The dark side of creativity: biological vulnerability and negative emotions lead to greater artistic creativity

Historical and empirical data have linked artistic creativity to depression and other affective disorders. This study examined how vulnerability to experiencing negative affect, measured with biological products, and intense negative emotions influenced artistic creativity. The authors assessed participants' baseline levels of an adrenal steroid (dehydroepiandrosterone-sulfate, or DHEAS), previously linked to depression, as a measure of affective vulnerability. They then manipulated emotional responses by randomly assigning participants to receive social rejection or social approval or to a nonsocial situation. Participants then completed artistic collages, which were later evaluated by artists. Results confirmed a person-by-situation interaction. Social rejection was associated with greater artistic creativity; however, the interaction between affective vulnerability (lower baseline DHEAS) and condition was significant, suggesting that situational triggers of negative affect were especially influential among those lower in DHEAS, which resulted in the most creative products. These data provide evidence of possible biological and social pathways to artistic creativity.     

Defensive physiological reactions to rejection: the effect of self-esteem and attentional control on startle responses

We examined the hypothesis that rejection automatically elicits defensive physiological reactions in people with low self-esteem (SE) but that attentional control moderates this effect. Undergraduates (N= 67) completed questionnaire measures of SE and attentional control. Their eye-blink responses to startle probes were measured while they viewed paintings related to rejection and acceptance themes. The stimuli also included positive-, negative-, and neutral-valence control paintings unrelated to rejection. As predicted, compared with people high in SE, those low in SE showed stronger startle eye-blink responses to paintings related to rejection, but not to negative paintings. Paintings related to acceptance did not attenuate their physiological reactivity. Furthermore, attentional control moderated their sensitivity to rejection, such that low SE was related to greater eye-blink responses to rejection only among individuals who were low in attentional control. Implications of the role of attentional control as a top-down process regulating emotional reactivity in people with low SE are discussed.     

物质成瘾人群金钱奖赏加工的异常机制及可恢复性

长期的成瘾物质使用造成奖赏系统的变化是成瘾过程发展和维持的关键, 这种病理性变化反过来会对奖赏系统的调节功能产生不利的影响, 引起认知表现和日常功能方面的障碍。近年来大量的功能性核磁共振成像研究表明物质成瘾人群的金钱奖赏加工相关的腹侧纹状体及其它奖赏脑区激活存在异常。而奖赏加工相关的纹状体激活可以作为治疗效果的预测器和临床恢复的指标; 这种奖赏加工异常可以通过戒断有所恢复。今后的研究需要进一步补充奖赏加工的事件相关电位研究, 研究物质成瘾人群奖赏加工的特异性, 并增加对家庭物质依赖史个体的奖赏加工研究, 以及奖赏与执行功能的交互作用机制的研究。     

Sex differences in the neural underpinnings of social and monetary incentive processing during adolescence

The brain’s reward system undergoes major changes during adolescence, and an increased reactivity to social and nonsocial incentives has been described as a typical feature during this transitional period. Little is known whether there are sex differences in the brain’s responsiveness to social or monetary incentives during adolescence. The aim of this event-related potential (ERP) study was to compare the neurophysiological underpinnings of monetary and social incentive processing in adolescent boys versus girls. During ERP recording, 38 adolescents (21 females, 17 males; 13–18 years) completed an incentive delay task comprising (a) a reward versus punishment condition and (b) social versus monetary incentives. The stimulus-preceding negativity (SPN) was recorded during anticipation of reward and punishment, and the feedback P3 (fP3) along with the feedback-related negativity (FRN) after reward/punishment delivery. During anticipation of social punishment, adolescent boys compared with girls exhibited a reduced SPN. After delivery, male adolescents exhibited higher fP3 amplitudes to monetary compared with social incentives, whereas fP3 amplitudes in girls were comparable across incentive types. Moreover, whereas in boys fP3 responses were higher in rewards than in punishment trials, no such difference was evident in girls. The results indicate that adolescent boys show a reduced neural responsivity in the prospect of social punishment. Moreover, the findings imply that, once the incentive is obtained, adolescent boys attribute a relatively enhanced motivational significance to monetary incentives and show a relative hyposensitivity to punishment. The findings might contribute to our understanding of sex-specific vulnerabilities to problem behaviors related to incentive processing during adolescence.     

青少年应激下皮质醇应答与风险决策相关性的性别差异

本研究旨在探讨中国青少年应激下皮质醇应答和风险决策相关性的性别差异。本研究以健康初中生为被试者, 采用特里尔社会应激测试(Trier Social Stress Test, TSST)诱发机体应激反应, 测试唾液皮质醇在应激前后不同时间段的水平, 并要求被试者在应激状态下完成气球模拟风险决策任务(Balloon Analogue Risk Task, BART)。结果发现, 男性在TSST诱导下皮质醇反应度显著高于女性, 男性中高皮质醇应答者BART表现为更高程度的冒险行为和更低的总奖励金额, 而女性中高皮质醇应答者BART表现为更高的总奖励金额。研究结果提示,中国青少年应激条件下皮质醇应答与风险决策之间的联系存在性别差异, 尤其在男性, 高皮质醇应答者更具有冒险行为。     

Interpretive Artists: A Qualitative Exploration of the Creative Process of Actors

Actors, dancers, and musicians generally are referred to as artists, but many do not originate the work they perform; rather, they interpret the work of originating artists. Past models of the creative process were based on originating artists. The purpose of this study was to explore the creative process of interpretive artists, specifically actors. To further characterize the creative process of actors, this study additionally investigated (a) the social influences that undermined or enhanced an actor's creativity, (b) the tension that occurs between an actor's personal and character identities, and (c) the need for spontaneity in the creative process of actors. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 3 actors. Content analysis revealed three stages of the creative process for actors: a general preparation period, rehearsal, and performance. This model was compared with a previous model of the creative process based on originating artists. Social influences seen as enhancing creativity were clear direction, trust, freedom, respect, challenge, collaboration, and unity with the audience. Undermining social influences included reward, poor direction, evaluation, distrust, peers who stopped listening, and feeling interchangeable. The tension between an actor's personal and character identities was characterized by catharsis and difficulty in delineating boundaries. The need for spontaneity was seen as crucial in the actor's creative process. It is suggested that the actor's creative process is more improvisational, characterized by process and product co-occurring, real-time social influences, tension between personal and performing identities, and the need for spontaneity.     

I don’t care about others’ approval: Dysphoric individuals show reduced effort mobilization for obtaining a social reward

Past research on reduced reward responsiveness in depression and dysphoria has mainly focused on monetary rewards. However, social rewards are important motivators and might be especially impaired in depression. The present study tested the hypothesis that nondysphoric individuals would mobilize more effort during a memory task without a clear performance standard when anticipating social approval for good performance. In contrast, dysphoric individuals were expected to be less sensitive to this reward and to mobilize less effort. Effort mobilization in this 2 (dysphoric vs. nondysphoric) × 2 (no reward vs. social approval) between-persons study was operationalized by participants’ cardiovascular reactivity. Results confirmed that nondysphorics had higher reactivity of systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, and heart rate when expecting to enter their name in the alleged “best list”, whereas dysphorics had lower cardiovascular reactivity. The present study expands evidence for reduced reward responsiveness in depression and dysphoria from an effort mobilization perspective by demonstrating reduced effort-related cardiovascular reactivity to social rewards.     

A cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis of reward-related brain activation: Effects of age,pubertal stage,and reward sensitivity

Neurobiological models suggest that adolescents are driven by an overactive ventral striatum (VS) response to rewards that may lead to an adolescent increase in risk-taking behavior. However, empirical studies showed mixed findings of adolescents’ brain response to rewards. In this study, we aimed to elucidate the relationship between reward-related brain activation and risky decision-making. In addition, we examined effects of age, puberty, and individuals’ reward sensitivity. We collected two datasets: Experiment 1 reports cross-sectional brain data from 75 participants (ages 10–25) who played a risky decision task. Experiment 2 presents a longitudinal extension in which a subset of these adolescents (n = 33) was measured again 2 years later. Results showed that (1) a reward-related network including VS and medial PFC was consistently activated over time, (2) the propensity to choose the risky option was related to increased reward-related activation in VS and medial PFC, and (3) longitudinal comparisons indicated that self-reported reward sensitivity was specifically related to VS activation over time. Together, these results advance our insights in the brain circuitry underlying reward processing across adolescence.     

Integrating rewards and cognition in the frontal cortex

Research indicates that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) contributes to working memory and executive control, whereas the ventral frontal cortex (VFC) contributes to affective and motivational processing. Few studies have examined both the functional specificity and the integration of these regions. We did so using fMRI and a verbal working memory task in which visual cues indicated whether recall performance on an upcoming trial would be linked to a monetary reward. On the basis of prior findings obtained in delayed response tasks performed by nonhuman primates, we hypothesized that (1) VFC would show an increase only in response to a cue indicating potential for a monetary reward; (2) DLPFC would show sustained activity across a delay interval for all trials, though activity in rewarded trials would be enhanced; and (3) regions engaged in speech-based rehearsal would be relatively insensitive to monetary incentive. Our hypotheses about DLPFC and rehearsal-related regions were confirmed. In VFC regions, we failed to observe statistically significant effects of reward when the cue or delay epochs of the task were examined in isolation. However, an unexpected and significant deactivation was observed in VFC during the delay epoch; furthermore, a post hoc voxelwise analysis indicated a complex interaction between (1) the cue and delay epochs of the task and (2) the reward value of the trials. The pattern of activation and deactivation across trial types suggests that VFC is sensitive to reward cues, and that portions of DLPFC and VFC may work in opposition during the delay epoch of a working memory task in order to facilitate task performance.     

Narcissism and Cardiovascular Reactivity to Rejection Imagery1

This study examined the interactive effects of imagined rejection and narcissism on cardiovascular reactivity (CVR). Participants completed measures of overt narcissism (Narcissistic Personality Inventory, NPI; Raskin & Hall, 1979 ), overt–covert narcissism ( Margolis & Thomas, 1980 ), and trait self‐esteem. They then imagined 2 scenarios culminating in either interpersonal acceptance or rejection. Systolic (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and heart rate (HR) were assessed before, during, and after the imagery. Overt–covert narcissism was positively associated with task increases in SBP and DBP and recovery elevation of HR following rejection, but not acceptance. Similar effects on SBP were found for the Entitlement/Exploitativeness dimension of the NPI. Lower self‐esteem predicted greater task increases in SBP, DBP, and HR across conditions. Implications for health are discussed.     

Differential effects of social and non‐social reward on response inhibition in children and adolescents

An important issue in the field of clinical and developmental psychopathology is whether cognitive control processes, such as response inhibition, can be specifically enhanced by motivation. To determine whether non‐social (i.e. monetary) and social (i.e. positive facial expressions) rewards are able to differentially improve response inhibition accuracy in typically developing children and adolescents, an ‘incentive’ go/no‐go task was applied with reward contingencies for successful inhibition. In addition, the impact of children's personality traits (such as reward seeking and empathy) on monetary and social reward responsiveness was assessed in 65 boys, ages 8 to 12 years. All subjects were tested twice: At baseline, inhibitory control was assessed without reward, and then subjects were pseudorandomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions, including (1) social reward only, (2) monetary reward only, (3) mixed social and monetary reward, or (4) a retest condition without reward. Both social and non‐social reward significantly improved task performance, although larger effects were observed for monetary reward. The higher the children scored on reward seeking scales, the larger was their improvement in response inhibition, but only if monetary reward was used. In addition, there was a tendency for an association between empathic skills and benefits from social reward. These data suggest that social incentives do not have an equally strong reinforcing value as compared to financial incentives. However, different personality traits seem to determine to what extent a child profits from different types of reward. Clinical implications regarding probable hyposensitivity to social reward in subjects with autism and dysregulated reward‐seeking behaviour in children with attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are discussed.     

Schizotypy and creativity in visual artists

‘Every work of art is an uncommitted crime ’ Adorno (1951) . Cited in Julius (2002) . Given the putative relationship between creativity and schizotypy/psychoticism, the current study set out to investigate differences in scores on a range of personality and creativity measures between visual artists and non‐artists. Results found that the visual artists group scored higher on measures of positive‐schizotypy, disorganized‐schizotypy, asocial‐schizotypy, neuroticism, openness and divergent thinking (uniqueness) than did the non‐artist group and lower on agreeableness. These findings lend support to other studies reporting higher schizotypy scores in artistic and creative cohorts, although provide some of the first evidence of higher unusual experiences and impulsive nonconformity scores on the Oxford‐Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences (O‐LIFE) in visual artists. The relationship between creativity and schizotypy is discussed in terms of unusual ideas and a propensity to endorse socially undesirable responses.     

Reactions to acceptance and rejection: Effects of level and sequence of relational evaluation

Two experiments examined the effects of various levels and sequences of acceptance and rejection on emotion, ratings of self and others, and behavior. In Experiment 1, participants who differed in agreeableness received one of five levels of acceptance or rejection feedback, believing that they either would or would not interact with the person who accepted or rejected them. In Experiment 2, participants who differed in rejection sensitivity received one of four patterns of feedback over time, reflecting constant acceptance, increasing acceptance, increasing rejection, or constant rejection. In both studies, rejection elicited greater anger, sadness, and hurt feelings than acceptance, as well as an increased tendency to aggress toward the rejector. In general, more extreme rejection did not lead to stronger reactions than mild rejection, but increasing rejection evoked more negative reactions than constant rejection. Agreeableness and rejection-sensitivity scores predicted participants’ responses but did not moderate the effects of interpersonal acceptance and rejection.     

Schizotypy and mental health amongst poets, visual artists, and mathematicians

Many researchers have found evidence of an association between creativity and the predisposition to mental illness. However, a number of questions remain unanswered. First, it is not clear whether healthy creatives have a milder loading on schizotypal traits than people who suffer serious psychopathology, or whether they have an equal loading, but other mediating characteristics. Second, most of the existing research has concentrated on artistic creativity, and the position of other creative domains is not yet clear. The present study compares schizotypy profiles using the O-LIFE inventory in a large sample of poets, artists, mathematicians, the general population, and psychiatric patients. Poets and artists have levels of unusual experiences that are higher than controls, and as high as schizophrenia patients. However, they are relatively low on the dimension of introvertive anhedonia. Mathematicians are lower than controls on unusual experiences. The results suggest that artistic creatives and psychiatric patients share a tendency to unusual ideas and experiences, but creative groups are distinguished by the absence of anhedonia and avolition. Moreover, different domains of creativity require different cognitive profiles, with poetry and art associated with divergent thinking, schizophrenia and affective disorder, and mathematics associated with convergent thinking and autism.     

Monetary reward increases attentional effort in the flanker task

An important question is whether monetary reward can increase attentional effort in order to improve performance. Up to now, evidence for a positive answer is weak. Therefore, in the present study, the flanker task was used to examine this question further. Participants had to respond sooner than a certain deadline in a flanker task. One group of participants received a performance-contingent monetary reward, whereas the other group earned a fixed amount of money. As a result, monetary reward significantly improved performance in comparison with the control group. The analysis of speed-accuracy trade-off functions revealed that monetary reward increased attentional effort, leading to an enhanced quality of stimulus coding. Little evidence was found that reward also improved selective spatial attention.     

Aging Artists on the Creativity of Their Old Age

Eighty-eight graphic artists in their 60s, 70s, and 80s, nominated as creative by 154 prominent artists, completed an open-ended questionnaire about aging and its effect on their work. Four questions referred to changes in creativity in terms of the quality and quantity of work, sources of new ideas (originality), and approaches to art (style). The artists also were asked about the impact of physical and sensory losses on their work, and on their differences from younger artists. The artists also rated the quality and quantity of their past, present, and anticipated work. A content analysis of the artists' written comments to the 6 questions, and the ratings, gave a highly positive picture of aging's influence on art. Quality and quantity were reported as improving with age, as were the artists' ideas about, and approaches to, art. The presumed handicaps of aging largely were irrelevant or overcome. Few differences were reported with younger artists. Positive views of aging held equally for both men and women, and across the 3 age groups. The optimistic portrait of aging reflected by this sample of visual artists is discussed in terms of its relevance to other kinds of artists and nonartists; the consequences of early retirement; and the place of active older persons, especially artists, in studies of cognitive development.     

The amygdalostriatal and corticostriatal effective connectivity in anticipation and evaluation of facial attractiveness

Decision-making consists of several stages of information processing, including an anticipation stage and an outcome evaluation stage. Previous studies showed that the ventral striatum (VS) is pivotal to both stages, bridging motivation and action, and it works in concert with the ventral medial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and the amygdala. However, evidence concerning how the VS works together with the vmPFC and the amygdala came mainly from neuropathology and animal studies; little is known about the dynamics of this network in the functioning human brain. Here we used fMRI combined with dynamic causal modeling (DCM) to investigate the information flow along amygdalostriatal and corticostriatal pathways in a facial attractiveness guessing task. Specifically, we asked participants to guess whether a blurred photo of female face was attractive and to wait for a few seconds (“anticipation stage”) until an unblurred photo of feedback face, which was either attractive or unattractive, was presented (“outcome evaluation stage”). At the anticipation stage, the bilateral amygdala and VS showed higher activation for the “attractive” than for the “unattractive” guess. At the outcome evaluation stage, the vmPFC and the bilateral VS were more activated by feedback faces whose attractiveness was congruent with the initial guess than by incongruent faces; however, this effect was only significant for attractive faces, not for unattractive ones. DCM showed that at the anticipation stage, the choice-related information entered the amygdalostriatal pathway through the amygdala and was projected to the VS. At the evaluation stage, the outcome-related information entered the corticostriatal pathway through the vmPFC. Bidirectional connectivities existed between the vmPFC and VS, with the VS-to-vmPFC connectivity weakened by unattractive faces. These findings advanced our understanding of the reward circuitry by demonstrating the pattern of information flow along the amygdalostriatal and corticostriatal pathways at different stages of decision-making.     

Social influences on creativity: the effects of contracted-for reward

Three studies were conducted to examine the effects of reward on children's and adult's creativity. The primary hypothesis was that explicitly contracting to do an activity in order to receive a reward will have negative effects on creativity, but receiving no reward or only a noncontracted-for reward will have no such negative effects. All three studies provided support for this hypothesis. Moreover, this support appears to be strong and generalizable across different subject populations, reward types, reward presentations, and creativity tasks. Possible mechanisms for the phenomenon are discussed.     

Temporal discounting of monetary rewards in children and adolescents with ADHD and autism spectrum disorders

It has been difficult to differentiate attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in terms of some aspects of their cognitive profile. While both show deficits in executive functions, it has been suggested that they may differ in their response to monetary reward. For instance, children with ADHD prefer small immediate over large delayed rewards more than typically developing controls. One explanation for this is that they discount the value of rewards to a higher degree as they are moved into the future. The current study investigated whether children with ADHD can be differentiated from those with ASD in terms of reward discounting. Thirty‐nine children (8–16 y) with ADHD, 34 children with ASD and 46 typically developing controls performed a hypothetical monetary temporal discounting task. Participants were instructed to make repeated choices between small variable rewards (0, 5, 10, 20, 30€) delivered immediately and large rewards delivered after a variable delay. Children with ADHD but not ASD discounted future rewards at a higher rate than typically developing controls. These data confirm steeper discounting of future rewards in ADHD and add to a small but growing literature showing that the psychological profile of ADHD can be distinguished from that of ASD in terms of disrupted motivational processes.     

Psychoanalytic approaches to artistic creativity.

Study of data and findings from clinical and applied psychoanalysis suggests a number of common factors encountered with uncommon frequency and intensity in creativity. In this paper, early childhood experiences, sensorial perceptions, body feelings, loneliness, reactions to loss, and body imagery of several artists are discussed. Problems relating to body image in creativeness are explored.