Exploring the Link Between Mind Wandering,Mindfulness, and Creativity: A Multidimensional Approach

Even if mind wandering (MW) and mindfulness have traditionally been intended as separate and antithetical constructs, the roles of these 2 mental states on creative behavior were jointly explored in this article. In particular, MW was analyzed in light of a recent approach suggesting a differentiation between deliberate and spontaneous MW, whereas mindfulness was analyzed by distinguishing its 5 different constitutional dimensions: observing, acting with awareness, describing, nonreactivity, and nonjudging. The influence on creativity of these 2 mental states was analyzed using a sample of 77 undergraduate students both on a performance index (i.e., originality) and on a self-report index (i.e., creative achievement). Results showed that MW and mindfulness dimensions predicted creative behavior both alone and in combination, suggesting a complex interdependence between these 2 mental states within the creative thinking process. In particular, the critical importance of distinguishing between deliberate and spontaneous MW was revealed by a final path analysis, which revealed the opposite effects of these 2 dimensions on originality and creative achievement. That is, deliberate MW positively predicted creative performance, whereas spontaneous MW was negatively associated with such performance. Moreover, the nonreactivity and awareness dimensions of mindfulness, the latter in interaction with deliberate MW, emerged as main predictors of response originality. Finally, the describing facet of mindfulness predicted creative achievement both directly and indirectly through an interaction with deliberate MW. The implications emerging from the adoption of a multi-dimensional approach to the analysis of MW and mindfulness in the study of creativity are discussed herein.     

Exploring the Role of Risk in Employee Creativity

This paper argues that creative behavior requires an employee to be willing to engage risk. Aside from the discussion of risk propensity as an individual difference, a new situational variable will be developed and tested: willingness to take risks (WTR). WTR captures the employee's willingness to engage risks in their work and is positioned as an important influence on creative behavior. The results of a field study indicate that WTR is a significant predictor of employee creativity and, in addition, mediates the relationship between encouragement and creativity. The results are discussed in light of the current literature on employee creativity.     

Understanding the Role of Cultural Intelligence in Individual Creativity

Employing creative cognition theory, this study investigates the relationship between cultural intelligence (CQ) and creativity. Using data from 394 full-time employees, metacognitive, cognitive, and motivational forms of CQ were found to have positive relationships with individual creativity. In addition, the positive effect of cognitive CQ on creativity was more pronounced when curiosity was high. However, the influence of metacognitive CQ on creativity was enhanced when curiosity was low. Several contributions to the multicultural creativity literature are offered.     

Motives for Creativity: Exploring the What and Why of Everyday Creativity

People spend a lot of time on creative activities in their leisure time, but we still know little about what these activities are and what drives them. The literature suggests that several specific motives may be relevant for everyday creative behavior, including enjoyment, expression, challenge, coping, prosocial, social, material, recognition, and duty motives. Across two online studies totaling 750 participants, enjoyment was the strongest motive for everyday creativity, consistent with previous research linking creativity to intrinsic motivation and positive affect. Importantly, however, the relevance of motives differed across creative domains: visual arts, literature, and music were more strongly motivated by expression and coping motives, whereas handicrafts and creative cooking were more strongly motivated by prosocial and recognition motives. Intrinsic motives for creative activities were substantially related to high openness to experience, but explained incremental variance in the prediction of self-reported creativity as well as rated creative achievements. Together, these findings provide new insights into the motivational basis and function of everyday creativity.     

Self-Interest, Symbolic Attitudes, and Support for Public Policy: A Multilevel Analysis

This paper examines the role of self-interest and symbolic attitudes as predictors of support for two domestic policy issues—guaranteed jobs and incomes and national health insurance—in the American National Election Survey (ANES) between 1972 and 2004. As was the case in 1976 when Sears, Lau, Tyler, and Allen (1980 ) first explored this topic, symbolic attitudes continue to be much more important predictors of policy attitudes than various indicators of self-interest over the 30 years we analyze. We explore this finding further to determine whether any individual/internal and external/contextual variables affect the magnitude of self-interest effects on policy support. Five possible internal moderators of self-interest effects are examined: (1) political knowledge, (2) issue publics, (3) political values, (4) social identifications, and (5) emotions, but none are found to boost the magnitude of the self-interest effect. However, we do find some evidence that contextual variables representing the social/information environment moderate the impact of self-interest on public opinion.     

A Multilevel Model of Team Cultural Diversity and Creativity: The Role of Climate for Inclusion

We developed a multi‐level model to test how team cultural diversity may relate to team‐ and individual‐level creativity, integrating team diversity research and information‐exchange perspective. We proposed that the team climate for inclusion would moderate both the relationship between cultural diversity and team information sharing and between cultural diversity and employee information elaboration. We collected time‐lagged data from 384 members and their leaders within 57 multicultural work teams. The results showed that team cultural diversity was positively related to both team creativity and individual creativity through team information sharing and employee information elaboration, respectively. We also found that the indirect positive relationship with team creativity and individual creativity was stronger for team cultural diversity when climate for inclusion of multicultural work teams was stronger.     

Linking Failure Feedback to Individual Creativity: The Moderation Role of Goal Orientation

The sense-making theory of creativity is extended by identifying failure feedback as a process that shapes creative interpretations and actions. We also consider the moderating effect of goal orientation on the relationship between failure feedback and individual creativity, according to the sense-making theory. A 2-waves survey data from 345 R&D employees and their supervisors in five Chinese high-tech companies indicated: (a) supervisors’ failure feedback positively correlates with incremental and radical creative performance, (b) learning goal orientation strengthens the relationship between failure feedback and creativity, and (c) avoidance goal orientation attenuates the relationship between failure feedback and creativity. The findings suggest that goal orientations play roles in optimizing failure feedback effects on creativity outcomes.     

Leadership Style,Anonymity, and Creativity in Group Decision Support Systems: The Mediating Role of Optimal Flow

ABSTRACT Prior research indicates that flow, a psychological state characterized by concentration, enjoyment, and intrinsic motivation, may be linked to creativity of individuals participating in computer-mediated meetings. A laboratory experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of leadership style (transactional contingent reward and transformational) and anonymity level (identified and anonymous) on flow and creativity of 159 undergraduate students working in groups performing a creativity task using a Group Decision Support System (GDSS). Results demonstrated that flow mediated effects of leadership on creativity in a GDSS context, and its role may be moderated by anonymity. Results also indicated that both flow and anonymity were required for enhancing creativity in a GDSS context. Implications for practice and research are discussed.     

Boundless Creativity: Evidence for the Domain Generality of Individual Differences in Creativity

This study investigated correlates of domain‐general and domain‐specific components of creativity. 158 college students completed a questionnaire that assessed their motivational and personality traits (i.e., intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, creative personality, and originality in word association) as well as intellectual abilities (SAT verbal and quantitative scores). Under two different instruction conditions (standard instruction or explicit “be creative” instruction), students also took a battery of multi‐item, product‐based tests of creativity in three domains (artistic, verbal, and mathematical creativity). Factor analyses showed evidence of domain‐generality of creativity. Furthermore, results from structural equation models showed that motivational and personality traits and intellectual abilities were associated with the domain‐general component of creativity. Only one variable (SAT quantitative score) was found to be associated with the domain‐specific component of mathematical creativity under the explicit “be creative” instruction condition. These results affirm the domain‐generality of creativity and challenge researchers to identify correlates of domain‐specific components of creativity.     

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 Profiles and the Role of Interpersonal Relationships in Primary School Pupils: A Person-Centered Approach

This study aimed to investigate the heterogeneity of creativity and the role of interpersonal relationships for creativity subgroups among primary school students. We used latent profile analysis to identify subgroups of creativity among pupils. We then used logistic regression analysis to investigate the role of teacher-student and peer relationships in these subgroups. A total of 1,047 primary school students (M_age = 10.97, SD = 0.91; 47.80% girls) completed the Chinese version of the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking Figural Form A, the Teacher-Student Relationship Scale, and peer nominations. First, the results revealed five creativity profiles for pupils in primary school: high-creativity individuals, innovators, medium-creativity individuals, adaptors, and low-creativity individuals. Heterogeneity across the five subgroups was reflected in the differing creativity levels and differences in creativity dimensions. Second, students who had better teacher-student relationships were more likely to be high-creativity individuals and innovators than low-creativity individuals. In addition, students who had higher perceived popularity tended to be high-creativity individuals, innovators, adaptors, and medium-creativity individuals than low-creativity individuals. The results of this study provide a theoretical basis and empirical support for the targeted cultivation of creativity in primary schools.     

The Individual or the Group: A Multilevel Analysis of Cyberbullying in School Classes

In this study, we focus on the relevance of social influence to explain cyberbullying experiences among German high school students. Social influence is discussed in the context of computer‐mediated communication. To obtain individual and sociostructural data, we conducted a survey study among German high school students (N = 4,282). Using multilevel modeling, we found that the attributes of the school class only contributed to the risk of being involved in cyberbullying to a small extent. Still, procyberbullying norms in class did enhance the risk of perpetration and victimization for students, even more so than their individual beliefs. Previous experiences with bullying and intensive, unrestricted use of the Internet were the strongest individual predictors of cyberbullying involvement.     

Exploring the Effects of Job Autonomy on Engagement and Creativity: The Moderating Role of Performance Pressure and Learning Goal Orientation

Purpose

The 21st century work environment calls for team members to be more engaged in their work and exhibit more creativity in completing their job tasks. The purpose of this study was to examine whether team performance pressure and individual goal orientation would moderate the relationships between individual autonomy in teams and individual engagement and creativity.

Design/Methodology/Approach

A sample consisting of 209 team members and 45 team managers from 45 work teams in 14 companies completed survey measures. To test our hypotheses, we used multilevel modeling with random intercepts and slopes because the individual-level data were nested within the team-level data.

Findings

Hierarchical linear modeling showed that team-level performance pressure attenuated the positive relations between job autonomy and three dimensions of engagement. There were also 3-way interactions between job autonomy, psychological performance pressure, and learning goal orientation in predicting three dimensions of engagement and creativity.

Implications

This study highlights the importance of exploring the moderating effect of team-level task characteristics and individual differences on the relationships between job autonomy and individual engagement and creativity. Organizations need to carefully consider both individual learning goals and performance pressure when empowering team members with job autonomy.

Originality/Value

This is one of the first studies to explore the association between individual job autonomy in teams and individual outcomes in a contingency model. We first introduced team performance pressure as a moderator of job autonomy and examined the 3-way interaction effects of performance pressure, individual job autonomy, and learning goal orientation.

     

Narrowing the Creativity Gap: The Moderating Effects of Perceived Support for Creativity

This article examines the role of 3 types of perceived support for creativity in moderating the relation between creative self-efficacy and self-perceived creativity. The findings suggest significant interaction effects for perceived work-group support and supervisor support, but not for perceived organizational support. This study is among the first to (a) examine the importance of perceived support for creativity in unlocking creative potential and increasing creativity in organizations and (b) use interaction terms in structural equation modeling (SEM) to investigate moderator effects in an applied research setting. These results imply that organizational interventions focused on training supervisors and work-group members to support creativity in the workplace may be more effective than broader and less focused interventions at the organizational level.     

Exploring the Effect of Perceived Teacher Support on Multiple Creativity Tasks: Based on the Expectancy–Value Model of Achievement Motivation

The present study explores the effect of perceived teacher support on three forms of thinking related to creativity. Tests of convergent thinking (by means of the Remote Associates Test), insight thinking (explored through a brain‐teaser test), and divergent thinking (by means of a verbal creativity test) were given to 512 middle school students in China, along with assessments of their perceived teacher support and creative self‐efficacy. The results of this study indicate that perceived teacher support positively predicts convergent thinking and insight thinking, with creative self‐efficacy playing a partial mediating role between perceived teacher support and convergent thinking. However, no significant relationships were found between perceived teacher support and divergent thinking. The findings partly lend support to the expectancy–value model of achievement motivation that teacher’s behavior influences student performance through self‐belief pathway.     

Proactive Personality and Employee Creativity: The Effects of Job Creativity Requirement and Supervisor Support for Creativity

This study examined the relationships between proactive personality and employee creativity and the moderating roles of job creativity requirement and supervisor support for creativity in activating proactive personality associated with employee creativity. To provide a rigorous test of the hypotheses, we conducted a field study from a sample of 157 employee–supervisor pairs in South Korea. The results revealed that a proactive personality was positively associated with employee creativity. In addition, job creativity requirement and supervisor support for creativity jointly influenced the relationship between proactive personality and employee creativity. Specifically, proactive employees exhibited the highest employee creativity when job creativity requirement and supervisor support for creativity were both high.     

Influences of Organizational Culture and Climate on Individual Creativity

This paper provides a framework for conceptualizing and reviewing the literature on the influences of organizational culture and climate on individual creativity. Although often treated interchangeably, culture and climate are distinct constructs operating at different levels of meaning; yet at the same time, they are closely interrelated. Culture is the beliefs and values held by management and communicated to employees through norms, stories, socialization processes, and observations of managerial responses to critical events. The beliefs and values that typify a culture for creativity become manifested in organizational structures, practices, and policies. In turn, these structures, practices, and policies guide and shape individual creativity by creating a climate that communicates both the organization's goals regarding creativity and the means to achieve those goals. The paper concludes with a discussion of issues relating to the development of cultures and climates for creativity and potential new directions for future research.     

Individual and Group Meaning: Exploring the Reciprocal Relation

Abstract

Group construct systems were defined through application of a group construct grid that elicited types of groups in which an individual had participated or closely observed. The Group Grid was administered at the beginning and the end of a 4-month graduate class. The meanings of groups to participants were interpreted by examining changes in Group Grids over time and in relation to high and low levels of group performance. The meaning of individuals to the group was assessed by peer evaluations given at the end of the project. High and low levels of peer evaluation were then predicted by an individual's Group Grid measures. The most consistent findings were that greater variation in application regarding types of groups and characteristics about groups showed strong associations with both high levels of group performance and high levels of peer evaluation. Suggestions are given for future research     

The Role of Conversation in Developing Accurate Political Perceptions: A Multilevel Social Network Approach

We employed social network data from 25 randomly sampled voluntary associations to understand the factors associated with accurate perceptions of candidate preferences of group members. We analyzed relationships at the dyadic level, but also considered the overall accuracy of perceptions by each ego of all alters (“perceptiveness”) and the overall accuracy of perception by all alters of each ego (“explicitness”) regarding candidate preferences using multilevel modeling techniques. We found low levels of accuracy on average, but high variability and differential patterns of prediction of perceptiveness and explicitness. There was a strong, consistent link between the frequency of communication and accuracy both at the dyadic and aggregate levels which was moderated by the homophily of political preferences within the group.