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Master Thesis
Uncertainty and Creativity
The influence of Mortality Salience and Lack of personal control on convergent
and divergent thinking.
Student
Stella A. M.
van Hoenselaar
Student number
6228658 / 10016708
Supervisor
Dhr. Dr. F van Harreveld
Programmagroep
Sociale Psychologie
21-06-2017
2 Abstract
This study aims to enhance insight into the relationship between uncertainty and creativity. It is often argued that various kinds of uncertainty lead to negative affect and subsequent efforts to compensate for this negative affect. One such compensatory effort is be creativity. Creativity comprises two distinct processes, namely convergent and divergent thinking, which might be effected distinctly by different sources of uncertainty. Based on terror management theory it is hypothesized that mortality salience increases divergent thinking. This way of thinking enables the creation of something new, thereby providing a possible means of creating (symbolic) immortality. Furthermore, based on the compensatory control model it is theorized that a lack of personal control increases convergent thinking, as this enables someone to perceive more control in external sources, thereby compensating for the experienced discomfort. The main hypotheses were not supported, however valuable insights were created. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.
Key words: Uncertainty; Creativity; Convergent thinking; Divergent thinking; Terror
management theory, Mortality salience; Compensatory control model; Personal control threat; Need for structure
3 Table of Contents
Page
Introduction………4
Control & Creativity…..………...6
Mortality & Creativity...………...7
Research Method………...9
Participants………...9
Measures & Manipulations………...9
Procedure..………....11 Results………...12 Descriptives………...12 Manipulation checks……….14 Hypothesis testing………15 Exploratory analysis……….17
Conclusion & Discussion……….17
Limitations & Directions for future research………...20
Literature……… ..22
Appendix A……… ..25
Appendix B………...27
4 Introduction
Uncertainty is a perpetual part of people’s lives. Throughout history many periods of cultural disturbance occurred, some of which are associated with an increase in artistic output. One example of this is the Hellenistic Greek period which started after the political and cultural composition of the ancient Greek world dramatically changed. This period is still famous for its vast artistic output (Burn, 2005). Another example is New York in the 1970s where a new generation of film makers disturbs the industry, leading to a big increase in artistic output throughout the whole of Hollywood (Biskind, 1998). On an individual level, uncertainty also seems to relate to creativity. There are many examples of artists that were most productive after periods of personal uncertainty, of which Dostojevsky and Bob Dylan are good examples (Frank, 1996; Shelton, 2011). In a way, the production of art creates new meaning frameworks that help people make sense of their lives. Early psychological theorists already understood creative efforts as attempts to make sense out of senselessness (Freud, 1919/1990 from Proulx & Inzlicht, 2012).
Upon till now, little research focused on the underlying theory explaining these observed associations between uncertainty and creativity. This study attempts to create insight into the relationship between uncertainty and creativity and its conditions. Research on this subject so far has mainly focused on the experience of uncertainty and its resulting coping mechanisms. In the literature, several kinds of uncertainty are usually distinguished, like a lack of personal control and awareness of one’s own death. Although there are different kinds of uncertainty, Proulx and Inzlicht (2012) argue that their effects and subsequent responses can be captured by one general process. They argue that people experience psychological discomfort upon confrontation with uncertainty, which in its turn triggers
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alleviation efforts. These efforts however take shape in the form of different compensational strategies. Some of these strategies focus on solving the uncertainty directly, which can be observed in the attitudinal changes that cognitive dissonance can evoke (Festinger, 1962). Other coping strategies are compensatory and focus on alleviating the uncertainty through distal mechanisms. One of these ‘compensatory’ coping strategies as described by Proulx and Inzlicht (2012) is creativity. They describe this strategy as the assembly of new meaning frameworks - creating a new way to make our experiences feel familiar.
A few studies have related creativity to uncertainty as a coping mechanism. Task conflict was associated with increased creativity in the workplace (De Clercq, Rahman, & Belausteguigoita, 2017) and emotional ambivalence enhanced cognitive functions related to creativity (Fong, 2016).
It is important to note however, that creativity is a complex concept that comprises different processes, which might not all be affected by uncertainty in the same way. Guilford (1959) describes two processes that form the basis of creativity, namely divergent and convergent thinking. Divergent thinking is associated with the skill to change between mental categories and perspectives (thinking outside the box), leading to an increased production of novel ideas. Therefore, divergent thinking is often seen as an indicator for creative thought. In studies, creative thought is often operationalized as the generation of novel uses for an existing product (Runco & Acar, 2012). On the other side of the same spectrum, convergent thinking is described as the ability to see similarities, patterns and relations between information using mental categories (Cropley, 2006). Which is why convergent thinking is used in the creative process to evaluate novel ideas and put them into reality.
These different ways in which creativity can be operationalized should be accounted for in research, as there is reason to believe that not every kind of uncertainty will influence
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both types of creativity in the same way. Research by Shepherd, Kay, Landau and Keefer (2011) suggests that different kinds of uncertainty can result in different compensatory efforts. They find a differential effect on compensational strategies for the lack of personal control and awareness ones own death. Their study shows that a lack of personal control increases a preference for order and predictability, whereas awareness of ones own death increases a preference to enhance a social/cultural identity and through this create a symbolic immortality.
In the following paragraphs, control threat and awareness of one’s own death as different kinds of uncertainty will be elaborated upon, followed by an exploration of their individual relationships with the different kinds of creativity as their resulting coping mechanisms.
Control and Creativity
A threat to personal control arises when one’s natural level of perceived control is threatened, leading to feelings of discomfort. The Compensatory Control Model (CCM) states that people will consequently try to restore their perceived control by increasing control in other aspects of their environment. This implies that people can compensate for a lack of personal control by increasing control over an external source. This is in line with research that shows that a lack of personal control leads to a greater dependence on external sources of control, under which a belief in god (Kay, Gaucher, Napier, Callen, & Laurin, 2008) and perceiving illusionary patterns (Whitson & Galinsky, 2008).
This idea was extended by Landau, Kay and Whitson (2015) who added another strategy for restoring control, called the affirmation of non-specific epistemic structure. They describe this as the seeking of simple, clear and consistent interpretations of the environment that are superficially unrelated to the control-reducing condition. This increased perception of
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order and patterns in the world around us, is closely tied to the idea of convergent thinking. As described earlier, convergent thinking enables people to perceive these relationships and patterns using mental categories. It is therefore likely that a lack of personal control will lead to an increase in convergent thinking to enable someone to perceive more order and consequently alleviate discomfort. This leads to the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1: Lack of personal control leads to an increase in convergent thinking.
Even though in the creative process both thinking modes need to be used interchangeably, it is expected that an increase in convergent thinking will have a decrease in divergent thinking as a result. This is because convergent thinking and divergent thinking are considered two ends of the same spectrum (Kim & Pierce, 2013).
Hypothesis 2: Lack of personal control leads to a decrease in divergent thinking.
Mortality and Creativity
The coping mechanisms resulting from death related anxiety differ from those of control threat. According to terror management theory, psychological discomfort arises from the contradiction between the will to live and the realization that life is fragile and finite (known as mortality salience) (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986). Terror management theory states that people try to alleviate death related anxiety by means of creating a symbolic (and sometimes even literal) form of immortality. Increasing adherence to a cultural worldview is one possible means of doing this, as these worldviews may ‘live on’ beyond ones own death. This is in line with observations that people more strongly defend their cultural worldviews when made aware of their mortality.
More recently, another compensatory mechanism was proposed that links uncertainty to creative production. It is closely related to the first mechanism, in the sense that it is
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proposed that being creative offers the opportunity to (potentially) leave a legacy and therefore also helps to achieve a sense of immortality. Creativity, in the sense of the production of new ideas, products and solutions, has the potential to influence society and outlive the inventor (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997). In line with this, several studies found that under some conditions, mortality salience has a positive effect on creative tasks related to the production of novel ideas (Routledge, Arndt, Vess, & Sheldon, 2008; Routledge & Juhl 2012). More importantly, Routledge, Arndt and Sheldon (2004) showed that engaging in a creative task (designing a shirt) decreased worldview defense after mortality salience. This indicates that in the case of mortality salience, both worldview defense and the creation of new idea’s or products can work as compensatory mechanisms interchangeably.
To generate new ideas, one must be able to change between mental categories and perspectives, a skill associated with divergent thinking. In this way, mortality salience possibly enhances divergent thinking, resulting in increased generation of novel ideas. Simultaneously, enhanced divergent thinking will naturally have a decrease of convergent thinking as a result. This leads to the following hypotheses.
Hypothesis 3: Mortality salience leads to an increase in divergent thinking.
Hypothesis 4: Mortality Salience leads to a decrease in convergent thinking.
Lastly, previous studies suggest that individual differences exist in the way people respond to threats of personal control and mortality. One construct that partly explains these individual differences is personal need for structure. Need for structure can be explained as the extent to which a person desires to perceive the world in a clear and unambiguous way (Thompson, Naccarato, Parker, & Moskowitz, 2001). Routledge and Juhl (2012) show that although mortality salience is thought to increase attitudinal rigidity, this effect is only apparent under people that score high on need for structure. They also show that mortality salience can
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actually increase performance for people low on personal need for structure. Personal need for structure fluctuates naturally between individuals but also differs situationally. Whitson and Galinksy (2008) define a more situationally dependent role for need for structure by showing that personal control threat increases personal need for structure. This study tries to establish a general pattern, without overlooking individual differences and therefore need for structure was used as a control variable in this study.
Method
Participants and design
136 psychology students at the University of Amsterdam took part in the study in exchange for course credit. The data of one participant was excluded as this participant took 7 hours to complete the study, thereby invalidating the manipulation. Of the remaining 135 students, 24 were male and 111 were female. All students ranged between 17 and 27 years of age (M = 20.02, SD = 1.84). Participants were randomly classified into three manipulation conditions. 49 participants were assigned to the control condition. The control threat condition consisted of 42 participants, and 44 participants were assigned to the mortality salience condition.
Measures and Manipulations
Mortality Salience
Participants in the mortality salience condition were made aware of their own mortality by answering two questions about their own death (Rosenblatt, Greenberg, Pyszcznski, & Lyon, 1989). These questions were ‘please describe in about 50 tot hundred words the emotions that you feel when you think about your own death’, and ‘please describe as specifically as possible what you think happens to you physically when you die’.
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A manipulation check was used to assess whether the manipulation was effective. Participants in all three conditions completed this task. During this word stem completion task, participants were asked to complete 16 words by adding one letter to a set of letters. For 11 out of 16 pairs, the words could be completed into a death related word, or another non-death related word. For example, the letters ‘.oord’ can be finished into ‘moord’, which means murder, or ‘koord, which means string. For a full list of all words see appendix A. The number of word pairs that is completed into a death related word, is used as the measure of the manipulation check (Rutjens, van der Pligt & van Harreveld, 2009). The number of death-related words ranged from zero to eight (M = 3.99, SD = 1.93).
Personal control threat
Participants in the control threat condition were asked to describe an unpleasant situation they had encountered in the past few weeks over which they had no control. After this they were asked to come up with three reasons why life in general is unpredictable (Rutjens, van der Pligt & van Harreveld 2010). To check whether this manipulation was effective, participants in all conditions were asked two questions. The first question was ‘Are you the actor or director in your own life?’ and could be answered on a 7-point Likert scale (from 1 = ‘actor’ to 7 = ‘director’). The second question was, ‘to which extent are you in control about what happens in your own life?’ and could be answered on a 7-point Likert scale (from 1 = ‘not at all’ to 7 = ‘a lot’). These two questions show a positive correlation r = .29, p < .01. As a correlation of .29 is classed as a week correlation, analyses will be done for both questions separately.
Control condition
In the control condition participants were asked to describe what their bedroom looks like in 50 to 100 words.
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Divergent thinking
Divergent thinking was measured using a task previously adopted by Dijksterhuis and Meurs (2006). During this task participants were given 3 minutes to come up with as many names as possible for a new kind of pasta. In the instructions, they were provided with five examples which all ended with an ‘I’, like ‘Mucatini’ and ‘Vasarecci’. The number of names generated that did not end on an ‘I’ was used as the measure of divergent thinking. The number of generated names ranged between zero and 14, with an average of 2.85 (SD = 3.37).
Convergent thinking
Convergent thinking was measured using the remote associations task (Mednick, 1962). In this task, participants were presented with 30 cases of three related constructs, for example ‘bass’, ‘complex’ and ‘sleep’. Participants need to find the overarching association that connects these constructs, in this case ‘deep’. The translated and validated Dutch version of this task was adopted (Chermahini, Hickendorff, & Hommel, 2012). The number of correct associations forms the measure of divergent thinking. The number of correct associations ranged between 3 and 25, with an average score of 12.56 (SD = 4.15).
Need for structure
Preference for order and structure was measured with a 12-item questionnaire from Thompson et al. (2001). An example question is ‘I enjoy having a clear and structured mode of life’ and answers are given on 7-point Likert scale (from 1 = ‘not agree at all’ to 7 ‘completely agree). Items were translated to Dutch. The scale has a Cronbach’s Alpha of .86.
Procedure
This study presented participants an online questionnaire through the survey program Qualtrics. The survey was administered in the Dutch language and made available to
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psychology students of the University of Amsterdam through a specialized research website called lab.uva.nl. Before starting the survey, participants read the information brochure and accepted the informed consent. Then they filled in the need for structure survey, followed by a manipulation corresponding to the condition they were assigned to. It is known that mortality reminders have an incubation period before their effects become visible (Routledge, Arndt, & Goldenberg, 2004). To create this incubation period for the manipulation, participants filled in an unrelated questionnaire. Hereafter they completed two manipulation checks for mortality salience and personal lack of control, regardless of the manipulation condition they were in. These were followed by the tasks that measure divergent and convergent thinking, which were offered in random order. Lastly, participants reported their age, gender and level of education.
Results
Data analysis was done with IBM SPSS Statistics 24. Firstly, measures were recoded where necessary and reliability measures were obtained, as reported under the description of corresponding measures. Secondly, data was tested on normality through measures of Skweness and kurtosis and through the Shapiro-wilk test. Both the data of the Remote associations task and need for structure scale are normally distributed.
3.2 Descriptives
Table 1 shows means, standard deviations and correlations. It is notable that the measures of the convergent and divergent task do not correlate. As previously stated, convergent and divergent thinking are thought of as two ends of the same spectrum, which should result in a negative correlation between the two measures. The absence of a correlation between the two measures, indicates that both tasks measure different cognitive abilities, which are not mutually exclusive.
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Need for structure correlates negatively with the control question ‘To which extent do you have control over your own life’, indicating that people with a higher need for structure feel less in control than people with a lower need for structure. Lastly, the more death-related words people formed, the less diverging pasta names people produced.
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**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). *. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).
Table 1: Means, Standard Deviations, Correlations
Variables M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6
1. Need for structure 4.09 0.86 - (.86)
2. Divergent thinking 2.85 3.37 -.15 -
3. Convergent thinking 12.58 4.15 -.04 .04 (.71)
4. Personal control threat 1 4.89 1.09 -.15 -.07 -.01 -
5. Personal control threat 2 4.90 1.01 -.17* .02 .01 .29** -
15 Manipulation checks
A one-way Anova analysis shows that the manipulation has a significant effect on the amount of death related words produced F(2,132) = 6.52, p = .002. Post hoc analysis reveals that the mortality salience condition completed more death related words (M = 4.82, SD = 1.93) than both the control condition (M = 3.63, SD = 1.92), p = .002 and the control threat condition (M = 3.55, SD = 1.77), p = .002. The control condition and control threat condition showed no significant difference, p = .83, indicating that the mortality salience manipulation was effective. The two questions that constituted the control threat manipulation check were analyzed separately as a low correlation existed between the two items. Data of one participant was excluded from this analysis, as his score was more than two and a half standard deviations below average. One-way Anova analysis revealed that the manipulation had no significant effect on scores of the question ‘Are you the actor or director of your own life?’. The manipulation did however affect scores on the second question ‘to what extent do you have control over what happens in your own life?’ F(2,131) = 4.69, p = 0.01.
Post hoc analysis revealed that people in the control threat condition (M = 4.60 SD = 1.15) feel less in control than people in the mortality salience condition (M = 5.21, SD = .80),
p=.02. They also feel less in control than people in the control condition (M = 4.98, SD = .81)
however this effect only shows a trend towards significance, p = .052. This is supported by previous research where this manipulation is effective (Rutjens, van der Pligt & van
Harreveld, 2010). There was no significant difference in experienced control between people in the mortality salience condition and control condition, p = .13.
16 Hypothesis testing
Divergent thinking
No difference between the three manipulation conditions was found in terms of the number of diverging pasta names generated F(2,129) = .24, p =.79. Furthermore, Need for structure did not significantly affect this relationship, as shown by a non-significant interaction effect between manipulation and need for structure scores, F(2,129) = 1.26, p = .29. See Table 2 for means and standard deviations.
Table 2. Average number of words produced per condition.
Condition M SD
Control (n=49) 3.10 3.90
Control Threat (n=42) 2.76 2.90
Mortality Salience (n=44) 2.66 3.37
It is notable however that the scores on the manipulation check for mortality salience were negatively correlated to the number of names generated on the name generation task (r = -.31,
p < .001). This does suggest that the extent to which participants thought about death was
related to divergent thinking. However, contrary to the hypotheses, mortality salience seems associated with a decrease in divergent thinking, rather than an increase. Because this relationship is correlation, some caution must be given in the interpretation of this relationship.
Convergent thinking
The scores on the Remote Associations Task did not differ between the manipulation groups
F(2,129) = 1.48, p = .23 nor did need for structure have an effect on this relationship F(2,129)
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Table 3. Average RAT score per condition.
Condition M SD
Control (n=49) 12.49 4.02
Control Threat (n=42) 13.43 4.48
Mortality Salience (n=44) 11.86 3.90
However, a significant correlation between gender and the remote associations task (r = .23,
p = .01) indicates there might be a differential effect on these scores for men and women.
Therefore the same analysis was performed for male and female participants separately. This analysis showed that female participants in the lack of control condition had a significantly higher score (M = 14.34, SD = 4.18) on the remote associations task than participants in the mortality salience condition (M = 11.91, SD = 4.04), F(2,108) = 3.10, p = .05. Both conditions however do not significantly differ from the control condition. This is an indication that convergent thinking is both negatively influenced by mortality salience as well as positively influenced by lack of personal control. See Figure 1.
Figure 1. Remote association scores divided by gender
[VALUE] (n=7) [VALUE] (n=7) [VALUE] (n=10) [VALUE] (n=24) [VALUE] (n=42) [VALUE] (n=35) [VALUE] (n=34) [VALUE] (n=111) 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
control condition control threat mortality salience Totaal
Male Female
18 Exploratory Analysis
The current analysis of divergent thinking only included the pasta names that did not end on the letter ‘i’. However, the production of new names in general can also be seen as creative production. Therefore another analysis was done, using the total amount of generated items as a measure. For this analysis, no main effect of manipulation on the amount of words was found F( 2,129 ) = 1.49, p = .23. Need for structure also does not affect this relationship, as revealed by a non-significant interaction effect F(2, 129) = .66, p= .52. Post Hoc analysis does however reveal a trend towards a significant difference between the control threat and mortality salience condition, with people in the mortality salience generating less words than people in the control threat condition p =.07. This is contrary to the hypothesis that mortality salience would lead to a better performance on the divergent thinking task.
Table 4. total number of pasta names produced per condition
Condition gender M SD
Control Male (n=7) 16.71* 9.83
Female (n=42) 10.55 6.47
Control Threat Male (n=7) 11* 8.02
Female (n=35) 12.60 6.63
Mortality Salience Male (n=10) 11.50 6.92
Female (n=34) 9.57 6.73
Conclusion & Discussion
This study aimed to increase insight into the complex relationship between uncertainty and creativity as a resulting coping mechanism. It was hypothesized that different kinds of uncertainty result into different compensatory processes each affecting different dimensions of creativity. Experienced lack of personal control was expected to increase convergent
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thinking and mortality salience was thought to increase divergent thinking. Both processes are thought to contribute to creativity. Although the current study could not support these hypotheses, several important insights were produced, which will be discussed hereafter.
Firstly, the scores on the remote associations task and name generation task did not correlate significantly, indicating that convergent and divergent thinking are in fact two distinct constructs that tap into two different kinds of cognitive abilities. However, the absence of a negative correlation goes against the generally accepted idea that convergent and divergent thinking are two poles of the same spectrum (Kim & Pierce, 2013). Future research towards creativity should keep this in mind and address both constructs when attempting to measure creativity.
Secondly, it is interesting to note that a gender specific analysis shows that women do score higher on the RAT in the personal threat condition than in the mortality salience condition. This is an indication that for women, lack of personal control leads to the motivation to find structure elsewhere, making participants better in finding overarching associations, whereas mortality salience does not have this effect. That this effect specifically occurs under women contradicts previous research that finds that a lack of personal control elicits a stronger effect in men than in women (Landau, Kay, & Whitson, 2015). In their literature review on the subject, the authors that find this effect argue that this gender effect might reflect the masculine stereotype of agency, which causes men to compensate a lack of personal control more strongly than women (Glick & Fiske, 2001). A possible explanation for the reversal of this effect in this study, might be that the compensation strategy tested here is less clearly tied to personal agency than other compensatory strategies, whereas the literature review studied all compensatory efforts.
Another explanation for the gender specific effect might be the overall difference between average scores of men and women, with women scoring significantly higher on the
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RAT than men. If analyses are done separately, the difference in scores on the remote associations task between conditions is also almost significant for men. The fact that the difference between the two manipulation conditions is significant for women but not for men, might be due to a smaller sample size for the male participants. A similar explanation can be applied to the name generation task. On this task, men perform better than women, however this difference is not significant. Due to the small number of the males in the sample size, these results should however be interpreted with caution.
Another interesting finding is that personal need for structure did not influence the relationship between lack of personal control and mortality salience on convergent and divergent thinking. Although no hypotheses were formed on this relationship specifically, need for structure is thought to individually vary between people and predispose some to prefer nonspecific structure more than others. It would therefore seem likely that people scoring high on need for structure would naturally prefer the strategy of affirming non-specific epistemic structure over other strategies and show a higher increase in convergent thinking when personal control is lacking.
A possible explanation for the absence of this effect might be related to the dual nature of personal need for structure. As discussed earlier, this construct does not only fluctuate as a characteristic between people, it is also situationally dependent. Previous research showed that need for structure can be increased by the lack of personal control, thereby increasing convergent thinking (Whitson & Galinsky, 2008). In this study however, need for structure was treated as a personal characteristic that is fairly stable over time, by measuring it before the manipulation took place. This means it is not clear how the manipulations have influenced personal need for structure, and whether any increase in need for structure was equally high between people naturally fluctuating on this trait. Future research could explore the situational dependence of the construct by measuring personal
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need for structure after the manipulation took place and then relating it to scores on convergent and divergent thinking tasks.
Limitation & Directions for Future research
In this study, certain methodological points of improvement exist and it is therefore recommended that future research takes these into account when attempting to extent theory.
The manipulation check used to access a lack of personal control was not able to convincingly detect a difference in experienced personal control between conditions. The question remains why the manipulation was in fact not effective, as the manipulation proved effective in earlier research (Rutjens, van Harreveld, & van der Pligt, 2010). The incubation period that was created in order for the mortality reminders to become effective, might have influenced the control threat manipulation negatively. Future research should therefore focus on the exact sources leading to the experience of a lack of personal control, and hereby take into account the time these triggers need before they show an effect in the form of compensational efforts.
Another domain that requires further research concerns the tasks that specifically capture convergent and divergent thinking abilities. The remote associations task is originally classified as a convergent thinking task, however lately it has also been argued that this task measures divergent abilities, due to the need to come up with new constructs in order to be successful at this task (Fong, 2016). It is therefore desired that this study is replicated with different tasks associated with convergent thinking, for example a pattern recognition task. A similar question arises concerning the name generation task that is assumed to measure divergent thinking. It is said that all the names a respondent produces that do not end on an I are divergent. However, it could be argued that name generation on itself is already a measure of divergent thinking. It is therefore advised that future research looks into the
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different tasks that are specifically associated with convergent and divergent thinking in order to determine specific effects of uncertainty on cognitive abilities.
This study makes a start in specifying the differential compensatory effects related to creativity that follow from different kinds of uncertainty. It seems to give a first indication that threat of personal control leads to an increase of convergent thinking, thereby supporting the idea of affirmation of non-specific epistemic structure (Landau, Kay, & Whitson, 2015). No specific effect was yet found for mortality salience. Future research should therefore focus on specifying the differential effects of different sources of uncertainty on the various cognitive abilities associated with creativity.
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26 Apendix A. Survey Items
Need for Structure
Ik raak van slag als ik in een situatie beland waarin ik niet weet wat ik moet verwachten. Het maakt mij niet uit als dingen/gebeurtenissen mijn dagelijkse routine verstoren. Ik vind het fijn om een duidelijke en gestructureerde levenswijze te hebben. Ik houd ervan om overal een plek voor te hebben, en dat alles op zijn plek is. Ik houd er van om spontaan te zijn. *
Ik vind dat een geordend leven met standaard uren/tijden mijn leven vervelend maakt. * Ik houd niet van onzekere situaties.
Ik vind het vervelend om mijn plannen op het laatste moment te wijzigen* Ik vind het vervelend om bij onvoorspelbare mensen te zijn.
Een consistente routine helpt mij om meer plezier te hebben in het leven. Ik houd van de spanning die onvoorspelbare situaties met zich meebrengt
Ik voel me ongemakkelijk als de regels/verwachtingen van de situatie niet duidelijk zijn.
Mortality Salience Manipulation check
Doo.. * K...mer Gra.. * Ster.. * Overl..den* Fl..s M..cht Lij.. * ..open* pl…nt …oord* lij..en * … ouw* bo… …loed* d..delijk*
Lack of Personal control manipulation check
Ben jij de acteur in, of de regisseur van je eigen leven? In hoeverre heb jij controle over wat er gebeurt in je leven? Remote Associations Task
teen schoen lopen glas kijken huis paddestoel tuin muts les vleugel geluid wortel klimmen bos
27
verhaal dik lezen grafiet papier slijpen potje vlek blauw hout slaan duim sprong prins bil
veer overkant wachten kachel stoom fluiten saai links maatschappij winter modder leer bonen pauze zwart centrum stank winkelen sneeuw pret honden warm nacht strepen stof hak oog
roeien broek hond varken ei vet
boek school schrijven lamp wit dak
meester stal arbeider voetbal zolder flat blaadjes dorst warm bellen rijden meter praten hoek rood
feest bloemetjes zomer hal kleding kapstok
28 Appendix B. Information Brochure
INFORMATIE BROCHURE VOOR DEELNEMERS
Beste deelnemer,
Voordat het onderzoek begint, is het belangrijk dat u op de hoogte bent van de procedure die in dit onderzoek wordt gevolgd. Lees daarom onderstaande tekst zorgvuldig door. Mocht u naar aanleiding van deze brochure nog vragen hebben, dan kunt u hierover mailen naar
f.vanharreveld@uva.nl voordat u aan de studie begint.
DOEL VAN HET ONDERZOEK
Het doel van het onderzoek is tweeledig. In het eerste deel van het onderzoek zult u zich bezig houden met een taak die zich richt op het inlevingsvermogen in specifieke situaties. In het tweede deel van het onderzoek zult u zich bezighouden met taken die beogen verschillende soorten creativiteit te meten.
! let op: U kunt alleen deelnemen aan dit onderzoek vanaf een computer of laptop. ! Dit onderzoek kan niet op een telefoon worden gemaakt.
GANG VAN ZAKEN TIJDENS HET ONDERZOEK
Bij aanvang van het onderzoek zult u eerst een willekeurige situatie aangeboden krijgen. U wordt gevraagd zich hierin in te leven, en vervolgens beantwoord u enkele vragen over deze situatie. Hierna zult u enkele cognitieve taken uitvoeren. Het onderzoek duurt ongeveer een half uur en dient zonder onderbrekingen te worden afgerond. U ontvangt hiervoor een half proefpersoon punt.
VERTROUWELIJKHEID VAN GEGEVENS
Alle onderzoeksgegevens blijven volstrekt vertrouwelijk en worden anoniem verwerkt. De onderzoeksgegevens worden niet ter beschikking gesteld aan derden zonder uw uitdrukkelijke toestemming en alleen in anonieme gecodeerde vorm. De sleutel voor deze gegevens is in het bezit van de onderzoekers en zal niet uit handen worden gegeven.
VRIJWILLIGHEID
Als u nu besluit af te zien van deelname aan dit experiment, zal dit op geen enkele wijze gevolgen voor u hebben. Als u tijdens het onderzoek zelf besluit uw medewerking te staken, zal dat eveneens op geen enkele wijze gevolg voor u hebben. Tevens kunt u 24 uur na dit onderzoek alsnog uw toestemming om gebruik te maken van uw gegevens intrekken. U kunt uw medewerking dus te allen tijde staken zonder opgave van redenen. Mocht u uw medewerking staken, of achteraf, zij het binnen 24 uur, uw toestemming intrekken, dan zullen uw gegevens worden verwijderd uit onze bestanden en vernietigd.
VERZEKERING
Omdat dit onderzoek geen risico’s voor uw gezondheid of veiligheid met zich meebrengt, gelden de voorwaarden van de reguliere aansprakelijkheidsverzekering van de UvA.
29
NADERE INLICHTINGEN
Als u nog verdere informatie over het onderzoek zou willen krijgen kunt u zich wenden tot de verantwoordelijke onderzoeker, Dr. Frenk van Harreveld, tel. 0205257263, email
f.vanharreveld@uva.nl, Postbus 15900, 1001NK Amsterdam. Voor eventuele klachten over
dit onderzoek kunt u zich wenden tot het lid van de Commissie Ethiek , Dr. Mark Rotteveel, tel. 0205256713, email m.rotteveel@uva.nl, Postbus 15900, 1001NK Amsterdam.
30 Appendix C. Informed Consent
Informed consent
Door akkoord te klikken verklaar ik dat ik op voor mij duidelijke wijze ben ingelicht over de aard en methode van het onderzoek, zoals uiteengezet in de bovenstaande informatie brochure.
Ik stem geheel vrijwillig in met deelname aan dit onderzoek. Ik behoud daarbij het recht deze instemming weer in te trekken zonder dat ik daarvoor een reden behoef op te geven en besef dat ik op elk moment mag stoppen met het experiment. Indien mijn
onderzoeksresultaten gebruikt zullen worden in wetenschappelijke publicaties, dan wel op een andere manier openbaar worden gemaakt, zal dit volledig geanonimiseerd gebeuren. Mijn persoonsgegevens zullen niet door derden worden ingezien zonder mijn uitdrukkelijke toestemming.
Als ik nog verdere informatie over het onderzoek zou willen krijgen, nu of in de toekomst, kan ik me wenden tot Frenk van Harreveld (telefoon: 020-5257263; e-mail:
f.vanharreveld@uva.nl; Postbus 15900, 1001NK Amsterdam). Voor eventuele klachten over
dit onderzoek kunt u zich wenden tot het lid van de Commissie Ethiek van de afdeling Psychologie van de Universiteit van Amsterdam, de heer Dr. M. Rotteveel (telefoon: 020-5256713; e-mail: m.rotteveel@uva.nl; Postbus 15900, 1001NK Amsterdam).
