Most intelligence models include an array of processes and mechanisms that enable experts to generalize their knowledge and processes during career transitions and produce flexibility in cognitive structures that enable individuals to overcome limitations in applying expert knowledge and processes across domains and functional areas. These processes have been described variously as insightful thinking, induction, eduction, elaborating and mapping, novelty and metaphorical capacity, inductive inference, divergent production abilities, analogy, flexibility of use, and closure. They are discussed in light of the retrospective interviews with twenty-four elite performers in three domains (business, sports, and music) who successfully and repeatedly transitioned to higher positions within their field.

Expertise implies that people are usually good problem solvers in their area of expertise but expertise doesn’t necessarily imply that they are creative. Creativity requires that the solutions are not only correct but also novel and useful. New solutions, such as using dental floss to hang objects on a wall, are needed in daily life when typical solutions are not readily available. One approach to studying creativity is to observe creative people such as artists, sculptors, jazz musicians, and actors. Another approach is to conduct controlled experiments such as evaluating the effectiveness of examples in producing creative products. The Geneplore model of thinking provides a helpful framework for dividing creative thought into generation and exploration phases. Broad states of mind – exploring the environment rather than exploiting accumulated knowledge – contribute to producing novel solutions. In contrast, anxiety can have a negative impact of creativity. Across many diverse content domains from the arts to the sciences, rated anxiety was greater for activities that required creativity.

This chapter explores little-c, or everyday creativity, by providing an overview of the creative process. First, Graham Wallas’s initial model, which features the concepts of incubation and insight, is discussed. Then J. P. Guilford’s creative problem-solving model and subsequent additions and revisions are highlighted. I talk about the importance of problem finding before proceeding to the well-known concepts of divergent and convergent thinking. I proceed to discuss Paul Torrance and the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, along with other divergent thinking measures. I finish up with a quick mention of associational thinking and the Remote Associates Test.

This chapter explores the relationships between attention, affect, and creativity, including a discussion of creativity in the context of mindfulness and mind-wandering. First, we discuss the effects of different forms of attention on different types of creativity, such as divergent and convergent thinking, and real-world creative achievements. We then follow with a discussion of the relationship between creativity, emotional functioning, and the power of positivity on fostering creative ideas. The chapter concludes with a review on how mindfulness meditation and mind-wandering, both separately and jointly, impact creative thinking. This includes a discussion of the effects of different types of mindfulness meditation on creativity, as well as the core facets thought to constitute mindfulness. Overall, this chapter provides an engaging overview of the various attentional and emotional states thought to be implicated in creativity, as well as an intriguing look at how mindfulness and mind-wandering work independently and in tandem to influence creative thinking.

The mind is the seat of trance. The ways that we think, consciously and unconsciously, shape our creative process and structure its creative trance. Every thought we have, every movement we make, changes the landscape of our brain, producing its own neural signature from the solution of everyday problems to meditations that progress toward transcendent states. With its contradictory styles of thought, creativity has a unique assembly of neural processes not usually found in ordinary cognition, and is associated with the release of dopamine, endorphins, serotonin, and oxytocin, and can be shaped by insight and synesthesia. Cognitive neuroscience reveals the heterogeneity of creative trance states through activation of different brain regions, such as the medial temporal lobe memory network, the prefrontal cortex, both brain hemispheres, and significantly the default mode network, which is associated with divergent thinking and daydreaming. As the Nobel Prize–winning pharmacologist James Black said, “I daydream like mad.”

In this chapter, we provide an overview of the basic concepts associated with creativity. This includes definitions as well as classic and contemporary models. Our approach to examining creativity theories is in line with the developmental theme of this book. We move through the progressive Four Cs model (mini, little, Pro, and Big) by elucidating each using appropriate theoretical conceptions. The Four Cs model and its representation of the creative trajectory over time, skill, practice, and expertise is crucial to our understanding of creativity across the lifespan. We conclude with placing creativity into a larger perspective that emerges from individual mental processes but thrives within overarching systems.

The school-age years are an important period for the development of creativity. Children 6–12 years of age must learn to balance creative thinking with the conventional demands of parents, schools, and society. The development of components of creative thinking should be focused on in research. Divergent thinking is one component that is a valid indicator of creative potential. Much of the research on the developmental trajectory of divergent thinking has found contradictory results. Moderators such as type of task and culture are factors to take into account. Pretend play is also a common form of creative activity during these years that includes many of the components of creativity. Implications of research findings are discussed.

This chapter covers five very different ways of assessing people by measuring their behaviour and choices. By far the most sensitive issue is the measurement of intelligence. Whilst the academic literature is very clear: intelligence can be easily and accurately measured and is highly predictive of many aspects of daily life (including work productivity), in the ‘practical world’ of Human Resources people are very cautious about using these tests because of established group differences. The chapter also looks at unobtrusive measures sometimes called snooping, which is concerned with how certain features of our life (office/bedroom layout) give a surprising insight into an individual’s personality and values. The chapter also considers situational judgement tests, which describe or show a typical workplace situation and candidates are required to select the best response. Fourth, the chapter looks at the definition and measurement of creativity, which remains something of a backwater in psychometric research, though selectors rate it very highly. Finally, the chapter looks at gamification, which involves the assessment of people by how they play various electronic games.

An overview of the creativity-based DOC (Diverge Organize Converge) Process is described in this chapter. The DOC Process is an important sub-process necessary to reduce the design stages of The Innovation Pyramid to practice. It will be applied multiple times, in a variety of different ways, during the innovation design stages. The DOC Process can also be applied to a multitude of other non-innovative challenges. The DOC Process has three distinct components: divergent thinking, organizing and convergent thinking. It is the combination of all three that makes the method powerful. While most are familiar with divergent thinking, particularly brainstorming new solution ideas, the DOC Process is as useful for identifying root-cause problems as it is for ideating new solutions. The Diverge step expands from the original solution idea or problem situation. The second step of the process is the often ignored Organize step. Once the Organize step is completed, the process moves onto the Converge step. Converge narrows the organized concepts down to the “best.” Criteria for choosing “the best” problem or solution must be conscious and public. Unless agreed-upon criteria is defined for choosing “the best,” each of us will apply our own measures, ensuring a chaotic outcome.

Divergent thinking is the first of three essential steps in completing the non-linear DOC Process. Like all DOC Process steps, divergent thinking applies to both the problem and solution spaces. It simply requires different techniques when seeking to identify a root-cause problem versus attempting to come up with a new impactful problem-solving approach.

Identifying root cause issues begins with broadening our purview to ensure we are not overlooking the disease by focusing too closely on its symptoms. Divergence occurs as we zoom in from this broad purview; identifying factors or causes of the identified zoomed-out General Problem, then factors of the identified factors, then causes of the sub-factors, and so on, until the root-cause level is reached.

Divergent thinking for solutions occurs on several perspective levels: feature, function and system. In addition to ideating new and improved features of existing solutions, substitute solutions should be considered. Potential substitutes perform the same function as current solutions, but do so in a very different way. New technology is often the enabler of substitute products. System level thinking diverges solution ideas by strengthening or streamlining system connections or linkages at the broadest purview.

The idea that one can test people’s creative potential has been around since the turn of the twentieth century. Modern interest in testing for creativity began around 1950 and evolved out of the intelligence-testing or psychometric movement in the United States. The chapter begins by examining Guilford’s pioneering proposal concerning development of tests for creativity. Guilford proposed that the thought processes underlying creativity are different than those measured by IQ tests. He used the term divergent thinking to describe the thinking underlying creativity, and he developed a set of tests to measure it. This chapter reviews the tests that have been developed to measure the capacity to think creatively. One important question whether Guilford was correct in proposing that IQ and creativity involved different thinking skills. We shall review recent research addressing that issue, specifically research that, contrary to the “divergent thinking” perspective, has provided evidence for the role of two components of IQ, fluid intelligence and executive functioning, in creative thinking.

This chapter presents background information to support the examination of creativity. There has been disagreement among researchers concerning the most useful definitions for creative and related topics, so the chapter examines the various definitions that have been proposed by researchers, beginning with Guilford’s pioneering work starting in the 1950s. The chapter then proposes a definition for use in this book: a creative advance is novel and goal-directed; that is, creativity is novelty that has been produced intentionally. The chapter then traces the historical development of the genius view of creativity, which is the general idea that creative thinking is basically different from noncreative thinking and that creative people are different in significant ways from the noncreative. The chapter examines how the concept of genius has changed over the generations, and how current psychological views concerning creativity – using Mednick’s (1962) seminal theory as an example – show the influences of ideas that have, in various forms, existed for centuries. Chapter 2 provides the background for the discussion of creativity in the rest of the book.

Creativity is among our greatest human gifts. Scientific interest in creativity goes back at least a century, but only recently have the tools of cognitive neuropsychology and neuroscience been available to explore creativity. In this chapter, we review the stages and processes of creative ability, and how these are instantiated in the brain –in terms of both specific neural regions and anatomically distributed networks. We focus on whether and how creative abilities may decline with aging, and consider how, as we grow older, they may be sustained or even enhanced.

This chapter focuses on mindfulness as a tool to build creativity in research. Researchers tend to be busy, rarely stopping to take the time to notice how they go about their research and why. This chapter argues that you can be more productive if you pay explicit attention to the behaviors, thoughts, and attitudes that comprise your research practice. By developing the ability to notice and accept what is happening, you can develop the ability to act more intentionally.

This chapter frames research as a continual process of experimentation and iteration. While it can be tempting to focus on finding the “right” answer in the face of challenges, moving forward in the face of a sticky research challenge often requires an iterative process of trial and error. We explore the role of divergent and convergent thinking – times when you deliberately generate numerous options or ideas, and times when you refine toward a single option – and present a variety of ways to use experimental learning to move your research forward incrementally.