David H Cropley

University of South Australia | UniSA · School of Electrical and Information Engineering

This book presents the history of modern human creativity/innovation through examples of solutions to basic human needs that have been developed over time. The title - Homo problematis solvendis - is a play on the scientific classifications of humans (e.g. Homo habilus, Homo erectus, Homo sapiens), and is intended to suggest that a defining charact...

In today’s highly competitive market, organizations increasingly need to innovate in order to survive. Drawing on a wealth of psychological research in the field of creativity, David H. Cropley and Arthur J. Cropley illustrate practical methods for conceptualizing and managing organizational innovation. They present a dynamic model of the interacti...

Creativity in Engineering: Novel Solutions to Complex Problems focuses on creativity research, including what we know about those who are creative, what products are creative, the best processes for fostering creativity, and the ways the best environments for creativity can be applied to the engineering realm. The book provides practical advice for...

The “Sputnik Shock” of 1957 led to acceptance of the usefulness of creativity, while the still developing “Cyber Shock” derives from emergence of the apparent production of creativity by CPSs and AI. The ultimate paradox of creativity, which draws on both these shocks, has given rise to the idea of algorithmic creativity. However, the rise of “Soci...

A fundamental premise of the Future of Work is that AI will replace people in many cognitive and physical tasks, leaving creativity as a core, human 21st century skill. However, the recent launch of generative AI (especially ChatGPT) has seen many claims that AI is creative. If true, then the foundation of future human work, and education, is under...

Engineering innovation concerns the development of both incrementally and radically new solutions to new problems arising from change. It is underpinned by an individual capacity for creativity. Over many hundreds of years, as our ability to respond to change with technological innovation has grown, so has the importance of the different dimensions...

The field of creativity research, in its modern sense, has existed for some 70 years. Initially driven by questions anchored in education, creativity research has branched out over the last 70 years to touch on many areas of human activity. However, it can be argued that the discipline has, in those 70 years, failed to make a deep and lasting impac...

Growing rhetoric from industry-based white papers and global reports states that creativity is a vital skill for the future of work. However, despite centuries of study and debate, there remains a lack of consensus on the exact nature of the value of creativity. This scoping review followed the PRISMA-ScR guidelines with the objective of reviewing...

Proponents of artificial intelligence boast its many promises, including the potential for creativity. Whether the realities of artificial cognition align with these promises, however, remains hotly debated. In this chapter, we explore the role of artificial intelligence in creative problem solving through the lens of cognition. Through this lens,...

In this chapter we hypothesise that, with regard to the defining activity of creativity (the ability to generate novel and effective outputs), artificial systems are limited to, at best, moderate levels of incremental creativity. In other words, artificial systems have the potential to generate new, and effective, variations of existing ideas, solu...

Creativity is now accepted as a core 21st-century competency and is increasingly an explicit part of school curricula around the world. Therefore, the ability to assess creativity for both formative and summative purposes is vital. However, the fitness-for-purpose of creativity tests has recently come under scrutiny. Current creativity assessments...

This chapter explains the key criteria of a creative product (novelty and effectiveness) and discusses how this relates to the driving forces behind creativity.

Creativity is regarded typically as a universal, beneficial force, driving positive outcomes across a range of areas of human activity, including technology. Despite this, however, there is a thread of research that acknowledges a dark side to creativity. For example, technology, in its broadest sense, has given the world life-saving vaccines. Howe...

As society transitions into Industry 4.0 (whereby industries integrate digital and physical objects) the role of educational systems is to shape students into twenty-first century STEM citizens. Modern education systems develop competencies such as creativity alongside STEM capabilities in response to this emerging workforce. The individual, social...

One of the abiding challenges in creativity research is assessment. Objectively scored tests of creativity such as the Torrance Tests of Creativity (TTCT) and the Test of Creative Thinking-Drawing Production (TCT-DP) offer high levels of reliability and validity but are slow and expensive to administer and score. As a result, many creativity resear...

Creativity is recognised through subjective social judgements which are determined by our implicit theories and evaluation criteria. Nudges can be applied to shape, suppress, and activate our various implicit theories and evaluation criteria. We can be primed to seek out creativity, countering our (e.g., teachers, managers, decision-makers) natural...

Malevolent creativity, which can be defined as creativity that is deliberately planned to damage others, is a concept that explains how the capacity to generate novel and effective outcomes (creativity) may, on occasion, be misapplied. The present study used 130 male inmates of the Oradea Maximum Security Penitentiary in Romania to explore the abil...

One of the abiding challenges in creativity research is assessment. Objectively scored tests of creativity such as the Torrance Tests of Creativity and the test of Creative Thinking–Drawing Production (TCTDP; Urban & Jellen, 1996) offer high levels of reliability and validity but are slow and expensive to administer and score. As a result, many cre...

This chapter explores the relationship between creativity and AI, and explains how AI will function as an assistant to, not a replacement of, human creativity.

The future of work is forcing the world to adjust to a new paradigm of working. New skills will be required to create and adopt new technology and working methods. Additionally, cognitive skills, particularly creative problem-solving , will be highly sought after. The future of work paradigm has threatened many occupations but bolstered others such...

One of the abiding challenges in creativity research is assessment. Objectively scored tests of creativity such as the Torrance Tests of Creativity (TTCT) and the Test of Creative Thinking - Drawing Production (TCT-DP) offer high levels of reliability and validity but are slow and expensive to administer and score. As a result, many creativity rese...

This paper is a transcript of a keynote delivered at the 2021 SOU Creativity Conference. The paper addresses two topics. First, a discussion of the current state of creativity research is given. Of particular note is the conclusion that, despite seven decades of growing research, creativity has, in some respects, failed to make a significant impact...

Tertiary programs in a discipline such as engineering must balance the competing needs and requirements of two key stakeholders: the university that designs and delivers the program, and the professional body that accredits the program. Program and curriculum design in universities is traditionally rather bottom-up in nature, with courses designed...

Strong and growing interest in Malevolent Creativity has created a need for valid and reliable measures of, among other things, malevolent creative ideation. The Malevolent Creativity Behavior Scale (MCBS) was created in response to weaknesses identified in earlier studies of malevolent creativity. However, concerns over the face validity of the MC...

In the uncertain and rapidly changing environment of Industry 4.0, it is no longer enough for engineers merely to replicate: they must innovate as well. Although we will introduce a number of little-known or at least little-used concepts (e.g., the term “cyber-psychology” itself, the concept of “capability,” the term “proactive lifelong learning,”...

The rise of Industry 4.0 – the proliferation of cyber-physical systems, artificial intelligence, big data, and automation – has turned attention, once again, to the interaction between humans and robots . Captivating attention in both academic and public spheres, the debate on how humans and robots interact largely centres around the interplay betw...

Secondary education around the world has been significantly disrupted by covid-19 . Students have been forced into new ways of independent learning, often using remote technologies, but without the social nuances and direct teacher interactions of a normal classroom environment. Using data from the School Attitudes Survey—which surveys students reg...

This chapter discusses design as the core purpose of engineering, and creativity as the key activity of design.

Given inconsistent discoveries about the effects of social exclusion on creativity, this study divided social exclusion into different types – social rejection and social ignoration, and compared respective effects on two creative thinking forms – divergent thinking (explored through an imaging impossible events task and an Alternate Uses Task) and...

City of Salisbury in South Australia has strong industrial footprint in the manufacturing sectors and sees Industry 4.0-inspired technology advancement and business innovation playing a defining role to reshape the industry structure of the region. This chapter is to present a systematic analysis on barriers and challenges faced by, capability and...

The aim of the present research is to investigate creativity differences, and the magnitude and nature of those differences, among university students. More specifically, we examined differences in creativity within and between: (a) General Thematic Areas (Art and Science); (b) Specific Science domains (STEM), and; (c) Engineering micro-domains, fo...

Tertiary programmes in a discipline such as engineering must balance the competing needs of two key stakeholders: the university that designs and delivers the programme, and the professional body that accredits it . Programme and curriculum design in universities is traditionally bottom-up in nature, with courses designed by individual academics, a...

To be published by Bertelsmann (2021)] CHAPTER 1 Engineering: The open-ended profession The age of Industry 4.0 that is now emerging involves a new kind of interaction between humans and cyber-physical systems, and engineers need to be equipped for this interaction. The necessary preparedness involves not only traditional technological knowledge an...

The next in our sequence of time periods is the span of approximately 1000 years known (in Western culture) as the Dark Ages. This epoch spanned the fifth to fifteenth centuries of the Common Era, beginning approximately with the sacking of Rome—and the fall of the Western Roman Empire—in 476 ce, and ending with the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire...

The penultimate period that we will tackle is the Space Age. For me, born in 1967, this still looms large as an age of exciting, grand achievements: landing humans on the Moon; the Space Shuttle; and space craft sent to the outer reaches of the solar system.

Not only has prehistory failed to leave us with written records, it has also failed to leave us with any clear sign of who—male or female—first conceived of many of humankind’s earliest inventions. At first, this seemed to pose a problem that could only be solved by making some major assumptions.

The Modern Age, defined largely as the first half of the twentieth century, saw some of the best, and the worst, consequences of humankind’s inventive ability. Few families even today are untouched, in some way, by the effects of the two great, global conflicts of this epoch, and few were spared the economic effects of the Great Depression.

The second epoch in our sequence is the Classical Period of the ancient Greeks and Romans. This period spans about 1200 years, from the eighth century bce (the founding of Rome took place in 753 bce) up to the fifth century ce (the fall of the Western Roman Empire occurred in 476 ce). You will notice that there is a gap from the end of prehistory t...

We follow the Dark Ages, allowing a little bit of overlap, with the period known as the Renaissance. This time of rebirth began with a renewed interest in learning, drawing on classical sources, and reforms in the process of education.

A key feature of this book will be the analysis of the creativity of each of the 31 inventions chosen for analysis. This means that our focus is very much on the creativity of the product itself, as distinct from the personal qualities, thinking processes or environmental factors that also affect creativity.

The final epoch in our study of creativity is the present. Although this spans the period from the 1980s to the present day, historians may eventually differentiate between the early Digital Age (running from the advent of the personal computer (PC) in 1981, to about 2015) and a post-Digital Age. In technological terms, the current part of the Digi...

The Age of Enlightenment is a natural sequel to the Age of Exploration. Our problem-solving ancestors began, in the Renaissance, to understand the world around them in a more modern, scientific sense. As this understanding developed and grew, they began to explore more widely, solving problems that were not only physiological and basic, but increas...

We have reached the end of our exploration of thirty-one inventions by women, across ten key periods of human history. However, the story does not end there, because we now need to conduct some analysis.

The Age of Exploration, also referred to as the Age of Discovery, was a period during which European societies began to look outwards. The rebirth of knowledge, and humankind’s interest in its own place in the world, marked by the Renaissance, set the stage for the application much of what had been learned since about 1300. The Age of Exploration,...

The Romantic Period—running roughly from the late 1700s to the late 1800s (or approximately, the nineteenth century in its entirety)—is probably characterised best by the consequences of industrialisation.

As the understanding of creativity has shifted over many centuries-from special, innate talent, through to vital work skill-has our notion of this human ability become one of creativity as a commodity? Commodities are, in effect, raw materials that serve as inputs in the development of value-added products. Can creativity be understood in this sens...

Change of all types drives problem solving. In all but the most routine cases, the response to change requires solutions that are new and effective. Many of the solutions to change are technological in nature, drawing together engineering, design and creativity. It is surprising, therefore, that engineering design has not been more closely grounded...

The advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) and a broader digital transformation of society is driving both a renewed focus on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education as well as a recognition that creativity is a prerequisite for employment in the 21 st century. Together, these elements are the catalyst f...

How teachers perceive creative students, and what are the commonalities and specificities of such perception among teachers from different countries? To explore this question, we asked teachers from Australia, Italy, Poland, and the United Kingdom (total N = 933) to answer a set of items describing different traits of their students. Network and fa...

This book explores the history of modern human creativity/innovation, highlighting examples of solutions to basic human’ needs that have been developed over time. The title – Femina Problematis Solvendis – is a play on the scientific classifications of humans (Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo sapiens), but with special focus on inventions pioneered...

Die schiere Beispiellosigkeit der sich aus der Industrie 4.0 ergebenden Veränderungen stellt Ingenieurinnen und Ingenieure vor radikale Herausforderungen, die nicht durch Anpassungen des schon Bestehenden zu beherrschen sind: Es müssen kreative Lösungen generiert werden. Diese Aufgabe verlangt nach speziellen psychologischen Ressourcen, die eine fü...

Um den Zusammenhang zwischen Kreativität und Kriminalität systematisch zu besprechen ist es notwendig, erstens Kreativität und Kunst „abzukoppeln“ und zweitens zwischen „listenreicher“ und tagtäglicher „Straßenkriminalität“ zu unterscheiden. Auch müssen die konkreten Erscheinungsformen von Kreativität hervorgehoben werden, weil gesetzwidrige Verhal...

Betrug beinhaltet die Erzeugung von Neuheit, die wirkungsvoll ist und bestechend und impulsgebend sein kann: Bei Betrug handelt es sich also um Kreativität. Die Kreativität von Betrügern kann in drei Bereiche aufgeteilt werden: Erkennung von Vermögenswerten, Schaffung von Zugang dazu und Verschleierung der Missetat. Kenntnisse über den kreativen Pr...

Kreativität bringt zwar Vorteile, aber auch Nachteile. Die Generierung wirkungsvoller Neuheit birgt Risiken, nicht nur für die Menschen, die die Neuheit generieren, sondern auch für andere Menschen und/oder die Gesellschaft im Allgemeinen. Obwohl hinsichtlich Vorteile und Nachteile die Rolle von Produkten am offensichtlichsten ist, sind diese allen...

Seit der Antike wird davon ausgegangen, dass Kreativität immer gut sei. Dies ergibt sich aus dem Glauben, dass sie ein Geschenk höherer Mächte und folglich intrinsisch gut sei und immer zu Schönheit und zum Ausdruck der Quintessenz des wahrlich Menschlichen führe. Wir sprechen von einem „Kreativitäts-Rausch“. In jüngerer Zeit ist jedoch von „bodens...

Die Kreativität muss etwas Neues generieren und dies muss einem erkennbaren Ziel zweckdienlich sein und einen wirksamen Beitrag zur Erreichung dieses Ziels leisten. „Ziel“ umfasst sowohl ästhetisch-künstlerische als auch „funktionale“ Lösungen. Der Kern von Kreativität is also ihr Produkt. Dies braucht nicht erhaben sein – es gibt sowohl Kreativitä...

Kriminalität findet in einer „Ökologie“ statt, die aus Interaktionen zwischen Tätern, anderen Menschen, Gemeinschaften und der physischen Umgebung besteht. Die unterschiedlichen Kulturwissenschaften fokussieren auf verschiedene Aspekte dieser Interaktionen: Wir unterscheiden zwischen auf das Umfeld fokussierten und auf persönliche Merkmale des Indi...

Die Wechselwirkungen zwischen den Ps der Kreativität sind oft widersprüchlich: was Kreativität fördert kann sie auch hemmen. Der Grund ist, dass die Entstehung wirkungsvoller zweckdienlicher Neuheit nicht mittels plötzlicher Geistesblitze zustande kommt – Kreativität ist kein Ereignis –, sondern sich aus einem schrittweisen Prozess ergibt, wobei in...

Terrorismus unterscheidet sich von Betrug dadurch, dass für seinen Erfolg nicht Verschleierung, sondern in der Regel weitverbreitete öffentliche Vertrautheit mit der Missetat notwendig ist. Folglich entfaltet sich die Wechselwirkung zwischen „Neuheitszerfall“ und „Wirksamkeitszerfall“ anders als bei Betrug. Die Kombination bei Terroristen von böswi...

Sicherheitsbehörden operieren in einem Umfeld, in dem – ausnahmsweise – böswillige Kreativität erwünscht ist – solange alle Nachteile gegen die Kriminellen fließen. Im Wettkampf mit Kriminellen allerdings hat die polizeiliche Seite nur begrenzte Möglichkeiten, die Initiative zu ergreifen. Je näher Polizeibeamte und Behörden an die Grenze der sozial...

Sowohl Kreativität als auch Kriminalität beinhalten die Überschreitung sozialer Grenzen. Dies ist nicht inhärent schlecht, wird aber zu einem Problem, wenn in einem spezifischen Zeitalter die Abweichung vom Üblichen für die jeweilige Gesellschaft zu groß wird oder von einer unerträglichen Sorte ist. Nicht nur der Prozess ist ähnlich: Sowohl kreativ...

In 1896, Ernst Mach began his tenure as a Professor at the University of Vienna by reflecting on the role that "accident" might play in the process of discovery and invention. In this chapter, his paper is dissected with the benefit of a modern view of creativity. Notwithstanding a mistranslation of the central concept of his discussion, Mach's ana...

Edwin Prindle was both a mechanical engineer and a patent lawyer. The publication under consideration here was a paper presented at the 23rd annual convention of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers-one of the forerunners of today's Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), which boasts more than 150,000 members around the...

The concept of creativity, both in colloquial terms, and in more academic discussions, has long carried with it an association with positive qualities and outcomes. This bias towards benevolence has been challenged in recent years, with a growing interest in the application of creativity for purposes involving deliberate harm. Interest in malevolen...

This collection comprises 7 book chapters and 4 journal papers that address various aspects of creativity in the engineering domain. The publications range from more conceptual and theoretical concepts, through to examples of empirical studies, and span a period from 2000 – 2018. I hope that together, these chapters and papers give readers a singl...

Creativity is enjoying a resurgence of interest in the education systems of many developed countries. The core of this is the recognition that creativity, in its broadest sense that encompasses divergent thinking, problem-solving, and related abilities is a core skill in the twenty-first century. While there is a great deal of rigorous, empirical r...

*PLEASE CONTACT ME IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO KNOW HOW TO ACCESS THIS CHAPTER* As the understanding of creativity has shifted over many centuries – from special, innate talent, through to vital work skill – has our notion of this human ability become one of creativity as a commodity? Commodities are, in effect, raw materials that serve as inputs in the...

The field of creativity remains misunderstood by the general public and implicit beliefs, in particular an Arts Bias, continue to permeate popular culture. This has the potential to derail efforts to embed creativity in the 21st century classroom, at a time when it is most needed. We therefore ask if teachers endorse such an Arts Bias in creativity...

Persönliche Ressourcen bestehen aus Motivlagen, Gefühlslagen/Einstellungen, persönlichen Eigenschaften und Wissensbeständen. Verschiedene Kombinierungen davon bilden unterschiedliche Stile des Umgangs mit Herausforderungen und organisationalen Schocks. Diese Stile können als „Neigungen“ gekennzeichnet werden. Unterschiedliche Neigungen führen zu un...

Der Innovationsprozess besteht aus Phasen, die die Neuheitsschöpfung und die Wertrealisierung umfassen. Diese Phasen machen von zwei Denkarten Gebrauch: dem neuheitschöpfenden „divergenten Denken“ und dem wertrealisierenden „konvergenten“ Denken. Beide sind für die Innovation unentbehrlich, obwohl der Beitrag von ungebändigtem divergentem Denken hä...

Das Innovationsphasenbezogene Auswertungsinstrument (IPAI) hat das Ziel, Organisationen hinsichtlich des Managements der Bausteine der Innovation zu „diagnostizeren“, d. h. ihnen zu zeigen, wo genau Verbesserungsmöglichkeiten bestehen, um welche Art von Verbesserung es sich handelt und welche Handlungen zu der angestrebten Verbesserung führen würde...

Eine systematische Analyse der organisationalen Innovation muss auch die Unternehmensleistung miteinbeziehen: Umsatz- und Gewinnsteigerung, größeren Marktanteil, bessere Kundenbindung, breiteres und vertieftes Markenbewusstein usw. Das Innovationsphasenmodell (IPM) bietet ein Messmodell, das es möglich macht, das komplexe Beziehungsnetzwerk zwische...

Moderne Organisationen müssen innovieren oder sterben. Das kommerzielle Überleben erfordert ein differenziertes Verständnis von der Natur innovativer Produkte, der Denkprozesse, durch die solche Produkte zustande kommen, der psychologischen Ressourcen der Menschen, die solche Prozesse durchführen, sowie der externen und internen Umfelder, in denen...

Das Arbeitsumfeld bestimmt das unmittelbare Klima, in dem Individuen miteinander interagieren, um den Prozess der Innovation voranzutreiben. Der Lösungsdruck ist das Bindeglied zwischen diesem Umfeld und dem Individuum. Sowohl sach- und prozessbezogene als auch zwischenmenschliche Faktoren im Arbeitsumfeld fördern bzw. bremsen innovatorische Prozes...

Der erste psychologische „Baustein“ der Innovation ist das neuartige Produkt. Allerdings: Im Falle der kommerziellen Innovation reicht Neuheit alleine nicht aus. Innovative Produkte müssen auch Wert schöpfen. Entscheidend für Führungskräfte ist, dass sie erkennen können, inwieweit und auf welche Art und Weise ein Produkt über das Potenzial verfügt,...

Das Buch geht auf eine Reihe von Mängeln oder Schwächen in bestehenden Konzeptualisierungen der Innovation ein. Sein aus der Kreativitätstheorie abgeleieteter proaktiver und dynamischer Ansatz analysiert das Gesamtsystem der Innovation einschließlich der daran beteiligten Menschen. Der Höhepunkt der Analyse ist das IPAI, das das paradoxe Zusammensp...