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Productive and Re‐productive Thinking in Solving Insight Problems
Author(s) -
Cunningham J. Barton,
MacGregor James N.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
the journal of creative behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.896
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 2162-6057
pISSN - 0022-0175
DOI - 10.1002/jocb.40
Subject(s) - problem solver , perspective (graphical) , divergent thinking , psychology , convergent thinking , transformational leadership , vertical thinking , productive forces , creative thinking , social psychology , computer science , creativity , artificial intelligence , economics , economic system , computational science
Many innovations in organizations result when people discover insightful solutions to problems. Insightful problem‐solving was considered by Gestalt psychologists to be associated with productive , as opposed to re‐productive , thinking. Productive thinking is characterized by shifts in perspective which allow the problem solver to consider new, sometimes transformational, approaches. Re‐productive thinking, on the other hand, involves the application of familiar, routine, procedures. This article reports a study which investigated how self‐reported productive and re‐productive thinking are related to an individual's ability to solve insight problems. Our measures were tested against the Kirton Adaption‐Innovation Inventory ( KAI ), and a battery of spatial insight problems. The results indicated that productive and re‐productive thinking and the KAI were successful in predicting performance on spatial insight problems. Furthermore, the measures of productive and re‐productive thinking accounted for spatial insight performance independently of scores on the KAI . In addition, the results suggested that re‐productive thinking consists of two different components—one based on group conventions and the other on personal experience. Each contributed differently to solving insight problems.