Social Psychology Commons^™

Smells Like Team Spirit: How To Foster Psychological Safety And Enhance Team Creativity, Shannon S. Burrows

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

Creativity is one of the most sought-after skills of the 21^st century, yet team members may be reticent to contribute to creative problem-solving out of fear of ridicule, retribution, or because of rigid hierarchical team structures. However, psychological safety is the underpinning of creativity; without it a culture of silence prevails, mistakes go unreported, and team creativity languishes. But how do leaders cultivate psychological safety in their teams? This project seeks to answer that question. Although the term “psychological safety” has become common in the corporate lexicon, misconceptions abound. Through the creation of a short, animated video, this project …

Linking Creativity To Psychological Well-Being: Theoretical Insights From Instrumental Emotion Regulation, Angela K. Y. Leung, Brandon Koh, Riyang Phang, Sean T. H. Lee, Tengjiao Huang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Research has recognized that people regulate their emotions not only for seeking pleasurable experiences but also for receiving instrumental gains. We draw on the theoretical framework of instrumental emotion regulation (IER; Tamir, 2005, 2009) to shed new light on the relationships among creativity, emotion, and psychological well-being. We outline propositions that explain why there are concurrent creative and well-being benefits when people experience emotional states that are consistent with their personality trait (e.g., worrisome emotions being consistent with trait neuroticism) even if such trait-consistent emotions are negative. The IER perspective offers new interpretations of the creativity—well-being relationship through motivating a …

Fuelling Effects Of Unique Opinion Holder’S Emotions On Team Creativity: A Collective Information Processing Perspective, Hui Si Oh

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Building on past studies that have found positive influence of minority member on team creativity, this research examined an underexplored yet crucial topic of a unique opinion holder’s happy and anger emotions on team creativity. Using a collective information processing perspective, this study examined whether the expression of anger and happiness would be beneficial for team creativity by spurring team members to respond qualitatively differently to each other’s ideas during the discussion. Additionally, this study examined whether the influence of a unique opinion holder’s emotions on team creativity through information-processing pathways would depend on individual members’ working memory capacities. Three …

The Loss-Processing Framework, Lawrence Childress

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The circumstances of responding to loss due to human death are among the most stressful experiences encountered in life. Although grief’s symptoms are typically considered essential to their gradual diminishment, possible negative impacts of complications related to grief are also well known, and have been associated with detriments to mental and physical health. Grief, however, can also generate transformative positive change. Thus, albeit ineludible, responding to loss is not uniformly experienced, expressed, or understood. It is also culturally-shaped, making attempts to define “normal” grief, as well as to label some grief “abnormal”—and to medicalize it—possibly problematic. Bereavement (the situation surrounding …

Developmental Dyslexia And Creativity: A Meta-Analysis, Nadyannam M. Majeed, Andree Hartanto, Jacinth J. X. Tan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Despite difficulties in reading and writing, some research suggests that dyslexia may be related to higher levels of creativity. However, this pattern is not consistently observed. The current research sought to ascertain whether individuals with clinically diagnosed dyslexia exhibit higher creativity than controls through a meta-analysis. Fourteen studies that assessed the creativity of 397 individuals with clinically diagnosed dyslexia and 453 controls were reviewed. Random-effects meta-analysis revealed an overall non-significant difference in creativity scores between those with dyslexia and controls. Additionally, method factors such as the type of creativity task and whether intelligence was controlled for, as well as sample-related …

A Time For Creativity: How Future-Oriented Schemas Facilitate Creativity, Brandon Koh, Angela K. Y. Leung

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

According to the creative cognition approach, extraordinarily creative ideas are rare because people often generate ideas by retrieving and incrementally modifying concepts from accessible schemas. Grounded in social schema research, we hypothesize that a future-orientation is a means to broaden thinking through activating change and progress schemas, which in turn facilitates creativity. We first offered qualitative evidence that people generally hold a schema that the future is inundated with change and progress. In three experimental studies, we established the creative benefit of future-oriented (vs. present-oriented) thinking in divergent thinking tasks. Further, we offered support that schemas of change and progress …

A Dual-Process Team Mood Framework Of Team Creativity, Sean Teck Hao Lee

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

While it has been recognized that mood can exert a substantive influence on an individual’s level of creativity, much of the creative needs of organizations today are being fulfilled by brainstorming teams rather than individual employees. As such, researchers have begun to examine the effects of mood on creativity in the context of teams. Existing findings, unfortunately, have not been consistent, such that positive mood has been shown to be beneficial towards team creativity at times (e.g., Grawitch, Munz, Elliott, & Mathis, 2003), while at other times being harmful towards team creativity (e.g., Tsai, Chi, Grandey, & Fung, 2012). Similarly, …

Tabletop Role-Playing Games And Social Skills In Young Adults, Lily Spinelli

Honors College Theses

This paper explores the relationship between playing tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) and the creativity, self-efficacy, and social skills of the players. Eighty-five people ages 18-25 were surveyed on their perceived levels of these three variables, as well as how often they played TTRPGs. Responses of those who did play TTRPGs were compared with results of those who did not play TTRPGs. A statistically significant positive correlation was identified in all participants between creativity and self-efficacy, creativity and social skills, and self-efficacy and social skills. Participants who played TTRPGs scored statistically significantly higher in measures of creativity than participants who did …

Surprisingly Open Or Openly Surprised? That Is The Question; Using Surprise Experiences To Increase Openness To Experience And Tolerance Of Ambiguity, Anneke Veenendaal-De Kort

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

Using Surprise Experiences to Increase Openness to Experience and Tolerance of Ambiguity

In the fast-changing world in which we are currently living, we constantly come across situations and problems that we have not encountered before. An open mind and the ability to tolerate ambiguity are important skills in uncertain times. People who embrace the unpredictable can develop their resilience and flexibility. Surprisologists Luna and Renninger (2015) have discovered that a great way of dipping into unpredictability is through surprise. For my Master’s Project, I designed experiences that transform people’s openness and tolerance for ambiguity through surprise. This paper begins with …

Middle Ground Approach To Paradox: Within- And Between-Culture Examination Of The Creative Benefits Of Paradoxical Frames, Angela K. Y. Leung, Shyhnan Liou, Ella Micron-Spektor, Brandon Koh, David Chan, Roni Eisenberg, Iris K. Schneider

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Thriving in increasingly complex and ambiguous environments requires creativity andthe capability to reconcile conflicting demands. Recent evidence with Western samplessuggested that paradoxical frames, or mental templates that encourage individuals torecognize and embrace contradictions, could produce creative benefits. We extendedthe timely, but understudied, topic by studying the nuances of for whom and whycreative advantages of paradoxical frames emerge. We suggest that people endorsinga middle ground approach are less likely to scrutinize conflict and reconcile withintegrative solutions, thus receiving less creative benefits of paradoxical frames. Fivestudies that examined individual and cultural differences in middle groundendorsement support our theory. Study 1 found that …

The Influence Of Self-Control On Creative Cognition, Christa Larai Taylor

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Two studies were conducted to investigate how ego-depletion influences performance on two frequently used indicators of creative cognition: divergent thinking and insight problem solving. In the first study, participants (N= 152) were randomly assigned to one of six conditions, based on a depletion (ego-depletion vs. control vs. difficult, non-depletion) x task instruction (creativity vs. fluency) design. After completing a well-established ego-depletion procedure (i.e., re-typing a paragraph without using the letter “e” or the spacebar vs. re-typing it as one normally would or completing moderately difficult math problems), participants completed three AUTs (asking them to generate uses for a brick, paperclip, …

Intercultural Experience And Creativity, Chi-Ying Cheng, Yi Wen Tan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Creativity, commonly defined as a production of novel and useful ideas, has long been considered as a type of individual difference that is highly associated with personality traits and intellectual intelligence, which cannot be changed easily. Recently, it has been demonstrated that creativity can occur as a result of cognitive, emotional, and motivational processes that are driven by intercultural experiences, which can be acquired. In line with the creative cognition approach, individuals with direct intercultural experiences exhibit higher individual creativity. Specifically, those who adopt biculturalism as their acculturation strategy and develop a high level of integration between their bicultural identities …

Developing A Leadership Curriculum 'Innovation, Creativity And Leadership', Pamela Zh Pauwels

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

Growth and innovation are key drivers to a company’s long-term success. Creativity (creative thinking) is a necessary condition for innovation. Supervisors and managers who are able to build a positive work environment that enables creative and innovative behavior have a competitive advantage. This Master's project focuses on the development of an in-company leadership curriculum to provide leaders and supervisor with theoretical background and a “ toolbox ” to develop their own and their team’s innovative and creative behavior. A pilot version of curriculum was well received and validated the need to gain more understanding on the topic of creativity and …

“The Golden Rule”: A Portable Escape Room Designed To Promote Empathy And Playfulness In Challenging Social Contexts, Isabella Gomati

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

The development of a Portable Escape Room (PER) board game aims to promote empathy as one of the key skills that, for a society in constant change, is necessary to face and solve complex social challenges. The development of a PER is a way of addressing the need for both innovative and accessible tools that can be used in different sectors of the economy. The PER not only encourages creative collaboration, but it also introduces the possibility of playfulness as a bridge for learning and problem-solving in a variety of scenarios. The product itself encompasses an excellent example of a …

Songwriting As Inquiry And Action: Emotion, Narrative Identity, And Authenticity In Folk Music Culture, Maggie Colleen Cobb

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation can broadly be summarized as an examination of the construction and maintenance of a specific type of “authentic” American identity through the lens of folk music. Drawing from interpretive perspectives within the sociology of culture and social psychology, social constructionism and symbolic interactionism in particular, I combine ethnographic research with 61 interviews at two different “folk musicians’ festivals” (festivals where attendees, not hired professionals, produce the music).

My principal focus at these festivals concerns the various practices and stories surrounding the creation and performance of original folk music. I use the empirical platform of musicians’ festivals, where folk …

The Development Of The Creative Synergy Scale, Amy E. Climer

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This study developed a scale for teams to assess their behaviors related to creative synergy. Creative synergy is the interactions among team members where the collective creative results are greater than the sum of their individual efforts. When a team achieves creative synergy they have the potential to solve difficult problems with innovative solutions leading to positive impacts on our communities, societies, and even our world. This study looked at the internal-process variables of teams to determine what factors impact creative synergy. The research process involved two phases.In Phase 1, a survey was taken by 830 adults who were members …

Creativity In Scientific Teams: Unpacking Novelty And Impact, You-Na Lee, John P. Walsh, Jian Wang

Jian Wang

Do You Pursue Your Heart Or Your Art?: Creativity, Personality, And Love, Kelly Campbell, James Kaufman

Psychology Faculty Publications

We examined the associations between love, personality, and creativity for people in relationships of varying durations. Participants (N =1,529) from regions across the U.S. completed an online survey. Consistent with prior work, we found that relationship length was negatively associated with passion, positively associated with commitment, and did not exhibit a significant association with intimacy. For personality, agreeableness was positively associated with passion, intimacy, and commitment, and conscientiousness was positively associated with intimacy and commitment. Additionally, openness was significantly associated with passion and intimacy for men, and emotional stability was significantly associated with intimacy for women. Of note, artistic creative …

The Role Of Instrumental Emotion Regulation In The Emotions-Creativity Link: How Worries Render Individuals With High Neuroticism More Creative, Angela K.-Y. Leung, Shyhnan Liou, Lin Qiu, Letty Y. Y. Kwan, Chi-Yue Chiu, Jose C. Yong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Based on the instrumental account of emotion regulation (Tamir, 2005), the current research seeks to offer a novel perspective to theemotions–creativity debate by investigating the instrumental value of trait-consistent emotions in creativity. We hypothesize that emotionssuch as worry (vs. happy) are trait-consistent experiences for individuals higher on trait neuroticism and experiencing these emotions can facilitate performance in a creativity task. In 3 studies, we found support for our hypothesis. First, individuals higher in neuroticism had a greater preference for recalling worrisome (vs. happy) events in anticipation of performing a creativity task (Study 1). Moreover, when induced to recall a worrisome …

The Role Of Instrumental Emotion Regulation In The Emotions-Creativity Link: How Worries Render Neurotic Individuals More Creative, Angela K.-Y. Leung, Letty Kwan, Shyhnan Liou, Chi-Yue Chiu, Lin Qiu, Jose C. Yong

Ka Yee Angela LEUNG

Based on the instrumental account of emotion regulation, the current research seeks to offer a novel perspective to the emotions-creativity debate by investigating the instrumental value of trait-consistent emotions in creativity. We hypothesize that emotions such as worry (vs. happy) are some trait-consistent experiences for neurotic individuals and experiencing these emotions can facilitate performance in a creativity task. In two studies, we found support for our hypothesis. First, individuals higher in neuroticism had a greater preference for recalling worrisome (vs. happy) events in anticipation of performing a creativity task (Study 1). Moreover, when induced to recall a worrisome (vs. happy) …

Toolset For Visual Creative Conflict Management, Robert H. Frantz

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

Conflict is neuro-physiologically processed by emotional faculties of the human
brain, similarly to pain processing (Lack & Bogacz, 2012). Pain causes an "away-reflex", and so does conflict. Most of us, therefore, try to avoid pain and likewise conflict. Some of us are drawn into conflict, either as an active party or a referee, against our will, while others of us must handle conflict as a matter of life role. Because of this away-reflex to conflict, we often try to resolve conflict in a single step in order to "get it over with" as quickly as possible. Many people expect to …

Perceptual Symbols Of Creativity: Coldness Elicits Referential, Warmth Elicits Relational Creativity, Hans Ijzerman, Angela K. Y. Leung, Lay See Ong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Research in the cognitive and social psychological science has revealed the pervading relation between body and mind. Physical warmth leads people to perceive others as psychological closer to them and to be more generous towards others. More recently, physical warmth has also been implicated in the processing of information, specifically through perceiving relationships (via physical warmth) and contrasting from others (via coldness). In addition, social psychological work has linked social cues (such as mimicry and power cues) to creative performance. The present work integrates these two literatures, by providing an embodied model of creative performance through relational (warm = relational) …

Revisiting The Multicultural Experience-Creativity Link: The Effects Of Cultural Distance And Comparison Mindset, Chi-Ying Cheng, Angela K. Y. Leung

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

A growing literature provides evidence for the multicultural experience-creativity link such that exposure to the juxtaposition of two cultures facilitates individual creativity. The underlying mechanisms for this relationship, however, are still far from being well explored. Drawing upon the novel perspective of motivated cognition, we hypothesize that two factors interact to affect creative outcomes: (a) perceived cultural distance between the two juxtaposed cultures, and (b) comparison mind-sets. Specifically, we argue that individuals’ creative performance will be increased only when a difference mind-set is employed to process the cultural stimuli that are sufficiently different from each other. In two studies, individuals …

The Role Of Instrumental Emotion Regulation In The Emotions-Creativity Link: How Worries Render Neurotic Individuals More Creative, Angela K.-Y. Leung, Letty Kwan, Shyhnan Liou, Chi-Yue Chiu, Lin Qiu, Jose C. Yong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Based on the instrumental account of emotion regulation, the current research seeks to offer a novel perspective to the emotions-creativity debate by investigating the instrumental value of trait-consistent emotions in creativity. We hypothesize that emotions such as worry (vs. happy) are some trait-consistent experiences for neurotic individuals and experiencing these emotions can facilitate performance in a creativity task. In two studies, we found support for our hypothesis. First, individuals higher in neuroticism had a greater preference for recalling worrisome (vs. happy) events in anticipation of performing a creativity task (Study 1). Moreover, when induced to recall a worrisome (vs. happy) …

Revisiting The Multicultural Experience-Creativity Link: The Effects Of Cultural Distance And Comparison Mindset, Chi-Ying Cheng, Angela K.-Y. Leung

Ka Yee Angela LEUNG

A growing literature provides evidence for the multicultural experience-creativity link such that exposure to the juxtaposition of two cultures facilitates individual creativity. The underlying mechanisms for this relationship, however, are still far from being well explored. Drawing upon the novel perspective of motivated cognition, we hypothesize that two factors interact to affect creative outcomes: (a) perceived cultural distance between the two juxtaposed cultures, and (b) comparison mind-sets. Specifically, we argue that individuals’ creative performance will be increased only when a difference mind-set is employed to process the cultural stimuli that are sufficiently different from each other. In two studies, individuals …

Going Beyond The Multicultural Experience-Creativity Link: The Mediating Role Of Emotions, Chi-Ying Cheng, Angela K.-Y. Leung, Tsung-Yu Wu

Ka Yee Angela LEUNG

This research examines the mediating role of emotions implicated in the multicultural experience—creativity link. We propose that when individuals are dealing with apparent cultural contradictions upon encountering two cultures simultaneously, mentally juxtaposing dissonant cultural stimuli could lower positive affect or increase negative affect, which could in turn induce a deeper level of cognitive processing of cultural discrepancies and inspire creativity. Two studies compared dual cultural exposure versus single cultural exposure among bicultural Singaporeans (Study 1) and compared self-relevant (jointly presenting local and foreign cultures) versus self-irrelevant (jointly presenting foreign cultures only) dual cultural exposure among monocultural Taiwanese (Study 2). As …

Multicultural Experience Enhances Creativity: The When And How, Angela K. Y. Leung, William W. Maddux, Adam D. Galinsky, Chi-Yue Chiu

Ka Yee Angela LEUNG

Many practices aimed at cultivating multicultural competence in educational and organizational settings (e.g., exchange programs, diversity education in college, diversity management at work) assume that multicultural experience fosters creativity. In line with this assumption, the research reported in this article is the first to empirically demonstrate that exposure to multiple cultures in and of itself can enhance creativity. Overall, the authors found that extensiveness of multicultural experiences was positively related to both creative performance (insight learning, remote association, and idea generation) and creativity-supporting cognitive processes (retrieval of unconventional knowledge, recruitment of ideas from unfamiliar cultures for creative idea expansion). Furthermore, …

Toward A More Complete Understanding Of The Link Between Multicultural Experience And Creativity, William W. Maddux, Angela K.-Y. Leung, Chi-Yue Chiu, Adam D. Galinsky

Ka Yee Angela LEUNG

Responds to G. J. Rich's comments on the current author's original article which presented evidence supporting the idea that multicultural experience can facilitate creativity. Rich has argued that our review, although timely and important, was somewhat limited in scope, focusing mostly on smaller forms of creativity ("little c": e.g., paper-and-pencil measures of creativity) as well as on larger forms of multicultural experience ("Big M": e.g., living in a foreign country). We agree with many aspects of Rich's assessment. The issue of whether different forms of multicultural experience can affect Big C creativity is of interest to both scholars and laypeople …

Creativity In Triadic Supervision: Using Mandalas To Impact The Working Alliance, Kelly Agnes Dunbar

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study investigated the use of mandalas as a creative approach with the potential to impact the supervisory working alliance within the context of triadic supervision. Participants (n=7) included master's level counselors-in-Training (CITs), all female, and ranging in age from 23 to 44. Data generated by the formal interviews gained support for using mandalas as a creative approach in triadic supervision as they revealed the potential to impact the working alliance and the goals, task, and bond therein. Of further importance was the finding that the bond between paired CITs in triadic supervision sessions was also impacted by the …

Going Beyond The Multicultural Experience-Creativity Link: The Mediating Role Of Emotions, Chi-Ying Cheng, Angela K. Y. Leung, Tsung-Yu Wu

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This research examines the mediating role of emotions implicated in the multicultural experience—creativity link. We propose that when individuals are dealing with apparent cultural contradictions upon encountering two cultures simultaneously, mentally juxtaposing dissonant cultural stimuli could lower positive affect or increase negative affect, which could in turn induce a deeper level of cognitive processing of cultural discrepancies and inspire creativity. Two studies compared dual cultural exposure versus single cultural exposure among bicultural Singaporeans (Study 1) and compared self-relevant (jointly presenting local and foreign cultures) versus self-irrelevant (jointly presenting foreign cultures only) dual cultural exposure among monocultural Taiwanese (Study 2). As …