The role of instrumental emotion regulation in the emotions-creativity link: how worries render individuals with high neuroticism more creative

• Published in: Emotion (Washington, D.C.) Vol. 14; no. 5; p. 846
• Main Authors: Leung, Angela K-Y, Liou, Shyhnan, Qiu, Lin, Kwan, Letty Y-Y, Chiu, Chi-Yue, Yong, Jose C
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01.10.2014
• Subjects: Adult; Anxiety - psychology; Anxiety Disorders - psychology; Creativity; Emotions; Female; Happiness; Humans; Male; Mental Recall; Motivation; Neuroticism; Pleasure; Taiwan; Taiwan
• ISSN: 1931-1516
• DOI: 10.1037/a0036965

Based on the instrumental account of emotion regulation (Tamir, 2005), the current research seeks to offer a novel perspective to the emotions-creativity debate by investigating the instrumental value of trait-consistent emotions in creativity. We hypothesize that emotions such as worry (vs. happy) are trait-consistent experiences for individuals higher on trait neuroticism and experiencing these emotions can facilitate performance in a creativity task. In 3 studies, we found support for our hypothesis. First, individuals higher in neuroticism had a greater preference for recalling worrisome (vs. happy) events in anticipation of performing a creativity task (Study 1). Moreover, when induced to recall a worrisome (vs. happy) event, individuals higher in neuroticism came up with more creative design (Study 2) and more flexible uses of a brick (Study 3) when the task was a cognitively demanding one. Further, Study 3 offers preliminary support that increased intrinsic task enjoyment and motivation mediates the relationship between trait-consistent emotion regulation and creative performance. These findings offer a new perspective to the controversy concerning the emotions-creativity relationship and further demonstrate the role of instrumental emotion regulation in the domain of creative performance.