Educational Robotics and Robot Creativity: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue

There is a growing literature concerning robotics and creativity. Although some authors claim that robotics in classrooms may be a promising new tool to address the creativity crisis in school, we often face a lack of theoretical development of the concept of creativity and the mechanisms involved. In this article, we will first provide an overview of existing research using educational robotics to foster creativity. We show that in this line of work the exact mechanisms promoted by robotics activities are rarely discussed. We use a confluence model of creativity to account for the positive effect of designing and coding robots on students' creative output. We focus on the cognitive components of the process of constructing and programming robots within the context of existing models of creative cognition. We address as well the question of the role of meta-reasoning and emergent strategies in the creative process. Then, in the second part of the article, we discuss how the notion of creativity applies to robots themselves in terms of the creative processes that can be embodied in these artificial agents. Ultimately, we argue that considering how robots and humans deal with novelty and solve open-ended tasks could help us to understand better some aspects of the essence of creativity.

Negligible effects of birth order on selection into scientific and artistic careers, creativity, and status attainment

We tested birth order effects on selection into different careers (scientific, artistic, and creative) and status attainment (educational attainment, occupational prestige, and income) using a large sample ( n = 3763), a longitudinal design, and relevant controls. Additionally, we tested mediation of birth order effects on career outcomes via personality traits, intelligence, and educational attainment. We found negligible birth order effects ranging from 0.02 to 0.12 on a correlational metric, where firstborns (vs. laterborns) selected into more creative careers and attained higher prestige and education. Conditional on the theoretically based mediation models tested, results showed that intelligence and educational attainment (but not personality traits) accounted for a statistically significant portion of the variance in the links between birth order and career outcomes. No direct effects of birth order on career outcomes remained when accounting for indirect effects through educational attainment. These findings bring modest support to the confluence model, no support to the niche-finding model, and suggest that one possible route via which birth order might impact career outcomes (if at all) could be via educational attainment.

DamianSpengler_2020_EJP_Negligible Effects of Birth Order on Selection into Scientific and Artistic Careers, Creativity, and Status Attainment

We tested birth order effects on selection into different careers (scientific, artistic, creative) and status attainment (educational attainment, occupational prestige, and income) using a large sample (n = 3,763), a longitudinal design, and relevant controls. Additionally, we tested mediation of birth order effects on career outcomes via personality traits, intelligence, and educational attainment. We found negligible birth order effects ranging from .02 to .12 on a correlational metric, where firstborns (vs. laterborns) selected into more creative careers and attained higher prestige and education. Conditional on the theoretically based mediation models tested, results showed that intelligence and educational attainment (but not personality traits) accounted for a statistically significant portion of the variance in the links between birth order and career outcomes. No direct effects of birth order on career outcomes remained when accounting for indirect effects through educational attainment. These findings bring modest support to the confluence model, no support to the niche-finding model, and suggest that one possible route via which birth order might impact career outcomes (if at all) could be via educational attainment.

Testing the Confluence Model Theory of Sexual Aggression

The connection between pornography use and sexual violence remains an ongoing concern within and outside academia. The current research sought to test Confluence Model reasoning that pornography use will be most strongly related to sexual aggression among men who are high in the predisposing risk factors of hostile masculinity and impersonal sexuality. To this end, a sample of young adult (18-24 years of age) males from Mechanical Turk (N = 1,528) and two national samples of young adult Canadian males who were currently enrolled (N = 1,049) or not currently enrolled (N = 905) in post-secondary education completed self-report measures of pornography use, hostile masculinity, impersonal sexuality, and sexual aggression in an online survey. Results supported some aspects of Confluence Model theorizing but challenged others. When pornography use was operationalized with a contemporary approach that assessed use of all forms of pornography, the results did not confirm a positive relationship between pornography use and sexual aggression among men with high levels of hostile masculinity and impersonal sexuality. When operationalized as the use of pornographic magazines, a relatively uncommon contemporary form of pornography consumption, pornography use was found to be correlated with sexual aggression, and the magnitude of this association was larger among men who were high in either hostile masculinity or impersonal sexuality, depending on the sample. These discrepant findings serve as a challenge to causal explanations for previously published correlations of pornography use and sexual aggression and a warning about the non-equivalence of pornography use measures.

The Confluence Model of Sexual Aggression: An Application With Adolescent Males

The Confluence Model of Sexual Aggression is a well-established framework for understanding factors that contribute to men’s perpetration of sexual aggression against women, highlighting the roles of hostile masculinity, impersonal sex orientation, and exposure to pornography. To date, only one study has applied aspects of the Confluence Model to examine predictors of sexual aggression in adolescent males, and the study did not include pornography exposure as a predictor. The current study evaluates the Confluence Model as a framework for understanding the perpetration of both contact and noncontact sexual aggression in a sample of 935 heterosexual 10th-grade adolescent boys. Composite scores for hostile masculinity and impersonal sex orientation were generated. Nearly all the variables included in the hostile masculinity and impersonal sex constructs were associated with perpetration. Zero-inflated Poisson regression models revealed distinct combinations of salient predictors when the dependent variable was identified as boys’ frequency of perpetration, compared with when the dependent variable was defined as any perpetration of sexual aggression. Impersonal sex orientation and violent pornography exposure were associated with perpetrating noncontact sexual aggression in the last 6 months, while violent pornography exposure and the interaction of hostile masculinity and impersonal sex orientation increased the frequency of recent contact sexual aggression. Results suggest that hostile masculinity, impersonal sex orientation, and violent pornography exposure are important factors to address within sexual assault prevention approaches for adolescent boys.

Simulation and Experiment on Phase Equilibrium of Gas Hydrate Using the T-Type Pipe Confluence Model

A constraint of the development of gas hydrate is the phase change that may cause engineering losses in the mining process, which tends to be clogged in the section of well completion (sieve section: wellbore lifting section). The flow of gas hydrate in the well completion section was simplified using the T-type pipe confluence model in this paper. The temperature and pressure coupling model in the confluence section was derived first, followed by the use of the Fluent software to simulate its gradient changes in the T-type model. Then, the physical model and the experiment were designed to study the velocity changes. Finally, the contrast analysis between experiment and numerical simulation was carried out. Through the study of this paper, it is possible to prevent blockage in the well completion section during the process of depressurization, which can provide theoretical guidance for the control of pressure drop when gas hydrate is produced.