Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
acceptedVersion
Publication Date
9-2019
Abstract
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 mediate the link between future-oriented (vs. present-oriented) thinking and creativity (Study 2) and demonstrated the causal role of schema activation by manipulating accessibility of change and progress schemas under a future-orientation (Study 3). We discuss the implications of how the study of schematic future projections contributes to creative cognition.
Keywords
Creativity, Creative cognition, Future-oriented thinking, Present-oriented thinking, Schema
Discipline
Personality and Social Contexts | Social Psychology
Research Areas
Psychology
Publication
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Volume
84
First Page
1
Last Page
10
ISSN
0022-1031
Identifier
10.1016/j.jesp.2019.103816
Publisher
Elsevier
Embargo Period
5-30-2024
Citation
KOH, Brandon, & LEUNG, Angela K. Y..(2019). A time for creativity: How future-oriented schemas facilitate creativity. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 84, 1-10.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3944
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2019.103816