Dr Alex Gillespie QU.3.05

This course is available to any graduate student within the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science. This course is available as an outside option to students' on other programmes were regulations permit.

An undergraduate degree in a social science related discipline or equivalent.

This course examines creativity and innovation from a social psychological standpoint. The first lectures of the course examine creativity, focusing on the social conditions which lead to new ideas. Then we will examine the way in which new ideas and technologies are instituted and resisted. The role of play and materiality in creative production are discussed next, followed by creative problem solving and the societal transmission of innovation. The course will end with a focus on societal creativity, utopias and imagining the future. Guiding questions will be: How do new ideas and technologies come about? What social contexts are conducive to creativity and innovation? Can the resistance to innovation lead to innovation? What is the human imagination? Why do humans enjoy play, games and fiction? What leads to insightful problem solving?  How does perspective-taking help us understand if something new is creative, productive or useful?

The course will cover the social conditions (i.e., face-to-face or online, one-to-one or group, autocratic or democratic, specialisation or integration, etc.) conductive to creativity and innovation, including the social conditions for socialisation creative individuals and the social and institutional factors which enable productive novelty to be recognised and instituted. Specific topics will include: theories of creativity, play & imagination, insight and problem solving, identifying good ideas, materiality, cultural evolution, the resistance to innovation, user innovation, utopias and how people imagine the future.

10 hours of lectures and 10 hours of seminars in the LT.

Students will be expected to produce 1 piece of coursework in the LT.

Bauer, M. (2014). Atoms, Bytes and Genes: public resistance and techno-scientific responses. New York: Routledge.

Bechtoldt, M.N., De Dreu, C.K., Nijstad, B.A., and Choi, H.S. (2010). Motivated information processing, social tuning, and group creativity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99(4), 622.

Fioratou, E., and Crowley, S.J. (2009). Insightful thinking: cognitive dynamics and material artifacts. Pragmatics and Cognition, 17, 549-572.

Glaveanu, V. (2014). Distributed creativity: Thinking outside the box of the creative individual. Cham: Springer.

Isaksen, S.G., Dorval, K.B., and Treffinger, D.J. (2010). Creative approaches to problem solving: A framework for innovation and change (3rd Edt.). London: Sage Publications, Inc.

Lillard, A. (2001). Pretend play as twin earth: A social-cognitive analysis. Developmental Review, 21(4), 495-531.

Montuori, A. (2003). The complexity of improvisation and the improvisation of complexity: Social science, art and creativity. Human Relations, 56(2), 237-255.

Maddux, W.W., and Galinsky, A.D. (2009). Cultural borders and mental barriers: The relationship between living abroad and creativity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96(5), 1047-1061.

Mainemelis, C. (2010). Stealing fire: Creative deviance in the evolution of new ideas. Academy of Management Review, 35(4), 558-578.

Paulus, P.B. and Yang, H.C. (2000). Idea generation in groups: A basis for creativity in organisations. Organisational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes, 82(1), 76-87.

Tosey, P., Visser, M., and Saunders, M.N.K. (2012). The origins  and conceputalisation of 'triple-loop' learning: A critical review. Management Learning, 43(3), 291-307.

Glaveanu, V., Gillespie, A. and Valsiner, J. (2014). Rethinking creativity: Contributions from social and cultural psychology. London: Routledge.

Von Hippel, E. (2005). Democratizing innovation: the evolving phenomenon of user innovation. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.

Wright, E.O. (2010). Envisioning real utopias. London: Verso. Zittound, T. & Gillespie, A. (2015). Imagination in human and cultural development. London: Routledge.

Essay (100%, 3000 words) in the LT.