Threat and Functional Creativity:
The influence of Self-Esteem and Optimism
Master Thesis
Student: Fenne Rietjens – 10434739 Supervisor: Yujie Cheng
2nd assessor: Dr. Matthijs Baas Date: 27-5-2015
Universiteit van Amsterdam
2 Abstract
Previous research on the influence of threat on creativity is inconclusive. The current study therefore aimed to deepen our understanding of the relation between threat and creativity, by examining the effect of threat on creative defensive ideation, and the role of individual differences in the link between threat and the generation of creative tactics. According to functional creativity theory, we proposed that individuals in a threatening condition would generate more creative tactics in domains that are functional to deal with the threat, when compared to individuals in a neutral (non-threatening) situation. Moreover, the moderating effects of self-esteem and optimism were tested. We additionally explored whether different categories of defensive tactics (e.g., fight, flight, threat exploration) were generated in response to threat versus control conditions. Participants generated ideas to deal with threatening situations while threatening or neutral pictures emerged on the screen. Results provide initial support for the functional creativity perspective since they reveal that compared to participants in the neutral condition, threatened individuals generated more (original) action-oriented tactics but less creative tactics about threat exploration. Moreover, self-esteem and optimism moderated the influence of threat on the generation of creative tactics. These results suggest that the defensive tactics are adaptive and individuals low in self-esteem and low in optimism show a different coping style towards feeling threatened as to individuals high in self-esteem and optimism who are not affected by the threat.
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Creativity is a much wanted and needed aspect in life. It is important for an artist to make the best new painting or book, for a company to have creative employees to compete with other companies, for young academics who are looking for a job to make their resume and motivation stand out in a crowd, but also to come up with solutions for energy sources. Just like the commonness of creativity, threat is also an aspect in life people often have to deal with. It can be around every corner and come as a complete surprise and it could have a life changing impact, like an aggressive barking dog, a robbery, an act of senseless violence or even a murder. Due to the fact that both creativity and threat have important impacts on our lives, they both have been hot research topics for a long time.
Previous research has given inconsistent findings regarding the relation between threat and creativity. On the one hand, threat leads to decreased creativity (Friedman & Förster, 2010; Staw, Sandelands, & Dutton, 1981), while on the other hand, some type of threats such as interpersonal conflict, distrust, and threat-induced fearful moods, have been shown to enhance creativity (Baas, De Dreu, & Nijstad, 2011; Clapham, 2001; De Dreu & Nijstad, 2008; Mayer & Mussweiler, 2011). These inconsistent findings can be explained by a motivated focus account (De Dreu & Nijstad, 2008) which shows that individuals can become creative when creativity is functional to the situation. However, not every-one can be equally creative in the face of the same threatening situation, making a judgment about the appropriate response before reacting is individual and subjective, which can result in variation of responses between individuals (Eilam, Izhar, & Mort, 2011). For example, people high in self-esteem have been shown to have lower levels of threat-induced anxiety and are more defensive (Baldwin & Wesley, 1996; Greenberg et al., 1992). Also, self-esteem has been shown to have a positive effect on creativity (Korman, 1971). Moreover, optimistic individuals have a better way of coping in a threatening situation than pessimistic ones (Carver, Scheier, & Weintraub, 1989; Carver et al., 1993).
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Since the previously mentioned research gives inconsistent findings, the major effect threat can have in life and that creativity can be the crucial factor in saving oneself from this threat, it is important to further investigate and understand the relation between threat and creative defensive ideation. The functional creativity account provides a promising first step in the explanation of the inconsistent findings therefore the current study uses a highly functional task, contrary to previous studies using a broad task, which matches the primed feeling of threat in the participants. Therefore the current study proposed that compared to those in a neutral situation, individuals in a threatening situation can generate more creative tactics. Additionally, since some tactics are more appropriate and useful in a threatening situation and other tactics are more useful under ambiguous, potential risk, an area of interest is to see whether people in threat and no threat condition are different in the generation of different types of threat. Therefore explorative tests will be added to the current study to see whether there is a difference between the generation of threat tactics between threat and neutral condition. Finally, the previously reported inconsistency could be explained through the effect of individual differences. Therefore, the role of individual differences in the link between threat and defensive tactics ideation are examined as well. Suggesting the previously expected effect that individuals in a threatening situation can generate more creative tactics, will be stronger for individuals high on self-esteem or high on dispositional optimism, this effect is predicted to be stronger.
5 Threat and Creativity
Threats, environmental events that signal a loss of resources that have impending negative or harmful consequences for the individual (Lazarus, 1966; Marks & Nesse, 1994), can be all around and have a major impact on people’s life. They can arise from changes in the environment, which can be major or minor, blocking, ambivalent and remaining over a longer period of time (Zhou, Shin, & Cannella, 2008). Individuals experience a situation as a threat when they experience insufficient internal resources to meet with the situational demands (Blascovich & Mendes, 2000).
Viewing threatening stimuli activates a startle reflex which is mediated by the amygdala and occurs in reaction to intense and abrupt stimuli (Bradley, 2000; Lee & Davis, 1997), it can also generate an emotional response, such as fear and anxiety (Azevedo et al., 2005; Bradley, Codispoti, Cuthbert, & Lang, 2001). This emotional response can result in rituals, which is behavior that is executed according to explicit rules and is therefore very predictable, so that these give a sense of controllability to cope with the threat induced anxiety and therefore also with the threatening situation (Eilam et al., 2011). Human threat detection and threat management are grounded in a set of functionally distinct domain-specific systems (Neuberg, Kenrick, & Schaller, 2011), each of these systems was designed by evolutionary processes to respond in particular ways to a particular form of threat (Neuberg et al., 2011). For example, the self-protection system, which detects features in others who show a possibility to excess intentional harm, and as a response, elicits a feeling of fear. This differs from the disease avoidance system, which detects effects of disease on the human body, and results in a feeling of disgust (Neuberg et al., 2011).
Moreover, a threatening stimulus can also stimulate various defensive reactions, such as flight (escape, run away, try to get away), freezing (standing still, become immobilized, don’t breath), defensive threat/attack (vocalize, jump attack, struggle) and risk assessment
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(investigate, visual or auditory scanning, sampling of the stimulus while remaining at distance) (Azevedo et al., 2005; Blanchard, 1997; Blanchard, Hynd, Minke, Minemoto, & Blanchard, 2001; Bradley et al., 2001). These reactions arise from an evolutionary perspective and have been studied using rodents as subjects, but recent study showed that these non-human mammal defense systems have a significant congruence with human defensive reactions (Blanchard et al., 2001). Defensive reactions vary depending on different features of threat stimulus and situations. For instance, high magnitude, discrete threat stimuli with the availability of an escape route elicits flight, but the absence of an escape route results in freezing; a close-in and distinct threat tends to elicit defensive threat such as vocalizations and weapon display, and when the distance between the threat and subject is decreasing, this will result in defensive attack (Blanchard, Blanchard, & Hori, 1989). When the threat stimulus is not clearly present, risk assessment behavior, a pattern of activities involved in detection and analysis of threat stimuli and situation, can be functional since this analysis determines the best suitable reaction to the situation (Blanchard et al., 1989; Blanchard, Blanchard, & Rodgers, 1991; Blanchard, Griebel, Poppe, & Blanchard, 2011; Pinel & Mana, 1989). Taking these previous findings together, there are multiple reactions possible for individuals when confronted with a threat. These reactions are influenced by the emotional response from the individual itself which influences the behavioral reaction, but also by the characteristics of the threat and the situation. All these characteristics and emotional responses results in the best appropriate reaction to functionally cope with the threat.
Saving yourself from a threatening situation can also be achieved through creativity. Creativity is regarded as the generation of ideas, insights, or problem solutions that are both new and useful (Amabile, 1983), which is usually operationalized with measures of fluency, flexibility and originality (Guilford, 1967). Fluency measures the production of creativity and refers to the number of non-redundant ideas, insights, problem solutions, or products that are
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being generated (Amabile, 1983; Guilford, 1967). Second, flexibility is the use of different cognitive categories and perspectives as well as the measurement of how broad one category is been explored (Amabile, 1983). Finally, originality refers to the uncommonness or infrequency of the ideas, compared with other individual’s ideas within the same situation (Amabile, 1983; Guilford, 1967).
During the early stages of threat and creativity research, more negative than positive effects of threat on creativity were found. The threat-rigidity theory (Staw et al., 1981) proposed that an individual who is confronted with a threatening situation, is likely to narrow his search for use of information, which therefore would lead to a decrease of creativity. It has been shown that participants in a social threatening situation were less likely to solve a task in a creative manner (Carnevale & Probst, 1998), which was explained by threat induced decrease in one’s scope of attention and therefore resulting in narrow-minded thinking, which leads to an increase of cognitive rigidity and therefore reduced creativity. Moreover, threat induced anxiety and stress disrupted cognitive and ideation fluency and reduced performance at a divergent thinking task (Kruglanski & Webster, 1996; Smith, Michael, & Hocevar, 1990) which causes individuals to be less creative and less successful when solving problems. A deeper explanation of these findings can be found in several studies which have shown that threat has a major effect on cognition, as it consumes available cognitive resources (Schmader, Johns, & Forbes, 2008), restricts the span of both perceptual and conceptual attention (Friedman & Förster, 2010) and impairs working memory capacity (Schmader & Johns, 2003).
Contrary to the negative effects of threat on creativity, positive effects have been reported as well. Several studies have tested the effects of distrust (Mayer & Mussweiler, 2011), fearful moods (Clapham, 2001; De Dreu, Baas, & Nijstad, 2008), anticipation of interpersonal threat (De Dreu & Nijstad, 2008) and when people actively cope with goals to
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avoid negative outcomes (Baas et al., 2011; Roskes, De Dreu, & Nijstad, 2012) which all show beneficial effects of these negative and threatening circumstances on creativity. Another study showed that when an individual is in the presence of stressful and threatening conditions, creativity is enhanced (Baas et al., 2011; De Dreu et al., 2008). Moreover, threat induced negative moods such as fear and anger have been proven to affect and enhance creativity (Clapham, 2001; De Dreu et al., 2008). These studies provide evidence that in certain situations, threatening stimuli can have a positive effect on creative thought. Moreover, the narrow focus due to threat can result in the use of this threat-related knowledge which will be used for creative solutions (Rietzschel, Nijstad, & Stroebe, 2007).
Concluding, research remains inconsistent whether a threatening situation will lead to a decrease or increase of creativity. Due to the major effects that a threatening situation can have on an individual and the positive influence creativity, it remains necessary to shed more clarity on the threat and creativity relation. A more inclusive model could provide evidence to explain why some individuals have more difficulties in coping creatively with a threatening situation, and guide these individuals towards better ways of coping could become accessible.
Functional creativity
When confronted with a threat, people will focus their attention towards coping with the threat, which results in heightened attention induced by anxiety, physiological arousal, and planning for defense (Edmunds, 1974; Janzen, 1981). Therefore all the knowledge in this threat related domain will come to the attention and will be available to work with (Ferguson & Bargh, 2004; Rietzschel, Nijstad, & Stroebe, 2007). These mechanisms may especially be functional when this focused domain is related to danger and negativity. For example, individuals will less easily turn their attention away from a threatening animal, than from a similar but less threatening animal (Lipp & Waters, 2007). Therefore a threatening stimulus
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directs all cognitive resources onto the threat, which has the effect that individuals will devote these cognitive resources to the threat itself and not spend these precious resources on issues that are of lesser importance (De Dreu & Nijstad, 2008).
To relate these threat-evoked reactions to the previously described inconsistency in threat and creativity research, the motivated focus account comes to attention (De Dreu & Nijstad, 2008), which consists of two mechanisms. First, threat may activate and motivate individuals to generate many threat-related insights, ideas, and problem solutions. Whereas these ideas, insights, and problem solutions may be quite average and common initially, over time, these ideas and insights become more and more uncommon and infrequent once more easily accessible ideas have been discarded, which ultimately results in more original insights and ideas (Rietzschel, De Dreu, & Nijstad, 2007). Second, when threat is in the focus of attention, external and internal stimuli will be evaluated with regard to their relevance for this threatening stimulus. When these stimuli seem irrelevant, they are largely ignored. However, stimuli that normally might seem unrelated to the threat could in this situation be judged of high relevance (De Dreu & Nijstad, 2008).
When relating this motivated focus account to creativity, it can be explained that when thought is relevant and functional to the threat, individuals in these threatening situations are motivated to cope with and solve these threats, which results in focus of their cognitive resources on the threatening situation and leads to creative performance within the threat-related domains (De Dreu & Nijstad, 2008). Evidence for this motivated focus account is found in studies that show negative, relative to positive, moods supported creative performance on tasks construed as serious and important (Friedman, Förster, & Denzler, 2007), people who experienced threat induced anger or fear tended to put more effort in the task and therefore generated more original ideas and insights than those in a mood-neutral control condition without threat induced emotions (De Dreu et al., 2008), and that individuals
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became more original and solved more creative insight problems when this creativity was functional to avoiding negative outcomes (Roskes et al., 2012; Walton & Kemmelmeier, 2012). In these studies, creativity results in broader threat-related cognitive categories and more original creative competitive tactics and strategies, however only within threat-relevant domains (De Dreu & Nijstad, 2008). Therefore it can be stated that creativity will adapt toward the threatening situation to help individuals cope and escape this threat.
Furthermore, an important aspect regarding this mechanism is the influence of motivation, as these positive effects of creativity in a threatening situation will only occur when individuals achieve a certain amount of motivation to think about the threat and therefore process the information open-minded (De Dreu & Nijstad, 2008). This motivation will cause individuals to think more deliberate, process information systematically and reach more problem solutions (De Dreu, Beersma, Stroebe, & Euwema, 2006). This motivation will then lead individuals to be willing to invest their precious and limited cognitive resources into creative solutions to cope with the threatening situation.
Concluding, in a threatening situation, it is possible for individuals to become creative. Individuals will be motivated to escape from or cope with the threatening situation and therefore have the possibility to become creative within the escape or coping possibilities. However, in a threatening situation certain individuals are more likely to achieve creative solutions than others. This raises the interest to further examine what kind of individual differences are of influence in the relation between threat and functional creativity.
Self-Esteem
Self-esteem describes a generalized feeling of self-acceptance, goodness, worthiness and self-respect, therefore, it can be seen as a person’s evaluation of self (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, Solomon, Arndt, & Schimel, 2004; Rosenberg, 1965) and can be distinguished
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from various related concepts, such as evaluation, confidence and collective self-esteem. The majority of psychological theories assume that self-esteem is a pervasive force in human motivation, that is generally adaptive and associated with a wide range of desirable outcomes and that people are generally motivated to maintain high levels of self-esteem and therefore defend their self-esteem when it comes under threat (Pyszczynski et al., 2004). Terror Management Theory proposes that self-esteem is the feeling that one is an object of primary value in a meaningful universe (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986), it is the requirement for feeling loved, safe, and secure and therefore provides protection from anxiety (Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1991). This anxiety can be created by the awareness of people's vulnerability and mortality, therefore people need self-esteem as it is the central psychological mechanism for protecting individuals from this anxiety (Greenberg et al., 1992). Threat could generate the feeling of anxiety, which could be influenced by self-esteem. Terror Management Theory states that when self-esteem is high and anxiety thereby controlled, people are more able to experience positive affect, thereby they are better able to act effectively in most life domains and cope with stresses and challenges (Pyszczynski et al., 2004). High feelings of self-esteem could reduce the feeling of anxiety and therefore stimulate cognitive flexibility, which in turn will lead to increased creativity (Gutnick, Walter, Nijstad, & De Dreu, 2012). Individuals low in self-esteem will not have a reduced feeling of anxiety, which therefore will not lead to creativity.
Moreover, high self-esteem is associated with positive beliefs about one’s skills and abilities, which contributes to a sense of competence about the ability to achieve desired outcomes (Taylor & Brown, 1988). Therefore high levels of self-esteem also provide the sense of efficacy that is necessary for engagement in difficult activities and the provision of resources for coping with difficulties, setbacks, and failures (Carver & Scheier, 1981, 1998), which can also be of influence with becoming creative in a threatening situation. Besides the
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anxiety reducing effect of self-esteem, this sense of efficacy promotes the feeling of coping with a threatening situation, with will results in more persistence in the face and improved performance in the face of difficulties (Bandura, 2012).
Evidence for this Terror Management Theory perspective on the essence of self-esteem, has been shown in research results that boosting self-esteem with positive feedback on a personality test, led to lower levels of self-reported anxiety (Greenberg et al., 1992). Moreover, the general findings are that high self-esteem individuals tend to be more defensive than those with low self-esteem (Baldwin & Wesley, 1996). Terror Management Theory also implies that putting one’s mortality under attention, should not only increase people’s efforts to emphasize their self-worth but also lead to distancing from behaviors or aspects of themselves which might be damaging to self-esteem (Pyszczynski et al., 2004).
Moreover, research on the relation between self-esteem and creativity indicated that self-esteem is a precursor for individual creativity (Korman, 1971). An individual with high self-esteem will be more willing to take risks and experiment with doing things in a new way, whereas individuals with low self-esteem will not urge to take this risk and will resort complying with existing rules and procedures (Tan, 1998). Regarding the positive effects that high self-esteem has on creativity as well as on coping with threat, self-esteem could have a crucial impact on the threat and functional creativity research. To specify, it could be expected that high self-esteem will result in more creative results when under threat, compared to individuals low in self-esteem.
Optimism
Optimism, a relatively stable personality characteristic, is defined as a generalized tendency to expect positive outcomes even in the face of obstacles (Carver & Scheier, 2002; Scheier & Carver, 1985). Optimistic individuals, contrary to pessimistic ones, expect things
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to go their way and generally believe that good rather than bad things will happen to them (Scheier & Carver, 1985), that they can overcome obstacles and perceive difficult tasks as challenges rather than threats (Chang, 1998; Smith, Haynes, Lazarus, & Pope, 1993). This challenge appraisal occurs when the individual experiences sufficient or nearly sufficient resources to meet situational demands (Blascovich & Mendes, 2000; Tomaka, Blascovich, Kelsey, & Leitten, 1993) and therefore, challenged individuals perceive a threatening situation with the possibility of gain (Tomaka et al., 1993).
Optimists differ from pessimists in their stable coping tendency towards challenges in their lives (Carver et al., 1989), in coping with serious disease (Friedman et al., 1992) and with concerns about health threats (Carver et al., 1993). This can be explained by the results of a meta-analysis which shows that dispositional optimism is positively correlated with approach, in contrast to avoidance, coping strategies aiming to eliminate, reduce or manage stressors (Nes & Segerstrom, 2006). Optimism also stimulates persistence in goal pursuit (Brown & Marshall, 2001) and enhances psychological and physical adjustment to stressful events (Carver, Scheier, & Segerstrom, 2010). When put in a threatening situation, optimism about the likelihood of avoiding negative outcomes could therefore enhance challenge appraisals (Gardner, Rose, Mason, Tyler, & Cushway, 2005), which will lead to more task focus and less distraction by negative emotion (Folkman, 1984). Moreover, challenge appraisal has been shown to be related to more confident coping expectancies, lower perceptions of threat and more positive emotion in a stressful event (Skinner & Brewer, 2002).
In turn, these reduced threat and enhanced challenge appraisals should stimulate cognitive flexibility, which will lead to increased creativity (Gutnick et al., 2012). Considering that making a judgment about the appropriate response when feeling threatened is individual and subjective (Eilam et al., 2011) and taken the previous research findings of
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the effects of optimism, dispositional optimism could be a crucial factor within the threat and functional creativity relation. More specific, high levels of dispositional optimism could have a positive effect and therefore these individuals will become functionally creative in a threatening situation, compared to individuals low in dispositional optimism.
Present study
The aim of this study is to get more insight into the relation between threat and creativity, since there is still some inconsistency in the findings whether individuals can be creative when in a threatening situation. Previous studies have already shown that individuals become creative when creativity is functional to the threatening situation. However, those studies have used tasks that were broad and didn’t match the state of the participant’s mind, moreover no conclusive results have been reported regarding which characteristics help people perform creatively in the face of a threat.
According to functional creativity theory, the present study examined the effect of threat on different types of creative tactics using a threat-related task and tested the moderating role of self-esteem and optimism in the relation between threat and creative ideation. In the study, we manipulated feelings of threat by showing threatening or neutral picture slides. Creativity was measured with an idea generation task about how to deal with a threatening situation.
In line with the functional creativity theory, we hypothesized that (see Figure 1): H1: Individuals confronted with threat generated more creative tactics in the threat-related ideation task than those in the neutral (non-threat) condition.
H2: Individuals confronted with threat generated more original tactics about how to deal with a threat, compared to individuals not confronted with threat.
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H3: Self-esteem had a moderating effect on the relation between threat and creative tactics generation. Specifically, individuals who are high on self-esteem generated more and more original tactics in a threatening situation, but the effect of self-esteem is not significant in neutral (no threat) situation
H4: Dispositional optimism had a moderating effect on the relation between threat and creative tactics generation. Specifically, individuals who are high in dispositional optimism generated more and more original tactics in a threatening situation, but the effect of self-esteem is not significant in neutral (no threat) situation.
Moreover, to give more evidence to the perspective that individuals in a threatening condition would generate more creative tactics in domains that are functional to deal with the threat, the second goal of the present study was to explore the influence of threat on different types of defensive tactics, for example, fight, flight, freeze and so on. Because studies on defense pattern to threat showed some types of tactics are more adaptive to cope with a threatening situation than other types (Blanchard et al., 2001).
16 Method
Design and participants
Participants were recruited during the two weeks that the experiment was run. In total 146 undergraduate students (41 male, 105 female, and Mage = 21,6) at the University of Amsterdam participated for research credit or €5 and were randomly assigned to one of two experimental between-subjects conditions (threat vs. non-threat). The dependent variables were creative ideation (fluency and originality) and manipulation checks. Self-reported self-esteem and dispositional optimism are continuous moderators in this study.
Procedure and manipulation of threat
Upon arrival in the laboratory, participants were provided informed consent and were seated in individual cubicles preventing them from seeing and communicating with others. Each cubicle was equipped with a personal computer that displayed all instructions and registered all responses. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions (threat vs. neutral) and they were asked to fill in a questionnaire to assess their self-esteem and dispositional optimism. Hereafter, they were asked to generate as many tactics as possible to deal with threats.
During idea generation pictures emerged on the screen that people would be instructed to remember for follow-up questions later in the experimental session. In all conditions, there were fourteen pictures (seven of them contained animal as main object, and the other seven contained weapon as main object), displayed twice in random order (for details K. Kveraga, http://martinos.org/~kestas/affcon, and see Appendix I for example pictures). When displayed, a picture appears for 5 s, followed by 3 s without a picture before the next picture appeared. Slide show lasted four minutes. The pictures were matched on content and displayed, depending on condition, threatening situation (threat condition: e.g. a man points a gun directly at participants), or matching stimuli in a neutral setting (neutral
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condition: e.g. a salesman in a gun store). Following idea generation we assessed the extent to which participants perceived the pictures as threatening and negative, vigilant and arousing. After that, the participants were debriefed, paid, and dismissed.
Dependent variables
For the predicted effects, the generated ideas were coded and transformed into two aspects of creativity: Fluency and originality. First, the coder counted the number of non-redundant ideas generated per participant. Second, the generated ideas were transformed into fluency and originality within the seven broad categories, then fluency and originality within each category was calculated. To get a measure of threat-related originality, results were assessed of how often each idea was mentioned by other participants in this experiment and assigned a percentage score to each idea (e.g., if an idea was mentioned by 17% of the participants, it received a percentage score of 17). We then calculated the number of original ideas, with ideas considered original if they were mentioned by 5 percent or less of the participants (Guilford, 1967).
For the explorative analysis, the ideas generated by participants were categorized into seven broad tactics: flight tactics (e.g., “run away”, “walk backwards”), fight tactics (e.g., “strike back”, “find weapons”), freeze tactics (e.g., “stand still”, “make no sound”), threat exploration tactics (e.g., “think about possible solutions”, “assess the situation,” “vigilant monitoring”), cooperative approach tactics (e.g., “cooperate with the offender”, “convince the attacker that it is meaningless to hurt you”, “act friendly”), non-functional avoidance tactics (e.g., “ignore the threat”, “act as if nothing is wrong”), and other tactics that contained ideas that could not be coded into the former six (e.g., “take precautions”, “seek help”, “scream loudly”, “stay calm”).
Self-esteem was measured with the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1979; see Appendix II), as it is a widely used scale to measure self-esteem, specifically in threat
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research. This scale consisted of ten items, for example: “On the whole, I am satisfied with myself”, and “I feel I do not have much to be proud of” (Cronbach’s α = .89). Participants rated each item on appropriateness to their own feeling (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree).
To measure dispositional optimism, the Life Orientation Test-Revised scale was used (Scheier, Carver, & Bridges, 1994; see Appendix III), since this scale was used in a good deal of research of behavioral consequences of optimism. The revised scale adjusted the original scale, since not all original items focused as explicitly on expectations for the future. This scale assessed the generalized expectancies for positive versus negative outcomes. The LOT-R consisted of ten items, for example “I’m always optimistic about my future”, and “I hardly ever expect things to go my way” (Cronbach’s α = .83). Participants rated on a 7-point scale to which extent they agree with the item (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree).
To check the manipulation of threat, levels of perceived picture negativity and picture vigilance and levels of arousal and unpleasantness were measured. To measure picture negativity and picture vigilance, participants were asked to rate the extent to which they perceived the pictures as threatening and negative, for example: “I found the pictures threatening” (Cronbach’s α = .89), as well as vigilant and arousing, for example: “I felt vigilant at seeing the pictures” (Cronbach’s α = .89), on a 7-point scale (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree; see Appendix IV). Moreover, another way to check the manipulation, levels of arousal and unpleasantness were measured as well. Participants were asked to rate on given matrixes the extent to which they felt aroused and unpleasant after viewing the pictures. The participants were asked to move the ‘X’ in the matrix to the right position to match their levels of arousal and unpleasantness. The Y-axis represented level of arousal, with a higher position meaning a higher level of arousal. The X-axis represented the level of unpleasantness, where a position in the left part of the matrix represented a level of
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unpleasantness, a position more the right represented a level of pleasantness. The results were calculated with numbers representing the positioned 'X', with 0 representing the middle of the matrix.
20 Results
One participant who did not generate any ideas and one participant who generated ideas that could not be taken seriously were excluded from analyses; therefore the valid sample size was 144.
Manipulation Check
To verify the effectiveness of the manipulation, we submitted level of unpleasantness, level of arousal, picture negativity and picture vigilance ratings to separate ANOVAs with condition as between-subject variable. For level of unpleasantness, we obtained a main effect of threat condition, F(1, 95) = 29.86, p < .001, ηp2 = .24, with more unpleasant feelings perceived by participants in the threat condition (M = 63.64; SD = 61.00) than by those in the control condition (M = -7.68; SD = 67.14). For participants in the threat conditions, level of unpleasantness was rated as higher than for the participants in the control condition. The same pattern has been found for the level of arousal, where also a main effect is reported of threat condition, F(1, 95) = 62.14, p < .001, ηp2 = .40, as participants in the threat condition reported a higher level of arousal (M = 48.96; SD = 37.69) compared with the participants in the control condition (M = -29.58; SD = 57.69). Moreover, there was a main effect of threat condition on negativity, F(1, 142) = 108.41, p < .001, ηp2 = .43. Pictures were perceived more negatively by participants in the threat condition (M = 5.10; SD = 1.07) than by those in the control condition (M = 2.94; SD = 1.39). Finally, for picture vigilance there was also a main effect reported for threat condition, F(1, 142) = 29.55, p < .001, ηp2 = .17, picture vigilance was reported as higher by participants in the threat condition (M = 4.69; SD = 1.30) than by participants in the control condition (M = 3.43; SD = 1.52).
Fluency
To test the predicted effect of threat on the number of tactics generated and for explorative reasons to take a deeper look into different categories of tactics, we submitted the
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number of ideas generated within each tactic type to a 2 (condition: Threat vs. neutral) x 7 (tactic type: Flight, fight, freeze, threat exploration, cooperative approach, non-functional avoidance, and other tactics) repeated measure ANOVA with the second factor within-subjects. As predicted, the main effect of condition was significant, F(1, 142) = 7.60, p = .007, ηp2 = .05, with more ideas generated in threat condition (M = 19.26, SD = 7.65) than in neutral condition (M = 16.00, SD = 6.50).
Moreover, the exploratory analyses showed that the main effect for type of ideation, F(6, 137) = 132.73, p < .001, ηp2 = .85, and the interaction between condition and type of ideation, F(6, 137) = 6.27, p < .001, ηp2 = .22, were significant. As can be seen in Figure 2, participants did not significantly differ in the number of freeze-related tactics (F(1, 142) = 0.06, p = .811, ηp2 = .00), and non-functional avoidance (F(1, 142) = 0.40, p = .529, ηp2 = .00). However, there was a significant effect of condition on the number of fight-related ideas, F(1, 142) = 11.84, p = .001, ηp2 = .08, with more fight ideas generated in the threat condition (M = 4.71, SD = 2.81) than in the neutral condition (M = 3.22, SD = 2.36). Another significant effect of condition was found on the number of flight-related ideas, F(1, 142) = 12.88, p < .001, ηp2 = .08, with more flight ideas generated in the threat condition (M = 5.92,
SD = 4.37) than in the neutral condition (M = 3.58, SD = 3.37). Furthermore, an effect of condition on threat exploration tactics (F(1, 142) = 9.16, p = .003, ηp2 = .06) showed more threat exploration tactics generated in the neutral condition (M = 0.50, SD = 0.89) than in the threat condition (M = 0.15, SD = 0.40). Moreover, an effect of condition was found on cooperative approach, F(1, 142) = 7.99, p = .005, ηp2 = .05, with more cooperative approach ideas generated in the threat condition (M = 3.15, SD = 2.07) than in the neutral condition (M = 2.26, SD = 1.68). Finally, an effect of condition was found on other tactics, F(1, 142) = 6.39, p = .013, ηp2 = .04, with more other tactic ideas generated in the neutral condition (M = 4.75, SD = 2.85) than in the threat condition (M = 3.65, SD = 2.34).
22 Originality
To test the predicted effect of threat on the number of original tactics generated and for explorative reasons to take a deeper look into different categories of tactics, we submitted the number of ideas generated within each tactic type to a 2 (condition: Threat vs. neutral) x 7 (type of tactic: Flight, fight, freeze, threat exploration, cooperative approach, non-functional avoidance, and other tactics) repeated measure ANOVA with the second factor within-subjects. Contrary to the prediction, the main effect of condition was not significant, F(1, 142) = .26, p = .614, ηp2 = .002. In general, participants in threat condition (M = 6.22, SD = 4.71) and neutral condition (M = 6.58, SD = 3.82) did not differ in the amount of generated original tactics.
However the analyses for a deeper exploration showed that the main effect for type of ideation, F(6, 137) = 30.80, p < .001, ηp2 = .57, and the interaction between condition and type of ideation, F(6, 137) = 3.50, p = .003, ηp2 = .13, were found to be significant. As can be seen in Figure 3, participants did not significantly differ in the number of original flight-related (F(1, 142) = 0.03, p = .863, ηp2 = .00), freeze-related tactics (F(1, 142) = 0.07, p = .799, ηp2 = .00), cooperative approach (F(1, 142) = .03, p = .857, ηp2 = .00), and non-functional avoidance (F(1, 142) = 0.40, p = .529, ηp2 = .003). However, there was a significant effect of condition on the number of original fight-related tactics, F(1, 142) = 5.41, p = .021, ηp2 = .04, with more original fight-related tactics generated in threat condition (M = 2.56, SD = 2.84) than in the neutral condition (M = 1.61, SD = 1.95). Moreover, an effect of condition on original threat exploration tactics, F(1, 142) = 9.16, p = .003, ηp2 = .06, showed more original tactics about threat exploration generated in the neutral condition (M = 0.50, SD = 0.89) than in the threat condition (M = 0.15, SD = 0.40). Finally, an effect of condition was found on original other tactics, F(1, 142) = 9.13, p = .003, ηp2 = .06, with more
23
original other tactics generated in the neutral condition (M = 2.10, SD = 1.89) than in the threat condition (M = 1.24, SD = 1.52).
Self-esteem
To test the predicted moderating effect of self-esteem, hierarchical regression analyses have been performed with total fluency and originality as dependent variables separately. Moreover, for deeper explorative analyses, hierarchical regression analyses have been performed with fluency and originality within each category as dependent variables separately. In the first step, we entered the dummy-coded experimental condition (1= threat, 0 = neutral) and centered self-esteem. In the second step the interaction term of self-esteem with condition was added to test our hypothesis.
Contrary with the predictions, no significant results have been found for the effect on total fluency (F(1, 140) = 3.41, p = .067). However, results showed that the regression model on total originality was significantly improved after entering the interaction term (ΔR2 = .05), F(1, 140) = 8.10, p = .005. Unexpectedly, the threat x self-esteem interaction had a significant negative effect on overall originality (b = -1.96, SE = .69, β = -.23, p = .005). Table 1 shows all effects of both models. To determine the nature of this interaction, we performed for the interaction effect a simple slopes analysis (Sibley, 2008). The results revealed that threat marginally promoted total originality in the threat-related ideation generation task for participants low on self-esteem (one standard deviation below the mean, β = 1.66, t = 1.68, p = .096), but for those high on self-esteem (one standard deviation above the mean), threat resulted in less total originality in dealing with threats (β = -2,33 t = -2.35, p = .020; see Figure 4).
Moreover, the analyses for a deeper exploration showed no significant interaction (Fs <
1) between threat and self-esteem on fluency within category fight (F(1, 140) = 3.28, p = .072), flight, freeze, threat exploration, cooperative approach, non-functional avoidance (F(1,
24
140) = 1.08, p = .301) and other tactics (F(1, 140) = 2.02, p = .158) and originality within category freeze (F(1, 140) = 3.46, p = .065), threat exploration, cooperative approach, non-functional avoidance (F(1, 140) = 1.08, p = .301) and other tactics (F(1, 140) = 2.05, p = .155).
However, we found a significant interaction of self-esteem with threat condition on originality within category flight. Results showed that the regression model on originality within category flight was significantly improved after entering the interaction term (ΔR2 = .04), F(1, 140) = 5.49, p = .020 (see Table 1). The threat x self-esteem interaction had a significant negative effect on originality within category flight (b = -0.36, SE = .15, β = -.19, p = .020). To determine the nature of this interaction, we performed for the interaction effect a simple slopes analysis (Sibley, 2008). The results revealed threat only marginally promoted their originality within category flight in dealing with threats for participants low in self-esteem (one standard deviation below the mean, β = 0.42, t = 1.86, p = .065). Moreover for those high in self-esteem (one standard deviation above the mean), threat had no significant effect on originality within flight in the threat-related ideation generation task (β = 0.32, t = -1.45, p = .150; see Figure 5).
Finally, a significant interaction of self-esteem with threat condition on originality within category fight has been found. Results showed that the regression model on originality within category fight was significantly improved after entering the interaction term (ΔR2
= .03), F(1, 140) = 3.90, p = .050 (see Table 1). Unexpectedly, the threat x self-esteem interaction had a significant negative effect on originality within category fight (b = -0.79, SE = .40, β = -.16, p = .050). To determine the nature of this interaction, we performed for the interaction effect a simple slopes analysis (Sibley, 2008). The results revealed threat promoted their originality within category flight in dealing with threats for participants low in self-esteem (one standard deviation below the mean, β = 1.74, t = 3.04, p = .003), but for
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those high in self-esteem (one standard deviation above the mean), threat had no effect on originality within fight in the threat-related ideation generation task (β = 0.14, t = 0.24, p = .812; see Figure 6).
Optimism
To test the predicted moderating effect of optimism, hierarchical regression analyses have been performed with total fluency and originality as dependent variables separately. Moreover, for deeper explorative analyses, hierarchical regression analyses have been performed with fluency and originality within each category as dependent variables separately. In the first step, we entered the dummy-coded experimental condition (1= threat, 0 = neutral) and centered optimism. In the second step the interaction term of optimism with condition was added to test our hypothesis.
Contrary to the prediction, no significant results have been found for the effect on total fluency (F(1, 140) = 1.09, p = .298) and total originality (F(1, 140) = 1.48, p = .227). We also did exploratory analyses of the interaction between threat and optimism on fluency and originality within categories, and found no significant results for fluency within category flight, fight (F(1, 140) = 1.02, p = .314), freeze, cooperative approach, non-functional avoidance and other tactics and originality within category flight (F(1, 140) = 1.75, p = .189), fight (F(1, 140) = 1.60, p = .207), freeze (F(1, 140) = 2.21, p = .139), cooperative approach, non-functional avoidance, threat exploration and other tactics (Fs < 1).
However, results showed that the regression model on fluency within threat exploration category was significantly improved after entering the interaction term (ΔR2 = .05), F(1, 140) = 7.26, p = .008 (see Table 2). The threat x optimism interaction had a significant effect on fluency within threat exploration (b = 0.26, SE = .10, β = .21, p = .008). To determine the nature of this interaction, we performed for the interaction effect a simple slopes analysis (Sibley, 2008). The results revealed threat decreased their fluency within category threat
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exploration in dealing with threats for participants low in optimism (one standard deviation below the mean, β = -0.64, t = -3.96, p < .001), but for those high in optimism (one standard deviation above the mean), threat has a negative but non-significant effect on fluency within threat exploration category in the threat-related ideation generation task (β = -0.03, t = -0.18, p = .855; see Figure 7).
27 Discussion
To better understand the relation between threat and creative ideation, we built on the perspective of functional creativity and proposed that individuals in a threatening condition would generate more and more original tactics in domains that are functional to regulate the threat compared to individuals in a neutral situation. Furthermore, we explored the moderating role of self-esteem and optimism on this relation. Results of the empirical study partially supported the hypotheses. First, consistent with hypothesis 1, individuals confronted with threat generated significantly more ideas than those in the neutral condition. When separated in different categories, threat resulted in more ideas about fight, flight and cooperative approach, but fewer ideas about threat exploration and other tactics. Although there was no significant main effect of threat on overall original tactics, which failed to support hypothesis 2, when taking a deeper look into different categories of tactics, we found that threat resulted in more original ideas about fight, but less about threat exploration and other tactics. Furthermore, we found moderating effect of self-esteem on the relation between threat and total originality as well as originality of flight and fight ideas. However contrary to hypothesis 3: Compared to those in a neutral condition, individuals low on self-esteem generated marginally more original tactics, specifically about fight, but those with high self-esteem generated significantly fewer original tactics in a threatening situation. However for originality within category flight, when comparing the categories for low and high self-esteem, no significant effects were found. Finally, dispositional optimism had a moderating effect for fluency within category threat exploration, as individuals low in dispositional optimism generated significantly less tactics when confronted with threat compared to those in a neutral condition. For those high in dispositional optimism there is no difference, which was contrary to our 4th hypothesis.
28 Theoretical and practical implication
The current study provides evidence that threatened participants generated more and more original tactics when thinking about how to deal with a threatening situation compared to individuals who didn’t feel threatened. These results provide more support for functional creativity perspectives by showing the positive link between threat and creativity to deal with a threat.
Moreover, results have been found regarding the different type of defensive reactions. Importantly and interestingly, individuals who feel threatened can generate more action-oriented tactics, for example fight, flight and cooperative behaviors. Furthermore, they can generated more original ideas about fight, but less original ideas about threat exploration compared to individual in a non-threatening situation. These results are in line with previous non-human mammal and human defensive reaction researches, an imminent and discrete threat tends to elicit defensive threat (e.g. find a weapon, threaten back) and defensive attack (e.g. fight, Blanchard et al., 1989; Blanchard et al., 2001), and distant threats with lower intensity and more ambiguous activated risk assessment behaviors, which consist of investigation and sampling of the stimulus while remaining at distance (Blanchard et al., 1989; Blanchard et al., 1991; Blanchard et al., 2011). These findings suggest that defensive threat (and attack) are evolutionarily adaptive defensive tactics in the face of an imminent threat, whereas threat exploration might be more functional under potential risk. Taking these works together, the exploratory findings in current study indirectly give evidence to the functional perspective of creativity in threatening situation.
The present research also shed a light on the threat-creativity research, since we found some interesting results of the effect of individual differences on the link between threat and functional creativity. One of the goals of this study was to see whether self-esteem and dispositional optimism had an effect on the link between threat and creativity. Effects of
self-29
esteem and optimism have been reported, however opposite to the expected pattern. To understand the unexpected results, we sought to the research on the link between self-esteem and anxiety. Previous research has shown that experimentally heightened self-esteem results in significantly less anxiety when confronted with death videos and threatened with electric shocks, compared to participants where self-esteem was not heightened (Greenberg et al., 1992). People often adjust their behavior and beliefs about their own vulnerability, to minimize their anxiety about these events, which could be reduced through the anxiety buffering function of self-esteem (Greenberg et al., 1993). This is supported by research which has provided result that both dispositional and experimentally induced high self-esteem leads to a reduced tendency to adjust their behavior and beliefs to deny their own vulnerability (Greenberg et al., 1993). Moreover, when confronted with one’s mortality, both experimentally enhanced and dispositional high self-esteem resulted in less defensive view of the world compared to neutral condition (Harmon-Jones et al., 1997), which suggests that individuals high in self-esteem generate less defensive reactions, which is in line with the current reported results. The reported effects of the current study could therefore be explained by the anxiety buffering effect of self-esteem: Individuals high on self-esteem to not be affected by the threatening situation and therefore it is not necessary to generate ideas functional to the threatening situation, but for those low on self-esteem, threat induced anxiety results in the generation of ideas functional to cope with the threatening situation. Especially the found effect in category fight is of importance, as this is a main action-taking response to threat, which is found within low self-esteem individuals, and matches the main effect of threat on both fluency and originality. This could possibly suggest that threat induced anxiety especially triggers fight related actions to deal with the threat, which is mostly generated by individuals low in self-esteem.
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Furthermore, optimism showed a moderating effect for the generation of threat exploration tactics, as individuals low in optimism generated less threat exploration tactics when confronted with a threat. For individuals high in optimism, no difference in effect has been found between neutral and threatening situation. Since optimism is related to a stable coping tendency towards challenges (Carver et al., 1989), the explanation for these results could be that individuals high in optimism are better in coping with threat and therefore react the same as they do in the neutral condition. However individuals low in optimism are more effected by the threat and therefore generate a defensive tactic to deal with the threatening situation. Since threat exploration is a tactic mostly applied when a threat is not clearly present, an action-taking tactic is more functional in a threatening situation. Taking this together, the results suggest that individuals low in optimism might have a more functional way to deal with a threat, whereas high optimism individuals show a more stable style with no effect of threat.
Limitations and future directions
A few limitations of the current study need to be commented. The first and most important limitation is the lack of evidence found for the proposed moderation effect for optimism on the fluency and originality aspect of creativity. Since there is no effect reported, these results suggest that optimism has no influence on idea generation when participants feel threatened compared to a neutral, non-threatening situation. Since high optimistic individuals have a better way of coping towards challenges (Carver et al., 1989), this can be a possible explanation why no effects have been reported for individuals high in optimism, since they are not affected by the threat and therefore act in the same manner was in the neutral situation. For individuals low in optimism it would be expected that there is an effect, since they have a less stable way of coping towards challenges (Carver et al., 1989), however, pessimistic individuals assume that failure is more likely and therefore tend to lack motivation
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(Hmieleski & Baron, 2009). This could possibly explain why individuals low in optimism do not exceed more effort into idea generation which is functional to the task, which was expected by the functional creativity theory. Since low optimistic individuals lack motivation, no effect between categories is reported. This possible explanation for the lack of effect from optimism could be further tested for confirmation in future research.
Furthermore, another limitation could be the design of the manipulation during the creativity task itself, which could have led to idea generation specific to the pictures instead of a general threatening situation. When categorizing the generated ideas, a lot of ideas could be identically matched to one of the pictures that could have been shown and several participants generated remotely identical reactions. This was contrary to the task, since they were asked to generate ideas on how to deal with a threatening situation, not specifically the one in the picture. Although the picture paradigm works for the manipulation of threat, it may have been a limitation in the current design to show the pictures during the generation of ideas, instead of manipulating the participant before the actual task.
One final limitation in the design could be the small amount of conditions that were compared. Since one condition is manipulated and only compared to a neutral setting as a control, not much conclusions can be drawn. Especially since there was no control condition where participants generated ideas for a non-functional task, the effects of functionality remain speculation and needs further examined in future research. Moreover, since differences between reaction categories have been reported, future research could take these different categories into account. Evidence has been reported from previous studies which showed that the differences of a threat scenario can evoke different behavior reactions, for example comparing multiple conditions of ambiguity, multiple magnitude levels of threat, possible escape routes and distance to the threat to see what kind of ideas will be generated for different conditions (Blanchard, 1997; Blanchard et al., 2001; Perkins & Corr, 2006). Of
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importance is to take a control condition into account where non-functional ideas need to be generated, to provide better evidence for the functionality account. The effects of risk appraisal should be taken into account as well, since heightened risk appraisal shows effect on intention and risk behavior (Sheeran, Harris, & Epton, 2014). Moreover, an analysis of the functionality of the generated ideas needs to be performed as well, since the current study only provides evidence for the number and originality of the ideas, not whether they are more effective to deal with a threatening situation.
Since the design of the current study was not set up to test the effect of self-esteem on anxiety and therefore no conclusions of this effect can be drawn from the reported data, directions for future research should be directed towards the inclusion of measurement of the effect of low and high self-esteem on threat induced anxiety. To test whether this is possibly the reason why participants in low self-esteem generate more ideas that are functional to the threatening situation. Furthermore, future research could direct towards more explanation on why self-esteem only has effect on certain behavioral reactions and the difference in fluency and originality aspects of creativity.
33 Conclusion
The present study provided support for the notion that individuals in a threatening situation can become more creative, compared to individuals in a neutral situation. Specifically, more flight, fight and cooperative approach tactics were generated when confronted with threat, whereas in the same threat condition, threat exploration tactics and other tactics were less generated. Moreover, threat resulted in more original ideas about fight and less original ideas about threat exploration and other tactics. Although contrary to what was expected, more insight has been given in the effect of individual differences. Self-esteem moderated the relation between threat and total originality as well as originality within category fight: Compared to those in a neutral condition, individuals in a threatening situation generated less original defensive tactics when their self-esteem is high, but when self-esteem is low they generated marginally more original tactics. When confronted with a threat, individuals with low self-esteem generated more original tactics about fight compared to no threat condition. However, for those with high self-esteem, threat had no effect on originality within category fight compared to no threat condition. Finally, dispositional optimism had a moderation effect on fluency within category threat exploration, when confronted with a treat, since individuals low in dispositional optimism generated significantly less threat exploration ideas compared to individuals in the neutral condition, whereas individuals high in dispositional optimism reported no significant difference.
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