This study examined the impact of teaching creativity in the form of associative thinking strategies within a metacognitive framework. A representative sample of 30 university design students was selected from a larger section (N = 122) to participate in a 16-week supplemental course. Each week a new creative thinking strategy was integrated with…

Thinking and remembering can cause forgetting. In the context of remembering, retrieving one item can cause the forgetting of other items (Anderson, Bjork, & Bjork, 1994). A similar phenomenon has been observed in the context of creative problem solving--attempting to generate a target associate in the Remote Associates Test (RAT) can cause…

Research on retrieval-induced forgetting has shown that retrieval can cause the forgetting of related or competing items in memory (Anderson, Bjork, & Bjork, 1994). In the present research, we examined whether an analogous phenomenon occurs in the context of creative problem solving. Using the Remote Associates Test (RAT; Mednick, 1962), we…

A central question in creativity concerns how insightful ideas emerge. Anecdotal examples of insightful scientific and technical discoveries include Goodyear's discovery of the vulcanization of rubber, and Mendeleev's realization that there may be gaps as he tried to arrange the elements into the Periodic Table. Although most people would regard…

Reports the findings of research that correlated the differentiation and association abilities of researchers in an industrial research and development firm and a chemical research company with their demonstrated scientific creativity to test a dual-nature theory of creativity. Author discusses the implications for developing creative work teams.…