Abstract

Scientific creativity, i.e. the production of new and socially effective empirical knowledge, can itself be subjected to empirical analysis. Research on the determinants of creative work in science suggests that the internal and external world of creative scientists is characterised by a series of tensions or "oppositions of forces" which "normally" cannot be integrated. Conversely, creative work in science can be understood as the provision of new answers to scientific problems where conventional answers are no longer sufficient to reduce incongruities between cognitive, affective and social standards of satisfactory problem solution.