Dr. Tromp is a Romanian-born cognitive psychologist who studies creativity. After a Ph.D. from Princeton University, she worked for a hedge fund and co-owned a recruiting firm in Manhattan before pursuing an academic career. At Rider University, she has been the recipient of the Iorio Faculty Research Award, the Distinguished Teaching Award, several summer research fellowships, and a Mazzotti Award in Women’s Leadership.
Representative Publications
Tromp, C., Sternberg, R. J., & Ambrose, D. (2024). Constraints in Creativity. Edited book. Brill.
Tromp, C. (2025). The Mr. Plumbean approach: How focusing constraints anchor creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 37(1), 44-55. https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2023.2244275
Tromp, C., & Glăveanu, V. P. (2025). A model of creative aging (MOCA): Unlocking the potential of constraints for creativity in older adults. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 19(2), 247–256. https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000538
Tromp, C., & Baer, J. (2024). Focusing the search for creative outcomes in STEM education: The role of constraints. (Invited chapter). In D. Tillman (Ed.), Creativity loves constraints, pp. 23-38. Springer.
Medeiros, K. E., Damadzic, A., & Tromp, C. (2024). A socio-cognitive perspective on constraints and creativity. (Invited chapter). In S. T. Hunter & R. Reiter-Palmon (Eds.) Handbook of Organizational Creativity (2nd Edition). Elsevier.
Tromp, C. (2024). Creativity from integrated constraint exploration and exploitation. Psychological Reports, 127 (4) 1818-1843.
Sternberg, R. J., Tromp, C., & Karami, S. (2022). Intelligence, creativity, and wisdom are situated in the interaction among person x task x situation. In R. J. Sternberg, J. Kaufman, & S. Karami (Eds.), Intelligence, creativity, and wisdom: Are they really distinct? Palgrave-Macmillan.
Tromp, C. (2023). Integrated constraints in creativity: Foundations for a unifying model. General Review of Psychology, 27(1), 41-61.
Tromp, C., & Baer, J. (2022). Creativity from constraints: Theory and applications to education. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 46, 101184.
Tromp, C., & Sternberg, R. J. (2022a). How constraints impact creativity: An interaction paradigm. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. Advance online publication.
Tromp, C., & Sternberg, R. J. (2022b). Dynamic creativity: A Person × Task × Situation interaction framework. Journal of Creative Behavior, 56(4), 553-565.
Haught-Tromp, C. (2017). The Green Eggs and Ham hypothesis: How constraints facilitate creativity. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 11(1), 10-17.
Haught-Tromp, C., & Stokes, P. D. (2017). Constraints, competency and creativity in the classroom. In R. Leikin & B. Sriraman, Eds., Creativity and Giftedness: Advances in Mathematics Education, pp. 105-116. The Netherlands: Springer Science and Business.
Haught-Tromp, C. (2016). Facilitating creative thinking in the 21st century: When constraints help. In D. Ambrose & R. J. Sternberg, Eds., Creative Intelligence in the 21st Century: Grappling with Enormous Problems and Huge Opportunities, pp. 107-117. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
Haught-Tromp, C. (2016). Creativity and constraint: Friends, not foes. In J. C. Kaufman and J. Baer, Eds., Creativity and Reason in Cognitive Development, 2nd Edition, pp. 211-225. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Haught, C. (2015). The role of constraints in creative sentence production. Creativity Research Journal, 27 (2), 160-166.
Haught, C. (2014). Spain is not Greece: How metaphors are understood. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 43, 351-356.
Haught, C. (2013). A tale of two tropes: How metaphor and simile differ. Metaphor and Symbol, 28, 254-274.
Glucksberg, S., and Haught, C. (2006). Can Florida become like the next Florida? When metaphoric comparisons fail. Psychological Science, 17, 935-938.
Broader Dissemination Of Research
- BBC Ideas: How limits can boost your creativity
- BBC Radio: The digital human
- CNN: More is less: The case against 280-character tweets
- NY Magazine: Introducing the Green Eggs and Ham hypothesis of creativity
- The Academic Minute: Constraint and creativity
- Inside Higher Ed: Constraint and creativity
Teaching
- Creativity and Innovation
- Research Methods: Organizational Psychology
- Statistics and Research Design
- Research Methods: Cognition
- Organizational Psychology
- Child Development
- Senior Seminar