Motivation and creativity: Toward a synthesis of structural and energistic approaches to cognition

doi:10.1016/0732-118X(88)90001-3

New Ideas in Psychology

Volume 6, Issue 2, 1988, Pages 159-176

https://doi.org/10.1016/0732-118X(88)90001-3 Get rights and content

Abstract

Cognitive scientists who model creative thinking on computers claim that the ability of their programs to replicate the discovery of scientific laws (e.g., Kepler's third law from Brahe's data) means that creative thinking in humans is nothing but problem solving of the kind computer heuristics use. This claim is shown to be a mystification based on a misunderstanding of creativity, on unrealistic replications of the initial conditions present at the inception of creative processes, and on a misleading identification of rationality with complex human thought processes. Some of the implications of such mystification for understanding thought processes in general are reviewed.

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^☆: The research reported in this paper was supported by the Spencer Foundation and by the Social Sciences Research Council Committee on Giftedness, Creativity, and the Learning Process.

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Motivation and creativity: Toward a synthesis of structural and energistic approaches to cognition☆

Abstract

New Ideas in Psychology

New Ideas in Psychology

New Ideas in Psychology

Cognitive Psychology

Cognitive Science

Psychological Review

The social psychology of creativity

La concurrence des états psychologiques

Revue Philosophique de la France et de l'Etranger

Developing talent in young children

The social basis of scientific discoveries

Beyond boredom and anxiety

Attention and the holistic approach to behavior

Toward a psychology of optimal experience

Emergent motivation and the evolution of the self

Talent and achievement: A longitudinal study of artists, 1963–1981

Being adolescent: Conflict and growth in the teenage years

Validity and reliability of the Experience-Sampling Method

Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease

The ecology of adolescent activities and experiences

Journal of Youth and Adolescence

Culture, time, and the development of talent

How we think

Logic: The structure of inquiry

Scheme theory: A conceptual framework for cognitive-motivational processes

The evolution of physics

Attention and arousal

Frames of mind

Creative thinking, problem-solving, and instruction

The creative vision: A longitudinal study of problem-finding in art

Creativity and intelligence

The self-construction of the extraordinary

The nature of human intelligence

Autonatic and effortful processes in memory

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General