Structure and freedom in creativity: The interplay between externally imposed structure and personal cognitive style
✍ Scribed by Lilach Sagiv; Sharon Arieli; Jacob Goldenberg; Ayalla Goldschmidt
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2010
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 168 KB
- Volume
- 31
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0894-3796
- DOI
- 10.1002/job.664
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Abstract
This research investigates how creativity is influenced by externally imposed structure (how structured the task is), internal, cognitively produced, structure (how structured the individuals' cognitive style is), and the interaction between these two factors. Reviewing past literature, we find a contradiction. Studies that focused on the situational perspective found that externally imposed structure increases creativity. In contrast, studies that focused on the individual found that systematic (structured) cognitive style decreases creativity. In two empirical studies we investigated this seeming contradiction. We focused on two aspects of externally imposed structure: The construction of the task (Study 1) and the instructions provided (Study 2). The findings of both studies revealed that creativity was higher under structured conditions. We also show that intuitive individuals are more creative than systematic individuals, but mainly under free conditions, where structure is not externally imposed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.