Mathieu Cassotti

This study investigates how tools derived from design theory, particularly C-K theory, can be used to foster creativity in children by mitigating cognitive fixation in school settings. Conducted with 123 children aged 8–11, the study compared four pedagogical methods: use of fixation examples, use of expansive examples, brainstorming and a novel “defixation” intervention based on C-K theory. Over a 5-week intervention, children participated in structured creative workshops aligned with the school curriculum. Creativity was assessed through fluency, flexibility, fixation and expansion scores during idea generation tasks, including a pre- and post-test using the egg-drop task. Results showed that while example-based methods increased idea fluency, they also reinforced fixation and reduced flexibility. Brainstorming led to high fluency but did not significantly enhance originality. In contrast, the C-K-based intervention successfully increased both flexibility and the number of expansive ideas. This research demonstrates the potential of design tools in education, offering a scalable and theoretically grounded approach to enhancing creativity in classrooms. It also underscores the limitations of commonly used methods, such as brainstorming and example modeling, when used without attention to fixation dynamics.

In a fast‐changing world, overcoming cognitive rigidity is critical to generating creative solutions to complex challenges. Cognitive flexibility plays a crucial role in creative problem‐solving by enabling individuals to shift between thought processes, inhibit usual responses, and explore alternative solutions. However, the measurement of flexibility and originality in international assessments such as PISA remains challenging due to cultural variations. Thus, this manuscript highlights the limitations of traditional measures, which fail to account for cross‐cultural differences and highlight that a qualitative perspective is essential to better understand flexibility and rigidity (i.e., fixation effects) in creativity. To address these limitations, we introduce a solution‐mapping framework based on Concept‐Knowledge theory, which enables the identification of fixation patterns and alternative exploration pathways. This approach provides a structured and scalable method for analyzing creative solutions across different cultural contexts. The C‐K mapping tool is one of the instruments used in the OECD's re‐scoring project. However, the theoretical framework underlying its development and its relationship to cognitive models of creativity has received little explicit discussion. Clarifying this framework is the primary objective of the present manuscript. This methodology offers new insights into cross‐cultural problem‐solving strategies, helping to enhance global creativity assessment in educational contexts.

Background: This study investigated the impact of aging on creative problem solving, focusing on the ability to resist fixation and generate original ideas. Previous research has suggested that creativity peaks in middle adulthood, followed by a decline that is linked to reduced executive functions. However, emerging evidence challenges this view, highlighting that older adults may utilize broader associative networks and prior knowledge to maintain their creativity. Method: Young adults, middle-aged adults, and older adults completed a creative task requiring them to generate solutions to a problem while resisting fixation. The participants also rated the creativity of their ideas, and their executive functioning was assessed. Results: The results revealed that older adults generated more original and expansive responses than younger and middle-aged adults did, particularly during initial responses. This advantage appears to be linked to leveraging distant associations rather than superior executive control. Temporal analysis revealed that older adults performed better in generating original ideas early in the task but did not sustain this advantage as the task progressed. Conclusion: These findings suggest that while aging is associated with some types of cognitive decline, it also fosters unique cognitive strengths that can enhance certain aspects of creativity. The findings of the current study underscore the need to reconsider stereotypes about aging and creativity and highlights the interplay of executive and associative processes in creative ideation.

The aim of the present study is to examine whether in Hot, i.e., affectively charged contexts, or cool, i.e., affectively neutral contexts, inhibitory control capacity increases or decreases under social evaluation in adolescents and adults. In two experiments, adolescents and young adults completed twoStroop-like tasks under either a social evaluation condition or an alone condition. The social evaluation condition comprised the presence of a peer (Experiment 1) or an expert (Experiment 2) playing the role of an evaluator, while under the alone condition, the task was performed alone. In theCool Strooptask, participants had to refrain from reading color names to identify the ink color in which the words were printed. In theHot Strooptask, participants had to determine the emotional expression conveyed by faces from theNimStimdatabase while ignoring the emotion word displayed beneath. The results were similar in both experiments. In adolescents, social evaluation by a peer (Experiment 1) or by an expert (Experience 2) facilitated Hot but not cool inhibitory control. In adults, social evaluation had no effect on Hot or cool inhibitory control. The present findings expand our understanding of the favorable influence of socioemotional context on Hot inhibitory control during adolescence in healthy individuals.

The aim of the present study is to examine whether in hot, i.e., affectively charged contexts, or cool, i.e., affectively neutral contexts, inhibitory control capacity increases or decreases under social evaluation in adolescents and adults. In two experiments, adolescents and young adults completed two Stroop-like tasks under either a social evaluation condition or a control condition. The social evaluation condition comprised the presence of a peer (Experiment 1) or an adult (Experiment 2) playing the role of an evaluator, while under the control condition, the task was performed alone. In the Cool Stroop task, participants had to refrain from reading color names to identify the ink color in which the words were printed. In the Hot Stroop task, participants had to determine the emotional expression conveyed by faces from the NimStim database while ignoring the emotion word displayed beneath. The results were similar in both experiments. In adolescents, social evaluation by a peer (Experiment 1) or by an adult (Experience 2) facilitated hot but not cool inhibitory control in adolescents. In adults, social evaluation had no effect on hot or cool inhibitory control. The present findings expand our understanding of the favorable influence of socioemotional context on hot inhibitory control during adolescence in healthy individuals.