How Experts Judge Creativity: A Field Study of the Assessment of Creative Output

Creativity is a fundamental component of innovation and critical for long-term business success. Identifying the products and ideas that are most creative, and therefore worthy of further development and investment, is an essential part of the creative process. However, experimental research into creativity over the past 20 years has yielded inconsistent and contradictory results. Moreover, this same research has shown that organizations struggle to identify their most creative products and ideas for further development. Critics suggest organizational creativity research may suffer from measurement misspecification due to a misalignment between existing construct definitions of creativity as a response that is both “novel and useful” and experimental studies that use only a single item, creativity, to measure creative output. This research investigates whether the theorized misalignment may be due, in part, to the research use of judges with little or no experience in the creative domain and their failure to understand the criteria, approaches, and techniques that expert judges actually use to assess creative output. To better understand how these issues may affect research results, this research utilized Naturalistic Decision Making field-study methods to investigate how expert judges assess the creative output of experienced professionals in the setting of a creativity awards contest. Through a series of interviews, observations, think-aloud protocols, and simulations with expert judges of creativity award contests, this research identifies six factors experts use to assess professional level creative output, and uncovers the processes, approach, and challenges involved in the real-world assessment of creative products and ideas. Recommendations for how assessing creativity can be improved in research and practice are discussed as well as suggestions for future research

Identity fusion and the psychology of political extremism

textPast research in the psychology of extremism has argued that extremism is a psychological state characterized by a perception that the group is absolutely correct, endowed with moral authority, and threatened or opposed by some active group or entity working against the ingroup. There has been little research which has focused on what psychological processes may underlie this state. It is proposed in this dissertation that extremism is an outgrowth of identity fusion, a state in which the personal and social levels of the self-concept become closely aligned so that they may not be activated independently of each other. Identity fusion is theorized to follow from self-verification motives interacting with salient social identities, so that when people need verification for the way they see themselves and a group which provides such verification is activated, fusion may result. Three studies were conducted to examine different aspects of the identity fusion-extremism link. In Study 1, experimenters manipulated the need for selfverification motives and the social context to determine if self-verification predicted the development of fusion with a verifying, salient group. This study found little evidence of this link. Study 2 used counterattitudinal messages to assess the link between fusion and absolutist patterns of thinking. Fused participants were found to show significantly more emotional response to and rejection of counterattidudinal messages, in line predictions. Finally, Study 3 examined the behavioral and linguistic correlates of fusion and found some evidence that fusion predicted self-reported behaviors in line with political extremism and patterns of language use which emphasized the personal self.Psycholog

Patterns of belief and patterned thought: relationships between religious fundamentalism and cognitive restructuring

Due to the character of the original source materials and the nature of batch digitization, quality control issues may be present in this document. Please report any quality issues you encounter to [email protected], referencing the URI of the item.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 14-15).Previous research on religious fundamentalism has focused on correlating fundamentalism with a number of personality variables. Religious fundamentalism has been associated with low religious quest, high right-wing authoritarianism, prejudice, and authoritarian styles of child raising. Research on cognitive variables associated with religious fundamentalism has shown that it is associated with reduced cognitive complexity and lower complexity of thinking in problem solving. The overall view which has developed, is one of religious fundamentalism as a very rigid structure of belief which emphasizes traditional interpretations and ways of viewing the world. It was the hypothesis of this study that this structure of belief would interfere in the ability to solve cognitive restructuring or insight problems, as these problems require flexibility in mental representation in order to be solved. Forty-four subjects were recruited from the Psychology 107 Subject Pool and were given the Altemeyer-Hunsberger religious fundamentalism scale and 10 cognitive restructuring problems. Analysis of the results using a Pearson's R show no significant results (r=.38). However, when graphed the data show interesting patterns of uniformly high scores in cognitive restructuring in those who scored low in religious fundamentalism, and very high variation in restructuring scores in those who scored high in religious fundamentalism. Possible reasons for this are addressed, and directions for future research are suggested

The Long-Term Impact of Maritime Piracy on Seafarers’ Behavioral Health and Work Decisions

More than 6000 seafarers have been held hostage by pirates in the last ten years. There is a small but developing body of research showing that these seafarers may face lasting challenges in recovery. However, current studies on this question have been limited by a lack of comparison groups, a lack of statistical power, and other methodological challenges. This study contributes to this body of research through a survey of 101 former hostages and 363 seafarers not known to be exposed to piracy from India, the Philippines, and Ukraine. Using clinically validated scales for tracking lasting impact, this research finds that 25.77% of former hostages show symptoms consistent with PTSD, and that hostage experiences and other maritime traumas can have impacts on seafarer wellbeing and decisions about their career through the impact these traumas have on post-traumatic stress symptoms. Piracy Hostages PTSD Depression Seafarer wellbein

The conceptualization of depression among Filipino seafarers

The Center for Epidemiological Studies – Depression (CES-D) scale is a well-validated and frequently used measure for assessing symptoms associated with depression. This scale was developed primarily on the basis of American populations, however, and previous research has suggested that the original factor structure may not be appropriate for all populations. One such population is the Filipino population. This study represents the first study we are aware of to examine the factor structure of the CES-D scale in a sample of Filipino seafarers. Seafaring is considered a high stress and high risk occupation. Based on data collected from 135 Filipino seafarers, we conducted factor analyses to identify the appropriate factor structure for the CES-D in this population. We found that a three-factor structure better described the responses of Filipinos in our sample than the standard four-factor structure. The Filipino factor structure appears to collapse depressive affect and somatic factors found in previous research, while including a specific factor of social-focused symptoms of depression. This structure maintains the positive affect factor found in previous work. Implications of this for clinical psychology assessment and practice in the Philippines are discussed

Realising the Olympic dream: vision, support and challenge

The sporting arena is replete with examples and anecdotes of great inspirational coaches that have led teams to success, often in the face of adversity and against seemingly better opponents. The role of the coach in developing and motivating athletes has also been the focus of much research in sport psychology (e.g., Challaduria 1990; Smith & Smoll, 2007). Despite the ease with which one readily accepts that coaches can be inspirational, the sport coaching literature is somewhat devoid of research on inspirational coaches and the effects of such coaches on athletic success. The purpose of the current paper is to theoretically delineate the inspirational effects of coaches in sport. Given the relative paucity of inspiration-related research in sport we draw upon contemporary theories of leadership from organisational and military psychology (e.g., transformational and charismatic leadership theories). We propose a sport-specific model of leadership that centres around the vision, support, and challenge meta-cognitive model developed by Arthur and Hardy in military contexts. The model posits that �great� coaches inspire their athletes by: (a) creating an inspirational vision of the future; (b) providing the necessary support to achieve the vision; and (c) providing the challenge to achieve the vision. The underlying proposition is that the vision provides meaning and direction for followers� effort. That is, the vision serves as the beacon around which all the sweat, pain and sacrifice involved in achieving success at the highest level in sport is directed. At the heart of this model is the notion that athletes can achieve their dreams provided they are inspired to do so; this is because all other things being equal the person who is motivated to practice longer and train harder will ultimately be the best. The current paper will delineate the coach�s role in inspiring the athlete to train harder and longer

Involvement of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 in regulating myocardial calcium metabolism: Physiological and pathological actions

The role of the prohormone vitamin D3 in regulating calcium and phosphate metabolism in the intestine, kidney, and bone has been known for several decades [1]. Recent studies have provided evidence that vitamin D3, may also play an important role in regulating metabolism in other organs, including heart [2]. This role has been suggested by the identification of a specific receptor for 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 [1,25(OH)2D3], the active metabolite of vitamin D3, in these tissues [3-5], as well as the presence of a 1.25(OH)2D3-dependent calcium binding protein [6, 7].Although administration of excessive quantities of vitamin D3 has been shown in many studies to produce myocardial calcinosis and heart failure [8, 9], the importance of vitamin D3 in regulating myocardial metabolism under normal conditions has only recently been demonstrated [10, 11]. The purpose of the present review is to assess the current status of research regarding the pathological and physiological actions of vitamin D3 on the heart. The initial section of this report will focus on the pathological effects of excessive vitamin D3 on cardiovascular function, while the latter sections will describe recent studies related to the involvement of 1,25(OH)2D3 in regulating calcium homeostasis in ventricular cells and the relationship between vitamin D3 and myocardial contractility.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/27120/1/0000112.pd

Host country employees' ethnic identity confirmation: evidence from interactions with ethnically similar expatriates

Employing expatriates who share an ethnicity with host country employees (HCEs) is a widespread expatriate selection strategy. However, little research has compared how expatriates and HCEs perceive this shared ethnicity. Drawing upon an identity perspective, we propose HCEs’ ethnic identity confirmation, the level of agreement between how an HCE views the importance of his/her own ethnic identity and how expatriates view the importance of the HCE’s ethnic identity, affects HCEs’ attitudes towards ethnically similar expatriates. Results of two experiments show that HCEs’ ethnic identity confirmation is related to HCEs’ perception of expatriates’ trustworthiness and knowledge-sharing intention