Sources of social support and burnout, job satisfaction, and productivity.

Social support has been identified as an important correlate of a variety of work outcomes. Support from different sources, including family, coworkers, and supervisors, was examined in 211 traffic enforcement agents (92 men, 119 women). Outcomes included subjective variables (burnout and job satisfaction) and an objective measure of productivity (number of summonses). Support was negatively associated with burnout and positively associated with satisfaction and productivity. A cluster of support variables accounted for 7% of the variance in burnout and productivity and 12% of the variance in job satisfaction. Family support was more closely associated with burnout than with satisfaction or productivity, whereas immediate supervisor support was related to satisfaction and productivity but not burnout. Results suggest that support may be associated with work-related outcomes through multiple pathways. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Creativity as a decision": Comment.

Responds to the comments by T. B. Kashdan and F. D. Fincham (see record 2002-12932-014), J. C. Kaufman (see record 2002-12932-016 and J. Raven (see record 2002-12932-015) on the articles that discussed creativity in the April 2001 issue of American Psychologist. The current author does not disagree with any of the comments made. He states that although creative people differ in an astonishing number of ways, there is, in fact, one key attribute that they all possess, an attribute consistent with the original articles in American Psychologist's special section on creativity and consistent with these new commentaries as well. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Contextualizing emotional exhaustion and positive emotional display: The signaling effects of supervisors’ emotional exhaustion and service climate.

In this study, we investigated how supervisors’ emotional exhaustion and service climate jointly influence the relationship between subordinates’ emotional exhaustion and their display of positive emotions at work. Using data from frontline sales employees and their immediate supervisors in a fashion retailer, we hypothesized and found that under the condition of a less positive service climate, subordinates’ emotional exhaustion was more negatively related to their positive emotional display when supervisors’ emotional exhaustion was higher rather than lower; this interaction effect of subordinates’ and supervisors’ emotional exhaustion was not significant in a more positive service climate. These results suggest that service climate and supervisors’ emotional exhaustion provide emotionally exhausted employees with important information cues about the possible availability of compensatory resources they need to uphold their efforts to display service-focused emotions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality and the realization of creative potential.

Rank has written of 3 phases "in man's winning his own individuality and in realizing his own creative potential." Sometimes Rank wrote of these as 3 types of persons—the adapted type, the neurotic type, and the creative type. 3 samples of architects were studied: I. Highly Creative Architects. II. Architects with "at least 2 yr. of work experience and association" with one of the architects qualified for sample I. III. Architects, none of whom had ever worked with any of the nominated highly creative architects. The mean creativity ratings for the 3 groups are 5.46, 4.25, and 3.54 respectively. "The differences are in the expected direction and are statistically highly significant." Rank's ideas about the constructive formation of personality and creative development are discussed. What is "most impressive about Architects I is the degree to which they have actualized their creative potentialities. Architects III… appear to have incorporated into their egos, and into their images… the more conventional standards of society and of their profession. Arichitects II, by and large less creative than Architects I but more creative than Architects III, show an overlapping of traits with both of the other groups." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Understanding when bad moods foster creativity and good ones don't: The role of context and clarity of feelings.

Using a mood-as-input model, the authors identified conditions under which negative moods are positively related, and positive moods are negatively related, to creative performance. Among a sample of workers in an organizational unit charged with developing creative designs and manufacturing techniques, the authors hypothesized and found that negative moods were positively related to creative performance when perceived recognition and rewards for creative performance and clarity of feelings (a metamood process) were high. The authors also hypothesized and found that positive moods were negatively related to creative performance when perceived recognition and rewards for creativity and clarity of feelings were high. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social networks, personal values, and creativity: Evidence for curvilinear and interaction effects.

Taking an interactional perspective on creativity, the authors examined the influence of social networks and conformity value on employees’ creativity. They theorized and found a curvilinear relationship between number of weak ties and creativity such that employees exhibited greater creativity when their number of weak ties was at intermediate levels rather than at lower or higher levels. In addition, employees’ conformity value moderated the curvilinear relationship between number of weak ties and creativity such that employees exhibited greater creativity at intermediate levels of number of weak ties when conformity was low than when it was high. A proper match between personal values and network ties is critical for understanding creativity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality factors related to creativity in young scientists.

Male science majors designated as Higher Creative (HC) or Lower Creatives (LC) on the basis of scores on a creativity test battery were given personality tests. The HC group scored higher than the LC group on: composite personality originality; cognitive flexibility, time since first interest in science; dominance, sociability, social presence, and self-acceptance. The HC group scored lower on: socialization, self-control, desire to make a good impression, and affection. The HC group showed greater integration of nonconscious material as pertaining to concepts of self, father, and mother than did the LC group; the 2 groups differed in degree of conscious identification with mother (HC less than LC). (36 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Beyond big and little: The four c model of creativity.

Most investigations of creativity tend to take one of two directions: everyday creativity (also called “little-c”), which can be found in nearly all people, and eminent creativity (also called “Big-C”), which is reserved for the great. In this paper, the authors propose a Four C model of creativity that expands this dichotomy. Specifically, the authors add the idea of “mini-c,” creativity inherent in the learning process, and Pro-c, the developmental and effortful progression beyond little-c that represents professional-level expertise in any creative area. The authors include different transitions and gradations of these four dimensions of creativity, and then discuss advantages and examples of the Four C Model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Introduction to the special section on personality development.

For years the author has been struck by the oddity of having two separate fields that study personality--one in children and one in adults--with relatively little contact between the two. Those who study adult personality rarely refer to the child disposition literature, for example, and those who study childhood temperament infrequently describe how it unfolds into adult personality. Admittedly, part of the problem is that data that shed a bright light on the transition from childhood to adult personality have been hard to obtain and are scarce. Nonetheless, it is crucial to both developmental psychology and personality psychology for researchers to study transitions and continuities in personality throughout the life course. It is to this end that this special section was created. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Incubation of creative performance and specific associative priming.

In the context of an associative theory of creativity, the effect of specific associative priming upon incubation of creative performance was studied. 2 experiments were conducted. In Experiment I, using 30 Ss, it was demonstrated that performance on a remote-associate task was enhanced by specific priming. In a 2nd study, using the same method and materials, high scores (HC) and low scorers (LC) on the Remote Associate Test (a measure of creative potential) were compared in a 2 X 2 X 3 factorial design also included 2 levels of priming (some and none) and 3 time relationships (immediate, pre-24 hr. and post-24 hr.) HC Ss performed significantly better than LC Ss, and the effect of specific priming was significantly greater than no priming. The time relationship had no effect. These data lend support to an associative interpretation of the phenomenon of incubation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The value and meaning of creative leisure.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the construct of creative leisure and explore its implications for both the fields of creativity and leisure. The relationship between the constructs of creativity and leisure has yet to be considered directly, and these fields indeed overlap in significant and important ways. When one has the perception of freedom and the intrinsic desire, creates for the sake of creating, and perceives this to be creative, this is creative leisure. Research and theory that relates to creative leisure is identified. The author proposes why creative leisure should be examined and poses future research questions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The strength-of-weak-ties perspective on creativity: A comprehensive examination and extension.

Disentangling the effects of weak ties on creativity, the present study separated, both theoretically and empirically, the effects of the size and strength of actors' idea networks and examined their joint impact while simultaneously considering the separate, moderating role of network diversity. I hypothesized that idea networks of optimal size and weak strength were more likely to boost creativity when they afforded actors access to a wide range of different social circles. In addition, I examined whether the joint effects of network size, strength, and diversity on creativity were further qualified by the openness to experience personality dimension. As expected, results indicated that actors were most creative when they maintained idea networks of optimal size, weak strength, and high diversity and when they scored high on the openness dimension. The implications of these results are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Incremental effects of reward on creativity.

The authors examined 2 ways reward might increase creativity. First, reward contingent on creativity might increase extrinsic motivation. Studies 1 and 2 found that repeatedly giving preadolescent students reward for creative performance in 1 task increased their creativity in subsequent tasks. Study 3 reported that reward promised for creativity increased college students' creative task performance. Second, expected reward for high performance might increase creativity by enhancing perceived self-determination and, therefore, intrinsic task interest. Study 4 found that employees' intrinsic job interest mediated a positive relationship between expected reward for high performance and creative suggestions offered at work. Study 5 found that employees' perceived self-determination mediated a positive relationship between expected reward for high performance and the creativity of anonymous suggestions for helping the organization. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychological study of creativity.

In this review of the psychological study of creativity there are 4 emphases; products, process, measurement, and personality. 3 main issues concern questions of: definition and criteria, the process viewed temporally, and necessary personal and environmental conditions. The relationship between creativity and intelligence is discussed to illustrate the need for conceptual reorganization as well as correlational data. We should now be able to utilize personality and stylistic modes as criterion variables and to study how these factors are related at different age levels to behavior that is judged to be creative. This approach holds promise for providing a functional, developmental understanding of creativity. (124 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality and thinking style in different creative domains.

The crucial aspect of creativity in both personality and thinking style may be the ability or tendency to change within personality traits, such as, for example, moving between extraversion and introversion, and within thinking styles, such as moving between heuristic and algorithmic thinking. Such mobility is characteristic of the “complex” personality. On personality and thinking style tests, complexity would be expected to manifest itself in greater variability of responses to items measuring the same overall trait. This issue was investigated with 158 visual art, 136 music, and 309 psychology students. Art students (visual art and music students) showed greater complexity in conscientiousness than psychology and music students, respectively. Visual art students further showed a greater overall complexity (mean complexities across personality and thinking style) than psychology students did. A more traditional analysis revealed that visual art students were more neurotic, more open to experience and more inclined to heuristic thinking than psychology students do, whereas music students were more extraverted and more agreeable than visual art students were, and more inclined to heuristic thinking than psychology students were. Thus, it was possible to distinguish visual art students from music and psychology students by their personality and thinking style. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Supervisor Perspective on the Process and Outcome of Giving Easy, Difficult, or No Feedback to Supervisees.

Fifteen counseling center supervisors were interviewed about 3 instances related to important feedback with an intern supervisee: 1 in which the feedback was given easily, 1 in which it was given reluctantly or with difficulty, and another in which it was not given. Supervisors indicated that easy feedback was most often about clinical problems, was given directly, had positive effects, and was facilitated by supervisee openness. Difficult feedback was most often about clinical, personal, and professional issues, was given indirectly, had mixed impact, and was characterized by a lack of supervisee openness. Feedback not given was typically about personal and professional concerns and was hindered by a lack of supervisee openness. Supervisors indicated that there were negative effects of not having given the feedback and indicated that they would do it differently if they could. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Creative ability, creative ideation and latent classes of creative achievement: What is the role of personality?

Silvia and colleagues (Silvia, Kaufman, & Pretz, 2009) highlighted the advantages of latent class analysis when studying creative achievement. The current study replicates and expands Silvia and colleagues' (2009) findings on creative achievement in a sample of 656 students, of which 223 were also assessed on creative ability and ideation, as well as a broad range of personality traits. A latent class analysis identified three groups of noncreative people, average creative achievers with high interpersonal competence, and high creative achievers; the adequacy of this class solution was further supported by mean differences in divergent thinking, creative ideation, and personality in the expected directions. In a multinomial regression model, hypomania was identified as stable, significant predictor of creative achievement class membership. Overall, creative ability, ideation and achievement were shown to be only loosely interrelated, complicating the evaluation of personality's role in creative competence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Help us creativity researchers, you're our only hope.

I propose suggestions for how creativity can be fostered in the classroom and what creativity researchers can do to facilitate creative growth in students. Suggestions include closing the creativity gap between current education policy and current societal values of creativity, better training of teachers on how to teach creativity, creativity researchers becoming more active and vocal advocates of education policy supporting creativity in the classroom, and changing the language authors use away from a need to enhance creativity and toward the view that creativity needs to be encouraged. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of organizational insiders' developmental feedback and proactive personality on newcomers' performance: An interactionist perspective.

Drawing from an interactionist approach and feedback research, we examine the role of developmental feedback and proactive personality on newcomer task performance and helping behavior. Data were collected from 2 high-tech joint-ventures within the information technology and manufacturing industries located in Shanghai, China. Results based on 151 newcomer–manager dyads showed that supervisor developmental feedback (SDF) positively related to newcomer helping behavior and that SDF and coworker developmental feedback interactively predicted newcomer task performance. We also found differential moderating effects of proactive personality: SDF more strongly related to helping behavior when proactive personality was lower; conversely, coworker developmental feedback more strongly related to helping behavior when proactive personality was higher. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)