The psychology of engineering innovation: A heuristic approach

• Applicant: Dr. Konstantinos Katsikopoulos
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: from 2007 to 2008
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 43188658

This research intends to understand and demystify engineering innovation. The goal is to identify simple but precise rules of thumb for successful engineering innovation. The assumption is that innovation flourishes because of social structures that support it, cognitive processes that generate it, and the match between the two. The social structures that support innovation do not just reward success but encourage risk taking. The cognitive processes that generate innovation do not fixate on established ideas but target active exploration and learning. Engineers often attempt to activate such structures and processes within experimentation. Thus to understand and improve engineering innovation, we need a psychological theory of engineering experimentation. But current theories of how engineers should and do experiment—by fractional factorial designs—ignore psychology. Professor Frey at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has argued that engineers should, under some conditions, use adaptive one-factor-at-a-time designs. Frey and I believe that this can be developed to a psychological theory if designs are viewed as adaptive rules of thumb, or heuristics. This may allow better experimentation. At the Max Planck Institute for Human Development (MPIB) I have researched heuristics analytically and empirically. At MIT we will derive conditions under which heuristic designs perform well and test when students and practitioners use them.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: USA
• Host: Professor Dr. Daniel D. Frey