Creativity is typically defined as the generation of novel and useful ideas or artifacts. This generative capacity is crucial to everyday problem solving, technological innovation, scientific discovery, and the arts. A central concern of cognitive scientists is to understand the processes that underlie human creative thinking. We review evidence…

For several decades, brainstorming in groups and its variants have been widely examined in research as a technique to produce ideas. The way to stimulate elaboration by linking ideas to those previously given by others during a brainstorming session is a challenge for researchers and practitioners aiming to go beyond idea generation. Despite…

This research comprises two studies investigating the impact of mood and cognitive stimulation on creativity, with a focus on the role of task type. The first study focused on idea generation, whereas the second explored slogan generation, revealing differing outcomes for distinct tasks. Positive and negative moods were induced through memory…

Creative thinking stems from the cognitive process that fosters the creation of new ideas and problem-solving solutions. Artificial intelligence systems and neural network models can reduce the intricacy of understanding creative cognition. For instance, the generation of ideas could be symbolized as patterns of binary code in which clusters of…

Why do creative ideas and solutions to unresolved problems benefit from taking a break? The idea of unconscious work as an explanation is so appealing that even after reading this paper, which states clearly that unconscious work is a fantasy based on no clear theory and no clear empirical evidence, some readers will claim that we are saying the…

Scientific progress on creativity research depends on having properly operationalized measures. In psychological research on creativity, it is common to operationalize creativity as the combination of novelty and appropriateness. However, the operationalization of appropriateness varies widely across researchers, studies, and domains (e.g.…

The Dual Pathway to Creativity Model theorizes that creative performance arises from cognitive flexibility, persistence, or a combination of the two. Existing research has only examined these pathways independently, limiting our understanding of the model and of how people generate ideas. We extend the DPCM model by predicting that creative output…

Although organizations say new ideas are desirable, investing in original products rather than the "tried and true" can be unsettling for decision-makers. This discomfort may be due, in part, to uncertainty surrounding whether a new idea will prove successful. As such, the originality of a creative idea can be paradoxically viewed both…

Generating creative ideas is critical in the design process. Currently, massive amounts of design data are existing and effective use of data can stimulate inspiration. However, there has been relatively little research on large-scale design image materials and creative knowledge mining. Here we report a creative idea generation method based on…

Understanding and supporting pre-service teachers' creativity in collaborative instructional design has gained increasing attention. To design novel and effective learning experiences or activities for students, they need to build empathy with students, that is, understanding students' learning needs. This study aimed to (1) explore the patterns…

Much has been made of the apparent capacity for creativity of generative AI. However, as research expands the knowledge base regarding the capabilities and performance of this technology, the prevailing view is shifting away from "AI is creative" and towards a more balanced model of Human-AI co-creativity. Nevertheless, even this…

Idea evaluation has been identified as a critical step in the creative problem-solving process. Yet, it is unclear how exactly individuals evaluate and compensate for weaknesses in their creative ideas. In the present study, both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to identify the compensatory strategies that undergraduate participants…

The current entrepreneurial pedagogy focuses on enhancing students' ability in discovering opportunities based on an understanding of users' needs. This study challenges this dominant pedagogy by proposing a method to help students generate innovative ideas and create entrepreneurial opportunities by transforming the existing product's meanings,…

Understanding how to support creative ideation is an important, yet, elusive, issue for marketing educators. To shed light, this study proposes ideation as a malleable state influenced by "outside-the-brain" resources. By examining venture concept ideation, this study captures the ideation-environment relationship using experience…

Anxiety-driven counterfactual thinking can be a slippery slope. Building on the premise that both positive and negative emotions can impact creativity, the present study examines how trait anxiety, optimism, and other mental health factors like therapy experience shape outputs in divergent thinking (DT) tasks. Using an online sample (N = 647), the…