Play and Scientific Creativity: A Critical Review and an Integrative Theoretical Framework

Emerging empirical evidence supports play's potential to stimulate and foster scientific creativity. Focusing on how play relates creativity in adulthood, this review synthesizes the current state of knowledge four areas: element research, playfulness scientists, mechanisms through which affects creativity, environmental factors key play-to-create process scientists' work. The highlights several limitations hindering further research development area. Specifically, existing studies: (a) are largely qualitative focus descriptive analysis forms and/or select aspects play, (b) do not sufficiently consider unique characteristics processes (c) decontextualize creative by separating player-creator from environment. Building analysis, author clarifies conceptualization playfulness, differentiates between recreative relation core activities, identifies useful conceptual measurement tools facilitate future domain-specific studies Collectively, these insights advance a new integrative theoretical framework—the model—to encourage guide systematic contextualized investigations processes, environment interact generate outcomes.