Creative flexibility and creative persistence: Evaluating the effects of instructed vs autonomous choices to shift vs. dwell on divergent and convergent thinking

Yihan Wu, Wilma Koutstaal

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

To creatively solve complex problems both flexibility and persistence are needed. Recent studies have suggested that creativity is improved by instructing participants to switch more frequently between two task items. However, “switch costs” are a well-documented phenomenon. To assess how creative performance is affected by prompts that promote flexibility (shifting) versus persistence (dwelling), participants were assigned to one of three conditions: asked-to-stay, free-to-choose, or required regular-switch. The results from two different divergent-thinking tasks showed that the required regular shifting condition did not achieve higher originality than did the free-to-choose condition. Participants’ retrospective metacognition reports also showed positive experiential effects of being free to choose, highlighting the importance of autonomy in effort-allocation decisions. Collectively with previous studies on task-scheduling and creativity, dynamic creativity relies not only on transitions that yield new perceptual/conceptual input, but also on phases of dwelling or persistence that allow the emergence of still-forming, novel incipient ideas.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number103417
JournalConsciousness and Cognition
Volume105
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We thank Drew Brinker, Lucy Brown, Madelyn Castro, Michael McGrath, Keelin Posson, Mikayla Stein, Tracey Yang, and Amy Zhang for assistance with data collection and scoring.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Elsevier Inc.

Keywords

  • Context adaptivity
  • Convergent thinking
  • Creativity
  • Divergent thinking
  • Dual pathway to creativity
  • Task item switching

PubMed: MeSH publication types

  • Journal Article

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