Natural paths to invention: Reinventing the wheel

Four studies explored candidate pathways underlying the invention of the “wheeled cart.” In Study 1, heuristics were abstracted from subjects’ judgements of different precursor paths to the wheeled cart. In Studies 2 and 3, these heuristics were tested for generality across different precursor paths. In Study 4, subjects ranked the order of incorporating parts into the wheeled cart. While the studies cannot “prove” that the wheeled cart developed in one of the candidate ways, they show that interesting and important heuristics of invention can be uncovered from subject’s judgements. Examining candidate paths to important inventions is a method worthy of exploration. Together, the four studies indicate that important historical inventions might be examined experimentally. Doing so yields potentially important invention heuristics.     

When necessity is the mother of invention: Mood and problem solving

Happy moods foster the ability to think about problems in new ways, but little is known about how sad moods affect this process. This paper investigates the hypothesis that individuals in sad moods adhere to the data and might not think about problems in new ways until they receive data indicating that it is appropriate to do so. To investigate this hypothesis, participants in happy, sad, and neutral moods completed a classic mental set task (Luchins, 1942). All mood groups were able to break the mental set and to think about the problems in a new way, but mood affected when they did so. Consistent with the idea that individuals in sad moods adhere to the data, they relied on the mental set until they received evidence that it may be problematic. In contrast, individuals in happier moods were more likely to abandon the mental set on their own, rather than wait for evidence of its inadequacy. In three follow-up experiments, when the information provided by participants’ sad feelings was rendered uninformative, the mood effect disappeared. These findings are consistent with the claim that affect influences processing only when it provides information about how to proceed.     

Prophetic criticism,incarnational optimism: On recovering the late Kierkegaard

Actually the revolution is much closer than we think. The last band of free thinkers (Feuerbach and all related to him) has attacked or tackled the matter far more clearly than formerly, for if you look more closely, you will see that they actually have taken upon themselves the task of defending Christianity against contemporary Christians. The point is that established Christendom is demoralized, in the profoundest sense all respect for Christianity's existential commitments has been lost … Now Feuerbach is saying: No, wait a minute—if you are going to be allowed to go on living as you are living, then you also have to admit that you are not Christians … it is wrong of established Christendom to say that Feuerbach is attacking Christianity; it is not true, he is attacking the Christians by demonstrating that their lives do not correspond to the teachings of Christianity … What Christianity needs for certain is traitors … (JP 6523)     

Prehistoric artifact invention,value, and change

The evolution of artifacts has been accretive in ideas, materials, energy, and function, resulting in increasing numbers and kinds of artifacts, whereas ideological and social evolution has largely been substitutive and slower. Innovations in caloric, chemic and biologic energies may have been initiated by women, with elaborations by men resulting in specialization. Evolution of materials used in the manufacture of the food, shelter, tool, and toy functions now puts us firmly in the Synthetic Stage, preceded by half a million years of the Natural Stage of human artifact evolution. The toy function is being increasingly interwoven with other functions. Trade in techniques, materials, and finished artifacts has resulted in artifactual similarities around the world, giving hope for a true unification of mankind.     

The effects of schematic and affective processes on metaphorical invention

This research predicted that greater knowledge, stronger affect, and positive attitudes concerning a topic would lead to the construction of laboratory-induced metaphorical statements. Subjects (n=45) were given a list of 13 politicians and instructed to create metaphors about several of their choosing. Politicians selected as the topics of metaphors were compared to those not selected. Respondents possessed more knowledge, had stronger feelings, and intended to vote for the politicians who were the topics of metaphors more than for those not selected. Future research should futher investigate the role of knowledge, prevailing mood, and attitudes on metaphorical invention, and examine spontaneously occuring metaphors.     

Necessity is the mother of invention: avoidance motivation stimulates creativity through cognitive effort

Compared with approach motivation, avoidance motivation has often been related to reduced creativity because it evokes a relatively inflexible processing style. This finding seems inconsistent with the dual pathway to creativity model, which poses that both flexible and persistent processing styles can result in creative output. Reconciling these inconsistencies, the authors hypothesized that avoidance-motivated individuals are not unable to be creative, but they have to compensate for their inflexible processing style by effortful and controlled processing. Results of 5 experiments revealed that when individuals are avoidance motivated, they can be as creative as when they are approach motivated, but only when creativity is functional for goal achievement, motivating them to exert the extra effort (Experiments 1-4). The authors found that approach motivation was associated with cognitive flexibility and avoidance motivation with cognitive persistence (Experiment 1), that creative tasks are perceived to be more difficult by avoidance- than by approach-motivated individuals, and that avoidance-motivated individuals felt more depleted after creative performance (Experiment 2a, 2b, and 3). Finally, creative performance of avoidance-motivated individuals suffered more from a load on working memory (Study 4). The present results suggest that for people focusing on avoiding negative outcomes, creative performance is difficult and depleting, and they only pay these high cognitive costs when creativity helps achieving their goals.     

The travails of 19th-century urban youth as a precondition to the invention of modern adolescence

One of the factors leading up to the "invention" of modern adolescence was what reformers saw as the corruption of youth by the city. It was the plight of these youth--all too visible to reformers, intellectuals, opinion makers, and trend setters--which set the stage for a child-saving movement during the last century aimed at taking youth off the streets, putting them in schools, stretching out the home-leaving age from 14 to 18, and in general, prolonging a developmental period.