In Praise of Convergent Thinking

By Arthur Cropley. 2006

1,062 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Mechanical Engineering

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/aa00fbcc690aaa9a401b5837284ecba57a046fb4

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In Cognitive Neuroscience

In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

In Mechanical Engineering

Citations in the corpus

The Interplay between Creativity Issues and Design Theories: A New Perspective for Design Management Studies? (2011, neutral): “ 2005; Cropley 2006).”
The dark side of experiencing job autonomy: Unethical behavior (2017, background): “In contrast, convergent thinking occurs when the subject identifies the unique or best solution to a clearly defined problem (Cropley, 2006).”
Predicting Creative Problem-Solving in Math From a Dynamic System Model of Creative Problem Solving Ability (2011, methodology): “However, CT is also found to be essential for producing effective novelty (Cropley, 2006) or complete CPS (Brophy, 1998; 2001).”
Creativity in the opportunity identification process and the moderating effect of diversity of information (2012, background): “Constraining information to the relevant domain should thus support idea evaluation because constrained information helps people to make associations within only one domain or in directly adjacent domains thus sticking to a narrow range of relevant information (Cropley, 2006).”
Balancing on the Creative Highwire (2016, background): “When individuals evaluate ideas, they engage in convergent thinking, which involves applying criteria, standards, and logics based on their prior knowledge and experience (Cropley, 2006).”
Commentary: Divergent Thinking Is Not Synonymous With Creativity (2008, background): “do not seem to disagree with the idea that evaluative processes are important for all creative problem solving (Cropley, 2006; Runco, 1989b, 1991b; Runco & Chand, 1994).”
A different perspective: The multiple effects of deep level diversity on group creativity (2013, background): “…creativity is also distinct from convergent thinking, which focuses on identifying and deciding on a single best solution to a well-defined problem (Cropley, 2006), and from consensus-based decision making in groups, which involves evaluating and choosing between alternatives (Stasser &…”
Entrepreneurial Imaginativeness in New Venture Ideation (2018, background): “…or appropriateness (Osborn, 1963)—and “divergent thinking”—generating multiple, novel, and original ideas (Basadur et al., 1982; Brophy, 1998; Cropley, 2006; Gielnik et al., 2012; Mumford, Mobley, Reiter-Palmon, Uhlman, & Doares, 1991); essentially, “letting one’s imagination run…”
Creativity and Academic Achievement: A Meta-Analysis (2017, background): “As such, commonly used creativity tests often fail to represent broader conceptions of creativity (Baer, 2014; Cropley, 2006), which include a combination of originality and task constraints (Beghetto, Kaufman, & Baer, 2015; Plucker et al., 2004; Simonton, 2012).”
The Primal Mark: How the Beginning Shapes the End in the Development of Creative Ideas (2014, background): “While this may promote convergent thinking that helps them identify useful improvements to familiar ideas (Cropley, 2006), remaining within the basic boundaries of familiar schemas may come at the expense of novelty.”
Divergent Thinking as an Indicator of Creative Potential (2012, background): “DT plays a role but judgment and evaluation, and perhaps even convergent thinking, are required as well (Cropley, 2006; Runco, 1994).”
Creativity: The Role of Unconscious Processes in Idea Generation and Idea Selection. (2012, background): “In cognitive theories, creating ideas is distinguished from evaluating ideas (Cropley, 2006).”
Milieus of Creativity: The Role of Places, Environments, and Spatial Contexts (2009, background): “Both ignorance and the highly valued preexisting knowledge of experts can block novel ideas and can lead merely to the production of tried and trusted correct answers (Cropley, 2006, p. 402).”
Freedom from constraints: Darkness and dim illumination promote creativity (2013, background): “Evaluation, however, requires a different kind of thinking than idea generation (Cropley, 2006).”