Managing Creative People

This article discusses three essential steps that are necessary for effective managing of creative people. It recommends that attention be paid to understand the nature of the creative process. It also suggests steps that can lead to better appreciation of the creative person. Thirdly, the paper outlines action that can assist to encourage a creative work climate.     

Creative Failure: Why Can't People Solve Creative Problems

Although people attempt many creative problem solutions, in general, most creative problem-solving efforts, at least real-world efforts, fail. In the present effort, we examine the reasons creative problem-solving efforts typically fail. We argue that creative problem-solving efforts fail, in part, due to the fundamental nature of the kinds of problems that call for creative thought. However, the nature of people's creative problem-solving skills and the context in which they attempt to develop and implement creative problem solutions also results in failed attempts to solve creative problems. Based on these observations, we discuss how one might seek to develop people to encourage more success in creative problem-solving efforts.     

开拓创新 与时俱进——关于五台山研究会发展壮大的思考

自然科学与社会科学是社会向前发展的两大动力,但在不同的历史时期,两门科学研究的发展却有失衡的现象,建设社会主义市场经济的初期,重商不重学的现象也是自然的。于是,淡漠对于社会科学的研究,相应的研究人员纷纷下海,蔚然成风。但是,随着市场经济建设的深入,社会科学研究在社会中越来越受到重视。今年8月7号江泽民总书记在北戴河接见科学研究工作者,并作了“八七讲话”。讲话中提出了社会科学和自然科学研究的四个同等重要,明确提出社会科学的研究水平也是我们国家综合国力的重要标志。讲话还明确地给社会科学研究的同志提出,要加强全局性、战略性、前沿性课题的研究。同时,特别强调对社会科学研究人才的培养。     

基层党政领导干部对创造力人才特点的隐认知

该研究对48名基层领导干部的访谈和631名基层领导干部的问卷调查,通过访谈初步研究了基层领导干部的隐创造力概念,并在访谈基础上,通过因素分析等方法,编制了中国基层党政领导干部创造力人才特点量表。研究发现,中国基层领导干部对于创造力的理解更侧重于解决实际问题而非“无中生有”。在他们看来,创造力就是如何将现有的资源加以整合利用,在既定条件的约束下,用独特的方法来解决公共服务过程中面临的各种新老问题,并取得成效。中国基层领导干部的创造力人才特点包含工作灵活、激励带动：掌握新技术、敢于突破、善于学习5个维度,各维度之间有一定相关。     

Creative People Use Nonconscious Processes to Their Advantage

Although contentious, there is evidence to suggest that nonconscious processes contribute to creative output, particularly during refractory periods. However, no one has examined whether this break benefit differs as a function of creative ability. To address these issues, this investigation examined Wallas's (1926 Wallas , G. ( 1926 ). The art of thought . New York , NY : Harcourt Brace . [Google Scholar]) seminal theoretical framework of creativity. More specifically, the most controversial stage postulated by Wallas, the incubation phase, was empirically tested. A regression analysis demonstrated that productivity is significantly increased when creative people activate nonconscious processes in off-task or incubation periods. There is ongoing debate about the cause(s) of this incubation effect. This research provides evidence that the incubation effect results, at least partially, from nonconscious processing and that it provides greater benefit to more creative individuals. This suggests that highly creative people should be exposed to focus problems/challenges well in advance of objective deadlines, and have freedom to generate solutions outside of structured evaluation times.     

Creative People Create Values: Creativity and Positive Arousal in Negotiations

Most negotiations are ill-structured situations, and the ability to identify novel options is likely to be crucial for success. This study, therefore, examined how creativity impacts negotiation processes and outcomes, and how this effect is moderated by positive arousal. The negotiators’ creative personality and their state of positive arousal were measured before they participated in a simulated negotiation, with the results demonstrating that the level of creativity in negotiation dyads was positively related to the negotiators’ joint outcome. Negotiators in high creativity dyads searched for more information by asking questions about priorities and were less narrowly focused by providing fewer single-issue offers than negotiators in low creativity dyads. Positive arousal did not affect outcome directly, but moderated the effect of creativity on joint outcomes; the effect of creativity was strongest under high levels of positive arousal. The discussion section emphasizes that future research may find creativity to have even more of a positive effect when negotiations become more complex.     

Dangerous Minds: Eminently Creative People Who Spent Time in Jail

This article examines eminent people who were jailed. This topic is of interest to psychology as a vehicle to explore the relation between deviance and creativity. It is hypothesized that novel ideas commonly encounter resistance and that there are societal mechanisms to repress new ideas. This article has the following sections: (a) an introduction to the problem, (b) method and results of a review of all jailed people listed in a dictionary of famous people, (c) discussion of exemplary cases, (d) the role of the Zeitgeist, and (e) a discussion of the intervening variables that account for the relation between creative work and societal detention. One of the conclusions reached is that Zeitgeists can be characterized as either hard or loose: A hard Zeitgeist is resistant to a new idea, whereas a loose Zeitgeist not only welcomes but cries out for new explanations for existing problems.     

创造性认知风格、创造性人格与创造性思维的关系

对315名初中生施测Kirton适应–创新认知风格问卷、Williams创造性倾向量表和Torrance创造性思维测验任务,以考察创造性认知风格、创造性人格与创造性思维之间的关系。相关分析表明,在创造性认知风格中,效率性、规则性均与创造性思维呈显著负相关;在创造性人格中,冒险性、好奇心及挑战性均与创造性思维显著正相关。回归分析进一步表明,在创造性认知风格中,创新性、效率性分别正向、负向预测创造性思维,在创造性人格中,好奇心正向预测创造性思维;对回归系数的逐步检验发现,创新性维度通过创造性人格而对创造性思维具有间接的积极影响。结构方程模型结果则显示,创新性维度、规则性维度以创造性人格为中介分别对创造性思维发生间接的积极、消极影响。可见,创新认知风格有利于创造性思维,而适应认知风格不利于创造性思维;创造性人格有利于创造性思维;创造性人格在创造性认知风格与创造性思维之间具有一定的中介作用,创新性认知风格通过创造性人格而促进创造性思维,规则性认知风格通过创造性人格而抑制创造性思维。     

The Dissolution of the Self in Unsettled Times: Postmodernism and the Creative Process

How does culture affect creative behavior? This question forms the background for this essay, which investigates commonalities between creative processes and features of an impending “postmodern” age. Specifically, recurring themes in discussions of the creative process — the combining, ordering, and integration of disintegrated elements — appear also to be standard features of postmodern consciousness. This essay draws from contemporary fiction-writing; popular culture; and postmodern psychology, which views the self as a work-in-progress, to demonstrate these affinities. Postmodern consciousness, it is argued, heralds an era of renewed creativity partly because the fractured view of the self it promotes, with its emphasis on paradox and irony, appears well equipped to encourage creative expression.     

Relationships Between Bilingualism and Adaptive Creative Style,Innovative Creative Style,and Creative Strengths Among Korean American Students

The purpose of this study was to examine whether there is a relationship among different degrees of bilingualism and creativity (adaptive creative style, innovative creative style, creative strengths). A total of 116 Korean American students participated in this study. They consisted of 49 boys with the mean age of 11.8 and 65 girls with the mean age of 11.3. The Word Association Test and the Subjective Self Rating were used to determine the degrees of bilingualism, and the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking–Figural was used to measure creative potential. The results indicated that the degree of bilingualism was positively associated with creativity, and more specifically, with the adaptive creative style and creative strengths.     

“生生”、“感通”、“偕行”——《易传》的天人共生哲学

天人问题是中国哲学的基本问题,天人的基本含义之一相当于我们现在通常说的自然与人;基本含义之二是视天人为有德性(道德)的、有能动性的动态的、协调的存在。中国哲学中的这种天人观在《易传》中表现为"生生"——"感通"——"偕行"的天人共生态。《易传》既将天人视为一个"生生不息"的自然的生命有机体,又充分发掘天人的德性,并使二者相资相长,"日新之谓盛德,生生之谓易",天地人各有其位,各尽其能,各循其道,"各正性命",一体偕行,共生共存共荣。     

Fractality,Organizational Management,and Creative Change

This article explores an understanding of organizational management developed from the metaphorical application of complexity science to the field of organizational development. It focuses on the insights that fractality triggers in relation to an alternative way of examining and appreciating organizational hierarchy, and the subsequent implications to liberating creativity, ingenuity and potentiality of individuals working within the organization. Sites where such a fractal-hierarchy mindset appears to be evident are discussed, and the effects on productivity noted.     

Creative style,personality, and artistic endeavor

Research has shown that creative style, as measured by the Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory (KAI; M. J. Kirton, 1976), is correlated with more than 30 different personality traits. In this article, the author demonstrates that many of these correlations can be understood within the framework of the Five-Factor Model of personality and shows that the predominant correlates of creative style are personality indicators in the domains of the factors Conscientiousness, Openness to Experience, and, to a lesser extent, Extraversion. These findings provide a basis for comparing the personality traits associated with creative style and occupational creativity. High scorers on the KAI (innovators) differ from both average and creative scientists but have personality characteristics similar to those of artists. This finding suggests that the artistic personality may be more common than is generally supposed and that common factors might underlie both artistic endeavor and creative style.     

Psychological Mindedness,Personality and Creative Cognition

Research into psychological mindedness (PM) has focuses on its beneficial role in improving physical and mental well-being. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of two PM measures and personality in predicting creative cognition performance. Following the completion of a battery of questionnaires, 176 participants from the general population (age ranged from 16 to 68 years old) completed 3 creative cognition tasks. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed independent effects for both the PM interest and insight variables in performance on 2 of the 3 creative cognition measures. Critically, these showed that the PM variables positively predicted performance on both the Creative Visualization Task and the Remote Associates Test. Conversely, the association between performance on the Alternate Uses Task and the PM variables was explained by the openness to new experience variable. These findings are discussed in the context of the inclusion of further mediating variables that may explain the causal relationship between PM and creative cognition.