Further Reading — Chapter 27: Creativity and Problem-Solving

Foundational Academic Sources

Guilford, J. P. (1950). Creativity. American Psychologist, 5(9), 444–454. Guilford's presidential address to the American Psychological Association — the paper that established creativity as a serious psychological research topic. The distinction between divergent and convergent thinking is introduced here, along with the proposal that creativity could be studied empirically. Short, historically important, and still readable. Essential background for anyone who wants to understand why psychological research on creativity developed as it did.

Mednick, S. A. (1962). The associative basis of the creative process. Psychological Review, 69(3), 220–232. The paper introducing the associative theory of creativity and the Remote Associates Test. Mednick's core claim — that creative thinking involves finding a mediating concept connecting remote associates, and that creative individuals have flatter associative hierarchies (unusual associations come more readily) — remains influential. The RAT has been widely used in research; this paper explains the theoretical foundation.

Wallas, G. (1926). The Art of Thought. Harcourt Brace. Not a research paper but the foundational text for the stage model of creative process — preparation, incubation, illumination, verification. Wallas was drawing on introspective reports of scientists and mathematicians. The model predates experimental research on creativity but has proved robust to subsequent empirical investigation. The incubation concept in particular has been extensively studied and repeatedly validated. Worth reading for the historical account of where the framework came from.

Amabile, T. M. (1983). The social psychology of creativity: A componential conceptualization. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45(2), 357–376. The original articulation of Amabile's componential theory — domain skills, creativity-relevant processes, and intrinsic motivation as the three necessary conditions for creative output. The paper also contains the early research on how external constraints (surveillance, expected evaluation, contracted reward) undermine intrinsic motivation and creative performance. Long paper but clearly written; the theoretical framework in the early sections and the experimental findings are both worth reading closely.

Diehl, M., & Stroebe, W. (1987). Productivity loss in brainstorming groups: Toward the solution of a riddle. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(3), 497–509. The definitive experimental demonstration that brainstorming groups produce fewer ideas than nominal groups (same individuals working alone, with ideas pooled). Diehl and Stroebe also identified production blocking as the primary mechanism. This paper answered a question that had puzzled researchers for decades and transformed how organizational psychologists think about group ideation. The findings remain robust.

Boden, M. A. (1994). What is creativity? In M. A. Boden (Ed.), Dimensions of Creativity (pp. 75–117). MIT Press. The paper introducing Boden's three-type typology: combinational, exploratory, and transformational creativity. Boden's framework is conceptual rather than experimental but has proved practically useful for distinguishing different kinds of creative work and understanding why some creative problems are so much harder than others. Accessible to non-specialist readers.

Books for General Readers

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. HarperCollins. Csikszentmihalyi's research on highly creative individuals — based on interviews with ninety-one eminent creators across domains including art, science, business, and politics. The book describes the characteristics of the creative personality (including the paradoxical complexity that most highly creative people hold opposing qualities simultaneously), the conditions that support creative work, and the domain-field-individual systems framework for understanding creative contribution. This is the most comprehensive empirically grounded portrait of what highly creative people actually look like and how they work. Essential.

Tharp, T. (2003). The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life. Simon & Schuster. Choreographer Twyla Tharp on the habits of creative work — written from the perspective of a working artist who has produced creative work consistently for decades. The central argument — that creativity is a habit sustained by practice and ritual, not an inspiration delivered by talent — is practically useful and consistent with psychological research. The sections on starting, on the importance of a beginning ritual, on the capture system for ideas, and on using constraints are particularly valuable. One of the best practical books on creative practice.

Brown, T. (2009). Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation. HarperBusiness. IDEO CEO Tim Brown's accessible account of design thinking — the empathize-define-ideate-prototype-test framework. Brown explains not just the sequence of steps but the underlying philosophy: human-centered (starting with the people who have the problem), iterative (building cheap prototypes to learn fast), and integrative (combining analytical and creative thinking). The examples are drawn primarily from business and product design but the framework applies broadly. The most readable introduction to design thinking methodology.

Sawyer, R. K. (2011). Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. The most comprehensive academic treatment of creativity research for a general audience. Sawyer covers cognitive approaches (insight, incubation, mental set), the social psychology of creative groups, systems frameworks (Csikszentmihalyi's domain-field-individual model), and the neuroscience of creativity. Well-organized, well-sourced, and genuinely comprehensive. More technical than most of the other books on this list; the right choice for readers who want the full scientific picture.

de Bono, E. (1985). Six Thinking Hats. Little, Brown. De Bono's account of the Six Thinking Hats method — the structured framework for separating different thinking modes in groups. The book explains the method, the rationale for each hat, and practical application across organizational and personal contexts. The method has been widely implemented in organizations; the book explains why it works and how to facilitate it effectively. Practical and readable.

Oech, R. von (1983). A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative. Warner Books. A practitioner's account of the mental blocks that impair creative thinking — more accessible and playful than the academic literature, less empirically rigorous, but practically useful. Von Oech describes ten "mental locks" that prevent creative thinking and offers structured exercises for unlocking them. More a creativity facilitation manual than a research synthesis; useful alongside more research-grounded texts.

On Problem-Solving and Insight

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Relevant to this chapter through the concepts of cognitive ease and mental set. System 1 thinking generates fast, fluent, familiar responses — which is precisely what mental set and functional fixedness exploit. The conditions under which System 2 (deliberate, effortful thinking) is engaged matter for creative problem-solving. Chapter 12 on the illusions of validity and chapter 24 on the optimistic bias are particularly relevant to the chapter's discussion of how we get stuck.

Duncker, K. (1945). On problem-solving. Psychological Monographs, 58(5, Whole No. 270). The original source of functional fixedness research, including the candle problem that has appeared in hundreds of subsequent creativity studies (including McGraw and McCullers' findings on how rewards undermine creative problem-solving). Historically important; Duncker's careful problem-solving research established much of the conceptual vocabulary still in use.

Luchins, A. S. (1942). Mechanization in problem solving — the effect of Einstellung. Psychological Monographs, 54(6, Whole No. 248). The original Einstellung research — the water jar problems demonstrating that successful application of a problem-solving method in previous problems blocks discovery of a simpler, more direct solution in subsequent problems. The Einstellung effect is one of the most consistently replicated phenomena in problem-solving research. The original paper is accessible and the demonstrations are elegant.

On Brainstorming and Group Creativity

Paulus, P. B., & Nijstad, B. A. (Eds.). (2003). Group Creativity: Innovation Through Collaboration. Oxford University Press. An edited volume covering the research on group brainstorming, electronic brainstorming, brainwriting, and the social conditions that facilitate or impair creative collaboration. More technical than the other books on this list; the right reference for readers who want to understand the research on group ideation comprehensively.

Osborn, A. F. (1953). Applied Imagination: Principles and Procedures of Creative Problem-Solving. Scribner's. The original source of the brainstorming method — useful to read alongside the research demonstrating that the method doesn't work as advertised. Osborn's intuitions about separating generation from evaluation were sound; his assumption that the group context would facilitate rather than impair generation turned out to be wrong. An interesting historical document.

On Creative Environments and Conditions

Edmondson, A. C. (2018). The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth. Wiley. Already listed in the Chapter 25 reading list, but relevant here through the connection between psychological safety and creative risk-taking. Edmondson's research shows that psychological safety is a necessary condition for the kind of idea-sharing and experimental behavior that creativity in organizational contexts requires. The relationship between safety, intrinsic motivation (Amabile), and creative output is direct.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper & Row. Relevant to creativity through the concept of flow — the state of optimal engagement characterized by complete absorption, loss of self-consciousness, and intrinsic motivation. Flow states are associated with creative productivity: the conditions that produce flow (appropriate challenge level, clear goals, immediate feedback) overlap substantially with the conditions that facilitate creative work.

The Character Reading Lists

Jordan is working through: - Change by Design (Brown) — picked up after the Customer Journey Council insight; reading it backward from the stories to understand what design thinking actually is - The Creative Habit (Tharp) — pulled it from a bookshelf at Dev's suggestion; found the section on starting rituals unexpectedly useful for the morning writing block

Amara is working through: - Explaining Creativity (Sawyer) — assigned in her Advanced Practice Theory course; reading it alongside White and Epston on narrative therapy to understand the theoretical connections - A Whack on the Side of the Head (von Oech) — Sasha gave her a copy; they read it together and applied the mental locks framework to their own stuck points, which turned into two hours of useful conversation