Effects of social-psychological factors on creative performance: the role of informational and controlling expected evaluation and modeling experience

The impact of two social-psychological factors, expected evaluation and modeling, on creativity was investigated in a laboratory study. The controlling and informational aspects of expected evaluation were manipulated and individuals were provided no example, a standard example, or a creative example of a solution to a representative management problem. As expected, individuals had significantly higher creativity and intrinsic motivation when anticipating an informational rather than a controlling evaluation. In addition, individuals given a creative example had higher creative performance than those given no example. The lowest levels of intrinsic motivation and creativity were found when expected evaluation was of a controlling nature and a standard model was given. Additionally, we tested and found support for Cognitive Evaluation Theory's primary intervening cognitive process of locus of causality mediating the relationship between evaluation and intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation was not found to mediate the relationship between evaluation and creativity, and possible explanations for this result are discussed.     

The effect of culture and self‐construals on predispositions toward verbal communication

This study tested the effects of culture and self‐construals (i.e., independence and interdependence) on predispositions toward verbal communication. For the purpose of this study, we focused on two main areas of verbal communication predispositions: (a) communication apprehension and (b) argumentativeness. In our path model, we expected that culture‐level individualism increases one's construal of self as independent, which, in turn, leads to a higher degree of argumentativeness and a lower level of communication apprehension. We also expected that culture‐level individualism decreases one's construal of self as interdependent, which, in turn, leads to a lower degree of argumentativeness and a higher level of communication apprehension. Data to test the model were drawn from undergraduates (N=539) studying in Korea, Hawaii, and mainland U.S. The data were partially consistent with the theoretical predictions made. The implications of the results for theory and practice are discussed.