Publication Type

Conference Proceeding Article

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

6-2013

Abstract

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) event, individuals higher in neuroticism had better performance in a creativity task (Study 2). These findings offer a new perspective to the controversy concerning the emotions-creativity relationship and further demonstrate the role of instrumental emotion regulation in the domain of creative performance.

Keywords

Instrumental emotion regulation, creativity, neuroticism, emotions

Discipline

Cognition and Perception | Social Psychology

Research Areas

Psychology

Publication

C&C '13: Proceedings of the 9th ACM Conference on Creativity and Cognition 2013: 'Intersections and Interactions': 17-20 June, Sydney, Australia

First Page

332

Last Page

336

ISBN

9781450321501

Identifier

10.1145/2466627.2466656

Publisher

ACM

City or Country

New York

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1145/2466627.2466656

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