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Anxiety and Flexibility of Defense Related to High or Low Creativity
Creativity Research Journal
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate differences in anxiety and defense mechanisms between differently creative people. Two extreme groups that scored either very high or very low on a test of the creative function were selected from a larger cohort (N = 60). Each group consisted of 12 male undergraduate students, who took a test of defense mechanisms and completed anxiety inventories. The results showed that the high-creative group had more anxiety than the low-creative group. The high-creative group also used a greater number of different defense categories than the low-creative group. The number of defense categories was positively correlated with a fluency measure in the creativity test. These results are discussed in terms of variability in basal arousal, flexibility, and a creative defensive style.
... Positive moods can also be a signal of a non-threatening environment and can motivate individuals to explore broadly [25][26][27]. Regarding negative mood states, while some studies provided evidence for inhibition of creativity by negative moods such as anger, sadness, etc. [28][29][30], other studies reported that negative moods promote creative performance compared to neutral moods [31][32][33]. Moreover, several studies have shown that negative moods exert a non-significant effect on creativity [34,35]. ...
... The negative mood states also showed distinct contributions to the two-state creativity dimensions, with significant contributions only to state originality. As state originality is probably the most studied creative state, our results are in accordance with those that reported a promotion effect of negative moods on creative performance [31][32][33]. Although further studies are necessary to elucidate the underlying mechanism of these links, this observation provided support for the necessity of the decomposition of state creativity into originality and usefulness and for the first time showed the influence of mood states on the usefulness dimension of state creativity. ...
... As a signal of a problematic situation, negative mood states are likely to indicate problems at hand, as well as the necessity of higher effort and persistence [26,68]. Under relatively high negative moods, participants with higher originality in divergent thinking abilities may benefit more from the extra effort by rejecting a familiar conventional approach and reaching for a more original idea [31][32][33]. ...
The relationship between mood states and state creativity has long been investigated. Exploring individual differences may provide additional important information to further our understanding of the complex mood-creativity relationship. The present study explored the state-level mood-creativity relationship from the perspective of trait creativity. We employed the experience sampling method (ESM) in a cohort of 56 college students over five consecutive days. The participants reported their state creativity on originality and usefulness dimensions at six random points between 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m., along with a 10-item concurrent mood state report. Their trait creativity was measured by the Guildford Alternative Uses Test (AUT) and the Remote Associates Test (RAT). We found moderating effects of the participants’ trait creativity on their state-level mood-creativity relationship. Specifically, whereas the positive correlation between positive mood state and originality of state creativity was stronger for the participants with higher AUT flexibility scores, stronger positive correlations between negative mood state and originality of state creativity were observed for individuals with higher AUT originality scores. Our findings provide evidence in support of introducing individual differences to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of the mood-creativity link. The results could be of practical value, in developing individualized mood state regulation strategies for promoting state creativity.
... Researchers Zhang (2009) found that many different ways of thinking such as the legislative, liberal, and hierarchical styles correlate negatively with state and trait anxiety, which in turn correlates negatively with creativity. Carlsson (2002) found that those who scored higher on the creative scale also reported greater levels of anxiety. Creative anxiety, defined as "anxiety towards a way of thinking (i.e., thinking creatively)" (p. ...
... Although those who scored higher on the anxiety scale also reported lower scores on the creativity scale, the results of research contradict those of Carlsson's (2002) study, which found that those who scored higher on the creative scale also reported greater anxiety levels. This study supports Krashen's affective filter hypothesis of second language writing, which postulates that when students are under stress, their writing suffers. ...
The rationale of this correlational research was to explore the connection between writing anxiety and creativity among Pakistani ESL students. Thirty Pakistani ESL students (17 men, 13 women) made up the study's population. The research collected data using a combination of three tools (the IELTS essay prompt available at www.org.ielts, the IELTS scoring rubric, and the Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory). Later, the data was analyzed using SPSS 23. The goals of the present investigation necessitated the use of Pearson's correlation. The Pearson correlation analysis revealed a moderately significant negative relationship (r=-.479) between Pakistani ESL students' anxiety and their creativity. This study found that among Pakistani ESL students, there was negative relationship between anxiety and their ability to write creatively. Avoidance behavior was shown to be prevalent among ESL students.
... Bazı çalışmalar daha çok örgüt ve sistem üzerindeki etki ile ilgilenirken, kimi çalışmaların, bireysel düzeyde, psikolojik süreçleri de barındıran noktalara vurgu yaptığı görülmektedir. Bu açıdan kimi yazarlar, endişe, korku, tehdit, stres gibi olumsuz duyguların yaratıcılığı arttırdığını belirtilirken (Baruch vd., 2008;Carlsson, 2002;Jones ve Kelly, 2009;Zenasni ve Lubart, 2009;Hon vd., 2013;Dominguez, 2013;Nguyen ve Zeng, 2012;Binnewies ve Wörnlein, 2011;Baer ve Oldham, 2006;Gardner, 1990;De Dreu vd., 2008), kimileri ise tam tersi bir durumun söz konusu olduğunu belirtmiştir (Hirt vd., 2008;Zenasni ve Lubart, 2008;Baas vd., 2008;Vassasova, 2011;Çekmecelioğlu ve Günsel, 2011;Long, 2013). Stresin yaratıcılık üzerindeki olumlu etkilerini ele alan bu çalışmaların, stresin bireyi harekete geçirici ve uyarıcı yönüne atfen, aktif bir ruh halini tetiklediğini ve bunun da yaratıcılığa neden olacağını belirttikleri görülmektedir (De Dreu ve Weingart, 2003;De Jonge vd., 2012;Zhou ve George, 2001). ...
... Aynı zamanda, bu çalışmada, strese neden olan bir unsur olan, iş yükü baskısının, yaratıcılık ve tehdit algısı arasındaki ilişkiyi etkilediği görülmüştür; iş yükü baskısının daha yüksek olduğu durumlarda bireylerin yüksek tehdit algısı ile daha az yaratıcılık gösterdikleri ifade edilmiştir. Benzer şekilde Carlsson (2002), yeni durumların genellikle heyecan ile birlikte korku ve endişe gibi negatif duygular doğuracağı, bu olumsuz durumla başa çıkabilme cesaretinin yaratıcı olmanın bir parçası olduğunu belirtmiştir. Çalışma sonucunda, yüksek yaratıcılık gösteren grubun düşük yaratıcılık gösteren gruba göre endişe düzeyinin daha yüksek olduğu ortaya konmuştur. ...
z Değişim her ne kadar tüm örgütler açısından kaçınılmaz bir olgu olsa da, bu örgütlerde çalışan bireylerin değişime uyum göstermeleri başlı başına zorlu bir süreç olmaktadır. Çalışanların örgütlerine ve/veya çalışma alanlarına yönelik olan ortaya çıkan değişime direnç göstermeleri, bu sürecin ilk etabını teşkil ederken, bu direncin, bireylerin örgüte ve/veya işe yönelik tutumlarını etkileyen bir duruma dönüşmesi mümkündür. Bu çalışmanın amacı, Türkiye'de yükseköğretim kurumlarında çalışan akademisyenlerin, değişime karşı dirençlerinin, yaratıcı davranışları üzerindeki etkisini analiz etmektir. Bu sebeple, çalışmada 115 akademisyenden oluşan bir örneklem üzerinde nicel bir çalışma gerçekleştirilmiş ve değişime direncin teorik kapsamda belirlenen farklı boyutlarının, akademisyenlerin yaratıcılık düzeylerini olumsuz etkilediği tespit edilmiştir. Çalışmada, katılımcıların stres düzeylerinin, değişime direnç ve yaratıcılık arasında öne sürülen bu ilişki üzerinde tam aracı rolü üstlendiği de tespit edilmiştir. Bu durumda, değişime karşı direncin katılımcıların stres seviyesini artırarak yaratıcılığı azalttığını ve ayrıca yeni teori-yöntem-uygulama bulması beklenen bu meslek grubundaki çalışanların bu süreçten olumsuz etkilendiğini söylemek mümkündür. Abstract Although the change is inevitable for all organizations, adapting to this change is a completely difficult process for the employees. While the employees' resistance to change, which occurs in their organizations and/or occupations, becomes the first step of this process, this resistance might transform a state that affects their attitudes towards their organizations and/or jobs. The purpose of current study is to analyze the impact of the resistance to change on creative behavior of academicians working in higher education institutions in Turkey. Thus, a quantitative study was conducted on a sample of 115 academicians and it was found that all theoretically identified dimensions of resistance to change negatively affects the academicians' creativity. In the study, it was also revealed that the respondents' stress level fully mediate the proposed link between resistance to change and creativity. In this case, it can be stated that the resistance to change decreases the creativity by increasing the respondents' stress level and also, employees in this occupational group, which is expected to find new theory-method-application are negatively affected.
... Bazı çalışmalar daha çok örgüt ve sistem üzerindeki etki ile ilgilenirken, kimi çalışmaların, bireysel düzeyde, psikolojik süreçleri de barındıran noktalara vurgu yaptığı görülmektedir. Bu açıdan kimi yazarlar, endişe, korku, tehdit, stres gibi olumsuz duyguların yaratıcılığı arttırdığını belirtilirken (Baruch vd., 2008;Carlsson, 2002;Jones ve Kelly, 2009;Zenasni ve Lubart, 2009;Hon vd., 2013;Dominguez, 2013;Nguyen ve Zeng, 2012;Binnewies ve Wörnlein, 2011;Baer ve Oldham, 2006;Gardner, 1990;De Dreu vd., 2008), kimileri ise tam tersi bir durumun söz konusu olduğunu belirtmiştir (Hirt vd., 2008;Zenasni ve Lubart, 2008;Baas vd., 2008;Vassasova, 2011;Çekmecelioğlu ve Günsel, 2011;Long, 2013). Stresin yaratıcılık üzerindeki olumlu etkilerini ele alan bu çalışmaların, stresin bireyi harekete geçirici ve uyarıcı yönüne atfen, aktif bir ruh halini tetiklediğini ve bunun da yaratıcılığa neden olacağını belirttikleri görülmektedir (De Dreu ve Weingart, 2003;De Jonge vd., 2012;Zhou ve George, 2001). ...
... Aynı zamanda, bu çalışmada, strese neden olan bir unsur olan, iş yükü baskısının, yaratıcılık ve tehdit algısı arasındaki ilişkiyi etkilediği görülmüştür; iş yükü baskısının daha yüksek olduğu durumlarda bireylerin yüksek tehdit algısı ile daha az yaratıcılık gösterdikleri ifade edilmiştir. Benzer şekilde Carlsson (2002), yeni durumların genellikle heyecan ile birlikte korku ve endişe gibi negatif duygular doğuracağı, bu olumsuz durumla başa çıkabilme cesaretinin yaratıcı olmanın bir parçası olduğunu belirtmiştir. Çalışma sonucunda, yüksek yaratıcılık gösteren grubun düşük yaratıcılık gösteren gruba göre endişe düzeyinin daha yüksek olduğu ortaya konmuştur. ...
z Değişim her ne kadar tüm örgütler açısından kaçınılmaz bir olgu olsa da, bu örgütlerde çalışan bireylerin değişime uyum göstermeleri başlı başına zorlu bir süreç olmaktadır. Çalışanların örgütlerine ve/veya çalışma alanlarına yönelik olan ortaya çıkan değişime direnç göstermeleri, bu sürecin ilk etabını teşkil ederken, bu direncin, bireylerin örgüte ve/veya işe yönelik tutumlarını etkileyen bir duruma dönüşmesi mümkündür. Bu çalışmanın amacı, Türkiye'de yükseköğretim kurumlarında çalışan akademisyenlerin, değişime karşı dirençlerinin, yaratıcı davranışları üzerindeki etkisini analiz etmektir. Bu sebeple, çalışmada 115 akademisyenden oluşan bir örneklem üzerinde nicel bir çalışma gerçekleştirilmiş ve değişime direncin teorik kapsamda belirlenen farklı boyutlarının, akademisyenlerin yaratıcılık düzeylerini olumsuz etkilediği tespit edilmiştir. Çalışmada, katılımcıların stres düzeylerinin, değişime direnç ve yaratıcılık arasında öne sürülen bu ilişki üzerinde tam aracı rolü üstlendiği de tespit edilmiştir. Bu durumda, değişime karşı direncin katılımcıların stres seviyesini artırarak yaratıcılığı azalttığını ve ayrıca yeni teori-yöntem-uygulama bulması beklenen bu meslek grubundaki çalışanların bu süreçten olumsuz etkilendiğini söylemek mümkündür. Abstract Although the change is inevitable for all organizations, adapting to this change is a completely difficult process for the employees. While the employees' resistance to change, which occurs in their organizations and/or occupations, becomes the first step of this process, this resistance might transform a state that affects their attitudes towards their organizations and/or jobs. The purpose of current study is to analyze the impact of the resistance to change on creative behavior of academicians working in higher education institutions in Turkey. Thus, a quantitative study was conducted on a sample of 115 academicians and it was found that all theoretically identified dimensions of resistance to change negatively affects the academicians' creativity. In the study, it was also revealed that the respondents' stress level fully mediate the proposed link between resistance to change and creativity. In this case, it can be stated that the resistance to change decreases the creativity by increasing the respondents' stress level and also, employees in this occupational group, which is expected to find new theory-method-application are negatively affected.
... This study investigated how achievement motivation and state anxiety correlate with and to what extent they predict students' creative writing performance in English. Prior studies have found that creative thinking and performance in different domains are associated with an individual's motivation (e.g., Ceci & Kumar, 2016;Eisenberg & Thompson, 2011;Erbas & Bas, 2015;Fan & Zhang, 2009;Hong, O'Neil & Peng, 2016) and anxiety (e.g., Carlsson, 2002;Daker, Cortes, Lyons & Green, 2020;Zhang, 2009) to different degrees. With regard to motivation, theoretical models of the creative process show that motivation plays an important role in creative thinking. ...
... To investigate the relationship of creativity-generating thinking styles to state anxiety and trait anxiety, Zhang (2009) discovered that several creativity-generating thinking styles (e.g., the legislative style, the liberal style, and the hierarchical style) were negatively correlated with both state anxiety and trait anxiety. In contrast, Carlsson's (2002) study revealed that people with higher creativity seemed to feel higher levels of anxiety. A more recent article by Daker et al. (2020) delved into creativity anxiety, which "is an anxiety toward a way of thinking (i.e., thinking creatively)" (p. ...
This study aimed to investigate whether English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) learners’ creative writing performance was correlated with their achievement motivation and state anxiety and could be predicted by these two factors. Data were collected from seventy-one Taiwanese university students who took part in an English creative writing task. In this activity, the students completed the Questionnaire on Motivation Toward Verbal Creativity in English, the State Anxiety Inventory, and a creative story. Their stories were compared and each story was rated by four university English teachers to yield a content creativity score and a language accuracy score. Both scores were further combined as a total score of creative writing performance. Results indicated significantly negative correlations between achievement motivation and state anxiety and between state anxiety and creative writing performance. Only state anxiety alone could significantly predict creative writing performance, suggesting that the students who felt less anxious tended to perform better on the story-writing task. Based on the findings, pedagogical implications are discussed regarding how English L2 teachers can support learners’ creative writing by dealing with their anxiety.
... Previous studies have shown high correlations with the richness of ideas, expressiveness, originality, creative interests, and predictions of creative achievement, all judged by external experts, in studies of researchers, artists, children, and architects (Schoon, 1992;Smith & Carlsson, 1990a). There were negative correlations with depressive illness and grave anxiety (Smith & Carlsson, 1988) and positive relations to the experience of aging (Smith & van der Meer, 1990), to a moderate anxiety level (Carlsson, 2002), to androgyny (Jönsson & Carlsson, 2000), to (a lack of) alexithymia (Smith & van der Meer, 1994), and to balanced hemispheric activity in the brain (Carlsson, Wendt, & Risberg, 2000). The CFT median varies between groups and was particularly low for children in their first school year (Smith & Carlsson, 1983). ...
... Here, those who entered REM sleep, compared to those who stayed awake, were significantly more flexible on a measure of perceptual defense strategies tested after the nap. This kind of flexible perceptual defense has previously been related to creativity (Carlsson, 2002). ...
The effect of napping versus wakefulness was studied on primed and repeated Remote Associate Tests (RATs) and on divergent creativity tests. The participants were 42 students from the USA, studying international courses at a Swedish university. The hypotheses for the RATs were (1), when the correct answers were primed before the nap, the RAT should be solved better for those who entered REM sleep, compared to those with no REM sleep or a resting condition; and (2), when retested the RAT should be solved better after a nap than after rest. For the creativity tests, hypothesis (3) was that creativity should be higher after the nap than after rest. Hypothesis 1 and hypothesis 3 were not supported. Hypothesis 2 was supported in an ANOVA. The REM group improved more than the rest group on the repeated RAT. Also, the No-REM and rest groups differed, strengthening the importance of both REM and No-REM sleep for creative problem-solving.
... Creativity was investigated as a valuable tool to assist in coping with daily stresses, emergencies, and crises. In another view, psychopathology may enhance creativity under certain circumstances (Xu et al., 2021), acting as a support ability to deal with ambiguity, uncertainty, and the possibility of failure, which are common challenges during this pandemic period (Carlsson, 2002). ...
COVID-19 has caused several repercussions and changes in many contexts, including the need to adapt to a new reality, confront the crisis, and search for solutions. Considering this perception, the article presents a systematic review of the role of creativity in this period. An in-depth search was performed in Google Scholar, EBISCO, MEDLINE, and APA PsycArticles following the PRISMA guidelines. Upon applying inclusion and exclusion criteria, a total of 143 articles were selected and analyzed by two experts. There was a substantial predominance of empirical studies (47.1%), and studies conducted in educational settings (42.1%). Additionally, more than 11 research contexts were identified, with researchers from 28 areas of knowledge. This plurality reinforces the notion that creativity is a construct of multidisciplinary interest that can act as a protective factor during adverse situations such as those experienced during the pandemic, allowing for adaptation and flexibility in different circumstances.
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... Psychological Inquiry, Volume 4, 182-184. 55 Carlsson, I., 2002. Anxiety and Flexibility of Defence Related to High or Low Creativity. ...
... . Another study using self-report measures found negative relationship between negative emotions and creativity among college students in Norway (Vosburg, 1998). On the other hand, a handful of studies demonstrate that negative emotions can facilitate creative thinking in Western cultures, such that anxiety and depression are positively associated with creativity among college students (Carlsson, 2002;Verhaeghen, Joorman, & Khan, 2005). Furthermore, experimental work indicates that induced negative emotions enhance creative problem-solving (Kaufmann & Vosburg, 1997) and artistic creativity (Akinola & Mendes, 2008). ...
Research on the implications of negative emotions for creativity has yielded mixed findings. To clarify this relationship, we conducted a short-term prospective study with data collected across two time points. We also explored the moderating roles of family expressiveness and gender in the creative process. The sample included 392 Japanese adolescents (54.7% female; age range: 12-13 years old). Adolescents reported on their experiences of negative activating emotion (e.g., fear, anxiety) and the degree to which their family members expressed positive emotions (e.g., expressing gratitude) toward each other. A drawing task and an alternative uses task (AUT) were used to measure adolescents' creativity. For creativity expressed in the drawing task, negative activating emotion enhanced creativity in girls only when their families' emotional expressivity was of low or average levels. For creativity indexed by the AUT, a high level of family expres-siveness strengthened the relationship between negative activating emotion and creativity in boys but suppressed such a relationship in girls. Findings suggest that, at least among Japanese adolescents, the associations between negative activating emotions and creativity can depend on multiple factors, including family emotional expressivity, gender, and the nature of the creativity task.
... Findings indicated that creative strengths during the middle school years are likely intertwined with holistic healthy adolescent development. Six decades of research illustrate the overarching benefits of individuals' creative resources across the lifespan to resilience and flourishing Carlsson, 2002;Guilford, 1968;Puccio, 2017;Runco, 1991). The findings of this current study suggest that these creative resources may be powerful during fast-changing adolescence. ...
... So, creativity could be associated with negative valence but also with a higher level of arousal, due to the anxiety caused by disturbing contents. The empirical evidence has confirmed that highly creative individuals show a higher degree of anxiety and use more different defensive mechanisms that are positively correlated with fluency measure in the creativity test (Carlsson, 2002). Results of biometric experiments have shown that arousal is correlated with the achievement of participants on tests of creative thinking (Martindale & Greenough, 1973), and that highly creative individuals have a slightly higher resting level of arousal, in comparison with others (Martindale, 2005), with certain additional specificities. ...
Relations between creativity, dimensions of emotional experience (valence and arousal), and familiarity of content were examined in an experiment with 92 students, grouped into two sub-samples: art and non-art students. For stimulation, 40 photos were selected from the Nencki Affective Picture System, so that the values of the dimensions were systematically varied. Students were exposed to the photos and asked to rate the familiarity of their content, and then to generate a creative title for each of them. Measuring creativity was based on the coefficients, specially constructed and derived from the assessment of titles’ originality. The analysis shows that valence, arousal, and familiarity might be the predictors of creativity and that unpleasant and novel content induces more creative answers. Generative processes of art-students show certain peculiarities: they are more sensitive to the external clues, especially novel and disturbing, which might be explained by the action model of creativity.
... Based on this information, affect might influence individuals' attentional state and cognitive flexibility (De Dreu et al., 2008). Studies have suggested that negative affect is related to the suppression of interfering information (Akinola & Mendes, 2008;Carlsson, 2002;Spering et al. 2005) and the promoted cognitive persistence (De Dreu et al., 2008;Nijstad et al., 2010). Positive affect promotes the flexible allocation of attention resources (Martin & Kerns, 2011;Osaka et al., 2013) and flexible processing even if the current processing resources are limited (Lindström & Bohlin, 2011;Storbeck & Clore, 2008). ...
The present study examined whether affective valence moderated the influence of holistic and analytic thinking styles on insight problem solving by analysing event-related potentials (ERPs). Adult participants were screened and assigned to holistic-thinking and analytic-thinking groups, 22 participants per group. They completed the insight task. The results indicated that in the initial stage of insight, the positive affect elicited larger N1 amplitudes than the negative affect in the analytic-thinking group. Moreover, for the holistic-thinking group, positive affect elicited larger P2 amplitudes than negative affect. In the subsequent stages, negative affect elicited larger N300–500 and late components than positive affect in the holistic-thinking group. In contrast, positive affect elicited larger N300–500 and late components than negative affect in the analytic-thinking group. These findings suggest that holistic-thinking individuals with negative affect and analytic-thinking individuals with positive affect were more able to abandon mental sets and reconstruct novel mental representations.
... Different patterns of results have also been seen in studies of anxiety and creativity. Carlsson (2002) reported that highly creative individuals had more anxiety and defensiveness than individuals low in creativity. Alternatively, Byron et al. (2010) showed that low levels of state anxiety associated with social evaluative threats increased creative performance, while high anxiety levels decreased creative performance and that these relationships depended on levels of trait anxiety. ...
It is often assumed, and research has shown, that anger and anxiety in the workplace are associated with a number of negative outcomes. However, recent creativity studies have challenged this perspective, suggesting more nuanced relationships between these negative emotions and creative behavior. There is a need to examine these emotions in context and with respect to different types of creative processes. The present study examined the effects of state anger and state anxiety on idea generation when they are integral to task context and when they arise incidentally from triggers unrelated to the task context. Results indicate that state anxiety positively influences the quality of ideas generated relative to state anger. However, anger integral to the creative task context resulted in a larger number of ideas being generated, and more shifts in conceptual categories among responses compared to integral anxiety. Limitations and future directions are discussed.
... However, some studies examining individual differences found opposite results. For example, a high-creativity group was accompanied by high trait anxiety (Carlsson, 2002), or high-anxiety individuals had more artistic work (Dikiy et al., 2018). Researchers believe that although anxiety represents negative information of danger, it prompts individuals to complete creative tasks by cognitive effort (Byron & Khazanchi, 2011). ...
Trait anxiety has been shown to moderate transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) effects on some cognitive functions. Based on the attentional control theory (ACT), trait anxiety might be closely related to dysfunctional executive control and prefrontal activity. Importantly, executive and prefrontal functions are necessary for creativity. Critically, it is unknown whether trait anxiety moderates tDCS effects on creativity. To address this, thirty low-trait-anxious (LTA) and thirty-one high-trait-anxious (HTA) participants performed creativity tasks assessing divergent thinking (alternate uses task, AUT) and convergent thinking (compound remote associates test, CRAT), while receiving three types of tDCS (L-R+: left cathodal/right anodal; L+R-: reverse protocol; sham) over the bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). L+R- stimulation promoted superior performance on the AUT compared with the other two stimulations. Importantly, L+R- stimulation benefitted LTA but not HTA individuals. No significant main nor interactive effects were found on the CRAT. These results demonstrate that L+R- stimulation benefits divergent but not convergent thinking. Furthermore, divergent thinking is more sensitive to L+R- stimulation in the LTA group than in the HTA group. Based on the ACT, this is likely due to differential DLPFC activation between the groups. Future studies should consider trait anxiety when exploring tDCS effects on creativity.
... However, this is not to say that negative emotions wouldn't have a role in creative processes; there is increasing amount of evidence showing that for some task types also negative effect can enhance creativity. Previous studies have suggested that anxiety and anger may be related to creativity (Carlsson, 2002;Yang & Hung, 2015) and that simultaneous experience of positive and negative emotions, or emotional ambivalence, may enhance processing that is relevant for creativity (Fong, 2006). In experimental settings, it has been shown also that negative emotions (evoked by social exclusion) may lead to greater artistic creativity (Akinola & Mendes, 2008) and that moderate level of stress may promote creativity (Yeh, Lai, Lin, Lin, & Sun, 2015). ...
Trait emotional intelligence and evoked empathy may help in a task where emotion-evoking source material is utilized to ideate solutions and services for the end-user. Participants of the current study read life stories of different persons, with perspective-taking instruction to evoke either high or low empathy. The reading was followed with ideation tasks, first identifying problems that the person of the story is facing, and then creating initial ideas for products or services to help with these problems. The perspective-taking empathy manipulation had an expected effect to the self-reported state empathy; however, it did not have an effect on the performance in the ideation tasks. Trait emotional intelligence was related to the detection of the problems and to the generating of more ideas. The results imply that emotional intelligence may be beneficial in ideation process where perspective of the customer or end user has to be considered.
... The research on anxiety and creativity is sparse; there are only a few experimental studies [42], which may be due to the fact that anxiety and fear are regarded as not conducive to creativity. Lazarus [43] showed that people who are highly worried have less confidence in solving problems and less often use problem-oriented coping. ...
Since ancient philosophy, extraordinary creativity is associated with mental disorders, emotional and cognitive destabilization, and melancholia. We here summarize the results of empirical and narrative studies and analyze the most prominent case of a highly creative person who suffered from dysthymia and major depression with suicidality. Hereby, we focus on the interaction of different phases of the creative process with “bipolar” personality traits. Finally, we offer an interdisciplinary interpretation of the creative dialectics between order and chaos. The results show that severe psychopathology inhibits creativity. Mild and moderate disorders can inspire and motivate creative work but are only leading to new and useful solutions when creators succeed in transforming their emotional instability and cognitive incoherence into stable and coherent forms. The cultural idea that creativity emerges in dialectical processes between order and chaos, is also to be found in the psychologic interplay of coherence and incoherence, and in neuro-scientific models of the dynamics between tightening and loosening of neuronal structures. Consequences are drawn for the psychotherapeutic treatment of persons striving for creativity.
... En cuanto a la correlación entre las variables de Creatividad y Función Ejecutiva, los resultados obtenidos no evidencian valores significativos de correlación entre ambas variables; por lo tanto, no se obtienen datos que permitan relacionarla de manera lineal (Arieti, 1976;Martindale y Daily, 1996;Carlsson (2002). ...
... U studiji novijeg datuma to je i potvrđeno. Kreativni ljudi su anksiozniji od osoba sa ograničenim kreativnim potencijalima i koriste veći broj različitih odbrambenih kategorija (Carlson, 2002). Uz to, vole sami da odlučuju šta i kako će raditi. ...
„Početak i kraj kreativnog procesa“ je interdisciplinarna studija posvećena iskustvu umetnika tokom nastajanja nove umetničke forme. Uz osvrt na ranije uvide i teorijske modele kreativnog procesa, studija obuhvata rezultate novih istraživanja koji su izvedeni u periodu od 2008 do 2010 u Srbiji, u saradnji sa grupom glumaca, pisaca, muzičara i vizuelnih umetnika. U fokusu su razvojni tokovi koje umetnici prepoznaju u situaciji stvaranja i fenomen spontanosti koji na različite načine može delovati na kreativni proces, kao i na percepciju estetskog ishoda.
... Mode of study as used in this study refers to the reading style adopted by the undergraduate students to read and studying in the school. Carlsson (2002) found that mode of study provided a defense mechanism to anxiety and this was later supported by Henderson et al. (2007) who indicated that mode of study provided a calming effect on post-traumatic stress disorder patients. On the other hand, Mitchell et al. (2008) also showed effective mode of study as a therapeutic key that significantly decreased anxiety. ...
... Unatoč kritikama, psihoanalitička tumačenja kreativnosti postupno stječu dostojnu empirijsku validaciju. Pokazano je da ispitanici koji učestalo koriste mehanizam sublimacije otkrivaju viši stupanj kreativnosti od drugih (Domino, Short, Evans i Romano, 2002;Vaillant i Vaillant, 1990) i da izrazito kreativne osobe pokazuju viši stupanj anksioznosti, kao i da koriste veći broj različitih obrambenih kategorija koje su u pozitivnoj korelaciji s mjerama fluentnosti (Carllson, 2002). Uvidi o funkcionalnoj regresiji objašnjavaju pristup sadržajima primarnog procesa koji izranjaju iz intrapsihičkog konflikta i nose snažan emocionalni naboj (Kris, 1952). ...
Psychodynamic assumptions that unpleasant and new content can stimulate creativity have been partially confirmed by empirical research. However, it is questionable, in which way the familiarity of content, the particular dimensions of the emotional experience and the qualities of emotions affect the production of highly creative individuals such as art students, and whether their creative process shows a certain level of peculiarity. In this research, the degree and type of correlations between the creativity of the response, and the qualities of emotions (happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust), the dimensions of the emotional experience (valence and arousal) and the familiarity of content were examined with different student populations. The experiment was performed with 59 students, and 40 photos were selected for visual stimulation, so that the values of the dimensions and qualities of the emotional experience were systematically varied. Students were exposed to the photos and were asked to rate the familiarity of their content, and subsequently to make the most creative title for each of them. The creativity of the titles was measured by coefficients of creativity and uniqueness, based on the originality assessment. The results confirm the statistical significance of moderate negative correlations between creativity and familiarity of content, valence, and happiness; moderate positive correlations between creativity and arousal, sadness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust, as well as process specificities of the art students, for whom novelty and surprise take the lead over other qualities and dimensions of emotional experience.
... For instance, Carson and Runco (1999) demonstrated that problem-solving abilities are important components of an individual's overall capacity to cope with major and minor life stressors. Similarly, it has been shown that highly creative individuals use a more varied set of defense mechanisms than low-creative individuals who opt for more unidimensional defensive style to deal with state and trait anxiety (Carlsson, 2002). Likewise, recent findings revealed that effective stress management requires the individual to remain flexible and creative at all times (Le, Cropley, & Richard et al. ...
Objective: Some evidence suggests an association between creativity and adaptability; yet this relationship has not been tested empirically. The present study aimed at testing experimentally whether cognitive and motor creativity are associated with the psychological, behavioral, and affective dimensions of adaptation when failing to reach a motor task goal. Design and method: Forty-five students were asked to complete a motor circuit under pressure. After setting their own goal, participants had up to 10 attempts to reach that goal and were told that they failed after each attempt. Perception of task difficulty and self-efficacy were measured before the first attempt. Persistent and variable behaviors were recorded during the task. Finally, upon completion of the motor circuit, participants completed the affect grid and were tested for their cognitive and motor creativity. Results: Correlational analyses revealed that cognitive and motor creativity are separate but related entities. A series of linear regression analyses revealed that motor (but not cognitive) creativity was significantly associated with probability of adaptation (r = 0.31). Flexibility in motor creativity predicted perception of task difficulty whereas originality was a significant predictor of persistent behavior. Conclusions: Some similarities exist in the processes underlying both the generation of creative thoughts and movements. Being able to produce a large number of flexible and original motor solutions seem to offer an adaptation advantage. Each creativity dimension has a separate but complementary influence on the psychological, affective, and behavioral dimensions of adaptation.
... As hypothesized, psychoticism, hypomania and impulsivity were found as enabling thinking fluency, being a capital feature to produce novel ideas in undergraduates as a whole (e.g. Acar & Runco, 2012; Carlsson, 2002; Fulford, Feldman, Tabak, McGillicuddy, & Johnson, 2013; Sapranaviciute, Perminas, & Sinkariova, 2010; Schuldberg, 2001). Regarding adaptive traits, a comparative meta-analytical study inventoried a group of traits which were present in the most creative persons when compared to those less creative individuals – autonomy, introversion, openness to new experiences, norm-doubt, self-confidence, self-acceptance, self-driving, ambitiousness, dominance, hostility , and impulsivity (Feist, 1998). ...
This paper presents a study on paradoxical personality, defined as a distinctive feature in creative persons, developed with 350 college students from Buenos Aires. Goals aimed at describing and analysing possible significant differences of paradoxical traits in students from diverse majors representing seven different fields of study, and examining the relationship between each bipolar trait and academic achievement. The sample was composed of 7 groups (n = 50 by group) representing fields of study typically offered in public universities, Biology, Computer Science, Engineering, Law, Nutrition, Psychology, and History of Art. Analyses by career provided descriptive information about students of these majors, concerning their paradoxical personality profiles. Correlational studies verified significant associations between academic achievement and most paradoxical traits in majors such as Computer Science, Nutrition and Psychology. Results are discussed regarding practical outcomes and teaching programs.
... These are fascinating ideas, but it could be that the observed connection between paradox and creativity can be explained by a third variable, much like hidden variables often explain what seem to be causal relationships but are in fact merely correlational. Indeed, there are various signs that creative individuals are flexible in their thinking, their personality, their attitudes, their cognitive styles, and even their defense mechanisms (Carlsson, 2002;Dane, 2010;Runco, 1985Runco, , 1994aFlach, 1990). Perhaps the important trait is flexibility which is then expressed as flexible styles, flexible attitudes, and so on, so creative people may seem to manifest quite different traits at different times, all because of the underlying flexibility. ...
... This range of psychopathology is characteristic of acute and chronic stress, conditions that typify performing arts careers (Weber and Jaekel-Reinhart, 2000). As well, increased anxiety was associated with highly creative individuals (Carlsson, 2002). Many performing artists identify anxiety as a significant problem; they attributed decreased self-confidence, disruptions in performance skills, loss of pleasure and enjoyment, and chronic somatic symptoms such as those found in sleep or cardiovascular disorders to elevated anxiety (Sataloff et al., 1999;Langendorfer et al., 2006). ...
Childhood adversity is identified as any exposure to abuse, neglect or family dysfunction. Greater exposure to childhood adversity has been strongly identified with increased morbidity and mortality. The aim of this study was to examine differences in creative experiences, fantasy proneness, dispositional flow, exposure to adult traumatic events, and psychopathology (internalized shame, trait anxiety), amongst professional performing artists who experienced no childhood adversity, some adversity, or substantial adversity. This cross-section IRB approved study examined 234 professional performers (dancers, opera singers, actors, directors, musicians). Self-report measurements were included to examine the following psychological factors: adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), experience of creativity questionnaire, dispositional flow, trait anxiety, internalized shame, fantasy, and total adult and childhood traumatic events. The sample was divided into three groups based on ACE scores: 0 ACE (n = 93), 1–3 ACEs (n = 95), ≥4 ACEs (n = 42). The MANCOVA (with age and gender as covariates) results revealed no significant (p = 0.280) differences between all three ACE groups for the nine flow scales (optimal performance measurements). Performing artists with ≥4 ACEs had significantly stronger creative experiences (p = 0.006) related to distinct creative processing, absorption, and a transformational sense of self and the world. They were also more fantasy prone, shame-based, anxious, and experienced more cumulative past traumatic events (p < 0.001). Although the high ACE group experienced greater negative effects, they also endorsed positive creative performance experiences.
... Although broad attention-training programs improve complex task performance, narrow attention training improves simple task performance, thus raising the question whether narrow attention might be beneficial during some stages of the creative process (Memmert, 2007). Others proposed that flexible cognitive control accounts for greater creativity (Carlsson, 2002;Zabelina & Robinson, 2010). It is conceivable that the ability to use both broad and narrow attention, depending on the task requirements, is what accounts for successful performance on creativity tasks requiring both convergent and divergent thinking. ...
Within the literature, there are two opposing views regarding the influencing role of emotions on the creative process. The most commonly held view contends that positive emotions enhance creativity and negative emotions stifle it; yet, some studies show an opposite trend. These contradictory findings can be explained by examining two aspects of the emotions: attention and creativity relationship. First, emotional valence and arousal levels interact to affect attention. Second, creativity is not a unitary cognitive process and some stages rely more on focused attention but others are aided by diffused or broad attention. To test this proposition, two experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1, valence (positive vs. negative) and arousal (high vs. low) were manipulated and participants completed a series of attention and creativity tasks. Experiment 2 employed similar emotion induction procedure, but a different set of creative problems was used. The results of both experiments were consistent with the proposed explanation of the effects of emotions on creativity.
... Эти же студенты набрали низкие баллы по проектированию, пассивной агрессивности, репрессии и альтруизме. Исследованием [15] установлены различия в тревожности и защитных механизмах для различных категорий индивидов. Для решения указанной задачи были отобраны две группы участников мужского пола, которые набрали наибольшее или наименьшее количество баллов по результатам тестирования творческих способностей. ...
It is considered the structure of the creative potential of the individual and its substantive content. It is shown the relationship
of the structural components of creativity with other
characteristics of the individual psyche.
... Він повинен володіти сформованими методами узагальнення, аналізу інформації, що надходить, та вміти відібрати найцінніші факти й використати їх у подальшому вивченні дисципліни.Крім того, процес збагаченого навчання обдарованої молоді потребує висококваліфікованих педагогічних кадрів. На жаль, не у кожному вищому навчальному закладі України знайдеться достатня кількість таких науковопедагогічних працівників для забезпечення потреб обдарованих студентів.Тому ця проблема повинна вирішуватися цілим колективом, а саме -кафедрою.Надзвичайно великою перевагою у цьому може стати співпадання напрямку досліджень когось з членів кафедри з колом інтересів обдарованого студента.Важливим елементом у співпраці науково-педагогічних працівників і обдарованої студентської молоді є взаємодопомога між представниками кафедри та розуміння ними необхідності допомоги таким студентам, які виявили зацікавленість до збагаченого навчання.Крім висококваліфікованих науково-педагогічних працівників, вищий навчальний заклад повинен мати у своїй структурі навчальні підрозділи з потужною матеріально-технічною базою для навчання обдарованих студентів,156 зокрема їх практичної підготовки. Адже такі студенти опановують навчальний матеріал за межами традиційної навчальної програми й потребують його практичного засвоєння, а навчальний заклад повинен мати всі необхідні умови для ефективного розвитку цього процесу.Однією зі складових процесу навчання обдарованих студентів є контроль ефективності засвоєння ними знань та рівня розвитку вмінь і навичок. ...
У монографії узагальнюються результати теоретичних та емпіричних досліджень стратегій навчання обдарованих студентів у вищих навчальних закладах України. Детально проаналізовано поняття "творчий процес", "творчий потенціал", "обдарованість", "додаткові освітні послуги для обдарованих студентів". Описані організаційні форми реалізації стратегій навчання обдарованої студентської молоді у ВНЗ за кордоном та у нашій країні, виокремлені особливості використання різних форм надання додаткових освітніх послуг залежно від умов навчання та потреб обдарованих студентів. Наведені приклади успішного використання стратегій навчання у практиці вітчизняних ВНЗ.
... Ці ж студенти набрали низькі бали з проектування, пасивної агресивності, репресії й альтруїзму. Дослідженням установлені відмінності в тривожності й захисних механізмах для різних категорій індивідів [7]. Для рішення зазначеного завдання було відібрано дві групи учасників чоловічої статі, які набрали найбільше або найменше балів за результатами тестування творчих здібностей. ...
У дослідженні проблем творчості важливе місце займають питання, що пов’язані з творчим потенціалом особистості, який у наукових цілях зручно представляти структурно і змістовно. При цьому, якщо щодо структурно-змістовного уявлення творчого потенціалу особистості в наукових колах досягнуто згоди, то у відборі структурних компонентів і в їх змістовому
наповненні наукового консенсусу поки досягти не вдалося.
... Their stringent self-evaluations and selective attention to failure manifests itself in all-or-none thinking, whereby the only possible outcomes are total success or total failure (Burns, 1980). Anxiety is one of the most pervasive symptoms seen in clinical psychological settings (de Ayala, Vonderharr-Carlson, & Kim, 2005), and increased anxiety has been related to highly creative individuals (Carlsson, 2002). According to research studies on musicians and vocal artists, performing artists who identified anxiety as a significant problem experienced decreased self-confidence, disruptions in performance skills, loss of pleasure and enjoyment, and chronic somatic symptoms such as those found in sleep or cardiovascular disorders (Langendorfer, Hodapp, Kreutz, & Bongard, 2006;Sataloff, Rosen, & Levy, 1999). ...
Opera singers face psychological and occupational demands that often compromise well-being and career satisfaction. In this repeated measures study, professional and pre-professional opera singers participated in either a two-week or four-week intensive training program that was designed to enhance performance skills. Curriculum was taught in an integrative and psychologically supportive environment where singers worked musically, dramatically, and physically without fear of criticism. The singers were evaluated at three time points, immediately preceding the training program, immediately following the completion of the program, and six months after the completion of the program. Results demonstrated that the singers in both the two-week and four-week groups increased their ability to achieve optimal performance, emotional regulation, and self-esteem, and decreased internalized shame, trait perfectionism, and trait anxiety. These findings are important given that opera singers are vulnerable to anxiety disorders and that their career is demanding and unpredictable.
... Creators are simultaneously more fragile and more resilient than the general population (Barron, 1969). This notion of controlled weirdness (Barron, 1993) or controlled imagination (Carlsson, 2002) finally solves the "paradox" of the creative personality (Eysenck, 1995). It is debatable whether these contradictory tendencies precede creative work (MacKinnon, 1962a(MacKinnon, , 1962b or whether they are a side effect of incessant creative activity (Runco, 2006). ...
The literature on creativity has often focused on the analysis of artists and scientists. The ability to generalize these findings to respective professional sub-disciplines is examined. In particular, the present study addresses the generalizability of the personality profile of creative scientists to creative social scientists. Autonomy was found to be the most important personality feature for creativity in social sciences. These results suggest the importance of fostering an autonomous working style.
... En un principio Lombroso (1891) relacionó los individuos más creativos con niveles mayores de psicopatología. Sin embargo, esta posición ha resultado muy controvertida, hasta el punto que podría decirse que existen dos líneas separadas de investigación respecto a la psicopatología y la creatividad (Alonso, 2000) que han aportado pruebas a favor y en contra de esta hipótesis: las que establecen una relación positiva (Carlsson, 2002;Clapham, 2001) y las que establecen una relación negativa (Mikulincer, Kedem y Paz, 1990) entre éstas. ...
Introduction: This study examines the protective effects of variables of dispositional optimism and creativity with respect to measurements of psychopathology or psychological distress. Method: A total of 113 university students from different degree programs participated in the research. Measures of creativity (CREA), optimism (LOT-R) and psychopathological symptoms (SCL-90) were administered during their course on public speaking. Correlational and regression analyses were carried out using optimism and creativity as predictors for psychopa-thological symptoms. In order to round out the analysis, ANOVAS were carried out between three levels of creativity, with groups fomed according to low, medium and high creativity. Results: Strong negative correlations, statistically significant, were found between dispositional optimism and psychopathological symptoms. The psychopathological symptoms measured by the SCL-90 were explained by the variable of dispositional optimism, primarily in its dimensions of depression and interpersonal difficulties. However, no significant correlational relationship was found between creativity and the measure of psychopathology. Differences in psychopathological symptoms, however, were found according to the three groups of creativity; participants with a medium level of creativity showed the least psychopatological symptoms. Discussion and Conclusions: In the light of the results of this study, the protective effect of optimism against psychopathology, as found in other studies, was confirmed, and we offer specific proposals to be applied in psychological well-being programs. Various possibilities are suggested to explain the relationship found between creativity and psychopathology.
... Some findings suggest that a positive emotional state facilitates creativity, as it enhances cognitive flexibility and association network Forgeard, 2011;Fredrickson, Cohn, Coffey, Pek, & Finkel, 2008;Hutton & Sundar, 2010;Subramaniam, Kounios, Parrish, & Jung-Beeman, 2009). In contrast, other findings suggest that a negative emotional state enhances creativity, as it indicates that the current situation is problematic and therefore motivates actions to solve the problem (Baruch, Grotberg, & Stutman, 2008;Carlsson, 2002;Hirt et al., 2008;Jones & Kelly, 2009;Zenasni & Lubart, 2009). Other findings suggest that the positive and negative emotions may exist simultaneously and facilitate creativity when the emotion is appropriately used and when the situation is novel (Fong, 2006;Kaufmann & Vosburg, 1997). ...
Emotion has been identified as an important predictor of creativity, but little attention has been put on investigating how emotion, especially that considers regulation focus, may dynamically influence male and female students' creativity in game-based situations. To explore the dynamic relationship between various types of emotions and creativity during game playing, 266 college students were included and the Creativity Game-based Evaluation System (CGES) was developed in this study. Four types of emotions integrating perspectives of valence (positive vs. negative), activation (high vs. low), and regulatory focus (prevention vs. promotion) were investigated in this study: the positive-low activation-prevention emotion (P-L-Pre) (calm and relaxed), the positive-high activation-promotion emotion (P-H-Pro) (happy and elated), the negative-high activation-prevention emotion (N-H-Pre) (nervous and anxious), and the negative-high activation-promotion emotion (N-H-Pro) (frustrated and angry). The results revealed that, although there was a slight gender difference in game-based creativity, the prediction patterns of emotions in game-based creativity were very similar among participants with different genders. Specifically, emotions during game playing can better predict creativity than those of the baseline; moreover, the P-H-Pro emotion can facilitate performance on creativity, whereas the N-H-Pro emotion can decrease creativity performance. Thus, providing appropriate challenges to induce highly-activated and promotion-focused positive emotions are critical for the success of games designed to improve creativity.
What constitutes a creative person? Is it someone who can perform many tasks innovatively? Is it someone who exhibits creative genius in one area? Is it someone who utilizes her creativity for good and moral causes? Is it someone who uses his creativity to help his company or country succeed? Different cultures have different perspectives on what it means to be creative, yet it is nearly always the American or Western perspective that is represented in the psychological literature. The goal of The International Handbook of Creativity is to present a truly international and diverse set of perspectives on the psychology of human creativity. Distinguished scholars from around the world have written chapters for this book about the history and current state of creativity research and theory in their respective parts of the world. The 2006 book presents a wide array of international perspectives and research.
What constitutes a creative person? Is it someone who can perform many tasks innovatively? Is it someone who exhibits creative genius in one area? Is it someone who utilizes her creativity for good and moral causes? Is it someone who uses his creativity to help his company or country succeed? Different cultures have different perspectives on what it means to be creative, yet it is nearly always the American or Western perspective that is represented in the psychological literature. The goal of The International Handbook of Creativity is to present a truly international and diverse set of perspectives on the psychology of human creativity. Distinguished scholars from around the world have written chapters for this book about the history and current state of creativity research and theory in their respective parts of the world. The 2006 book presents a wide array of international perspectives and research.
In this paper, we use sentiment analysis to understand the change in moods of individual designers and teams throughout a collaborative design project. Although there is much research on design psychology, the impact of psychological and emotional characteristics on creativity, and group affective tone, there is limited longitudinal research on the dynamic nature of mood and affective tone over the course of a design project. This leaves a gap in our understanding of how the complex emotional states and interactions of emotional states among team members affect the ability of the team to work together effectively and achieve expected design outcomes. Research that fills this gap can help improve design outcomes and educational strategies. Thus, a longitudinal study was conducted using the self-reflections of student teams collected from three different points over the course of a semester-long design project, to understand how the variation in designers' moods during a collaborative project design activities influence design project outcomes and quality of collaborative work. Our results show that time was a significant predictor of change in moods amongst teams, but not for individuals. We also show that divergence of team members' moods with respect to tone, positive tone, and negative emotion were negatively related to project outcomes. These results provide a foundation for future systematic investigations of team-based affect on design outcomes and show how design can be viewed through the lens of Symbolic Interactionism, evident in how team members create meaning and shared understanding within the design context.
Представлены результаты эмпирического исследования индивидуального защитного стиля. Построена модель, в которой индивидуальный защитный стиль описывается через его параметры, предварительно выделенные на основании анализа исследований психологической защиты в различных направлениях отечественной и зарубежной психологии. Описание каждого параметра проиллюстрировано примерами его реализации в защитном поведении.
Ego defense mechanisms are psychological processes that help us deal with anxiety as a consequence of being exposed to a stressful situation. These mechanisms assume a high level of importance especially in the assessment of people’s personality characteristics, their level of anxiety, depression, and other severe psychopathologies as well as the nature of coping mechanisms being employed by them. While defense mechanisms are thought to shelter our mind against thoughts, feelings, and desires that are too heavy to be dealt with by our conscious mind, their overuse or rather, long-term use can be extremely harmful leading to an absolute denial of reality. The present study aims to explore the correlation between the sort of defense mechanisms employed by adolescents (age range: 12 to 18 years) and their level of anxiety.
The association between creativity and mental disorders has been a subject of long-standing debate. And it is one of the most controversial issues in the field of creativity and psychopathology research. Despite the fact that engaging in creative activities has a wide range of benefits for mental health the concept of creativity/ mental illness has been widespread. On the one hand, a large body of anecdotal and empirical supports this association (e.g.Simonton, 2010; Andreasen, 2008; Johnson et al., 2012). On the other hand, some scholars argued that the creativity/ psychopathology connection is a traditional legend, and the empirical research in this area has many shortcomings, especially in terms of methodology (e.g. Sawyer, 2012; Schlesinger, 2009).This study conducted a systematic review to investigate the link between creativity and mental illness. Various electronic databases were used to find selected studies: including, Google Scholar, PubMed (Medline), Science Direct, and PMC (NCBI). Also, British Library, Core, and EThOS were applied to search for grey literature. In this paper, 24 studies have been reviewed that they are involved 6,525,664 participations. 21 reviewed studies provided some indications to support a positive link between creativity and psychopathology. 1 study proposed a negative link, and two studies suggested that there is no relationship. Altogether, the results displayed that there is a significant positive correlation between creativity and sub-clinical mental disorders. According to this study, not only creativity was introduced as a by-product of certain sub-clinical mental disorders (e.g., bipolar disorder, schizotypy) but it also identified as a treatment for some severe mental disorders (e.g., depression and addiction).
Creativity in Turkey and Turkish-speaking countries in the Balkans and Turkish Republic is very colorful. In the Anatolia peninsula, hundreds of ethnicities and subcultures have mingled with each other, each protecting its own identity, for thousands of years. Turkey is surrounded by Russia (which at present includes Turkish republics such as Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan), Iraq, Iran, and Syria to the east and south, and Bulgaria and Greece to the west.
Most of the Balkan countries include Turkish minorities and Muslims, such as those who live in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Albania, Montenegro, and some parts of Greece and Bulgaria. Within this mosaic, the concept of creativity reflects a deep synthesis of Western and Eastern values.
It is useful to examine how fantasy is perceived in Turkish culture. The Turkish synonym for fantasy, hayal, originates from the Arabic word heyl. Interestingly, heyl means horse in Arabic. Thus in Turkish culture, fantasy could be described as a horse that takes its rider far away beyond the boundaries of the universe.
Today, there seem to exist two main approaches to the importance and function of fantasy within the creative process. One approach was developed by Ahmet İnam, a Turkish philosophy professor at Middle East Technical University, in Ankara. İnam (1996, p. 14) claims that fantasy is the main source of thought.
This research aimed to investigate the impact of superior’s anger out on the employees’ creative process engagement, the mediating effect of negative mood, and the moderating effects of the personal identification with the leader. To examine these ideas, we conducted a survey and collected data from 211 employees of diverse organizations. Results result showed that superior’s anger out was positively related to the employees’ negative mood. The negative mood of the employees, however, had no significant effect on the creative process engagement and it did not mediate the relationship of the superior’s anger out with employees’ creative process engagement. Lastly, personal identification with the leader significantly moderated the relationship between the superior’s anger out and the employees’ negative emotion. That is, results revealed that those employees who had higher level of personal identification with the leader regarded his/her anger out as a signal of dissatisfaction toward their work performance, tended to exert more effort to resolve the problems creatively. Applied implications of the results are discussed.
The interaction of emotions with creative cognition is one of the most intriguing topics in the creativity research. In this study, we investigated the extent to which various emotional states influence the evaluation of ideas, which is a crucial component of the creative thinking process. To this end, we used emotional (both positive and negative) and neutral pictures to induce emotional states and then asked participants to evaluate the creativity of exogenous ideas (i.e., those generated by other people) as part of an alternative use evaluation task. As the results of previous studies suggest the existence of a negative bias when judging highly creative ideas, we presented the participants with non-creative, moderately creative, and highly creative uses for everyday objects. Overall, the participants gave higher creativity ratings when under positive emotional engagement than when in negative or neutral conditions. Moreover, neutral and emotional context differently moderated the creativity evaluation of the three object use categories. Specifically, participants gave higher ratings for non-creative uses, and (to a lesser extent) for highly creative uses when in a positive emotional state, than they did when in the neutral condition. On the other hand, when in a negative emotional state, the participants gave lower ratings for moderately creative uses than they did in either the positive or neutral conditions. These data provide initial evidence that emotional states can influence the creativity evaluation of exogenous alternative ideas that are generated through divergent thinking.
An integrative introduction to the theories and themes in research on creativity, this book is both a reference work and text for courses in this burgeoning area of research. The book begins with a discussion of the theories of creativity (Person, Product, Process, Place), the general question of whether creativity is influenced by nature or nurture, what research has indicated of the personality and style of creative individuals from a personality analysis standpoint, how social context affects creativity, and then coverage of issues like gender differences, whether creativity can be enhanced, if creativity is related to poor mental or physical health, etc. The book contains boxes covering special interest items including one page biographies of famous creative individuals and activities for a group or individual to test and/or encourage creativity, as well as references to internet sites relating to creativity. *Focuses on the theories and research available about creativity, not just speculation *Applicable to biological, cognitive, developmental, educational, organization, clinical, social, and historical disciplines *Dissects and addresses the major debates over creativity (i.e., what is considered creative?).
Are creative people more likely to be mentally ill? This basic question has been debated for thousands of years, with the 'mad genius' concept advanced by such luminaries as Aristotle. There are many studies that argue the answer is 'yes', and several prominent scholars who argue strongly for a connection. There are also those who argue equally strongly that the core studies and scholarship underlying the mad genius myth are fundamentally flawed. This book re-examines the common view that a high level of individual creativity often correlates with a heightened risk of mental illness. It reverses conventional wisdom that links creativity with mental illness, arguing that the two traits are not associated. With contributions from some of the most exciting voices in the fields of psychology, neuroscience, physics, psychiatry, and management, this is a dynamic and cutting-edge volume that will inspire new ideas and studies on this fascinating topic.
Are creative people more likely to be mentally ill? This basic question has been debated for thousands of years, with the 'mad genius' concept advanced by such luminaries as Aristotle. There are many studies that argue the answer is 'yes', and several prominent scholars who argue strongly for a connection. There are also those who argue equally strongly that the core studies and scholarship underlying the mad genius myth are fundamentally flawed. This book re-examines the common view that a high level of individual creativity often correlates with a heightened risk of mental illness. It reverses conventional wisdom that links creativity with mental illness, arguing that the two traits are not associated. With contributions from some of the most exciting voices in the fields of psychology, neuroscience, physics, psychiatry, and management, this is a dynamic and cutting-edge volume that will inspire new ideas and studies on this fascinating topic.
There is a long-standing controversy over the relationship between psychopathology and creativity. Yet there is a lack of evidence regarding the relationship between common psychopathologies and indicators of little-c, or every day, creativity among laypeople. To make sense of this connection, we conducted a meta-analysis using 89 studies to reveal the overall relationships between the most common psychopathologies and little-c creativity and uncover the source of variance in the relationships. The 89 studies involved 35,271 participants and the common psychopathologies: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety, and depression. Results indicated that the overall mean effect size was not different from zero (r = −.06, k = 261, 95% confidence interval [−.15, .02]) with substantial heterogeneity. Variability of effect sizes was examined by five moderators: assessment of psychopathology, assessment of creativity, age, gender, and intelligence of participants. Specifically, the moderator analyses showed that effect sizes varied by assessment of both psychopathology and creativity as well as level of intelligence.
The term “neurosis” was introduced in 1769 by Scottish physician William Cullen to refer to presumed nervous disorders in the absence of discernible neurologic defects. It gained wide currency during the first half of the twentieth century largely through the influence of Freud. Today, “neurosis” is no longer used as a technical term primarily because it is too broad for diagnostic and treatment purposes. Nevertheless, it is still used widely as a generic term for a wide range of disorders of primarily psychological origin. Carl Jung (1965) observed that frequently “people become neurotic when they content themselves with inadequate or wrong answers to the questions of life” (p. 140). This observation provides a good preliminary definition of neurosis. However, an important qualification is needed: Even more fundamental than contentment with inadequate or wrong answers are misdirected strivings for solutions. With this qualification in mind, we can ask: What kind of life questions lead to neurosis? And in what ways are neurotic answers inadequate or wrong? This chapter addresses these questions. Briefly stated, the kinds of life questions that occasion neuroses are those which (a) lead to emotional responses and (b) call for creative solutions. Neurosis results when an emotionally creative response miscarries. Reflections On Three Early Work. Elsewhere (e.g., Averill, 1999; 2005; Averill & Nunley, 1992; Nunley & Averill, 1996) we have provided empirical support for emotional creativity, including laboratory research and clinical examples of emotional creativity gone awry. Here we take a different tack.
The aim of the present study was to examine the effects of three variables -computer tools, technological objects and university degree- in the generation of creative ideas so much to individual level as group. The research was carried out by a sample of 112 pupils of the Public University of Navarre (Spain) organized in different experimental and control groups according to the requirements of the raised hypotheses. The intervention consisted of the execution of activities that required the subjects the development of ideas on the following fields: solutions to a problem, utilities of some objects and improvements of other objects. The results revealed that the subjects that worked both with computer tools and with technological objects and that belonged to the degree of Technical Engineering in Computer Science of Management, enunciated major number of ideas in the different activities of intervention that the subjects that worked without computer tools, with conventional objects and that belonged to the degree of Social Work. Finally, some relevant conclusions offer in this study.
The relationship of creative activity to sex-role identity was examined in boys (N = 80) and girls (N = 56), aged nine to twelve, of above average intelligence. Endorsement of personal characteristics that cut across sex stereotypes was associated with participation in a wide variety of creative activities. When analyzed by specific activity, the relationship with sex-role followed a consistent pattern for boys and girls combined: male activities such as sports with scores on the masculine scale, female activity such as dance or art with scores on the feminine scale, and sexually indeterminate activities such as drama or social leadership with scores on both scales.
Provides systematic evidence bearing on the psychoanalytic concept of "regression in the service of the ego," which postulates shifts from more to less regulated thinking in the creative process. The performance of 30 art students was compared with that of 26 teachers and 26 schizophrenics on the Word Association and Object Sorting tests, given under (a) spontaneous instructions, and instructions to induce, (b) regulated, and (c) unregulated thought. A shift score consisted of the difference between an individual's score under regulated and unregulated conditions. Art students had significantly higher shift scores on both measures than the other 2 groups combined and showed more favorable reactions to unregulated thought than did teachers or schizophrenics. (22 ref.)
The intent of this paper is the presentation of an associative interpretation of the process of creative thinking. The explanation is not directed to any specific field of application such as art or science but attempts to delineate processes that underlie all creative thought. The discussion will take the following form, (a) First, we will define creative thinking in associative terms and indicate three ways in which creative solutions may be achieved—serendipity, similarity, and mediation, (b) This definition will allow us to deduce those individual difference variables which will facilitate creative performance, (c) Consideration of the definition of the creative process has suggested an operational statement of the definition in the form of a test. The test will be briefly described along with some preliminary research results. (d) The paper will conclude with a discussion of predictions regarding the influence of certain experimentally manipulable variables upon the creative process. Creative individuals and the processes by which they manifest their creativity have excited a good deal of
Extremes in mood, thought and behavior--including psychosis--have been linked with artistic creativity for as long as man has observed and written about those who write, paint, sculpt or compose. The history of this long and fascinating association, as well as speculations about its reasons for being, have been discussed by several modern authors and investigators, including Koestler (1975), Storr (1976), Andreasen (1978), Becker (1978), Rothenberg (1979), Richards (1981), Jamison (in press) and Prentky (in press). The association between extreme states of emotion and mind and creativity not only is fascinating but also has significant theoretical, clinical, literary and societal-ethical implications. These issues, more thoroughly reviewed elsewhere (Jamison et al. 1980; Richards 1981; Jamison, in press), include the understanding of cognitive, perceptual, mood and behavioral changes common to manic, depressive and creative states; the potential ability to lessen the stigma of mental illness; effects of psychiatric treatment (for example, lithium) on creativity; and concerns raised about genetic research on mood disorders. The current study was designed to ascertain rates of treatment for affective illness in a sample of eminent British writers and artists; to study differences in subgroups (poets, novelists, playwrights, biographers, artists); to examine seasonal patterns of moods and productivity; and to inquire into the perceived role of very intense moods in the writers' and artists' work. One of the major purposes of this investigation was to look at possible similarities and dissimilarities between periods of intense creative activity and hypomania. Hypothesized similarities were based on the overlapping nature of mood, cognitive and behavioral changes associated with both; the episodic nature of both; and possible links between the durational, frequency and seasonal patterns of both experiences.
Because creativity has to do with the production of new ideas, one might think that its study rightly falls within the domain of cognitive psychology. Of course, creativity involves cognition, but it involves a type of cognition that seems only to occur within a matrix of associated motivational, attitudinal, and personalogical traits. Thus, to understand creativity, the person as a whole must be considered. Because of this, theories about the creative process have traditionally been personality theories rather than purely cognitive theories. In 1949, Guilford (1950) pointed out that we did not know enough about creativity. We can never know too much about the creative personality, but we certainly know more than I could hope to cover in this chapter. For more information, the reader may consult the reviews of the literature by Dellas and Gaier (1970), Wallach (1970), Stein (1974), Taylor and Getzels (1975), and Barron and Harrington (1981).
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The purpose of the study was to follow the development of creativity defined as the inclination to transgress the confines of an established perceptual context in children aged 7 to 11 years, after having studied 4-6-year-olds previously. One group of 55 7-8-year-olds, divided in a younger and/or more cognitively immature subgroup (I) and an older and/or more mature one (II), and one group of 31 10-1 1-year-olds (III), were tested with a special percept-genetic creativity test (PG) which significantly correlated with a creativity-fantasy scale. While creativity decreased in group I as compared with younger children, it increased drastically in group III, as did anxiety signs in a percept-genetic personality test (MCT) applied in all groups. While thus creativity seemed to benefit from a certain amount of anxiety, it was obviously blocked by excessive amounts or by low anxiety tolerance. The low creativity tide in 7-year-olds could perhaps be associated with the beginning of regular school in Sweden, but the high tide at the age of 10-11 years would perhaps point to an autonomous developmental rhythm.
The purpose of the study was to follow the development of creativity defined as the inclination to transgress the confines of an established perceptual context in youngsters aged 12-16 years, after having studied 4-11-year-olds previously. There were altogether 142 subjects, 24-33 in each age group, who were tested with a special percept-genetic creativity test (PG). A creativity-fantasy scale was also applied together with a percept-genetic personality test (MCT). After a creative peak among 10-11-year-olds, 12-year-olds showed a significant decrease of strong creativity signs, a simultaneous increase of compulsive and kindred defense strategies and decrease of signs of anxiety. The recovery of creativity was slow during high puberty (14-15 years) but more marked after (16 years). Using the duality of inwardness and the outside world as a point of departure the paper discusses the fluctuations between high and low creative periods and, among other things, tries to explain why they are more pronounced among subjects with an academic home background.
Individual differences influencing how the condition in an organization are experienced can depend on a variety of factors. Differences in personality, for example, and variations in individual creative capacity are probably influential. This study concentrated on university teachers at Orebro University in Sweden, and dealt first with how their creative functioning, defined within the percept-genetic frame of reference, was related to their experiences of organizational conditions, including organizational outcomes as creativity and productivity. The academic organization was defined, described, and measured in terms of organizational structure, culture, climate, resources, workload pressure, and leadership style. Because the results showed that creative functioning was connected with 1 of the organizational structural factors, the second part of the study concentrated on how an experience of the university as open, manifold, and complex was related to percept-genetic personality descriptions about anxiety and defense against anxiety and to the individual's way of balancing subjective and objective influences. Viewed from the perspective of personality the results showed that the crucial variable in the university organization was openness and diversity. Those who regard this quality to be particularly typical of the university were likely to be creative, open both to their emotional resources and fantasy and to the possibilities offered by the work situation. Even if easily aroused, they were capable of transforming their anxiety in a constructive direction.
Poses question: "What are those things like which… tend to be endowed with the specific aura which the word ART conveys? What must the men have been like who made those things, and what did their work mean to themselves and to their public?" Collects and reprints 14 papers which deal with the contributions of psychoanalysis to the study of art, the art of the insane, the comic problems of literary criticism, and psychology of creative processes. 20-page bibliography; 79 illustrations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This investigation was conducted to examine the effects of insturctions designed to enhance ideational origianlity and flexibility, and to test the prediction that flexibility is functionally related to originality. Twenty-nine adolescents received three divergent thinking tests with conventional (inexplicit) instructions, one test with explicit originality instructions, and one test with explicit flexbility instructions. Contrary to expection, results indicated that originality scores were low when the adolescents were given the explicit flexiibility instructions. This suggests that flexibility does not facilitate originality. However, the explicit originality instructions did elicit the highest originality scores, and the explicit flexibility instructions elicited the highest flexibility scores.
It was hypothesized that creative individuals habituate to stimuli at a rate different than less creative people. Twenty-four male undergraduate students were administered the Remote Associates Test and Alternate Uses Test in group sessions in order to assess potential creativity. Skin potential was recorded on a Beckman Dynograph as 20 bursts of 60 dB white noise were presented through headphones. As predicted, there was a highly significant Remote Associates Test × Alternate Uses Test × Trials interaction. More creative Ss exhibited higher amplitude skin potential responses and habituated much more slowly than did less creative Ss. The results suggest that creative individuals may be motivated to approach novelty rather than avoid repetition. That is, their preference for novel stimuli may not, as might intuitively be expected, arise from boredom or fast rates of habituation.
Tested a group of 31 psychiatric patients with anxiety as one of their main symptoms using a percept-genetic (PG) test measuring creativity or willingness to reconstruct subjective interpretations of the stimulus. A control group of 43 from an earlier study was also included. For half of the subjects a threatening motif was presented subliminally during part of the PG series. By means of an interview, an estimation was made of the subjects' urge to create and of the severity of their anxiety. The Meta-Contrast Technique (MCT) was used to describe defenses in the clinical group. Taking into account their urge to be creative, the clinical subjects received relatively few positive scores on the PG test. The subliminal addition to the anxiety level did not facilitate creative functioning as was the case with the normal subjects. The main obstacles to creative functioning seemed to be grave anxiety and rigid defense mechanisms or, to generalize, low tolorance of the anxiety necessarily associated with creative work.
Studied problems of identification, using a meta-contrast design. The first stimulus (A) was always the word ME. In experiment1, the second stimulus (B) depicted an aggressor and a victim facing each other. The subliminal A was flashed either on the victim or the aggressor or completely withheld. In experiment2, B showed two persons standing against different backgrounds: an open horizon or a closed room. It was assumed that the subject would be “forced” to identify with that figure in B on which A was flashed. Subjects in experiment 1 were 18 psychiatric patients and in experiment2, 32 professional artists. The results showed that the subliminal manipulation had been effective: e.g., when led by A to identify with the aggressor, projective-sensitive and borderline subjects were confused and even reported perceptual difficulties; when led to identify with the open side, highly creative artists, as opposed to less creative ones, reported more positive impressions of the B theme.
Results of two experiments examining the relationship between creativity and EEG alpha wave presence are reported. In Experiment 1, it was found that more creative subjects exhibited higher alpha indices during an analogue of creative inspiration than during an analogue of creative elaboration. This pattern was not found in less creative subjects. In Experiment 2 a similar effect was found in a more controlled setting and shown to be specific to creative subjects when they are instructed to be original but not when they are given no such instructions. No consistent relationship between creativity and basal EEG alpha activity was found.
The theoretical point of departure here was the assumption that a psychogenic vertigo patient displaces affect, or experience of anxiety to one of dizziness, the dizziness serving as an anxiety equivalent. This is seen to imply a change in the locus of experience from the me to the not-me sphere. "Percept-genetic" techniques and a spiral after-effect measurement were used to compare 23 patients with presumed psychogenic vertigo with a control group matched in sex, age, education and occupation. Results of the percept-genetic techniques showed the patients to display stronger signs of affect anxiety than subjects in the control group. Also two main subgroups of patients were differentiated with the help of the descriptive instruments, one group with signs of a primitive-hysteroid mode of functioning, the other with signs of an obsessive-compulsive mode. For both subgroups the suggested displacement mechanism seemed to be functioning. Its apparent effect differed, however, for the two subgroups: in the "primitive-hysteroid" group the displacement mechanism was more effective. The "obsessive-compulsive" group showed stronger signs of affect anxiety, dizziness here being better characterized as a concomitant than as an equivalent of anxiety. Results of a follow-up two years after the investigation also showed a poorer development of symptoms within the "obsessive-compulsive" group.
Thirty-two male subjects were divided into four groups based on their performance on the remote associates test and alternate uses test, two measures of creativity. Right EEG alpha presence was monitored under basal conditions, while subjects took tests of creativity and intelligence, and while they attempted to enhance and suppress the amount of alpha in a feedback situation. High scorers on the alternate uses test operated at a high percentage of basal alpha during all tests while high scorers on the remote associates test showed differential amounts of alpha presence across tests, with the highest percentage of basal alpha during tests of creativity and the lowest percentage during an intellectual test. Both high creative groups tended to show increases in amount of alpha across trials when trying to suppress alpha as well as when trying to enhance it, but did not differ in overall control from the low creative groups.
Eighty-four undergraduate students were randomly divided into left and right visual half-field groups. They were tested in either visual half-field with a percept-genetic test of anxiety and defense mechanisms (the MCT). The subjects also took a test of creative functioning (the CFT) and degree of lateralization in the MCT was related to level of creativity in the CFT. Subjects low in creativity were significantly lateralized on measures typical for the right visual half-field group (isolation and repression) and tended to differ on a left visual half-field measure (regressive strategies). For high creative subjects no differences were found between the visual half-field groups. Also, high creative persons more often responded with non-hemisphere-specific defenses than low creative ones. The results were interpreted as due to differing levels of transmission of information between the two hemispheres of the brain.
Extremes in mood, thought and behavior--including psychosis--have been linked with artistic creativity for as long as man has observed and written about those who write, paint, sculpt or compose. The history of this long and fascinating association, as well as speculations about its reasons for being, have been discussed by several modern authors and investigators, including Koestler (1975), Storr (1976), Andreasen (1978), Becker (1978), Rothenberg (1979), Richards (1981), Jamison (in press) and Prentky (in press). The association between extreme states of emotion and mind and creativity not only is fascinating but also has significant theoretical, clinical, literary and societal-ethical implications. These issues, more thoroughly reviewed elsewhere (Jamison et al. 1980; Richards 1981; Jamison, in press), include the understanding of cognitive, perceptual, mood and behavioral changes common to manic, depressive and creative states; the potential ability to lessen the stigma of mental illness; effects of psychiatric treatment (for example, lithium) on creativity; and concerns raised about genetic research on mood disorders. The current study was designed to ascertain rates of treatment for affective illness in a sample of eminent British writers and artists; to study differences in subgroups (poets, novelists, playwrights, biographers, artists); to examine seasonal patterns of moods and productivity; and to inquire into the perceived role of very intense moods in the writers' and artists' work. One of the major purposes of this investigation was to look at possible similarities and dissimilarities between periods of intense creative activity and hypomania. Hypothesized similarities were based on the overlapping nature of mood, cognitive and behavioral changes associated with both; the episodic nature of both; and possible links between the durational, frequency and seasonal patterns of both experiences.
Prediction of suicides was made on the basis of 99 psychiatric patients included in a study of anti-depressive therapy during 1961-63. These patients were followed up until 31 December 1984. Eight of them committed suicide. The prediction was based on two test methods, the Serial Colour-Word Test (CWT), which registers style of adaptation to a conflicting situation, and the Meta-Contrast Technique (MCT), where incongruous or threatening stimulation is introduced by degrees into neutral pictures and various defense misrepresentations of the threat are spotted. Both tests could predict suicide, but MCT was most successful. The sensitivity of the test was 0.80 and the specificity 0.75. The main risk symptom appeared to be depressive retardation together with lack of functional defensive structures.
A group of 43 adult psychiatric in-patients with a preliminary diagnosis of depression were tested with the Meta-Contrast Technique to determine degree of depressive retardation. They were also given an Identification Test where subliminal tagging was used to direct identification with an aggressor or a victim depicted on a tachistoscopically exposed stimulus. The higher the degree of depressive retardation the more reluctant the subjects were to get involved in the aggressor-victim theme. A Creative Functioning Test also attested to the empty, dehumanized experiential world of the most retarded subjects.
Rates of mental illness were examined in 30 creative writers, 30 matched control subjects, and the first-degree relatives of both groups. The writers had a substantially higher rate of mental illness, predominantly affective disorder, with a tendency toward the bipolar subtype. There was also a higher prevalence of affective disorder and creativity in the writers' first-degree relatives, suggesting that these traits run together in families and could be genetically mediated. Both writers and control subjects had IQs in the superior range; the writers excelled only on the WAIS vocabulary subtest, confirming previous observations that intelligence and creativity are independent mental abilities.
On the basis of theories and research on cognitive and perceptual processes, several hypotheses concerning psychophysiological differences between high and low creative subjects were made. Thirty male undergraduates were divided into high and low creative groups on the basis of the Remote Associates Test and a version of the Uses Test. Basal alpha index, alpha blocking in response to stimulus onset, and performance on alpha enhancement and suppression in a feedback situation were measured. High creative subjects exhibited a lower alpha index and a greater decrement in alpha due to stimulus onset. High creatives showed immediate acquisition of control in alpha enhancement trials but no improvement across trials, while low creative subjects showed continual improvements and quickly reached the level of control of high creative subjects. High creatives were much better at alpha suppression than at alpha enhancement.
The need for a simply applied quantitative assessment of handedness is discussed and some previous forms reviewed. An inventory of 20 items with a set of instructions and response- and computational-conventions is proposed and the results obtained from a young adult population numbering some 1100 individuals are reported. The separate items are examined from the point of view of sex, cultural and socio-economic factors which might appertain to them and also of their inter-relationship to each other and to the measure computed from them all. Criteria derived from these considerations are then applied to eliminate 10 of the original 20 items and the results recomputed to provide frequency-distribution and cumulative frequency functions and a revised item-analysis. The difference of incidence of handedness between the sexes is discussed.
The aim was to investigate the relationship between creativity and hemispheric asymmetry, as measured by regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF). Two groups, each consisting of 12 healthy male subjects, who got either very high or low scores on a creativity test, were pre-selected for the rCBF investigation. rCBF was measured during rest and three verbal tasks: automatic speech (Auto), word fluency (FAS) and uses of objects (Brick). State and trait anxiety inventories were answered after the rCBF measurements. Intelligence tests were also administered. It was predicted that highly creative subjects would show a bilateral frontal activation on the divergent thinking task (Brick), while low creative subjects were expected to have a unilateral increase. Calculations were made of differences in blood flow levels between the FAS and the Brick measurements in the anterior prefrontal, frontotemporal and superior frontal regions. In accordance with our prediction, repeated measure-ANOVAs showed that the creativity groups differed significantly in all three regions. The highly creative group had increases, or unchanged activity, while the low creative group had mainly decreases. The highly creative group had higher trait anxiety than the low creative group. On the intelligence tests the low creative group was superior both on logical-inductive ability and on perceptual speed, while the groups were equal on verbal and spatial tests. The results are discussed in terms of complementary functions of the hemispheres.
The relationship between creativity and androgyny was studied in 163 women and men with the Creative Functioning Test (CFT) and the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI). A 2 (femininity: high/low) x 2 (masculinity: high/low) x 2 (sex) ANOVA was conducted on subjects' CFT scores. A significant interaction effect between femininity and masculinity was found showing that subjects high on both femininity and masculinity (androgynous) and low on both scales (undifferentiated) reached higher CFT scores than female-typed and male-typed subjects. Further, a significant three-way interaction including sex of subject indicated that the former two-way interaction was accounted for by men only.
This is the fourth in a series of reports on the identification and measurement which seems to have considerable generality in human behavior. It may be described briefly as a bipolar factor which opposes a preference for perceiving and dealing with complexity to a preference for perceiving and dealing with simplicity, when both of these alternatives are phenomenally present and when a choice must be made between them.
A theory of ego defenses
- R Plutchik
Plutchik, R. (1995). A theory of ego defenses. In H. R. Conte & R. Plutchik (Eds.), Ego defenses: Theory and measurement (pp. 13–37). New York: Wiley.
The creative personality: Hemispheric variation and sex differences in defence mechanisms related to creativity. Doctoral dissertation
- I Carlsson
Carlsson, I. (1992). The creative personality: Hemispheric var-iation and sex differences in defence mechanisms related to creativity. Doctoral dissertation. Studentlitteratur, Lund, Sweden.