Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

5-2014

Abstract

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) and referential (cold = distant) processing. The authors predict and find that warm cues lead to greater creativity when 1) creating drawings, 2) categorizing objects, and 3) coming up with gifts for others. In contrast, cold cues lead to greater creativity, when 1) breaking set in a metaphor recognition task, 2) coming up with new pasta names, and 3) being abstract in coming up with gifts. Effects are found across different populations and age groups. The authors report implications for theory and discuss limitations of the present work.

Keywords

Embodied Grounding, Warmth, Social Relations, Processing Styles, Creativity

Discipline

Social Psychology

Research Areas

Psychology

Publication

Acta Psychologica

Volume

148

First Page

136

Last Page

147

ISSN

0001-6918

Identifier

10.1016/j.actpsy.2014.01.013

Publisher

Elsevier

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2014.01.013

Download

Share

COinS