ABSTRACT
The Gestalt psychologists proposed some 100 years ago that there were two modes of solving problems. One mode, which they called reproductive thinking and modern researchers call analytic thinking, is based on the application of one’s knowledge to the problem situation and the adjustment of that knowledge to fit the specifics of the new situation. Insight, in contrast, depends on rejecting one’s knowledge and restructuring the situation – that is, developing an entirely new perspective. There has, in recent years, been renewed interest among cognitive psychologists in the possible roles of insight vs. analysis in creative thinking. Modern researchers in the Gestalt tradition – neo-Gestalt researchers – have proposed that all creative advances depend on insight. On an empirical level, researchers have carried out laboratory investigations of people’s performance on “insight” problems, in which restructuring of the situation is assumed to play a critical role in solution. Such problems are assumed to be representative of situations in the world that demand creative thinking. The chapter reviews research – laboratory studies of problem solving and case studies of real-world creative thinking – that indicates that analytic thinking plays a critical role in creative thinking in both contexts. It is concluded that neo-Gestalt theorists have been too quick to conclude that analytic thinking plays no role in creative thinking. A model of problem solving is presented that proposes that all problem solving is based on analytic thinking.
