what is creative problem solving in psychology

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What Is Creative Problem-Solving & Why Is It Important?

• 01 Feb 2022

One of the biggest hindrances to innovation is complacency—it can be more comfortable to do what you know than venture into the unknown. Business leaders can overcome this barrier by mobilizing creative team members and providing space to innovate.

There are several tools you can use to encourage creativity in the workplace. Creative problem-solving is one of them, which facilitates the development of innovative solutions to difficult problems.

Here’s an overview of creative problem-solving and why it’s important in business.

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What Is Creative Problem-Solving?

Research is necessary when solving a problem. But there are situations where a problem’s specific cause is difficult to pinpoint. This can occur when there’s not enough time to narrow down the problem’s source or there are differing opinions about its root cause.

In such cases, you can use creative problem-solving , which allows you to explore potential solutions regardless of whether a problem has been defined.

Creative problem-solving is less structured than other innovation processes and encourages exploring open-ended solutions. It also focuses on developing new perspectives and fostering creativity in the workplace . Its benefits include:

• Finding creative solutions to complex problems : User research can insufficiently illustrate a situation’s complexity. While other innovation processes rely on this information, creative problem-solving can yield solutions without it.
• Adapting to change : Business is constantly changing, and business leaders need to adapt. Creative problem-solving helps overcome unforeseen challenges and find solutions to unconventional problems.
• Fueling innovation and growth : In addition to solutions, creative problem-solving can spark innovative ideas that drive company growth. These ideas can lead to new product lines, services, or a modified operations structure that improves efficiency.

Creative problem-solving is traditionally based on the following key principles :

1. Balance Divergent and Convergent Thinking

Creative problem-solving uses two primary tools to find solutions: divergence and convergence. Divergence generates ideas in response to a problem, while convergence narrows them down to a shortlist. It balances these two practices and turns ideas into concrete solutions.

2. Reframe Problems as Questions

By framing problems as questions, you shift from focusing on obstacles to solutions. This provides the freedom to brainstorm potential ideas.

3. Defer Judgment of Ideas

When brainstorming, it can be natural to reject or accept ideas right away. Yet, immediate judgments interfere with the idea generation process. Even ideas that seem implausible can turn into outstanding innovations upon further exploration and development.

4. Focus on "Yes, And" Instead of "No, But"

Using negative words like "no" discourages creative thinking. Instead, use positive language to build and maintain an environment that fosters the development of creative and innovative ideas.

Creative Problem-Solving and Design Thinking

Whereas creative problem-solving facilitates developing innovative ideas through a less structured workflow, design thinking takes a far more organized approach.

Design thinking is a human-centered, solutions-based process that fosters the ideation and development of solutions. In the online course Design Thinking and Innovation , Harvard Business School Dean Srikant Datar leverages a four-phase framework to explain design thinking.

The four stages are:

• Clarify: The clarification stage allows you to empathize with the user and identify problems. Observations and insights are informed by thorough research. Findings are then reframed as problem statements or questions.
• Ideate: Ideation is the process of coming up with innovative ideas. The divergence of ideas involved with creative problem-solving is a major focus.
• Develop: In the development stage, ideas evolve into experiments and tests. Ideas converge and are explored through prototyping and open critique.
• Implement: Implementation involves continuing to test and experiment to refine the solution and encourage its adoption.

Creative problem-solving primarily operates in the ideate phase of design thinking but can be applied to others. This is because design thinking is an iterative process that moves between the stages as ideas are generated and pursued. This is normal and encouraged, as innovation requires exploring multiple ideas.

Creative Problem-Solving Tools

While there are many useful tools in the creative problem-solving process, here are three you should know:

Creating a Problem Story

One way to innovate is by creating a story about a problem to understand how it affects users and what solutions best fit their needs. Here are the steps you need to take to use this tool properly.

1. Identify a UDP

Create a problem story to identify the undesired phenomena (UDP). For example, consider a company that produces printers that overheat. In this case, the UDP is "our printers overheat."

2. Move Forward in Time

To move forward in time, ask: “Why is this a problem?” For example, minor damage could be one result of the machines overheating. In more extreme cases, printers may catch fire. Don't be afraid to create multiple problem stories if you think of more than one UDP.

3. Move Backward in Time

To move backward in time, ask: “What caused this UDP?” If you can't identify the root problem, think about what typically causes the UDP to occur. For the overheating printers, overuse could be a cause.

Following the three-step framework above helps illustrate a clear problem story:

• The printer is overused.
• The printer overheats.
• The printer breaks down.

You can extend the problem story in either direction if you think of additional cause-and-effect relationships.

4. Break the Chains

By this point, you’ll have multiple UDP storylines. Take two that are similar and focus on breaking the chains connecting them. This can be accomplished through inversion or neutralization.

• Inversion: Inversion changes the relationship between two UDPs so the cause is the same but the effect is the opposite. For example, if the UDP is "the more X happens, the more likely Y is to happen," inversion changes the equation to "the more X happens, the less likely Y is to happen." Using the printer example, inversion would consider: "What if the more a printer is used, the less likely it’s going to overheat?" Innovation requires an open mind. Just because a solution initially seems unlikely doesn't mean it can't be pursued further or spark additional ideas.
• Neutralization: Neutralization completely eliminates the cause-and-effect relationship between X and Y. This changes the above equation to "the more or less X happens has no effect on Y." In the case of the printers, neutralization would rephrase the relationship to "the more or less a printer is used has no effect on whether it overheats."

Even if creating a problem story doesn't provide a solution, it can offer useful context to users’ problems and additional ideas to be explored. Given that divergence is one of the fundamental practices of creative problem-solving, it’s a good idea to incorporate it into each tool you use.

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a tool that can be highly effective when guided by the iterative qualities of the design thinking process. It involves openly discussing and debating ideas and topics in a group setting. This facilitates idea generation and exploration as different team members consider the same concept from multiple perspectives.

Hosting brainstorming sessions can result in problems, such as groupthink or social loafing. To combat this, leverage a three-step brainstorming method involving divergence and convergence :

• Have each group member come up with as many ideas as possible and write them down to ensure the brainstorming session is productive.
• Continue the divergence of ideas by collectively sharing and exploring each idea as a group. The goal is to create a setting where new ideas are inspired by open discussion.
• Begin the convergence of ideas by narrowing them down to a few explorable options. There’s no "right number of ideas." Don't be afraid to consider exploring all of them, as long as you have the resources to do so.

Alternate Worlds

The alternate worlds tool is an empathetic approach to creative problem-solving. It encourages you to consider how someone in another world would approach your situation.

For example, if you’re concerned that the printers you produce overheat and catch fire, consider how a different industry would approach the problem. How would an automotive expert solve it? How would a firefighter?

Be creative as you consider and research alternate worlds. The purpose is not to nail down a solution right away but to continue the ideation process through diverging and exploring ideas.

Continue Developing Your Skills

Whether you’re an entrepreneur, marketer, or business leader, learning the ropes of design thinking can be an effective way to build your skills and foster creativity and innovation in any setting.

If you're ready to develop your design thinking and creative problem-solving skills, explore Design Thinking and Innovation , one of our online entrepreneurship and innovation courses. If you aren't sure which course is the right fit, download our free course flowchart to determine which best aligns with your goals.

About the Author

Creative Problem Solving: Overview and educational implications

• Published: September 1995
• Volume 7 , pages 301–312, ( 1995 )

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• Donald J. Treffinger 1  

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Creative Porblem Solving (CPS) is framework which individuals or groups can use to: formulate problems, opportunities, or challenges; generate and analyze many, varied, and novel options; and plan for effective implementation of new solutions or courses of action. Today's CPS framework bulds on more than four decades of theory, research, and application in a variety of contexts. CPS involves the integration of both creative and critical thinking skills. Using CPS effective also requires drawing upon several metacognitive and task appraisal skills. Current research and applications focus on flexible, dynamic, descriptive uses of CPS, moving away from traditional linear, prescriptive stepor stage-sequential models. CPS offfers a powerful set of tools for productive thinking; these can be learned an used successfully by children, adolescents, and adults.

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What Is Creative Problem-Solving and How to Master It with These 8 Strategies

• Post author: Kirstie Pursey
• Post published: May 17, 2018
• Reading time: 5 mins read
• Post category: Brain Power / Self-Improvement / Success Skills

Often when we have a problem, we try to solve it in the same way we did before. However, some issues cannot be solved with existing ideas and solutions. In this case, we need to turn to our creative side for problem-solving strategies.

Creative problem-solving is a way of moving beyond predictable and obvious solutions to problems . When we have a creative approach to problem-solving, we expand our thinking out from what we already know about a problem, and from solutions that we have used in the past, to generate innovative and effective solutions.

Here are 8 creative problem-solving strategies you could try to bring creativity and fresh ideas to bear on any problem you might have.

1. counterfactual thinking.

Counterfactual thinking involves considering what would have happened if the events in the past had happened slightly differently. In essence, it is asking ‘what if’ questions about the past.

So for example, you might ask ‘ What would have happened if I had moved to San Francisco instead of New York ?’ This helps you to break free of current constraints and consider the paths not taken.

2. Creativity of Constraints

We often think that constraints inhibit creativity because they reduce the number of possible solutions. However, constraints can actually generate new creative ideas as we have to be more creative to overcome the limitations. For example, creating a meal for less than $5 dollars reduces the potential ingredients you can use but may encourage you to use basic ingredients in more innovative ways.

The painter Pablo Picasso used constraints in his Blue Period between 1901 and 1904 when he painted almost entirely in shades of blue and green. Within these constraints, he found new ways to represent the world in paint.

3. Brainstorming

Most of us need no introduction to brainstorming. The key element of this strategy is to remove inhibitions that normally cause people to edit their creative ideas and dismiss them before they have really had a chance to examine them. When brainstorming, the most essential feature is that no idea is too ridiculous for consideration.

4. Questioning Assumptions

We all have assumptions about just about everything. We make assumptions about what is and isn’t possible and what things can and can’t be. This strategy asks you to think about all the assumptions made about a product or idea and then to question whether these are really true. This can spark truly innovative ideas.

5. Thought Experiment

A thought experiment is when you consider in the imagination a hypothesis that cannot easily be tested. For example, Einstein’s thought experiment ‘what would happen if you chased a beam of light as it moved through space’ led to the development of his special theory of relativity.

It is not necessary for the experiment to be impossible to perform – it is just that the experiment takes place only in the mind.

6. Forced Connections

Using forced connections can create new ideas. You simply bring two objects together to create an entirely new product or concept. Examples include the sofa-bed and the Apple watch which both combined two existing products to create something new. Genres in fiction often use this approach of combining two genres to create a new one such as in historical romance or comic fantasy.

To practice this technique, simply place some random objects or a list of random objects in a bag and pull out two, then try to make connections between them and see how they could be combined to create a new idea.

Using this technique allows your imagination to run riot. Think of the most outlandish and unattainable and impractical solutions. This is the opposite of the constraints strategy, but it can also work surprisingly well.

Once you have come up with a few ‘ wishes ,’ you can try to create a solution by scaling back these ideas into something more attainable.

8. Creative Intuition

Often creative thinking happens when we least expect it and doesn’t feel like ‘thinking’ at all. This is the flash of insight that comes when we stop thinking about a problem and are doing something else that doesn’t require much conscious attention, such as taking a shower or driving.

The most famous example is Archimedes’ ‘Eureka’ moment when in a sudden flash of inspiration he worked out how to work out if the King’s crown was made entirely of gold. When he found his solution he famously cried “Eureka” from Greek heurēka meaning ‘ I have found it ‘.

So next time you are stuck on a problem, take a break and a bath.

Closing thoughts

In our modern ever-changing world, often old-style solutions simply don’t work. Practising using creative problem-solving strategies can keep you ahead in a fast-changing environment.

We’d love to hear if you rely on your creative thinking and what problem-solving strategies you use. Please share them with us in the comments below.

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The simple fact is that many people try doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. Doesn’t work that way. All of these 8 ideas are well thought out and should be considered when confronted with a problem. It seems that when you solve one problem, two more come along. Life is, in some ways, a problem we all have to solve. Some resolutions work better than other. Looking for new solutions to old problems is what makes us human.

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Degree In Sight

The science of creativity

Use these empirically backed tips to capture your next big idea.

Print version: page 14

Stress is a well-known creativity killer, says psychologist Robert Epstein, PhD. Time constraints are another, he says. Unfortunately, graduate school has both in spades, and that can sap the inspiration of even the most imaginative students.

"When you're in graduate school, there are so many constraints on you. It's detrimental to creative expression," says Epstein, author of "The Big Book of Creativity Games" (McGraw-Hill, 2000).

Yet it's almost impossible to conquer any graduate school activity without at least some innovative thinking. Collaborating with other researchers, finding a subfield that excites you, maneuvering your way through an unexpected set of findings, and balancing the demands of your work and home life all require creative problem-solving.

Despite the widely held belief that some people just aren't endowed with the creativity gene, "There's not really any evidence that one person is inherently more creative than another," Epstein says.

Instead, he says, creativity is something that anyone can cultivate.

Routine creativity

Epstein, a visiting scholar at the University of California, San Diego, has conducted research showing that strengthening four core skill sets leads to an increase in novel ideas.

"As strange as it sounds, creativity can become a habit," says creativity researcher Jonathan Plucker, PhD, a psychology professor at Indiana University. "Making it one helps you become more productive."

Epstein recommends that you:

Capture your new ideas. Keep an idea notebook or voice recorder with you, type in new thoughts on your laptop or write ideas down on a napkin.

Seek out challenging tasks. Take on projects that don't necessarily have a solution—such as trying to figure out how to make your dog fly or how to build a perfect model of the brain. This causes old ideas to compete, which helps generate new ones.

Broaden your knowledge. Take a class outside psychology or read journals in unrelated fields, suggests Epstein. This makes more diverse knowledge available for interconnection, he says, which is the basis for all creative thought. "Ask for permission to sit in on lectures for a class on 12th century architecture and take notes," he suggests. "You'll do better in psychology and life if you broaden your knowledge."

Surround yourself with interesting things and people. Regular dinners with diverse and interesting friends and a work space festooned with out-of-the-ordinary objects will help you develop more original ideas, Epstein says. You can also keep your thoughts lively by taking a trip to an art museum or attending an opera—anything that stimulates new thinking.

A study last year in the Creativity Research Journal (Vol. 20, No. 1), found that working on these four areas enhances creativity. Seventy-four city employees from Orange County, Calif., participated in creativity training seminars consisting of games and exercises developed by Epstein to strengthen their proficiency in these four skill sets. Eight months later, the employees had increased their rate of new idea generation by 55 percent—a feat that led to more than $600,000 in new revenue and a savings of about $3.5 million through innovative cost reductions.

Happy, rested and bright

Many practices that lead to better overall well-being also boost innovative thinking. For instance, creativity researchers suggest you:

Sleep on it. In a 1993 study at Harvard Medical School, psychologist Deidre Barrett, PhD, asked her students to imagine a problem they were trying to solve before going to sleep and found that they were able to come up with novel solutions in their dreams. In the study, published in Dreaming (Vol. 3, No. 2), half of the participants reported having dreams that addressed their chosen problems, and a quarter came up with solutions in their dreams.

"We're in a different biochemical state when we're dreaming, and that's why I think dreams can be so helpful anytime we're stuck in our usual mode of thinking," Barrett says.

A 2004 study in Nature (Vol. 427, No. 6,972) also shows just how powerful sleep may be in helping people solve problems. Researchers at the University of Lübeck in Germany trained participants to solve a long, tedious math problem. Eight hours later, when participants returned for retesting, those who had slept during the break were more than twice as likely to figure out a simpler way to solve the problem than those who had not slept.

Collaborate—in writing. Plucker notes that much psychological research has shown that we overestimate the success of group brainstorming. Instead of working together to generate great ideas, group members often fail to share their ideas for fear of rejection. Yet research led by psychologist Paul Paulus, PhD, of the University of Texas at Arlington, points to the surprising effectiveness of group "brainwriting," in which group members write their ideas on paper and pass them to others in the group who then add their own ideas to the list. In a 2000 Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (Vol. 82, No. 1) study led by Paulus, an interactive group of brainwriters produced 28 percent more possible uses for a paper clip than a similar group of solitary brainwriters. This may be because group members tend to build off one another's ideas, leading to increased creativity and innovation. The effects of group brainwriting may even extend to groups that collaborate via e-mail, Paulus notes.

Let the sunshine in. Research by Washington State University professor of interior design Janetta Mitchell McCoy, PhD, suggests that spending time in natural settings may boost creativity. In a 2002 Creativity Research Journal (Vol. 14, No. 3.4) study led by McCoy, high school students designed more innovative collages—as judged by six independent raters—in a setting high in direct sunlight and natural wood than in a space mainly finished with manufactured materials such as drywall and plastic.

Get happy. A 2004 Creativity Research Journal (Vol. 16, No. 2.3) study with undergraduates found that sadness inhibits new ideas. This may be because when people are sad, they are more wary of making mistakes and exercise more restraint, says study author Karen Gasper, PhD, a social psychology professor at Penn State University.

Past research also supports the creativity boost gained from happiness. Compared with people in sad or neutral moods, those in happy moods are better at coming up with unusual word associations, developing patient diagnoses, solving moral dilemmas, generating story endings and writing numerous answers to divergent thinking tasks, Gasper notes.

To avoid being overly cautious and stagnant in their work, Gasper recommends that students remember to have fun. "Take a walk, see a comedy, go out with a friend," she says. "These breaks may help you feel better and see your work in a new light."

By Amy Novotney gradPSYCH Staff

FURTHER READING, RESOURCES

Robert Epstein's empirically validated online creativity test can be found at http://mycreativityskills.com .

Barrett, D. (2001). The committee of sleep: How artists, scientists, and athletes use dreams for creative problem-solving—and how you can too . New York: Crown.

Epstein, R. (2000). The big book of creativity games . New York: McGraw-Hill.

Richards, R. (Ed.). (2007). Everyday Creativity and New Views of Human Nature: Psychological, Social, and Spiritual Perspectives . Washington, DC: APA.

Runco, M.A., Pritzker, S. (1999). Encyclopedia of creativity . San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Sawyer, R.K. (2006). Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation . New York: Oxford University Press.

Sternberg, R.J., Grigorenko, E.L., Singer, J.L. (Eds.). (2004). Creativity: From Potential to Realization . Washington, DC: APA.

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A Mixed-Methods Study of Creative Problem Solving and Psychosocial Safety Climate: Preparing Engineers for the Future of Work

Michelle l. oppert.

1 Behaviour-Brain-Body Research Centre, Justice and Society, University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA, Australia

2 Psychosocial Safety Climate Global Observatory, Centre for Workplace Excellence, Justice and Society, University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA, Australia

3 UniSA STEM, University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA, Australia

Maureen F. Dollard

Vignesh r. murugavel.

4 Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska, Omaha, NE, United States

Roni Reiter-Palmon

Alexander reardon, david h. cropley, valerie o’keeffe.

5 Australian Industrial Transformation Institute, College of Business, Government and Law, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia

Associated Data

The datasets presented in this article are not readily available due to continued research on other aspects of the data. All quantitative data are provided in the manuscript. Requests to access the datasets should be directed to the corresponding author MO, [email protected] .

The future of work is forcing the world to adjust to a new paradigm of working. New skills will be required to create and adopt new technology and working methods. Additionally, cognitive skills, particularly creative problem-solving , will be highly sought after. The future of work paradigm has threatened many occupations but bolstered others such as engineering. Engineers must keep up to date with the technological and cognitive demands brought on by the future of work. Using an exploratory mixed-methods approach, our study sought to make sense of how engineers understand and use creative problem solving. We found significant associations between engineers’ implicit knowledge of creativity, exemplified creative problem solving, and the perceived value of creativity. We considered that the work environment is a potential facilitator of creative problem-solving. We used an innovative exceptional cases analysis and found that the highest functioning engineers in terms of knowledge, skills, and perceived value of creativity, also reported working in places that facilitate psychosocially safe environments to support creativity. We propose a new theoretical framework for a creative environment by integrating the Four Ps (Person, Process, Product, and Press) and psychosocial safety climate theory that management could apply to facilitate creative problem solving. Through the acquisition of knowledge to engage in creative problem solving as individuals or a team, a perception of value must be present to enforce the benefit of creativity to the engineering role. The future of work paradigm requires that organisations provide an environment, a psychosocially safe climate, for engineers to grow and hone their sought-after skills that artificial technologies cannot currently replace.

Introduction

The future of work is characterised by the integration of humans and automation, artificial intelligence, and cyber-physical systems and is forcing the world to adjust to a new paradigm of working ( Schwartz et al., 2019 ). Advanced digital technologies are now performing many routine and repetitive tasks previously undertaken by humans in a process known as digital transformation. Nevertheless, the kinds of tasks that digital systems can perform are limited by the inability of artificial intelligence to exhibit consciousness and original thought ( Sheridan, 2019 ). Humans are likely to be in control of robots and other advanced technologies for the foreseeable future ( Sheridan, 2019 ), and human factors experts assert that technology must now move to adapt to the human ( De Winter and Hancock, 2021 ). As digital transformation leads to the increasing deployment of automation, artificial intelligence, and cyber-physical systems, the differences between human cognition and artificial cognition are becoming more clearly delineated. Higher-order elements of human cognition are becoming highly sought-after core skills precisely because artificial technologies cannot replicate them in the future of work paradigm. While the list of core skills in demand is long, a reoccurring point of interest is that of creativity and problem solving; Corazza (2019) reflects on human life in the cyber-physical society, reporting that psychosocial wellbeing in this new paradigm will depend on the development of human traits and abilities, particularly those related to creativity. Creative problem-solving includes the combination of skills such as communication, critical thinking, complex problem solving, and creativity. The focus of the future of work literature and the need for creative problem-solving in the workplace is not recent; the World Economic Forum [WEF] (2016 , 2018 , 2020) has been sharing these predictions for some time now. While the WEF and other organisations are focused on employees and the future of work, many other researchers and educators are heeding these predictions and changing student curricula to include inherently human skills such as creativity and complex problem solving (see Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development[OECD], 2018 , 2019 ; Cropley, 2020 ; Koshanova et al., 2021 ).

To meet the future of work demands, industry will need to employ creative problem solvers. At the same time, reports on the future of work identify professional occupations with a heavy emphasis on cognitive skills such as engineering, science, and health will be required. Engineering occupations make up 11% of the top 100 jobs least negatively impacted by digital transformation ( Frey and Osborne, 2017 ). Since the future of work is promoting the need for creative individuals, and engineering is identified as an occupation of the future, we need a stronger understanding of how best to support and foster the environment that is conducive to creative problem solving/creativity to prepare engineers for the future. Moreover, it is recognised that we need to understand the workplace context (the psychosocial safety climate, Dollard and Bakker, 2010 ) that could boost creativity, exemplified through Reiter-Palmon and Kaufman’s (2018 , p.192) quote: “ If creative people are put in situations that do not maximise their abilities, then the company loses many of the possible benefits.”

Our innovative study employs mixed methods combining quantitative and qualitive perspectives to understand how creativity is experienced in the engineering workplace. Mixed methods research is well placed to answer questions that explore the concept of creativity, engineers’ experiences of creative problem-solving, and the psychosocial safety climate in the engineering workplace. In particular, this study interrogates exceptional cases to understand the features of engineers most prepared for the future of work. Figure 1 demonstrates the flow of the present study.

Flow chart of the present study.

Creativity and Engineering

Creativity is essentially any product or service that is new and effective. Creativity is defined as “… the interaction among aptitude, process and the environment by which an individual or group produces a perceptible product that is both novel and useful as defined within in a social context” ( Plucker et al., 2004 , p. 90). Zeng et al. (2010) state that a product or service can be regarded as creative when it is novel, appropriate, conquers a challenge, and – most important for engineers – satisfies a customer’s needs. The engineering profession is characterised as a trained, often accredited and registered, professional workforce employed in roles that allow, and expect, the production and development of innovations ( Menzel et al., 2007 ). In engineering, creative problem solving involves cognitive-rich work such as divergent thinking, which is a core component of problem-solving ( Cropley, 2015a ). Divergent thinking is a reasoning process characterised by the ability to think flexibly, use imagination and remain original while making several alternative solutions possible from the information available ( Guilford, 1957 ). In comparison, convergent thinking is a deductive process that considers facts and logic to arrive at the best solution ( Cohen et al., 2013 ; Cropley and Cropley, 2015 ). This practical combination of convergent and divergent thinking are ingredients for successful creativity and innovation.

Paired with the definitions of creativity and convergent and divergent thinking, creativity in the workplace can be best understood through the lens of Rhodes’ (1961) Four Ps concept: Person, Process, Press, and Product. The Person is at the centre of the creative process in the workplace and includes psychological information internal to the individual with both stable (personality, intelligence, expertise) and malleable (attitudes, behaviour) aspects (see Zeng et al., 2010 , p. 505). Process pertains to psychological information and includes perception, thinking and communication. Press is the work environment and includes the social climate (see Zeng et al., 2010 , p. 505) and factors that can be motivating and conducive to engaging in creativity. Product is the outcome achieved through Person, Process and Press that is useful in the context of the workplace – particularly in engineering – and can manifest as a tangible product, process, or service. In the engineering domain, Cropley (2015a) presents the Four Ps as a “systems” concept of creativity adapted from Csikszentmihalyi’s (1998) systems perspective of creativity. In the context of a system, the Four Ps do not operate separately from one another but rather interact with each other (see Figure 2 ). The Four Ps framework is utilised to describe creativity that implies a uniform, stable set of conditions that favour the generation of novel and effective ideas, yet, it is more dynamic than static ( Cropley and Oppert, 2018 ).

The Four Ps as a “System.” Items are adapted from “ Creativity in engineering. Novel solutions to complex problems ” by Cropley (2015a , p.12).

As previously stated, problem-solving – or the Process - is a core component of engineering work. Trevelyan’s (2014) research on expert engineers reports that engineering problems are rarely, if ever, written down, and what makes an expert engineer is years of experience, and part of that experience is the retention of knowledge. It has become evident that engineers are often taught using well-defined problems with a known solution during formal educational years. While many engineers do rely on known solutions to common, well-defined problems, most of these problems have already been solved ( Trevelyan, 2014 ) and have well-defined solution processes. It is the new problems being faced by the future of work that do not have well-defined solutions; hence the demand for complex and creative problem-solving. Despite this, the ability to engage in creative problem solving is not an implicit skill or competency of all engineers: with many needing to be taught how to do this. However, the future of work requires more creative problem solving for more frequently encountered ill-defined problems, both technical or social. As Pretz et al. (2003) report, these types of problems typically lack a single, correct answer.

If the future of work calls for creative problem solving, then that ability has value for engineering firms creating an impetus to understand if engineers are creative. However, this information may be more implicit than explicit; Davies (2015 , p.74) describes explicit knowledge as “ knowledge that the knower can make explicit by means of a verbal statement.” Conversely, implicit knowledge is not easily verbalised, and tacit knowledge is not easily reported. Engineers may have better implicit – or tacit - knowledge of creativity than a self-report measure can tell us, and understanding this may be of use for preparations for the future of work, particularly when recruiting or re-training our current engineers. Equally, it is worthy to understand if engineers themselves perceive a value of creativity in their roles. While educators are aware of the new demands for skills in the future of work, there are engineers already practising and unlikely to return to the classroom. As such, this study asks:

RQ1: Do engineers possess implicit knowledge of creativity?

RQ1: Do engineers understand creativity in the context of problem-solving?

RQ3: Do engineers value creativity in their role?

Psychosocial Safety Climate

At the same time that firms are seeking creative problem solvers, a concept gathering more attention is the positive impact on creativity when individuals are in a psychosocially safe work environment (see Gong et al., 2012 ; Lawrie et al., 2018 ). In these environments, workers are respectful and permissive of each other taking risks and expressing views ( Edmondson, 1999 ). Recently, Greenbaum et al. (2020) identified the detriment on both psychological safety and creativity when the teams’ focus is on the “bottom line.” While a small number of researchers have identified a positive relationship between management and leadership in psychosocially safe workplaces and creativity of workers (see Carmeli et al., 2010 , 2013 ; Reiter-Palmon and Royston, 2017 ), further exploration into the phenomenon of psychosocial safety and creativity is required.

Over time there has been a growth in literature and theory on the benefits of safe workplaces, starting with Safety Climate ( Zohar, 1980 ), then Psychological Safety ( Edmondson, 1999 ), and more recently Psychosocial Safety Climate ( Hall et al., 2010 ). The Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC) theory has built on the foundations of both Safety Climate and Psychological Safety literature ( Dollard and Bakker, 2010 ). Now, a key component of workplace occupational health and safety, along with the concerns of the physical environment, PSC is focused on the psychological health of employees ( Dollard and McTernan, 2011 ). Multilevel PSC expands on the Job Demands-Resource model proposed by Demerouti et al. (2001) by conceptualising the theory in terms of policies, practices and procedures in reference to workplace psychological health and safety. PSC is a characteristic of an organisation and therefore a target for controls to reduce work stress ( Idris et al., 2012 ). The primary premise of PSC is that organisation managers and supervisors are the key enablers for a healthy psychological and social environment within their workplace. Psychosocial safety refers to freedom from psychosocial risks (such as work pressure, low decision authority). Over recent years, PSC has been tested in multiple domains and environments with many findings, including that poor PSC is associated with age-related cognitive decline ( Wilton et al., 2019 ) and good PSC is associated with increasing workers’ initiative and workplace engagement ( Lee and Idris, 2019 ). The main focus of PSC pertains to management support and commitment for the protection of worker psychological health and safety ( Dollard and Bakker, 2010 ). The growing empirical evidence of the PSC makes it a potentially useful tool for establishing whether a safe psychosocial workplace climate could be positively associated with creativity in the engineering workplace. Throughout the literature, it has become clear that there is a gap in understanding how PSC is associated with creative problem-solving in the workplace. To address this gap, this study asks:

RQ4: How do engineers experience psychosocial safety at work?

RQ5: Is there an association between the psychosocial safety climate at work and creative problem-solving in the engineering workplace?

It is understood that assessing for creative potential alone is not enough and has been identified as a weak predictor of creative behaviour ( Karwowski and Beghetto, 2019 ). As such, the current exploratory study aims to blend methods to understand how engineers experience creative problem solving and psychosocial safety in the engineering workplace. This research contributes to the work and organisational psychology literature by bringing the fields of creativity and psychosocial safety together to form new understandings in response to the future of work. Rea et al. (2017) emphasise the essential role of humans in the future of work, stating: “The chain of discovery starts at the coalface with our human ability to notice the unusual or problematic – to swim through the stream of the unknowns and fuzzy concepts that cannot be fully articulated. This is where we collaborate to make sense of the world and create knowledge” (p. 140). This statement illustrates the benefit of exploratory approaches to understanding the current construction of the future of work and the core human skills in demand. New insights can leverage the engineering workforce. The circumstances of the engineering profession (for example, profession protection in the future of work and the variety of tasks and roles conducted by engineers) provide a logical context for testing and exploring the theoretical propositions to identify implications for the engineering workforce and possible transferability to other domains.

Methodology and Design

Building a research study that aims to understand the relationships between phenomena is complex. In light of limited existing research on associations between concepts included in this study makes it difficult to build on an established basis for hypothesis testing, experiments, or conducting and examining a case study. Thus, the following study is built on exploratory research methods and used mixed methods to provide a deeper, rich understanding of the potential association between the study phenomena. Exploratory research is undertaken when the phenomena under study have little systematic or empirical scrutiny, and the investigator wishes to inductively derive information to generalise about groups, processes, or situations related to the phenomena (see Stebbins, 2001 ). Exploratory research encourages the use of imagination, experience and insight, and can result in new and innovative ways to understand a phenomenon, while also allowing for rigour to attain validity and generalisability (see Reiter, 2013 , Chapter 1).

Along with new insights derived from innovative approaches to understanding the phenomena, exploratory research can underpin further research that builds upon or tests initial findings. To strengthen this study, a cross-sectional design is used to enhance what generalisability there may be to the engineering workforce as a basis for further inquiry.

From an initial exploratory convergent design where the qualitative and quantitative data are collected concurrently and then merged together to provide comprehensive analysis (see Creswell and Creswell, 2018 ), the current study further evolved to include an extreme cases analysis of exceptionally positive cases. The purpose of analysing extreme cases is to highlight the most unusual variation in the phenomena under investigation, such as those that present maximum variation measured by different factors, or when outlier or opposite status is evident ( Jahnukainen, 2010 ), as is the case in the current study.

A strength of qualitative research is its reflexivity, flexibility, and capacity to permit deep insight where quantitative research cannot. Thus, it is essential to harness these characteristics to explore not just the experiences of the “central themes” but investigate the characteristics and world-view of specific, well-performing individuals ( Braun and Clarke, 2006 ; Richards and Hemphill, 2018 ). The narrower focus on exceptional data is an opportunity to extend the current understanding of these individuals, previously ignored and considered outliers, on the periphery of datasets ( Seawright, 2016 ; Phoenix and Orr, 2017 ). The utility of this methodology has been realised by previous occupational research ( Jónasdóttir et al., 2018 ) and is uniquely placed to extend our existing knowledge of creativity and psychosocially safe workplaces by exploring how the most creative engineers view their psychosocial environments (see Gong et al., 2012 ; Trevelyan, 2014 ; Greenbaum et al., 2020 ).

Participants

The current study recruited a purposive, cross-sectional sample of 25 engineers (17 males, 8 females) from South Australia. Participants were recruited through social media posts, and a peak Australian engineering organisation advertised the study to its local seniors’ group members. All participants held a recognised engineering qualification, with at least one year of experience in the engineering workforce. The mean years of work experience for the sample was 16.33 years, and the mean age of the participants was 48 years. Ethics approval was obtained from the University’s Human Research Ethics Committee. Participants received written information about the research before data collection and provided signed informed consent. Participants completed the interviews and measures individually in private rooms on university campuses of convenience over seven months. There are two reasons that the number of participants equates to 25. First, 25 is the minimum number of participants for statistical analysis to be conducted. Second, through the interview process it was evident that data saturation was being reached as similar responses were accruing from individual participants, therefore making 25 the required number of participants for the present study to answer the research questions.

Demographic Questionnaire

The demographic questionnaire collected information on participants’ age, education, employment, primary language, family, and hobbies.

Qualitative Data Collection

Semi-structured interview questions.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted to obtain meaningful data by exploring the phenomena and revealing participants’ knowledge and perceptions. Table 1 details the interview questions. To reduce the impact of social desirability, questions were designed to be non-directive and open ( Grimm, 2010 ), eliciting knowledge, perceptions, understanding, and examples of creativity and creative problem-solving in the engineering workplace and how these relate to psychosocial safety. While plain language was used for clarity, further prompts were employed if participants did not understand the question. Interviews were conducted, audio-recorded, and transcribed verbatim. Care was taken to use plain English in the interviews due to the cultural and linguistic diversity within the sample. As such, the term “psychosocial” was not used in the interviews as it had the potential to confuse the participant’s interpretation of the question with discipline jargon. The participants were asked about psychosocial safety climate using the phrases “work health and safety” and “psychologically supported.”

Set questions for interviews.

Quantitative Data Collection

Psychosocial safety climate 12 item.

The Psychosocial Safety Climate 12-item (PSC-12) scale ( Hall et al., 2010 ) examines four core domains of PSC: management commitment, priority, communication, and participation for worker psychological health (see Table 2 ). PSC is a reliable (> 0.94) and validated measure. As a psychometric measure, PSC-12 was used to complement the interview question about psychological support in the workplace.

Psychosocial safety climate 12 (PSC-12).

Items are consolidated and reprinted from “Psychosocial Safety Climate: Development of the PSC-12” by G. Hall et al. (2010) , International Journal of Stress Management, Volume 17(4), pages 382–383. Copyright 2010 by the American Psychological Association.

The PSC-12 is scored from 12 to 60 and has established benchmarks: a score below 37.6 is poor with respondents at high risk of job strain and mental health issues, and a score above 41 is considered good, with scores in between deemed to be at moderate risk ( Bailey et al., 2015 ). Based on the individual results, participants were allocated to one of three groups: (1) Low (Poor PSC), (2) Moderate (At Risk), and (3) Above Average (Good PSC).

Qualitative Data Analytic Strategy

The research questions RQ1 through to RQ3 examine the participants’ implicit knowledge of creativity, if they understand creative problem solving (exemplified creative problem solving), and perceptions of creativity (value). To assess the phenomena, familiarity with the corpus of interview data was the priority. When deciding if the participants had implicit knowledge of creativity, an understanding was inferred by considering the gestalt of the interview responses together. Given that there are two questions about creativity, it allowed the participants to consider their experiences as the interviews progressed. At times, some participants stumbled on the first question inquiring about creative problem solving but later displayed knowledge when considering other questions and prompts. Additionally, the Four Ps (Person, Process, Product, and Press) and the definition of creativity were referred to by the authors when considering implicit knowledge and creative problem-solving.

At the outset of the study, the interview data were to be analysed using traditional qualitative analysis methods, such as Thematic Analysis. However, the information provided within the interviews presented an opportunity to quantify the data by identifying separate distinctions within participants’ degree of understanding. A scoring rubric was created with a three-point ordinal scale to indicate participants’ degree of (1) Implicit knowledge of creativity , (2) Exemplified creative problem solving , and (3) Value of creativity (see Table 3 ). Based on the responses from the individual participants, a score between 1 to 3 (1 = No, 2 = Somewhat, and 3 = Yes) was allocated for each query, including a rationale for that score.

Scoring rubric for RQ1, RQ2, and RQ3 ranking and additional theme identification.

This scoring rubric facilitates the interview data’s subjective rating and allows the individual assessors (MO and VM) to share and justify their decisions. The factors are deemed favourable and score highly if the participants:

• 1. Exemplify a high degree of understanding of creativity (implicit knowledge), for example, through direct and discrete statements that reveal comprehension through reiterating what creativity is, how it is used in their practice, or use of terms such as “tinker” or “jerry-rig” or “novel” relevant to the example provided. The overall examples provided also indicate the level of understanding; if their example is overtly creative, it is clear that the participant has a high degree of understanding creativity.
• 2. Exemplify creative problem solving through the description and articulation of the example provided by the participant, and whether it is a well-defined problem that was easily solved or one where the participant had to engage in creative problem-solving.
• 3. Believe creativity to be important (valuable) to the engineering role, which is expanded upon through direct and discrete statements

For example, a participant who scores a “3” on interrater rubric questions 1, 2, and 3, provides evidence that they understand creativity by providing examples of creativity, and at the same time acknowledge the importance of creativity to the discipline of engineering.

Once all interviews had scores allocated for each query, and themes or points of interest noted (in many instances, this includes notes on psychosocial factors), an independent academic with expertise on creativity (VM) analysed a random sample ( n = 6) of interviews, allocating scores for each of the queries, and also reporting themes or points of interest. The purpose of including an additional rater was to ensure the primary author’s assessments were appropriate and unbiased. Through the questions we used to assess workplace PSC, creativity was also explored. After any discrepancies or biases were discussed in the interviews it was agreed that inter-rater saturation was met; both raters were independently scoring the interviews closely. As a result, a weighted Cohen’s Kappa for ordinal data was conducted, providing good interrater agreement ( K w = 0.61–0.80).

Quantitative Data Analytic Strategy

Mantel-haenszel test of trend.

Quantifying the qualitative interview data provided three factors that could be assessed statistically, resulting in four factors for an association analysis: (1) Knowledge of Creativity (Implicit knowledge of creativity), (2) Value of Creativity, (3) Exemplified Creative Problem Solving, and (4) PSC-12. Before further qualitative analysis of the interview data to assess psychosocial safety at work, quantitative analyses were conducted to assess any potential associations between the four factors that could provide insights into all five research questions. We assessed implicit knowledge of creativity, exemplified creative problem solving, perceived value of creativity, and PSC-12 with a three-point ordinal scale from 1–3. Using SPSS statistical software, a Mantel-Haenszel Test of Trend was conducted on each potential association to search for associations between these factors.

The Mantel-Haenszel Test of Trend is suited to assessing the three-point ordinal ranked data, subject to data normality. The test is a non-parametric, conservative test reported to be more powerful than chi-square test for association with less sensitivity to small sample sizes ( Agresti, 2007 , Agresti, 2013 ). Consequently, the statistical significance result should be more accurate, making it particularly useful in smaller sample sizes ( Laerd Statistics, 2016 ), as is the case with the current study. Requirements for the test include two ordinal variables and knowledge that the test assesses for presence of an association, but not whether the association is linear. While a statistically significant result may be present, that result may be curvilinear ( Agresti, 2013 ; Laerd Statistics, 2016 ). The nature of the exploratory research design lacks dependent and independent variables, which suits the test, making the knowledge of an association useful for more in-depth analysis.

Quantitative

Descriptive measures.

All the raw scores and subsequent results for each measure were normally distributed in the current study through visualisation of Q-Q plots. The PSC mean score was 41.40 ( SD = 7.86). Table 4 shows the PSC-12 benchmarks, and Table 5 the count descriptive for each creativity factor.

Psychosocial safety climate-12 benchmarks.

Counts for creativity factors.

RQ1 asked if engineers possess an implicit knowledge of creativity, with the results indicating that 44% ( n = 11) of the participants were able to provide clear evidence of implicit knowledge of creativity.

RQ2 asked if engineers understand creativity in the context of problem-solving, with the results indicating that 48% ( n = 12) of the participants were able to provide clear evidence of creative problem solving as exemplified in their descriptions.

RQ3 asked if engineers value creativity in their workplace, with the results indicating that 44% ( n = 11) of the participants do value creativity in the engineering workplace.

Association Between Concepts

To further explore the data, a Mantel-Haenszel Test of Trend was conducted on the potential associations between the four factors. As noted above, the Mantel-Haenszel Test of Trend can inform a directional association but not the cause of the relationship; frequency scatterplot graphs generated during the analysis supported positive linear associations.

There was a statistically significant linear association between implicit knowledge of creativity and exemplified creative problem solving, χ 2 (1, N = 25) = 12.46, p ≤ 0.001, r = 0.721 (see Table 6 ). The relationship accounted for 52% of the variance. Implicit knowledge of creativity is positively associated with exemplified creative problem solving and vice-versa. We also found a statistically significant linear association between implicit knowledge of creativity and perceived value of creativity to the engineering role, and a statistically significant linear association between exemplified creative problem solving and perceived value of creativity to the engineering role (see Table 6 for all results). There were no significant relationships between the PSC-12 and the other factors.

Mantel-Haenszel Test of Trend for liner associations between exemplified creative problem solving, implicit knowledge of creativity, value of creativity, and PSC-12.

* Association is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed), ** Association is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

The statistical analysis of the quantitative data revealed curious information: while only three associations were found to be statistically significant, there was an overall pattern identified in the frequency scatterplots derived from the Mantel-Haenszel Test of Trend. A pattern of the same individual participants was repeatedly observed on the extreme positive results. Some cases scored positively on all factors, encouraging further examination of why this pattern was occurring. Jahnukainen (2010) describes the opposite status as a valid reason for conducting extreme cases analysis. We therefore analysed the extreme positive cases – the Exceptional Cases – to provide further insights into the study’s primary aim to understand how engineers experience creative problem solving and psychosocial safety in the engineering workplace while considering the demands of the future of work.

Exceptional Cases

The outliers - or extreme cases - were examined, resulting in five cases being identified as exceptional cases and totalling 20% of the total participants. The Exceptional Cases comprise the following participants: 3C, 9I, 13M, 14N, and 25Y. The observed pattern of extreme cases in the Mantel-Haenszel Test of Trend frequency graphs was confirmed by conducting a count for each association of the six Mantel-Haenszel Test of Trend associations performed. The identified cases were plotted, summed, and simultaneously confirmed by referring to each participants’ case factor results. The extreme cases are termed Exceptional Cases based on the extreme positive locations on the frequency graph in the corresponding direction of the favourable responses. The identification of the Exceptional Cases and confirmation that the pattern of extreme positive disparity occurring for 20% of the sample warranted further analysis. The added steps of analysis embody the framework of exploratory methods where this study has developed further analysis as a result of prior analysis (see Greene et al., 1989 ).

Analysis of Exceptional Cases

To explore the Exceptional Cases, it is essential to return to the qualitative data to discover meaningful information pertaining to the quantitative data and reasons for Exceptional Cases in a purposive sample, which would not anticipate such extreme results. The initial analysis of the interviews aimed to collate the responses to the interview questions by quantifying the qualitative responses as ordinal data in earlier analyses, however, the overall gestalt of the Exceptional Cases is of more interest to revealing what is occurring in these cases. The qualitative analysis is useful for not only exploring the data but to answer research questions four and five:

RQ5: Is there an association between the psychosocial safety climate and creative problem-solving in the engineering workplace?

An inductive approach of thematic analysis ( Saldaña, 2009 ) was employed to analyse the qualitative data from only the extreme cases. Salient codes were identified through inductive – also known as in vivo – methods. Saldaña (2016) purports the in vivo method to be an ideal method when participant voices are featured; in other words, their intonations and use of language are essential in comprehending and representing the true meaning of what is being shared. Saldaña (2016) asserts the importance of differentiating codes and themes; a theme is an outcome of a code, and by repeatedly reading and reviewing the data, qualitative researchers cannot help but take note of themes. The three primary interview questions provided salient themes, which are identified through illustrative comments and interpretations. First, memos were created by the primary author in the documentation of the participants’ data which were subsequently revised and audited several times by the additional authors throughout the analytical and drafting stages to ensure the saliency of the themes

The Exceptional Cases were mostly heterogeneous with a mean age of 42 years and comprised two females and three males (see Table 7 ). Of the 19 potential factors from the demographic information and psychological measures in the collected data from the Exceptional Cases, six factors were commonly shared: (1) their highest qualification was a Bachelor’s degree; (2) no one had changed careers from engineering; (3) all scored above the low-risk benchmark for PSC; (4) all provided an implicit knowledge of creativity, and (5) all reported a perceived value of creativity in the engineering role (see Table 8 ). We note that a third of the total participants identified as female which is an over-representation of gender in the engineering profession in Australia, which presently sits at approximately 13 per cent ( Kaspura, 2019 ). Overall, there were no meaningful differences found between male and female engineers anywhere in our study.

Demographic information by exceptional cases.

* denotes commonality between all Exceptional Cases.

Measures and Hobby information by exceptional cases.

Qualitative Results of Exceptional Cases

Using inductive analysis of the qualitative data from the Exceptional Cases and interpretations of meaning in the data provided along with the commonalities noted, two primary themes were identified as: (1) Rich knowledge and value of creativity , and (2) Management facilitation of psychosocially safe workplaces , with an emergent theme of, (3) Teamwork. These are elaborated next.

Rich Knowledge and Value of Creativity

Exceptional Cases revealed a rich knowledge of, and value for, creativity in their roles. For example, P3C provided an example of explicitly valuing creativity in the engineering role but also implicit knowledge of creativity. P3C goes as far as to use the term “novel” and then second-guesses her use of the term, showing she does understand creativity, even if it is not an academic definition:

I think creativity is thinking outside the box, what’s a novel, oh I shouldn’t say novel, but what’s another way to do it?” – P3C

P3C further exemplifies this knowledge by describing a complicated situation involving an instrument malfunctioning in such a deviant manner that even the manufacturer had no precedent to guide solutions:

“We came up with an interesting solution using one of our pumps and some flexible piping, a large number of connections, and we actually filled the system and managed to get a really dodgy, but effective, cleaning cycle on the dirty side to get it clean. We had to use a lot ‘what if we do this?’ and ‘what if we add this?’ and it worked!” – P3C

P3C’s statement is interpreted as the process of divergent thinking that helps understanding, facilitating better outcomes than just the standard, well-defined solution. In other words, this could be considered innovation. P14N also describes a similar example of not simply selecting the known solution:

“I’ve been pushing myself to do that [be creative], so I think the problem is when you know something then you probably know how to solve it, but if you go into a new problem you have never seen, you only have limited knowledge anyway, so if you do the same thing over and over again it might not be the best solution.” – P14N

One of the most experienced engineers, P91, also shared similar thoughts on creative problem-solving in his role and provided an example whereby he, with his team, had to take some risks “ instead of taking the accepted method” to find their solution. When asked if this was risky, P91 stated emphatically, “ absolutely.” P91 suggests creativity as an engineer is:

“Absolutely essential. You’ve got to think outside the box. You’ve got to. It’s the creativity that’s going to reduce the costs and shorten the time scale and meet what politicians and management want. You’re not going to do it [because] the management said we need it a year shorter … you can’t shorten the program by a year. If it’s only got to be this long, then what are you going to do about it? You’ve got to be creative. You’ve got to think of different ways of doing things. Think outside the box, work out how you’re going to do that. And that’s [sic] the creativity is essential.” – P9I

For one participant, P13M, deviation in the direct work that he performs in his role as an engineer was not an option. P13M works in pharmaceutical production and, much like in other consumable production systems, the role does not lend itself to the direct, practical application of creative processes such as tinkering. However, he does not let that prohibit his understanding and application of creative problem-solving in his task despite there being few opportunities to do so. His approach illustrates that practical boundaries are not an excuse for not understanding, valuing, or implementing creativity in the engineering role. For example :

“Boring means there are no deviations. Boring means there’s no production downtime. You know, you’re constantly pumping the product out and making money. So, in some cases, boring is good – not being creative is good. However, yeah, it’s crucial. It drives change. It brings us forward. I mean, it gives you a different approach to problem-solving. Continuous Improvement. It’s a good contributor to continuous improvement. I think it’s crucial [creativity], but unfortunately, most of us lack it” – P13M

Management Facilitation of Psychosocially Safe Workplaces

When the participants were asked if they felt supported psychologically in their workplaces, the Exceptional Cases had much to share on being supported psychologically through either information and culture of their workplaces or direct experiences through their own needs. The questions in the interviews directly asked the engineers to describe a time that they had to engage in creative problem-solving. The Exceptional Cases did not mention management or stakeholders constraining their engagement in creative problem solving; rather, they expressed how they were encouraged and supported to be creative. This finding resulted in a theme of management facilitation of psychosocially safe workplaces.

Among good knowledge and experience of psychosocial safety and support in their workplaces, Exceptional Cases also revealed overt managerial support to engage in creative problem solving and provide the safety to test out their ideas. Exceptional Cases participants provided examples through their interviews, where evidence of open communication between management and multi-disciplinary team members facilitated effective solutions to problems. For example, P25Y is in middle management and experiences support from higher levels of management to take opportunities to test out ideas:

“I love it [creativity]. Some people just don’t have enough! I love trying it! We are so fortunate where we’ve been given the opportunity to try stuff, pretty much to learn.” – P25Y

“I suppose, to encourage people to try even if it is a risk of failure so that you can learn.” – P25Y

P14N, as an early career engineer, described how she relied on the knowledge and skills she was taught during her degree, and her manager suggested she try solving problems a different way. P14N’s experience, again, aligns with Trevelyan’s (2014) statements on engineering students being taught skills to solve problems that have known solutions, which is not always the reality when graduates move into applied work. For example:

“When I was doing study, I was just ticking a lot of boxes. We were trained to think this way. When I joined here - my manager is a very creative person - and when I first get a problem, I was doing it a textbook way, putting the formula in there and then putting the variables in there, and then doing exactly what I was trained four years for, and then he [manager] inspired me to, ‘why don’t you just do something else?” – P14N

The Exceptional Cases provided rich descriptive responses to the question about psychological safety and support in their workplaces. The two younger engineers (P13M and P14N) stated they felt supported but did not have any personal experiences where they required direct support. Nonetheless they perceived a high level of managerial engagement for those requiring support. The other three engineers had experiences of psychological safety and support they could elaborate on.

P3C shares that she has a mental health disorder and that she felt stigma due to the way some staff she had worked with in the past treated her, explaining that this carried through into her accepting work at her current place of employment, where psychological safety has improved:

“When I first started working [as an engineer], I was always a little quiet about the fact that I have depression … I didn’t tell people about it because I didn’t want a bad view. And, truthfully, when it did come out, and it came out during a bad time in my life when I was working with [previous employer] as a contractor before I got my job [at current employer]. It was raised, ‘can you actually handle the stress?’ You know, because she’s got a mental problem? And I’m like, ‘yes’ but yeah, so it was, obviously, once known it came as part of how they viewed me.” – P3C

P3C goes on to explain how she experiences her workplace and that despite an awkward initial conversation, their understanding of mental health has progressed:

“But since then, you know, that was five years ago, and mental health has changed its stigma, and it is improved now, and I’m actually quite vocal, not that I have depression, but a mental health issue. Purely because I don’t want stigma to be there. I want people to know that yes, I have a mental health issue, but I’m totally capable to do my job! So, I think I try change the idea that people have of people with depression.” – P3C

[Investigator: And work is supportive?]

“Yep! Truthfully, if I went to my boss and said, ‘I need a mental health day because I am not coping,’ he’s like *thumbs up* … He’s good with that, and I think he, I think he also acknowledges that you can have those days.” – P3C

The history of mental health and psychological support was expanded upon while interviewing P9I, who has over 30 years of experience as an engineer. He reports that it was well-managed before the 1980s. P9I reports:

“Oddly enough, the whole person was considered well from when I was a younger engineer through ‘til I was in the 1980s, the early 80s period. The finance people got involved, and huge pressures were put on to meet time scale and costs and that sort of thing, and when that happened, the staff management went backwards, due to, I think, those financial pressures. We lost the ability to manage the whole person.” – P91

Despite no longer being able to discuss family, personal, and psychological problems with staff; P91 highlights that with progression into management and more experience, instead of reprimanding staff who did not fit the environment, he would seek to find other means for improvement, such as moving them into a different team. P13M, a younger and less experienced engineer, shares his contrasting experience of psychological safety and support as a priority for his workplace:

“If there is one thing that’s incredible about the larger corporation is the safety and psychological aspect. Everybody talks about safety and psychological aspect. Everybody talks about its safety. Everybody talks about reducing stress levels. It’s part of the culture. R U OK? That’s the biggest question.” – P13M

“They [management] try and encourage honest communication and obviously if you are experiencing an issue you are more than welcome to reach out to a manager or a colleague and report it, how you feel. They are very good like that.” – P13M

Another young engineer, P14N, enthusiastically discussed psychological support from her workplace, particularly in reference to her gender and experience.

“I have been [supported]. So, I can confidently answer that question. My manager has been supportive. I think I’m very lucky because you don’t normally get it.” -P14N

As the only female in the company, P14N highlighted the positive impact of her manager supporting and prioritising her safety and boundaries. One example included an after-hours social event with a predominantly male group. Her manager spoke to her in advance and told her that if she feels uncomfortable or harassed, she should talk to him about it, and he will find a way to fight it and take the matter further if not addressed. She reports:

“I feel very supported. No such thing has ever happened to me, yet *laughs*, I hope not, but knowing that [support] is in the background is very good.” – P14N

Excessive job demands underpinned P25Y’s decision to change firms. He reports favourably on his current place of employment and describes it as “pretty good. ” In his prior role, he said, “ my phone was never off. It was 24/7 for six years” and described a physical reaction to the phone ringing, both at work and pervading his social life. P25Y currently works in a management position and, in contrast to his own previous experiences, he makes a point of checking that his staff are alright. He expressed the importance of awareness and how he had lost a young friend [not colleague] to suicide the week prior. He shared why he is aware and how he makes sure to keep an eye on his young male subordinates:

“It’s probably just more the awareness of bullying. You know … you do of course see on TV and A Current Affair [TV news program] or whatever it is. You see scenarios of where people have been bullied in the workplace and self-harm. And, it’s more, I think, just more about looking after him.”

“… I hope the people in my department feel that they could just grab me and say, ‘hey do you have a sec?’ and we’ll go upstairs to the meeting room.” – P25Y

[Investigator: What about if you were the one?]

“I suppose I see the position I’m in. If I’ve got an issue, I need to make sure … I dragged my boss into a room the other week regarding safety, and, well, I nearly broke down at the time because I was just getting so frustrated about feeling that my team were getting put into unsafe situations, and it was like, ‘I’ve had enough!’ I suppose until you let fly and do get emotional … now I have seen a change in him.” – P25Y

At first glance, the above description appears to criticise his current workplace. Rather, P25Y is stating that as a manager, if he needs to talk to his own managers and discuss his concerns, he can do this face-to-face because he feels comfortable doing so. In addition to emphasising the importance of managerial support, emerging from the current study is that teamwork is also an important factor for both creativity and psychosocial safety.

The influence of a positive psychosocial workplace was expected to relate to creative problem-solving in the present study, although not specifically explored. Nevertheless, teamwork emerged as a new theme in the rounds of revision of the data through direct examples of the use of “we” over “ I .” In fact, in many examples, it was difficult to separate the impact of teamwork and creative problem-solving. The theme of teamwork and open communication between stakeholders in their work was evident in most of these exceptional cases, in particular, to facilitate creativity. P91 does not explicitly state the value of teamwork or examples of where the team or management helped, but he did use the pronoun “we” for all of the examples provided, even in his mentoring role at the end of his professional career; the results were because of “we” and not “me/I.” P3C was the same; she reports on an example of creative problem solving and illustrates that problem solving was a team pursuit when “ we came up with an interesting solution.” These implicit examples of the problems being solved through a team process illustrate how an environment of teamwork and communication can lead to new and useful solutions. These examples demonstrate the safety afforded to them to try something, even if it fails, contributes to learning and is not seen as a waste. Here, P25Y also describes how teamwork and open discussions lead to creative problem solving by facilitating risk-taking:

“Quite often in this meeting we talk, we’ll have our conditioning monitoring guys, we’ll have a couple of tradesmen, oil analysis guru, and we’ll be talking about an issue. And we’ll say, ‘what do you think the issue is? What are we going to do, and how can we make this better?’ And we might go, ‘Okay, well what about this?’ and at the end of the day, we will say, ‘let’s try it!’ I suppose, to encourage people to try even if it is a risk of failure so that you can learn.” – P25Y

Summary of Results

The purpose of this research was to answer the primary research question that aimed to understand how engineers experience creative problem solving and psychosocial safety. The current study employed a novel and rigorous approach with advanced iterative methodology and analyses through a mixed-method exploratory design which provided insights to answer specific research questions and provided both depth and breadth of the phenomena, leading to an understanding of the primary research aim. Quantifying the interview data with a second author experienced in scholarly research of creativity was useful as it provided agreement that could be assessed statistically. The final results and interpretations were also considered between the authors, and any misconceptions or disagreements were discussed and resulted in an agreement. The collaborative nature of involving academics from related specialised fields including creativity, human factors, and organisational psychology bolstered the overall interpretations and agreement of the current study. Data from the quantified interviews revealed significant positive associations between three factors: implicit knowledge of creativity, exemplified creative problem solving, and perceived value of creativity to the engineering role.

The first iteration of results in the current study led to identifying a clear contrast between specific participating engineers. As a group, the Exceptional Cases all provided detailed understanding and examples of both creativity and psychosocial safety in their engineering workplaces, with a strong perception of the value of creativity in the engineering role. While there was no statistically significant association between PSC-12 and other factors in the statistical analysis, the Exceptional Cases all provided above-average scores on the PSC-12 measure.

The next iteration of results led to further scrutiny and interpretation of the Exceptional Cases’ qualitative data. Transforming the qualitative data into ordinal ranked data gave insight into the expected responses of the Exceptional Cases in reference to creativity knowledge, examples, and value. Further examination of commonalities was conducted to explore if other demographic factors could explain the Exceptional Cases; however, nothing of salience was identified.

The final examination of the Exceptional Cases highlighted the following factors as meaningful to understanding the primary research question of how engineers experience psychosocial safety and creative problem-solving in the engineering workplace. This process answered RQ4, finding that engineers experience psychosocial safety at work, both formally and informally, with engineers generally experiencing good psychosocial safety. Engineers in more junior levels of experiences revealed their experience of psychosocial safety to be more formalised, whereas the more senior, experienced engineers felt their experiences were less formal but no less supportive. RQ5 asked if there is an association between the psychosocial safety climate and creative problem-solving in the engineering workplace? The deeper qualitative examination of the exceptional cases found that there is an association as the psychosocial safety climate and creative problem solving occurred through management facilitating safe environments to engage in creative behaviours. To summarise, the key factors that impact engineers experience of psychosocial safety climate and creative problem solving are (1) Knowledge and Value of Creativity, (2) Management Facilitation of Psychosocially Safe Workplaces, and (3) Teamwork.

Interpretation and Discussion

Knowledge and value of creativity.

On the face of it, it makes sense that the factors (knowledge and value of creativity) would be associated; logic would imply that one cannot perceive the value of creativity if there is no knowledge of creativity because the value of knowledge derives from its potential benefit for the knowledge-holder ( Pacharapha and Ractham, 2012 ). Furthermore, one may struggle to practise the cognitive task of creative problem solving without knowledge of creativity because knowledge is the ability to perform tasks and the ability to use the information ( Watson, 1999 ). This recursive logic leads to the interpretation that if an engineer possesses knowledge of creativity, they will be able to exemplify it in their problem-solving pursuits, thus adding to the perception of value to creativity to their role. This finding echoes the recently formed theory of Creative Behavior as Agentic Action by Karwowski and Beghetto (2019) that individuals who transform creative potential into outcomes are informed by the individual’s creative confidence and perceived value of creativity. The perceived value of creativity is what sets the Exceptional Cases engineers apart; as Karwowski and Beghetto (2019) found, even those who have high creative potential and confidence to act creatively may not demonstrate creativity if they do not see the value in doing so. Researchers have identified that knowledge increases and evolves in specialisations – such as engineering - because individuals acquire “ know-what and know-how” ( De Toni et al., 2017 ). However, the source of the Exceptional Cases’ knowledge of creativity is unclear, which is unsurprising, and a reason for why implicit , and not explicit , knowledge was explored. Domain specificity, characterised as the ability to produce a creative output specific to that one domain ( Cropley and Kaufman, 2019 ), while a plausible explanation, is unlikely to be related to the differences between the extreme cases in this study due to the purposiveness of the sample.

The importance of imparting knowledge in practice is a characteristic of engineering due to the evolving nature of the discipline through innovation and market demands. Due to the common practice of engineering educators teaching engineering solutions through well-defined problems, ill-defined problems that require divergent thinking are approached with less confidence. When an engineer is educated through well-defined problems, real-world, ill-defined problems provide a challenge that requires creative problem solving to provide solutions. For the engineer, creative problem solving can be experienced as cyclical in nature , as described by Reiter-Palmon and Murugavel (2020) , where any difficulties encountered can result in returning to the original problem-solving process. However, for the engineer adept at creative problem solving, this can also be an opportunity to consider the problem in a new manner that results in a different formulation of the problem encountered ( Reiter-Palmon and Murugavel, 2020 ), which was touched upon two of the Exceptional Cases.

Trevelyan (2014) asserts that it takes approximately ten years to be considered an expert engineer, and that process includes mentoring and the sharing of knowledge to maximise both professional and personal potential ( Silva and Yarlagadda, 2014 ). The ability of an organisation to develop a competitive edge often resides in the knowledge bases and the abilities of individuals to solve problems creatively ( Carmeli et al., 2013 ). To do so, engineering in the future of work must adapt and develop mechanisms that facilitate knowledge exchange in the form of mentoring and informal coaching as part of the work ( Oppert and O’Keeffe, 2019 ), including open discussions and appropriate risk-taking to engage in creative problem-solving. Carmeli et al. (2013) report that developing workers’ capacity to creatively problem solve is a complex task and constitutes a major challenge for leadership in organisations.

The findings from the current study, bolstered with evidence from other research, highlight that for positive, effective outcomes in the workplace, including creative problem solving, the workers need to feel psychosocially safe. Workplaces with organisational climates that are psychosocially safe influence the work of engineers two-fold: first, the benefits of workplaces where management prioritises the communication, support, and inclusivity of workers in terms of psychological safety facilitates protection and investment in the team’s health and safety. Second, fostering a psychosocially safe workplace where management cultivates safety at the team level will foster an environment that encourages safe and open discussions, not just about psychological health and safety, but to also share and test out ideas without fear of failure. These findings are not altogether new; Carmeli et al. (2010) found that inclusive leadership, characterised by openness, accessibility, and availability, increases psychological safety, which, in turn, increases employee creativity. Learning from both failures and successes enables management and team members to continue creative problem solving and improve their practice as engineers. These benefits also extend to creating better products and solutions for their clients and stakeholders. The findings of the current study reveal that leaders, management, and the overall culture of the working environment for engineers needs to be enacted in practice and not just in policy and procedures.

The Exceptional Cases all reported above-average PSC-12 scores, indicating high levels of psychosocial support from management in all four dimensions. However, as a group, they experienced more practical requirements of psychosocial support, such as requesting time off for mental health care and engaging in open discussions about their psychosocial safety needs. Without further research with the current study participants, the extrapolated evidence is that those who require psychosocial support are in the best position to accurately assess if their workplace does have a positive psychosocial safety climate. There may be a disconnection between those who have relied upon management support and those who have not. Dollard and Bailey (2019) examined PSC-12 scores of 633 participants from 38 workgroups, finding a similar issue when looking at the range of scores and the standard deviations from each workgroup. The deeper analysis found that while some workgroups had high levels (above benchmark) of PSC, there were individuals in most of these groups providing the lowest possible PSC-12 score, indicating that those individuals need urgent attention (see Dollard and Bailey, 2019 , p.419-420).

The current study explores the engineering profession but argues that psychosocially safe work environments that facilitate creative problem solving may benefit all organisations and workers. The engineering industry must continue to facilitate and support managers to psychosocially safe work environments to foster creativity. Such support provides safety for all team members to openly communicate, test out ideas, and engage in appropriate risk-taking, which, through a virtuous cycle, leads to more creative problem-solving. Recent organisational research acknowledges that psychosocial hazards and risks contribute to harm and are intrinsic to the design of work, but that they should be viewed as strategic points of prevention and/or intervention to reduce prevalent adverse outcomes such as work-related stress and psychological injury ( Potter and O’Keeffe, 2020 ), which can, in turn, reduce the ability to safely engage in risk-taking and creative problem-solving processes. Organisations should pay careful attention to building a psychosocially safe environment in which there is deliberation, feedback exchange, critical reviews, expression of dissatisfaction, and suggestions to improve the current situation ( Carmeli et al., 2013 ).

Solving problems creatively in the workplace rarely occurs in isolation. In the engineering workplace, engineers have to coordinate with people and willingly and conscientiously contribute their expertise as it develops, so bi-directional learning is always a component of engineering practice (see Trevelyan, 2010 ). It is evident from the current study that in the engineering workplace, the extra ingredient to effective outcomes through creative problem solving is teamwork. Effective creative problem solving with teams is not separate from psychosocial safety at work. Psychosocially safe work environments facilitate the ability to speak openly and share ideas, feel safe to take risks without punitive measures (see Carmeli et al., 2013 ; Reiter-Palmon and Royston, 2017 ; Dollard et al., 2019 ; Edmondson, 2019 ). It also means being safe from psychosocial risks such as work pressure, low job control, low decision making latitude, and low work meaning ( Dollard and Bakker, 2010 ). Group creativity has a spectrum of research findings, from being positive and conducive to producing novel ideas to actual decreases in creative production (see Coursey et al., 2018 ). Recent research has employed the methods of neuroimaging in an attempt to further understand creative problem-solving in teams (see Mayseless et al., 2019 ). The method by which teams find and comprehend a problem may be key to understanding and facilitating the collaboration of effective teamwork for creative problem-solving. Research by Reiter-Palmon and Murugavel (2018) has found that teams that engage in active understanding and discussion of the problem being faced generate more original ideas and experience higher satisfaction with less conflict. The overall findings from the (Mayseless et al., 2019, p.8) study concluded that in social contexts, cognitive control is an important factor in team interaction and creative team cooperation. They summarise with the notion that successful team cooperation that leads to creative ideas is cyclic, with a back-and-forth interaction of cognitive control and socio-emotional processes (such as empathy). The back-and-forth sharing of knowledge in both cognitive and team contexts is another finding that bolsters the concept of a psychosocially, open environment because this facilitates the spread and acquisition of new knowledge ( De Toni et al., 2017 ).

Additionally, while the ability to teach engineers to think divergently in educational settings is being espoused, the engineers, as discussed, share information on the job, and if a group comprises some highly creative workers and some less creative, the knowledge exchange can still occur despite differing approaches leading to more possible complex outcomes ( Coursey et al., 2018 ). Earlier research by Kennel et al. (2013) found that when some teams are tasked with finding the most appropriate and novel solution, their selection of the “best” solution may have been less accurate because they have less knowledge on quality and originality evaluations compared to that of expert assessors on these concepts. Again, the data arcs back to the first primary finding of the current study steeped in the value of possessing knowledge of creativity.

A potential point of difference between the Exceptional Cases and other engineers may be a bottom-line mentality, which focuses on one-dimensional thinking that revolves around the bottom-line (financial outcomes) while neglecting other competing priorities ( Greenbaum et al., 2012 ). The focus on the inflexibility of costs is inevitable in most organisations, but specifically in engineering, where various external and internal stakeholders constrain project budgets and timelines. In the context of the current study, the bottom-line mentality has scope for serious consideration on why the Exceptional Cases were outstanding in their application and value of creativity in their engineering roles. Recent evidence suggests that the pursuit of bottom-line attainment is negatively related to both team psychological safety and creativity ( Greenbaum et al., 2020 ). This is a potential workplace cultural factor to consider in light of the findings, with the Exceptional Cases exemplifying all of the factors favourable to creativity in the workplace, with examples of teamwork and positive psychosocial safety, but with little focus on financial restraints.

Practical Implications

Engineering organisations and engineers need to possess both implicit and explicit knowledge of creativity to improve their creative problem-solving processes. However, it is not only the acquisition of knowledge of creativity that leads to effective creative problem-solving. For creative problem solving to occur in the engineering workplace, the perception of value also needs to be present. The inherent value, a confluence with knowledge, will enforce the benefit of creativity to their roles as engineers and influence their outcomes. The benefit of knowledge is why it is perceived as valuable (see Pacharapha and Ractham, 2012 ), thus placing the responsibility of imparting the value of creativity in the engineering domain on educators and experienced engineers to foster the value of knowledge and creativity through education and exemplification in practice.

Workers of all disciplines will have to engage in continuous lifelong learning and development to meet the talent and skills requirements of the future of work ( Volini et al., 2019 ; World Economic Forum [WEF], 2018 ). Investing in education and upskilling the current engineering workforce with knowledge of both creativity and how it can be harnessed to improve problem-solving is crucial for the engineering discipline to meet the demands set out in the future of work. The complex demands of today and the unpredictability of tomorrow requires more investment and support for human creativity ( Pugsley and Acar, 2018 ). As such, it will be beneficial to have engineers that are representative of the Exceptional Cases group to meet those demands. All actors are required to be involved – organisations, stakeholders, educators, and engineers themselves – for effective uptake of knowledge acquisition of creativity and methods to engage in it. From this extensive exploration into factors relevant to the future of work, particularly for engineers, it is theorised that the engineer most equipped for the future of work will possess a high degree of knowledge and value of creativity with the ability to practise creative problem solving (see Figure 3 ).

An engineer prepared for the future of work. Exemplified creative problem solving (CPS), Knowledge of creativity, and Value of creativity in the engineering role.

This study’s findings recommend the application of the PSC-12 as a valid and reliable measure of an organisation’s PSC; however, those engineers relying on receiving practical psychosocial support from their managers when they require it are worthy of further research to identify what facilitating factors allow the workers to seek managerial support. If engineering firms are to use the PSC-12 to aggregate their firm’s overall PSC, they must also consider this in conjunction with a range of scores ( Dollard and Bailey, 2019 ), paying particular attention to those with the lowest scores.

Theoretical Implications

The future of work demands workers, not least engineers, who can effectively engage in creative problem solving to produce competitive and innovative solutions to problems. As a result of this study, we identify a theoretical framework to illustrate the engineer best prepared for the future of work through an environment where management facilitates creative problem solving. Much research has considered occupational factors that foster or impede creativity at work (see Carmeli et al., 2013 ; Tavares, 2016 ; Reiter-Palmon and Royston, 2017 ; Greenbaum et al., 2020 ) and some research has examined creativity and engineering (see Cropley, 2015b , 2016 ). However, to the best of our knowledge, no research has examined the concept of creativity and PSC in the engineering workplace. Returning to the introduction of this study, the ideal framework to understand how engineers experience positive psychosocial safety and creative problem solving can be understood and visualised through Rhodes’ (1961) Four Ps (see Figure 1 above). We reconstruct the Four Ps to include the findings of the current study. The environment (Press) includes basic resources for engineers to complete their tasks, including appropriate plant and equipment and the added benefit of a psychosocially safe climate to engage in the tasks required to do their job. Within that environment (Press), the engineer (Person) is safe to communicate with one another and management about their ideas and work together in the environment (Press) to solve the problems. The problem solving (Process) occurs within the environment and can either happen within or through an individual worker or between team members. The process of creative problem solving facilitates engineers to create products and solutions (Product). Figure 4 illustrates the theoretical framework; the Product sits on the border of the Press because engineers’ creative problem solving does not just occur to solve stakeholder problems - it can extend into their own work environment to improve or personalise (see Zeng et al., 2010 ) their resources to meet their demands, manifesting as both systematic solutions, or practical solutions.

Theoretical framework of a Psychosocially Safe Engineering Environment that Facilitates Creative Problem Solving as envisaged through the Four Ps. Adapted from Rhodes (1961) and Cropley (2015a) .

Limitations and Future Research

The positivist view of psychology that relies on large sample sizes and statistically significant results can sometimes fail to capture the gestalt of the phenomenon being explored. An analysis of 25 participants should be interpreted with a degree of caution when using statistical analyses to establish statements of significance. For instance, the small number of participants may have made it difficult to find a signification association between PSC and the other creativity factors. While the findings strongly support the notion that engineers who possess knowledge and value of creativity in the engineering role are best placed to operationalise this at work, as with any correlation, causation cannot be inferred.

To reduce common source bias (ratings from one person), an author with expertise in their respective discipline of creativity was recruited to validate the interpretations of findings (see Favero and Bullock, 2015 ). In future research, expert raters of exemplified creative problem solving should be employed; however, real-time assessments of creative outcomes through observations or interventions would be beneficial to understanding the practical impact from multiple perspectives further afield from academics, including managers and stakeholders. The diversity of the participants is a strength; however, the findings may not be highly generalisable due to their purposiveness. Nonetheless, the findings could be further considered by Australian and other OECD engineering firms to understand the composition of factors impacted by enhancing the knowledge of creativity in firms with psychosocially safe organisational climates.

The future of work paradigm is augmenting the traditional understanding of teams as workers are becoming more distributed with the lessening reliance on the physical workplace, and remote working becoming a viable and attractive option for many workers. Through this lens, Schwartz et al. (2019) encourage organisations to reconsider how they foster both cultural and team connections in the future of work. In light of more remote working and interactions between multidisciplinary team members, psychosocial safety needs further investigation. The PSC-12 is a valid instrument for assessing organisational level PSC, however, further comprehension of the lived experience of engineers, and other workers, relying on practical psychosocial support needs to be examined. Interventions through education providers to provide professional development that promotes information on creative problem-solving mechanisms would provide opportunities for more evidence on the perceived value and the resulting outcomes.

Value needs further understanding in the creativity literature for scholars, educators, and external stakeholders to exemplify why investing in knowledge acquisition of creativity is beneficial in light of the future of work paradigm.

The novelty of exploring the various factors through an exploratory study is a strength, as exploratory mixed-methods research is laborious and not afforded to many scholars. In fact, the approach to understanding the phenomena through exploratory methods epitomises meta-creativity (see Runco, 2015 ). By its very nature, exploratory research can balance the equal strengths and weaknesses found in its methods and discoveries. The study’s strengths include the explicit exploration into the engineering workforce, particularly if, as the future of work literature espouses, the discipline of engineering is protected in digital transformations. Engineers who possess implicit knowledge and value of creativity are able to engage in effective creative problem-solving. The engineers who can cater to these factors are best suited for what the future of work is currently demanding. Finally, it is not only the factors possessed by the engineer prepared for the future of work that will facilitate the effective transition to the new work paradigm. While the differences between human cognition and artificial cognition are becoming more clearly delineated, they also have to engage in more interactions in almost every work environment. Organisations must also provide a fertile environment – a psychosocially safe climate – for engineers to grow and hone their sought-after, core skills that, for the foreseeable future, cannot be replicated by artificial technologies in the future of work paradigm.

Data Availability Statement

Ethics statement.

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by University of South Australia Human Research Ethics Committee. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Author Contributions

MO conceptualized the design, collected and analyzed the data, interpreted the findings, and wrote the first draft and subsequent revisions of the manuscript. VM reviewed the interview data and provided inter-rate agreement. MD, RR-P, and DC provided methodological and theoretical guidance. VO’K reviewed the qualitative findings and provided agreement. MO, MD, AR, and VO’K contributed to writing the manuscript. All authors approved the revisions and submitted manuscript.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the participants that provided their valuable time and experience.

This work was supported by the unit of Justice and Society at the University of South Australia. The Department of Education and Training, Australian Federal Government supported MO in her Ph.D. research. MD is the recipient of an Australian Research Council. Laureate Fellowship (project number FL200100025) funded by the Australian Government. The Laureate Fellowship provided resources for the publication.

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Problem-Solving Strategies and Obstacles

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Sean is a fact-checker and researcher with experience in sociology, field research, and data analytics.

JGI / Jamie Grill / Getty Images

• Application
• Improvement

From deciding what to eat for dinner to considering whether it's the right time to buy a house, problem-solving is a large part of our daily lives. Learn some of the problem-solving strategies that exist and how to use them in real life, along with ways to overcome obstacles that are making it harder to resolve the issues you face.

What Is Problem-Solving?

In cognitive psychology , the term 'problem-solving' refers to the mental process that people go through to discover, analyze, and solve problems.

A problem exists when there is a goal that we want to achieve but the process by which we will achieve it is not obvious to us. Put another way, there is something that we want to occur in our life, yet we are not immediately certain how to make it happen.

Maybe you want a better relationship with your spouse or another family member but you're not sure how to improve it. Or you want to start a business but are unsure what steps to take. Problem-solving helps you figure out how to achieve these desires.

The problem-solving process involves:

• Discovery of the problem
• Deciding to tackle the issue
• Seeking to understand the problem more fully
• Researching available options or solutions
• Taking action to resolve the issue

Before problem-solving can occur, it is important to first understand the exact nature of the problem itself. If your understanding of the issue is faulty, your attempts to resolve it will also be incorrect or flawed.

Problem-Solving Mental Processes

Several mental processes are at work during problem-solving. Among them are:

• Perceptually recognizing the problem
• Representing the problem in memory
• Considering relevant information that applies to the problem
• Identifying different aspects of the problem
• Labeling and describing the problem

Problem-Solving Strategies

There are many ways to go about solving a problem. Some of these strategies might be used on their own, or you may decide to employ multiple approaches when working to figure out and fix a problem.

An algorithm is a step-by-step procedure that, by following certain "rules" produces a solution. Algorithms are commonly used in mathematics to solve division or multiplication problems. But they can be used in other fields as well.

In psychology, algorithms can be used to help identify individuals with a greater risk of mental health issues. For instance, research suggests that certain algorithms might help us recognize children with an elevated risk of suicide or self-harm.

One benefit of algorithms is that they guarantee an accurate answer. However, they aren't always the best approach to problem-solving, in part because detecting patterns can be incredibly time-consuming.

There are also concerns when machine learning is involved—also known as artificial intelligence (AI)—such as whether they can accurately predict human behaviors.

Heuristics are shortcut strategies that people can use to solve a problem at hand. These "rule of thumb" approaches allow you to simplify complex problems, reducing the total number of possible solutions to a more manageable set.

If you find yourself sitting in a traffic jam, for example, you may quickly consider other routes, taking one to get moving once again. When shopping for a new car, you might think back to a prior experience when negotiating got you a lower price, then employ the same tactics.

While heuristics may be helpful when facing smaller issues, major decisions shouldn't necessarily be made using a shortcut approach. Heuristics also don't guarantee an effective solution, such as when trying to drive around a traffic jam only to find yourself on an equally crowded route.

Trial and Error

A trial-and-error approach to problem-solving involves trying a number of potential solutions to a particular issue, then ruling out those that do not work. If you're not sure whether to buy a shirt in blue or green, for instance, you may try on each before deciding which one to purchase.

This can be a good strategy to use if you have a limited number of solutions available. But if there are many different choices available, narrowing down the possible options using another problem-solving technique can be helpful before attempting trial and error.

In some cases, the solution to a problem can appear as a sudden insight. You are facing an issue in a relationship or your career when, out of nowhere, the solution appears in your mind and you know exactly what to do.

Insight can occur when the problem in front of you is similar to an issue that you've dealt with in the past. Although, you may not recognize what is occurring since the underlying mental processes that lead to insight often happen outside of conscious awareness .

Research indicates that insight is most likely to occur during times when you are alone—such as when going on a walk by yourself, when you're in the shower, or when lying in bed after waking up.

How to Apply Problem-Solving Strategies in Real Life

If you're facing a problem, you can implement one or more of these strategies to find a potential solution. Here's how to use them in real life:

• Create a flow chart . If you have time, you can take advantage of the algorithm approach to problem-solving by sitting down and making a flow chart of each potential solution, its consequences, and what happens next.
• Recall your past experiences . When a problem needs to be solved fairly quickly, heuristics may be a better approach. Think back to when you faced a similar issue, then use your knowledge and experience to choose the best option possible.
• Start trying potential solutions . If your options are limited, start trying them one by one to see which solution is best for achieving your desired goal. If a particular solution doesn't work, move on to the next.
• Take some time alone . Since insight is often achieved when you're alone, carve out time to be by yourself for a while. The answer to your problem may come to you, seemingly out of the blue, if you spend some time away from others.

Obstacles to Problem-Solving

Problem-solving is not a flawless process as there are a number of obstacles that can interfere with our ability to solve a problem quickly and efficiently. These obstacles include:

• Assumptions: When dealing with a problem, people can make assumptions about the constraints and obstacles that prevent certain solutions. Thus, they may not even try some potential options.
• Functional fixedness : This term refers to the tendency to view problems only in their customary manner. Functional fixedness prevents people from fully seeing all of the different options that might be available to find a solution.
• Irrelevant or misleading information: When trying to solve a problem, it's important to distinguish between information that is relevant to the issue and irrelevant data that can lead to faulty solutions. The more complex the problem, the easier it is to focus on misleading or irrelevant information.
• Mental set: A mental set is a tendency to only use solutions that have worked in the past rather than looking for alternative ideas. A mental set can work as a heuristic, making it a useful problem-solving tool. However, mental sets can also lead to inflexibility, making it more difficult to find effective solutions.

How to Improve Your Problem-Solving Skills

In the end, if your goal is to become a better problem-solver, it's helpful to remember that this is a process. Thus, if you want to improve your problem-solving skills, following these steps can help lead you to your solution:

• Recognize that a problem exists . If you are facing a problem, there are generally signs. For instance, if you have a mental illness , you may experience excessive fear or sadness, mood changes, and changes in sleeping or eating habits. Recognizing these signs can help you realize that an issue exists.
• Decide to solve the problem . Make a conscious decision to solve the issue at hand. Commit to yourself that you will go through the steps necessary to find a solution.
• Seek to fully understand the issue . Analyze the problem you face, looking at it from all sides. If your problem is relationship-related, for instance, ask yourself how the other person may be interpreting the issue. You might also consider how your actions might be contributing to the situation.
• Research potential options . Using the problem-solving strategies mentioned, research potential solutions. Make a list of options, then consider each one individually. What are some pros and cons of taking the available routes? What would you need to do to make them happen?
• Take action . Select the best solution possible and take action. Action is one of the steps required for change . So, go through the motions needed to resolve the issue.
• Try another option, if needed . If the solution you chose didn't work, don't give up. Either go through the problem-solving process again or simply try another option.

You can find a way to solve your problems as long as you keep working toward this goal—even if the best solution is simply to let go because no other good solution exists.

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By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Creative Thinking Definition

Creative thinking examples, why is creative thinking important, how to include creative thinking skills in a job application, how to build creativity, what is creative thinking definition and examples.

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Table of Contents

Creative thinking is the ability to come up with unique, original solutions. Also known as creative problem-solving, creative thinking is a valuable and marketable soft skill in a wide variety of careers. Here’s what you need to know about creative thinking at work and how to use it to land a job. 

Creative thinking is all about developing innovative solutions to problems. Creative thinkers brainstorm not only a large number of ideas but also a variety and range of them. In the workplace, creative thinking is highly valuable because employers look to hire innovative employees who can help them solve the company’s problems.

So, what does creative thinking in the workplace look like? First, a creative person brainstorms their ideas, then they’ll experiment with them. They look at ideas from multiple perspectives and examine how their solutions fit into the scope of what they’re working on. Creative thinkers aren’t afraid to take risks and try new ideas. In fact, this ability to develop, test, and implement original solutions makes them a valuable asset to just about any workplace. 

Creative thinking in the workplace might look like:

• Holding an interactive brainstorm to gather initial thoughts on a project
• Evaluating a current process and offering suggestions on how to improve it
• Researching other ways to market a product and leading experiments on new marketing channels
• Developing an innovative way to reach out to prospective clients
• Identifying a unique opportunity to promote the company brand and developing a strategy to do so
• Discovering a new way to measure a product initiative’s success and using learnings to iterate on the next version

Finding patterns in a company’s revenue growth and using data trends to strategize a new sales plan  

Creative thinking includes the process of innovative problem-solving — from analyzing the facts to brainstorming to working with others. Creative thinking examples include analytical skills, innovation, and collaboration.

Analytical Skills

Analytical skills are problem-solving skills that help you sort through facts, data, and information to develop rational solutions. These skills aid you in the first part of the creative thinking process as you brainstorm and start to generate ideas. 

Analytical skills include:

• Data analysis
• Forecasting
• Interpreting
• Communication

Innovation is the ability to come up with something new; however, you don’t need to develop the first flying car to be an innovative thinker. “Something new” at work might mean a method you haven’t tried before or experimenting with an unfamiliar process. Innovators in the workplace aren’t afraid to step away from tradition and explore something original, even if it might fail. 

Innovation skills include:

• Risk-taking
• Brainstorming
• Critical thinking

Collaboration

Creative thinking doesn’t have to happen alone; you might have your most creative ideas when bouncing your work off others. Collaboration skills ensure you consider multiple perspectives and ways of thinking when you develop and refine ideas.

Collaboration skills include:

• Written and verbal communication
• Active listening
• Inclusivity

A soft skill like creative thinking will always be valuable to employers, whether you’re looking for a marketing job or trying to land a career in finance . Employers need employees who can develop and experiment with new ideas to help them solve complex problems. 

“Many employers seek candidates that are analytical and outside-the-box thinkers which are iterations of creative thinking skills,” says Alejandra Garcia, manager, alumni college and career success at Code2College and Forage content development partner. “Thus, creative thinking, creative problem solving, innovative thinking, and analytical skills are all valuable in the current workplace — these skills are especially important in our ever-changing workplaces with new emerging technologies.”

The data supports this idea, too. According to the World Economic Forum’s 2023 Future of Jobs report , creative thinking is the second most important skill for workers in 2023, preceded only by analytical skills. Other top skills include soft skills like resilience, flexibility and agility, motivation and self-awareness, and curiosity and lifelong learning .

“The ability to navigate new challenges quickly can benefit any workplace!” Laura Fontenot, resume writing expert, ACRW, and CPRW, says. “The current world of work is fast-paced, technically driven, and constantly changing. Being intuitive, creative, driven, and a problem solver are key.”

If creative thinking is one of the top soft skills employers look for, how do you show you have it in a job application? The key is to prove these skills through examples of how you’ve used them rather than just naming them.

On a Resume

While creative thinking is a skill employers might look for, you don’t necessarily need to write “creative thinking” on your resume to show you have this skill. Instead, it’s better to demonstrate how you’ve used creative thinking skills to drive results.

“Think of your best mental strengths,” says Fontenot. “Are you a great problem solver? Do you understand how to phrase things differently? Can you learn a new skill quickly? Those questions can help you find great words for the resume . Consider adding things like problem-solving, intuition, collaboration, fast learner, organized, or communication.”

Log in to view and download a customizable resume template with examples of how to include creative thinking skills:

On Your Professional Profiles

You can show these skills outside of your resume in creative ways — including on your LinkedIn profile and website (if you have one!).

“Early professionals can make creative thinking a part of their professional brand by explicitly adding creative thinking or creative problem solving to their list of skills on their resumes and LinkedIn profiles — this will help with ATS optimizations,” Garcia advises. 

Yet beyond just listing this skill, Garcia adds that you can provide real proof of your creativity online, too.

“Consider adding projects or an online portfolio website link to your resume and LinkedIn where you can showcase projects you’ve worked on that demonstrate their problem-solving skills.”

In the Interview

In the interview , make sure you can describe your workflow and process for these projects or any other situation when you’ve used creative thinking. Elaborate how you brainstormed ideas, what range of ideas you had, how you tested and experimented, and how you decided on a final solution. 

It’s best to use the STAR method to structure your answers. This will ensure you clearly explain the situation and the results you brought by using your creative thinking skills.

>>MORE: Prepare to speak about your soft skills by practicing answers to commonly asked behavioral interview questions .

1. Put Yourself in a Box

Creative thinking is about “thinking outside the box,” but putting limitations on your problem-solving can help you think more freely and innovatively. For example, if someone tells you to make dinner, you may struggle to come up with a meal you don’t always cook. Yet if they ask you to make a hot dinner with three specific ingredients and two spices, you’ll more likely come up with something original. 

Putting yourself inside a box can help expand your thinking, whether that’s by telling yourself you need to include three charts in your presentation or giving yourself a strict word count for an article.

2. Switch up Your Routine

Routine can be a great productivity booster, but it also can get in the way of your creativity. So, switch up your routine for one project, day, or even an hour. This can be something as small as where you’re physically sitting when you do your work or something as big as your process for approaching projects. Challenging yourself to do something different will help you find creative ways to adapt to your new environment.

3. Challenge What’s Currently Working

Think about how you might expand or improve upon a current process. What would you do if you had more resources, whether that’s time, money, or another expert? What would you do if you had fewer resources? If this project was taking place at a different time of year? If the target audience was different? Imagining these different potential scenarios will force you to problem-solve and adjust for various (very possible!) circumstances. 

4. Find Inspiration

Creative thinking doesn’t happen in a bubble. It’s vital to ask for others’ opinions and ideas. Creative thinkers consider multiple perspectives and are curious about how others think. Ask your colleague about their work processes, whether it’s how they research for a client deliverable or how they approach meeting an external buyer. 

5. Ask for Feedback

The best way to improve a skill is to get feedback from others on how you’re using it — and you don’t need to set up a formal feedback session to do so. Instead, ask questions when you’re working with others about your work. Keep these questions open-ended and lead with curiosity instead of looking for a specific answer. What did they think of how you led the brainstorm? What would they have done differently? What strikes them about the final product? Keep an open mind and remember not to take the feedback personally. It’s an opportunity to grow, and growing those skills might just help you land your next job!

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Creative Problem-Solving Test

Do you typically approach a problem from many perspectives or opt for the same old solution that worked in the past? In his work on human motivation, Robert E. Franken states that in order to be creative, you need to be able to view things from different perspectives.

Creativity is linked to fundamental qualities of thinking, such as flexibility and tolerance of ambiguity. This Creative Problem-solving Test was developed to evaluate whether your attitude towards problem-solving and the manner in which you approach a problem are conducive to creative thinking.

This test is made up of two types of questions: scenarios and self-assessment. For each scenario, answer according to how you would most likely behave in a similar situation. For the self-assessment questions, indicate the degree to which the given statements apply to you. In order to receive the most accurate results, please answer each question as honestly as possible.

After finishing this test you will receive a FREE snapshot report with a summary evaluation and graph. You will then have the option to purchase the full results for $6.95

This test is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional diagnosis or for the treatment of any health condition. If you would like to seek the advice of a licensed mental health professional you can search Psychology Today's directory here .

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Creative problem solving as overcoming a misunderstanding.

• Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy

Solving or attempting to solve problems is the typical and, hence, general function of thought. A theory of problem solving must first explain how the problem is constituted, and then how the solution happens, but also how it happens that it is not solved; it must explain the correct answer and with the same means the failure. The identification of the way in which the problem is formatted should help to understand how the solution of the problems happens, but even before that, the source of the difficulty. Sometimes the difficulty lies in the calculation, the number of operations to be performed, and the quantity of data to be processed and remembered. There are, however, other problems – the insight problems – in which the difficulty does not lie so much in the complexity of the calculations, but in one or more critical points that are susceptible to misinterpretation , incompatible with the solution. In our view, the way of thinking involved in insight problem solving is very close to the process involved in the understanding of an utterance, when a misunderstanding occurs. In this case, a more appropriate meaning has to be selected to resolve the misunderstanding (the “impasse”), the default interpretation (the “fixation”) has to be dropped in order to “restructure.” to grasp another meaning which appears more relevant to the context and the speaker’s intention (the “aim of the task”). In this article we support our view with experimental evidence, focusing on how a misunderstanding is formed. We have studied a paradigmatic insight problem, an apparent trivial arithmetical task, the Ties problem. We also reviewed other classical insight problems, reconsidering in particular one of the most intriguing one, which at first sight appears impossible to solve, the Study Window problem. By identifying the problem knots that alter the aim of the task, the reformulation technique has made it possible to eliminate misunderstanding, without changing the mathematical nature of the problem. With the experimental versions of the problems exposed we have obtained a significant increase in correct answers. Studying how an insight problem is formed, and not just how it is solved, may well become an important topic in education. We focus on undergraduate students’ strategies and their errors while solving problems, and the specific cognitive processes involved in misunderstanding, which are crucial to better exploit what could be beneficial to reach the solution and to teach how to improve the ability to solve problems.

Introduction

“A problem arises when a living creature has a goal but does not know how this goal is to be reached. Whenever one cannot go from the given situation to the desired situation simply by action, then there has to be recourse to thinking. (…) Such thinking has the task of devising some action which may mediate between the existing and the desired situations.” ( Duncker, 1945 , p. 1). We agree with Duncker’s general description of every situation we call a problem: the problem solving activity takes a central role in the general function of thought, if not even identifies with it.

So far, psychologists have been mainly interested in the solution and the solvers. But the formation of the problem remained in the shadows.

Let’s consider for example the two fundamental theoretical approaches to the study of problem solving. “What questions should a theory of problem solving answer? First, it should predict the performance of a problem solver handling specified tasks. It should explain how human problem solving takes place: what processes are used, and what mechanisms perform these processes.” ( Newell et al., 1958 , p. 151). In turn, authors of different orientations indicate as central in their research “How does the solution arise from the problem situation? In what ways is the solution of a problem attained?” ( Duncker, 1945 , p. 1) or that of what happens when you solve a problem, when you suddenly see the point ( Wertheimer, 1959 ). It is obvious, and it was inevitable, that the formation of the problem would remain in the shadows.

A theory of problem solving must first explain how the problem is constituted, and then how the solution happens, but also how it happens that it is not solved; it must explain the correct answer and with the same means the failure. The identification of the way in which the problem is constituted – the formation of the problem – and the awareness that this moment is decisive for everything that follows imply that failures are considered in a new way, the study of which should help to understand how the solution of the problems happens, but even before that, the source of the difficulty.

Sometimes the difficulty lies in the calculation, the number of operations to be performed, and the quantity of data to be processed and remembered. Take the well-known problems studied by Simon, Crypto-arithmetic task, for example, or the Cannibals and Missionaries problem ( Simon, 1979 ). The difficulty in these problems lies in the complexity of the calculation which characterizes them. But, the text and the request of the problem is univocally understood by the experimenter and by the participant in both the explicit ( said )and implicit ( implied ) parts. 1 As Simon says, “Subjects do not initially choose deliberately among problem representations, but almost always adopt the representation suggested by the verbal problem statement” ( Kaplan and Simon, 1990 , p. 376). The verbal problem statement determines a problem representation, implicit presuppositions of which are shared by both.

There are, however, other problems where the usual (generalized) interpretation of the text of the problem (and/or the associated figure) prevents and does not allow a solution to be found, so that we are soon faced with an impasse. We’ll call this kind of problems insight problems . “In these cases, where the complexity of the calculations does not play a relevant part in the difficulty of the problem, a misunderstanding would appear to be a more appropriate abstract model than the labyrinth” ( Mosconi, 2016 , p. 356). Insight problems do not arise from a fortuitous misunderstanding, but from a deliberate violation of Gricean conversational rules, since the implicit layer of the discourse (the implied ) is not shared both by experimenter and participant. Take for example the problem of how to remove a one-hundred dollar bill without causing a pyramid balanced atop the bill to topple: “A giant inverted steel pyramid is perfectly balanced on its point. Any movement of the pyramid will cause it to topple over. Underneath the pyramid is a $100 bill. How would you remove the bill without disturbing the pyramid?” ( Schooler et al., 1993 , p. 183). The solution is burn or tear the dollar bill but people assume that the 100 dollar bill must not be damaged, but contrary to his assumption, this is in fact the solution. Obviously this is not a trivial error of understanding between the two parties, but rather a misunderstanding due to social conventions, and dictated by conversational rules. It is the essential condition for the forming of the problem and the experimenter has played on the very fact that the condition was not explicitly stated (see also Bulbrook, 1932 ).

When insight problems are used in research, it could be said that the researcher sets a trap, more or less intentionally, inducing an interpretation that appears to be pertinent to the data and to the text; this interpretation is adopted more or less automatically because it has been validated by use but the default interpretation does not support understanding, and misunderstanding is inevitable; as a result, sooner or later we come up against an impasse. The theory of misunderstanding is supported by experimental evidence obtained by Mosconi in his research on insight problem solving ( Mosconi, 1990 ), and by Bagassi and Macchi on problem solving, decision making and probabilistic reasoning ( Bagassi and Macchi, 2006 , 2016 ; Macchi and Bagassi, 2012 , 2014 , 2015 , 2020 ; Macchi, 1995 , 2000 ; Mosconi and Macchi, 2001 ; Politzer and Macchi, 2000 ).

The implication of the focus on problem forming for education is remarkable: everything we say generates a communicative and therefore interpretative context, which is given by cultural and social assumptions, default interpretations, and attribution of intention to the speaker. Since the text of the problem is expressed in natural language, it is affected, it shares the characteristics of the language itself. Natural language is ambiguous in itself, differently from specialized languages (i.e., logical and statistical ones), which presuppose a univocal, unambiguous interpretation. The understanding of what a speaker means requires a disambiguation process centered on the intention attribution.

Restructuring as Reinterpreting

Traditionally, according to the Gestaltists, finding the solution to an insight problem is an example of “productive thought.” In addition to the reproductive activities of thought, there are processes which create, “produce” that which does not yet exist. It is characterized by a switch in direction which occurs together with the transformation of the problem or a change in our understanding of an essential relationship. The famous “aha!” experience of genuine insight accompanies this change in representation, or restructuring. As Wertheimer says: “… Solution becomes possible only when the central features of the problem are clearly recognized, and paths to a possible approach emerge. Irrelevant features must be stripped away, core features must become salient, and some representation must be developed that accurately reflects how various parts of the problem fit together; relevant relations among parts, and between parts and whole, must be understood, must make sense” ( Wertheimer, 1985 , p. 23).

The restructuring process circumscribed by the Gestaltists to the representation of the perceptual stimulus is actually a general feature of every human cognitive activity and, in particular, of communicative interaction, which allows the understanding, the attribution of meaning, thus extending to the solution of verbal insight problems. In this sense, restructuring becomes a process of reinterpretation.

We are able to get out of the impasse by neglecting the default interpretation and looking for another one that is more pertinent to the situation and which helps us grasp the meaning that matches both the context and the speaker’s intention; this requires continuous adjustments until all makes sense.

In our perspective, this interpretative function is a characteristic inherent to all reasoning processes and is an adaptive characteristic of the human cognitive system in general ( Levinson, 1995 , 2013 ; Macchi and Bagassi, 2019 ; Mercier and Sperber, 2011 ; Sperber and Wilson, 1986/1995 ; Tomasello, 2009 ). It guarantees cognitive economy when meanings and relations are familiar, permitting recognition in a “blink of an eye.” This same process becomes much more arduous when meanings and relations are unfamiliar, obliging us to face the novel. When this happens, we have to come to terms with the fact that the usual, default interpretation will not work, and this is a necessary condition for exploring other ways of interpreting the situation. A restless, conscious and unconscious search for other possible relations between the parts and the whole ensues until everything falls into place and nothing is left unexplained, with an interpretative heuristic-type process. Indeed, the solution restructuring – is a re -interpretation of the relationship between the data and the aim of the task, a search for the appropriate meaning carried out at a deeper level, not by automaticity. If this is true, then a disambiguant reformulation of the problem that eliminates the trap into which the subject has fallen, should produce restructuring and the way to the solution.

Insight Problem Solving as the Overcoming of a Misunderstanding: The Effect of Reformulation

In this article we support our view with experimental evidence, focusing on how a misunderstanding is formed, and how a pragmatic reformulation of the problem, more relevant to the aim of the task, allows the text of the problem to be interpreted in accordance with the solution.

We consider two paradigmatic insight problems, the intriguing Study Window problem, which at first sight appears impossible to solve, and an apparent trivial arithmetical task, the Ties problem ( Mosconi and D’Urso, 1974 ).

The Study Window problem

The study window measures 1 m in height and 1 m wide. The owner decides to enlarge it and calls in a workman. He instructs the man to double the area of the window without changing its shape and so that it still measures 1 m by 1 m. The workman carried out the commission. How did he do it?

This problem was investigated in a previous study ( Macchi and Bagassi, 2015 ). For all the participants the problem appeared impossible to solve, and nobody actually solved it. The explanation we gave for the difficulty was the following: “The information provided regarding the dimensions brings a square form to mind. The problem solver interprets the window to be a square 1 m high by 1 m wide, resting on one side. Furthermore, the problem states “without changing its shape,” intending geometric shape of the two windows (square, independently of the orientation of the window), while the problem solver interprets this as meaning the phenomenic shape of the two windows (two squares with the same orthogonal orientation)” ( Macchi and Bagassi, 2015 , p. 156). And this is where the difficulty of the problem lies, in the mental representation of the window and the concurrent interpretation of the text of the problem. Actually, spatial orientation is a decisive factor in the perception of forms. “Two identical shapes seen from different orientations take on a different phenomenic identity” ( Mach, 1914 ).

The solution is to be found in a square (geometric form) that “rests” on one of its angles, thus becoming a rhombus (phenomenic form). Now the dimensions given are those of the two diagonals of the represented rhombus (ABCD).

Figure 1. The study window problem solution.

The “inverted” version of the problem gave less trouble:

[…] The owner decides to make it smaller and calls in a workman. He instructs the man to halve the area of the window […].

Figure 2. The inverted version.

With this version, 30% of the participants solved the problem ( n = 30). They started from the representation of the orthogonal square (ABCD) and looked for the solution within the square, trying to respect the required height and width of the window, and inevitably changing the orientation of the internal square. This time the height and width are the diagonals, rather than the side (base and height) of the square.

Eventually, in another version (the “orientation” version) it was explicit that orientation was not a mandatory attribute of the shape, and this time 66% of the participants found the solution immediately ( n = 30). This confirms the hypothesis that an inappropriate representation of the relation between the orthogonal orientation of the square and its geometric shape is the origin of the misunderstanding .

The “orientation” version:

A study window measures 1 m in height and 1 m wide. The owner decides to make it smaller and calls in a workman. He instructs the man to halve the area of the window: the workman can change the orientation of the window, but not its shape and in such a way that it still measures one meter by one meter. The workman carries out the commission. How did he do it?

While with the Study window problem the subjects who do not arrive at the solution, and who are the totality, know they are wrong, with the problem we are now going to examine, the Ties problem, those who are wrong do not realize it at all and the solution they propose is experienced as the correct solution.

The Ties Problem ( Mosconi and D’Urso, 1974 )

Peter and John have the same number of ties.

Peter gives John five of his ties.

How many ties does John have now more than Peter?

We believe that the seemingly trivial problem is actually the result of the simultaneous activation and mutual interference of complex cognitive processes that prevent its solution.

The problem has been submitted to 50 undergraduate students of the Humanities Faculty of the University of Milano-Bicocca. The participants were tested individually and were randomly assigned to three groups: control version ( n = 50), experimental version 2 ( n = 20), and experimental version 3 ( n = 23). All groups were tested in Italian. Each participant was randomly assigned to one of the conditions and received a form containing only one version of the two assigned problems. There was no time limit. They were invited to think aloud and their spontaneous justifications were recorded and then transcribed.

The correct answer is obviously “ten,” but it must not be so obvious if it is given by only one third of the subjects (32%), while the remaining two thirds give the wrong answer “five,” which is so dominant.

If we consider the text of the problem from the point of view of the information explicitly transmitted ( said ), we have that it only theoretically provides the necessary information to reach the solution and precisely that: (a) the number of ties initially owned by P. and J. is equal, (b) P. gives J. five of his ties. However, the subjects are wrong. What emerges, however, from the spontaneous justifications given by the subjects who give the wrong answer is that they see only the increase of J. and not the consequent loss of P. by five ties. We report two typical justifications: “P. gives five of his to J., J. has five more ties than P., the five P. gave him” and also “They started from the same number of ties, so if P. gives J. five ties, J. should have five more than P.”

Slightly different from the previous ones is the following recurrent answer, in which the participants also consider the decrease of P. as well as the increase of J.: “I see five ties at stake, which are the ones that move,” or also “There are these five ties that go from one to the other, so one has five ties less and the other has five more,” reaching however the conclusion similar to the previous one that “J. has five ties more, because the other gave them to him.” 2

Almost always the participants who answer “five” use a numerical example to justify the answer given or to find a solution to the problem, after some unsuccessful attempts. It is paradoxical how many of these participants accept that the problem has two solutions, one “five ties” obtained by reasoning without considering a concrete number of initial ties, owned by P. and J., the other “ten ties” obtained by using a numerical example. So, for example, we read in the protocol of a participant who, after having answered “five more ties,” using a numerical example, finds “ten” of difference between the ties of P. and those of J.: “Well! I think the “five” is still more and more exact; for me this one has five more, period and that’s it.” “Making the concrete example: “ten” – he chases another subject on an abstract level. I would be more inclined to another formula, to five.”

About half of the subjects who give the answer “five,” in fact, at first refuse to answer because “we don’t know the initial number and therefore we can’t know how many ties J. has more than P.,” or at the most they answer: “J. has five ties more, P. five less, more we can’t know, because a data is missing.”

Even before this difficulty, so to speak, operational, the text of the problem is difficult because in it the quantity relative to the decrease of P. remains implicit (−5). The resulting misunderstanding is that if the quantity transferred is five ties, the resulting difference is only five ties: if the ties that P. gives to J. are five, how can J. have 10 ties more than P.?

So the difficulty of the problem lies in the discrepancy between the quantity transferred and the bidirectional effect that this quantity determines with its displacement. Resolving implies a restructuring of the sentence: “Peter gives John five of his ties (and therefore he loses five).” And this is precisely the reasoning carried out by those subjects who give the right answer “ten.”

We have therefore formulated a new version in which a pair of verbs should make explicit the loss of P.:

Peter loses five of his ties and John takes them.

However, the results obtained with this version, submitted to 20 other subjects, substantially confirm the results obtained with the original version: the correct answers are 17% (3/20) and the wrong ones 75% (15/20). From a Chi-square test (χ 2 = 2,088 p = 0.148) it results no significant difference between the two versions.

If we go to read the spontaneous justifications, we find that the subjects who give the answer “five” motivate it in a similar way to the subjects of the original version. So, for example: “P. loses five, J. gets them, so J. has five ties more than P.”

The decrease of P. is still not perceived, and the discrepancy between the lost amount of ties and the double effect that this quantity determines with its displacement persists.

Therefore, a new version has been realized in which the amount of ties lost by P. has nothing to do with J’s acquisition of five ties, the two amounts of ties are different and then they are perceived as decoupled, so as to neutralize the perceptual-conceptual factor underlying it.

Peter loses five of his ties and John buys five new ones.

It was submitted to 23 participants. Of them, 17 (74%) gave the answer “ten” and only 3 (13%) the answer “five.” There was a significant difference (χ 2 = 16,104 p = 0.000) between the results obtained using the present experimental version and the results from the control version. The participants who give the correct solution “ten” mostly motivate their answer as follows: “P. loses five and therefore J. has also those five that P. lost; he buys another five, there are ten,” declaring that he “added to the five that P. had lost the five that J. had bought.” The effectiveness of the experimental manipulation adopted is confirmed. 3

The satisfactory results obtained with this version cannot be attributed to the use of two different verbs, which proved to be ineffective (see version 2), but to the splitting, and consequent differentiation (J. has in addition five new ties), of the two quantities.

This time, the increase of J. and the decrease of P. are grasped as simultaneous and distinct and their combined effect is not identified with one or the other, but is equal to the sum of +5 and −5 in absolute terms.

The hypothesis regarding the effect of reformulation has also been confirmed in classical insight problems such as the Square and the Parallelogram ( Wertheimer, 1925 ), the Pigs in a Pen ( Schooler et al., 1993 ), the Bat & Ball ( Frederick, 2005 ) in recent studies ( Macchi and Bagassi, 2012 , 2015 ) which showed a dramatic increase in the number of solutions.

In their original version these problems are true brain teasers, and the majority of participants in these studies needed them to be reformulated in order to reach the solution. In Appendix B we present in detail the results obtained (see Table 1 ). Below we report, for each problem, the text of the original version in comparison with the reformulated experimental version.

Table 1. Percentages of correct solutions with reformulated experimental versions.

Square and Parallelogram Problem ( Wertheimer, 1925 )

Given that AB = a and AG = b, find the sum of the areas of square ABCD and parallelogram EBGD ( Figures 3 , 4 ).

Figure 3. The square and parallelogram problem.

Figure 4. Solution.

Experimental Version

Given that AB = a and AG = b , find the sum of the areas of the two partially overlapping figures .

Pigs in a Pen Problem ( Schooler et al., 1993 )

Nine pigs are kept in a square pen . Build two more square enclosures that would put each pig in a pen by itself ( Figures 5 , 6 ).

Figure 5. The pigs in a pen problem.

Figure 6. Solution.

Nine pigs are kept in a square pen. Build two more squares that would put each pig in a by itself .

Bat and Ball Problem ( Frederick, 2005 )

A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $ 1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? ___cents.

A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $ 1.00 more than the ball. Find the cost of the bat and of the ball .

Once the problem knots that alter the aim of the task have been identified, the reformulation technique can be a valid didactic tool, as it allows to reveal the misunderstanding and to eliminate it without changing the mathematical nature of the problem. The training to creativity would consist in this sense in training to have interpretative keys different from the usual, when the difficulty cannot be addressed through computational techniques.

Closing Thoughts

By identifying the misunderstanding in problem solving, the reformulation technique has made it possible to eliminate the problem knots, without changing the mathematical nature of the problem. With the experimental reformulated versions of paradigmatic problems, both apparent trivial tasks or brain teasers have obtained a significant increase in correct answers.

Studying how an insight problem is formed, and not just how it is solved, may well become an important topic in education. We focus on undergraduate students’ strategies and their errors while solving problems, and the specific cognitive processes involved in misunderstanding, which are crucial to better exploit what could be beneficial to reach the solution and to teach how to improve the ability to solve problems.

Without violating the need for the necessary rigor of a demonstration, for example, it is possible to organize the problem-demonstration discourse according to a different criterion, precisely by favoring the psychological needs of the subject to whom the explanation discourse is addressed, taking care to organize the explanation with regard to the way his mind works, to what can favor its comprehension and facilitate its memory.

On the other hand, one of the criteria traditionally followed by mathematicians in constructing, for example, demonstrations, or at least in explaining them, is to never make any statement that is not supported by the elements provided above. In essence, in the course of the demonstration nothing is anticipated, and indeed it happens frequently that the propositions directly relevant and relevant to the development of the reasoning (for example, the steps of a geometric demonstration) are preceded by digressions intended to introduce and deal with the elements that legitimize them. As a consequence of such an expositive formalism, the recipient of the speech (the student) often finds himself in the situation of being led to the final conclusion a bit like a blind man who, even though he knows the goal, does not see the way, but can only control step by step the road he is walking along and with difficulty becomes aware of the itinerary.

The text of every problem, if formulated in natural language, has a psychorhetoric dimension, in the sense that in every speech, that is in the production and reception of every speech, there are aspects related to the way the mind works – and therefore psychological and rhetorical – that are decisive for comprehensibility, expressive adequacy and communicative effectiveness. It is precisely to these aspects that we refer to when we talk about the psychorhetoric dimension. Rhetoric, from the point of view of the broadcaster, has studied discourse in relation to the recipient, and therefore to its acceptability, comprehensibility and effectiveness, so that we can say that rhetoric has studied discourse “psychologically.”

Adopting this perspective, the commonplace that the rhetorical dimension only concerns the common discourse, i.e., the discourse that concerns debatable issues, and not the scientific discourse (logical-mathematical-demonstrative), which would be exempt from it, is falling away. The matter dealt with, the truth of what is actually said, is not sufficient to guarantee comprehension.

Data Availability Statement

The datasets generated for this study are available on request to the corresponding author.

Ethics Statement

Ethical review and approval was not required for the study on human participants in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. Written informed consent for participation was not required for this study in accordance with the national legislation and the institutional requirements.

Author Contributions

LM and MB devised the project, developed the theory, carried out the experiment and wrote the manuscript. Both authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

• ^ The theoretical framework assumed here is Paul Grice’s theory of communication (1975) based on the existence in communication of the explicit layer ( said ) and of the implicit ( implied ), so that the recognition of the communicative intention of the speaker by the interlocutor is crucial for comprehension.
• ^ A participant who after having given the solution “five” corrects himself in “ten” explains the first answer as follows: “it is more immediate, in my opinion, to see the real five ties that are moved, because they are five things that are moved; then as a more immediate answer is ‘five,’ because it is something more real, less mathematical.”
• ^ The factor indicated is certainly the main responsible for the answer “five,” but not the only one (see the Appendix for a pragmatic analysis of the text).
• ^ Versions and results of the problems exposed are already published in Macchi e Bagassi 2012, 2014, 2015.

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Pragmatic analysis of the problematic loci of the Ties problem, which emerged from the spontaneous verbalizations of the participants:

- “the same number of ties”

This expression is understood as a neutral information, a kind of base or sliding plane on which the transfer of the five ties takes place and, in fact, these subjects motivate their answer “five” with: “there is this transfer of five ties from P. to J. ….”

- “5 more, 5 less”

We frequently resort to similar expressions in situations where, if I have five units more than another, the other has five less than me and the difference between us is five.

Consider, for example, the case of the years: say that J. is five years older than P. means to say that P. is five years younger than J. and that the difference in years between the two is five, not ten.

In comparisons, we evaluate the difference with something used as a term of reference, for example the age of P., which serves as a basis, the benchmark, precisely.

- “he gives”

The verb “to give” conveys the concept of the growth of the recipient, not the decrease of the giver, therefore, contributes to the crystallization of the “same number,” preventing to grasp the decrease of P.

Appendix B 4

Given that AB = a and AG = b, find the sum of the areas of square ABCD and parallelogram EBGD .

Typically, problem solvers find the problem difficult and fail to see that a is also the altitude of parallelogram EBGD. They tend to calculate its area with onerous and futile methods, while the solution can be reached with a smart method, consisting of restructuring the entire given shape into two partially overlapping triangles ABG and ECD. The sum of their areas is 2 x a b /2 = a b . Moreover, by shifting one of the triangles so that DE coincides with GB, the answer is “ a b ,” which is the area of the resultant rectangle. Referring to a square and a parallelogram fixes a favored interpretation of the perceptive stimuli, according to those principles of perceptive organization thoroughly studied by the Gestalt Theory. It firmly sets the calculation of the area on the sum of the two specific shapes dealt with in the text, while, the problem actually requires calculation of the area of the shape, however organized, as the sum of two triangles rectangles, or the area of only one rectangle, as well as the sum of square and parallelogram. Hence, the process of restructuring is quite difficult.

To test our hypotheses we formulated an experimental version:

In this formulation of the problem, the text does not impose constraints on the interpretation/organization of the figure, and the spontaneous, default interpretation is no longer fixed. Instead of asking for “the areas of square and parallelogram,” the problem asks for the areas of “the two partially overlapping figures.” We predicted that the experimental version would allow the subjects to see and consider the two triangles also.

Actually, we found that 80% of the participants (28 out of 35) gave a correct answer, and most of them (21 out of 28) gave the smart “two triangles” solution. In the control version, on the other hand, only 19% (9 out of 47) gave the correct response, and of these only two gave the “two triangles” solution.

The findings were replicated in the “Pigs in a pen” problem:

Nine pigs are kept in a square pen . Build two more square enclosures that would put each pig in a pen by itself.

The difficulty of this problem lies in the interpretation of the request, nine pigs each individually enclosed in a square pen, having only two more square enclosures. This interpretation is supported by the favored, orthogonal reference scheme, with which we represent the square. This privileged organization, according to our hypothesis, is fixed by the text which transmits the implicature that the pens in which the piglets are individually isolated must be square in shape too. The function of enclosure wrongfully implies the concept of a square. The task, on the contrary, only requires to pen each pig.

Once again, we created an experimental version by reformulating the problem, eliminating the word “enclosure” and the phrase “in a pen.” The implicit inference that the pen is necessarily square is not drawn.

The experimental version yielded 87% correct answers (20 out of 23), while the control version yielded only 38% correct answers (8 out of 25).

The formulation of the experimental versions was more relevant to the aim of the task, and allowed the perceptual stimuli to be interpreted in accordance with the solution.

The relevance of text and the re-interpretation of perceptual stimuli, goal oriented to the aim of the task, were worked out in unison in an interrelated interpretative “game.”

We further investigated the interpretative activity of thinking, by studying the “Bat and ball” problem, which is part of the CRT. Correct performance is usually considered to be evidence of reflective cognitive ability (correlated with high IQ scores), versus intuitive, erroneous answers to the problem ( Frederick, 2005 ).

Bat and Ball problem

A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $ 1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?___cents

Of course the answer which immediately comes to mind is 10 cents, which is incorrect as, in this case, the difference between $ 1.00 and 10 cents is only 90 cents, not $1.00 as the problem stipulates. The correct response is 5 cents.

Number physiognomics and the plausibility of the cost are traditionally considered responsible for this kind of error ( Frederick, 2005 ; Kahneman, 2003 ).

These factors aside, we argue that if the rhetoric structure of the text is analyzed, the question as formulated concerns only the ball, implying that the cost of the bat is already known. The question gives the key to the interpretation of what has been said in each problem and, generally speaking, in every discourse. Given data, therefore, is interpreted in the light of the question. Hence, “The bat costs $ 1.00 more than” becomes “The bat costs $ 1.00,” by leaving out “more than.”

According to our hypothesis, independently of the different cognitive styles, erroneous responses could be the effect of the rhetorical structure of the text, where the question is not adequate to the aim of the task. Consequently, we predicted that if the question were to be reformulated to become more relevant, the subjects would find it easier to grasp the correct response. In the light of our perspective, the cognitive abilities involved in the correct response were also reinterpreted. Consequently, we reformulated the text as follows in order to eliminate this misleading inference:

This time we predicted an increase in the number of correct answers. The difference in the percentages of correct solutions was significant: in the experimental version 90% of the participants gave a correct answer (28 out of 31), and only 10% (2 out of 20) answered correctly in the control condition.

The simple reformulation of the question, which expresses the real aim of the task (to find the cost of both items), does not favor the “short circuit” of considering the cost of the bat as already known (“$1,” by leaving out part of the phrase “more than”).

It still remains to be verified if those subjects who gave the correct response in the control version have a higher level of cognitive reflexive ability compared to the “intuitive” respondents. This has been the general interpretation given in the literature to the difference in performance.

We think it is a matter of a particular kind of reflexive ability, due to which the task is interpreted in the light of the context and not abstracting from it. The difficulty which the problem implicates does not so much involve a high level of abstract reasoning ability as high levels of pragmatic competence, which disambiguates the text. So much so that, intervening only on the pragmatic level, keeping numbers physiognomics and maintaining the plausible costs identical, the problem becomes a trivial arithmetical task.

Keywords : creative problem solving, insight, misunderstanding, pragmatics, language and thought

Citation: Bagassi M and Macchi L (2020) Creative Problem Solving as Overcoming a Misunderstanding. Front. Educ. 5:538202. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2020.538202

Received: 26 February 2020; Accepted: 29 October 2020; Published: 03 December 2020.

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*Correspondence: Laura Macchi, [email protected]

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