Abstract
Creativity and innovation have brought about phenomenal changes throughout human history. Art, science, medicine, industry, and technology have all grown through creative and innovative behavior. A complete science of human behavior needs to account for “creativity,” especially given its importance in society. Prior behavioral research has been able to account for creative behavior in animals by training the component skills of a complex creative solution and arranging environmental conditions which result in the recombination of component skills to produce a creative solution. The present study partially replicates creativity research conducted in a laboratory setting with animals by conducting a similarly arranged laboratory study with humans. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether a creative solution to a difficult problem could be produced by teaching participants the necessary component skills and arranging the environment in such a way as to cause the component skills to recombine in order to solve the problem. The present study suggests that such an approach may be viable and provides an experimental task that can be used in future human creativity research.
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Data supporting the findings and information regarding materials used are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Bradley, J.L., Johnson, D.A. Creating Creativity: A Behavior Analytic Approach. Psychol Rec 71, 553–565 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-021-00480-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-021-00480-z