principles of creative problem solving
Principles of Creativity
Dr. Michael J. McNamara
Purpose of the Unit: ◦ ‘Meaning’ and ‘measurements’ of creativity; ◦ Creative confidence ◦ Creative Mindset
Tasks for the Week: ◦ Watch my lecture on “Creative Confidence”
posted in SLATE’s Course Media Gallery ◦ Watch David Kelley’s Ted talk: “How to Build
Your Creative Confidence” ◦ Read the very short article by Sweet et al.
“Developing Creative Confidence” available on SLATE
◦ Brainstorm about what ‘new thing’ you might engage with for the Creativity Assignment (due June 4)
◦ Join us for the Debrief Meeting in SLATE’s Virtual Classroom (evite forthcoming).
◦ No assignments/exercise due this week
Psychologist, University of Nebraska (and later USC) ◦ During WW2, Chief of the Psychological Research
Unit at the U.S. Army Air Forces Training Command Headquarters in Fort Worth
◦ Oversaw the Stanine (Standard Nine) Project in 1943- aimed at identifying intellectual abilities crucial to flying a plane.
◦ Preliminary Findings: there are 9 intellectual abilities crucial to being a good pilot some of which are not captured by IQ.
1950 Presidential Address to the American Psychological Association- need for research to isolate the various and discrete factors of thinking ◦ Need to separate out creativity and others skills
from the factors measured by IQ
Structure of Intellect theory= a total of 90 discrete intellectual abilities and 30 behavioral abilities.
Divergent- in ‘different directions’ as opposed to choosing among predetermined/traditional ones.
Divergent thinking- the thought process of developing many different possible solutions, answers, or responses to a problem.
Occurs in a spontaneous, ‘free- flowing’ manner’ such that many ideas are generated and many possible solutions are explored.
“Divergent Thinkers” are always looking for more options.
Scoring: 1. Fluency- the total number of interpretable,
meaningful, and relevant ideas generated in response to the stimulus ◦ Add up all responses
2. Flexibility- the number of different categories of relevant responses ◦ Identify and Count the categories in the
responses
3. Originality- the statistical rarity of the responses ◦ Each response is compared to the total amount
of all responses from test-takers. 5% are unusual (1pnt); 1% are unique (2pnts)
4. Elaboration- the amount of detail in the responses ◦ 1 point per detail
Examinees are asked to come up with many possible items that contain a specific component.
◦ Scoring is comprised of four components:
1. Fluency
2. Flexibility
3. Originality
4. Elaboration
Name things with wheels.
Florence- a prodigy, the highest IQ score in the entire school.
Poole- a solid C student
Malcolm Gladwell’s in “Outliers”; paraphrasing the research of Liam Hudson
Florence: ◦ (Brick): Building things. Throwing.
Poole: ◦ (Brick): To us in smash-and-grab raids. To help
hold a house together. To use in a game of Russian routlette if you want to keep fit at the same time (brick at ten paces, turn and throw). To hold the eiderdown on a bed tie a brick at each corner. As a breaker of empty Coke bottles.
Florence: ◦ (Blanket): Keeping warm, smothering fires, tying to
trees and sleeping in (a hammock), improvised stretcher.
Poole: ◦ (Blanket): To use on a bed. As a cover for sex in the
woods. As a tent. To make smoke signals with. As a sail for a boat, cart, or sled. As a substitute for a towel. As a target for shooting practice for short- sighted people. As a thing to catch people jumping out of burning skyscrapers.
FLUENCY- lots of ideas
FLEXIBILITY- thinking broadly; different types/categories of ideas/ perspectives
ORIGINALITY: unique and novel or unheard of before. Combinations (new arrangements of old/un-related ideas), transformation, or transcendence
UTILITY: useful. The ability to see if the solution actually solves the problem.
SURPRISE: brings familiar things together in an unfamiliar/unexpected way. Think beyond conventional boundaries or categories, loosen up the associations
BEAUTY: appealing, captivating and aesthetically satisfying
The Asch Experiment (Asch Clip) ◦ Solomon Asch, Swarthmore
College-
◦ 1950s “Conformity Experiments”
Key Question
To what degree are an individual’s opinions and responses influenced by those of a majority group?
The Asch Experiment (Asch Clip) ◦ Key Question
To what degree are an individual’s opinions and responses influenced by those of a majority group?
◦ Finding: In the control group, with no
pressure to conform to confederates, the error rate was less than 1%.
Overall, in the experimental group, 75% of the participants gave an incorrect answer to at least one question.
1. Rauth et al. (2010): “a development of trust in one’s own creative skills”
2. Kelly Bros. (2013): “Creative confidence is the ability to come up with breakthrough ideas combined with the courage to act on them”…
3. Kelly Bros. (2012): “Confidence doesn’t simply mean believing your ideas are good. It means having the humility to let go of ideas that aren’t working and to accept good ideas from other people”
Openness to experience: single strongest and most consistent personality trait that predicts creative achievement,”
“For artists and innovators of all stripes, novel experiences provide the crucial tissue of real-world material that can be spun into original work.”
And instills a self-confidence, resiliency and perseverance in the individual; ‘new things’ can be discovered, achieved, and overcome
Be ‘intentional’ about creativity
To be more creative, the Kelleys argue, “the first step is to decide you want to make it happen”
Be-Creative Effect: just being told to ‘be creative’ before a divergent thinking task makes the responses more creative”
Kelley’s “Embrace a bias towards action” Consistently constructing interactive
experiences in an effort to see how things work ◦ Intellectual exploration ◦ Physical tinkering ◦ Engagement in new surroundings ◦ Building prototypes
“Our culture opens us to allowing lots of failures while harvesting the learning. It’s what separates an innovation culture from a normal corporate culture.” (Scott Cook, Founder, Intuit)
Adopting a Hypothesis-testing Mindset: ◦ Develop new hypotheses from the knowledge you’ve
acquired and test them in the search for new solutions
◦ Take apart a product or process that interests you ◦ Travel to learn about different lifestyles and local
behavior.
Creativity & Divergent Thinking ◦ Fluency ◦ Flexibility ◦ Originality ◦ Value/Utility ◦ Surprise & Beauty
Conformity ◦ Ash Line Studies
Creative Confidence ◦ Choosing Creativity ◦ Openness to Experience (Risk) ◦ Bias towards Action (Hypothesis
Testing Mindset)
Week 3 : Creative Cognition Topics: - The Pillars of Cognition - Consciousness, Perception and Attention -Dual Process Creativity (Type 1 and Type 2
Thinking)
Required Readings: Sowden, P. T., Pringle, A., & Gabora, L. (2015).
The shifting sands of creative thinking: Connections to dual-process theory. Thinking & Reasoning, 21(1), 40-60. (SLATE) Pages 1-10 & 14-16 only