Davies, J. (2017). Imagination, creativity, and aliens. In T. Langley (Ed.) Star Trek psychology: The mental frontier. 239—250.

• There is such a thing as being too creative.
• If alien creatures are presented as being too different from what we know, they are hard to relate to.
• It is easier to feel empathy for characters who look like humans
• Aliens are often designed to look intelligent, with small noses, little hair, and big eyes, and thin body structure
• There is a relationship between what kinds of fantastic characters are compelling in fiction with what kinds of gods are compelling in real-world religions
• MCU, or Minimally Counterintuitive Ideas theory, applied to science fiction, particularly Star Trek.
• Maximally compelling aliens fit into a sweet spot between pattern and incongruity.

BibTex Entry:

@incollection{Davies2017i,
  author       = {Davies, Jim}, 
  title        = {Imagination, creativity, and aliens},
  booktitle    = {Star Trek psychology: The mental frontier},
  publisher    = {Sterling},
  year         = 2017,
  editor       = {Langley, Travis},
  pages        = {239--250}
}

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Other items related to this chapter:

• Jim Davies appears on the Entrepreneur podcast, talking about imagination, productivity, and creativity. https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/303921
• Jim Davies was interviewed by The Charlatan about alien design and creativity. http://charlatan.ca/2017/10/qa-carleton-professor-jim-davies/
• Jim Davies appeared in the Ottawa Citizen, talking about the psychology of aliens and how they look. http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/why-the-aliens-kind-of-look-like-us-ottawa-professor-explains-psychology-of-star-trek
• Davies, J. & McManus, M. (2014). How our desire for social information affects tastes in paintings and belief systems. In Kozbelt, A. (Ed.), Proceedings of the Twenty-Third Biennial Congress of the International Association of Empirical Aesthetics, (153—158). (IAEA-14) New York, NY: International Association of Empirical Aesthetics.
• Cockbain, J., Vertolli, M. & Davies, J. (2013). Creative imagination is stable across technological media: The Spore Creature Creator versus pencil and paper. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 48(1), 13—24.
• Davies, J. (2014). Riveted: The science of why jokes make us laugh, movies make us cry, and religion makes us feel one with the universe. St. Martin’s Press.

A part of Jim Davies's research theme of What We Find Compelling.