Thomas B. Ward

Cognition, creativity, and entrepreneurship

The nature and origins of new ideas are examined, focusing particularly on how existing knowledge shapes those ideas and on cognitive processes by which people access and use their knowledge.The paradoxical role of knowledge – of both generating and inhibiting creativity – is discussed in conjunction with a creative cognitive approach, which offers the theoretical background for understanding the thought process. This approach considers creative ideas to be the natural result of applying basic mental functions to existing knowledge structures. The origin of an idea can be determined through a variety of processes accessing knowledge, such as conceptual combination, analogy, and problem formulation. Conceptual combination analysis suggests that when two previously separate concepts or images are combined into a single new unit, new properties can arise that were not present in the separate components.Analogy, or the mapping of knowledge, considered central to creative development in art, science, and literature can also be applied to entrepreneurship.Problem formulation has to do with ones approaches to problem-solving; knowing whether ones goal is more or less new can help to determine the most productive approach. The study cites empirical research on fundamental processes, making suggestions throughout on how to translate this work into entrepreneurial applications.Careful application of a number of various basic processes can put knowledge to an effective use and improve entrepreneurial creativity. (CBS)

Even in virtual environments women shop and men build: A social role perspective on Second Life

The present study examined whether traditional gender role expectations (Eagly, 1987) influence behaviors in non-traditional contexts such as online virtual environments. Participants were 352 Second Life users who reported their activities and experiences in Second Life. Results indicated that men and women differed in the types of activities they engaged in a manner predicted by social role theory. Specifically, as compared to women, men were more likely to report building things (e.g. objects), to own and work on their own virtual property, and were less likely to change their avatars appearance. Women, as compared to men, were more likely to meet people, shop, regularly change their avatars appearance, and buy clothes/objects for their avatar. The present study adds to our understanding of how traditional gender role expectations may carry over to online virtual worlds and influence online behavior.

The Emergence of Novel Attributes in Concept Modification

ABSTRACT: An important source of creativity in concept combination is emergence: Novel features are often attributed to a concept combination that are not attributed to either of its constituent concepts. For instance, a Harvard-educated carpenter is judged to be nonmaterialistic, though neither Harvard-educated people nor carpenters in general are thought to be nonmaterialistic. Emergent attributes may thus be considered creative in that they are novel to the combination. This investigation examined 2 linguistic factors believed to promote such emergence. The relevance and typicality of modifiers were inversely related to the emergence of novel attributes, such that irrelevant and atypical modifications increased emergence. Antonymous and anomalous combinations produced the most emergent attributes. The cognitive mechanisms by which novel attributes emerge, and their relation to creative cognition, are discussed.

Measuring gifted adolescents' implicit theories of creativity

This paper examines the structure of implicit theories of creativity in a sample of gifted adolescents and describes the development and use of the Creative Self Checklist and the Creative Individual Checklist, adjective checklists designed to assess endorsement of creativity‐related personality and behavioral attributes. Findings indicate that the gifted rate aspects of risk‐taking and inquisitiveness as primary facets of their own creativity while defining artistic abilities and energy and motivation as important parts of creativity in others. This study also assessed the role that these implicit theories play in the display of creative behaviors with regard to both performance on creativity tests and participation in creative hobbies. Findings indicate that while performance on creativity measures is predictive of creative hobby participation, greater self‐endorsement of beliefs that are positively related to creativity also significantly predict creative behaviors.

Stable and Dynamic Properties of Category Structure Guide Imaginative Thought

Previous research has shown that category exemplars vary in how accessible they are within their categories, and that more accessible exemplars are more likely than less accessible ones to be used as starting points in creative idea generation. In the present study, specific exemplars of fruit and tools that varied in their baseline levels of unprimed accessibility were made more accessible by way of an initial rating task, which led to an increased likelihood of those primed exemplars being used in a subsequent creative generation task. At the same time, items with higher baseline levels of unprimed accessibility continued to be used more often than items with lower unprimed accessibility, providing evidence that long-term associative strengths and recent experiences with exemplars both play a role in creative generation. Explicit recall of primed items did not correlate with their use in imagination, consistent with the idea that reliance on recent experiences in generating novel ideas may be inadvertent rather than deliberate.

Creative Cognition in Gifted Youth

We focus on the cognitive processes that gifted adolescents bring to bear on creative tasks, particularly open-ended tasks that involve generating novel, candidate ideas and developing those ideas into creative products. We use the Geneplore model of creative cognition as an orienting framework and focus on processes of divergent production, problem finding and construction, and retrieval of conceptual stored knowledge at different levels of abstraction. We consider the extent to which gifted individuals employ those processes differently than individuals who have not been so identified. However, we also incorporate findings regarding motivation, the proclivity toward innovative action, implicit theories, and creative self-concept because, although a complete understanding of creative cognition in the gifted requires attention to cognitive processes, it also requires a consideration of factors outside the purely cognitive realm.

Just Having Fun

The principles of creative cognition clearly come into play when inventors, writers, artists, and scientists perform their creative magic. We can also put the same principles to work in everyday life, even if we hold other kinds of jobs, or labor at home to keep a household running smoothly. Many day-to-day situations clamor for imaginative solutions, and we can call basic cognitive processes to the rescue. Furthermore, we can engage the same procedures even when we simply want to derive more enjoyment or satisfaction out of life. Not all creative endeavors have to originate in a pressing problem, or culminate in a clever solution. One of our most splendid traits is our capacity to plunge into creative play, for its own sake. Creativity can be its own reward.

Content, Collaboration, and Creativity in Virtual Worlds

In contrast to the bulk of chapters in this volume that focus on computer- based activities that are best described as games, the present chapter is concerned with creativity in virtual settings that are not particularly game-like. Specifically, the chapter examines manifestations of creativity in 3D virtual worlds in which the primary activity is engaging in unscripted social interactions. The term Social Virtual Worlds (SVWs) is used to refer to these types of 3D environments in contrast to Gaming Virtual Worlds (GVWs), which refers to games such as World of Warcraft that generally involve clearly defined quests ( Jung, 2011 ). Perhaps the best known of such SVWs is Second Life , but many others exist, including There , Kaneva , InWorldz , IMVU , and ActiveWorlds .

Chapter 8 – Problem Solving

Publisher Summary Creative behavior and problem solving have much in common. Put differently, a broad range of situations that call for creative behavior can be characterized as “problems”, and the thought processes that lead to new and useful outcomes in those situations can be characterized “problem solving”. Problem solving is potentially one of the broadest topics in psychology. So much of what humans do in their work and personal lives could be characterized as problem solving that the boundaries of what is and what is not within the topic area are unclear. The same may be said for creativity. Defining problems as discrepancies between current situations and goals, and characterizing problem solving as eliminating discrepancies puts the emphasis squarely on the processes involved. Thus, understanding problem solving entails understanding the processes used in conceptualizing the problem and in moving from the beginning to the end, which has implications for how one studies problem solving. It is not enough to simply note whether a would-be solver has attained a solution.

Science and Art

Late one evening in April of 1983, Kary Mullis drove through winding hills to his ranch in northern California. Mullis was a biochemist employed by the Cetus Corporation to synthesize chemicals used in genetic cloning. The road wove to and fro through the hills, and the fragrance of wildflowers wafted in his window as Mullis toyed with notions in his mind. He had gotten an idea for a technique for working with chemical samples containing low amounts of DNA, and he was working out what might be wrong with his idea. In fact, his method would not have worked at all. Nonetheless, as he drove, the bumpiness of the road and the confinement of the car somehow seemed to encourage the chemical images as they continued to dance in his head, idly playing out possibilities. Then, in a sudden flash, an idea burst into his mind, an idea that would win him a Nobel prize and revolutionize the world of chemistry—the polymerase chain reaction (PCR).