The Impact of Cognitive Styles on Creativity: Evidence from the Dual-Process Theory

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Master Thesis

June 2015

The Impact of Cognitive Styles on Creativity:

Evidence from the Dual-Process Theory

By

Anna Dóra Nyikes

S2748061

MSc Strategic Innovation Management

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Content

Abstract ... 3

1.0 Introduction ... 4

2.0 Individual Creativity ... 6

3.0 Dual-process theory & CEST ... 8

4.0 Hypotheses development ... 10

5.0 Methodology ... 13

5.1 Participants and design ... 13

5.2 Procedure ... 13 5.3 Independent variables ... 14 5.4 Control variables ... 14 5.5 Dependent variables ... 15 6.0 Results ... 15 6.1 Manipulation check ... 15 6.2 Preliminary test ... 17 6.3 Hypothesis Test ... 18 7.0 Discussion ... 20 7.1 Theoretical implications ... 20

7.2 Limitations and Future Research ... 21

8.0 Conclusion ... 23

References ... 24

Appendix A: The online questionnaire ... 31

Appendix B: Manipulations ... 41

Appendix C: Creativity task & final questionnaire ... 43

Appendix D: Categories of flexibility ... 46

Appendix E: Descriptive statistics and frequencies ... 47

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The Impact of Cognitive Styles on Creativity: Evidence from

the Dual-Process Theory

Anna Dóra Nyikes

Abstract

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1.0 Introduction

Substantial evidence suggests that individual creativity, especially in today’s highly competitive economic conditions is very important, both in the creation of sustainable competitive advantage for organizations and for individual progress (Miron, Erez, & Naveh, 2004). Researchers and practitioners have an enduring interest in improving tools and methods that increase the creative output of individuals and groups. Particular focus has been on manipulations that aim to increase both the quality and quantity of ideas, considered to be a critical factor in promoting innovation and nurturing managerial problem-solving abilities (Dean et al., 2007). Creativity is generally defined as the production of novel, useful ideas or problem solutions. It refers to both the process of idea generation or problem solving and the actual idea or solution (Amabile, 1983; Paulus & Nijstad, 2003; Sternberg & Lubart, 1999). The creativity of employees was recognized in several researches as a critical input to spark innovation and gain competitive advantage of the organizations (Amabile et al., 1996; Oldham and Cummings, 1996). Hence, creative individuals are more likely to generate novel and useful ideas of products, services and processes that would enhance organizational performance.

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5 vary in the degree to which they inherently rely on one way of processing information or another, namely they differ in their cognitive styles (Epstein et al., 1996).

Research connecting cognitive styles to creativity especially from the dual-process perspective is limited and inconsequent (Hennessey & Amabile, 2010). Several studies have shown that creativity can benefit from a structured and systematic approach as well as from an open and flexible one (e.g., De Dreu, Baas, & Nijstad, 2008). Some scholars argue that rational cognitive style can be effective to stimulate creativity (e.g., Couger, 1995; Kaufmann & Vosburg, 1997; Weisberg, 1986) by going through a series of logical steps that results in the generation of potential solutions. This research stream is supported by Nusbaum & Silvia (2011) who state that “executive cognition is… central to creative thought” (p. 26), so rationality is seen as vital to creative thought. Other scholars claim that intuitive approaches enhance creativity because of its holistic and associative features that foster divergent thinking (Dane & Pratt, 2007). This line of argument was empirically supported by Garfield and colleagues (2001) when they proved a positive relationship between experiential cognitive style and the generation of ideas that ranked high in novelty. Despite the above mentioned literature, previous work mostly focused on the measurement of cognitive styles by using one-dimensional or bipolar scales (e.g., Kirton, 1976; Allinson & Hays, 1996) and their impact on creative outcomes (e.g., Puccio, Treffinger, & Talbot, 1995; Miron, Erez, and Naveh, 2004). In this research, however, we attempt to focus on the dual-process perspective that promotes the orthogonal (simultaneous, independent and interactive) operation of cognitive styles (Kahneman, 2003). Moreover past research particularly used the manipulation of one of the two cognitive styles, even though the basic argument of the dual-process theory is that both cognitive styles work simultaneously to predict behaviour (e.g., Evans, 2008). Building on the above evidence, this research investigates the core assumptions of dual-process theory by empirically investigating the impact of manipulated cognitive styles on individual creativity. Using bogus information about one’s cognitive style, an approach, which has not been tested in earlier cognitive style research, this paper contributes to future research in that it tests whether false information about one’s cognitive trait activates one’s cognitive style state regardless one’s real cognitive style.

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6 individual creativity than individuals having activated an experiential-rational cognitive style state. Participants of the experiment received incentives in the form of money or research credit points for participation.

The remainder of the thesis is structured as follows. First, an overview of the extant literature is presented including the review of the existing literature on individual creativity and the underlying dual-process theory (DPT), and cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST). Second, we draw on the already introduced dual-process theory of social cognition to develop our hypotheses. Third, the exposition of the methodology follows by explaining the design of the research, the data collection, the analysis and the results. Finally after discussing the main theoretical findings, we will delineate the limitations and the suggestions for future research.

2.0 Individual Creativity

Creative ideation – apart from its obvious problem solving function (Mumford & Gustafson, 1988) - allows individuals to stay flexible (Flach, 1990), enables them to cope with the opportunities, advantages, technologies and changes that are part of their everyday lives (Runco, 2004). Respectively creativity was studied in a variety of disciplines such as psychology, organizational behaviour, and communication sciences (De Dreu et al., 2008).

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7 mention, that flexibility is not only a measure of creative performance but also the precursor of the production of many and original ideas.

Within the large body of research on creativity, significant stream of literature is focusing on individual differences that explain why some people behave more creatively than others (e.g., Barron & Harrington, 1981; Feist, 1998). Important determinants of creativity are considered to be personal traits (e.g., Guilford, 1950), among which the most important attributes of creativity proved to be consciousness, openness to experience, agreeableness, extraversion, and emotional stability (John & Srivastava, 1999). These factors constitute a comprehensive and well-researched model with a long history of development, the ‘five factor model’ traits also known as the Big Five (Wiggins & Trapnell, 1997). A good deal of research attention has been paid to the consciousness and the openness to experience traits. For example Carlson et al. (2003) found that a low level of consciousness predicts trait creativity (creativity viewed as a relatively stable individual-difference variable), because it is associated with the inability to close out the constant stream of external stimuli. Openness to experience has also been found as antecedent of creativity (e.g., McCrae 1987, Perrine & Brodersen, 2005), in some studies as a robust predictor of creative performance (e.g., Feist, 1998; Furnham, 1999; George & Zhou, 2001; McRae, 1987).

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8 Furthermore, according to Amabile’s influential model (1996) creative thinking-skills include an appropriate cognitive style, which refers to “a person’s consistent pattern of processing information and organizing it into a system of thought which influences behaviour” (Foxall & Haskins, 1987, p. 65). Many researchers have recognized cognitive style as another significant determinant of individual creativity (Kirton, 1976; Scott & Bruce, 1994; Tierney et al., 1999; Amabile, 1988; Woodman et al., 1993). Therefore, in the next chapter, we introduce our independent variable, cognitive style, before we present our hypotheses by elaborating on the relationship between cognitive style and creativity in detail.

3.0 Dual-process theory & CEST

The distinction between two kinds of thinking is both ancient in origin and widespread in philosophical and psychological writings (Evans & Stanovich, 2013). Since the 1970s the dual-process theories have become the focus of significant interest in contemporary research especially in cognitive and social psychology (Evans, 2007a, 2008; Kahneman, 2011). There is considerable agreement among researchers on the characteristics of the two information processing systems which was implicitly named as System 1 and System 2 by Stanovich and West (2000), intuitive and thinking-conceptual-logical by Jung (1964/1968), heuristic and analytic by Evans (1989) and heuristic and extensional by Tversky & Kahneman (1983). System 1 is typically fast, automatic, effortless, associative, implicit, and often emotionally charged, while System 2 is slower, serial, effortful and deliberately controlling (Evans, 2008). System 1 is often blamed for cognitive biases, which is a mistake considering that both types of processing can lead to correct answers and both can lead to biases (Stanovich, 2011b). According to the two system view, individual’s behaviour is the result of the interplay between the two modes, since they operate simultaneously, independently and interactively.

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9 process information by two partially independent cognitive systems – experiential and rational – that operate in an independent, parallel, and interactive manner. The rational system - similarly to Stanovich and West’s (2000) System 2 - is conscious, relatively slow, intentional, analytic, primarily verbal and relatively affect-free, whilst the experiential system - similarly to Stanovich and West’s (2000) System 1 - is preconscious, rapid, automatic, holistic, primarily non-verbal and associated with affect. Normally, the two systems engage in a consistent interaction, but sometimes they conflict, experienced as a clash between feelings and thoughts (e.g., Denes-Raj & Epstein, 1994). For example Epstein mentions in his article (1992) that from the perspective of CEST, it is not uncommon that even though a person understands rationally that two ratios are mathematically equivalent but at the same time may feel subjectively that one ratio is more favourable than the other. Findings like this provide experimental evidence for the existence of two distinct way of processing information. The extent to which one information-processing system – either the experiential or the rational - operates in a situation depends on various factors such as the inherent individual differences in relying on one way of processing information or another, the degree to which the situation is associated with a habitual way of responding and the degree of emotional involvement. There are two main differences between the theory of Epstein and other dual-process theories (e.g., Carl Jung). Firstly, CEST places the dual-process model within the context of a global theory of personality, instead of considering it as an isolated construct. Secondly, while the theory of Epstein considers the two modes of processing information as independent constructs that operate in a simultaneous and interactive manner, in other words it has a parallel-competitive structure; other researchers regard the two systems operating in hierarchy with a default-interventionist structure (Tversky and Kahneman, 1983).

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4.0 Hypotheses development

Cognitive style, as individuals’ preferred ways of gathering, structuring, and applying information has been studied broadly as an important antecedent of creative performance (e.g. Hennessey & Amabile, 2010; Amabile, 1996; Oldham & Cummings, 1996; Shalley, Zhou, & Oldham, 2004). However as some researchers (e.g., Barr et al., 2014) already claimed there is a clear paucity of work studying creativity from a dual-process perspective of social cognition. In addition to the clear incompleteness of the literature, creativity researchers are divided as to whether the rational or the experiential way of processing information is beneficial to creative performance. To explore this issue, we use the dual-process theory of cognitive styles which assumes that people vary in the extent to which they rely on one way of processing information or another.

Reviewing the literature we found that a significant part of this line of work supports that creativity can be achieved through a flexible, fluent, and divergent way of thinking (e.g., Duncker, 1945; Oppenheimer, 2008; Simonton, 1997). Flexible thinking, indeed, facilitates accessibility of distant informational links and the finding of new connections among categories and concepts (Förster & Dannenberg, 2010). Previous studies have found that rational cognitive style negatively influences creativity compared to experiential (e.g., Scott & Bruce, 1995; Smith & DeCoster, 2000). While rational thinking relies on rules and uses logic and rationality concluding in conventional solutions to problems, intuitive thinking involves various areas of thought and using imagination resulting in original solutions to problems (Scott & Bruce, 1994). Therefore, having an experiential rather than a rational cognitive style is positively related to creativity and originality (e.g., Jacobson, 1993; Scott & Bruce, 1995). Jarosz et al. (2012) further claim that “superior executive functioning, such as increased attentional control, may in fact be detrimental to reaching creative solutions” (p. 488). This is because high attentional control and/or high working memory capacity, typical for rational information processing benefits analytic problem solving, instead of creative problem solving. In addition, Epstein (2003) placed creativity in just one type of thinking process namely the experiential system, because in contrast to the linear-processing rational system, it uses associations to generate ideas. Supporting this thought, the experiential thinking style has proved to be positively correlated with performance on divergent thinking tests (Norris & Epstein, 2011).

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11 H1: Individuals having stimulated a rational cognitive style state exert less individual creativity then individuals having activated an experiential style state.

As presented above, according to the dual-process theory of social cognition there are two different modes of information processing – experiential and rational - that work simultaneously, independently and interactively (Kahneman, 2003). However, as Evans (2008, 2009) and Stanovich (2009) suggested earlier, presumably, there exists a mixed information processing system, involving both the rational and the experiential systems which we will call the experiential-rational system in this study. This system operates with the jointly co-operation of both the rational and the experiential information processing systems.

Reviewing the literature to expose the effect of this mixed type of information processing system on creativity, we found that people can simultaneously believe two contradictory answers to the same reasoning problem that have their source in the two different information processing system (Sloman, 1996). Sloman (1996) resembles the two systems as ‘specialists at different kinds of problems’, thus when both systems compute the response for a given problem, these responses may conflict. He names this phenomenon, when a reasoning problem causes people to simultaneously believe two contradictory responses, the Criterion S and exemplifies it with the Müller-Lyer illusion and Linda-the-bank-teller problem among others. The Müller-Lyer illusion for instance shows how perception and knowledge provides different, conflicting answers for a dichotomy. Sloman (1996) closes his argumentation with the following statement which accurately illustrates the possible struggle between the two systems: “a person can be torn between descriptions that he or she resonates to and descriptions that he or she finds to be analytically more accurate” (p. 19).

Müller-Lyer illusion

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12 because solving the incongruent problem took considerably more time for everybody and people reviewed the problem more extensively and thus could recall the incongruent problem better then the non-conflicting congruent ones. They also showed that this kind of conflict only exists in goal-oriented monitoring processes such as the generation of creative ideas.

Epstein (1994) also confirmed our proposition that people typically experience a conflict between two types of reasoning by stating that people ‘‘behave against their better judgement’’ (Denes-Raj & Epstein, 1994, p. 1) when they make a mistake.

Furthermore, in their aim to examine the existence of two different processing systems, Keren and Schul (2009) determined conflicting responses of the operating systems as unquestionable and as a starting point of their investigation. This can further reinforce our presumption about existing conflict between systems.

So far we introduced the literature (Epstein, 1994; Sloman, 1996; De Neys & Glumicic, 2008) that argues that the simultaneous operation of the experiential and the rational system results in conflict which can possibly end in less correctly solved problems than when single systems operate. Previously we also claimed that people with rational style state exert less creativity then people with experiential style state. Following our argumentation this means that even those people that process information rationally are supposed to generate more creative ideas than those processing information with the simultaneous operation of both systems. Extant literature shows that indeed some researchers (e.g., Couger, 1995; Kaufmann & Vosburg, 1997; Weisberg, 1986) consider rational cognitive style as effective in fostering creative ideas. This is because this system allows people to generate potential solutions through logical, sequential steps that can be evaluated and refined until the problem is solved or has been sufficiently addressed (Amabile, 1996). Nusbaum & Silvia (2011) agrees with the beneficial effects of rational cognitive style by stating that “executive cognition is ... central to creative thought” (p. 36). Lastly but not least Silvia & Beaty (2012) showed evidence that people with larger working memory span – a cognitive ability central to reasoning and executive abilities (e.g, Kane et al., 2004) - generate better metaphors, a common and valued form of creativity.

By now there is no straightforward empirical test to describe the effect of this conflicting information processing system on creativity and its relation with the other two processing systems. The aim of the present study is to address this issue. Thus we hypothesize:

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5.0 Methodology

5.1 Participants and design

87 undergraduate students1 of a Dutch University, 53 female (60.9%) and 34 male (39.1%) with an average age of 22 (M = 21.52; SD = 1.92) participated in a two-part study for either €8 or 4 research points. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions (experiential, rational, and experiential-rational). Participation was voluntary and anonymous.

5.2 Procedure

We started to advertise our experiment among the students of the university one week prior to the laboratory experiment via the university’s own platform, SONA and through research specific Facebook groups of the campus. During the experiment, we continued the advertising activity by handing out flyers in the university buildings.

The experiment consisted of two different parts. First, participants completed an online questionnaire (via Qualtrics, see Appendix A) through which we measured their cognitive style traits. We used a self-reporting measure, the Rational-Experiential Inventory (REI), developed by Pacini & Epstein (1999). Second, after completing the online questionnaire participants were expected to perform the experimental task in the laboratory. Arriving to the lab, students were instructed to read the information brochure and sign the informed consent. They were than randomly assigned to one of the three experimental conditions (experiential, rational, and experiential-rational). Subsequently, each participant was escorted to an isolated cubicle and given a personalised personality profile, which was in fact the cognitive style state manipulation. Each participant had 3 minutes to read their personalized profile. Finally, participants received the creativity task for which they had 20 minutes to complete. The task, which aimed to generate possible ideas, solutions or suggestions to improve the quality of teaching in the Faculty of Economics and Business, was adapted from De Dreu, Baas & Nijstad (2008). After 20 minutes we collected the forms back and handed out a final questionnaire which contained the manipulation checks. Completing the second part of the research (see Appendix

C), participants read the debriefing form, received the money or research points and left.

1_{Initially, there were 92 participants; however, since the data of 5 participants from the laboratory experiment}

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5.3 Independent variables

Three different personalized personality profiles, manipulations were created in accordance with the three experimental conditions: experiential, rational, and experiential-rational. These manipulations were given to students as their own, personalized profile even though the profiles were made regardless of the cognitive styles of the participants. Particularly because in our study we did not measure cognitive style, thus we could not create real personalized profiles to the participants. We only wanted to let the pupils believe that the profile is personalized, to achieve a successful manipulation. Also, the profiles were handed out randomly to students, reason for which we can classify the given information bogus, false. The manipulations were phrased so that students get detailed information on the way how exactly that specific type of information-processing system operates. We described how people who process information in an experiential/rational/experiential-rational way approach a problem, whether they focus on details and take a step-by-step perspective to reach decision, adopt a global perspective relying on heuristics or the mix of this two. Furthermore we added some adjectives that accurately express the way these systems process information. Regarding the rational mode we used the words slow, deliberate, and intentional; concerning the experiential mode we used the adjectives fast, impulsive, automatic; and for the experiential-rational mode we again used the mix of the adjectives of the rational and experiential mode. Lastly we used abstract symbols, words and numbers in case of the rational system and images, metaphors, and narratives in case of the experiential system that are used to encode reality and that are different among information-processing systems. The manipulations used in the experiment are included to Appendix B.

5.4 Control variables

To measure participants’ cognitive style trait we used the self-reporting measure of Pacini & Epstein (1999), the Rational-Experiential Inventory (REI). The questionnaire has 24 items and consists of two unipolar scales: the “Faith in intuition” scale measures intuitive thinking, and the “Need for cognition” scale measures analytical thinking. Based on the highest factor loadings, nine items for analytical information processing and eleven items for intuitive information processing were selected. Thus, three items from the “Need for cognition” scale and one item from the “Faith in intuition” scale were left out2. A reliability analysis was run both on the nine analytical items and on the eleven intuitive items on the sample of 87 individuals. The results show that the factor loadings

2

NFC: I am notverygoodatsolvingproblemsthatrequirecarefullogicalanalysis. / I am not a veryanalyticalthinker. / I am muchbetteratfiguringthings out logicallythan most people.

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15 are significant for the nine analytical processing (α=.82) and the eleven intuitive processing (α=.85) items. These measures are used as control variables when testing our hypotheses.

5.5 Dependent variables

The ideas, problem solutions, and suggestions generated by the participants were transformed into three different components of creativity. First, as a measure of creative fluency, we counted the number of unique ideas generated per participant. To obtain a measure of originality, independent coders rated each idea for originality (1– not original at all to 5 -very original). Interrater agreement was satisfactory (intraclass correlation, ICC = .97), thus the indicator of originality became an aggregated value of the raters. To get cognitive flexibility, we assigned each unique idea to one of the following seven categories (see Appendix D): Ideas having to do with (a) university environment, such as (architecture of) lecture halls, seminar rooms, and opening hours; (b) student facilities, such as extracurricular activities, library access, and classroom interiors; (c) student quality, including selecting better students and increasing cooperation and contact among students; (d) teaching materials, such as readers, textbooks, handouts of PowerPoint presentations, examination issues, and grading systems; (e) teachers, such as teacher training and selection, use of teaching evaluations, and use of mentors and coaches; (f) policy, such as scholarships and other financial issues, information distribution, and reduced bureaucracy; and (g) other issues. The higher the number of categories used, the greater the participant’s cognitive flexibility (e.g., Nijstad et al., 2002, 2003). Interrater agreement was good (intraclass correlation, ICC = .96), and differences were solved through discussion.

6.0 Results

6.1 Manipulation check

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16 To analyze the effects of the manipulations (experiential, rational, and experiential rational) we carried out univariate analyses for the two experiential and two rational manipulation checks.

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Table 1

Estimated marginal means of Manipulation Checks Condition number Experiential

check1 Experiential check2 Rational check1 Rational check2 I expressed most of my ideas based on my inner feeling and immediate reactions I relied on my gut instinct I expressed most of my ideas based on a logical and systematic way of thinking I analyzed all available information in detail Experiential Rational Experiential-rational 3.77 3.46 3.68 3.29 2.79 3.18 3.36 3.89 3.43 3.36 3.93 3.54

To further investigate whether our manipulation worked or not we completed another univariate analysis for the PPPidentification variable. This variable labelled the following question: “To what extent do you identify with the Personalized Personality Profile description you received?”. The results showed significant main effects F(2, 84) = 4.10, p < .05, ƞ2 = .09. Furthermore, participants in the experiential-rational condition seemed to identify themselves the most with the Personalized Personality Profiles according to the estimated means (Me = 3.36, Mr = 4.00, Mer = 4.04). Pairwise comparison furthered our understanding on the relationship between conditions. It showed significant difference p < .05 between the experiential and the experiential-rational conditions; marginal significant difference p < .1 between the experiential and rational conditions; and no significant difference between the rational and experiential-rational conditions p = 1.

Overall, despite the rather non-significant results for the separate manipulation check items, considering the estimated means of the checks, the results are consistent to our manipulation. Furthermore, results suggest that participants in the experiential-rational condition identified themselves the most with the Personalized Personality Profiles followed by the rational and the experiential conditions.

6.2 Preliminary test

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18 Before testing our hypotheses, it is important to statistically check whether the distribution of the dependent variables – creative fluency, originality and flexibility – is normally distributed. Processing the Shapiro-Wilk test for all the three variables, it shows non-normal distribution of fluency; originality and flexibility (see Appendix F, Table 1). We used log10 transformation with the aim to increase normality and reduce skewness. Unfortunately, none of the variables’ distribution got closer to normal (see Appendix F, Table 2, 3, 4), thus we continue the analysis with the non-transformed variables.

6.3 Hypothesis Test

To test our hypotheses, we conducted univariate analyses for fluency, originality and flexibility. We controlled for cognitive style traits by using means of the experiential and the rational scale.

Before starting with the univariate analyses, however, we processed the Brown-Forsythe Levene’s test for the non-normally distributed samples. We used this test instead of the traditional Levene’s test, because it is more robust by using the medians of the dependent variables and by thus becoming insensitive for variations in the distribution of the samples. Testing fluency, originality and flexibility, the Brown-Forsythe Levene’s test showed non-significant results in all three cases (see

Appendix F, Table 5, 6, 7). This means that the variances between the condition groups are not

significantly different.

After checking for differences in the variance of groups, first, we submitted the number of unique ideas to a univariate analysis. No significant main effects appeared F(2,82) = .38, p = .69,ƞ2 = .01, which means that there is no significant difference in the number of ideas generated between the manipulation types after controlling for cognitive style traits using a 95% confidence interval. Only the mean of the experiential cognitive style trait had marginally significant effects F(1,82) = 3.53, p< .1, ƞ2 = .04. This indicates that participants’ creative fluency is indeed influenced by their experiential cognitive style trait. However, mean comparisons showed that on average more ideas were generated when participants were manipulated to the rational cognitive style state (M = 7.43, SD = 3.92) than when participants were manipulated to either the experiential cognitive style state (M = 6.94, SD = 3.2) or the experiential-rational cognitive style state (M = 6.86, SD = 3.75)(Appendix F, Table 8).

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19 cognitive style state (M = 1.39, SD = .27) than when participants were manipulated to either the rational cognitive style state (M = 1.39, SD = .20) or the experiential-rational cognitive style state (M = 1.39, SD = .30) (Appendix F, Table 9).

Lastly, we included the number of categories from which ideas were sampled as the dependent variable and again processed the univariate analysis. The distribution of the means was similar to that of the fluency’s. No main effects were significant F(2,82) = .89, p = .41, ƞ2 = .02, and a close inspection of the means showed that more ideas were generated when participants were manipulated to the rational cognitive style state (M = 3.8, SD = 1.25) than when participants were manipulated to either the experiential cognitive style state (M = 3.61, SD = 1.08) or the experiential-rational cognitive style state (M = 3.38, SD = 1.24) (Appendix F, Table 10).

We conclude that since our results were not significant we can accept neither Hypothesis 1 nor Hypothesis 2. There is no significant difference in a) the number of ideas b) the originality of ideas 3) and the flexibility of ideas generated between the manipulation types after controlling for cognitive style traits. As the directions of the means, however, are consistent with our expectations regarding H2 and partly consistent with our expectations concerning H1, further research is suggested to justify our assumptions. 6,97 1,39 3,61 7,54 1,38 3,81 6,71 1,39 3,37 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Fluency Originality Flexibility

Esti m ate d m e an s

Estimated means for Fluency, Originality, and

Flexibility per condition

Experiential Rational

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7.0 Discussion

Building on the cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST), a fresh framework to study the effect of cognitive styles on individual’s creativity, this study examined whether individuals were more likely to generate creative ideas when they were manipulated to adapt a rational, experiential or experiential-rational cognitive style. The uniqueness of the applied approach is two-fold. Firstly, the focus of the research is on the dual-process perspective that promotes the simultaneous, independent, and interactive operation of the experiential and the rational cognitive styles. Secondly, the use of bogus information about one’s cognitive style is an approach, which has not been tested in earlier cognitive style research. This research can be regarded especially accurate, since there is a divide in creativity literature as to whether experiential or rational cognitive style is beneficial to creative outcome.

We expected that individuals having stimulated a rational cognitive style state exert less individual creativity than individuals having activated an experiential cognitive style state, but more individual creativity than individuals having activated an experiential-rational cognitive style state.

Having used univariate analysis we tested the effect of different conditions on creative fluency, originality and flexibility. The results proved to be non-significant meaning that there were no significant differences between the different conditions regarding creativity, and so the manipulation with bogus information did not work. This outcome was further reinforced by the mostly non-significant results of the manipulation checks. Despite the non-non-significant results, the direction of the estimated means of creative fluency, originality and flexibility corresponds with the findings of Barr et al. (2014), Janis & Mann (1977) and Garfield et al. (2001). Means showed that participants manipulated to be experiential generated more original ideas, participants manipulated to be rational generated more-, and more flexible ideas, while experiential-rational participants performed the less creatively among the three conditions.

7.1 Theoretical implications

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21 (Gigerenzer & Regier, 1996; Keren & Schul, 2009; Kruglanski & Gigerenzer, 2011). One line of the criticism questions the existence of only two systems. In his recent work Evans (2008, 2009) warned readers from believing that there are only two systems or just two kinds of dual-processing theories. He furthered that evidence suggests that the generic dual-system theory is oversimplified and misleading because System 1 as identified by Stanovich and West (2000) may have different kinds of underlying processes. We built on this presumption by introducing the experiential-rational system, a system that bears with the attributes of both the experiential and the rational information processing systems. Our findings provided evidence that a mixed system can, indeed, be meaningfully differentiated from the two basic ones by participants - who got manipulated to adapt experiential-rational cognitive style state - performing differently creative outputs for a creativity task. Furthermore, being consistent with our assumptions, the findings of the experiment justified Sloman’s claim (1996) that these underlying systems (experiential and rational) when operating simultaneously, conflict, and result in less beneficial outcomes than single systems. This conflicting effect was presented by the mean comparisons of the different creativity outcomes.

Overall, with this study, we contribute to the emerging direction of the dual-process theories that argues in favour of more than two underlying processes. In addition, we add to the CEST, by proving that the parallel operation of the experiential and rational systems results in a mixed system with less beneficial outcomes. The present paper can be seen as the first that empirically investigated the existence and operation of a mixed, parallel-competitive system.

In addition, our findings regarding the creativity literature that fluency, originality and flexibility are promoted by the activation of different cognitive processes, confirms that individual creativity cannot be measured by a single measurement. As Litchfield (2008) summarizes, “Creativity is generally treated as a composite of novelty and utility . . . but research has yet to carefully examine the effects of these dual goals ... novelty and usefulness are unrelated dimensions of ideas” (p. 659). Furthermore, Ford and Gioia (2000) illustrated that “different factors independently influence” (p. 727) novelty and usefulness. Thus, in future creativity researches, the fact that there are various facets of creativity that are influenced by different cognitive processes should be uniformly taken into consideration.

7.2 Limitations and Future Research

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22 framework of this thesis. In future research, however, it is worth to investigate whether they are interaction effects between people’s inherent way of processing information and the manipulation and if so, what kind of.

Second, the evaluation of the originality and flexibility of creative ideas happened in a subjective manner. This can be one reason for the lack of difference in the creativity measurements between the cognitive style groups. However, since the interrater agreement was satisfactory (intraclass correlation, ICC = .97 and ICC = .959), it cannot influence the results significantly.

Third, we offered either money or research points for participation. Although, this kind of incentive is common in the literature (Baer et al., 2008), previous literature mentions that extrinsic rewards might undermine creativity (Amabile, 1996). Thus, it is possible that the reward reduced the level of creativity across the conditions. However, since everybody, in all conditions were given the same incentives, it is not likely that the reward changed the pattern of our results. Nonetheless we suggest researchers to replicate the study without offering external rewards to participants.

Four, our study was based on a relatively small sample of 87 research participants. As a result of this, we have experienced normality problems, which might have contributed to the non-significant results. Future research could be repeated with a large sample.

Another limitation of the research is that it was focusing solely on students of this particular Dutch University. Accordingly, the results of this paper are not generalizable without any cautiousness. It is not so, because the demographic diversity within the sample was very low. The vast majority of the students was female and of Dutch nationality. Therefore, future research is encouraged to study cognitive style manipulation on individual creativity that shows greater diversity in demographics. It can be repeated with employees for instance, possibly in a less controlled environment to see whether these results get confirmed. Such research could investigate the relative importance of the moderating effect of demographic (gender, culture, nationality) and job-related characteristics on creativity.

Lastly but not least, conducting laboratory experiment involving undergraduate students raises questions of external validity of our findings (Cook & Campbell, 1979). As in case of every laboratory design, we cannot be sure whether our results can be generalize beyond the study context or as we mentioned previously beyond the undergraduate student population. However, we believe that the precise way of carrying out the experiment, may enhance its validity.

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23 whether rational cognitive style state generate less original ideas then experiential cognitive style state. Following Barr et al. (2014), there is already some significant experimental evidence for the need for different cognitive processes to reach various facets of creativity. Future research with a larger and more demographically diverse sample is expected on this domain.

Concerning that in our study the manipulations of cognitive styles proved to be unsuccessful, future research should repeat the experiment in an increasingly cautious manner.

Finally, as Evans (2008, 2009) and Stanovich (2009) have already initiated, there is a growing need for the revision of the dual-process theory and for further empirical research to reassure the existence of a third information processing system. Furthermore, we suggest the repetition of the present study to justify our assumption and results that parallel-competitive operation of the rational and experiential cognitive styles indeed results in lower individual creativity than when they operate as single systems.

8.0 Conclusion

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24

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Appendix A: The online questionnaire

Welcome and thank you for taking part in our research! Dear student,

This study contains questions that are related to your personality and we kindly ask you to read them carefully and answer all of them, as honestly as possible. Please bear in mind that there are no right or wrong answers and that your identity will be treated confidentially and anonymously. To proceed with the actual questionnaire, please press the “>>” button!

Q2 Please answer first to the following demographic questions: What is your Student number?

Your Student Number is important for this research and it will not be disclosed to other parties; we will use the information only for the purpose of this research.

Q3 What is your SONA ID?

Your SONA ID is important for this research and it will not be disclosed to other parties; we will use the information only for the purpose of this research.

Q4 What is your e-mail address?

Your e-mail address is important for this research and it will not be disclosed to other parties; we will use the information only for the purpose of this research.

Q5 What is your age?

Q6 What is your gender?  Male (1)

 Female (2)

Q7 What study program are you following?

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34 Tends to be quiet (22)      Is generally trusting (23)      Tends to be lazy (24)      Is emotionally stable, not easily upset (25)      Is inventive (26)      Has an assertive personality (27)     

Can be cold and

aloof (28)      Perseveres until the task is finished (29)      Can be moody (30)      Values artistic, aesthetic experiences (31)      Is sometimes shy, inhibited (32)      Is considerate and kind to almost everyone (47)      Does things efficiently (36)      Remains calm in tense situations (37)      Prefers work that is routine (38)      Is outgoing, sociable (39)      Is sometimes rude to others (40)      Makes plans and follows through with them (49)      Gets nervous easily (53)      Likes to reflect,

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35 (44)

Has few artistic

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36 Q10 How well do the following statements describe your personality?

I try to avoid situations that require thinking in depth about something.  Definitely not true (1)

 Not true (2)

 Neither true nor untrue (3)  True (4)

 Definitely true (5)

Q11 I like to rely on my intuitive impressions.  Definitely not true (1)

 Not true (2)

Q12 I’m not that good at figuring out complicated problems.  Definitely not true (1)

 Not true (2)

Q13 I don’t have a very good sense of intuition.  Definitely not true (1)

 Not true (2)

Q14 I enjoy intellectual challenges.  Definitely not true (1)

 Not true (2)

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37 Q15 Using my gut feelings usually work well for me in figuring out problems in my life.

 Definitely not true (1)  Not true (2)

Q16 I am not very good at solving problems that require careful logical analysis.  Definitely not true (1)

 Not true (2)

Q17 I believe in trusting my hunches.  Definitely not true (1)

 Not true (2)

Q18 I don’t like to have to do a lot of thinking.  Definitely not true (1)

 Not true (2)

Q19 Intuition can be a very useful way to solve problems.  Definitely not true (1)

 Not true (2)

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38 Q20 I enjoy solving problems that require hard thinking.

Q21 I often go by my instincts when deciding on a course of action.  Definitely not true (1)

 Not true (2)

Q22 Thinking is not my idea of an enjoyable activity.  Definitely not true (1)

 Not true (2)

Q23 I trust my initial feelings about people.  Definitely not true (1)

 Not true (2)

Q24 I am not a very analytical thinker.  Definitely not true (1)

 Not true (2)

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39 Q25 When it comes to trusting people, I can usually rely on my gut feelings.

Q26 Reasoning things out carefully is not one of my strong points.  Definitely not true (1)

 Not true (2)

Q27 If I were to rely on my gut feelings, I would often make mistakes.  Definitely not true (1)

 Not true (2)

Q28 I prefer complex problems to simple problems.  Definitely not true (1)

 Not true (2)

Q29 I don’t like situations in which I have to rely on intuition.  Definitely not true (1)

 Not true (2)

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40 Q30 I don’t reason well under pressure.

Q31 I think there are times when one should rely on one’s intuition.  Definitely not true (1)

 Not true (2)

Q32 I am much better at figuring things out logically than most people.  Definitely not true (1)

 Not true (2)

Q33 I think it is foolish to make important decisions based on feelings.  Definitely not true (1)

 Not true (2)

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41

Appendix B: Manipulations

The three types of Personalized Personality Profiles study participants received as manipulations during the experiment.

Experiential cognitive style manipulation

Based on the personality questionnaire you previously filled in online, the researcher created a Personalized Personality Profile for you. Based on the answers you gave, you are a type of person that processes the information by applying open-ended approaches to problem solving, relying on random methods of problem solving. Often, you tend to adopt a global perspective and to rely on cognitive shortcuts (i.e., heuristics) to reach decisions quickly. Based on intuition, gut feelings, own experiences, and associations impulsively evoked by the information you read, you are an EXPERIENTIAL person who forms opinions about the information you process. Your reactions are fast, impulsive, automatic and always mediated by your feelings. You tend to encode reality in concrete images, metaphors, and narratives and you often say what you think and what is on your mind. Because of the way you process information the actions you carry out seem immediate.

Rational cognitive style manipulation

Based on the personality questionnaire you previously filled in online, the researcher created a personalised personality profile for you. Based on the answers you gave, you are a type of person that processes the information by applying structured approaches to problem solving, relying on systematic methods of problem solving. Often, you tend to focus on details and to take a step-by-step perspective to reach decisions. Based on logical evidence, hard thinking, tested experiences, and precise processing evoked by the information you read, you are a RATIONAL person who forms opinions about the information you process. Your reactions are slow, deliberate, intentional and always mediated by conscious appraisal. You tend to encode reality in abstract symbols, words and numbers and you often think what you say and what is on your mind. Because of the way you process information the actions you carry out seem delayed.

Experiential-rational cognitive style manipulation

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43

Appendix C: Creativity task & final questionnaire

Please write down your Student Number: _______________SONA

ID___________

Your Student Number is important for this research and it will not be disclosed to other parties.

Dear Student,

The Faculty of Economics and Business attracts more and more students each year and this

might put some pressure on the quality of teaching. You are asked to generate possible

ways to improve the quality of teaching in the faculty. The teaching staff is therefore

interested in your problem solutions.

You have 20 minutes to write down as many ideas, solutions, or suggestions as you could

think of. Your ideas will be anonymous; no one will ever be able to link ideas to names or

student identification numbers.

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Please write down your Student Number: _______________SONA

ID___________

Your Student Number is important for this research and it will not be disclosed to other parties.

To find out about your experience in this study, you are kindly asked to respond to the

following questions. Please read the questions very carefully and make sure that you

answer all of them.

1. I based my ideas on my inner feeling and reactions.

☐ Strongly agree ☐ Disagree somewhat

☐ Agree ☐ Disagree

☐ Agree somewhat ☐ Strongly disagree

☐ Undecided

2. I generated ideas in a logical and systematic way.

☐ Undecided

3. I relied on my gut instinct.

☐ Undecided

4. I analyzed all available information in detail.

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45

5. I used ideas that felt right to me.

☐ Undecided

6. How do you feel right now?

Not positive at all A little bit positive Somewhat positive Positive Very positive

☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

7. How tired you feel now?

Not at all A little bit Somewhat Quite a bit Very much ☐☐ ☐☐ ☐

8. How would you rate your performance with regard to the task where you had to

come up with ideas to improve the quality of teaching in the faculty?

Very poor Poor Fair Good Excellent

☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

9. How satisfied are you with how you executed the task where you had to come up

with ideas to improve the quality of teaching in the faculty?

Very dissatisfied Dissatisfied Unsure Satisfied Very satisfied

☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐