Necessity is the mother of invention: avoidance motivation stimulates creativity through cognitive effort

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Marieke RoskesBernard A Nijstad

Abstract

Compared with approach motivation, avoidance motivation has often been related to reduced creativity because it evokes a relatively inflexible processing style. This finding seems inconsistent with the dual pathway to creativity model, which poses that both flexible and persistent processing styles can result in creative output. Reconciling these inconsistencies, the authors hypothesized that avoidance-motivated individuals are not unable to be creative, but they have to compensate for their inflexible processing style by effortful and controlled processing. Results of 5 experiments revealed that when individuals are avoidance motivated, they can be as creative as when they are approach motivated, but only when creativity is functional for goal achievement, motivating them to exert the extra effort (Experiments 1-4). The authors found that approach motivation was associated with cognitive flexibility and avoidance motivation with cognitive persistence (Experiment 1), that creative tasks are perceived to be more difficult by avoidance- than by approach-motivated individuals, and that avoidance-motivated individuals felt more depleted after creative performance (Experiment 2a, 2b, and 3). Finally, creative performance of avoidanc...Continue Reading

Citations

May 16, 2013·Journal of Personality·Daniela OertigAdam A Augustine
Sep 4, 2015·Journal of Personality·Barbora NevickaFemke S Ten Velden
Aug 13, 2015·Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews. Cognitive Science·Carsten K W De DreuNathalie C Boot
Jun 5, 2015·Frontiers in Human Neuroscience·Matthijs BaasCarsten K W De Dreu
Jul 19, 2013·Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin·Daniel J SligteCarsten K W De Dreu
Dec 10, 2015·Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin·Niklas K SteffensAdam D Galinsky
Apr 5, 2013·Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin·Marieke RoskesCarsten K W De Dreu
Jan 25, 2018·PloS One·Carsten K W De Dreu, Mathijs A van Dijk
Apr 2, 2019·Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin·Matthijs BaasCarsten K W De Dreu
Apr 11, 2019·Frontiers in Neural Circuits·Radwa KhalilAhmed A Karim
Nov 12, 2019·Frontiers in Psychology·Xiaoyu JiaLiren Cao
Aug 28, 2020·Thinking Skills and Creativity·Maciej KarwowskiPiotr Sorokowski
Jan 26, 2021·Frontiers in Psychology·Ronald A Beghetto

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