Abstract
Up to now, support for the idea that a controlled component exists in creative thought has mainly been supported by correlational studies; to further shed light on this issue, we employed an experimental approach. We used four alternate uses tasks that differed in instruction type (“be fluent” vs. “be creative”) and concurrent secondary workload (load vs. no load). A total of 51 participants (39 female) went through all tasks and generated ideas for a total of 16 different objects; their responses were scored in terms of fluency (number of responses generated), creative quality, and flexibility. We did find, as expected, that the be-creative instruction resulted in fewer and more creative ideas, as well as more flexible idea sets, but neither of the expected interaction effects became significant. Specifically, fluency was not affected more strongly by secondary workload in the be-fluent instruction condition than in the be-creative instruction condition. Further, the performance drop evoked by the secondary workload was not stronger in the be-creative instruction condition compared to the be-fluent instruction condition when creative quality or flexibility were examined as dependent variable. Altogether, our results do not confirm that be-creative instructions involve more cognitive load than be-fluent instructions. Nevertheless, the analysis of the serial order effect and additional correlational examinations revealed some promising results. Methodological limitations which may have influenced the results are discussed in light of the inherent suspense between internal and external validity (i.e., most likely the applied self-paced dual-task approach increased external validity, but undermined internal validity) and potentially guide future research.
Highlights
In the past, studies have proposed that the creative process involves a number of sub-processes (Lubart 2001; Mumford and McIntosh 2017), one of which is divergent thinking
This effect was presumed for the interaction effect with creative quality as the dependent variable, since the secondary workload should only evoke a quality performance drop in the be-creative instruction condition
Serial order effect: In addition to the linear mixed-effects model that included only effects of time as predictors, we explored the changes in model fit that occurred when we considered the factors workload and instruction
Summary
Studies have proposed that the creative process involves a number of sub-processes (Lubart 2001; Mumford and McIntosh 2017), one of which is divergent thinking. Since the individual abilities that facilitate divergent thinking are not yet fully understood, contemporary research on this matter has increasingly focused on the underlying cognitive processes. Mednick (1962) outlined the associative theory of creativity, by which he explained differences in creative thinking through individual differences in the hierarchical structure of the semantic network. According to this theory, highly creative individuals show flatter hierarchies than less creative individuals. Highly creative individuals show flatter hierarchies than less creative individuals It suggests that diffuse associative structures allow creative people to more quickly reach remote associations, J.
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