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On Practitioners’ Usage of Creativity Heuristics in the Decision Process

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Decision Making: Social and Creative Dimensions

Abstract

Some scientific quarters have long regarded habits as barriers to creativity together with certain perceptions and emotions (Khare, 1996). For instance, it has often been argued that although everyday thinking can be useful when we need to solve problems similar to those that we have been confronted with before, they nevertheless often misguide us when we are facing new problems (Khare, 1996). This is due to a lack of appropriateness. The metaphor that everyday thinking may be looked upon as an algorithm, always working in the same way leading to the same conclusion1, is often used to describe this circumstance. Supporters of this perspective frequently hold the view that everyday thinking has to be removed in order for people to become more creative and make better decisions (Khare, 1996). The perspectives that will be presented in this chapter reveal that this picture has to be modified. It will be pointed out that although the creative thinking process is different from “ordinary” day-to-day thinking and involves a leap that cannot be formulated, analyzed, or reconstructed (Koestler, 1964; Wallas, 1926), creative products are also observed to be the outcome of ordinary thinking (Perkins, 1981; Weisberg, 1992). This approach may be regarded as reductionistic (Goldenberg, Mazursky, & Solomon, 1999) if one does not take into account the fact that there are qualitative differences in everyday thinking.

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Selart, M., Boe, O. (2001). On Practitioners’ Usage of Creativity Heuristics in the Decision Process. In: Allwood, C.M., Selart, M. (eds) Decision Making: Social and Creative Dimensions. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9827-9_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9827-9_10

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