The interactive effects of extraversion and arousal on performance: Are creativity tests anomalous?

Existing research on extraversion and creativity test performance raises several problems. Reported linear associations between extraversion and creativity are inconsistent with each other. Interactive effects of extraversion and stressors on creativity are inconsistent with data obtained using other tasks. Given these anomalous interactions, it is possible that arousal theory assumptions are invalid for creativity tests. The research reported here aimed to provide further data on the relationship between personality and creativity, and to test assumptions made by arousal theory in explaining interactive effects of extraversion and arousal on performance. Two experiments on the effects of 16PF extraversion and trait anxiety, noise and arousal (measured by questionnaire) on a creativity index are reported. In general, extraversion and anxiety interacted as predicted by arousal theory. However in both experiments extraversion was independent of arousal, and data from the second experiment suggested that there was no marked linear or curvilinear relationship between creativity test performance and arousal.     

The role of attribution in the experience of crowding

The theory that the subjective experience of crowding results from an attribution of arousal process was examined. Specifically, it was predicted that subjects who were aroused by having their personal space violated would experience less crowding if they were led to believe that some other environmental factor was responsible for the arousal. Groups of subjects were placed in a room in which their personal space was either violated or not violated. Some subjects were told that either an arousing or a relaxing subliminal noise would be played into the room. (Actually there was no noise.) Other subjects were told nothing about subliminal noise. The subjects worked on a number of tasks and were then asked to report how crowded they felt. The noise manipulation had no effect on subjects' performance nor on feelings of crowdedness when their personal space was not being violated. However, when there was a violation of personal space, subjects who felt the noise would arouse them reported being less crowded and performed better than subjects in the relaxing noise or no explanation conditions. It was suggested that subjects attributed their arousal to the “arousing noise” and hence felt less crowded.     

The Psychosexual Identification of Preschool Boys

It was hypothesized that increases in level of arousal should lead to improvement in the performance of intellectual tasks and to decrements in the performance of creative tasks because of the effect of drive level on range of cue utilization and availability of remote associates. Subjects were given the Remote Associates Test (RAT) and a version of the WAIS Similarities subtest under low arousal (relaxed), medium arousal (stress), and high arousal (white noise) conditions. Trends were as predicted, but reached acceptable levels of significance only for the effects of high arousal on creative performance. Evidence for the validity of the RAT was provided by the finding that RAT and intellectual performance are affected in opposite ways by the same experimental manipulations. It is suggested that flexibility in changing level of arousal may be a determinant of both creativity and intelligence and that this common trait may explain the tendency of tests of the the two to correlate.     

The effect of background music and noise on the cognitive test performance of introverts and extraverts

Previous research has found that the performance of introverts on complex cognitive tasks is more negatively affected by distracters, e.g. music and background noise, than the performance of extraverts. The present study extends previous research by examining whether or not background noise would prove to be as distracting as music. In the presence of silence, background UK garage music and background noise, 118 female secondary school students carried out three cognitive tests. It was predicted that introverts would do less well on all of the tasks than extraverts in the presence of music and noise but in silence performance would be the same. A significant interaction was found on all three of the tasks. It was also predicted that there would be a main effect of background sound: Performance would be worse in the presence of music and noise than silence. Results confirmed this prediction with one exception. This study also found a positive correlation between extraversion and intelligence, the implications of which are also discussed. The findings support the Eysenckian hypothesis of the difference in optimum cortical arousal in introverts and extraverts. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Facilitation of retention by white noise.

Second and fifth grade subjects were given three verbal tasks: serial, free recall, or paired-associate learning. Retention tests were administered immediately after the acquisition phase or following a long delay. Half the subjects were exposed to a 2-min period of bursts of white noise (arousal) immediately prior to the retention test. The finding of primary interest was that white noise produced substantial improvement in performance relative to a control condition. This effect may be more pronounced for long-term memory than for short-term memory. Although older children exhibited better long-term memory than younger subjects, no interaction of age with arousal condition was observed.     

Where is the “D” in dissonance?1

The experiment tested the hypothesis that cognitive dissonance has a general drive arousal component which facilitates performance on simple cognitive tasks and impairs performance on complex cognitive tasks After writing a consonant or a dissonant essay dealing with proposed changes in university parking regulations, subjects were given either a simple or a complex task (rote memory or creativity). To maximize dissonance, free choice regarding participation was deliberately emphasized, resulting in a high proportion of subjects who refused to comply with the request Data from refusers were retained and compared with data obtained from compliers Appropriate control groups were employed in order to ascertain whether the results were attributable to the process of self-selection among complier and refuser subjects The dissonance manipulation was successful subjects who wrote dissonant essays subsequently displayed more favorable attitudes toward the parking proposal Their performance on complex cognitive tasks was not unpaired, however, nor did they perform better on simple cognitive tasks than did subjects who experienced no dissonance Subjects who refused to write dissonant essays did better on the complex task than subjects who complied in either the consonant or dissonant conditions Data from the control groups indicated that refusers did not differ from compliers in their initial attitudes toward the proposal nor in their ability to perform the complex cognitive task The results seem to be due to the facilitating effects of refusing to comply with the dissonance instructions, and suggest that the practice of eliminating subjects who refuse to comply may result in the loss of some highly informative data     

Impulsivity, caffeine, and proofreading: a test of the Easterbrook hypothesis

Easterbrook's (1959) suggestion that arousal is inversely related to the range of cue utilization has been frequently cited as an explanation for the curvilinear relationship between arousal and performance. There is very little empirical support for this position, however. As a test of the Easterbrook hypothesis, 60 undergraduates who varied in their impulsivity level were given caffeine or placebo and then asked to proofread several passages. Estimates of sensitivity were calculated using signal detection techniques. It was predicted that high arousal would reduce sensitivity to interword errors, which require a broad range of cue utilization, but that the observed levels of arousal would not affect sensitivity to intraword errors, which require a minimal range of cue utilization. A significant crossover interaction between impulsivity and drug for interword errors indicated that caffeine increased the error detection rate of the (less aroused) more impulsive subjects but lowered the error detection rate of the (more aroused) less impulsive subjects. The results of this study support the suggestion that arousal has direct effects on the capacity for simultaneous information processing, independent of its effects on performance speed.     

Creativity: A complementary relationship between information demand and success at problem solving

Creativity, intelligence, and problem-solving tasks that varied the explicitness of problem definition and the format for an acceptable solution were administered to 100 subjects. Creativity and intelligence tasks were described as different problem-solving tasks. Two hypotheses that distinguished between concepts of creative and intelligent problem solving were presented and supported. First, the syntactical hypothesis stated that the format of an acceptable solution would define the factor structure of the problem-solving tasks more parsimoniously than the explicitness of the problem definition. The factor structure was interpreted by the type of acceptable solution format. Second, the strategic hypothesis stated that information demanded to define a problem and success at problem solving would interact. Information demanded and success at problem solving did interact producing a complementary relationship with dimensions of creativity but not intelligence. Thus, syntactical and strategic distinctions between creativity and intelligence were obtained.     

The Effects of Task-Specific Divergent-Thinking Training

Although there is a growing body of evidence indicating that divergent-thinking skills may be very task specific, there has been no research testing how narrowly divergent-thinking training can be targeted. Seventy-nine seventh-grade students received training in poetry-relevant divergent-thinking skills. These subjects and a matched control group later wrote poems and stories, the creativity of which was judged by experts. There was a significantly greater impact on poetry-writing creativity. Implications for creativity theory and training programs are discussed. Numerous research reports (Baer, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994a, 1994b, in press-a; Runco, 1987, 1989) have shown that the skills underlying creative performance may be quite task specific, and this suggests possible limitations on the potential benefits of divergent-thinking training. One response to this task-specific understanding of divergent thinking has been to design divergent-thinking training programs that include practice in a wide range of task-specific divergent-thinking skills. This approach has been shown to have a general effect of enhancing creativity in diverse domains (Baer, 1988, 1992, 1993). An alternate approach would be to target training to specific kinds of creativity; however, there has been no research investigating just how narrowly such divergent-thinking training can be targeted. The present investigation was designed to test what effect divergent-thinking training focusing on a single task would have on creative performance on that task and on a different, but closely related, task. The larger goals were (a) to help creativity researchers better understand the nature of divergent thinking as it impacts creative performance and (b) to be of practical value in helping educators design training programs better suited to specific training objectives. Seventh-grade students were trained in divergent- thinking skills hypothesized to be related to poetry — writing creativity. Following this training, trained subjects and a matched sample of untrained subjects wrote both poems and stories in their regular English classes. Poems and stories were judged for creativity by experts who did not know the subjects. It was predicted that training in poetry-relevant divergent thinking would result in a greater increase in creativity on a poetry-writing task than on a story-writing task.     

Effects of noise, activation level, and response dominance on retrieval from semantic memory.

Subjects low or high in activation, as measured by Thayer's Activation-Deactivation Adjective Check List, participated in two semantic memory tasks, one involving speed of recall and the other speed of recognition. White noise at 80 db. re 20 muN/m-2 was presented on half the trials. There was an interaction between noise and activation under the recall condition only. High activation facilitated recall performance with high dominance items, but had a detrimental effect with low dominance items. The differential effect of arousal on recall and recognition was interpreted as indicating that arousal affected the retrieval component of recall. The findings with the dominance variable were interpreted in light of D.E. Broadbent's hypothesis that high arousal enhances the probability of sampling information from dominant sources.     

愤怒情绪对不同类型恶意创造力表现的影响

个体的恶意创造力主要体现在伤害、欺骗与捉弄他人三方面。本研究旨在考察愤怒情绪对上述三类恶意创造力表现的影响及作用路径。研究设计了愤怒、恐惧和中性三种情绪诱发条件（后两者分别作为愤怒情绪的消极和中性情绪对照）,以考察不同情绪状态下个体在三类恶意创造力表现上的差异。结果发现,对于伤害和欺骗他人,愤怒情绪诱发组在观点流畅性、新颖性和伤害性上均高于中性情绪诱发组;而对于捉弄他人,愤怒情绪诱发组仅在观点流畅性和新颖性上高于中性情绪诱发组。内隐攻击性中介了愤怒情绪对三类恶意创造力表现的影响,而情绪唤醒度仅中介了愤怒情绪对伤害他人恶意创造力表现的影响。上述结果表明,内隐攻击性是愤怒情绪促进不同类型恶意创造力的通用路径,而情绪唤醒度是愤怒情绪促进伤害他人恶意创造力的特异路径。     

Arousal and the Bakan vigilance task: The effects of noise intensity and the presence of others

The joint effects of social setting and loud noise on task performance are examined. In a modified version of the Bakan vigilance task subjects were required to detect a sequence of two identical even digits and to report the two digits preceding the signal. Two types of acoustic environment were compared: loud noise at 90 dBC and quiet noise at 60 dBC. Two types of social setting were employed: “pair” where two subjects worked in the same room on similar tasks, and “single” where a subject performed the task alone. The effects of noise and the presence of another did not interact. Loud noise increased the speed of responses to signals early in the task. This effect is attributed to noise-induced arousal. There was a higher incidence of recall errors in pre-signal digits when subjects were in pairs. This effect is attributed to distraction. This research was part of a series of studies sponsored by the Social Science Research Council (Grant HR 5563 awarded to Dr. A.J. Chapman and Dr. D.M. Jones).     

Creative People Create Values: Creativity and Positive Arousal in Negotiations

Most negotiations are ill-structured situations, and the ability to identify novel options is likely to be crucial for success. This study, therefore, examined how creativity impacts negotiation processes and outcomes, and how this effect is moderated by positive arousal. The negotiators’ creative personality and their state of positive arousal were measured before they participated in a simulated negotiation, with the results demonstrating that the level of creativity in negotiation dyads was positively related to the negotiators’ joint outcome. Negotiators in high creativity dyads searched for more information by asking questions about priorities and were less narrowly focused by providing fewer single-issue offers than negotiators in low creativity dyads. Positive arousal did not affect outcome directly, but moderated the effect of creativity on joint outcomes; the effect of creativity was strongest under high levels of positive arousal. The discussion section emphasizes that future research may find creativity to have even more of a positive effect when negotiations become more complex.     

预期交流与创造力的关系:解释水平的调节作用

该研究探讨了预期交流对创造力的影响, 以及解释水平在其中的调节作用。实验1采用结构性想象任务探讨预期交流是否影响创造力。结果表明, 相较于没有预期交流, 预期交流条件下的个体表现出更高的创造力。实验2采取了创意产生任务, 并探讨了解释水平在其中的调节作用。结果表明, 当完成抽象的、高解释水平任务时, 相较于无预期交流, 预期交流条件下个体在新奇性和变通性两个维度上表现出了更高的创造力; 当完成具体的、低解释水平任务时, 预期交流的效应不复存在。也就是说, 只有当创造力任务要求高解释水平的抽象思维时, 预期交流才能促进创造力的发挥。总结而言, 本研究在过往对于交流与创造力以及解释水平与创造力的研究基础上进一步发现, 对于抽象创造力任务, 虽然真正的信息交流尚未发生, 但仅仅对于交流的预期就会提高创造力水平。     

Effect of arousal on internal clock speed in real action and mental imagery.

The possible implication of an internal clock as a mechanism accounting for the temporal homology between actual and mental walking is studied. To observe this phenomenon, stressful sound stimuli were used to increase arousal, which is known to activate the internal clock. Seventeen participants performed three tasks: (1) a time production task, used as a reference task reflecting the internal clock speed; (2) an actual walking task; and (3) a mental walking task, all three in two sound conditions (no noise and noise). The results showed a significant effect of arousal on time in each task. The effect of noise, increasing the arousal level, was greater in time production and mental imagery tasks than in real action. In addition, the percentages of change between the two sound conditions for actual and mental walking time were not statistically different. These findings are further evidence of the existence of a timing process common to actual and mental walking. The data are consistent with the implication of an internal clock in both actual and mental walking.     

绩效薪酬对雇员创造力的影响:人-工作匹配和创造力自我效能的作用

采用296对上下级匹配数据考察了绩效薪酬对创造力的影响以及人-工作匹配的调节效应和创造力自我效能的中介效应。研究结果表明:绩效薪酬对创造力有倒U形影响;创造力自我效能部分中介了绩效薪酬对创造力的倒U形影响;人-工作匹配调节绩效薪酬与创造力的关系,人-工作匹配度越高,中等强度绩效薪酬的正面效应越强,高强度绩效薪酬的负面效应越弱;绩效薪酬与人-工作匹配的交互效应通过创造力自我效能的完全中介效应影响创造力。     

Physiological response and task performance in like- and cross-sex competition

The relationship between a subject's sex and his or her behavior in a competitive situation was examined. Male and female subjects completed three tasks, first by themselves and then against either a male or female competitor. A 2×2 design (sex of the subject × sex of the competitor) was thereby created. The dependent measures were the subject's performance and his or her heart rate during each task. Since the relationship between a subject's sex and competitive behavior was expected to be situationally specific, three different kinds of tasks were used: anagram, perceptual-motor, and arithmetical. Results were not consistent with predictions based on Horner's fear of success model (1968). Competition with either sex was found to increase performance level in both sexes on all three tasks. The only sex-related effect found to be consistent across tasks was that both male and female subjects had a greater increase in heart rate when competing against a male than when competing against a female. This heart rate increase was interpreted as an indicator of increased anxiety or arousal.This research was supported by a University of Pittsburgh, Faculty of Arts and Sciences research grant to the second author. The assistance of H. DeGood, L. Paul, and T. Rusiewicz in collection of the data presented here is gratefully acknowledged.     

Arousal interventions for athletic performance: Influence of mental preparation and competitive experience

Abstract

Mental preparation, or “psych-up” strategies have been assumed to promote physical arousal which subsequently improves certain athletic performances. The present experiment examined the role of arousal changes in the use of psych-up strategies on a physical strength task and a reaction time-decision task for subjects varying in competitive experience. Eighty-four subjects were reliably divided into high, moderate, or low competitive experience groups and randomly assigned to one of three mental preparation strategies. These strageies, which the subjects employed during a mental preparation period for both tasks, were either: (a) a self-generated arousal strategy, (b) a prescribed arousal strategy, or (c) a placebo-control strategy. While heart rate was being monitored, each subject completed a baseline trial, then one trial following a 45 sec mental preparation period and one trial following a 45 sec distraction interval. Order of presentation of tasks and order of presentation of distraction and mental preparation trials were counterbalanced and statistically analyzed. The results support the utility of different mental preparation strategies for increasing strength performance, but not reaction time-decision performance, for subjects with moderate and high levels of previous competitive experience. Self-generated arousal strategies enhanced performance of moderate experienced subjects. Analyses of the heart rate data failed to support the assumption that physiological arousal mediates the influence of psych-up strategies. Mental preparation strategies improved athletes' performance on certain tasks, however these strategies do not necessarily achieve their effects through increased autonomic arousal.     

Deductive reasoning and creativity: a cross-cultural study

The present cross-cultural study examined the relationship between deductive reasoning and creativity among college students (M age=20.4 yr., SD= .6) from Hong Kong (n=39) and the United States (n=38). Participants performed tasks designed to measure deductive reasoning, creative writing, and insight problem-solving, all in verbal form. No correlation was found between the performance for deductive reasoning and creativity as measured by creative writing. Insight problem-solving performance correlated significantly with that for both reasoning and creativity. Significant cultural differences favoring the American participants were only found on the creative writing and insight problem-solving tasks, both of which supposedly involve creative thinking. There seems to be cultural dependence for creativity but not for deductive reasoning which suggests a qualification of a strong cultural-relevance view positing pervasive cultural influences on human thinking processes.     

Focus of attention and placebo utility

The effects of focus of attention and expected drug effects on reactions to a placebo were examined in two experiments. In the first experiment self-aware and non-self-aware subjects were given a placebo that was said to be either performance-facilitating or inhibiting and then they worked on a set of arithmetic problems. It was expected that the non-self-aware subjects, but not the self-aware subjects, would display a self-serving bias in their attributions regarding the effects of the placebo. Specifically, it was predicted that non-self-aware subjects would attribute more arousal to the performance-inhibiting drug than the performance-facilitating drug since such attributions would be more psychologically beneficial or “useful” in the sense that they would make actual performance on the task look more impressive. Consistent with these predictions, there was evidence of a self-serving bias in drug reactions only among the non-self-focused subjects. Those who were made self-aware did not respond differentially to the two types of drug information. Instead, they appeared to respond in line with their actual (aroused) internal states by attributing some arousal to both drugs. In the second experiment arousal was reduced by eliminating the task, and this time self-focused subjects again appeared to be more aware of their actual internal states, as they reported less reaction to the placebo, regardless of the effects ascribed to it. Two conclusions are drawn from these results: (a) perceived drug utility does effect placebo responsiveness, and (b) self-focused attention increases awareness of internal states, but not necessarily the causes of those states.