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)     

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)     

When is educational specialization heterogeneity related to creativity in research and development teams? Transformational leadership as a moderator.

The authors examined conditions under which teams' educational specialization heterogeneity was positively related to team creativity. Using a sample of 75 research and development teams, the authors theorized and found that transformational leadership and educational specialization heterogeneity interacted to affect team creativity in such a way that when transformational leadership was high, teams with greater educational specialization heterogeneity exhibited greater team creativity. In addition, teams' creative efficacy mediated this moderated relationship among educational specialization heterogeneity, transformational leadership, and team creativity. The authors discuss the implications of these results for research and practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When supervisors feel supported: Relationships with subordinates' perceived supervisor support, perceived organizational support, and performance.

The authors surveyed full-time retail employees and their supervisors to investigate relationships of supervisors' perceived organizational support (POS) with subordinates' perceptions of support from their supervisors (perceived supervisor support [PSS]), POS, and in-role and extra-role performance. The authors found that supervisors' POS was positively related to their subordinates' perceptions of supervisor support. Subordinates' PSS, in turn, was positively associated with their POS, in-role performance, and extra-role performance. Beyond these bivariate relationships, subordinates' perceptions of support from the supervisor mediated positive relationships of the supervisors' POS with the subordinates' POS and performance. These findings suggest that supervisors who feel supported by the organization reciprocate with more supportive treatment for subordinates. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comparisons of creative styles and personality types between American and Taiwanese college students and the relationship between creative potential and personality types.

The purpose of the study was to compare differences in creative styles (Kirton, 1976) and personality types between Americans and Taiwanese and to examine the relationships among various personality types and creative potential. Creative potential was measured by the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking-Figural, and personality types were measured by the Keirsey Temperament Sorter II. Ninety-three American and 76 Taiwanese college students specializing in teacher education participated in this study. The results indicated that Americans are more adaptively creative than Taiwanese, whereas there is no difference between the two groups in Innovative creative style. The results also indicated that there are significant relationships between Adaptive creative style and Intuition, between Creative Strengths and Intuition, and between Creative Strengths and Perceiving. It is concluded that there is a cultural difference in creative potential and personality types and that there are relationships between particular subscales of creativity and personality types. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When openness to experience and conscientiousness are related to creative behavior: An interactional approach.

This study adopted an interactional approach to understanding how 2 of the Five-Factor traits, openness to experience and conscientiousness, are related to creative behavior in the workplace. Openness to experience is theorized to result in high levels of creative behavior and conscientiousness is theorized to result in low levels of creative behavior when the situation allows for the manifestation of the trait influences. More specifically, the authors hypothesized that openness to experience would result in high levels of creative behavior if feedback valence were positive and job holders were presented with a heuristic task that allowed them to be creative. The authors also hypothesized that conscientiousness would result in low levels of creative behavior if supervisors engaged in close monitoring and coworkers were unsupportive. The authors tested their hypotheses in a sample of office workers, and 5 out of the 6 hypotheses were supported. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differences in developmental experience, defensiveness, and personality organization between two classes of problem drinkers.

Family background, personality data, and defensive behavior were studied to test the Knight distinction between 2 kinds of alcoholics: essential and reactive. Data analysis supported the predictions. The findings has implications for research which attempts to study the problem of alcoholism but without making a necessary distinction regarding their Ss. From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4JK59R. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The curvilinear relation between experienced creative time pressure and creativity: Moderating effects of openness to experience and support for creativity.

This study examined the possibility of a curvilinear relation between the creative time pressure employees experience at work and their creativity. The authors also examined whether this curvilinear relation was moderated by employees' scores on the openness to experience personality dimension and by the support for creativity employees received from supervisors and coworkers. Data were obtained from 170 employees and 10 supervisors of a manufacturing organization. Results showed an inverted U-shaped creative time pressure-creativity relation for employees who scored high on openness to experience while simultaneously receiving support for creativity. The authors discussed the implications of these results for future research and practice. (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)     

Scientific creativity as constrained stochastic behavior: The integration of product, person, and process perspectives.

Psychologists have primarily investigated scientific creativity from 2 contrasting in vitro perspectives: correlational studies of the creative person and experimental studies of the creative process. Here the same phenomenon is scrutinized using a 3rd, in vivo perspective, namely, the actual creative products that emerge from individual scientific careers and communities of creative scientists. This behavioral analysis supports the inference that scientific creativity constitutes a form of constrained stochastic behavior. That is, it can be accurately modeled as a quasi-random combinatorial process. Key findings from both correlational and experimental research traditions corroborate this conclusion. The author closes the article by arguing that all 3 perspectives--regarding the product, person, and process--must be integrated into a unified view of scientific creativity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Task feedback effects on conflict monitoring and executive control: Relationship to subclinical measures of depression.

Emerging evidence suggests that depression is associated with executive dysfunction, particularly after committing errors or receiving negative performance feedback. To test this hypothesis, 57 participants performed two executive tasks known to elicit errors (the Simon and Stroop Tasks) during positive or negative performance feedback. Participants with elevated depressive symptoms (Beck Depression Inventory scores ≥ 13) were characterized by impaired posterror and postconflict performance adjustments, especially during emotionally negative task-related feedback. Additionally, for both tasks, depressive symptoms were inversely related to postconflict reaction time adjustments following negative, but not positive, feedback. These findings suggest that subclinical depression is associated with impairments in behavioral adjustments after internal (perceived failure) and external feedback about deficient task performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A biosocial developmental model of borderline personality: Elaborating and extending linehan’s theory.

Over the past several decades, research has focused increasingly on developmental precursors to psychological disorders that were previously assumed to emerge only in adulthood. This change in focus follows from the recognition that complex transactions between biological vulnerabilities and psychosocial risk factors shape emotional and behavioral development beginning at conception. To date, however, empirical research on the development of borderline personality is extremely limited. Indeed, in the decade since M. M. Linehan initially proposed a biosocial model of the development of borderline personality disorder, there have been few attempts to test the model among at-risk youth. In this review, diverse literatures are reviewed that can inform understanding of the ontogenesis of borderline pathology, and testable hypotheses are proposed to guide future research with at-risk children and adolescents. One probable pathway is identified that leads to borderline personality disorder; it begins with early vulnerability, expressed initially as impulsivity and followed by heightened emotional sensitivity. These vulnerabilities are potentiated across development by environmental risk factors that give rise to more extreme emotional, behavioral, and cognitive dysregulation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Expecting innovation: Psychoactive drug primes and the generation of creative solutions.

Many individuals expect that alcohol and drug consumption will enhance creativity. The present studies tested whether substance related primes would influence creative performance for individuals who possessed creativity-related substance expectancies. Participants (n = 566) were briefly exposed to stimuli related to psychoactive substances (alcohol, for Study 1, Sample 1, and Study 2; and marijuana, for Study 1, Sample 2) or neutral stimuli. Participants in Study 1 then completed a creative problem-solving task, while participants in Study 2 completed a divergent thinking task or a task unrelated to creative problem solving. The results of Study 1 revealed that exposure to the experimental stimuli enhanced performance on the creative problem-solving task for those who expected the corresponding substance would trigger creative functioning. In a conceptual replication, Study 2 showed that participants exposed to alcohol cues performed better on a divergent thinking task if they expected alcohol to enhance creativity. It is important to note that this same interaction did not influence performance on measures unrelated to creative problem solving, suggesting that the activation of creativity-related expectancies influenced creative performance, specifically. These findings highlight the importance of assessing expectancies when examining pharmacological effects of alcohol and marijuana. Future directions and implications for substance-related interventions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

When prevention promotes creativity: The role of mood, regulatory focus, and regulatory closure.

Promotion-focused states generally boost creativity because they associate with enhanced activation and cognitive flexibility. With regard to prevention-focused states, research evidence is less consistent, with some findings suggesting prevention-focused states promote creativity and other findings pointing to no or even negative effects. We proposed and tested the hypothesis that whether prevention-focused states boost creativity depends on regulatory closure (whether a goal is fulfilled or not). We predicted that prevention-focused states that activate the individual (unfulfilled prevention goals, fear) would lead to similar levels of creativity as promotion-focused states but that prevention-focused states that deactivate (closed prevention goals, relief) would lead to lower levels of creativity. Moreover, we predicted that this effect would be mediated by feelings of activation. Predictions were tested in 3 studies on creative insights and 1 on original ideation. Results supported predictions. Implications for self-regulation, motivation, mood, and creativity are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Enhancing creativity: A comparison between effects of an indicative instruction “to be creative” and a more elaborate heuristic instruction on Chinese student creativity.

This study consisted of an experiment conducted with a sample of 180 Chinese high school students, designed to scrutinize the effects of prompting and instructing students to be creative in their creative performance in the domains of art and literature. The results of the study reveal that students’ creativity benefited from receiving appropriate strategies or more elaborate instruction (as induced by instructing), but not by merely being motivated (as induced by prompting) to be creative, regardless of the task domain. Gender differences in creativity were found only in the domain of literature, in favor of female participants. Implications of the findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Shorter term treatment of borderline personality disorder: A developmental, self-, and object relations approach.

After a brief summary of J. F Masterson's developmental, self-, and object relations approach to long-term, intensive psychotherapy of the borderline personality disorder, an adaptation of this approach to shorter term treatment is proposed. The time constraints of abbreviated treatment require the following limited goals for the patient: (a) increased control of maladaptive defenses, (b) learning about the fundamental dynamics related to the focal symptom or problematic behavior, and (c) improved adaptation. Requisite modifications of technique include (a) limited frequency of sessions, (b) focalized treatment, (c) an emphasis on adaptation, and (d) a reliance on confrontation as the primary therapeutic intervention. A brief case study is presented for illustrative purposes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Introduction to special issue: The psychology of creativity and innovation in the workplace.

While the study of creativity dates back to the early days of psychology, the application of psychological theories to understand and explain creativity and innovation in the workplace is more recent (Shalley & Zhou, 2008). This recent emergence of interest is a result of the recognition that creativity and innovation are necessary for organizational adaptation and survival. Rapid advancement of technology, globalization, and increased competition have all served as forces that require organizations to adapt and change. Further, organizational creativity and innovation is not limited to product development and R&D (Mumford, Whetzel, & Reiter-Palmon, 1997). Rather, current conceptualizations view creativity and innovation in products as well as work processes, and include a variety of occupations in the organization (Mumford et al., 1997). As expected with a complex phenomenon such as creativity in the workplace, the articles included in this special issue cover the entire range from individual to leadership effects to team creativity. The articles include both theoretical and empirical papers. Empirical studies include lab studies, field studies, as well as a meta-analysis. Articles are organized such that work focusing on the individual is presented first, followed by work that involves situational factors and the larger organizational context. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Power reduces the press of the situation: Implications for creativity, conformity, and dissonance.

Although power is often conceptualized as the capacity to influence others, the current research explores whether power psychologically protects people from influence. In contrast to classic social psychological research demonstrating the strength of the situation in directing attitudes, expressions, and intentions, 5 experiments (using experiential primes, semantic primes, and role manipulations of power) demonstrate that the powerful (a) generate creative ideas that are less influenced by salient examples, (b) express attitudes that conform less to the expressed opinions of others, (c) are more influenced by their own social value orientation relative to the reputation of a negotiating opponent, and (d) perceive greater choice in making counterattitudinal statements. This last experiment illustrates that power is not always psychologically liberating; it can create internal conflict, arousing dissonance, and thereby lead to attitude change. Across the experiments, high-power participants were immune to the typical press of situations, with intrapsychic processes having greater sway than situational or interpersonal ones on their creative and attitudinal expressions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Evolutionary and neurocognitive approaches to aesthetics, creativity and the arts.

Reviews the book, Evolutionary and neurocognitive approaches to aesthetics, creativity and the arts, edited by Colin Martindate, Paul Locher, and Vladimir M. Petrov (see record 2007-00414-000). This book follows in the line of Jungian, Humanistic, and Existential theories in proclaiming that the arts are essentially connected to human nature in a meaningful way. Like May, many of the chapter authors agree that the arts have a purpose beyond mere amusement, entertainment, or stress relief. With Freud, they also agree that the arts emerged through the evolutionary process, but they disagree that this was merely a useful by-product of natural selection. Rather, the arts are innately connected to human survival and development. The approach in this book is very distinct from the methods of Freud, Jung, and May. The chapter authors use quantitative research, genetic research, and electroencephalographic (EEG) studies to examine the purpose of the arts, aesthetics, and creativity. Although their results often feel much blander than the mythical interpretations of Jung and May, they continue to provide important empirical support for the utility and need for the arts using more contemporary methods. Many of the chapters in this book provide important insights into the creativity process. Some chapters provide more understanding than utility, which is a major weakness of the book. It would have been helpful to have some of the chapters make more direct connections to the practical utility and meaning of the research presented or reviewed. However, in the end, this book provides a wealth of information from many different perspectives and, as a whole, provides a significant contribution to the psychological and scientific literature on creativity. (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)