Combinatorial creativity as blind-variation and selective-retention: A definitional update.

Simonton (2010) presented a combinational model of exceptional creativity based on Campbell's (1960) theory of blind-variation and selective-retention (BVSR). The presentation provided an explanatory and predictive basis for comprehending the phenomenon with respect to individual, domain, and field systems. Although the model inspired future research, such as that regarding the "equal-odds baseline," its formal definition of "blindness" was inadequate.

Phenomena complexity, disciplinary consensus, and experimental versus correlational research in psychological science.

The target article ignores the crucial role of correlational methods in the behavioral and social sciences. Yet such methods are often mandated by the greater complexity of the phenomena investigated. This necessity is especially conspicuous in psychological research where its position in the hierarchy of the sciences implies the need for both experimental and correlational investigations, each featuring distinct assets.

Scientific Creativity: Discovery and Invention as Combinatorial.

Although scientific creativity has often been described as combinatorial, the description is usually insufficiently formulated to count as a precise scientific explanation. Therefore, the current article is devoted to elaborating a formalization defined by three combinatorial parameters: the initial probability , the final utility , and the scientist's prior knowledge of that utility . These parameters then lead logically to an 8-fold typology involving two forms of expertise, two irrational combinations, and four "blind" combinations.

A publication missing from Lewis M. Terman's CV? Ralph K. White's 1931 "The versatility of genius".

Lewis M. Terman's publication list is impressively long. Even a selective bibliography includes around three dozen articles and books (Watson, 1974).

Intellectual Brilliance and Presidential Performance: Why Pure Intelligence (or Openness) Doesn't Suffice.

In recent years it has become popular on the internet to debate the IQ of the incumbent president of the United States. Yet, these controversies (and hoaxes) presume that IQ has some relevance to understanding the president's actual performance as the nation's leader. This assumption is examined by reviewing the empirical research on the intelligence-performance association in political leadership, with a special focus on U.

Can super smart leaders suffer from too much of a good thing? The curvilinear effect of intelligence on perceived leadership behavior.

Although researchers predominately test for linear relationships between variables, at times there may be theoretical and even empirical reasons for expecting nonlinear functions. We examined if the relation between intelligence (IQ) and perceived leadership might be more accurately described by a curvilinear single-peaked function. Following Simonton's (1985) theory, we tested a specific model, indicating that the optimal IQ for perceived leadership will appear at about 1.

Giving Credit Where Credit's Due: Why It's So Hard to Do in Psychological Science.

More than a century of scientific research has shed considerable light on how a scientist's contributions to psychological science might be best assessed and duly recognized. This brief overview of that empirical evidence concentrates on recognition for lifetime career achievements in psychological science. After discussing both productivity and citation indicators, the treatment turns to critical precautions in the application of these indicators to psychologists.

Reverse engineering genius: historiometric studies of superlative talent.

Although genius has been defined in the dictionary as requiring an IQ above 140, this definition depends on an arbitrary methodological decision made by Lewis Terman for his longitudinal study of more than 1500 intellectually gifted children, a study that occupies four of the five volumes of Genetic Studies of Genius. Yet, only the second volume, by Catharine Cox, studied bona fide geniuses, by applying historiometric methods to 301 highly eminent creators and leaders. After defining historiometric research, I examine the difference between historical genius and intellectual giftedness with respect to heterogeneous intellects, personality differences, and early development and show that the actual relation between IQ and genius is small and heavily contingent on domain-specific assessment, the operation of traits like persistence and openness to experience, and the impact of diversifying experiences, including both developmental adversity and subclinical psychopathology.

The Mad-Genius Paradox: Can Creative People Be More Mentally Healthy But Highly Creative People More Mentally Ill?

The persistent mad-genius controversy concerns whether creativity and psychopathology are positively or negatively correlated. Remarkably, the answer can be "both"! The debate has unfortunately overlooked the fact that the creativity-psychopathology correlation can be expressed as two independent propositions: (a) Among all creative individuals, the most creative are at higher risk for mental illness than are the less creative and (b) among all people, creative individuals exhibit better mental health than do noncreative individuals. In both propositions, creativity is defined by the production of one or more creative products that contribute to an established domain of achievement.

Psychopathology, adversity, and creativity: diversifying experiences in the development of eminent African Americans.

Symptoms associated with mental illness have been hypothesized to relate to creative achievement because they act as diversifying experiences. However, this theory has only been tested on predominantly majority-culture samples. Do tendencies toward mental illness still predict eminent creativity when they coexist with other diversifying experiences, such as early parental death, minority-status, or poverty? These alternative diversifying experiences can be collectively referred to as examples of developmental adversity.

Quantifying creativity: can measures span the spectrum?

Because the cognitive neuroscientists have become increasingly interested in the phenomenon of creativity, the issue arises of how creativity is to be optimally measured. Unlike intelligence, which can be assessed across the full range of intellectual ability creativity measures tend to concentrate on different sections of the overall spectrum. After first defining creativity in terms of the three criteria of novelty, usefulness, and surprise, this article provides an overview of the available measures.

The Personality of a Nonperson: Gauging the Inner Skinner.

B. F. Skinner is consistently rated as one of the most important figures in the history of psychology.

"Birds of passage" or "career" women? Thoughts on the life cycle of the eighteenth-century European servant.

Frequently eighteenth-century service is described as a life-cycle stage used to build up the financial wherewithal to set up house. As such it was central to the way youth or girlhood was traversed, and studies of adolescent years rightly emphasise the importance of service. However, this narrative, while largely accurate, is also problematic.

Creative thought as blind-variation and selective-retention: combinatorial models of exceptional creativity.

Both positive and negative comments are discussed with the aim of stimulating future theoretical and empirical research on BVSR models of creativity, including combinatorial models.

Creative thought as blind-variation and selective-retention: combinatorial models of exceptional creativity.

Campbell (1960) proposed that creative thought should be conceived as a blind-variation and selective-retention process (BVSR). This article reviews the developments that have taken place in the half century that has elapsed since his proposal, with special focus on the use of combinatorial models as formal representations of the general theory. After defining the key concepts of blind variants, creative thought, and disciplinary context, the combinatorial models are specified in terms of individual domain samples, variable field size, ideational combination, and disciplinary communication.

Varieties of Perspectives on Creativity: Reply to Commentators.

In this reply, I concentrate on two broad issues raised by the four commentaries in this issue: the hierarchical model of domains and individual differences in creativity. In the first case, I cite additional research to address the contrast between "hard" and "soft" domains and the application of this contrast to children, adolescents, and noneminent adults. In the second case, I introduce two recent studies to confirm the model's predictions regarding personal creative achievement.

Varieties of (Scientific) Creativity: A Hierarchical Model of Domain-Specific Disposition, Development, and Achievement.

Prior research supports the inference that scientific disciplines can be ordered into a hierarchy ranging from the "hard" natural sciences to the "soft" social sciences. This ordering corresponds with such objective criteria as disciplinary consensus, knowledge obsolescence rate, anticipation frequency, theories-to-laws ratio, lecture disfluency, and age at recognition. It is then argued that this hierarchy can be extrapolated to encompass the humanities and arts and interpolated within specific domains to accommodate contrasts in subdomains (e.

Eminence, IQ, physical and mental health, and achievement domain : Cox's 282 Geniuses revisited.

Catharine Cox published two studies of highly eminent creators and leaders, the first in 1926 as the second volume of Terman's landmark Genetic Studies of Genius and the second in 1936 as a coauthored article. The former publication concentrated on the relation between IQ and achieved eminence, and the latter focused on early physical and mental health. Taking advantage of unpublished data from the second study, we examined, for the first time, the relationships among achieved eminence, IQ, early physical and mental health, and achievement domain.

Applying the Psychology of Science to the Science of Psychology: Can Psychologists Use Psychological Science to Enhance Psychology as a Science?

Added to the already tremendous diversity of subdisciplines of psychological science is the psychology of science. Although research on the psychology of science began in 1874, the field has seen a substantial expansion of activity in recent years. One particular subset of this research literature has special importance: namely, inquiries into the psychology of doing great science.