. Samples. In Study 1 the sample consisted of 63 school students (11th grade) and in Study 2 the sample consisted of 71 undergraduates. Methods. Study 1 measured participants' implicit associations between physics (relative to English) and the image dimensions of difficulty, masculinity and heteronomy, implicit attitudes towards and identification with physics using latency data (Implicit Association Test; IAT) and explicit attitudes using a questionnaire. Study 2 was an experimental treatment that required reading a text (treatment group) that emphasized the importance of discourse and creativity for science versus a school textbook for physics (control group). Dependent variables: implicit attitudes (IAT). Results. Students in Study 1 associated physics (relative to English) more easily with words referring to difficulty (than to ease), to males (than to females), to heteronomy (than to self‐realization), to unpleasantness (relative to pleasant words) and to others (relative to words referring to self). The three image aspects of difficulty, masculinity and heteronomy predicted explicit attitudes. Participants in the treatment group in Study 2 showed a significant reduction of the IAT effects compared to the control group. Conclusions. The findings indicate that students' negative explicit attitudes towards physics coincide with negative implicit associations about physics. An intervention addressing the alteration of implicit associations proved to be fruitful. Implications for science education are discussed.     

A Review on the Study of Creativity in Singapore

This paper reviews the study of creativity in Singapore. Three questions are asked. What is the current status of the study of creativity in Singapore? What kinds of creativity studies have been conducted? What are the future directions of Singaporean creativity research? PsycLIT and Eric databases, as well as resources in Singapore libraries such as journals, proceedings, and books are searched. The study of creativity is grouped into five categories, namely conceptual framework, conceptions of creativity (empirical), creative competence (empirical), creativity programs, and creative pedagogy. This review intends to contribute to the literature of creativity and the understanding of human creativity. Future directions of Singapore's creativity research should address several issues including theories or models, methods and instruments, the sample, research agenda, and research network.     

Positive mood is associated with the implicit use of distraction

Previous research demonstrates that individuals in a positive mood are differentially distracted by irrelevant information during an ongoing task (Rowe et al. in Proc Natl Acad Sci 104:383–388, 2007). The present study investigated whether susceptibility to distraction shown by individuals in a positive mood results in greater implicit memory for that distraction. Participants performed a similarity-judgment task on pictures that were superimposed with distracting words. When these previously distracting words could be used as solutions on a delayed implicit task administered several minutes later, performance was positively correlated with pleasantness of mood. Individuals in a positive mood are more likely than others to use previously irrelevant information to facilitate performance on a subsequent implicit task, a finding with implications for the relationship between positive mood and creativity.     

The ironic impact of intergroup apologies on intergroup attitudes: Understanding the role of perceived power for post‐apology outgroup attitudes

The present research investigates how intergroup apologies, defined as apologies between two groups, affect perceived remorse and outgroup attitudes (e.g., explicit and implicit), in the context of power asymmetries. We recruited participants from two countries that differ in perceived power: South Korea and the United States. Participants read a vignette describing a violent act committed by an outgroup member (Korean or American), with or without an intergroup apology. Participants answered questions assessing perceived remorse and explicit attitudes toward the outgroup, followed by the Implicit Association Test (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998). Results revealed that Koreans perceived less remorse following an intergroup apology from the United States, compared to when they did not read an intergroup apology. Further, a mediated moderation analysis indicated that perceived remorse mediated the relationship between apology and explicit attitudes towards the United States. However, an analogous effect for implicit attitudes was only marginally significant. In contrast, among American participants, no effect of the apology on perceived remorse, explicit attitudes, or implicit attitudes and no evidence for a mediation was found. We discuss the implications of these effects on understanding the effectiveness of intergroup apologies between countries that differ in perceived power.     

Counting to Infinity: Does Learning the Syntax of the Count List Predict Knowledge That Numbers Are Infinite?

By around the age of 5½, many children in the United States judge that numbers never end, and that it is always possible to add 1 to a set. These same children also generally perform well when asked to label the quantity of a set after one object is added (e.g., judging that a set labeled “five” should now be “six”). These findings suggest that children have implicit knowledge of the “successor function”: Every natural number, n, has a successor, n + 1. Here, we explored how children discover this recursive function, and whether it might be related to discovering productive morphological rules that govern language-specific counting routines (e.g., the rules in English that represent base-10 structure). We tested 4- and 5-year-old children’s knowledge of counting with three tasks, which we then related to (a) children’s belief that 1 can always be added to any number (the successor function) and (b) their belief that numbers never end (infinity). Children who exhibited knowledge of a productive counting rule were significantly more likely to believe that numbers are infinite (i.e., there is no largest number), though such counting knowledge was not directly linked to knowledge of the successor function, per se. Also, our findings suggest that children as young as 4 years of age are able to implement rules defined over their verbal count list to generate number words beyond their spontaneous counting range, an insight which may support reasoning over their acquired verbal count sequence to infer that numbers never end.     

Teachers’ Perceptions of Creativity in the Classroom

Teachers’ implicit understandings of creativity may not align with current research-based understanding of creativity and characteristics associated with creative students. Even teachers who say they value creativity may actually find creative characteristics undesirable. Participating teachers (n = 371) rated student characteristics on a scale of very undesirable to very desirable. Participants also completed a brief self-assessment of personal creativity and rank-ordered a set of educational objectives based on what they perceived as most important. Results indicated that teachers found student characteristics associated with creativity less desirable than those characteristics contraindicative to creativity (d = 2.70). No effects were found based on the grade level (d = 0.07) and small effects were found for subjects taught (η² = 0.023). Similarly, no effects were found for the teachers’ level of experience (η² = 0.004) or age (η² = 0.002). Teachers’ level of personal creativity was related (r = .248) to how desirable they rated student characteristics associated with creativity, but the importance with which teachers ranked creative thinking had small effects (η² = 0.04) on how desirable they found characteristics associated with creativity. These results generally confirm previous studies and suggest that teachers’ grade level, subject, experience, and age have no effect on their perception of creative characteristics. However, some evidence suggests that teachers who are more creative find student characteristics associated with creativity more desirable in class.     

Severe Social Withdrawal: Cultural Variation in Past Hikikomori Experiences of University Students in Nigeria,Singapore, and the United States

Hikikomori (social withdrawal that lasts six months or longer) is a growing problem among Japanese adolescents and young adults, with recent estimates that approximately 1% of Japanese youths will suffer from an episode of hikikomori in their lifetimes. What remains unclear is whether hikikomori is a culture-bound syndrome or a condition impacting youths around the globe. Hence, the self-reported prevalence and psychosocial correlates of past experiences with hikikomori were examined in cross-sectional samples of university students from Singapore (n?=?147), Nigeria (n?=?151), and the United States (n?=?301). Following tests of measurement invariance, comparisons showed that past experiences with hikikomori were related to elevated levels of current loneliness and depressive symptoms in each sample. However, analyses also revealed evidence of cultural variation in both the prevalence and the psychosocial correlates associated with past experiences of hikikomori, which taken together, provide preliminary evidence that the culture-bound characterization of hikikomori may not be appropriate.     

Personality Interacts With Implicit Affect to Predict Performance in Analytic Versus Holistic Processing

Both theoretical approaches and empirical evidence suggest that negative affect fosters analytic processing, whereas positive affect fosters holistic processing, but these effects are inconsistent. We aim to show that (a) differences in affect regulation abilities (“action orientation”) and (b) implicit more so than self‐reported affect assessment need to be considered to advance our understanding of these processes. Forty participants were asked to verify whether a word was correctly or incorrectly spelled to measure analytic processing, as well as to intuitively assess whether sets of three words were coherent (remote associates task) to measure holistic processing. As expected, implicit but not explicit negative affect interacted with low action orientation (“state orientation”) to predict higher d' performance in word spelling, whereas implicit but not explicit positive affect interacted with high action orientation to predict higher d' performance in coherence judgments for word triads. Results are interpreted according to personality systems interaction theory. These findings suggest that affect and affect changes should be measured explicitly and implicitly to investigate affect‐cognition interactions. Moreover, they suggest that good affect regulators benefit from positive affect for holistic processing, whereas bad affect regulators benefit from negative affect for analytical processing.     

Comparing Visitors' Conceptions of Evolution: Examining Understanding Outside the United States

ABSTRACT

In contrast to the United States, other predominantly English-speaking countries generally have higher acceptance rates of evolutionary theory. This article explores whether natural history museum audiences in these regions also have fewer misconceptions about the underlying processes of evolution. Museum visitors in Great Britain, Canada, and Australia were asked to explain how evolution worked, as well as whether or not they believed that the theory was valid. Although findings suggest that these visitors were significantly less likely to reject evolution (compared with a recent investigation conducted at natural history museums across the United States), they were just as likely to harbor misconceptions as their American counterparts.     

The associations between Self-Criticism and Dependency and incidental learning of interpersonal and achievement words

Personality trait-congruent implicit content processing was studied experimentally. In Experiment-1 (N = 132), individual differences in Self-Criticism were most strongly associated with incidental learning of negative achievement words, whereas individual differences in Dependency were most strongly associated with incidental learning of negative interpersonal words. In Experiment-2 (N = 172), individual differences interacted with processing tendencies in predicting negative affect. Highly dependent and highly self-critical individuals experienced higher negative affect if they were low in incidental learning of positive interpersonal words. Overall, these findings indicate that Self-Criticism and Dependency have significantly differential impacts on implicit cognitive processes.     

The Preference for Equity When Judging the Attractiveness and Fairness of an Allocator: The Role of Familiarity and Culture

Abstract

The present study tested the effect of familiarity between allocator and recipients on liking for an allocator and on the choice of a distribution norm. Subjects were college students from Indonesia (n = 46) and the United States (n = 44) who answered a short questionnaire. All respondents—irrespective of sex, nationality, and level of friendship between allocator and recipient—preferred an equitable over an egalitarian allocator. An equitable allocation was also perceived as fairer than one based on equality. When subjects were asked to distribute rewards, they chose with greater frequency the equity norm.     

Fairness Reactions to Personnel Selection Methods: An international comparison between the Netherlands,the United States,France, Spain,Portugal, and Singapore

This paper reports reactions to employee selection methods in the Netherlands and compares these findings internationally against six other previously published samples covering the United States, France, Spain, Portugal, and Singapore. A sample of 167 participants rated 10 popular assessment techniques using a translated version of Steiner and Gilliland's measure. In common with other country samples, we found that the most popular methods among applicants were interviews, work sample tests, and resumes. Least popular methods were graphology, personal contacts, and honesty and integrity tests. Generally, method favorability was found to be highly similar to the US and other published studies internationally. Across the six countries mean process favorability correlated at .87 and mean cross‐national procedural justice correlated .68. Process dimension ratings correlated at between .79 and .97 between the United States and the Netherlands. Only medium effect size differences (Cohen's d) were found between Dutch and US reactions to resumes and personality tests, the former being more favorably rated in the United States (d=.62) and the latter being more positively rated in the Netherlands (d=?.76). Implications for the design of selection procedures are discussed, especially implications for likely similarities and differences in applicant reactions internationally.     

Cultural Difference in Stereotype Perceptions and Performances in Nonverbal Deductive Reasoning and Creativity

A total of 182 undergraduate students from China and the United States participated in a study examining the presence of stereotypical perceptions regarding creativity and deductive reasoning abilities, as well as the influence of stereotype on participants' performance on deductive reasoning and creativity in nonverbal form. The results showed that participants from both China and the United States believed that Americans have better creativity abilities than Chinese and that Chinese have better deductive reasoning skills than Americans. Significant cultural difference in the performances on the measures of creativity was found. The cultural difference in deductive reasoning was found between Chinese participants in China and the Caucasian (not the Asian) participants in the United States, which were somewhat congruent to the stereotypical perceptions. However, the study did not find that stereotypic perceptions directly influenced participants' performance on deductive reasoning and creativity.     

Through Multiple Lenses: Implicit Theories of Creativity Among Indian Children and Adults*

This constructivist qualitative enquiry reveals a multiplicity of implicit theories of creativity extant in Indian culture with generic and domain specific usage of indigenous terms. Creativity was dominantly construed as a faculty of the nature of ‘pratibha’, in keeping with Indian philosophical thought, and with reference to the self, with participants invoking the holistic self, cognitive self, experiential/emotional self and physical self to describe creativity. The sense of creativity in these seemingly disparate, self‐based construals, the uncovering of which is the unique contribution of this study, derived from the person's experience of a sense of agency, rather than merely the production of novelty per se. This emphasis on process; novelty being central for some but epiphenomenal for others; the varied meanings of ‘newness’; experiencing creativity as self‐expression, self‐extension, self‐fulfillment and self‐actualization; and equating creativity with the act of learning reflect distinctive elements of implicit theories that have emerged in this study.     

愤怒情绪对恶意创造力的影响及调节策略

以两个实验考察愤怒情绪对恶意创造力表现的影响及作用路径, 并探究调节愤怒情绪对削弱恶意创造力表现的效应。实验1比较愤怒、悲伤、中性情绪下个体恶意创造力表现的差异, 发现愤怒情绪下个体生成更多、更新颖的恶意观点, 情绪唤醒度和内隐攻击性中介了愤怒对恶意创造力表现的影响。实验2探究不同情绪调节策略(认知重评、表达抑制)如何影响愤怒个体的恶意创造力表现, 发现认知重评组和表达抑制组的恶意创造力表现比无策略的控制组水平更低, 情绪唤醒度和内隐攻击性中介了两种情绪调节策略对个体恶意创造力表现的影响。上述结果表明, 愤怒情绪通过提升内隐攻击性和情绪唤醒度进而促进个体恶意创造力表现, 而认知重评和表达抑制策略可作为削弱愤怒个体的恶意创造力表现的有效策略。     

Formulation of Policy and Strategy in Developing Creativity Education in Four Asian Chinese Societies: A Policy Analysis

The present study sought to compare and contrast educational policies on creativity education in four Asian Chinese societies, namely mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. It establishes five criteria on creativity education policy, including policies regarding legislation on creativity education, definitions of creativity, standard implementation, explicit identification of special populations of creative students, and creativity education in the community. Among the four societies, Taiwan has an official document — the White Paper on Creative Education published in 2003 — whereas in Hong Kong and Singapore, creativity has been identified as an ability to be nurtured in students of all levels in their national curriculum reform. In mainland China, innovation is regarded as a synonym for creativity. Definitions of creativity have at times not been clearly defined, although multiple levels of creativity development (individual, school, societal, industrial, and cultural) have been discussed in Taiwan. In Hong Kong, creativity has been defined as a generic skill in various key learning areas (e.g., language education, mathematics education, science education, etc.) in the school curriculum. In Singapore, creativity is a learning outcome to be developed in students. None of these societies use standard creativity assessment tests as evidence of creative competence in students. When creativity has entered the central stage in the curriculum reform and creativity education is made available to every student, efforts have been made to identify highly creative students and provide them enrichment opportunities, mainly using performance assessments and performance in creativity competitions in these societies. But mainland China, Hong Kong, and Singapore do not sufficiently emphasize creativity education in the larger community.