Creative ability, the laboratory environment, and scientific performance

Scientists and engineers, like other people, vary in their ability to be creative. Although some jobs in R & D are of a purely routine nature, it is commonly believed that creative ability is a useful attribute for the man in the laboratory. Yet when we measured the creative ability of some scientists and engineers, we found no simple relationship between it and their performance. Upon further exploration, we learned that whether or not creative ability “paid off” depended upon the man's laboratory environment. This paper describes the environments which proved to be good climates for creativity.