Varieties of (Scientific) Creativity: A Hierarchical Model of Domain-Specific Disposition, Development, and Achievement

Simonton, Dean Keith

doi:10.1111/j.1745-6924.2009.01152.x

Cited by 180 publications

(121 citation statements)

References 78 publications

(121 reference statements)

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“…He shows that quality can be estimated as a probabilistic function of quantity; the same Poisson-distributed pattern can be found in classical music, scientific publications and technological patents alike. Therefore, he concludes that "creativity must operate according to the same generic stochastic process in both the arts and the sciences" (30,31). In the words of Nobel laureate Herbert Simon: "there is no reason to believe that the creative process in the arts is different from the creative process in the sciences" (32).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Peer review and competition in the Art Exhibition Game

Balietti

Goldstone

Helbing

2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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To investigate the effect of competitive incentives under peer review, we designed a novel experimental setup called the Art Exhibition Game. We present experimental evidence of how competition introduces both positive and negative effects when creative artifacts are evaluated and selected by peer review. Competition proved to be a double-edged sword: on the one hand, it fosters innovation and product diversity, but on the other hand, it also leads to more unfair reviews and to a lower level of agreement between reviewers. Moreover, an external validation of the quality of peer reviews during the laboratory experiment, based on 23,627 online evaluations on Amazon Mechanical Turk, shows that competition does not significantly increase the level of creativity. Furthermore, the higher rejection rate under competitive conditions does not improve the average quality of published contributions, because more high-quality work is also rejected. Overall, our results could explain why many ground-breaking studies in science end up in lower-tier journals. Differences and similarities between the Art Exhibition Game and scholarly peer review are discussed and the implications for the design of new incentive systems for scientists are explained.peer review | competition | creativity | innovation | fairness C ompetitive incentives are an essential tool to manipulate effort and performance of human groups in many real-life situations (1, 2). Sport tournaments with huge prizes, goal-contingent rewards for employees, and lavish end-of-career bonuses for corporate CEOs are a few examples. However, the literature on incentives and rewards offers mixed evidence of how effective competitive incentives are in improving individual performance (3). In particular, external (monetary) incentives might crowd out intrinsic motivation, which results in no effect, or even a negative effect on individual effort (4-6). Moreover, intrinsic motivation might not only mediate effort, but might actually be necessary to achieve creative performance (7). Similarly, competitive pressure can reduce the performance of professional athletes, causing them to "choke under pressure" (8, 9). Finally, when higher interests are at stake, competition can also directly lead to negative consequences, such as uncooperative behavior and even sabotage (10,11).In this paper, we test the effect of competition in a peer review system. Peer review is a self-regulating system where individuals with similar competence (peers) assess the quality of each other's work. Peer review is widely used by governmental agencies and health care professionals, and it is one of the cornerstones of science. Scholarly peer review is a truly complex system: it involves many actors engaged in multiple roles encompassing various feedback loops (12). Thus far, its inherent complexity and the restricted access to data have made it difficult to investigate peer review. Empirical studies have documented that the review process has low levels of inter-referee agreement (13, 14), lacks reliabilit...

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Peer review and competition in the Art Exhibition Game

Balietti

Goldstone

Helbing

2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…One aspect is the rate at which ideas can be initially identified and elaborated (Simonton, 1997(Simonton, , 2009. Another aspect distinguishes different types of reasoning that favor young minds versus older researchers (Weinberg and Galenson, 2005).…”

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confidence: 99%

Age and Scientific Genius

Jones¹,

Reedy²,

Weinberg³

2014

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Great scientific output typically peaks in middle age. A classic literature has emphasized comparisons across fields in the age of peak performance. More recent work highlights large underlying variation in age and creativity patterns, where the average age of great scientific contributions has risen substantially since the early 20th Century and some scientists make pioneering contributions much earlier or later in their life-cycle than others. We review these literatures and show how the nexus between age and great scientific insight can inform the nature of creativity, the mechanisms of scientific progress, and the design of institutions that support scientists, while providing further insights about the implications of aging populations, education policies, and economic growth.

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“…A host of other researchers and psychometricians have been busy with the close examination of existing creative-ability and creative personality measures and the development of new ones (Epstein et al 2008, Nassif & Quevillon 2008, Silvia et al 2008. In short, some of the possible solutions in measuring creativity include the use of expert raters (Amabile, 1996), divergent thinking based scoring of creative products for originality or fluency (Reiter-Palmon et al, 2009), or assessment of a product's historical impact (Simonton, 2009). Horn and Salvendy (2006) offer a detailed comparison of specific product creativity measurement tools, including likert scale and subjective assessments.…”

Section: Assessment and Measurement Of Constructivists Learning And Cmentioning

confidence: 99%

Constructivism and the Likert Scale on the Perception of Teaching/Learning Creativity at the University Level

Nganga

Otii²

2013

JSR

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This paper interrogates the constructivists learning environment, the constructivists learning activities and the use of the likert scale in assessing the effectiveness of teaching/learning creativity at the university level. The rapid growth in demand of university education, the rapid expansion and proliferation of both public and private universities and university colleges and the privately sponsored student programs necessitates that we continuously monitor and evaluate their performance and the creative abilities bestowed upon graduates as they join the labor market. The paper is informed by a case of a postgraduate student who sought to investigate and analyze from the students perspective, the input factors into a university system through a transformation process that leads to graduates who are expected to have creative capabilities and fit into the ever changing society. The thesis examination process was faced by challenges that lead to the program taking six years instead of the prescribed two, yet he is still the lucky one, the most of his class mates are not that lucky. The authors relate the experience they shared as student and supervisor in the process. The paper concludes that there is a problem in the constructivist learning environment created-the faculty, facilities and programs and also dissatisfaction in the methodologies employed and the role played by the facilitators. It is therefore recommended that the universities should re-examine the environment, the transformation process and the outputs to ensure that graduates meet the dynamic needs of a global society.

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Varieties of (Scientific) Creativity: A Hierarchical Model of Domain-Specific Disposition, Development, and Achievement

Cited by 180 publications

References 78 publications

Peer review and competition in the Art Exhibition Game

Peer review and competition in the Art Exhibition Game

Age and Scientific Genius

Constructivism and the Likert Scale on the Perception of Teaching/Learning Creativity at the University Level

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