Creativity in an Affective Context

Everyday life often requires considerable creativity in dealing with challenging circumstances. This implies that creativity regularly operates in an affective context, however, this “C” of creativity is rarely addressed in contemporary research. In this brief review article, we address some important milestones in this nascent field of research. Starting with early accounts on emotional creativity, we discuss seminal research intertwining creativity and mood states, and finally introduce two recent developments in this field: reappraisal inventiveness as the capacity to generate manifold cognitive reappraisals for aversive situations, and malevolent creativity as creative ideation intentionally used to damage others. We discuss the conceptual origins of reappraisal inventiveness and malevolent creativity and provide an extensive review of past behavioral and neuroscientific findings regarding these differently motivated instances of affective creativity. Additionally, novel pilot findings and prospects on both lines of research will be provided, which may help to advance investigations into more real-world applications of creative cognition.

An experimental analysis of inspiration for creative ideation

What inspires us during a creative act? We know from past research that apparently irrelevant information for a task at hand can lead to higher creative performance, especially in open-minded individuals. But what does irrelevance mean and how can open-minded individuals be inspired by this kind of information? Through two diverse experimental procedures, the present work investigated which type of irrelevance information inspires (i.e., increases) the creative performance during a divergent thinking (DT) task. In Experiment 1, the attentional processing of information that was either relevant or irrelevant for the execution of a verbal DT task was assessed by means of an eye-tracking methodology. In Experiment 2, creative performance was explored through a verbal priming paradigm, which forcedly introduced irrelevant information during the DT task. In both experiments, the level of irrelevance was operationalized in terms of semantic distance between the information that is central for the task at hand and the information that is apparently irrelevant for its execution. Results from both experiments highlighted the role of irrelevant information and of the Openness trait in influencing the originality or uncommonness of the responses produced during the task as well as the role of the semantic meaning of the irrelevant information as one of the main determinants of inspiration (i.e., enhancement) of the creative performance. Inspiration emerged therefore to be related to the meaning of the inspirational (i.e., apparently irrelevant) information in a given context and to the individual disposition to process this kind of information.

An Exploration of the Validity of the Malevolent Creativity Behavior Scale (MCBS)

Strong and growing interest in Malevolent Creativity has created a need for valid and reliable measures of, among other things, malevolent creative ideation. The Malevolent Creativity Behavior Scale (MCBS) was created in response to weaknesses identified in earlier studies of malevolent creativity. However, concerns over the face validity of the MCBS, coupled with an increasing popularity of the scale in empirical studies, prompted an examination of the construct and concurrent (i.e. predictive) validity of the MCBS. The results of this study suggest that the MCBS has poor validity: it measures neither creative nor malevolent ideation sufficiently well to warrant its use in empirical studies of malevolent creativity. These findings caution against the uncritical use of a poorly constructed scale in malevolent creativity research, as well as the on-going need for an instrument to address this measurement gap.

Learning to Be Creative: A Mutually Exciting Spatiotemporal Point Process Model for Idea Generation in Open Innovation

This study investigates the creative idea generation process in an open innovation platform. The idea generation process is simultaneously influenced by multiple activities: knowledge acquisition from participants’ interactions with each other’s ideas, deliberate practice through persistent participation, and learning through failures. Due to the dynamic interplay across these activities, it is challenging to identify each activity’s influence on creative ideation outcomes using reduced-form regression analysis. To overcome these challenges, we employ a comprehensive empirical framework, the mutually exciting spatiotemporal point process model with unobserved heterogeneity, which endogenizes the occurrences of these activities in continuous time and allows for user-dependent effects. By utilizing the activity stream data of 13,028 participants from 2010 to 2016 in an open innovation platform, we uncovered synergistic effects of these activities on creative outcomes. We find that knowledge acquired through interaction with others (i.e., stimulus ideas) plays a vital role in the creative ideation process, but their effect is more nuanced than what we have known so far. In contrast to the prior belief that distant analogies, stimulus ideas outside of a problem domain, spur creativity, we find that distant analogies lead to failures. Yet, we further find that such failures are indispensable to the creative ideation process because failures motivate idea generators (1) to acquire more knowledge by increasing their future interactions with other participants’ ideas (learning from others), and (2) to persist in generating ideas that lead to improvements in their ability to apply the acquired knowledge and to identify innovation tasks that are relevant to their stock of acquired knowledge (learning by doing). Our results indicate that failures are a stronger driver of the learning activities than successes. Based on our findings, we offer insights on how to cultivate creativity in an open innovation setting.

A five-step experience design ideation lesson for corporate leaders

Purpose The author offers a five-step “ERY method’ that expands the thinking around the core idea of a business” basic function and ideally translates it into an experience that is new and unique in the world. Design/methodology/approach Illustrates how experience designers use creative ideation as an effective method to help understand how to elevate an offering transaction to memorable customer experience. Findings The challenge for business is to avoid commoditization by producing engaging experiences that differentiate their offerings of services and goods. Originality/value Experience design has become a key skill for executives now that the competitive advantage and the economic value experiences create has become a critical success factor for corporations in many markets. This approach to ideation of experience design is unique.

Psychometric examination of Runco Ideational Behavior Scale: Thai adaptation

Creativity is a multidimensional construct. Several different approaches have been developed to measure creativity, including psychometric scales. The Runco Ideational Behavior Scale (RIBS) is one such measure of creative ideation. The primary purpose of this paper was to assess the 23 items of the RIBS in the context of the Thai language and examine scale reliability and validity. Participants, consisting of 508 undergraduate students selected from five Thai public universities, were selected through a convenience sampling approach involving both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Results suggested that the Thai version of the RIBS presented a valid measure to a certain extent. Factor analysis of the empirical data indicated a two-dimensional structure. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) results confirmed that the two-factor construct demonstrated a better fit with improved psychometric characteristics. Six items were eliminated from the Thai RIBS version inventory: five items during explanatory factor analysis (EFA) and one during the CFA process. Results will contribute to ascertaining that the Thai version of the RIBS instrument can be used as a self-assessment tool for measuring students’ creative ideation. Implications and limitations of this research are discussed with suggestions for future studies.