Creativity and Ethics: The Relationship of Creative and Ethical Problem-Solving

This study examines the relationship between creative thinking skills and ethical decision-making among scientists. The researchers asked 258 doctoral students in the health, biological, and social sciences to complete a measure of creative processing skills (e.g., problem definition, conceptual combination, idea generation) and a measure of ethical decision-making examining four domains: data management, study conduct, professional practices, and business practices. It was found that ethical decision-making in all four of these areas was related to creative problem-solving processes with late-cycle processes (e.g., idea generation and solution monitoring) proving particularly important. The implications of these findings for understanding the relationship between creative and deviant thought are discussed.