Dual brain,creativity, and health

Abstract

The importance of the specialized functions of the right and left hemispheres is reviewed, with applications to education, treatment, creativity, and research duly noted. Experimental studies serve as indications of how alexithymia and creativity of the so‐called dual brain has been examined. Patients with com‐missurotomies, patients in psychotherapy, priests, creative subjects, and normal controls have been compared through a variety of experimental methods in terms of hemispheric specialization. The results indicate that creative and healthy subjects tend to have freer access to mutual interaction of both hemispheres without marked inhibitory or disinhibitory effects from either cerebral hemisphere.     

Age,Emotion Regulation Strategies,Temperament, Creative Drama,and Preschoolers' Creativity

Based on Yeh's (2004) Ecological Systems Model of Creativity Development, this study investigated the effects that age, the use of emotion regulation strategies, temperament, and exposure to creative drama instruction have on the development of creativity among preschool children. Participants were 1164‐ to 6‐year‐old preschool children. This study categorized the emotion regulation strategies used by preschool children and developed a creativity test which includes the measurement of usefulness, an indicator of creativity that has, until now, been ignored. The main findings are that (a) 6‐year‐olds outperform 4‐ and 5‐year‐olds in terms of creativity; (b) emotion regulation strategies as well as a positive temperament have positive effects on children's creativity; (c) creative drama instruction contributes to children's creativity; and (d) age group, emotion regulation strategies, temperament, and creative drama instruction can collectively predict children's creativity.     

Creative Activity,Personality, Mental Illness,and Short‐Term Mating Success

It has been argued that creativity evolved, at least in part, through sexual selection to attract mates. Recent research lends support to this view and has also demonstrated a link between certain dimensions of schizotypy, creativity, and short‐term mating. The current study delves deeper into these relationships by focusing on engagement in creative activity and employing an expansive set of personality and mental health measures (Five Factor Model, schizotypy, anxiety, and depression). A general tendency to engage in everyday forms of creative activity was related to number of sexual partners within the past year in males only. Furthermore, schizotypy, anxiety, and Neuroticism were all indirectly related to short‐term mating success, again for males only. The study provides additional support for predictions made by sexual selection theory that men have a higher drive for creative display, and that creativity is linked with higher short‐term mating success. The study also provides support for the contention that certain forms of mental illness may still exist in the gene pool because particular personality traits associated with milder forms of mental illness (i.e., Neuroticism & schizotypy) are also associated directly with creativity and indirectly with short‐term mating success.     

Probing Linear and Nonlinear Relations Among Schizotypy,Hypomania, Cognitive Inhibition,and Creativity

This study explored the relationship between schizotypy, hypomania, and indicators of creativity in 152 adult undergraduate students. We were interested in exploring a possible inverted U-shaped relationship between mental illness and creativity where moderate (vs. high or low) amounts of pathology are associated with facilitating creative responses. An indicator of cognitive inhibition derived from Stroop mismatch reaction times was also evaluated as a potential moderating factor between symptomatology and levels of creativity. College students (n = 152) were recruited from an introductory psychology class and completed a series of questionnaires (Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire-BR; Hypomania Checklist-32; Creative Achievement Questionnaire) and experimental tasks (color Stroop task; Wallach-Kogan Creativity Test) with a research assistant in a controlled environment. Polynomial regression results suggested that creative accomplishments were predicted by levels of disorganized schizotypy, but negatively associated with levels of interpersonal schizotypy. Scores on two divergent thinking indices were predicted by levels of disorganized schizotypy, yet surprisingly negatively associated with scores of hypomania. Although the relationship between disorganized symptoms and creative processes was not anticipated, these results may reflect certain nonconforming characteristics (e.g., tendency to wander off the topic in conversations) associated with this symptom domain. Although there was no definitive evidence supporting an inverted-U relationship between symptom severity and creativity within our sample, several linear relationships emerged suggesting that cognitive inhibition acted as a moderator variable for originality in those with higher levels of interpersonal schizotypy. Limitations and recommendations for future research are discussed.     

Political pathology and societal creativity

Abstract

Complementing the hypothesized intimate relation between creativity and psycho‐pathology at the individual level are conjectures concerning the relation between creativity and pathology at the sociocultural level. This article reviews the empirical literature on the subject, with special focus on how societal creativity is affected by international war, external threat, political instability, and civil disturbances. Such events and circumstances are shown to affect both the quantity of creative activity and the form that any creativity takes. Although some of these effects are short‐term and transient, other influences operate after some delay and tend to be more lasting. There follows a discussion of what these results imply about how creativity at the individual level is shaped by the social context in which creative development and thought take place.     

Team Mental Models,Team Goal Orientations,and Information Elaboration,Predicting Team Creative Performance

This study aimed to enhance understanding of team creativity by investigating the type of team mental models that team members develop during their work on a creative problem solving task. We hypothesized that teams that develop dissimilar team mental models, compared to similar and complementary team mental models, will achieve a higher information elaboration. This effect will be moderated by the development of a high learning-performance team goal orientation. Information elaboration in turn was hypothesized to predict team creative performance. In a 3 (similar/dissimilar/complementary team mental models) × 3 (learning/performance/learning-performance goal orientation) experimental study on a sample of 33 teams (N = 98) we found that teams that developed more dissimilar team mental models and experienced a learning-performance goal orientation intervention engaged in more information elaboration. Information elaboration, in turn, mediated the relationship between the interaction between team mental models and team goal orientations and team creative performance. Implications for research on team mental models and team creativity are discussed.     

Career assessment and creativity: potential complementarity or a contradiction in terms?

ABSTRACT

In this research we investigated whether creativity and career assessment are a contradiction in terms or whether, through creative thinking, their potential complementarity in career guidance and counselling can be realised. The research demonstrates the creative application of the systemic Integrative Structured Interview (ISI) for the Self-Directed Search (SDS) with a South African female mid-life career changer. Results indicated that the ISI positions clients as storytellers who create rich systemic stories about their quantitative SDS scores. The constructs of story telling are evident throughout an interview about quantitative scores; the scores become unifying themes across the stories. In sum, the ISI can assist mid-life career changers to make meaning of their career transition; and by embedding career assessment in a systemic story telling process creativity is evidenced as a multilayered process.     

When paying attention pays off: the mindfulness skill act with awareness promotes creative idea generation in groups

ABSTRACT

Past work has linked mindfulness to improved individual-level creativity, but remained silent about group-level creativity. Of all mindfulness skills, the ability to observe and attend to various stimuli (Observation) is the most powerful predictor of individual-level creativity. Studies examining effects of specific mindfulness skills on factors pertinent to group creativity suggest that for group-level creativity, the ability to focus attention with full awareness (Act with awareness), may be equally, or even more, important. We tested the relation between mindfulness and group-level creative idea generation using two brainstorming studies: one exploratory and one confirmatory. Mindfulness skills were either measured (Study 1; N = 88 groups) or the Act with awareness skill was targeted with a short, incidental guided meditation session (Study 2; N = 68 groups). Results from both studies showed differential relations between mindfulness and group creative idea generation: Only Act with awareness positively predicted the originality of ideas (Study 1 and 2) and the number of creative ideas in groups (Study 2). How mindfulness skills relate to creativity thus depends on the particular mindfulness skill involved and whether creativity happens at the individual or group level.     

Teacher's Encouragement on Creativity,Intrinsic Motivation,and Creativity: The Mediating Role of Creative Process Engagement

Drawing on Dewey's pragmatic perspective on talent cultivation and previous research on promoting employee creativity in industry, this study investigates student creativity performance in relation to teacher's encouragement, intrinsic motivation, and creative process engagement. Based on survey data collected from 140 vocational high school students who participated in a nation‐wide contest in Taiwan, path analyses were performed using structure equation modeling techniques. The results indicate that both teacher's encouragement and intrinsic motivation have a significant, although indirect, effect on student creativity, and that creative process engagement, as opposed to teacher encouragement or intrinsic motivation, has a direct and significant mediating effect on student creativity. This finding is in partial agreement with prior research which reports student creativity is positively associated with teacher encouragement and intrinsic motivation, highlighting the mediating role of creative process engagement in facilitating student creative performance.     

Creativity and mental health in everyday life

Abstract

The connection between mental health and creativity has traditionally been studied in terms of outstanding aesthetic‐professional creativity and mental illness. More interesting however, is the possible connection between “everyday “ creativity and mental health. Everyday creativity involves attacking day to day activities in a divergent way: It derives from a complex of cognitive, affective, personal, motivational, and social factors, and is characterized by openness, flexibility, autonomy, playfulness, humor willingness to take risks, and perseverance. These characteristics are also consistently emphasized in models of “normal”; personality growth, so that the possibility of promoting mental health arises by fostering creativity in day to day life. Several small studies described in this article give examples of how this might be done and the kinds of benefits which can result.     

Understanding the Effects of Cognition in Creative Decision Making: A Creativity Model for Enhancing the Design Studio Process

ABSTRACT

The essential components of creativity—persons, processes and products—were investigated inside a creative environment by deeply focusing on the cognitive stages of the creative decision making process. Mental imagery and external representation were considered as the implicit parts of creativity for enhancing design studio process. An experiment was conducted with 15 subjects who designed the public area of a train as the task in design studio. Observation, protocol analysis, and rating scales were used as assessment tools. Considering the components of creativity, it was found that the highest correlation was between process and overall creativity. Person and product followed process, respectively. However, no significant relationship was observed between imagery and creativity in design process. Three-dimensional representations were found to lead to more creativity compared to 2-dimensional depictions.     

Creativity in Learning Environments: The Case of Two Sixth Grade Art‐Rooms

The four elements of creativity — the person, process, product, and environment — that come together for the purpose of clearly and completely defining creativity, form the structure of the research. Two sixth grade art‐rooms have been chosen as the setting, as a likely place to observe creativity and sixth graders as the sample group. Observations of each child in an art‐room, her/his creative process, product, and the assessment of a 1/20 model of the art‐room made by each student, were analyzed to form a complete picture of creativity. Results showed that the three elements of creativity (person, process, and product) were significantly different from each other. In addition, process and product occurring within the same environment were highly correlated with each other.     

Creativity and cognition some implications for arts education

Abstract:

This study explored the relationships between creativity and cognitive skills, and the implications for arts education. The primary hypotheses were (a) that the creative arts career orientation is a valid personality construct, correlating with multiple domains of creative behavior; (b) that this orientation would be correlated with certain cognitive skills, including logical, divergent, and creative thinking; and (c) that these skills are themselves correlated with creative behaviors. Sixty‐five high school seniors were given the ACT Interest Inventory, several tests of logical, insightful, divergent, and creative thinking, and a modified version of the Creative Behavior Inventory. Results included significant correlations of the arts orientation with five domains of creative behawior and three cognitive skills. However, these skills were only correlated with two domains of creative behavior (literature and art). Discussion centered on fundamental implications for methods of arts education.     

Creativity between individual insight and group support. An explorative study in the Italian fashion industry / La creatividad entre la introspección individual y el apoyo grupal. Un estudio exploratorio de la industria de la moda italiana

Abstract

Creativity has been defined across time and fields highlighting different perspectives and variables, from the power of individual insight to creative intelligence, to the role played by mind wandering. After a brief literature review, the present paper presents an explorative study on the dialogue between individual and collective creativity in the fashion industry. The research design is inspired by mix-method research. The dataset is made up of in-depth interviews with 12 Italian stylists, focused on the creative processes. Data have been analysed both in qualitative terms (metaphors analysis) and in quantitative terms (automatic content analysis supported by T-Lab software). According to our results, the creativity processes involved in the fashion industry are mainly individual with a growing role played by teamwork. Stylists present themselves as psychologists in dialogue with their audience, so that the general public, in some sense, become an additional actor in the creative process.     

Neurology and Creative Thought: Some Thoughts About Working Memory,the Cerebellum,and Creativity

Abstract

Students of creativity have long been interested in the neurological mechanisms that underlie creative thought. Vandervert, Schimpf, and Liu (this issue) have proposed a new model of the neurological mechanisms that give rise to creative thought. In the present commentary, we examine this model for what it might tell us about creative problem solving. We conclude that the proposed model is in line with much of what is known about creative problem solving. However, certain key predictions of this model, for example the role of visual images and basic cognitive images, are questioned. The implications of these observations for future neurological research are discussed.     

Climate for creative productivity as a predictor of research usefulness and organizational effectiveness in an r&d organization

Abstract:

The present study empirically examined the argument that a referent climate for creative productivity would be more useful than an omnibus measure of climate for assessing the creative norms in a specific work context. A 39‐item Climate for Creative Productivity Index (CCPI) was developed to test Amabile's theory of situational factors having an impact on creativity in an organization. Questionnaire and archival data from employees of a military organization were analyzed. Results suggested that climate for creative productivity was related to criteria of effectiveness (convergent validity). In addition, the CCPI accounted for variance in our measures not captured by job satisfaction (discriminant validity).     

Mood Swings and Creativity

ABSTRACT:

This article evaluates recent evidence for an association between creativity and bipolar mood disorders. Eminent creativity and everyday creativity are distinguished, with high rates of major mood disorders‐particularly bipolar disorders— appearing among eminent creators in the arts. However, among everyday persons, including the 4–5% of the population that may develop a bipolar “spectrum”; disorder and their relatives, it is those with relatively milder mood disorders and normalcy who may show the greatest creative advantage. These seemingly conflicting results are reconciled through comparison of research designs and the creativity and diagnostic variables studied. Evidence regarding mood states that enhance creativity is also considered, both for eminent and everyday creators, and some preliminary results from a study of patients are presented. Here, milder mood elevations were tied most closely to the experience of creativity, although other patterns can exist. Three patterns are examined in terms of 23 mood, cognitive, and behavioral features that Jamison (1989) studied in eminent creators.     

The Mediating Role of Creative Process Engagement in the Relationship between Shyness and Self‐Rated Creativity

Shyness has been found to have a negative impact on creativity. However, little attention has been given to the underlying process of the relationship between shyness and creativity. On the basis of literature, we hypothesize that shyness has an indirect impact on creativity through creative process engagement. Two studies were conducted on undergraduate students (Study 1) and working adults (Study 2) to test the hypothetical relationship. Analysis on participants self‐report showed that shyness was negatively associated with self‐reported creativity as well as creative process engagement. There was a positive relationship between creative process engagement and creativity. More importantly, mediation analysis supported that shyness was indirectly linked to creativity via creative process engagement. Specifically, shy people are found to be less involved in creativity‐relevant processes such as information searching and idea generation. The low level of creative process engagement, in turn, hinders their creativity. The findings not only lend support to the detrimental effect of shyness on creativity but also shed light on the underlying mechanism of the relationship.     

Within‐person Relationship between Creative Self‐efficacy and Individual Creativity: The Mediator of Creative Process Engagement and the Moderator of Regulatory Focus

Integrating the dynamic self‐regulatory framework with the motivational self‐regulation perspective, we theorize and test how and when creative self‐efficacy increases individual creativity at the within‐person level. Conceptualizing creative process engagement as a self‐regulation effort, we theorize that creative process engagement mediates the within‐person effect of creative self‐efficacy on individual creativity. We further explore how creative self‐efficacy and chronic regulatory focus interact to affect the within‐person mediating effect. A sample of 145 R&D workers provided two monthly reports for their creative activities and experiences over 8 months. The findings provide empirical support for the hypothesized mediating mechanism. At the within‐person level, creative process engagement mediates the relationship between creative self‐efficacy and individual creativity. The results also show that chronic regulatory focus moderated the mediated relationship. Specifically, creative self‐efficacy is positively related to individual creativity for employees with a strong prevention focus and negatively related to individual creativity for employees with a strong promotion focus.