Social Psychology of Creativity

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Social Psychology of Creativity

• September 20, 2005

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Personality Approach

• Focus on traits (e.g. tolerance of ambiguity)
  individual differences (e.g. divergent thinking
  ability)
• Some people are consistently more creative than
  others over time and across different situations.
• Favors self-report and biographical studies of
  eminently creative people.

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Situational Approach

• Focus on the environment in which a creative
  individual works.
• Certain types of situations can make people more
  or less creative.
• Favors experimental studies of college
  undergraduates.

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Social Psychology of Creativity

• Intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation
• Amabile (1983) proposed that an important
  situational factor is the extent to which
  situations promote either an intrinsic or
  extrinsic interest in a problem.
• Many highly creative people reported that their
  creativity was constrained by overly controlling
  environments.

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Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation

• Definitions What is intrinsic motivation?
• Harlow (1950) described the interest shown by
  monkeys in a puzzle manipulation.
• Taylor (1960) proposed an inherent interest in
  cognitively engaging tasks.
• Current People who engage in activities because
  of their own interest or personal sense of
  satisfaction and fulfillment are intrinsically
  motivated whereas persons who engage in
  activities to achieve an external goal are
  extrinsically motivated.

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Early Research

• Deci interested in consequences of reward on
  motivation.
• If I pay people will they work harder?
• Over-justification effect Pay people for playing
  with puzzles and they will later play with the
  puzzles less than those who initially played
  without being paid.
• Being paid to do an enjoyable activity actually
  lowers motivation to continue that activity.

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What explains this effect?

• When people do something they enjoy without
  reward they attribute their behavior to their
  love for the activity or the intrinsic interest
  of the task itself.
• When people are paid they attribute their
  behavior to the incentive (I did it for the
  money) and are less likely to engage in that
  activity when the incentive is removed.

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Beyond Money

• Monetary rewards are not the only type of
  constraint that reduces intrinsic motivation.
• Good Player Awards
• Marshmallows
• Video surveillance
• Deadlines

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Intrinsic Motivation Creativity

• Research on personality traits identified
  intrinsic motivation as a predictor of creative
  achievements.
• Biographical evidence also suggested that highly
  creative people display high levels of intrinsic
  motivation.
• Focus all attention of work, ignoring outside
  influences.
• Shun rewards and recognition.
• Refuse to work in controlling environments
  perceived as stifling.

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Guiding Metaphor

• Key Question Can a persons environment raise or
  lower their intrinsic motivation which will in
  turn influence their creativity?
• The Maze Extrinsically motivated person will
  take the shortest way out of a maze in order to
  exit as quickly as possible. Intrinsically
  motivated person will explore the maze because it
  is interesting and in the process will find a
  more original exit.

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Empirical Test of the Theory

• Subjects Professional creative writers using
  newspaper advertisements.
• Writers If you are involved in writing,
  especially poetry, fiction or drama, you can make
  three dollars for an hour of your time. We are
  studying peoples reasons for writing.
• Subjects came to the experiment with a high level
  of involvement in writing.

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Creative Writers

• Subjects also had to answer YES to one or more
  of the following questions (a) Completed one or
  more advanced creative writing courses, (b)
  Published one or more works of poetry, (c)
  Published one or more works of fiction, (d) Spent
  an average of four or more hours of their own
  time per week writing.
• Average response to last question was 6.3 hours.

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Experimental Manipulation

• Manipulation Subjects completed a questionnaire
  about their attitudes toward the target
  creativity task (writing). Rank ordered several
  reasons for writing.
• Questionnaire was designed not to assess their
  attitudes but to change them.
• Push polling example.
• Rank order statements about writing.

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Intrinsic Questionnaire

• Intrinsically interesting aspects of writing.
• You get a lot of pleasure out of reading
  something good that you have written.
• You enjoy the opportunity for self expression.
• You achieve new insights through your writing.
• You derive satisfaction from expressing yourself
  clearly and eloquently.

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Extrinsic Questionnaire

• Extrinsic reasons for writing.
• You want your writing teachers to be favorably
  impressed with your writing talent.
• You have heard of cases where one bestselling
  novel or collection of poems made the author
  financially secure.
• You enjoy public recognition of your work.
• You know that many of the best jobs available
  require good writing skills.
• You teachers or parents have encouraged you to go
  into writing.

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Creativity Measure

• Write a brief poem where the first and last lines
  consisted of a single word laughter.
• Several poets judged each poem for creativity.
  Independently reached high level of agreement.

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Three Important Findings

• The control group produced poems that were rated
  as being highly creative (not surprising since
  they were creative writers).
• Subjects who received the intrinsic motivation
  manipulation produced poems that were somewhat
  more creative than the control group.
• Subjects who received the extrinsic motivation
  manipulation produced poems that were much less
  creative than either the control or the intrinsic
  motivation condition.

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Ethical Issues

• Subjects were debriefed about the purpose of the
  study.
• All subjects completed the intrinsic version of
  the questionnaire.
• Do you think these precautions were enough?
• Was the study worth doing given the risks to the
  participants?

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Discussion Questions

• Is it as easy to increase a persons level of
  intrinsic motivation as it is to increase their
  level of extrinsic motivation?
• Can this research be used to increase creativity
  or only avoid killing it?
• Can you think of cases where an extrinsic
  orientation clearly led to a creative outcome?
  Why? What was different?
• Most fields award their most creative people.
  Should this practice be discontinued?