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Awe is Associated With Creative Personality, Convergent Creativity, and Everyday Creativity

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Abstract

Creativity has many benefits, such as workplace performance and life satisfaction. Three studies extended a small body of work to examine whether awe was associated with creative personality, convergent creativity, and everyday creative behaviors (N = 1,844). Study 1 demonstrated that trait awe was associated with a more creative personality among adolescents and adults in the U.S., Iran, and Malaysia. Study 2 showed that trait awe was associated with an increased likelihood of solving the Duncker’s Candle Problem. Finally, Study 3 found that on days when participants felt more daily awe than they typically do, they reported having done more everyday creative activities. The effects of awe were independent of amusement (Studies 1–3) and Big Five personality (Study 3). Moreover, we found that daily curiosity explained the link between daily awe and daily creativity in Study 3. These results are the first to demonstrate a consistent link between awe and complementary measures of creativity. The discussion focuses on the limitations of the present work as well as implications of the present results for future research on awe and creativity.
Awe is Associated With Creative Personality, Convergent Creativity, and
Everyday Creativity
Jia Wei Zhang
1
, Ryan T. Howell
2
, Pooya Razavi
3
, Hadi Shaban-Azad
4
, Wen Jia Chai
5
, Tamilselvan Ramis
6
,
Zena Mello
2
, Craig L. Anderson
7
, Maria Monroy
8
, and Dacher Keltner
8
1
Department of Psychology, University of Memphis
2
Department of Psychology, San Francisco State University
3
Department of Psychology, University of Oregon
4
Department of Psychology, University of Tehran
5
Department of Neuroscience, Universiti Sains Malaysia
6
Department of Psychology, Sunway University
7
Department of Marketing, Washington University, St. Louis
8
Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley
Creativity has many benets, such as workplace performance and life satisfaction. Three studies
extended a small body of work to examine whether awe was associated with creative personality, con-
vergent creativity, and everyday creative behaviors (N= 1,844). Study 1 demonstrated that trait awe
was associated with a more creative personality among adolescents and adults in the U.S., Iran, and
Malaysia. Study 2 showed that trait awe was associated with an increased likelihood of solving the
Dunckers Candle Problem. Finally, Study 3 found that on days when participants felt more daily awe
than they typically do, they reported having done more everyday creative activities. The effects of awe
were independent of amusement (Studies 13) and Big Five personality (Study 3). Moreover, we found
that daily curiosity explained the link between daily awe and daily creativity in Study 3. These results
are the rst to demonstrate a consistent link between awe and complementary measures of creativity.
The discussion focuses on the limitations of the present work as well as implications of the present
results for future research on awe and creativity.
Keywords: awe, convergent creativity, curiosity, creative personality, everyday creativity
Supplemental materials: https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000442.supp
Creative individuals perform better academically (Chamorro-
Premuzic, 2006); receive better job-performance ratings from super-
visors and make more sales (Gong et al., 2009); report greater ca-
reer satisfaction and feel more included in their organizations (Kim
et al., 2009); and are more satised with life (Tan et al., 2008).
Given these and other benets of creativity (Feist, 1998;Gajda et
al., 2017;Ma, 2009), it is important to identify different ways to
foster creativity. A consistent antecedent of increased creativity is
positive emotion (Baas et al., 2008;Lyubomirsky et al., 2005). This
literature, however, has generally focused on positive emotion and
has not ascertained whether some positive emotions promote crea-
tivity more than others. In one exception, however, researchers
found that participants specically induced to feel awe, compared
to neutral, produced more creative product-improvement sugges-
tions (Chirico et al., 2018). Although this study demonstrated the
effect of awe on creativity, it used a small convenience sample (N=
52) and did not explore specic facets of creativity or examine plau-
sible mechanisms between awe and creativity.
The present research improves on this small body of work on the
link between awe and creativity in several ways. First, we employed
an individual difference approach that tested if trait and daily awe
were associated with creativity. Second, we measured creativity
with a multifaceted approach, including creative personality, con-
vergent creativity, and everyday creative activities to increase the
generalization of the awe and creativity link. Third, we explored cu-
riosity as a plausible mechanism of the association between awe
and creativity. Last, we explored if the effect of awe was independ-
ent from another positive emotion, namely amusement.
The Multifaceted Approach to Measuring Creativity
Creativity is generally conceived of as the generation of ideas,
insights, or solutions that are novel and potentially useful (Amabile,
1983;Simonton, 2000;Stein, 1953;Sternberg, 1999). Although there
is a consensus denition of creativity, there is not a best way to
Jia Wei Zhang https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2649-2245
Pooya Razavi https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9878-7873
Hadi Shaban-Azad https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3821-6232
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jia Wei
Zhang, Department of Psychology, University of Memphis, 400 Innovation
Drive, Memphis, TN 38152, United States. Email: jzhang11@memphis.edu
1
Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts
©2021 American Psychological Association
ISSN: 1931-3896 https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000442
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
2024, Vol. 18, No. 2, 209–221
209
This article was published Online First October 7, 2021.
... Kang et al., 2009), creativity (e.g. Zhang et al., 2021), and well-being (e.g. Kashdan et al., 2004). ...
... Kashdan et al., 2004). Although previous studies have focused mainly on the effects of curiosity and there has been relatively little research on the factors influencing on curiosity, awe has been considered an affective factor promoting epistemic curiosity in recent years (Anderson et al., 2020;McPhetres, 2019;Zhang et al., 2021Zhang et al., , 2023. ...
... Awe is an emotional response to a perceptually or figuratively vast stimulus that transcends existing schema, such as beautiful nature and art works (Keltner & Haidt, 2003), and has the potential to increase levels of curiosity more than other emotions (Anderson et al., 2020;McPhetres, 2019;Zhang et al., 2021Zhang et al., , 2023. Additionally, it should be noted that some studies focus on domain general curiosity, whereas others measure domain specific curiosity (see Wagstaff et al., 2021), and studies on the relationship between awe and curiosity are divided into two types: studies on domain-general or specific curiosity. ...
... Finally, awe has been also conceived as an epistemic or knowledge emotion able to ignite the desire to fill existing gaps of knowledge (Valdesolo et al., 2017). With this regard, awe was also found associated with cognitive processes entailing a cognitive restructuration of J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f individuals' current mental frames, -as a plausible counterpart of the need for accommodation dimension of this emotion -such as creative thinking, at the level of divergent (Chirico, Glaveanu, et al., 2018) or convergent thinking and daily creativity (Zhang et al., 2021) . This awe-creativity link subsisted also at the personality level and in different cultures. ...
... This awe-creativity link subsisted also at the personality level and in different cultures. Zhang demonstrated that trait awe was associated with curiosity and creative personality, reporting that awe predicted more creative personality among adolescents in the U.S. and adults in the U.S. A., Iran, and Malaysia and, in terms of creative behavior, also predicted an increased likelihood of solving a creativity problem (Zhang et al., 2021). Given the inherently nuanced nature of this emotion, it is not surprising that researchers from different disciplines have increasingly pledged to unveil its potential, and to elucidate its underpinnings by reviewing secondary data as well as by manipulating it in the lab Takano & Nomura, 2022). ...
... The two trainings did not differ in terms of sense of presence and social presence, thus suggesting stability in this experience across the two conditions. (Shiota et al., 2004;Zhang et al., 2021). Curiosity, indeed, is triggered by information that makes the J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f individual aware of gaps in existing knowledge structures. ...
... Given that awe is an emotional response to stimuli transcending existing cognitive frameworks (Keltner & Haidt, 2003), our results suggest that experiences of art appreciation that need to update the current schema of the intention and meaning of artworks may evoke feelings of being moved and, in turn, motivate viewers to express the updated schema in their creative works. Additionally, awe (Chirico et al., 2018;Zhang et al., 2021) and inspiration (An & Youn, 2018;Thrash et al., 2010b) are thought to be factors promoting creativity. As previous research on awe and creativity has mainly focused on awe experiences in a daily life (Zhang et al., 2021) and awe induced by beautiful nature (Chirico et al., 2018), and has not investigated the influence of awe induced by art works on creativity, our results shed new light on how art-awe may potentially enhance creativity in terms of inspiration. ...
... Additionally, awe (Chirico et al., 2018;Zhang et al., 2021) and inspiration (An & Youn, 2018;Thrash et al., 2010b) are thought to be factors promoting creativity. As previous research on awe and creativity has mainly focused on awe experiences in a daily life (Zhang et al., 2021) and awe induced by beautiful nature (Chirico et al., 2018), and has not investigated the influence of awe induced by art works on creativity, our results shed new light on how art-awe may potentially enhance creativity in terms of inspiration. ...
... Consistent with previous research (Bai et al., 2021;Stellar et al., 2018;J. Zhang et al., 2024), we aimed to recruit 150 participants via social media in China. Anticipating potential attrition, we recruited 156 participants, which resulted in a total of 2,247 diaries. We excluded two participants who failed the attention check for all responded diaries, leaving 154 participants (95 women and 59 men; This document is copyrighted b ...
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... Consequently, an understanding of multiple approaches to fostering everyday creativity is critical. While previous studies have primarily examined the influence of cognitive, emotional, and contextual or social factors such as cognitive styles, positive-emotion states, and lifestyle opportunities or social support on everyday creativity (Conner and Silvia 2015;Fürst and Grin 2018;Sundararajan and Averill 2007), recent research has further shifted focus to the exploration of the effects of even more complex or nuanced individual traits or factors (Forgeard 2024;Lebedeva et al. 2018;Silvia, Cotter, and Christensen 2017;Zhang et al. 2024). This new focus may bring fresh insights into the general concepts of creativity as well as to our understanding of how creativity might also relate to other psychological aspects. ...
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... Awe-inspiring encounters with wildlife have been associated with more positive attitudes towards that environment and motivations to learn about nature 66 . Additionally, awe has been shown to foster creativity 67,68 , encourage children's exploratory toy play (according to a recent preprint that has not yet been peer-reviewed 69 ) and inspire students to bring thoughts into action in writing and painting tasks 5 . ...
... Complexity in stimuli is known to evoke awe, which could be a reason why this is reflected in drawings associated with awe (Luke, 2021). Another reason why more complexity could be present in awe-associated drawings is that this emotion may lead to more creativity (Chirico, Glaveanu, et al., 2018b;Zhang et al., 2021). ...
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