Regulatory Focus, Task Engagement and Divergent Thinking

We investigate the effect of individuals’ regulatory focus on divergent thinking performance. We analysed 3576 ideas, generated by 341 English‐speaking adults who participated in two separate divergent thinking tasks. A promotion focus results in higher levels of creative potential. Based on regulat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inCreativity and innovation management Vol. 25; no. 2; pp. 199 - 210
Main Authors Beuk, Frederik, Basadur, Tim
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.06.2016
Subjects
Creativity
Performance evaluation
Studies
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Summary:We investigate the effect of individuals’ regulatory focus on divergent thinking performance. We analysed 3576 ideas, generated by 341 English‐speaking adults who participated in two separate divergent thinking tasks. A promotion focus results in higher levels of creative potential. Based on regulatory fit theory, we find that task engagement mediates the positive effect of a promotion focus on creative potential. Our findings are robust regardless whether fluency, flexibility or uniqueness is used as the creative potential measure. Our study further uncovers that regulatory focus does not only change the quantity of ideas, but also impacts the type of ideas generated. Promotion focus individuals generate a broader range of ideas than prevention focus individuals.
Bibliography:ark:/67375/WNG-0JC4HCMS-F
istex:8164F2966CBC3168F63F2D623604756F7D26B28D
ArticleID:CAIM12182
ISSN:0963-1690
1467-8691
DOI:10.1111/caim.12182