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Serendipity: The Role of Chance and Accidents in Creativity

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Title: Serendipity: The Role of Chance and Accidents in Creativity
Language: English
Authors: Wendy Ross (ORCID 0000-0002-0461-7660)
Source: Creativity Research Journal. 2025 37(2):284-292.
Availability: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 9
Publication Date: 2025
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Evaluative
Descriptors: Discovery Processes, Creativity, Role, Environmental Influences, Creative Thinking, Locus of Control
DOI: 10.1080/10400419.2024.2313898
ISSN: 1040-0419
1532-6934
Abstract: Chance plays an acknowledged role in creativity, but taking it seriously challenges traditional notions of talent and expertise as well as the importance of agency and intentionality. Chance without skill is not enough on its own to support creativity. The phenomenon of serendipity requires both luck and the skill to make the most of it. This review argues that it can provide a lens through which to understand how individual, emotional and environmental factors interact in the creative process. However, serendipity is acknowledged to be a complex phenomenon that is not easily investigated from an empirical perspective. This review addresses some of the complexities, offers methodological recommendations and surveys some emerging findings.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2026
Accession Number: EJ1498037
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0184594808;7lo01apr.25;2025Apr22.02:30;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0184594808-1">Serendipity: The Role of Chance and Accidents in Creativity </title> <p>Chance plays an acknowledged role in creativity, but taking it seriously challenges traditional notions of talent and expertise as well as the importance of agency and intentionality. Chance without skill is not enough on its own to support creativity. The phenomenon of serendipity requires both luck and the skill to make the most of it. This review argues that it can provide a lens through which to understand how individual, emotional and environmental factors interact in the creative process. However, serendipity is acknowledged to be a complex phenomenon that is not easily investigated from an empirical perspective. This review addresses some of the complexities, offers methodological recommendations and surveys some emerging findings.</p> <p>There is a contingency to the creative process. From initial ideation to final acceptance by the intended audience, there are many pathways to creative success or lack of it. So much so that Csikszentmihalyi ([<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref1">17</reflink>], p. 4) reports from his interviews with eminent creative people that the most common theme linking them all was that of "luck." However, pure luck is problematic both theoretically and empirically and so the work presented in this paper aims to put forward a different perspective on that contingency, that of serendipity.</p> <p>The main problem is that the idea of luck is "blind;" that is, the person experiencing the luck is passive. Good fortune falls in her lap without her having to solicit it, and it changes her life without much additional effort (Coffman, [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref2">12</reflink>]). This contradicts important ideas of talent, expertise and, more broadly, the epistemically virtuous nature of creativity (Kieran, [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref3">27</reflink>]; Malafouris, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref4">31</reflink>]; Sand, [<reflink idref="bib63" id="ref5">63</reflink>]). Distilling the essence of creativity to luck would diminish the role of personal agency and individual differences, which are intuitively important to our understanding of what it means to be creative. As Weisberg ([<reflink idref="bib75" id="ref6">75</reflink>]) writes, in his discussion of the importance of considering intentionality in creativity, the situation where an artist knocks over a pot of paint and in so doing creates a piece of work which makes its way into history should not be considered creative because it stems from a mere accident. Intention and agency appear to be important aspects of the definition of creativity. This view is succinctly summarized by Boden ([<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref7">7</reflink>], p. 237) who writes, "Chance with judgment can give us creativity; chance alone, certainly not." From a practical perspective, the role of luck is also empirically intractable – it relies on something necessarily unpredictable and not easily manipulated in experimental situations. While <emph>attitudes</emph> toward luck can be measured and retrospective accounts of life courses can be examined, the moment of a lucky break is harder to engineer in a controlled environment (although see Erdelez, [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref8">19</reflink>]; Wiseman, [<reflink idref="bib78" id="ref9">78</reflink>]). It is perhaps for these reasons that the role of luck in creativity and life paths more generally has been often touched upon but rarely given systematic attention (Bandura, [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref10">4</reflink>]; although see Napolitano, [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref11">40</reflink>]).</p> <p>In previous work, I have suggested that a better framework than that of the passive experience of luck to support the understanding of the role of the accidental, the unforeseen or the unplanned in the process of creativity is that of serendipity (Ross, [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref12">51</reflink>]; Ross & Arfini, [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref13">52</reflink>]; Ross & Vallée-Tourangeau, [<reflink idref="bib58" id="ref14">58</reflink>]). While the word serendipity has had an uneven history (for an outline see Merton & Barber, [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref15">36</reflink>]), all perspectives draw on its initial definition by Horace Walpole in 1764 describing how three princes from Serendip were "always making discoveries by accidents and sagacity of things they were not in quest of." In other words, serendipity can be used when a moment of discovery emerges from the interaction of both luck (accident) and the wisdom to exploit it (sagacity; see Figure 1). Under this framework, both environmental and personal affordances are necessary and neither are sufficient on their own. For example, Björneborn ([<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref16">6</reflink>]) reminds us that serendipity is dependent on the diversifiabilty, traversability and sensoriability of the environment aas well as the agent's curiosity, mobility and sensitivity. Affordances for action need to be mirrored by skills to act. They are essentially relational (Chemero, [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref17">9</reflink>]). This aligns with the arguments outlined recently by Green, Beaty, Kenett, and Kaufman ([<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref18">25</reflink>]) that any accident which feature in the process of creativity are not in itself creative – it is what happens after the accident that is important.</p> <p>Graph: Figure 1. Serendipity as an interaction between individual and environment.</p> <p>This twofold structure of accident and sagacity that defines serendipity is useful for discussing the instances when creative output and intents cannot be ascribed either to events nor to individual talent but arise from a dynamic and changing mix of the two. For example, in an incident which is not dissimilar to Weisberg's thought experiment on the knocked over tin of paint, Sneddon ([<reflink idref="bib67" id="ref19">67</reflink>]) discusses the development of <emph>A Firework for W.G. Sebald (2005–6)</emph> by visual artist Jeremy Millar. Borrowing a ritual from Peter Greenaway's <emph>Drowning by Numbers</emph>, Millar sets off fireworks in the place where Sebald was involved in a fatal car crash and documents the event with a series of photographs. The last of these shows a plume of smoke which closely resembles the recognizable bushy mustache of Sebald – something Millar goes on to highlight in his work. In this case, photographic and artistic expertise and the unplanned accident are entangled. In other fields, the combination of accident and sagacity has led to scientific discoveries in which an unanticipated datum is recognized by someone with the scientific understanding to understand its implications, most famously in the case of Fleming's discovery of penicillin (Copeland, [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref20">13</reflink>]).</p> <p>It may seem that moments of serendipity are too rare to form the basis of a full research program. There are no data on how often art is accidentally inspired, although qualitative research suggests that creative practitioners often experience this phenomenon. Makri Makri, Blandford, Woods, Sharples and Maxwell, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref21">30</reflink>]) report interviews with 14 creative people in which they state (p.2184) "creative professionals reported they experienced serendipity frequently because it was integral to their practice." Glăveanu and colleagues ([<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref22">24</reflink>]) found similarly in their interviews with creative practitioners, reporting that accidents play a role in the creative process across all five domains sampled. When it comes to scientific creativity and discovery, there are more concrete numbers reported. A 2016 report for Elsevier suggests that around 17% of scientific discoveries have their basis in serendipitous discovery, while other estimates place it at 50% (Campanario, [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref23">8</reflink>]; Willems, Wade, Herbert, & Plume, [<reflink idref="bib77" id="ref24">77</reflink>]). Thagard's ([<reflink idref="bib69" id="ref25">69</reflink>]) analysis of scientific and technological discoveries suggested that around a quarter of scientific discoveries had accidental components, while accidents featured in a much smaller number of technological innovations (around 5%). Across the artistic and scientific domains sampled, the reported accidents were the start of a chain of events which required significant levels of personal and structural skill to realize.</p> <p>Whatever the exact figure, it appears that serendipity forms a non-negligible part of some creative processes. Despite this, it is also an elusive phenomenon. All creativity necessarily involves an interaction with the unplanned; by definition, novelty cannot be foreseen. Any human activity takes place in a continual flow of unforeseen events that shape choices. Even the most mundane activity such as the daily trip to work is shaped by unexpected occurrences that alter the planned journey (Copeland, Arfini, & Ross, [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref26">15</reflink>]). In other words, serendipity is both ubiquitous and exceptional. This can lead to a dangerous conceptual bloat where marginal cases function to expand definitional boundaries (Ross, Copeland & Firestein, [<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref27">53</reflink>]).</p> <p>For some, this problem can be avoided by making a distinction between "real" and "pseudo" serendipity (Roberts, [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref28">47</reflink>]), which emphasizes the part of Walpole's definition that suggests serendipitous discoveries reflect those which the princes "were not in quest of." Any serendipitous moment that leads to an already planned output via a different route would not count as true serendipity. However, many have argued this is too restrictive a model (see for example Arfini, Bertolotti, & Magnani, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref29">2</reflink>]; Copeland, [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref30">14</reflink>]). Perhaps a better categorisation comes from the work of Yaqub ([<reflink idref="bib79" id="ref31">79</reflink>]). After a review of 513 boxes of manuscripts of serendipity tales collected by the sociologist Robert Merton, he suggests that there are four main types of serendipity. Walpolian serendipity is this discovery of something the seekers were not in search of. Mertonian serendipity is the discovery of the outcome by an unplanned route. Bushian serendipity is when non-targeted search solves a known problem. Finally, Stephanian discovery is when interesting information comes in useful later. What all these types of serendipity have at their core is unanticipated information directing the discovery process in unexpected ways.</p> <p>As a taxonomy, these categories are useful, but from an empirical perspective they can only operate to classify retrospective accounts of serendipity once they have occurred. This frustrates attempts to predict or encourage its occurrence. From a psychological perspective, the mechanisms that drive serendipity are of greater interest. Yaqub describes four mechanisms through which serendipity can occur: theory-led, observer-led, error-borne, or network emergent. Understanding how these four mechanisms combine to generate different forms of serendipity is an ongoing research concern. For example, individual dispositions that may prime someone to notice a serendipitous anomaly (for example, openness to experience; Heinström, [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref32">26</reflink>]; McCay-Peet, Toms, & Kelloway, [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref33">34</reflink>]) will also need to be complimented by an detailed domain specific knowledge to allow them to understand the theoretical implications of the observation, a high tolerance of uncertainty to allow playful exploration of the findings and the structures to support discovery (Copeland, [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref34">13</reflink>]).</p> <p>To add further complexity, the notion of serendipity has often served a rhetorical function that is as much to do with the person's or society's perception of the event as the event itself. This subjective perspective is reinforced by research methods that often rely on retrospective narration of serendipitous events selected by participants (Makri, Blandford, Woods, Sharples, & Maxwell, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref35">30</reflink>]; McCay-Peet, [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref36">33</reflink>]) or analyses of reported case studies (Van Andel, [<reflink idref="bib73" id="ref37">73</reflink>]; Yaqub, [<reflink idref="bib79" id="ref38">79</reflink>]). In this way, we cannot easily disentangle the experience of serendipity from its meaningfulness to the person who experienced it. Therefore, a systematic empirical research program needs to establish whether serendipity serves a function beyond rhetoric or a retrospective sense-making narrative.</p> <p>For this reason, the basis of my research is to make the shift from retrospective reporting to a focus on the nature of the accident and the subsequent reactions which are an integral part of the serendipitous event. This allows experimentation and manipulation of potential causes through the manipulation of the start of the chain of events. Of course, this focus on accident does not come at the expense of the two-fold nature of serendipity, but rather it shifts the research program to the nature of the interaction between the two. This shift allows us to generate new understandings of the profile of each of the two necessary factors while respecting their interdependency.</p> <p>I have argued that it is important distinguish between the accident as an enabling and a causal factor (see also Ross, [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref39">50</reflink>]). To better illustrate this, take Glăveanu's ([<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref40">23</reflink>]) description of Romanian egg decorators. He describes how the variations in material affordances shifted the creative experience. The importance of the skill of working with the unexpected and unplanned variations in the material would fall into the category of the unplanned as an enabling factor in the creative process: The eggs were made roughly as planned while unexpected variations in surface material directed the making one way or another. The material variation was absorbed as part of the skill of working with matter. We can also see this in the detailed examination of the risk of wood turning I examine in Ross and Groves ([<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref41">54</reflink>]). The risk and uncertainty of working with material is an important element of the creative process, but it did not disrupt the overall intent; instead it represents an anticipated unanticipated variation (Copeland, Arfini, & Ross, [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref42">15</reflink>]). By this I mean, that while the nature of the disruptions were themselves unexpected, that there <emph>would be</emph> disruptions of this kind was expected. Serendipity is more fundamentally surprising and disruptive than these interactions with environmental contingencies. For this reason, my theory of serendipity would not count these moments as serendipitous even if they require similar skills and dispositions.</p> <p>On the other hand, sometimes the accident can be a causal rather than enabling factor. Du Champ describes such a moment in the generation of his art piece, "Three Stoppages" which showcases three pieces of thread glued as they have fallen.</p> <p>My first accidental experience (that we commonly call chance) happened with the <emph>Three Stoppages</emph>, and, as I said before, was a great experience. The idea of letting a piece of thread fall on a canvas was accidental, but from this accident came a carefully planned work. Most important was accepting and recognizing this accidental stimulation. Many of my highly organized works were initially suggested by just such chance encounters. (Kuh, 1962, p. 92, cited in Piñeyro, [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref43">46</reflink>])</p> <p>In these cases, the accident does have agential force even though it also needs to be enacted. It may interrupt the already anticipated plan or generate new way of assessing the situation, rather than simply being part of the process. In other words, the accident has to be an unanticipated unplanned interruption rather than something which has been anticipated in general even if the details remain unclear. As an example of this sort of event, Foster and Keane ([<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref44">21</reflink>]) discuss the difference between walking down the street and discovering you have left your wallet at home (unexpected but within the realms of the anticipated) to discovering you have left your belt at home (unexpected and not anticipated so therefore more surprising). This aligns with Yaqub's ([<reflink idref="bib79" id="ref45">79</reflink>]) observation that serendipity has to involve the deviation from theoretical expectations. The role of anticipation in the function of the accident points toward a phenomenon that is necessarily relational and based upon the person's prior knowledge state as well as their current state of awareness and attunement to the surroundings.</p> <hd id="AN0184594808-2">Serendipitous cognition</hd> <p>The aim of my research program is to take a cognitive approach to serendipity. By cognitive, I mean a focus on the processes of knowledge generation and understanding, in this case the generation of a novel thought. From an extended functionalist perspective, the cognitive nature of an action comes from its role rather than location (Clark & Chalmers, [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref46">11</reflink>]; Wheeler, [<reflink idref="bib76" id="ref47">76</reflink>]); a cognitive process can occur inside or outside the head. In other words, something as foundational to creativity as associative thinking (Mednick, [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref48">35</reflink>]) "counts" as a cognitive process whether the associations are drawn between mental representations or between external artifacts. For example, in his description of the discovery of the structure of DNA, James Watson reports that the finding came from the manipulation of cardboard representations (Watson & Stent, [<reflink idref="bib74" id="ref49">74</reflink>]).</p> <p>From the perspective of serendipitous cognition, an initial spark that can generate new knowledge is one that comes from outside the person rather than as the result of internal cogitations: a moment of outsight (Vallée‐Tourangeau & March, [<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref50">71</reflink>]). The concept of serendipity licenses a focus on how the interaction of internal and external occurs rather than simply focusing inwardly. This research focuses on the moment in which an accident turns to serendipity by profiling the individual skills, environmental affordances and situational contingencies that are required to generate that accident, recognize it and use it to generate something that is novel to the person. Crucially, by focusing on an accident or rupture as the starting point of the process, this research aims to understand the possibilities wrought by a breach in the normally closed cognitive system. Therefore, it compliments the theoretical argument outlines above that accidents are important to distinguishing serendipity from other mind-environment interactions or creative skills more generally.</p> <p>The program in serendipitous cognition does not aim to replace other cognitive explanations for creativity, rather to complement them. Mumford, Mobley, Reiter‐Palmon, Uhlman, and Doares ([<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref51">38</reflink>]) echo other theorists such as Ohlsson ([<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref52">41</reflink>]) by suggesting that one of the "important remaining mysteries" (p. 103) of creative thought is how categories are reordered and combined. The suggestion of serendipitous cognition is that in a moment of serendipity this reordering happens in two ways: First, by accident and second, outside of the head. Other existing models already have a clear space for serendipity. For example, the role of the unplanned and the accidental appears pivotal to the state of inspiration in the DA VINCI model (Corazza & Agnoli, [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref53">16</reflink>]) which suggests that the information required for the creative process should also include that which is not strictly problem relevant. Indeed, the tendency to focus on seemingly irrelevant information appears to be linked to greater creativity (Agnoli, Franchin, Rubaltelli, & Corazza, [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref54">1</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0184594808-3">Methodological implications</hd> <p>To identify these moments of causal serendipity, my research to date has aimed to disentangle a <emph>sense of serendipity</emph> (Ross, [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref55">51</reflink>]) from the serendipitous moment itself to establish whether accident and sagacity can combine in a way which is distinct from self-report. This will facilitate two key objectives. First, it will allow us to establish the objective existence of pivotal, accidental moments that are causal rather than enabling and second, if these can be identified, to detail the precipitating conditions which lead to serendipity, both psychological and environmental. This is not to undermine the importance of the sense of serendipity but a lack of understanding of whether there is a phenomenon independent of the affective and idiosyncratic judgments will frustrate effort to generate more serendipity – the best we could hope for is to facilitate more post-hoc recognition of serendipitous moments.</p> <p>Given that much of the research in serendipity proceeds from case study material and is not easily amenable to experimentation, there is not an existing body of experimental work from which to draw, so tasks and measures are not clearly defined. Attempts to do so have been frustrating because disruptive serendipity is a rare phenomenon (Erdelez, [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref56">19</reflink>]). However, there is an emerging tradition to investigate these moments through laboratory based tasks which rely on detailed tracking of the complex dynamics of human, material and social agents (Feiten, Peck, Holland, & Chemero, [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref57">20</reflink>]; Malafouris et al., [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref58">32</reflink>]). For example Cognitive Event Analysis (Steffensen, Vallée-Tourangeau, & Vallée-Tourangeau, [<reflink idref="bib68" id="ref59">68</reflink>]) is a form of detailed qualitative analysis which draws on finally grained video coding to identify the pivotal moment in experimental situation giving both control and high granularity. A key case study from this tradition looks at a participant in a problem-solving experiment moving objects around. The authors identified the moment an unintended move led to the participant to shift their problem perception as a "serendipity," that is as the result of an unplanned change in the environment (Steffensen, Vallée-Tourangeau, & Vallée-Tourangeau, [<reflink idref="bib68" id="ref60">68</reflink>]). My further research in this area used the same method of finely grained video analysis across large data sets coupled with quantitative and case study analysis (a method outlined in more detail in Ross & Vallée-Tourangeau, [<reflink idref="bib57" id="ref61">57</reflink>]) to identify the moments when serendipity takes place and to begin to quantify its occurrence.</p> <p>The importance of things to serendipity can also be leveraged to use a form of "object tracking" where the movements of objects become indicators of underlying processes – what Vallée-Tourangeau has called "object-thought mutualities" (Vallée‐Tourangeau, [<reflink idref="bib70" id="ref62">70</reflink>]) – and could be used in a similar way to eye tracking to trace moments of thinking (Ross & Vallée-Tourangeau, [<reflink idref="bib57" id="ref63">57</reflink>]). This method has been used by other researchers such as Ormerod and colleagues (Ormerod, MacGregor, & Chronicle, [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref64">44</reflink>]) to reveal underlying cognitive processes and exploiting this method of process tracing is likely to prove profitable in future research in this area.</p> <p>For example, in my research, this object tracking has occurred in laboratory experiments looking at how participants solve word-finding puzzles. In Ross and Vallée-Tourangeau ([<reflink idref="bib56" id="ref65">56</reflink>]), I expanded on work by Kirsh ([<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref66">28</reflink>]) looking at the role of chance in these games. Participants were invited to make as many words as they could from a set of seven letters (much like Scrabble™) either in a static, movable or random condition. In another similar study (Ross & Vallée-Tourangeau, [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref67">55</reflink>]), we looked at anagram solution rates across these same conditions. Across all this work, participants were filmed, and the quantitative results of the experimental manipulation were supported in two key ways. First, the object movements of each participant were traced and collated and second, case studies were analyzed in highly granular detail to expand on the more general claims.</p> <p>One key finding in this ongoing program of research is that there are easily identifiable moments of serendipity which occurred when the surrounding environment yielded an answer which the participants recognized. For example, participants might move lettered tiles to form one word and the resulting left over tiles would form another unanticipated word which is then spotted by the participant. Other times, playful and unplanned fiddling would yield a useful word or combination of letters which leads directly to problem solution (Scarabusci et al, under review). When these moments occurred, they were associated with behavioral markers similar to those of moments of insight (Ross & Vallée-Tourangeau, [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref68">55</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib56" id="ref69">56</reflink>]; Vallée-Tourangeau, Ross, Ruffatto Rech, & Vallée-Tourangeau, [<reflink idref="bib72" id="ref70">72</reflink>]) suggesting that this moment may be related to sparks of inspiration and breakthrough thinking (Perkins, [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref71">45</reflink>]). This support arguments that the introduction of material agency to a closed cognitive system may hold the key to understanding how new thoughts arise through a moment of outsight (Ross & Arfini, [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref72">52</reflink>]; Vallée‐Tourangeau & March, [<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref73">71</reflink>]).</p> <p>However, there were two unexpected findings. First, participants did not experience serendipity as much when they randomly shuffled the tiles but more when they were allowed to interact with the objects and generate their own accidental overlaps suggesting that some level of agency and engagement with the nature of the accident was necessary. Similar research in mental arithmetic (Ross, Vallée-Tourangeau, & Van Herwegen, [<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref74">60</reflink>]) and problem solving (Ormerod & Gross, [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref75">43</reflink>]) has shown that there are individual differences in the interactions with objects and that there may be a level of expertise related to the perturbation of the environment that generates useful accidents (Ross, [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref76">49</reflink>]). For example, work on mental arithmetic with children and movable numeric representations (manipulables) suggests that the benefit of moving the number accrued most to those who had the expertise to move them in a supportive rather than unsupportive manner. This finding of the importance of agency and expertise prior to the accident as well as after it, highlights an additional research area for both serendipity and expertise. It also fleshes out the definition of a serendipitous accident to perhaps encompass the agency of the person who generates it.</p> <p>Alongside this, what was more surprising was the number of times felicitous moments arose in the environment and participants in the experiment did not notice or use them to support their thinking; missed serendipity. For example, in an anagram task, random shuffling would produce a set of letters which was close to the answer, but the participants would not register them. Figure 2 (adapted from Ross & Vallée-Tourangeau, [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref77">55</reflink>]) shows such an example where a participant was searching for the word MADLY yet failed to recognize it when the letters fell in a helpful arrangement.</p> <p>Graph: Figure 2. An example of missed serendipity (adapted from Ross & Vallée-Tourangeau, [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref78">55</reflink>]).</p> <p>Reasonable predictions based on extensions to the prior research literature were overturned as participants did not "play the game" (Ross & Vallée-Tourangeau, [<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref79">59</reflink>]). It seems that the "act of noticing" (Rubin, Burkell, & Quan-Haase, [<reflink idref="bib62" id="ref80">62</reflink>]) is not guaranteed. Such findings are not possible unless serendipity is investigated separate from the sense of serendipity. Understanding the absence of serendipity when the environment affords it points the way toward investigations that encompass inattentional blindness (Simons & Chabris, [<reflink idref="bib65" id="ref81">65</reflink>]) and irrelevance processing (Agnoli, Franchin, Rubaltelli, & Corazza, [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref82">1</reflink>]). This supports the opportunistic assimilation hypothesis (Seifert, Meyer, Davidson, Patalano, & Yaniv, [<reflink idref="bib64" id="ref83">64</reflink>]), which hypothesizes that serendipity occurs when the external triggers have already been encountered, suggesting an important period of incubation is necessary (Sio & Ormerod, [<reflink idref="bib66" id="ref84">66</reflink>]). In addition, it reminds us to be cautious of the notion that all possibilities are always enacted (Ormerod, [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref85">42</reflink>]). Of course, it also poses conceptual and empirical challenges. Profiling missed serendipity is easier when a task has a single correct answer and the possibilities of "near misses" can be easily calculated. It becomes harder when the processes are scaled up.</p> <p>The discovery of the importance of missed serendipity has led to a renewed focus on the cognitive and emotional state of the thinker. While large disruptive accidents may be rare, the reported emotional states from case studies reports of serendipity can also be identified in large populations. Drawing from the literature in insight problem solving, tracking moments of surprise and what leads up to them can support more generalizable understanding of the process of serendipitous noticing (Makri & Blandford, [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref86">29</reflink>]; Munnich, Foster, & Keane, [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref87">39</reflink>]; Ross & Webb, [<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref88">61</reflink>]). Beyond this, the emotion of surprise has been suggested as an important factor in considering the different theoretical perspectives on mind-world relations (Clark, [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref89">10</reflink>]; Gallagher, [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref90">22</reflink>]) and so is likely to be an important emotion underlying serendipitous thinking. Equally, research in insight problem solving already addresses the ways that thinkers use the affordances of skill or the environment to relieve the state of impasse (Moss, Kotovsky, & Cagan, [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref91">37</reflink>]; Ormerod & Gross, [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref92">43</reflink>]; Ross, [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref93">48</reflink>]) so a closer focus on when these affordances can be counted as accidental should be beneficial. Both surprise and impasse are multi-dimensional states with inconsistent valences and cognitive and emotional dimensions (Arfini & Ross, under review; Becattini, Borgianni, Cascini, & Rotini, [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref94">5</reflink>]; Depraz & Steinbock, [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref95">18</reflink>]). Unraveling the role of these two states in serendipity could support us to understand some of its contingencies.</p> <hd id="AN0184594808-4">Conclusion</hd> <p>Serendipity is a complex phenomenon that is not easily investigated from an empirical perspective. However, a perspective that considers the dynamical and situated nature of creative cognition is required to take into account both the disruptive and creative potential of accidents. Employing the notion of serendipity will allow us to understand the role of skill, emotion and cognitive preparedness in enacting the chance thrown up by felicitous environmental and material affordances.</p> <hd id="AN0184594808-5">Acknowledgments</hd> <p>I thank Sergio Agnoli, Selene Arfini, Samantha Copeland, Vlad Glăveanu and George Georgiou for the ongoing friendship and discussions which have had a strong influence on the thoughts presented here and Frédéric Vallée-Tourangeau for supervision of my doctoral thesis where many of these ideas were first articulated. Additionally, Tom Ormerod played a key role in crystalizing my thoughts on the difference between enabling and causal factors as well as offering invaluable comments on an early draft for which I thank him.</p> <hd id="AN0184594808-6">Disclosure statement</hd> <p>No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).</p> <ref id="AN0184594808-7"> <title> References </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref54" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Agnoli, S., Franchin, L., Rubaltelli, E., & Corazza, G. E. (2015). An eye-tracking analysis of irrelevance processing as moderator of openness and creative performance. Creativity Research Journal, 27 (2), 125 – 132. doi: 10.1080/10400419.2015.1030304</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib2" idref="ref29" type="bt">2</bibl> <bibtext> Arfini, S., Bertolotti, T., & Magnani, L. (2018). The antinomies of serendipity: How to cognitively frame serendipity for scientific discoveries. 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  Data: Serendipity: The Role of Chance and Accidents in Creativity
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  Data: English
– Name: Author
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Wendy+Ross%22">Wendy Ross</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0461-7660">0000-0002-0461-7660</externalLink>)
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Creativity+Research+Journal%22"><i>Creativity Research Journal</i></searchLink>. 2025 37(2):284-292.
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  Data: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
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  Data: Y
– Name: Pages
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  Data: 9
– Name: DatePubCY
  Label: Publication Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2025
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  Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Evaluative
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Discovery+Processes%22">Discovery Processes</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Creativity%22">Creativity</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Role%22">Role</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Environmental+Influences%22">Environmental Influences</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Creative+Thinking%22">Creative Thinking</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Locus+of+Control%22">Locus of Control</searchLink>
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  Data: 10.1080/10400419.2024.2313898
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  Data: 1040-0419<br />1532-6934
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: Chance plays an acknowledged role in creativity, but taking it seriously challenges traditional notions of talent and expertise as well as the importance of agency and intentionality. Chance without skill is not enough on its own to support creativity. The phenomenon of serendipity requires both luck and the skill to make the most of it. This review argues that it can provide a lens through which to understand how individual, emotional and environmental factors interact in the creative process. However, serendipity is acknowledged to be a complex phenomenon that is not easily investigated from an empirical perspective. This review addresses some of the complexities, offers methodological recommendations and surveys some emerging findings.
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  Data: 2026
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  Data: EJ1498037
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        Value: 10.1080/10400419.2024.2313898
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        PageCount: 9
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